Does anyone agree that this year event search engine is a complete failure? I want the old version back. Do fix what ain't broken... It is harder to search for anything...
If you don't like it, you can get the link to the classic finder here:
http://www.gencon.com/experience/find
I didn't like it at first, but I am getting used to it. The big thing is to never click 'back' to your search page, or it will close all of the sections and reset your screen (PITA). Instead, if you're interested in an event, open it in a new tab.
First a quick request: please add a link to the Advanced (== classic) search at the top of the new search. I did finally find out how to get there without going to the forums, but it's not obvious. Hide it in Search Options if you must.
The main thing I don't like with this kind of search is that you can't enter multiple things at once; you have to wait for it to load each time. For example: say I have a hole from Noon to 6 on Friday, and I want to see if there's any interesting RPGs. I have to tap/click:
Category RPG Day Friday Hour 12 PM
...each of which has a relatively long wait in between. Once they finally load I can start skimming through them. If, however, none of them grab me I have to clear, say, 12 PM and wait and pick 1 PM and wait and then I can start skimming through the next batch.
Compare to the standard search where you can enter all of your criteria and wait once. While it has load times for pages they load much faster than any of the above category clicks (aside: it'd be nice if you could ask for more per page) and you can continue paging past your given time.
My copy of the listings may have a search that suits you better. For example, here are the events you could fit into you noon to 6pm on Friday hole.
Yes, I know about your website. :)
FWIW, I prefer to use offline applications rather than any of the online event lists while putting together my wish list. I have an Access-based front end (something I threw together back in the mid 2000s) to the events list I use sometimes; usually I just use Excel.
If I have to search onsite to fill in my schedule, though, I'd like to see the Gen Con one improve since I have to buy the ticket there anyway. Without feedback the Gen Con developers won't have these real use cases for their search setup and why folks might prefer their older one or other workarounds. That's the only reason why I posted.
ObBug/Suggestion: The Event Finder has a large minimum width, such that not everything fits onscreen if you've resized your window too small. Most folks would get there by using Windows' feature that makes a window half the width of the monitor via dragging to the left/right edge or Windows-Left/Right Arrow of a 1920 screen with left/right taskbar. (I noticed it because I use floating windows. Gasp!)
My suggestion would be to hide the sidebar on the search page if the window is in the less-than-1000-but-more-than-750 range of your setup.