Keeping Track of When a Puzzle Was Completed

New Feature - April 2024

IPDb can now be used to keep track of when a puzzle was completed and, optionally, how much time it took to complete it. The latter is of particular interest to Users, doing speed puzzling.

Adding Completion Details

To add completion details, first find the puzzle, in question and view the details, for this puzzle. Then select the Stopwatch icon from the toolbar at the top of the screen.

This will display a dialogue screen, where you can enter all completion details for this puzzle.

At the bottom of the screen, you will see a toolbar with, 4 icons - the stopwatch, the high score lists, the personal listings and the option to add new completion details.

Stopwatch Button
The Stopwatch will enable you to track the time it took, to solve a particular puzzle. This time is not required if you only want to add a completion date, but it is a fun way to see if you have improved, and also, enables you to compare your speed to other puzzlers if this, is of interest, to you.

   Start the Stopwatch -  by clicking/tapping the play button

   Pause the stopwatch - by clicking/tapping the pause button (see below)

Pausing can be used if you want to take a break, or if you want to continue another day. IPDb will remember where you paused the Stopwatch so that you can start from there when you return to the Stopwatch later.

Every time you hit the pause button, the time will be saved to the database, and a small blue message ribbon at the top of your screen will notify you that this has happened. To avoid losing this information, always pause before browsing away from IPDb or closing your browser. 

After pausing, you will see the blue notification ribbon, then you can safely move to another screen. IPDb will remember your timing and allow you to continue, from there, once you return.

IPDb will also allow you to reset the Stopwatch if you want to start from scratch; use the reset button - see image below: 

In addition, if you finished the puzzle you can record your time by clicking/tapping the record button to the right, also visible below:

If you click/tap the record button, you will be prompted to add other data for your completion time. It will look like this:

Here, you enter the date of when the puzzle was completed and how many people worked on the puzzle together. If you did the puzzle alone, select single; if you did it with a friend, choose pairs; and if you had help from several friends (a speed puzzle team usually consists of 4 people), select group. Once you click/tap save, the details will be saved to the database and will be visible to you and other IPDb Users

NOTE: After you have saved your timing details, the Stopwatch does not reset automatically. To reset the timer you must click/tap the reset button manually.

List Button
When clicking/tapping the List button, you can see an ordered list of all the reported/submitted completions of the puzzle. The listing will have your time, your avatar and your name. The completion date is also listed and, in brackets, you will see the "ppm", which is short for "pieces per minute";  "ppm" relates to how many pieces were placed per minute for this listed time. The higher the "ppm", the faster you were.

You can switch between listing for singles, pairs and groups by, using the toolbar at the top of the screen.

You can only delete your, own listings.

Looking only at your, own time records is similar to viewing the other lists. However, for each personal time listing, a little person icon is displayed to the right of your Avatar, indicating if the listing is a single, pair or group time listing.

You can add as many completion times, as you please, even historic completions can be entered if you like. 

If you cannot remember the exact completion date, you can choose a date, which is as close as possible. For example, you can select the 1st of January if you only remember the year, of completion, or, the 1st of the month if you only remember the month it was completed in - and so on... You decide how precise your dates are.

If you do not have precise timings, you can leave the duration time, at 00:00:00 and no completion time is recorded. The same applies if you are not interested in the timing; you can mark your completions with as many details as you like.

If you do enter a timing, make sure that you follow the format "Hours:MM:SS" where MM is a 2-digit count of minutes and SS is a 2-digit count of seconds. Hours can be 1 digit and above.

NOTE: Please do not enter timings that are made up, as this will spoil the pleasure for people who take the timing seriously.