Charas 3.0 Dev Journal

[Ben]

dont beat yourself up dude. it looks good. I like the menu icons above the text field....And the organization of the smileys too...

[aboutasoandthis]

 Originally posted by Gemini
 

dont beat yourself up dude. it looks good. I like the menu icons above the text field....And the organization of the smileys too...

I agree. My only suggestion would be to find some way to anti-alias the little icons like Bold and Italic.

[Tomi]

And make it so you don't need a checkbox to add an attachment.  Please.

[Osmose]

The people demand it, so it shall be done.

Also, because of security, I'm going to limit file uploads to the following types:

Images: PNG, JPG, JPEG, GIF
Text Files: TXT, DOC
Music Files: MP3, WAV, MID
Compressed Files: ZIP, RAR

I don't think we've ever had a situation where this was abused, but it's a good idea anyway.

EDIT: After thinking about it, I'm leaning towards not removing the For Hire system, but rather making it more or less a specialized forum.

-The For Hire forum would be locked from normal posting and only be allowed to be posted in by the For Hire page (This involves adding in the ability to lock forums in such a way at all, so that's a bit of a task, and I might as well add in the "Don't appear on the front page" option as well for Unmod [more on that below]).

-The For Hire page will allow people to specify the type of posting, and a quick description for the Thread Title. The post body would include some standard information, links to PM, Email, or contact a person in another way.

-Due to technical reasons, you will not be able to edit your posting (This may change if it becomes a big problem), but you will be able to delete your own posting once you feel that you are no longer available, either due to getting a project, school, work, or any other reason.

Knowing Charas, I don't expect there to be a substantial amount of people using the For Hire feature, which is why I'd rather shunt it to a special type of forum so that at the very least the forums get some new options if it doesn't pan out, and we can remove the forum in that case as well.

Lastly, I'd like to consider re-merging Forum Posts and Normal Posts. I mean, it's kinda dumb that we really need to seperate Forum Gaming posts from Normal posts, like it really matters that anyone has more normal posts or more Forum Gaming posts. Post count shouldn't be a symbol of status or maturity.

[Ben]

I concurr on the post-merging.

[aboutasoandthis]

 Originally Posted by Osmose  

Post count shouldn't be a symbol of status or maturity.

I love you.

[Osmose]

I'm putting the For Hire option on hold until after the server update (And possibly never). I spent a lot of time working on fixing the Top 10 display (It was a horribly slow way of getting them and would miss some threads, now it's super-fast), and while I was doing that I kept thinking over the idea and it kept on becoming less and less appealing.

On the bright side, that cuts down the to-do list a bit. Roughly,

-Games Section
-Revamped CR (Mainly better categories but I'm sure I could find some more things to do with it, suggestions welcome)
-RMXP Compatible Generators
-Forum Header
-Various fixes (News, post count, tweaks, etc.)

The forum header is being put off until I can get in contact with Warxe and get those rotating banners he made a while back. After I finish each of these goals, we'll enter what should be a relatively simple beta process - I get a group of people I trust to go in and try out everything. If they find something wrong, it gets added to a to-do list. Once everyone is generally satisfied with the new additions, we go back and make any final changes needed (Mainly optimization, as a lot of things could use some updates to make them run faster), and then we go back to Alex for the server move.

The main issue here is the transfer of the database - it's been a few months and we will probably move the server again, but this time there's been changes - the new database contains a lot of new fields and tables and might not be compatible - I'll have to consult Alex about that.

Of the tasks above, the only one that really worries me is the Games Section - it's a hairy situation balancing server space and bandwidth with such a feature. Again, I will consult with Alex, but a few questions:

1. According to Bill (First person I could find online who knew anything about RPG Maker), the average RPG Maker game, compressed, is between 8 and 30 MB. Those are big file sizes. Would you guys be willing to use an alternative file hosting site like MediaFire and link to it from your game page? I'm unsure about whether images should take up the same amount: We could limit the size like we do attachments. Midis are tiny, too. A game using MP3s will just have to suffer with an alternative host. >=D

2. The Games section will introduce commenting and voting on all things, like screenshots, demos, blog entries. Do you think the Games forum should stay if the Games Section picks up?

3. Should users be allowed to have unlimited Game Entries or should there be a limit?

[Ben]

i think a fair limit is practical. as long as one can delete an old entry.

Not that this applies to me... Ive been here like.... 3 years... and have yet to publish a working version of my game.

one day.... one day....


the xp compatible generator is a stellar thing. Other xp gens are lacking ive found.  That oneidus mad hatter dude that flammed and trolled us last year has made some progress on his, but its all flash based...and i dont like the resources.

theres a spanish one.... but its flawed.

A Scripts forum...sub categorized into Battle systems, Menu systems and Game systems would be something to think about for the future. I know the demmand isnt here now... but with the XP generator, were bound to get some scripters coming around. Ive got friends on other forums who have promised some scripts when the new charas is running.... And Ive got a couple of lame scripts i whipped up myself. But they suck... mine that is. I script like a mute man sings.

[Osmose]

I was considering enabling text file uploads for CR and just creating a scripts area there, but a forum is possible as well.

Charas is made up of 3 parts - The Forums, the Main Site, and the Generators. The Forums and the Generators get most of the traffic, while the main site is mostly an inbetween and the way you get to Complete Resources. One thing I'd love to do is revamp the design and make the site feel more whole - add in a global side bar and header, clean up the whole site. Keep it blue and styled similar to how it is, but, y'know, better. It would make the CR and the generators feel a little more part of the site.

Someday I'll just have to sit down and do it, but that's post 3.0 business.

[Osmose]

Whee. Front page news is now ripped directly from a special Site News forum. Only mods of the forum can make new topics (IE Admins, Global Mods, and the News Usergroup that will be given mod powers over the forum), but anyone can reply to topics. A comments link is shown below news showing the number of replies to the news topic and linking to the thread where you can both view them and post your own.

Also, Forums can be set to not appear on the Front Page, IE Unmod, Staff Forums, etc. Lastly, the resources bar on the right is now cut - names that go over the 18 character limit are cut down to 15 letters plus "..." so it doesn't stretch like it usually does because people like to name their resources "Mr_bobs_super_fancy_red_cape_that_also_serves_as_a_cloak" and such.

Next up: Complete Resources

[Ben]

I think the Text upload is decent... But from other forums..Ive noticed alot of the people downloading the scripts have insane stupid question about some of the more complex scripts (Nicks TBS, ZTBS, Near Fantasticas Squad Based Battle system...not to mention a bauldurs gate Battle system in dev.... these are popular scripts and also confusing to the nubcakes)

Perhaps one forum for FAQs about scripts, and a CR section devoted to it as well? but that may be redundant...just throwing that out there...


Having a forum also helps for Debugging scripts in development.


just saying

[Osmose]

Originally posted by lucas_irineu
When 3.0 will be released?

Good question.

It'll get released when it's done enough to warrant releasing. Rather, it'll be done when I'm finished with the list I posted and enough people have tested it to prove that it's not broken anywhere important. I originally estimated that it would take me until the end of the summer, but I'm willing to add some more time onto that, especially with college and all. But I'll try to do as much as I can.

[Osmose]

Been working HARD on the Complete Resources. I'll wait until it's done to show what's changed.

[Osmose]

It's been nearly a week since I started working on the new CR and all I can say is...

I ****ing HATE CSS MORE THAN ANYTHING ELSE IN THE ENTIRE ****ing WORLD CSS NEVER DOES ANYTHING I TELL IT TO DO AND IT ALWAYS FUCKS UP **** AND NO MATTER WHAT I DO I ALWAYS SPEND HOURS TRYING TO GET SOMETHING TO LOOK RIGHT BECAUSE CSS IS BY FAR ONE OF THE SHITTIEST THINGS IN THE ENTIRE WORLD AND I WISH I HAD A COMPLETE CR TO SHOW YOU BUT ****ing CSS HAS HELD ME UP FOR A CUMULATIVE 3 DAYS.

To make up for it:
Everything's all shiny, and it loads quick!
Previewing a Midi before downloading it. These popups are all in-browser. You never reload the page while using the CR. It's the same effect the Super Smash Brawl site uses for viewing pictures (Free script that they took, so no I'm not stealing it. )
Even uploading resources will occur on the same page.

All of the new stuff I'm adding in will require Javascript, so for our javascript-disabled friends I'll be updating the old interface to work with the new system. Oh yeah, the design isn't quite final - I don't really have any intention of changing it, but it's just a candidate.

Once I get this damn CSS to work properly.

EDIT: Remind me to murder the W3C for gimping tables specifically to force people to use divs instead... not that you even understand what that means.

[Razor]

I think more people should be looking at how awesome those screenshots are.