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Ten Tors on your Mobile

A growing number of mobile phones now have fully-featured web browsers, so you can view the whole of this web site using the normal URL:  www.tentors.org.uk, and browse to the pages that interest you.  Over Ten Tors weekend that will probably be some of the twenty-six Route pages, or the 'All Teams' listing showing the latest Tor checkpoint passed by each of the four hundred Teams.

Many phones don't yet sport full web browsers, and they're limited in the size of web pages (and images) that they can display - and some of the Ten Tors site's pages are large - so there is a very much slimmed-down version of the Ten Tors site as an alternative that you can try on your mobile to allow you to check what you need over the Event weekend without blowing your download allowance:  the status of your Team, its postion on Dartmoor, or the Route pages listing the latest checkpointed times of all the Teams on a particular route.  This is the 'Ten Tors lite' web site, at mobile.tentors.org.uk

Older mobile phones rely on WAP - the Wireless Application Protocol - which allows those phones to access data in a way vastly different from the way in which web browsers access pages on the Internet;  again a very much cut-down version of the Ten Tors site is available to these phones, at: wap.exeter.ac.uk/tentors/.  (The official Ten Tors website, www.tentors.org.uk, is hosted by the University of Exeter - as are these mobile phone sites).  Unfortunately  the protocols and formats specified by WAP† are very different from the web's HTML protocol, and to make things worse different phone manufacturers - and different phone models - display the same WAP pages in wildly different ways.

Finally there is also the Bristol Cabot Scouts' iPhone site, specially designed to have the right look and feel on an iPhone and to deliver the crucial times-at-Tors in a more iPhone-friendly way than these generic mobile phone sites can.  The Cabot Scouts iPhone site content is currently broadly similar to the 'Ten Tors lite' site and takes its data directly from this web site, but since it's designed by them, they control the look and feel of the interface - it's not therefore documented here;  if you have an iPhone, just key in the URL (below) and give it a try!

Your mobile phone options are:

www.tentors.org.uk - the full Ten Tors web site for the latest full-featured web-capable mobile phones. (HTML)
mobile.tentors.org.uk - the super-slim site aimed at phones with HTML capability, giving access to the times-at-Tors data. (HTML)
wap.exeter.ac.uk/tentors/ - the WAP-only site for older mobiles, with the same look-and-feel as the 'Ten Tors lite' site. (WML only!)
www.cabottentors.org.uk/iPhone/ - the Bristol Cabot Scouts site, designed for iPhones and offering access to the Ten Tors site's times-at-Tors data. (HTML)

(Click on the links above to try out the HTML-based offerings...)

Please note:  the code engine behind all these Ten Tors mobile phone sites has been re-worked since the 2011 Event to resolve a number of issues you've found with various phones - please let me know of any more that you find, using the email link at the end of this page.

The layout of both the Ten Tors lite (mobile.tentors.org.uk) and the WAP sites (wap.ex.ac.uk/tentors/) is as follows...   For full details see the ' Help' page on the mobiile sites

Front Page

Once you have keyed one of the URLs (mobile.tentors.org.uk or wap.ex.ac.uk/tentors/) into your phone's favourites list you'll hopefully be able to check your team's progress over the Ten Tors weekend from the comfort of your mobile! 

During the weeks leading up to the event, these sites are directed at the finishing data for the previous year's Teams, in order to provide some real results for you to check and display.  

The shot opposite shows the sites' entry 'splash' screen, which will change after a couple of seconds (or on pressing 'Go') to show the list of options available...


(NB:  all the images on this page are as presented on a WAP Software Development Toolkit running on a PC - the display on your phone may differ)

 

 WAP splash page
'Home' Page


Index Page

The list of features currently supported on the Ten Tors Lite site is:

'Event Info' gives the current news item from the web-site's front page over Ten Tors weekend, timestamped so that you know its relevance.
 WAP menu page
'Menu' Page


'Team Status', 'Team location' and 'Route List' are described in detail below - they're the different ways to find out how your Team is progressing.  'Team ETA' will hazard a guess at your Team's likely arrival time at its next Tors, while 'List Teams matching...' will show you all the Teams whose names include the text you type - Scouts, for example.  'Latest Update' will list all the Teams that have just passed a checkpoint in the last 10 minutes, while 'Event stats' will list the latest checkpoints passed by each of the Teams.

If you've got a relatively new phone which can display JPEG images the ' WebCam' option will let you see the latest picture from the Ten Tors webcam, exactly as it is on the web site (320 x 240 pixels, JPEG encoding - the ' WebCam (s)' option delivers a much smaller image, 100 x 80 pixels).  ' Ten Tors' leads to a brief description of the event, while  'Text' allows you to send a message to the web site (sorry, but we can't reply...) and ' Help' explains the options in a little more detail.

Team Status Request

The 'Team Status' screen invites you to enter either the team's Route Code (eg: E0521) or enough of its name (eg: Hogmorton Trouts) to uniquely identify it. 

Once you've done that, just press 'Submit Request'.  If the server can identify a team that matches your request, you'll receive a summary of that team's latest checkpointed position.  Note, however, that: 

  • entering just 1, or 'Exeter' for a team name is almost certainly not going to tell you what you need to know - try '1st Exeter Scouts' (without the quote marks).
  • the information you'll see is built 'on-the-fly' from the latest '...all the Teams' page available on the web site, so if all the technology works, you'll get updates as soon as they reach the web.


NB:  your display may vary in what it can show, and how it may display the options.

 WAP status enquiry
'Team Status' enquiry


Team Status/Location Response

The 'Team Status' response screen shows when the entry was last updated on the server, so you'll know how old the information is that you're looking at.  The lower line is the Team's status report showing the time at their last Tor;  the example opposite is (including the text scrollled off-screen):

C0310         TEIGN SCHOOL        14:54 Complete team Finished  (Okehampton)



The 'Team location' screen works in much the same way as 'Team Status', offering the same data - plus a map of the Team's last checkpointed position - if your phone is capable of displaying the JPEG graphics.		 WAP status response
'Team Status' Response
WAP location response
'Team location' Response


Route List Request

The list of options also includes a 'Route List'.  This page expects a one letter ('A' to 'Z') route identifier and returns a list of all the Teams' status reports for that particular route, one Team entry per line, which again is scrolled off-screen.  This is also built 'on-the-fly' from the latest '...all the Teams' page available on the web site - you'll see the latest information available, with an 'Updated ...' timestamp so you'll know how recent the information is.


NB:  not all phones support lines wider than the screen, so although the status reports should scroll across the screen, you may find that your phone 'wraps' the report on to multiple lines - the information will be there, but maybe not as easy to read as we'd like.		 WAP Route response
'Route List' Response


Webcam

If your phone is capable of displaying JPEG images the 'WebCam' item will allow you to see the latest photo from the Ten Tors webcam, which is intended to be active over the Sunday of the Event, as the Teams are coming home.  Some phones can't cope with very large images, in which case try the 'WebCam (s)' option, which will deliver a much smaller image to your phone.

NB:  while the webcam will take a new photo every two minutes or so, the display on your phone will not automatically change - you'll need to go back to the previous 'menu' screen and select 'WebCam' for any more recent picture.

In past years the webcam has covered the Award rostrums, and more recently the Finish line, at Anthony's Stile - next year, who knows, but we hope it'll give a taste of the effort that the Teams put into their weekend.
 WAP webcam display
'WebCam' display


Suggestions

Feedback on this method of accessing the Ten Tors Team data is appreciated!  I may be able to improve mobile access to crucial parts of the Ten Tors site - and they will appear in the list of choices - if you can tell me what those parts are.

Please use the email link below.


†  "A WAP Gateway converts information from traditional Internet Servers into something the WAP phone can understand.  The Gateway also converts requests from the phone into something Internet Servers understand and can respond to.  T-Mobile [for example] are Virgin Mobile's network partner, and provide the necessary hardware infrastructure for Virgin Mobile to provide a WAP service. Phone.com provides the software on both the Virgin Mobile and the T-Mobile Gateway."
"Contrary to popular belief, WAP does not allow you to 'surf' the Internet.  You can only access Internet content that has been rewritten to work on WAP phones.  [...] the WAP browser in your WAP phone will not be able to display Internet sites written for the browser on your Personal Computer."
(With grateful acknowledgement to the Virgin WAP service,
at: http://www.virgin.com/mobile/wap/)

Email your queries and suggestions to:    Dave Cannon

© Ten Tors
4-April-2012