GWJ bugs, feature requests, and updates

And yet, I meant it in the simplist manner - I frequent 3 of the forums (3, 2, & 372) and check in to a couple others every so often (8, 525).

trueheart78 wrote:

And yet, I meant it in the simplist manner - I frequent 3 of the forums (3, 2, & 372) and check in to a couple others every so often (8, 525).

Don't you think that you should design a website to make it as easy to use as possible, even for the newcomer? Why should you have to learn anything like forum numbers to be able to do something quickly?

Your suggestion, while workable for somebody that's been around for awhile, is very obtuse. I guess I'm just used to working to design interfaces for the average user, not the technically inclined ones.

Bear in mind, you're basically talking about the guy who thinks 0118 999 88199 9119 7253 is an easy number to remember.

MannishBoy wrote:

Don't you think that you should design a website to make it as easy to use as possible, even for the newcomer? Why should you have to learn anything like forum numbers to be able to do something quickly?

You don't have to - you could create separate bookmarks in your browser toolbar, as well.

I'm just making simple suggestions to help navigation, nothing more. Something incase this change never happens, so that you can still get a benefit somehow.

To be quite honest, it would make much more sense (to me) to have a menu on the left-handed side of the site with a list of each forum as a link, as opposed to (or along with) both ads and / or trending topics.

And as a disclaimer, I'm a web developer, not a designer - Playing in the address bar is part of my day job.

trueheart78 wrote:

To be quite honest, it would make much more sense (to me) to have a menu on the left-handed side of the site with a list of each forum as a link, as opposed to (or along with) both ads and / or trending topics.

I'd like this, there's a whole load of wasted space over there on the left of the page.

We'll keep easier forum navigation in mind as we look at redesigning for the Drupal 7 migration. For example, http://gamerswithjobs.mobify.com/ has top-level links to the most popular forums. I like the idea of some sort of fly-out that contains a list of all forums.

I am surprised by the different forum navigation methods folks are using.

If there are new posts in my favorite topics, I go there first. Then I go to my personal Recent Posts page, and when I finish up there, I move over to All Recent Posts. I pretty much never visit the individual forum category pages.

I only read three forums on any consistent basis. No reason to wade through MMO posts and other things I'm not interested in on the "All recent posts" page when I'm just browsing.

Just deployed an update from DoggettCK that should make YouTube embeds easier to handle. You should now be able to embed all sorts of YouTube URLs between the [youtube] tags and get the video rendered correctly.

Here's an example using this embed code (with the spaces removed):
[youtube] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4WX58CZwyiU [/youtube]

Very nice, thank you sir!

It should handle all of the formats listed in this post, and if you want the video to start at a given point, just add "&t=1h2m3s", with the appropriate hours, minutes, and seconds (all parts optional, defaults to seconds if it doesn't find 'h', 'm', or 's').

Examples:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3sQEb...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3sQEb...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3sQEb...

Wrapping them with the "youtube" tag will embed them at the proper starting point, instead of telling someone to fast forward to the good parts.

Bonus_Eruptus wrote:

It should handle all of the formats listed in this post, and if you want the video to start at a given point, just add "&t=1h2m3s", with the appropriate hours, minutes, and seconds (all parts optional, defaults to seconds if it doesn't find 'h', 'm', or 's').

Examples:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3sQEb...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3sQEb...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3sQEb...

Wrapping them with the "youtube" tag will embed them at the proper starting point, instead of telling someone to fast forward to the good parts.

Thanks, Bonus! I'm not sure why I keep calling you DoggettCK over here... I can't keep multiple handles straight!

The mobifying of the site is awesome and works well on my android phone. If possible, it would be nice if the original post could start collapsed after the first page. Some threads are heavy on the images and embeds in the OP.

I think it would be easier to navigate the threads if the forums were a little more specific. Maybe have specific console forum, handheld forum, PC, General Entertainment, Movies, Comics etc. It will make it seem less cluttered.

EverythingsTentative wrote:

I think it would be easier to navigate the threads if the forums were a little more specific. Maybe have specific console forum, handheld forum, PC, General Entertainment, Movies, Comics etc. It will make it seem less cluttered.

It depends. Even with the categories and threads we have now (spoilers/non-spoilers, "catch-all"/console/multiplayer, etc) there's always a load of messy overlap, duplication and mis-posting. As an internet forum veteran, it'll never be perfect, you've just got to hope people be reasonable.

Personally I think the solution is to just tag everything and then have a system to create a thread to read by including or excluding tags, so you could do "+gamename +pc -console +sp -mp" to get PC centric discussion on the singleplayer of some game.

As long as people can keep up with the traffic, I like the categorization as it is now. Most of us own PCs and one or more consoles, and lots of us seem to have iPads too, so it's better for us to just talk about gaming, rather than gaming on specific platforms.

The place is, admittedly, getting steadily busier, and maybe there does need to be a split, but I'd personally like to put that off as long as possible.

I think the forum is kind of designed to be used with the recent posts or favorite topics feature. Once I started using those I was able to keep up with threads much more and it really just made the site much more enjoyable. It's unfortunate for first time visitors but I can't think of a better solution that doesn't really fragment the forums.

Also breaking up the forums ends up with too many duplicate threads. No need for a Dragon Age thread for each platform, you know?

SixteenBlue wrote:

I think the forum is kind of designed to be used with the recent posts or favorite topics feature. Once I started using those I was able to keep up with threads much more and it really just made the site much more enjoyable. It's unfortunate for first time visitors but I can't think of a better solution that doesn't really fragment the forums.

Also breaking up the forums ends up with too many duplicate threads. No need for a Dragon Age thread for each platform, you know?

Well, unless there was a way to link a multiplatform game thread to each forum it applies to - but my guess is that would require a bit too much moderating.

Yeah it's pretty good as it is. MMO, and sports already broken off. And yes lots of multi platform stuff. No need for separation there, and we don't want to encourage fanboy console wars here. You've got the rest of the internet for that.

Like has been stated it is difficult for a "coffee grinder" to find somewhere to jump in especially since Welcome forums/threads are prohibited. I feel like when a new person (me) just jumps in somewhere the veterans look at that new guy like, "Who's this"? Not that anyone here has specially made me feel like that, just a general statement.

EverythingsTentative wrote:

Like has been stated it is difficult for a "coffee grinder" to find somewhere to jump in especially since Welcome forums/threads are prohibited. I feel like when a new person (me) just jumps in somewhere the veterans look at that new guy like, "Who's this"? Not that anyone here has specially made me feel like that, just a general statement.

This forum isn't really hostile to new people like a lot of others. The most exclusion you'll see is when people are giving away free Steam games or beta invites. They generally reserve those for people who've been around longer. Primarily because of history of people ending up here after google searching and begging for free stuff.

So just jump in. Water's warm. And most likely, somebody hasn't just peed in the pool. We hope.

MannishBoy wrote:
EverythingsTentative wrote:

Like has been stated it is difficult for a "coffee grinder" to find somewhere to jump in especially since Welcome forums/threads are prohibited. I feel like when a new person (me) just jumps in somewhere the veterans look at that new guy like, "Who's this"? Not that anyone here has specially made me feel like that, just a general statement.

This forum isn't really hostile to new people like a lot of others. The most exclusion you'll see is when people are giving away free Steam games or beta invites. They generally reserve those for people who've been around longer. Primarily because of history of people ending up here after google searching and begging for free stuff.

So just jump in. Water's warm. And most likely, somebody hasn't just peed in the pool. We hope.

Pretty much - if there's a game you're interested in, find a thread for it - if it doesn't exist yet, make it! If you screw up, you'll be mildly mocked, but that's on a curve - the longer you've been around, the more you're mocked

EverythingsTentative wrote:

Like has been stated it is difficult for a "coffee grinder" to find somewhere to jump in especially since Welcome forums/threads are prohibited. I feel like when a new person (me) just jumps in somewhere the veterans look at that new guy like, "Who's this"? Not that anyone here has specially made me feel like that, just a general statement.

I get the same thing when I change my avatar.

Quintin_Stone wrote:
EverythingsTentative wrote:

Like has been stated it is difficult for a "coffee grinder" to find somewhere to jump in especially since Welcome forums/threads are prohibited. I feel like when a new person (me) just jumps in somewhere the veterans look at that new guy like, "Who's this"? Not that anyone here has specially made me feel like that, just a general statement.

I get the same thing when I change my avatar.

Whoa! How'd this new guy get a tag and donation icon already?

Yeah, just jump in somewhere and talk about something you like. Low bar to entry here, all you have to do is hit post. You won't always get direct replies, but people will read what you say -- in some ways, not getting a direct reply is kind of good, because you haven't said something that anyone disagrees too strongly with.

I don't think anyone is cliquish on purpose, but I suspect most of us start to develop people we recognize after awhile. The avatar really helps with that, and Quintin there is confusing us all with his fresh face and immaculate 'do.

MannishBoy wrote:

So just jump in. Water's warm. And most likely, somebody hasn't just peed in the pool. We hope.

Quintin_Stone wrote:

I get the same thing when I change my avatar.

Quintin_Stone, pool pee-er. (Peer? Peeer?)

Anyway, stop pissing in the pool, Q-jerk!

From the trading post thread:

Garden Ninja wrote:
LockAndLoad wrote:
mrtomaytohead wrote:

What's up with the phantom edits in this thread? I've come in here when I notice it saying 1 new post in my recent posts, and usually only when the new post indicator has been there for a bit. What I mean is there is no post indicated as new when I do click the 1 new post button.

When people edit post (like striking out items that have sold) then it'll post as new.

But in those cases, it still is marked as new. I've seen the same behavior mrtomaytohead is talking about, where nothing is marked new at all.

ClockworkHouse wrote:

Adding to what LockAndLoad said: it's probably an edit on a previous page. One quirk of the forum is that it always takes you to the newest page regardless of where the most recently updated post is. This means most edits get lost, because when you go back to previous pages the edited posts are no longer marked in any way.

For example: this post is on page 90. If I went back and edited one of my posts on page 89, you'd get a notice that there was a new post in the thread, but when you clicked on that notice you'd be taken to the top of page 90 with no posts flagged as new. However, since you've now visited the thread, if you went back to page 89, the edited post would no longer be flagged as a new post.

This is a weird behavior as when you click on new posts for a thread with hundreds of new posts, you go to where the first (oldest) new post exists, not the last page in the thread. But I guess the discrepancy is when there is only 1 'new' post and more 'old' posts on later pages.

Malor wrote:

As long as people can keep up with the traffic, I like the categorization as it is now. Most of us own PCs and one or more consoles, and lots of us seem to have iPads too, so it's better for us to just talk about gaming, rather than gaming on specific platforms.

I like the categorization as it is. There's a lot of stuff I wouldn't be aware of on this forum if everything was organized even further. It's a great way to keep a general pulse on what people are playing these days. I wouldn't get that if I was constantly jumping between PC, Consoles - Wii, Genre - JRPG, and Gaming - Misc.

Tanglebones wrote:

Pretty much - if there's a game you're interested in, find a thread for it - if it doesn't exist yet, make it! If you screw up, you'll be mildly mocked, but that's on a curve - the longer you've been around, the more you're mocked :)

+1

I occasionally experience a feature whereby typing SHIFT + I generates the italics open tag, and doing so a second time generates the closing tag. Similarly, SHIFT + L launches the link dialog. I don't think this is my keyboard's sticky CTRL key, given that Google Chrome would launch the "inspect element" pane if so (I just tested it a few times). Is this a JQuery thingy feature? I'm using Chrome 19.0.1084.52 m on XP SP3.

muraii wrote:

I occasionally experience a feature whereby typing SHIFT + I generates the italics open tag, and doing so a second time generates the closing tag. Similarly, SHIFT + L launches the link dialog. I don't think this is my keyboard's sticky CTRL key, given that Google Chrome would launch the "inspect element" pane if so (I just tested it a few times). Is this a JQuery thingy feature? I'm using Chrome 19.0.1084.52 m on XP SP3.

I get that, but for me I suspect it's down to an AHK script I'm running to bind crtl+tab and ctrl+shift+tab (for effortless multi-tab browsing) to mouse buttons. Spamming ctrl when the unwanted opening tag shows up 'clears' it. No idea if it's something not quite right with the forum as it's quite rare to see it.

For reference, said AHK script:

#IfWinActive, ahk_class MozillaWindowClass
XButton1::Send ^{Tab}
XButton2::Send ^+{Tab}