Over the next year we will be “deprecating” our widgets. As the Java programming language has defined:
“You may have heard the term, “self-deprecating humor,” or humor that minimizes the speaker’s importance. A deprecated class or method is like that. It is no longer important. It is so unimportant, in fact, that you should no longer use it, since it has been superseded.”
Widgets are the way that races and partners can put practically any page onto their own website with a simple line of JavaScript code. We have a lot of different options to provide for customizations of widgets. This capability has been a part of RunSignup since the very early days.
However, widgets are not as important as they used to be. Browsers increasingly make them difficult to support, many customers do not set them up correctly in terms of security or look and feel, and the power of RunSignup Race Websites have all combined to result in a decrease in the use of widgets.
We are going to continue widget support in two areas – Registration and Race Calendars. The new registration process has been simplified for customers to use. Race Calendars have also proven very useful for running stores, clubs and timers. We intend to have a project this summer focusing on improving our race searching and calendars.
This will happen over a period of time. We will probably stop creating workarounds for widget display issues on certain browsers over the coming few months.