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Geek Culture / About time there was a site upgrade.

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AutoBot
15
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Posted: 29th Aug 2011 15:11
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Quote: "Any other fixes or improvements that won't take a ton of time?"

I think being able to see a user's post history, instead of just threads they made, is a pretty important one. You should be able to reuse existing code for that after all.

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Pincho Paxton
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Posted: 29th Aug 2011 15:35
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Quote: "Maybe it is time to add a few new small features and bug fixes here and there? The number one requested feature so far is a better search? That appears to be a big task, but I can put a few hours into that and surely have something better than his there now. Any other fixes or improvements that won't take a ton of time? "


Maybe a quote button, and the text editor to place things where you click instead of always at the end of the text. Like quotes always go at the end, images always at the end, and smilies always at the end. On other sites they go where you click.

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Quik
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Posted: 29th Aug 2011 16:14
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Quote: "I think being able to see a user's post history, instead of just threads they made, is a pretty important one. You should be able to reuse existing code for that after all."


this is the only feature i would want...

and for the record, I am a man.

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zenassem
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Posted: 29th Aug 2011 17:27
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@Jeku

Is it possible without great difficulty to give users the ability to float boards that interest them most to the top? Or at least to visibly turn off boards that they don't use?

With all the products that are under TGC as well ad dead old competition boards and the like... it would be nice to either float the boards I use above these, or be able to not display the one's I don't visit.

Your signature has been erased by a mod please reduce it to 600 x 120.
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bitJericho
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Posted: 29th Aug 2011 18:46 Edited at: 29th Aug 2011 19:53
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Quote: "Is it possible without great difficulty to give users the ability to float boards that interest them most to the top? Or at least to visibly turn off boards that they don't use? "


I would vote to stay away from any javascript solutions here. I love being able to browse here using IE6 at work, rather than, you know, work! That said, I also believe in progress! So do what you think you must

Searching for posts that I have once replied in is my biggest request. But other things that I could use:

RSS feeds for certain boards and certain threads.

Linkable MSN button (not a big deal).

Googlechat button.

Also, fix the search when using previous button

Yeah, that's all I got.


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Jeku
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Posted: 30th Aug 2011 10:57
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I'll see what I can do about a Post History option, and I'll see about fixing the buttons in the post box to make sure they place the text where the cursor is located.

I'm not sure I know what a linkable MSN button would do... open up MSN? Is that even possible?

I believe there are already RSS feeds for everything here, and it was put in a few years ago by Rich Davey when he still maintained the site. I'm not really sure if it works still though.

Quote: "Also, fix the search when using previous button"


Can this be fixed without doing some kind of hack? I see this on many sites where a form is submitted using POST, and sometimes they simply do a redirect after the form is submitted... perhaps that is the best way to do it. I'll do some research on this one too.


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Indicium
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Posted: 30th Aug 2011 11:08
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Why can't you change the search feature to use GET, it seems more logical to me.

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Dazzag
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Posted: 30th Aug 2011 12:17
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Quote: "Can this be fixed without doing some kind of hack? I see this on many sites where a form is submitted using POST, and sometimes they simply do a redirect after the form is submitted... perhaps that is the best way to do it. I'll do some research on this one too."
Easiest solution I reckon is just make any searched items open in a new tab or window. It's what I do anyway (but forget now and again and curse the extra button devil...). Search then right click and say open in new tab. The search is still sitting there no worries.

Cheers

I am 99% probably lying in bed right now... so don't blame me for crappy typing
Current fave quote : "She was like a candle in the wind.... unreliable...."
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bitJericho
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Posted: 30th Aug 2011 14:56 Edited at: 31st Aug 2011 17:52
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Quote: "Can this be fixed without doing some kind of hack? I see this on many sites where a form is submitted using POST, and sometimes they simply do a redirect after the form is submitted... perhaps that is the best way to do it. I'll do some research on this one too."


Oh I don't (personally) care about that. I meant, when looking through "my threads", if you have more than 1 page, and you try to go to the earlier page, you get an error.

As for a clickable msn button, i can't really find anything off hand, though I didn't look too hard, again, not a biggie.

I would actually stick to using POST on search simply because if a person goes back, and didn't need the search results, he could keep going back without causing undue searches on the system. Using get may also open the forum up to a sort of DOS attack, if someone posts a search link that pull up complex searches that could cause a performance drain on the system especially on a popular search or as an attack if someone auto-loads a search link on a high traffic website. Post is still succeptable to cross site attack unless you already protect against it.

If you wanted the best of both worlds, you could use GET in addition to an authentication token that is generated by the search form, then when someone does make a link and distributes it, if the authentication token is invalid a search is not performed and thus, a resource intensive sql search is not performed.


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Oolite
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Posted: 30th Aug 2011 15:10
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Briefly read a few posts and here is my 2 pennies.

I don't think we need a PM system, I never really use them and it opens up a possibility for abuse. I don't have anything to say to anyone that I'm not going to say straight in a post. If I'm collaborating with someone then I'd do it through email.

The only thing I've always longed for is a better search feature, the forums are secure, well maintained, spam is low and thats enough for me.
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bitJericho
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Posted: 30th Aug 2011 15:34
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I agree. If you don't want to whip up a full-on PM system, what about just a form that lets you send a message to someone who's email is on file?

Personally though, email works fine for me.


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budokaiman
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Posted: 30th Aug 2011 18:21
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My one request, if you do the post history, can you include the options to see all their posts that have files included?


Be yourself, but make sure you don't sound like a dying sheep.
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TheComet
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Posted: 30th Aug 2011 20:12
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My request is simple : It should be possible to search for users. This makes it much easier to look at someone's posting history that hasn't been around the forum for a few years.

TheComet

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AutoBot
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Posted: 31st Aug 2011 02:18
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Quote: "My one request, if you do the post history, can you include the options to see all their posts that have files included?"

Just having filtering options in general for post history/search would be a good thing to have. (i.e. only posts they made in a certain board, etc...)

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ToastyFresh
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Posted: 31st Aug 2011 05:27
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My favourite forum uses SMF, actually it's on a Free SMF domain, and I still think it functions better than this site's forums do.

My two cents.

Yes, it is me.
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The Slayer
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Posted: 31st Aug 2011 18:32
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@Jeku:
If you could fix the 'Duplicate error' whenever we post the same word twice in the same thread, that would be great. Thanks.

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Libervurto
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Posted: 2nd Sep 2011 21:32
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Quote: "COMIC SANSSSSSS!!!!"

Jerico are we for or against Comic Sans? I can't remember.

I like the simplicity of this forum, I think it just needs a de-clutter a few bug fixes and maybe one or two features that everyone wants.

If I was the King of Spain I'd make these demands:

Decluttering and Layout
* Those bars in between posts aren't necessary, we could move the buttons into the avatar window, kinda makes more sense there anyway.

* The search boxes are too bulky and just slapped on the page. Get rid of them and have one search bar at the top of the page, the default search would be Google search, but there could be a link to advanced search options.

* Make the page fit the screen. I don't think pages should ever stretch past the edge of the screen, if an image is too large it shouldn't be displayed. Also make the Post Forum Message box adjust to fill the width of the screen - do we need "Message:"? I think it just wastes space.

Bugs and Other Small Fixes
* When you click an emoticon it should insert at the cursor location instead of the end of your text.

* If "Newest Post" is clicked on a thread link and no new posts have occurred since your last viewing, who cares? Why does it come up with an error? Just go to the last post.

* I think bugs are pretty well known so I'll leave it there.

Feature Additions
* Post history: list of all the threads you've posted in.

* Personal Uploads: When you upload a file its link is stored in your profile under your uploads. You could also upload directly from your profile so you wouldn't need to make multiple posts to upload multiple files. File uploads would be exactly the same, the user profile data would store the addresses/numbers of the files which were uploaded by a specific user.
This would mean users could quickly find files they've previously uploaded and avoid uploading them again, and if you found something you liked that was uploaded by a user, you could look at their profile to see what else they have uploaded.

Features I Wouldn't Like to See
* Personal messaging: it's pointless. If you want to talk to someone privately, email them. Can't find their email? Maybe they don't want you to.

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zenassem
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Posted: 2nd Sep 2011 21:57
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Agree with everything Obese87 just posted! ^^^

Your signature has been erased by a mod please reduce it to 600 x 120.
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Libervurto
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Posted: 3rd Sep 2011 13:43 Edited at: 3rd Sep 2011 15:16
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I made a mock up of what it might look like with my suggested changes. I wish I took more care with this because it took ages anyway! I removed the grey background from posts by accident but I quite like it.
The left side is the original thread, the right has been edited.

Attached >>

[edit]
I think the white background on posts is a bit too high-contrast actually. Can't be bothered to change it back to grey though.

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Libervurto
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Posted: 3rd Sep 2011 17:54
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I played around with it a bit more and added some elements from the main site. This is about as far as my graphic design abilities can take it.

Attached >>

We had a banner competition, how about a skin competition?

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Pincho Paxton
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Posted: 3rd Sep 2011 18:23
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That's no good, there's no quote / reply buttons.

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Benjamin
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Posted: 3rd Sep 2011 18:27
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I really wouldn't worry about messing about with the layout when there's more important work to be done, such as improving the search to use a proper keyword system.



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Pincho Paxton
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Posted: 3rd Sep 2011 18:44
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Yeah, just the search will do.

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Virtual Nomad
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Posted: 3rd Sep 2011 19:01
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@jeku,

while you're under the hood, it would be nice if the syntax highlighting feature was completed (going on 2 yrs now...). as it stands, its usefulness (especially for new users) is diminished and/or an additional hurdle is presented, instead.

Virtual Nomad @ California, USA . DBPro V7.5
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BiggAdd
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Posted: 3rd Sep 2011 22:11
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Quote: "I made a mock up of what it might look like with my suggested changes. I wish I took more care with this because it took ages anyway! I removed the grey background from posts by accident but I quite like it.
The left side is the original thread, the right has been edited."


No offense, but the designs aren't that great. For 4 reasons:

1) The profile space looks way too cluttered when a user posts a single line (without a signature), you are actually creating more space to accomodate for the email buttons, which looks messy.
2) By removing the spacers, you are loosing the framing around posts, so it looks like a cheap html page
3) You've removed room for the "View" and "Download" buttons on a post aswell as removed the "Back to Top" link.
4) By moving the report post button, you've changed the semantics of what it actually does. For a new user, they might wonder if it reports the user or reports the actual post itself. (Obviously the semantics of having the emails in the post is a bit wrong, but forum posts don't have email addresses and they are put there to stop the clutter in the profile window)

Personally I love the way this forum is set out, I personally don't think there is anything wrong with the UI (apart from the fact that pages do stretch if someone posts a large image).

There are functionality issues, but as far as the layout and look of this site, I don't think anything needs to be changed.

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CoffeeGrunt
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Posted: 3rd Sep 2011 22:14
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I think rescaling an embedded pic, and a tweaked search function is all this forum really needs.

I like the UI, it's easily navigatible.

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Jeku
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Posted: 4th Sep 2011 00:46
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Quote: "I think rescaling an embedded pic"


How would this work?


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Benjamin
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Posted: 4th Sep 2011 00:54
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Quote: "How would this work?"


Not sure personally, but you could try putting the image in a frame whose width is set to match the page, and set the attribute that hides the scroll bar when it's not necessary.



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CoffeeGrunt
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Posted: 4th Sep 2011 00:59
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I'm not 100% sure, but www.gtplanet.net has this feature. Using IMG tags, it embeds the picture, and scales it to the set maximum resolution, (I'm guessing it's coded by the forum designer.)

It also retains the aspect ration as it does it, which is cool. Makes the page alot less cluttered, and stops page stretching liek we occasionally get here.

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Quik
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Posted: 4th Sep 2011 01:49
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Quote: "(apart from the fact that pages do stretch if someone posts a large image)."


does get pretty frustrating indeed .___.'

and for the record, I am a man.

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swissolo
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Posted: 4th Sep 2011 02:09
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The TGC homepage has this ability to an extent It adjusts to the screen width, so why not the forum? Pull in the user's screen width, then just adjust the picture size acordingly. Now I'm not saying that's REASONABLE , but if you can get some predifined scaled image sizes it could be done. OR, even better, make a thumbnail 1000x (whatever to the ratio) that becomes a link to the actual sized image.(unless the image is already a link, then shoe to you ) Just some ideas, but, streching can be really anoying

swis
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BiggAdd
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Posted: 4th Sep 2011 03:50
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Quote: "How would this work?"


Use javascript to check each embedded picture to see if it exceeds the window resolution, then resize the image (using css) to fit the screen.

You could do it the cheap way and have all embedded images put in a DIV which has a max-height and max-width (With overflow set to scroll)

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Jeku
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Posted: 4th Sep 2011 07:19 Edited at: 4th Sep 2011 07:20
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Meh, I'm not good with CSS at all because I'm not in any way shape or form a designer. This doesn't seem like a bug to me, because we can't assume control of external images. Obviously TGC doesn't host these images, so they can't be properly scaled. If we just reduce the image width and height using HTML tags or whatever, then the user is still downloading the large image. It seems to be a band-aid fix for something that's not really a bug, but just a nuisance. Mods are here to remove large images anyways, and sometimes people should be able to post a large image (i.e. desktop wallpaper threads).

Personally I think it's more important to get some actual new features in, like a proper search.


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Virtual Nomad
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Posted: 4th Sep 2011 08:11 Edited at: 4th Sep 2011 08:12
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<grumbles in being ignored> how about finishing implementaion of past features? you've thanked me for reminding you in the past only to have it left there. should i just reside to "it's never gonna get finished"?

Virtual Nomad @ California, USA . DBPro V7.5
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Benjamin
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Posted: 4th Sep 2011 08:49
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Quote: "how about finishing implementaion of past features?"


You mean like syntax highlighting? Doesn't seem worth the effort when un-highlighted DBPro code isn't too hard to read, and you can always copy it to the IDE if you need to. The search feature on the other hand could really use an overhaul...

Quote: "Personally I think it's more important to get some actual new features in, like a proper search."


Well chop chop then!



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BatVink
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Posted: 4th Sep 2011 12:49
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Quote: "Ok, you must be out of your mind. Google search on these forums is next to useless."


Maybe we need a post on how to use Google search effectively. I find what I want 95% of the time with this feature, which is in line with my use of Google elsewhere. Google is intelligent but if you know how to use it properly it's many times more effective and accurate.

Simple things such as the correct use of () and - make a huge difference.

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Libervurto
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Posted: 4th Sep 2011 14:37
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I'm not a graphic designer or web designer, my mock up was just to give an idea of how it would look if the forum was more like the main website.

What do people think of my personal uploads idea? Is it something that could be done?

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lazerus
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Posted: 4th Sep 2011 15:37 Edited at: 4th Sep 2011 15:38
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Pc has a very good Img control system in place.

Linkage.

The image is auto-scaled on page load up and then the user can then choose to show it at full res by clicking its border. Not sure how you would go about this but dam it good.


http://lazerus-reborn.deviantart.com/
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Jeku
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Posted: 5th Sep 2011 04:06 Edited at: 5th Sep 2011 04:09
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Quote: "<grumbles in being ignored> how about finishing implementaion of past features? you've thanked me for reminding you in the past only to have it left there. should i just reside to "it's never gonna get finished"?"


Ignored? This is not my full-time or even part-time job. One thing at a time. The syntax highlighting was just a nice thing to have, and not really a necessity in the first place. I see people using it here all the time, so obviously it works. Anything can be improved again and again, but I'd rather work on something that's new.

Also, the syntax highlighting code was really tricky because I'm not the most proficient with regex. If TGC would like to make it 100% perfect, then they'll have to find someone to work on those regex commands

Sometimes I feel like people here will complain even when things are pretty good.

Anyways, what BatVink has stated is true. You can do a pretty good search from the Google Forum Search if you know how to do a proper Google search.

EDIT:

Quote: "The image is auto-scaled on page load up and then the user can then choose to show it at full res by clicking its border. Not sure how you would go about this but dam it good."


Like I said previously: The auto-scaling can be done from TGC's end with remote images, but the user will still have to download the FULL version. That scaled version you see on that forum you linked is actually pointing to the full image, but simply scaled with HTML.


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BiggAdd
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Posted: 5th Sep 2011 05:09 Edited at: 5th Sep 2011 05:17
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Quote: "Like I said previously: The auto-scaling can be done from TGC's end with remote images, but the user will still have to download the FULL version. That scaled version you see on that forum you linked is actually pointing to the full image, but simply scaled with HTML."


Whats wrong with that though? Thats how all forums do it. On Polycount, there isn't any fancy PHP going on, it downloads the entire image and resizes it by applying CSS if javascript detects that the image is too large:
Example:
http://www.polycount.com/forum/showthread.php?t=70232
Its more about stopping page stretching than reducing bandwidth.

You are right, there are more important things to address at the moment, but I suppose that doesn't mean its something that can't be considered in the future.

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Quik
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Posted: 5th Sep 2011 10:20
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the images being resized.. well that would make stuff a lot simpler for example over at the 3d board: we would no longer have to make the images as small as possible while keeping the greatest detail, we couls just make a render in the size we are comfirmatble (I STILL CANT SPELL THAT WORD >__>') with...
U get a lot more detail in 1650x1200 than 800x600 for example x)

and for the record, I am a man.

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bitJericho
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Posted: 5th Sep 2011 13:29 Edited at: 5th Sep 2011 13:29
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Quote: "Anyways, what BatVink has stated is true. You can do a pretty good search from the Google Forum Search if you know how to do a proper Google search."


Not really. Google site search sucks. I wonder if you guys have ever actually tried to use it.

@Obese.

I think we were against, but if you want to be for, I can edit the book to replace all occurences of "Sucks" to "Awesome".

Let me know.


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Benjamin
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Posted: 5th Sep 2011 14:16
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Having images automatically resize means the forums can be display-independent, at least to the extent that the design allows.

Quote: "Maybe we need a post on how to use Google search effectively. I find what I want 95% of the time with this feature, which is in line with my use of Google elsewhere. "


It's not exactly as intuitive as a simple search feature though, is it?



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nackidno
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Posted: 5th Sep 2011 14:38
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The thing with the search is not that I don't find what I'm looking for. It's that it takes much more time than it needs to. The features that I miss is the ability to filter and sort during search. Google search can't do that. The search is very tedious to use as it is right now.

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Thraxas
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Posted: 5th Sep 2011 15:41
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Quote: "Not really. Google site search sucks. I wonder if you guys have ever actually tried to use it."


Yes, plenty of times. It's not bad at all.

Quote: "I like Thraxas as a person, but I don't like him as poster"
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Pincho Paxton
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Posted: 5th Sep 2011 16:08 Edited at: 5th Sep 2011 16:09
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Just tried the Google search, I think it's even worse than TGC search. Everything is laid out with huge spaces, hard to read, and crosses over too many pages. With TGC search at least you can see how many posters responded, and it is all in a neat line.

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bitJericho
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Posted: 5th Sep 2011 17:47
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Quote: "Having images automatically resize means the forums can be display-independent, at least to the extent that the design allows."


Another solution would be to allow an individual post size itself as large as it needs to, but not change the size of the box in all the other posts in a thread.

That can be done in html and wouldn't need any server side processing.


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The Next
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Posted: 5th Sep 2011 17:57 Edited at: 5th Sep 2011 18:02
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Quote: "Another solution would be to allow an individual post size itself as large as it needs to, but not change the size of the box in all the other posts in a thread."


Still means your scrolling and isn't a great solution.

The best way to do it is to use some server side scripting to resize all images down to a thumbnail if they are too big. Then when they are clicked this will then load the large image not inside the post. This can all be done even if the images are not hosted by TGC themselves as we have done it where I work many times. All via PHP extensions that is the same language this site is written in.

If thats not an option then it's also very easy to read the width of an image using javascript and then resize it using the width property. You can do the height proportionaly and that will just result in a smaller image.

As for the search Google Site Search is awful it is much better for the site owners to make a good database query that will give good results. I'm guessing that the way the TGC one works at the moment is just a simple Full text search of the post title. Not really good enough to search a forum this big. It also doesn't do a very good job if at all at removing stop words. If I was TGC I'd write a nice SQL query and make a advanced search form that will be a good start.

The functionality of the site is great and I like the fact its not bloated with features you don't need. SMF and PHPBB for example have so much crap in their code and hlaf of it could be removed to make the system much mroe efficient. Simple is better.

Mystic Mod - Putting the fear back into sliced bread since 4th May 2010
Windows 7 Pro, AMD Phenom II X4 3.4Ghz, 8GB DDR3, ATI Radeon HD 4770 1GB, 2TB RAID-0 Hard disk
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bitJericho
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Posted: 5th Sep 2011 18:04
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Quote: "Still means your scrolling and isn't a great solution."


Only for a single post. IMO I'd rather scroll than have the image resized. Resized images are generally a waste of visitor's time. If it didn't need to be large it usually isn't posted that way.

In other forums that do have resized images, I'll generally just open up the image in it's own window if I need to. So why not save processing time and just shove it out there and let people deal with it their own way. If you limit it from affecting the other posts, I doubt anybody would ever complain.


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The Next
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Posted: 5th Sep 2011 18:10
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A very good point I can see where your coming from. For me personally I prefer not to even see the horizontal scroll bar.

If I had it my way all the images would be a text link that opened in a new tab if I wished to see them. That way I don't waste precious milliseconds loading images I don't care about, some of the really long threads here with many images can take a while to load up when all I want to do is check the latest posts, not look at all the images I've already seen.

Mystic Mod - Putting the fear back into sliced bread since 4th May 2010
Windows 7 Pro, AMD Phenom II X4 3.4Ghz, 8GB DDR3, ATI Radeon HD 4770 1GB, 2TB RAID-0 Hard disk
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