Strolen's Citadel

Rise of the Strolenati-Ideas/Suggestions · Legacy archive

The coming of 4.1

Started by Strolen Apr 11, 2013 39 posts Locked

  1. The coming of 4.1

    #1
    I have been working on it quite awhile. I just finished the frontpage today. Not a ton of changes, going to keep that to a minimum because I like what we have right now and changes will come once the base is up and working well.

    The changes have been mostly in the background. Through the site's creation, there was a lot of custom, Frankenstein code to make it do what I want. Then I switched to Twitter's Bootstrap which does everything I could ever want. But that slowly got upgraded breaking stuff but also added a lot of new features that I was already doing with extra code. So for the past little bit I have been tearing down all the extra crap and making it all feature dependent on bootstrap. Still took a little work to make it happen, but it works now. While doing that I also converted to a single css file which forces me to clean up and add every single piece of css to bootstrap's so I no longer have a lot of unused sytles.

    Bottom line, a major code clean-up. Getting rid of the extra crap which tightens up a lot of things. Smaller file size for one!

    The Viewing page will be done today or tomorrow. Once I get those two pages done, I will move them to the active pages and you will be using them. Will update this thread when it happens. Then another day to run through the site and do the quick header/footer updates that basically convert the rest without much change at the moment. The submission page will remain untouched for now though. That is a scary beast!

    The main viewing pages got a lot of work done that should make it nicer to look at and a little more user friendly, I think. They are at about 60% right now but the fix on the frontpage solved most of my coding issues, not it is just a matter of finishing up the cleaning.

    Anyway, just wanted to make that small notification prior to it actually being rolled out.

  2. Re: The coming of 4.1

    #2
    DUCK AND COVER!

  3. Re: The coming of 4.1

    #3
    EVERYONE! COVER YOUR DUCKS!!

    *Quack*

  4. Re: The coming of 4.1

    #4
    It just happened.

    Feel free to report bugs directly in this thread or the bug report thread.

    Main page and the submission reading pages are both updated to the new version.

    Quite a bit of organization changes, but nothing at all drastic.

    Suggested/Codex subs now have the autocomplete so you don't need an id or the exact name of the sub you are looking for.
    Nothing big.

    Still working on it a little (Want the HoH portion to tell you exactly why you can't vote on it) and some other small things. But mostly I will be concentrating on updating most of the other pages to the updated header and footer which contain most of the code updates.

  5. Re: The coming of 4.1

    #5
    Get this little fellow at the top of the page of subs:


    A PHP Error was encountered

    Severity: Notice

    Message: Undefined variable: time

    Filename: controllers/viewing.php

    Line Number: 241


    Appears in place of the "STROLEN'S CITADEL" Logo up the top of a page, and after a little testing, it seems to only appear when I try to view my own subs - it doesn't occur when viewing other peoples' subs. The error is there, but the sub is otherwise unaffected.

    So it may only occur when reading a sub of your own making.

  6. Re: The coming of 4.1

    #6
    I take it back, started a new bug hunt thread as I think there will be a few issues cropping out as I continue.

    Log the bugs and grab your XP at http://strolen.com/guild/index.php/topic,6238.msg76383.html#msg76383

  7. Re: The coming of 4.1

    #7
    The browsing page is updated. Just fixed formatting with the change over.

    Open for bug reports!

  8. Re: The coming of 4.1

    #8
    I redid the freetext page a little bit too. I have always hated that sort but could never find anything to replace it with. But I found one tonight and hooked it up.

    Not perfect, but definitely better I think.

    http://strolen.com/freetext

    And if you can think of any other sort ordering you might want, it is pretty easy to manipulate so let me know.

  9. Re: The coming of 4.1

    #9
    Can we ditch the count? The font size is good enough in my mind.

  10. Re: The coming of 4.1

    #10
    dun.

    Wasn't sure about it. Used it to make sure the sort was actually doing something before I put the size back in...I tried column sorting and other stuff. Left it just cause.

  11. Re: The coming of 4.1

    #11
    Working idea pages today. Bug hunt off limits for a few hours.

    (May occasionally screw up the style sheets and the pages may look ugly as I update the CSS. If any pages are messed up for more than a couple reloads, that might be a bug.)

  12. Re: The coming of 4.1

    #12
    Idea listings are updated. Don't try editing or adding one yet. Few hours and that will be done.

    Upgrades with that are ajax voting so they will  work like the comments, click and it autoupdates.

    Since I was on a roll, the ideas that show up in the footer of every page now have that ability too. Click your love and it instantly updates so you don't have to visit the actual idea for it to count a vote, update in place.

    Might help getting them some votes!

  13. Re: The coming of 4.1

    #13
    I only had about 45 minutes today so not enough time to really dig into anything.

    However, I did find this http://www.appelsiini.net/projects/jeditable for quick, small and easy to implement inline editing for the viewing pages. You will have to code raw html if you want to edit a submission and comment but it is supposed to be quick and easy. If you want deeper edits then do a true edit. Otherwise there is another 45KB loaded for the very rare times you will actually use it vs a couple KB. Open for discussion.

    Additionally I was hoping to get the "Who's Online" link thing that shows where everybody is updated to work with the main site. I thought I was close but unfortunately I only figured out how to change it to what you see, no customized showing where they are at the moment. I couldn't find any help beyond 2009 for it on the smf forums either. Any smf forum hackers know how to modify the serialized string saved by their logging software, let me know!!

  14. Re: The coming of 4.1

    #14
    I messed with the editor a little bit. Looks a lot cleaner and the css matches the actual post again. I also updated the comment edit page to the same style. So now you can edit in better formatting than given on the actual page.

    I was starting to setup the edit in place function and I decided I didn't like it. It is a lot of work and an increased chance of error for very little improvement.

    For subs, I would rather you edit on the main submission page as it can handle the updates, collaborator checks and a few other things that would be annoying to do through ajax.  Same with the comments. The occasional comment that you might want to edit would not be worth all the page views loading up the editor and the other crap necessary just in case you wanted to update it.

    Those that write complex ideas, they can put their main idea in the box, submit it and then edit it to do the advanced formatting. All the formatting gets stripped for the emails anyway so there is nothing really lost from a formatting edit. I also don't need to encourage extensive formatting of comments and ideas. They should be fairly simple in content. But the ability to get fancy with them is now there.

    Hope that makes sense. Bottom line, I don't think I want to have that quick edit ability available.

  15. Re: The coming of 4.1

    #15
    Forgot about this thread.

    Updated some freetext graphics to show Oekaki and 100 word submission graphics to better highlight the style of that sub. Help some confusion and explanation when voting.

    Also made the hover on all those more descriptive so each graphic is fully explained (at least as far as the forum explanation is given anyway). They can click on it and check out the parent post that describes it.

    The other big thing I added which is in beta testing and unadvertised.

    Sponsored Subs
    Under the submission content area is a line of text that talks about these sponsored subs. If you click on it, it will open another content box. This has the possibility to be abused so I am scared of it, but it also has the potential to be awesome.

    Two ways I have in my mind to use it.

    1) Sponsored Subs, the original idea. The thought was that if somebody runs another website and want to share some content that duplicates something on their own site, they could use this to put in a graphic of their site which would like back to it. They could add some text under it as well to sort of advertise what they offer. Sort of encouraging the sharing of content in return for a link back to their own site. I like the concept but never could decide on the execution so put this together as a concept.

    2) If you have a set of subs inside a theme or something, you could develop a graphic for them and put it on all those subs. Then you could link to the freetext you use or the main post of what you are developing to get people to check out the rest. Also be able to write a small description about it and all that. Similar to the sponsored posts but for content of your choosing on the citadel. Or you can just make a single graphic for you subs, I don't know. You could even make it like a signature block if you wanted and post a personalized graphic.

    Anyway, those are the two main thoughts I had about them. Bottom line, it is an opportunity to put something of your choice in the top right column of your submission.

  16. Re: The coming of 4.1

    #16
    Still in work, but doing some stuff to the author's page.

    On the author landing page I played with the format a little and put the award graphics back. I think that is one of the first things I will challenge Tundra to do. Some nice sketch icons to replace all those nasty ones. Anyway.

    The other update that is currently working is the Guild Tracking. The 30 day one was useful but not really. So I made a second one (might remove the 30 day one at some point). The second one will allow you to change the date you start tracking.

    So, if you join a guild on X day. At any point you can update your author profile to X day so you have a more accurate count for easy reference. A suggestion was made to add freetext tracking to it but I think I will let it sit for a little bit before I do more. I am open for suggestions. If there is other stats (like freetext) that is tracked in the Guilds and you could use it there, then let me know!

  17. Re: The coming of 4.1

    #17
    Citadel Profile.

    Kinda done messing with it for now.
    Added your most commented subs in the top subs tab.
    For those with golden votes, I added subs that need your golden vote in your personal workplace

    Messed with some formatting and I think I made it better overall.

    I still want to make an ajax update for the recent activity so you can go through that for as far back as you want. Eventually.

  18. Re: The coming of 4.1

    #18
    The Citadel profile page is fun to navigate!!

  19. Re: The coming of 4.1

    #19
    Are you not entertained!!!???

    Favorites. (You can get to it from the "Quick" dropdown menu or from your citadel profile.)

    The beasts from the depths. I just finished an entire rework on how you assign and organize favorites. I think it actually makes sense now AND you can actually edit your favorite categories. It actually looks like something you can use now, amazing! Couple more tweaks and then modify the viewing page and it is done but the heavy lifting is complete.

  20. Re: The coming of 4.1

    #20
    Favorites are done. I updated the submission pages as well. Now it will tell you if you have favorited that submission whether or not it is in a category. If it is already favorited then there will be a button that tells you that, clicking on that will take you to the Manage Favorites page.

    Updated the formatting for the favorite lists to match the rest of the site.

    Moving to my next project. Send the bugs!

  21. Re: The coming of 4.1

    #21
    Quests Page had a little makeover. Beautification and style updates.

    Main feature update there is that when you visit the list of quest submission they are broken into categories:

    Quest Winners Well, the winners.
    Official Quest Entries Those entries submitted within the actual quest time period
    Quest Entries Entries put into the quest after the quest time period. Whether putting in old ones or writing new ones that fit.

    Each section is broken from the rest with their own header.


    I couldn't figure out an easy way to keep the winners out of the Official Quest Entries easily so that is not a bug! (Any ideas anybody?)

  22. Re: The coming of 4.1

    #22
    I'm not familiar with the exact programming language you're using but in general, I would think the easy way is to just put in an extra if statement i.e. for the official quest entries, you say include entries associated with a particular quest if it is NOT a quest winner.

  23. Re: The coming of 4.1

    #23

    I couldn't figure out an easy way to keep the winners out of the Official Quest Entries easily so that is not a bug! (Any ideas anybody?)


    Assuming you keep a column that logs whether a quest entry was a winner (and you're using SQL), you would add the following bit (adjusted for column names and values) to the WHERE section of your query:

    WHERE [...] AND `submission_id` NOT IN (SELECT `submission_id` FROM `submissions` WHERE `quest_winner` = 1)

  24. Re: The coming of 4.1

    #24

    Assuming you keep a column that logs whether a quest entry was a winner (and you're using SQL), you would add the following bit (adjusted for column names and values) to the WHERE section of your query:

    WHERE [...] AND `submission_id` NOT IN (SELECT `submission_id` FROM `submissions` WHERE `quest_winner` = 1)



    Thank you both for the help, but this was the kicker!

    I track the winner with the submission so I didn't have to do the subquery, it was the NOT IN that I kept missing. Danke!!

    Updated.

  25. Re: The coming of 4.1

    #25
    Quick update 'cause I am tired.

    I redid the regions page a little bit so it is nicer than it was. For those that own regions you can edit them again. Also can upload pictures just like in subs.

    Also, still in work but feel free to play with it, I gave each use their own editable homepage again. Use the [ ] citadel link things in there as normal.

    There is no link, go to your citadel profile and type "/lair" after your handle in the url. Edit away and see what happens. Will release it to the wild once I figure it out better.

  26. Re: The coming of 4.1

    #26
    Author homepages are up and running. Link is in your profile, can't miss it.

    Collaboration list is running too. Still working some bugs but by the time you read this it might be good to go. You get to it from the View Author's Submissions button in their profile in the box with the type sub icons. There will be a collaboration link in the right menu to filter to only them.

    This will show those subs they co-authored with the primary author.

  27. Re: The coming of 4.1

    #27
    I threw some spoiler tags in the content are for those that wanted them.

    To use them.

    It must look like this.

    
Hey look everybody. The best part of spiderman is when he gets bit by the spider and is like, what the.


    This will be replaced by

    Hey look everybody. The best part of spiderman is when Show Spoiler >>

    You can put whatever you want in it but it has to be a with the class INSIDE a .

  28. Re: The coming of 4.1

    #28
    My only real complaint about the paragraph restriction is that it forces you to only have at-most a single paragraph of spoiler'd text.

  29. Re: The coming of 4.1

    #29
    What are you spoiling?

    Use < br >

  30. Re: The coming of 4.1

    #30
    I was just thinking about my original use-case for expandable-spoiler blocks (extra content that would go in sidebars in a printed work).

  31. Re: The coming of 4.1

    #31
    I can look deeper. It was a quick add. The one thing I don't want to use is divs. I wanted to use only < p > as they would be easiest to add, a quick class too since that is the default with the text editor and less chance of breaking more stuff. This way takes what is already there and only adds the span while still keeping it fairly safe.

    I do want it to be useful, of course, but also not complex so it can be used by the general author. Something that could even be turned into a button on the text editor.

    I liked val's example in that bug report thread, but I don't like divs.

    I am obviously open to whatever. The simpler the better though.

  32. Re: The coming of 4.1

    #32
    Forgot what else I did today, small bug fixing but this one is the one I am nervous about.

    I tried to fix the submission count, new sub/updating sub tracking, and about 4 other bugs that occur during the submission of a submission.

    So if anybody notices anything weird with submitting stuff, let me know.

    Changes
    It will ONLY track an edit to the frontpage if you add a comment.
    The time will be updated every time there is an update regardless.

  33. Re: The coming of 4.1

    #33
    Ok. I broke up and redid the collab and wiki stuff. Mostly my fault as I had no idea that it would get this complex at the time.

    Sub Counting Change
    Stubs no longer count towards anything, they just are.

    The only thing that will count towards your level is a normal submission.
    Here are all the different kinds we have

    * 0 = Deleted
                        * 1 = Normal Submission
                        * 2 = In Work Hidden- only author has access in work hidden
                        * 3 = Flagged or Challenged
                        * 4 = Requires Edit
                        * 5 = In Work Request - "help me" Viewable in profile and through link in right column
                        * 6 = Awaiting Approval
                        * 7 = In Work Public - doesn't show up anywhere except user's profile.
                        * 8 = Wiki style sub - anybody can edit (NOT USED, WIKI IS A "NORMAL SUB" and has a WIKI FLAG)
                        * 9 = Stub - no voting / no HoH / no listing. Only shows up in author's profile and through linking.

    As you can see, when it comes to counting, there is only 1 submission that counts towards your leveling stats now.
    (And of course collab subs you are part of that are in normal status as well)

    All this will be updated tonight or during your next submission edit or add.

  34. Re: The coming of 4.1

    #34
    Any way to override the "Show Spoiler" text? :)

  35. Re: The coming of 4.1

    #35
    I see that the number 8 is currently not in use. Can it be used for a new category- Seeking Revote. I think Sil had suggested the ability to signal to other Strolenatis of a sub that you had revised and is now seeking revotes on which I seconded. But obviously, that's a long time ago. Then again, you can make these Seeking Revote subs like a Wiki with a checkbox that you tick. But I thought having them as a separate sub category is a good idea b/c currently some of the privileges attached to levels are nil and this Seeking Revote category can be used to populate these levels with nil additional privileges eg. at level x, you attain the permission to put 1 sub in Seeking Revote and then at level y, you can now have 2 Seeking Revote subs (like we currently have the Collaboration Requested)

  36. Re: The coming of 4.1

    #36
    Thanks for all the info. I really appreciate the transparency.

  37. Re: The coming of 4.1

    #37

    I see that the number 8 is currently not in use. Can it be used for a new category- Seeking Revote.


    That's a really good idea. Seconded.

  38. Re: The coming of 4.1

    #38
    Updated the naming conventions

    * 0 = Deleted
    * 1 = Normal Submission
    * 2 = Private - only author has access in work hidden
    * 3 = Challenged - looking for a vote on removing it to "Requires Edit"
    * 4 = Requires Edit
    * 5 = Draft - Collaboration Requested - "help me" Viewable in profile and through link in right column
    * 6 = Awaiting Approval
    * 7 = Draft - Viewable - doesn't show up anywhere except user's profile.
    * 8 =
    * 9 = Stub - no voting / no HoH / no listing. Only shows up in author's profile and through linking.

    For the revote, like the Extreme Critique Request thread, requesting a revote isn't a distinct state of a submission. Requesting a revote is a condition on a Normal Submission. I don't want to change the sub type unless it actually changes the condition of the sub.

    I am trying to think of a way to do this, besides freetext, that doesn't require a waterfall modification to the code/database.

  39. Re: The coming of 4.1

    #39

    For the revote, like the Extreme Critique Request thread, requesting a revote isn't a distinct state of a submission. Requesting a revote is a condition on a Normal Submission. I don't want to change the sub type unless it actually changes the condition of the sub.

    I am trying to think of a way to do this, besides freetext, that doesn't require a waterfall modification to the code/database.


    Have you given any thought to http://strolen.com/guild/index.php/topic,6209.0.html ? It sort of comes at the problem from a different direction.

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