Official Complaints/Concerns/Opinions

[Mindi]

This thread is for complaints/concerns/opinions on site design/functionality/whatever. We welcome these opinions we just ask that you post in a respectful manner and understand that we reserve the right to change (or not change) any of these things based on what we think is beneficial to the company and to the community as a whole.

There is an often quoted proverb which states that you can please some of the people, some of the time, but you can't please all of the people, all of the time. With a site conversion, this is definitely the case.

Posts about broken functionality will not be addressed, please put your posts in the proper thread.

[JimMorrison]

Oh, oh! Me first! Me first! Oh I''m gonna have FUN with this thread.....!





No I'm just kidding. I love you Mindi, I knew this was just an oversight. <3

Now, where did I put my my leather bound tome of ~Complaintes, Concernes, et Opinionae~ ?

[Amhazair]

Now, where did I put my my leather bound tome of ~Complaintes, Concernes, et Opinionae~ ?Now why do I get the fealing that this isn't authentic latin?

[JimMorrison]

Now why do I get the fealing that this isn't authentic latin?


It's not, wanna fight? :o


Okay, I had a complaint. :mad: I swear I had broken 1000 posts before the site conversion. I swallowed down the odd bump down to about 800, as a gesture of cooperation and fair play. However, I swear that at that time I had ~790 posts listed (when the new site went live), and now it's only going down! O.O

I was a Captain before - I will not give up my chair just because someone doesn't think all of my posts are useful! :eek:


Now look what you've unleashed..... :bug::bug::bug::envy::bug::bug::bug:

[Mindi]

I rebuilt the post counts which should go and look up the exact number of posts in the system at the time and you should now have an accurate post count based on those numbers. If you have had posts deleted, those will not count.

[HoneyBadger]

I really don't care for the background color of the forums. It just looks dirty to me. Everything else looks ok-even the predominant darker blue. But the background is completely unappealing to me. A nice, clean, slightly greyish/tannish, old parchmenty white color (not pure white, please) would still blend with the blue, while making the whole look less like unfiltered aquarium water.

[BadCompany]

I don't see how light blue is dirty.I can only see it as a screen being dirty.

[Ballbarian]

HB,
You really shouldn't use bleach and gasoline to clean your LCD monitor. :)

[HoneyBadger]

:)

It's not light blue, it's dirty blue, dirty like the soul of a rich politician, it is!

That's how it looks to me, and I'm sticking to my guns. :P

[JimMorrison]

I rebuilt the post counts which should go and look up the exact number of posts in the system at the time and you should now have an accurate post count based on those numbers. If you have had posts deleted, those will not count.


Hey, we're both Majors now! < salutes! >

Though, I should always state it as Major _______ James Douglas Morrison, you know, in case someone wants to insert something descriptive. :p

[Parasite]

The new forum at http://forum.shrapnelgames.com is blocked, or on a server that is blocked. I cannot reach it at work even during lunch or after I get off. The old site at http://www.shrapnelcommunity.com was not blocked. I don't know if a vanity URL or other link changes would fix this.

[Ballbarian]

It probably has a filter picking up on the "games" in the URL.

[HoneyBadger]

Ladies and gentlemen, as your commanding officer, let me reassure you that their will be certain changes around here. I use the term "reassure" because it is apparent to me, as it may or may not have become apparent to you in the course of your lives, duties, and idle personal philosophical contemplations, that life consists of, and is only, change. Change, which is the only constant in the constant, varietous cycle of alteration, consideration, dissemination, and decision, of and upon the facts of any given reality you may find yourself within.

Let me further reassure you that the reality you have currently found yourself floating around in, like the happy little sparks of divine light that you are, does in fact belong to me. Allow me expand upon my possession of the substance of All That Is, Was, and Ever Shall Be-In the essence of every molecule of air, physical law of the universe, gravitational wave, string-dimension. From every element of matter to every coil of DNA-yes, everything from your life-giving gonads to your fragile little teacups, from the dirt on your boots to the evil thoughts in your heads, to the hell that awaits, looming before you for thinking such blasphemies, closer with every passing minute you stand within my presence-has my name, and only my name, tattoo'ed on it in blocky, immutable, insoluble letters, prefaced in all cases by the abbrevation 'Maj. Gen.' Should I at some point achieve some higher rank-God perhaps, or Maj. God.-then this will be updated apace-and thorough-and you will be informed.

This singular reality that you have the special sort of karmic luck reserved only for the holiest of men and women, and for soldiers such as yourselves, to have found yourself within, shall be run as any respectable reality should be-on a divine timetable, which allows for mistakes, idleness, or whimsy, with precisely the same tolerance given by the very sun blazing over our heads, were the person or persons so willing to refute the laws of reality itself, to find themselves crashing into it at high velocity. Gentlemen, ladies-consider me that sun-for I am, from this point forward, the source of all meaningful life as you know it. More than your father, more than your mother, more than the passions of faith that beat in your breasts for the mysteries that confront you and confound you, I am henceforth your salvation-should you respect my orders enough to carry them out, and your distruction-should you fail to abide by the laws of my Universe.

You are-other than from my all-seeing, all-knowing eyes-dismissed.

[Ballbarian]

???

[ano]

Just wanted to ask what are these page paddings for? On my display with 1280x1024 resolution I see the 150px left and right paddings which means 300px of unused space.
As a web developer and a bit designer I just can't explain myself the reasons due to which that space is wasted. Can anyone?

[Ballbarian]

From the "PLEASE READ RE: site conversion (http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/showpost.php?p=630220&postcount=1)" thread:


SITE DESIGN: As far as site design goes, the basic structure of the forums have only had two changes: colors and fixed width. I’ve already covered the colors above, fixed width has been done in order to make the whole site seem more like a cohesive unit versus previously where the forums almost seemed separate from our main pages. You will notice we are also using the same URL as the main site versus the old www.shrapnelcommunity.com. The rest of the forums are exactly the same in construct: header/banners at the top and a side bar for press releases/links/etc so I don’t see where anyone should be complaining about those elements.

[NTJedi]

I've noticed when browsing between topics it takes anywhere from 7 to 12 seconds to load unlike the old forums. When visiting other forums on different websites the browsing between topics it loads 3 seconds or less.

I'm suggesting shrapnelgames does a quick investigation in comparing their forum browsing against other forums.

[Annette]

I've noticed when browsing between topics it takes anywhere from 7 to 12 seconds to load unlike the old forums. When visiting other forums on different websites the browsing between topics it loads 3 seconds or less.

I'm suggesting shrapnelgames does a quick investigation in comparing their forum browsing against other forums.

Does this happen consistently? I'm wondering if maybe you caught us during a backup or while Richard and Mindi were working on the search database.

[S.R. Krol]

Okay, I just spent the past hour playing Space Invaders only to get to the end and find that my score wouldn't be saved! That's when I realized that I was no longer logged in. Is there a timeout for forum inactivity that would have caused that?

[JimMorrison]

Okay, I just spent the past hour playing Space Invaders only to get to the end and find that my score wouldn't be saved! That's when I realized that I was no longer logged in. Is there a timeout for forum inactivity that would have caused that?


There is, in fact. I hate it. :mad: Did you seriously just play Space Invaders for over an hour straight? :o Ouch!

[Ballbarian]

That's strange. I have not been logged out a single time.

[Mindi]

I'm still trying to figure this one out because I can't duplicate it. In the last week I have been on over 12 hours per day, easily and have never been auto logged out as long as I had clicked the remember me button. Also, in Jim's case he has a complaint about it updating his new threads to read.....and I don't have this problem either....so right now I am at a loss in trying to diagnose this. I'm still looking into it, but under the same conditions, I am not having the same problems.

Same goes with NT Jedi saying it takes him 7 to 12 seconds per page load. We're not having a load anywhere near that unless some sort of high spike in overall traffic has happened or we're running some utility. Other people have said their load times take about the same as before, maybe slightly slower for some but no where near what NT is experiencing....so again, I am scratching my head on that one.

[Ballbarian]

Could your browsers be set to clear cookies on some kind of schedule, or on close? Also, Firefox has an option for remembering passwords. I leave this turned on and for most sites I answer "No", but I bet for this one that I answered yes (on my home pc at least). I also have my cookies set to never expire and then I manually delete the ones that I think need refreshed via Firefox's privacy options menu.

[Ballbarian]

I just had a peek, and most of my shrapnel cookies are set to expire in July of 2009. You might check to see what sort of expiration yours are showing. This might give a clue as to what is different.

[Mindi]

Thanks for bring that up Ballbarian, Richard and I were also wondering if it was browser security settings.

[S.R. Krol]

There is, in fact. I hate it. :mad: Did you seriously just play Space Invaders for over an hour straight? :o Ouch!

Ouch, indeed. By the end my eyes were crossed and my hands crippled into claws. Oh, for want of a pause button. But it was all going to be worth it for that score born from blood and fire. But then... :doh:

Ya know, even though I have the "Remember Me" check it never does remember me. All my settings are default (using Firefox 2.0.0.16). Going into the cookies for the forum some of the cookies are set to expire in a year but others are set to expire at the end of the session. These are:

bbsessionhash
bbform_view
ibPAcookiecheck
gpstarted
bbthread_lastview
gidstarted

[Ballbarian]

I may be way off track, but can you confirm that you have bbpassword & bbuserid, and that they have the 2009 expiration? I assume that you do, but just in case.

Otherwise, all of the ones that you have listed expire when the session ends for me as well, plus a few that you do not have listed.

[JimMorrison]

Well, Firefox is set to keep cookies "until they expire", and to ask me before clearing any personal data. I haven't really ever messed with the settings at all, so I didn't think that was it.

I was under the impression that it was the site that was logging me out, not my browser. If that's not the case, then I'm mystified.

[Edi]

Well, Firefox is set to keep cookies "until they expire", and to ask me before clearing any personal data. I haven't really ever messed with the settings at all, so I didn't think that was it.

I was under the impression that it was the site that was logging me out, not my browser. If that's not the case, then I'm mystified.
It's the site. I have my settings set to keep cookies until I close Firefox, then delete everything. Just leaving the forum pages open and logged in and doing something else for half an hour or less when I don't have any activity on the forum and it automatically logs me out.

Unless I checked the "Remember me" checkbox when I logged in, in which case it keeps me logged in until I log out. The autologout timer really should be set to more than 30 minutes. About two or three hours would be good, because it is VERY easy to have something come up or needing to do something. Sometimes it has taken me well over half an hour to just format a post correctly and it's a goddamn pain in the *** to have to log back in and maybe even lose all the text I typed, so copy-pasting into a text editor before you hit submit is a good idea.

The current autologout limit is extremely user-unfriendly.

[Mindi]

The session expiration is set for 60 minutes......so again it doesn't make any sense.

I will try to see if I get the same results on firefox. I usually use IE so that could help narrow it down, but again based on the information in the back end, there is no reason the site should be logging you out in less than 60 minutes and personally even if I have been idle for over an hour, the site never logs me out. Again though, I primarily use IE.

[Ballbarian]

Firefox 2.0.0.16 here.
I left the browser open and sitting here idle over night and still logged in.

Edit:
Unless I checked the "Remember me" checkbox when I logged in, in which case it keeps me logged in until I log out.

I would say this is the solution. I bet that I ticked that ticker when I logged in.

[Mindi]

I've let my session on firefox sit idle for an hour and a half and no log out here.....again as long as you do the remember me button. That is the way vbulletin is set up and that part we can't do anything about.

[lch]

I'm on Firefox 2.0.0.16 myself and as reported earlier, I have frequently experienced the auto-logout myself. I usually don't shutdown my computer, but just let it suspend to RAM or to disk. With the old forums, I could be logged in with the same session for weeks. The only reason that I had to log out was because the functionality to show which posts are new and which you have already seen stopped working at some time.
Okay, I just spent the past hour playing Space Invaders only to get to the end and find that my score wouldn't be saved! That's when I realized that I was no longer logged in. Is there a timeout for forum inactivity that would have caused that?
I was getting the same when I've been playing some Arcade game for about 25 minutes. I logged in and used the back and refresh button a couple of times and luckily it registered the highscore that I reached after some time, even though it took a number of tries. You might have been able to save it.

[JimMorrison]

I'm on Firefox 2.0.0.16 myself and as reported earlier, I have frequently experienced the auto-logout myself. I usually don't shutdown my computer, but just let it suspend to RAM or to disk. With the old forums, I could be logged in with the same session for weeks. The only reason that I had to log out was because the functionality to show which posts are new and which you have already seen stopped working at some time.

Same here. Also after an inordinate amount of time, it would stop showing an icon for new PMs, so I left my Inbox in another tab, ready to refresh. :p

And now, with "remember me" (grrrr, I hate being remembered!), I still get auto logged, I just don't see that part because it logs me back in automatically. But I can tell I was forced off, because any thread with new posts that I hadn't read yet, is marked as not having new posts anymore.

[Fyron]

vbulletin failes to properly auto-parse urls in posts that end in ). It cuts the link off before it is finished, missing the closing ). For example:

http://wiki.spaceempires.net/index.php/Mods_(SEV)

I'm on Firefox 2.0.0.16 myself and as reported earlier, I have frequently experienced the auto-logout myself.
You need to upgrade your browser.

[Zeldor]

Can we get that 60s timer between PMs turned off? At least for users with some post count...


P.S. Thanks for turning off autosaving of sent items.

[Ballbarian]

Zeldor,
They were discussing this in another thread:

Could you remove the once a minute cap on PMs? I understand it's in place to prevent spammers from abusing the PM system, but I can't possibly imagine that's a problem in the first place since a spammer would have to go to the work of registering an account and then spamming everyone on the board.

Jazzepi

You would be surprised, there are dozens and dozens of banned spammers who created accounts to spam our forums. With the ability to now send to multiple people the same PM, the likelihood that someone could spam hundreds or even thousands of accounts in a short period of time has increased dramatically. As a small company that doesn't have administrators on the board 24x7x365, this is not an acceptable risk considering what that kind of spamming could do not only to our userbase and reputation but also to our server.

How the heck are you hitting the flood control that quickly anyway? You either have lightening fingers or need to be introduced to the wonders of instant messaging services. :D:nana:

[Ballbarian]

P.S. Thanks for turning off autosaving of sent items.

I tried and failed to find an option to re-enable the auto saving of sent items in the UserCP. I am happy to delete my old messages manually, but it is very frustrating (especially as a Moderator) to forget to tick the box and then not have a record of the message sent. My memory certainly isn't what it used to be. :p

Please point me in the right direction if I have simply overlooked it, otherwise I wonder how much trouble it would be to add this as an option?

(Did you ever notice how hard it is to make everybody happy? :D )

[JimMorrison]

P.S. Thanks for turning off autosaving of sent items.

I tried and failed to find an option to re-enable the auto saving of sent items in the UserCP. I am happy to delete my old messages manually, but it is very frustrating (especially as a Moderator) to forget to tick the box and then not have a record of the message sent. My memory certainly isn't what it used to be. :p

Please point me in the right direction if I have simply overlooked it, otherwise I wonder how much trouble it would be to add this as an option?

(Did you ever notice how hard it is to make everybody happy? :D )


But I wanted mine with SPRINKLES!! :(

[Endoperez]

As this is also a thread about opinions... I still don't identify the new color scheme with Dominions discussion, but now I can see what you meant by the improvements on the user side. You've done a great job, and it's clear you've been working on this a lot. Thanks for the work.

P.S. I suggest that everyone who likes the changes goes and uses the new "thank-you" feature on various threads that announce addition of new features you like.

[Zeldor]

Ballbarian:

That's why it would be good to remove that or decrease it for users with let's say 100+ posts.

[lch]

I'm on Firefox 2.0.0.16 myself and as reported earlier, I have frequently experienced the auto-logout myself.
You need to upgrade your browser.
Upgrade do what? 2.0.0.16 is the current version from the 2.x branch. Maybe there's another workaround to make the browser vBulletin-friendly?

[Zeldor]

3.0? :) But that auto-logout should have nothing to do with 2.x or 3.x firefox version, unless forum is bugged.

[Richard]

3.0? :) But that auto-logout should have nothing to do with 2.x or 3.x firefox version, unless forum is bugged.

Like I told folks earlier the auto-logout is a browser thing. What I would recommend for folks running into the issues is two things:

A) Make sure after you see the logout happen check your cookies location for your browser and make sure you have a cookie saved for forum.shrapnelgames.com.

B) If you have a cookie present then we may have to have you send it in to determine why the browser/application combo is not reading it properly.

Like I said this is all browser driven so having a cookie saved for forum.shrapnelgames.com should enable auto-login unless your browser is somehow munging the cookie in some way or saving it under a different domain, etc.

[Fyron]

Upgrade do what? 2.0.0.16 is the current version from the 2.x branch. Maybe there's another workaround to make the browser vBulletin-friendly?

The current version of the browser (http://www.mozilla.com/en-US/firefox/all.html), obviously. You're only going to run into more problems over time running obsolete software (esp. since FF 2 will not see new updates to the Gecko rendering engine, ala FF 3). If you're worried about screwing up your profile, just make a backup copy of it before upgrading..

[capnq]

Upgrade do what? 2.0.0.16 is the current version from the 2.x branch. Maybe there's another workaround to make the browser vBulletin-friendly?

The current version of the browser (http://www.mozilla.com/en-US/firefox/all.html), obviously.I'd rather let the bleeding-edge adopters shake out the new bugs for a while. I'm not planning to switch to FF3 until they stop updating 2.x in December.

[Ballbarian]

Upgrade do what? 2.0.0.16 is the current version from the 2.x branch. Maybe there's another workaround to make the browser vBulletin-friendly?

The current version of the browser (http://www.mozilla.com/en-US/firefox/all.html), obviously.I'd rather let the bleeding-edge adopters shake out the new bugs for a while. I'm not planning to switch to FF3 until they stop updating 2.x in December.

Ditto. :)

Besides, I hate IE7's layout and FF3 seems to be emulating their gui layout. I am hoping that when I finally make the switch that there will be (or are) themes to switch things back to the old 2.0 style.

[Azselendor]

You can't deny Mozilla for wanting to keep user experiences consistent. FireFox 3 is a very solid product and the customize tool bar function lets you put it back to the FF2 style more or less.

Besides, Firefox 3 isn't even bleeding edge anymore. FireFox 3.1 is already on its way and IE8 is in alpha.

besides, here's the FF2 theme for FF3
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/6898

[Ballbarian]

Thanks Azselendor.
I may give her a spin tonight. :)

[Herode]

Yep, but don't forget some addons are still out of date for FF3. If you have critical need for tools like Firebug or the XML Developper Toolbar, you'd better still wait a for a while. But OK, very few people endure such needs as critical :smirk:

[Azselendor]

There is an update for FF3 for firebug : https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/1843
as for the XML Dev Toolbar, I think the maker of it stopped work on it. Last update was october of 2006.


Does anyone else find the Shrapnel Favicon to be poor? I have an idea to fix it, but I don't know what font the text is in.

[Mindi]

It was a quickie job thrown up there to remove the vbulletin default. I may throw sarge back up there which is what we were using before anyway.

[Fyron]

Yep, but don't forget some addons are still out of date for FF3. If you have critical need for tools like Firebug or the XML Developper Toolbar, you'd better still wait a for a while. But OK, very few people endure such needs as critical :smirk:
Eh, most of the plugins still work fine. The version checking is just a single number set in the xul, easily ignored right in the addons dialog. ;)

[w-elk]

Post of Welk :
Very bad idea to have changed the forum :

1-All old post and files erased... The community have now no any life...
2-Impossible to post with old pseudo (I had to create new pseudo (W-elk) to be able to post, and not possibility to create new thread...)

I think you have destroyed your own "house". For me, no more interst to come here : a "ghost hall" ...

[Annette]

Post of Welk :
Very bad idea to have changed the forum :

1-All old post and files erased... The community have now no any life...
2-Impossible to post with old pseudo (I had to create new pseudo (W-elk) to be able to post, and not possibility to create new thread...)

I think you have destroyed your own "house". For me, no more interst to come here : a "ghost hall" ...

I've moved your post here to the official thread for complaints/concerns/opinions about the new forums. Your post was made in a SPWW2 press release thread from 2006 which was unlikely to be seen.

1-What specific area of the forums are you looking for? The SPWW2 forums? They are found here: http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/forumdisplay.php?f=139

2- Were your user name and log in name different on the old system? As posted in our announcements before and after the conversion, that would impact your ability to log into the new forums.

[archaeolept]

I'm on Firefox 2.0.0.16 myself and as reported earlier, I have frequently experienced the auto-logout myself. I usually don't shutdown my computer, but just let it suspend to RAM or to disk. With the old forums, I could be logged in with the same session for weeks. The only reason that I had to log out was because the functionality to show which posts are new and which you have already seen stopped working at some time.

Same here. Also after an inordinate amount of time, it would stop showing an icon for new PMs, so I left my Inbox in another tab, ready to refresh. :p

And now, with "remember me" (grrrr, I hate being remembered!), I still get auto logged, I just don't see that part because it logs me back in automatically. But I can tell I was forced off, because any thread with new posts that I hadn't read yet, is marked as not having new posts anymore.hmm, I was going to mention that as a separate bug... but it makes sense that it is the same issue.

let's say, in the morning, I go over to the main dominions forum, after refreshing the page in the multiplayer forum. It will only show that there were a few new posts, when really there are a bunch more that i've never looked at and, for some reason, it doesn't consider new. It makes it look like the forum has been almost completely inactive.

I'm using IE 7 w/ "remember me" for these forums - but perhaps it auto-logs me out, then, when I refresh to see the latest in the multiplayer forum, it auto logs me in again, but for some reason the intervening or previous "new posts" are no longer seen as new?

one way to check would be to just let an account idle in IE 7/FF3 and then have someone else see if the forums consider said first account online or not.

[JimMorrison]

let's say, in the morning, I go over to the main dominions forum, after refreshing the page in the multiplayer forum. It will only show that there were a few new posts, when really there are a bunch more that i've never looked at and, for some reason, it doesn't consider new. It makes it look like the forum has been almost completely inactive.

I'm using IE 7 w/ "remember me" for these forums - but perhaps it auto-logs me out, then, when I refresh to see the latest in the multiplayer forum, it auto logs me in again, but for some reason the intervening or previous "new posts" are no longer seen as new?


Bingo. Seems to be a common problem. :(

[Mindi]

I have changed the way forums are marked as read from cookie/inactivity based to being done by the database. Your initial flags since this change may be messed up because it will most likely mark everything as new. I have no idea how this will affect performance and if it is too labor intensive we may have to revert back to cookie based; however, for now this *should* remove the issue with marking things read.

[Edi]

Ah, thanks! I was wondering what happened just now. :)

[JimMorrison]

Well, I appreciate everyone's understanding of the slight burp in what was becoming the normal operation of the forum (since I really wanted this fixed!). But I just wanted to say, that from what I can tell, one click of the "Mark Forums Read" button to clear the chaff, and things are functioning much more like before - thank you! <3

[David E. Gervais]

Did someone say they needed a new favicon for the site?...

http://i48.photobucket.com/albums/f237/DavidGervais/NewFavicon.gif

Will this simple one do? (you'll need to remane it and place it in the right spot, but I know you can do that.)

Cheers! :)

[Azselendor]

See, that's what I had in mind. It's simple and matches the site.

[lch]

Did someone say they needed a new favicon for the site?...

http://i48.photobucket.com/albums/f237/DavidGervais/NewFavicon.gif

Will this simple one do? (you'll need to remane it and place it in the right spot, but I know you can do that.)
I think that this favicon is way better than the current one. Very nice! What does the current favicon resemble, by the way? Super Mario?

[archaeolept]

I like the current favicon

it reminds me of the color scheme for the old site ;p

[David E. Gervais]

The old favicon looks like this...

http://i48.photobucket.com/albums/f237/DavidGervais/OldFavicon.gif

looks like a highly reduced scale of the "Shrapnel Games" oval at the top left of website.

I don't see how that reminds you of the old site.

Cheers! :)

[Edi]

It might be due to his browser. I had the new favicon and everything and then my browser (Firefox 3.0) just went and reset the favicon to the one from the old site without asking me anything. I have no idea why. It shows correctly on my work computer.

[lch]

This is the favicon that shows up for me on FF2: 6660

[Herode]

I think that this favicon is way better than the current one. Very nice! What does the current favicon resemble, by the way? Super Mario?
I haven't yet decided if it figured a mushroom or an english colonel with his moustache. :D

[Mindi]

I had switched it back to the favicon we used to use which was sarge who was our 'mascot' of sorts for years. The oval logo didn't work because of how wide it is just didn't look good at that small size so I threw sarge back up there. I may throw up the one DG did....basically just using the S out of the logo....it's more clear at such a minuscule size.

lch, this is sarge, not mario!:shock:
http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/avatars/Sarge.gif

[lch]

Yeah, I just found that image from http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/showpost.php?p=632636&postcount=102 too, but I have no idea where David/Anette found that image.

I guess I'm not old school enough... :cry:

[lch]

Upgrade do what? 2.0.0.16 is the current version from the 2.x branch. Maybe there's another workaround to make the browser vBulletin-friendly?

The current version of the browser (http://www.mozilla.com/en-US/firefox/all.html), obviously. You're only going to run into more problems over time running obsolete software (esp. since FF 2 will not see new updates to the Gecko rendering engine, ala FF 3). If you're worried about screwing up your profile, just make a backup copy of it before upgrading..
Dear sir, as I wrote before, the current version which seems to be considered the "stable" one over the "developmental" 3.x branch is still the 2.x branch. I don't download something manually, I install what's the current version from the package of my distribution and this way I have the convenience to automatically have it updated every time, too. I could tell the package system that I want to use the unstable 3.x version, too, but I fear that then some things might break unexpectedly and I might have more trouble than what it's worth. So instead I hope that FF3 is going to officially replace the old FF2 browser - I AM using Gentoo, which usually is very bleeding edge about its software, compared to distributions like Debian.

On my old Windows gaming box, you can see where I am without an automated update system for my software: I am still using some Firefox 1.x on there.

[JimMorrison]

Lch, you browse forums like I do, by the handful. :p

And I always thought it was a mushroom too..... It... "he".... Whatever. :p

[lch]

One more thing concerning the site conversion that I guess you're already aware of:

The old forum software didn't leave dummies and then rendered them when the pages were viewed, but instead it directly replaced it with HTML code when a post was made. One such example is the use of smileys:

For example, for http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif, instead of a smiley tag, it directly placed the code [img]http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif[/img ] in the text. It shouldn't be too hard (a mere search-and-replace job which can be automated) to replace those hard links to the image URLs.

[capnq]

as I wrote before, the current version which seems to be considered the "stable" one over the "developmental" 3.x branch is still the 2.x branch. [...] I hope that FF3 is going to officially replace the old FF2 browserIt is, sometime in December, when they plan to stop supporting 2.x. By which point I expect them to be up to around 3.3 or 3.4, at least.

[lch]

Lookie there, the new favicon is installed. And I still can't dish out rep to David because I'm strapped of my reputation. :(

[Mindi]

And I still can't dish out rep to David because I'm strapped of my reputation. :(

huh?

[Herode]

Yep, nice new favicon !
Hey, you know what ? the more I see them, the more I love the new forums :)

@Mindi : maybe something like this :
You must spread some Reputation around before giving it to XXX again.

[Mindi]

Aahh, yes you can't continuously give reputation to the same person.....I think you have to give it to 20 people before giving it to the same person. It's to prevent people from just boosting a buddy's reputation and vice versa to skew the results.

[David E. Gervais]

I just found out, and seeing the new favicon proves what I found out,.. favicons cannot have transparency. So, I updated the favicon to replace the transparent pixels with white... here you go...

http://i48.photobucket.com/albums/f237/DavidGervais/NewFavicon.gif

it should now look as intended once you grab it, rename it and place it in the right spots.

Cheers! :)

[lch]

I'm pretty sure they can. The ICO file format knows transparency, as do GIFs and PNGs, in case those are used (can be done via meta tags / CSS). Here's my 10 seconds worth of firing up the GIMP: 6665

Aahh, yes you can't continuously give reputation to the same person.....I think you have to give it to 20 people before giving it to the same person. It's to prevent people from just boosting a buddy's reputation and vice versa to skew the results.
So I'll have to find 18 other people just because I want to giv rep to David for both his avatars and the favicon and to Edi for both his FAQ and Bug shortlist? sucks. Or does giving negative rep count towards that, too? :evil:

[Ballbarian]

I'm pretty sure they can.
I can confirm this. I have done this for our county's web site.

[Azselendor]

Yep, they can. I have a tool to convert png's to ico with transparency and for a long time, my favicon was semi-transparent. Here they are

http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/www.orbportals.com/favicon-old.ico (http://www.orbportals.com/favicon-old.ico)http://www.orbportals.com/favicon-old.ico
http://www.orbportals.com/favicon-older.ico

[David E. Gervais]

the 'favicon' is supposed to be a .ico file? I didn't know this,.. should I make a 16x16 ico file? I can, I use IconWorks Pro. I just thought the favicon was a .gif and made my version .gif.

If someone knows if It needs to be an .ico file, please post here, thanks.

Cheers! :)

attached a zip with the .ico version.. with the transparency set.

6671

[Mindi]

Yeah I just threw it into a free .ico online generator and then put it up. I still hadn't seen the change on my browser, but I take it the transparency didn't get generated. I'll check out the new file you uploaded DG.

[Azselendor]

Here's an online tool that I used a few times

http://converticon.com/

png size doesn't really matter, but I figure 256x256 is the max.

[lch]

Uhm, did you notice that I already uploaded an ico file with transparency on the last page? Just saying... :)

[Herode]

png size doesn't really matter, but I figure 256x256 is the max.
Heresy !! :shock:
Size DOES matter !!
At least after the mails I receive several times a day :cool:

[David E. Gervais]

Sorry Ich, I totally missed your ico post. (To compensate I thanked you 2 times, in your ico post and in this 'reminder/poke-me-with-a-stick' post.)

Cheers! :)

[Baron Munchausen]

Last read pointers don't work anymore. You have to manually search out where you left off reading. They worked fine in the old forums.

[Mindi]

Last post indicators work just fine as long as you click the remember me button when you log in. ;) We switched the way last post indicators are used from cookie/session based to database driven and for everyone else this has fixed the perceived problem, there is no reason it should be different for you.

[Ballbarian]

Last read pointers don't work anymore. You have to manually search out where you left off reading. They worked fine in the old forums.

It is a little different from the old forums in that you have to click on the little down arrow next to the thread title to go to the first unread post. If you click on the thread title itself you will be taken to the first post of the first page.

[Herode]

Yeah I just threw it into a free .ico online generator and then put it up. I still hadn't seen the change on my browser, but I take it the transparency didn't get generated. I'll check out the new file you uploaded DG.
You could also use the favicon on the home page of the site. It looks better than the Window$ logo IMHO :p

[PanzerBob]

First off I love the renovations.:)

I was wondering if the quote icons beside the sub-forms could be made more visiable in regards to the red and green used to show if there are new posts, even a red/green ball like the Forum marker is, would be fine.:idea:

Or maybe I'm going colour blind!!!:eye::eye:

Thanks in advance, Bob out :D

[Mindi]

Actually this was already requested by one of our devs and I changed them today, just a little bit ago in fact I was working on them so I don't know if you saw them in mid-change. It seems the default ones had very little difference in color between old and new post indicators. I just scaled down the ones we use for the main forums to replace them so it should be much easier to see the difference now.

[Edi]

Actually this was already requested by one of our devs and I changed them today, just a little bit ago in fact I was working on them so I don't know if you saw them in mid-change. It seems the default ones had very little difference in color between old and new post indicators. I just scaled down the ones we use for the main forums to replace them so it should be much easier to see the difference now.
I don't know if it's permitted to hug you without calling down Wrath of Richard, but you deserve one for this change! It makes life soooo much easier here! :D

[Mindi]

Yeah the colors on the default ones were so muted, especially on the background it sits on, that it was practically impossible to see the difference if you weren't really looking hard. I've been meaning to change them but they were a little lower priority. We're close to being done with all these lingering things that needed changed though.:up:

[PanzerBob]

Yeah the colors on the default ones were so muted, especially on the background it sits on, that it was practically impossible to see the difference if you weren't really looking hard. I've been meaning to change them but they were a little lower priority. We're close to being done with all these lingering things that needed changed though.:up:

Excellent, SOOOO Much better and a pleasant surprise to boot.

Thanks again Bob out :D

[LDiCesare]

I am unable to see in the Pages X of Y where I am and what can be clicked:
It looks like this:
Page 10 of 10 « First < 8 9 10
The Page x of Y is nice, but I hardly worry about it since it won't do anything if I click on it. What I'm interested in are the figures and arrows on which I can click:
The figures in plain text are those I can click to move around. That's counter intuitive, since usually links used to be blue with an underline, now they tend to look like anything but plain text. Here, they are plain text. The only figure on which clicking won't do anything is very hard to make out as it really looks like the others. It's blue (old brain cells equate this to: it is a link, except it's not), and may be bold but I'm not sure. Anyway, it's extremely hard to make a difference between the figures that I can click and the one which I cannot.

Therefore, I'd like to suggest at least inverting the colors: Make the figure you can't click plain text, and make the other figures and '<' blue underlined (or bold or something that stands out).

[Jazzepi]

Is it possible to search PMs? This would be a very useful feature for me. For example, I was just eliminated from the game Veritas, and I would like to be able to search through all my PMs, find the ones that mention Veritas, and then delete them.

Jazzepi

[Annette]

Is it possible to search PMs? This would be a very useful feature for me. For example, I was just eliminated from the game Veritas, and I would like to be able to search through all my PMs, find the ones that mention Veritas, and then delete them.

Jazzepi

I don't know of a way to search pm's without downloading them to a .txt file first. For avoiding the problem in the future, though, you could use the folders feature and assign your pm's to specific folders as you receive them.

[Jazzepi]

Could you reduce the time limit on the PMs? I don't even know why it's there in the first place, honestly. Perhaps to prevent spammers? If it was lowered to 30 seconds that would be a great help. It's really irritating to try to respond to 5 messages, type them out, and then have to sit and wait to actually reply to them.

Jazzpei

[Annette]

Yes, it's a measure of protection against spammers, and as far as I know we don't have plans to alter the time limit.

[lch]

I'd suggest increasing the file size limits a little. How does this sound:

jpg, gif: 250 KB
other image formats: 500 KB
doc, txt, xls, pdf: 500 KB

Maybe even up to 2 MB for PDFs. If somebody writes a manual, people should be able to download it without the need to unpack it first. I don't suppose people are going to be attaching a lot of big PDFs without any reason.

[lch]

Is it possible to only enable the signatures for a specific forum, with subforums? For example, my sig is only relevant to Dom3 players, and I only want it to show in the Dom3 forums. Do I need to manually check/uncheck it in the advanced editor all the time, or can I configure this somehow?

[Jazzepi]

Yes, it's a measure of protection against spammers, and as far as I know we don't have plans to alter the time limit.

Lowering it to 30 seconds would make things a lot easier for actual humans, while providing relatively the same amount of protection against bots. It's really annoying to have to sit around and wait between messages when I have 4-5 to send.

If I were you, I would implement a captcha that would expire every hour. I like recaptcha myself.

http://recaptcha.net/

I'm not sure why you are worried about spammers, though. I've never been hit by one before, and shouldn't you have a captcha on the account creation screen to keep bots out anyways? Not that they'd be smart enough to navigate the interface.

This place seems like such a poor target for a spammer.

Jazzepi

[HoneyBadger]

Is there anything you can do to save me from myself? Specifically, my impulsive nature to write long, drawn-out posts, without saving them a few times in the interims of my creative processes, and the occasional-but inevitable-loss thereof?

[lch]

Is there anything you can do to save me from myself? Specifically, my impulsive nature to write long, drawn-out posts, without saving them a few times in the interims of my creative processes, and the occasional-but inevitable-loss thereof?
We could try to implement a limitation of characters for posts from you. :evil:

[Fyron]

This place seems like such a poor target for a spammer.
And yet we get them anyways, making protections necessary.

[Imp]

Would it be possible to name forums with the initials of the title included either before or after in the same way that all SIEV forums are listed. Reason for is if use new posts button would make obvious which game they apply to.
Example
All SPMBT prefixed SPMBT or MBT
All Eat Electric Death prefixed EED etc.

Also not really important but how do you spell check now?

[Tim Brooks]

Would it be possible to name forums with the initials of the title included either before or after in the same way that all SIEV forums are listed. Reason for is if use new posts button would make obvious which game they apply to.


Maybe. I guess I need to know how many really think it is necessary as it is alot of work.

Also not really important but how do you spell check now

There is an icon with a check mark and ABC in the upper right corner. Click that to download the speel checker.

[Imp]

Cheers

[Annette]

I'd suggest increasing the file size limits a little. How does this sound:

jpg, gif: 250 KB
other image formats: 500 KB
doc, txt, xls, pdf: 500 KB

Maybe even up to 2 MB for PDFs. If somebody writes a manual, people should be able to download it without the need to unpack it first. I don't suppose people are going to be attaching a lot of big PDFs without any reason.

I think you and Tim are discussing this elsewhere, so this is under consideration.

Is it possible to only enable the signatures for a specific forum, with subforums? For example, my sig is only relevant to Dom3 players, and I only want it to show in the Dom3 forums. Do I need to manually check/uncheck it in the advanced editor all the time, or can I configure this somehow?

No, I'm sorry, I don't think there's a way to do this. You only have the choice to automatically display your signature or show no signature.

Yes, it's a measure of protection against spammers, and as far as I know we don't have plans to alter the time limit.

Lowering it to 30 seconds would make things a lot easier for actual humans, while providing relatively the same amount of protection against bots. It's really annoying to have to sit around and wait between messages when I have 4-5 to send.

If I were you, I would implement a captcha that would expire every hour. I like recaptcha myself.

http://recaptcha.net/

I'm not sure why you are worried about spammers, though. I've never been hit by one before, and shouldn't you have a captcha on the account creation screen to keep bots out anyways? Not that they'd be smart enough to navigate the interface.

This place seems like such a poor target for a spammer.

Jazzepi

And yet, we are spammed quite frequently. I've put this up for consideration again, and will let you know what the decision-makers come back with.

[HoneyBadger]

Ich, you're telling that to the very person who spent 20 posts or so just posting bitmaps of units. The smaller my posts can be, the more posts I'm forced to write, and the more for you to monitor :p

I just wish that when I went forward to another page-there's a button on my keyboard that automatically takes me to my homepage, for some damn fool reason-that when I went back, everything wouldn't disappear.

This doesn't always happen on every single forum, so I was just wondering if there's a way to make it not happen here?

If not, that's fine, it's my own fault when I do it, I'm not blaming anyone else, just hoping for a safety net.

[Annette]

HB,

What selection have you made for as your Message Editor Interface? I'm set to Enhanced Interface - Full WYSIWYG Editing, and I can begin typing a reply, go to other pages within this site or go to another site altogether, and get back to my reply using my back button.

[Fyron]

From a usability perspective, some parts of the forum theme are terrible. The shades of blue used in some areas have very poor contrast between the text and background colors, leading to difficult reading. Combine this with a lot of text being tiny (9px!), and it makes for a very hard to use UI. Some particularly nasty text includes the poster info (join date, thanks, etc.) on the top right of posts and the private message information in the big bar at the top of the page. 11px is pushing it as a minimum font size, but even that still needs to have high contrast between the font and background colors.

The white text on bright blue background in the nav menu on the left is also difficult to read, due to poor contrast.

[HoneyBadger]

And don't forget the dirty dishwater blue being aesthetically unappealing :)

[AstralWanderer]

Two problems I've encountered with the new forum:
URL change from shrapnelcommunity.com to shrapnelgames.com - I keep very strict security settings which includes not allowing cookies by default. The domain name change necessitated updating these, but it is an easy thing to overlook and took some time to track down. The Rules Acceptance page (http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/misc.php?do=cfrules&adis=1) requires Javascript enabled but does not inform users of this. There should at least be a mention of this requirement since having Javascript enabled globally is risky behaviour nowadays, given the number of compromised websites around.

[Azselendor]

Two problems I've encountered with the new forum:


The Rules Acceptance page (http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/misc.php?do=cfrules&adis=1) requires Javascript enabled but does not inform users of this. There should at least be a mention of this requirement since having Javascript enabled globally is risky behaviour nowadays, given the number of compromised websites around.



While there is danger in malicious javascripting, it's important to keep in mind too that much of the modern web relies upon javascripting for usability and functionality. Care must be taken to secure the site and it's code against casual and moderate attacks, yes, but to sacrifice service and quality for the name of security is madness. Most people operate at browser defaults which have moderate javascript settings enabled.

[Imp]

From a usability perspective, some parts of the forum theme are terrible. The shades of blue used in some areas have very poor contrast between the text and background colors, leading to difficult reading. Combine this with a lot of text being tiny (9px!), and it makes for a very hard to use UI. Some particularly nasty text includes the poster info (join date, thanks, etc.) on the top right of posts and the private message information in the big bar at the top of the page. 11px is pushing it as a minimum font size, but even that still needs to have high contrast between the font and background colors.

The white text on bright blue background in the nav menu on the left is also difficult to read, due to poor contrast.

Sorry but I have to disagre some navigation could be easier but everything is very clear & easy to read. I use 1280 x1240 with a basic graphic card. If you are using a higher res remember some people cant afford & lots use lower still.
On contrast either adjust your settings or bin the monitor its fine. The light blue text background is there as does not strain the eye, white tends to.
If they change the blue someone will gripe over the new colour, there have to be more important things in life.

I just tested against a bit of Laser printed A4 & can read the screen from further away than the paper so its very clear, font size was the same.

[Fyron]

You are incorrect, Imp. 9px font size is a cardinal sin in web design (or any UI design, for that matter). Using colors with poor contrast is another cardinal sin. Combining the two... ugh. This has nothing to do with monitors or video cards, and everything to do with user interfaces being designed in a way that is usable by the population at large.

[Hentzau]

Sure is a PITA to register for this forum, and why don't new releases get at least temporary top billing in the forum list? WPP is way way down there.

On the other hand, the forum seems to work well on really bad dial up, which is a BIG plus to me so thanks.

[Beachinnole]

I never post here! I just want the game I paid for, is that too much to ask?