21 posts tagged with "dust"

We've been working on making registration of theme camps and event easier for everyone.

You'll notice a new button in the dust app Manage my camp & events which will let theme camp organizers (or any burner creating an event) to easily manage their camp, it's events and music. You can also use this as a way to manage the regional burn from your phone.

The new button handles registration of new camps or editing a camp or burn. Once you have registered a camp the label will change to Manage [your-camp-name].

The new button appears when your burn has the setting Allow Camp Registration turned on in Settings and is hidden if you turn the setting off (You'll need to click Publish when you make a change).

Newsletter​

We've recently started a newsletter for dust. If you are interested in finding out about new features and update you can sign up for the newsletter.

Volunteeripate​

We've been chatting with Cabbie from Volunteeripate about a collaboration. If you haven't heard of Volunteeripate, it's a platform for volunteer management and ticket sales for regional burns. Details of the collaboration are still being worked out but we're excited at the opportunity to make it easier for burners to volunteer at a burn and easily access their tickets for gate checkin.

We're super excited to announce some new features for dust related to messaging burners interested in your regional!

Push Notifications​

You can now send push notifications out to burners who have accessed your regional in dust. This is a great way for announcements like ticket sales, burn times, deadlines for submissions or soliciting volunteer signups.

Notifications can be sent on their own, along with a social media post or when an email is sent out for your newsletter.

Mastodon​

You may post to social media when you have important announcements. Now dust can also show these posts in a "Messages" tab that will appear. When the notification goes out it will also send a push notification to burners who have accessed your regional burn.

Mastodon is a radically different social media platform. It is more akin to email in that it is not in control of any one company. It is also open meaning that unlike Facebook etc it is possible to easily integrate into systems like dust.

As Mastodon has no advertising and selling your data not their motivation, it feels like it fits in a lot better with the 10 Burning Man principles, particularly Decommodification.

You can read more about how to setup the Mastodon integration in the docs.

Newsletters​

Do you have a mailing list for important announcements? Now you can have any emails sent out automatically appear in the dust app and a push notification sent out to your burners.

You can read more about how to set this up in the docs.

This month I had the pleasure to present at Burn After Meeting which is a conference for regional burn event organizers to share practical concerns and solutions, to learn from each other rather than learning the hard way, and to build an environment of mutual support.

I was able to run through a demo of the dust app and what it can do for a regional burn. All of this was in person, which makes a big difference as up until now the regionals I've worked with have all been achieved by coordinating over Google Meet, email or Messenger.

It may not be that helpful but here is the presentation from the session.

October Fixes​

This month there have been a few fixes with dust including:

• When pasting descriptions for events from a PDF the text is cleaned up to remove line breaks.
• When imported KML files the pin for polygons is now calculated as its center.
• A new feature was added to delete all events.
• Fix for importing events via CSV where the start day is different to the end day (ie over midnight)
• Support for shuttle stops and other markers added for maps.

Upcoming Features​

Work has started on new communication features for dust!

The dust app has primarily been used during a burn but some new communication features will mean that it can be used year round.

You'll be able to send push notifications out to burners interested in your burn!

This is going to be done in an interesting way: posting to social media. You'll be able post to Mastodon and your message will be sent out to all dust users who have accessed your burn in dust. They will also be able see all previous messages in dust.

This works a little bit more like email but as dust users will also be able to find previous messages in dust it means they won't miss any messages if they are a first time dust user.

The other feature this enables is that since you post to social media users can reply there.

It's still early for these features and development has only just started, so we'll see how this pans out over the next month or so.

Why Mastodon?​

Mastodon is a radically different social media platform. It is more akin to email in that it is not in control of any one company. It is also open meaning that unlike Facebook etc it is possible to easily integrate into systems like dust.

As Mastodon has no advertising and selling your data not their motivation, it feels like it fits in a lot better with the 10 Burning Man principles, particularly Decommodification.

Burning Man is obviously a massive time for dust. I don't track numbers of users but having an Apple and Google developer account means that I do have some idea of how many people are using the app, and it looks like there were around 20k of you using the app on average 5 times during the week of the burn.

After burn week I posed a question asking for feedback and collected hundreds of responses. This was then broken down into features and fixes and prioritized by importance. The feature request list has been used to create a roadmap and for the fixes it has resulted in a busy September cleaning up issues not only for Burning Man but also for regionals too.

The full list of fixes for september is below, but in summary fixes included better offline support, fixes for swiping back from pages, automatically opening the app the last event and a whole lot more.

The list of features implemented has been limited because having a super stable app is the priority but there are also some cool features added including reminders for things like volunteer shifts, filtering for camp types (like sound camps) and art types (like mutant vehicles). Imports from Google Maps have been improved and visual improvements on the app and manager website too.

I'd like to thank everyone who gave their feedback and suggestions. There is still a lot of work helping out regionals with their events but I'm hoping to get to some of the really fun features by the end of the year.

Dust Manager Fixes for September 2024​

• Add art type to art to support mutant vehicles
• Add camp type to camp to support sound camps
• Import KML added for art
• Fix: KML import now matches items that have additional spaces or special characters
• Added ability to change the CSS for the static camps / events pages
• Remove times for start and end of burn
• Added web page for art listings and art
• Import KML for new art and new camps
• Improve layout and styling of the dust editor

Dust App Fixes for September 2024​

• Private events are now reminders and are available in regional burns
• Mutant Vehicles show location as "Out on the Playa"
• Recurring events are shown with an icon
• Add spacing between event types
• Art shows side image layout if < 50% of art has an image
• Fix swipe to remove events from favorites
• Fix for event listing
• Fix to refresh event listing when changing filter
• Fix when going back to camps/events page and seeing white content
• Fix auto starting the event if closed while selected
• Scroll to the last event you visited (after pressing < and >)
• Fix where music shows no events on first view
• The music section will scroll the current day into view
• Rock Star Librarian data for sets crossing midnight have day incremented
• Remove swipe to go back for pages that have the map
• Confirmation added when deleting a friend
• Pass version number with requests for data
• Add camp types to accommodate sound camps
• Add art types to accommodate mutant vehicles
• Use experimental zoneless change detection
• Use isolatedModules to speed up builds
• Avoid app update unless on wifi

Its been a busy month for dust to get ready for Burning Man!

A walkthrough video of dust was created to show what's new.

Here's a detailed list of the changes up to version 2.52:

Features​

• Audio tour added for art
• We've optimized startup performance reducing the time by around 50%
• The print layout for favorites is now multi column and will fit on one page
• Fuzzy search for art, events and camps
• Search all feature
• We've added links for Burning Man
• Maps can now be shared (eg where I'm camped)
• Swipe on favorites will now allow you to delete the favorite
• Download updates will also check for a new version of the app
• Swipe to go back added back into the app
• Next and previous buttons added to events to make it easier to flip between events
• Add near me checkbox for camps, events and art
• Show multiple camps at a single location as a count
• Show facing directions for Burning Man
• Show badge count of favorited items
• Search on map now zooms to and animates the found item
• Double tap on map for zoom in/far/out

Fixes​

• When an event is favorited in details then the favorite star will appear on the event list
• Version information shown on the bottom of the home page
• Clicking music event in favorites will not open blank page
• Fixes for calendar sync on Android
• Layout fixed when text zoom is used
• Tap anywhere on a popup in maps to dismiss it
• Show distance at bottom of event so that it is visible

It was Friday around 4am at Burning Man, I'd been out to the billion bunny march the day before still wearing a full fur bunny outfit and some 12 hours later I'd just finished off the last of my water after dancing my butt off at Sonic Sound Tribe. I was walking past the crowd and into the sea of bikes and realized that I'd forgotten the visual markers of where I had left my bike. Where's my Bike?

I knew I had it lit up with red LEDs, it should be easy to find, but wasn't. It was a solid hour of work to hunt it down, someone had knocked it over, it was under another bike and the battery pack had been disconnected when it fell over.

As I began the trek to get water the sun was peeking over the horizon, the wind had picked up and a white out had begin. I resigned to calling it a night, cursing I hadn't found my bike sooner.

Fast forward to today, I've decided that I don't want this to happen to you, because I know it will! So, in dust, there is a now a new feature to help you find your bike, camp, the cool art piece you want to show your friend, or any other thing you want to drop a pin on the map to find.

On the home page, there is a new section "Find My". You can press one of the items to show it on the map, or if you haven't set its location it will get a GPS location and save it for you.

The map will show where you are, which way you are facing, and will tell you how far away you need to walk and whether your bike/pin is to your left, right, ahead of you or behind you.

Once you've found your bike don't forget to clear the location (click Clear or Delete in the top right corner).

The GPS on your phone will usually be accurate to 10-20ft which should be enough to help narrow down your search area.

The real trick is to remember to place the pin where you left your bike is in the first place. Hopefully, if you're reading this you'll remember my story when you decide to park your bike outside the big sound camps.

The map in dust is one of the most important features in dust but until now we've been using a simple 3rd party control (called ngx-pinch-zoom) which kinda worked but also wasn't great.

So, over the last month I've built my own map control using WebGL and Three JS resulting a much better map experience:

• The map is 3D rather than 2D!
• You can zoom in much further into the map without losing resolution
• Pins and points are now much more precisely placed
• Pins are now color coded better (green for restrooms, blue for art, purple for medical)
• Maps for camps etc will center on the Pin to make it easier to find

With the basics of the new map in place, it provides some opportunities for some new features in the future. Please take a look and let me know whether you ruin into any issues or have any suggestions.

June has been a busy month for features and fixes in dust and I figured you might like to know what is new.

All Day & Long Events​

We added a new feature to support all days events. On the event edit page is a checkbox for "All Day".

As well as that, the limit for events has been set to 12 hours. A typical problem with long events is that they dominate the event listing, so to prevent this any events longer than 6 hours are listed last. If the event is happening now, it will appear in the "Now" tab of events, however this should prioritize shorter events and make the event listing page more useful.

Open Camping / Other Locations​

We've added support to allow you to enter freeform text for the location of an event when its not at a theme camp or art piece. Just select "Open Camping / Other" from the dropdown when entering an event.

Event Submissions​

Dust now shows a url you can add to your website to allow people to submit their events. Go to Settings > Allow Event & Music Editing and underneath you can copy the URL. When events are submitted from here they are usually for unplaced placed so the location can be typed in. For theme camps and art owners it is best if they login to dust and add their events to their camp / art.

Location / GPS Fixes​

In dust we now support burns that do not release any GPS information. If the event has no GPS data it will not requires access to your location when accessing the map. Additionally, if the burn does use GPS, the prompt to use your location will dismiss for a full day so that it is not annoying to dismiss.

Offline Support​

Dust works offline when you turn on airplane mode however there were situations where you would have cell service but there was 100% packet loss (ie shitty cell service). This happened to cause a really long timeout on the home page and most users rightfully thought that dust was broken. Well, we fixed that problem and dust now always shows the previously remembered list of burns, and will update them in the background if it can. Sorry for the frustration that this caused.

Additionally, in the More button on the home page you now have an option to download an update when a burn has already started. This was added because after a burn starts quite often you are in a situation where the cell service is bad and you don't want to have to wait for an update to download when it may take a very long time.

Directions​

For burns where the Google Maps directions are poor, you can now have text based directions (found in Settings). This is also super useful when you don't want the public to know the exact location of the event.

Favorite Events on the Home Page​

The dust app now shows a list of favorite events if they are happening today. This provides at a quick glance what is happening today without scrolling through the favorites tab.

Map Improvements​

People like the map in dust, so we added a search feature to help find camps, art etc on the map. We also added labels to pins to make it easier to find a camp: if a camp is named "Foo Bar" then the pin will show "FB".

Favorite Events​

You can now favorite events from the event listing page by clicking the star icon in the bottom left corner. If the star icon is missing then the event has occurrences on multiple days/times.

PIN for Burns​

Some burns want to remain private and to do this we introduced an option to require a PIN to entered to access a burn in dust. The PIN is expected to be sent out to ticket holders.

Importing Events​

Event importing has been improved by allowing selection of camp, art or other locations. There is also more cleanup of bad data (like blank lines), and guessing of the event type using the description.

Custom Event Types​

Event Types can be customized in the Settings page. You can also select more than one event type per event.

Event Guide Print Preview​

We've added a new column count selection when using the Print Preview option. This allows those using the event guide export to use it to copy/paste into a design tool.

Other Fixes​

• Feature: Party owners can now delete their party.
• Feature: Theme camp owners can now change ownership of the camp.
• Feature: Event times are now on the top of an event card to make it easier to see.
• Feature: When viewing art it will now list any events happening at that art.
• Fix: The map now shows events that are happening at an art piece.
• Fix: Times are now shown in the burns timezone rather than your device's timezone.
• Fix: When clicking "Move Up" in the links section you could duplicate a link.
• Fix: There was an invisible un-clickable area to the left and right of the footer button.
• Fix: Searching for an event where you added extra spaces now finds the event.
• Fix: Clicking Save on art twice would cause an error.
• Fix: Spacing and layout of the music page.
• Fix: When syncing events with your phone's calendar it gave a permission error on Android.
• Fix: Increased the amount you could zoom into the map.
• Fix: We've locked the app into portrait mode as landscape mode caused problems viewing the map.

There are a bunch of different regional burns happening in June. Here's a quick rundown of them:

Bequinox​

Bequinox is a regional burn in California happening June 5-9 and is using dust. Bequinox has 32 theme camps, 130 events and 21 art pieces.

Apogaea​

Apogaea is a regional burn in Colorado happening June 5-9 and is using dust. Apogaea has 75 theme camps, 278 events and 39 art pieces.

To The Moon​

To The Moon is a regional burn in Tennessee happening June 20-24 and is using dust. To The Moon has 71 theme camps, 139 events and 33 art pieces.

Element 11​

Element 11 is a regional burn in Utah happening June 19-23 and is using dust. Element 11 has 41 theme camps, 147 events and 27 art pieces.

Kiezburn​

Kiezburn is a regional burn near Berlin, Germany happening June 19-23 and is using dust. Kiezburn has 56 theme camps / kieze, 305 events and 37 art pieces.

Freezer Burn​

Freezer Burn is a regional burn in Alberta Canada happening June 20-24 and is using dust. Freezer Burn has 53 theme camps, 140 events and 50 art pieces.

We've implemented some great new features for theme camp owners, regional organizers and attendees. Check out these new features added this month:

Sharing Camp Information​

Theme camps love to share their camp details and events on Social Media, so we've made it even easier to do this. The Share button now creates a shareable link to the camps details including their events. Its been optimized for Social Media and is printable too so you can use to print out for your camp.

Notice that new pretty URL for the burn, the OG image and the web page for the camp.

Camp Listing for your website​

We now have an option for you to display all theme camps on your website. In the dust manager you can click Advanced and copy to the URL for camps and use it in your website as a link or embedded via an iframe. It looks great on desktop and mobile and is a great way to reach attendees who may only visit your website.

Event Listing to your website​

We now have an option for you to display all events on your website. In the dust manager you can click Advanced and copy to the URL for events and use it in your website as a link or embedded via an iframe. It looks great on desktop and mobile and is a great way to reach attendees who may only visit your website.

Sorting by time or distance​

To make it easier for burners to switch between sorting by time or distance we've added a dropdown to the Events, Camps, Art and Music tabs. This should make it easier to know that you can find things that are near you, or events happening soon.

Labels on the Map​

The map button quite popular if you want to find what is around you. Previously it had dots for each camp, art and restrooms but now we've also added labels to help identify camp and art names. The labels are generated automatically from the camp/art name, so Pink Mammoth would be labelled as "PM".

Search on the Map​

You can now search for camps or art on the map. After you start typing a name the first match will be shown on the map.

Other Fixes​

• For party's that went over multiple days we now show this on the correct days.
• The layout for music would sometimes overlap text. This is now fixed.
• The printable event guide now has page breaks for each day of the burn.