Forum posts

Ok, PNG avatars are now supported.

They can be 10 times bigger than their JPEG counterparts, so if you're on a dial-up, you might like to turn avatars off (see your profile).

It was badly timed only in retrospect because I never had enough free time to take it all on.

Pfff, worst-timed todo ever.

It's coming...

Forgot about that, eh-heh.

Mmm, perplexing. Should be working now though. And you can search with a wildcard as well (*).

Remember me is supposed to log you in automatically when you revisit the site, as long as you were logged in when you left.

So the moment you click "logout", you will be forgotten.

I did actually start writing a PM system a while ago. Who wants one?

Nobody else can apply bans because I would do it at code level, since it won't be happening often. Of course.

It's no longer possible to post anonymously on these forums.

And we can also now track IPs, so a site-wide ban is just a click away. Muhahahahahahah.

And... smarter page links on forums and user page.

Yes Opera's a bit difficult about these things.

Try it now... I've done some tweaking.

Not sure if this shoutbox problem is related to the quotes thing, which I've just fixed... unless you habitually use at least one quote in every shout lucky.

What browser are you using???

Okay, that "strange" database error you got Seventh was probably down to the thread being out-of-sync because of a lost post or missing topic or something (due to the transfer). They sort themselves out generally. Tell me if you find one that doesn't.

The other errors will indeed most likely have been caused by quotes and other funny characters that are significant in SQL... magic_quotes_gpc was turned off on this server's PHP config. Gross. It's back on now.

If you still see errors please continue to report them and where they happened.

Can you paste the error and the URL of the thread you're trying to reply to when it next happens... thanks.

Muh! Okay, they're working now.

Yay, the old domain is back. People hitting links like cariad.co.za/twhl/whatever should now be smoothly redirected to twhl.co.za/whatever. Search engines should catch on eventually.

Spent the last 2 hours copying 65000 forum posts between servers in 5000-post chunks. Joy!

We finally have an easier domain name, and a faster server. That doesn't mean searching the forums will be much faster, but we're getting there.

When cariad.co.za comes back up the old address will forward everyone here, so brace yourselves.

Well thanks to the bad timing here, it could be a few more days before our payment reaches the office via horseback, and is processed.

Yes, it was an accident -- when I switched ISPs a few months ago and updated the registration details, I managed to miss the one address of 4 that actually mattered.

Thanks for the offer Zombie, but domain names are the one net-related thing that come cheap in this country.

Sorry guys.

I think if the completed maps category is broken into two, moderation can be done more in the way it is for forums. The difference is that maps require downloading and playing, so ministeve's vote idea would be a good thing for sub-mods to be able to do. Not to delete the map necessarily, just to have it moved or whatever. That way there's less load on the mods themselves.

I'll try to make browsing the MV easier as well, and give the mods more power over the comments

About who gets to be a sub-mod... I think it should be limited to a small number of people initially (say 10). Not the best mappers, just the regs who are mature and add something to the community. They can then vote to promote others as people leave, the site grows, etc.

I think the best thing to do is avoid giving people like that any attention at all. Just drop one of the mods an email so their flames can be got rid of, without comment, and they'll get bored pretty quickly.

Okay, so some changes need to be made

I gather the problems mainly concern three things: the Map Vault, new members, and the site's organisation from a newbie perspective.

I just want to consolidate here the issues that have been raised in other threads. Thanks to everyone who has contributed ideas - many of them are reposted here.

Map Vault
The MV has a bit of an identity crisis ATM. TWHL is a beginner's site, y'see, so a "completed maps" section doesn't imply world-class, and when all you know is how to make a box, your first "completed map" will be a small square room - loads of fun, but not in the same league as some of the stuff that's posted there.

So, the plan is for a second "completed maps" category to be be created, ("my first map!" or something - need ideas for a name, perhaps not as condescending), and anyone should be allowed to post their most modest creations there. To restrict other completed maps section to good maps only (within reason, they shouldn't have to be brilliant), simple moderation should suffice. I'm sure people will tend to put their stuff in the right place, given enough choice. (If this doesn't work, posting to the good category could become a privilege you gain after some time (see next topic))

So, then you don't have to wade through rubbish to find the good stuff, but if you're feeling kind you can have a look through the newbie maps and make some constructive comments. Happiness all round!

Of course, the voting system needs to be rewritten so that the obvious rules apply. I also like the idea of having ratings always come with a comment...

Members
Currently new members have no way of knowing at a glance who the more experienced ones are. MoP's ranks idea is a good one, but it would probably work best in a simplified form. Perhaps a system where members who've been here a while are voted into a kind of sub-mod position for being dedicated and helpful and knowledgable, by other members already in that position.

Being a sub-mod would get you a cool little badge or something displayed with your nick on the forums and such, and may eventually give you other privileges (like the MV one if that's necessary)

Site Organisation
I'll reorganise the front page to help get everyone to the right places faster. The 'Where to start' page can get a redesign as well.

The tutorials are broken up into three skill levels, but they probably need to be reconsidered now. They are already associated with keywords for searching, but perhaps the first thing on the 'Where to start' page needs to be 'How to use the search'.

I'll do something to make searching the forums a more obvious first step. They also need to be pruned a little and made faster (they've grown quickly!)

Well, thanks for reading (if you didn't just skip down here ). Please comment and add any ideas I might have left out.

Hey, don't give up just yet! We'll figure something out to keep everyone happy here on TWHL, even if it means switching to phpBB

I took the plunge and logged-in, because this topic took me aback a little.

I thought you guys were overreacting just a tad, but then I haven't been following the GMQ forum or anything else in any depth. I've been visiting now and then to make sure everything's still, well, running, but I guess I've been too far out of the loop to notice the community's atmosphere changing, as it must be.

It saddens me that people are basically giving up on the site because of this. I hope you guys will reconsider...

But bear in mind that this is a beginner's mapping site. Perhaps with its growth it's experiencing a kind of n00b overload. We can't solve this by kicking people out though. We want to grow, right? Just, in a nice way.

I'm following hazardous's thread here, and promise to make some of the changes you guys are looking for. Perhaps we can evolve the site to accomodate the old-timers as well as the newbies.

Cities have a neat way of maintaining their character even as they grow, so I'm sure that with some effort and cooperation we can clear up some of pollution that's built up and get TWHL back on track.

you could say that

I say no way! I'm far too lazy. Might be an idea to run regular site-wide polls though, like we did for the last contest. We could have topics like 'who has the best avatar' just for fun.

The read/unread thing just uses the time you last logged in as a reference. But I improved it (just now) so it won't say a thread is new if you were the last to post on that thread, but it'll still show stuff as new on a subsequent visit if it's posted while you were logged-in.

the host really doesn't handle uploads well. it has a habit of deleting them before they're done.

I've made some small changes to the upload script, which if nothing else will make the errors a little friendlier

Yep, it's a tricky one. I think the last part of the hostname is usually the beginning of the IP... anyway, we don't ban people here at TWHL, so I've never really tried it All I know is, there's no perfect way to ban anyone, ever, short of finding out where he lives and shooting him.

Sorry, it was a bug! Caused by my commenting out a line preventing people from submitting bad URLs. Ah, well. It's fixed now.

But, thanks to its otherwise working order, the script will have deleted the uploads when it thought you were providing a link. I'm afraid you'll have to upload them again. ducks

That goes for any maps edited in the last week or so (that weren't re-uploaded).

That would work fine, but I usually do this:

$clr = ($clr)?false:true;
....
<?=($clr)?'bgcolor=#888888':''?>

...just because of the way the tables are set up on most pages. Also I like to keep variables simple and print html directly.

Your past ideas

Hmmm. what does it say / do?

That is, 'cariad' does, not 'nerd'. But you probably guessed that.

Must have taken me 5 minutes to compose those two sentences, so ministive got there first

Hmm, yes, I think that page could do with a little refining. I'll change (and expand, probably) the forum bit, perhaps combine the member stuff... thought about having a 'random entity' and so on, but decided that might look a bit dumb

BTW, It's freaky that you called it 'member spot', because I originally had another table with the heading 'member spot' which was to be used to show off a random member's avatar!

Today!

Yes, and it means love, which is our surname. And he chose it

Well I actually didn't even think of that, but as it turns out, it has to be that way because it needs to be able to parse the text for things like highlighted words and so on. You can't do that with includes, because they're 'special language constructs'.

...which has just been fixed

Okay. Whew.

Seventh: sure...

Hmm... I'm going to fix up the journal system when I next devote an afternoon to programming. Not sure when that'll be, what with my busy schedule and all.

Probably pretty soon, actually.

Lol, the download 'script' is really messy, because I wrote it as an experiment. It's spread out across three pages, and it's just confusing.

You should just try making a PHP page like this:

<?session_start();$_SESSION['myvar']='test'?>

Then put a link on that page to another page, and on the new page, do this:

<?session_start();echo $_SESSION['myvar']?>

That's basically all that's involved in a login. Now you just have to think about the logic of it (e.g. set 'myvar' only if the password is right; instead of echoing 'myvar', echo something else that only logged-in people should see).

The other question: the tutorial info (like the author, keywords and so on) is stored in a database table. The actual tutorial texts are stored in .txt files which are read in by PHP. I did it like that just because it would be easier to work with than having the text in the database. And because it'd be more fun to code.

I think he's only vaguely aware of its existence, and I don't think he knows he's paying for it. Not that he'd mind if he did, but he probably wouldn't leap at the opportunity to start paying double for no obvious change in his own site's performance.

Heh, it's my dad's site, basically.

A conversion has been on the TODO for a while, but I haven't got round to working out what to do. It won't be easy to use this forum system with the tuts, y'see.

It looks pretty cool, but it's more than i would bother with. As he says, it's all modular, so you could use it on multiple sites easily.

Shh, that's all in the past now

Well, hmmm, maybe not the echos!

That reminds me, I just wrote echo-busting stuff for the forums now (oh yeah, and the links-at-the-bottom stuff), but I can't upload it until I've finished the edit-your-own-post thing...

(25/7)*4 = ?14

Or just a 'hall of shame' for runners-up.



I'm joking. Of course.

Yeah, questions!

Login stuff was the hardest to get to grips with, after ASP's basic session handling. But it's pretty simple really:
login: session_start(); $_SESSION['uid'] = $userid
all other pages: session_start(); if(isset($_SESSION['uid'])) { //user stuff }.

Tutorials / Vault / Journals: all just mysql stuff.

Classes: no. Most pages are very simple and linear. Even the forum system is just a bunch of functions. I can't even be bothered to try OO stuff for sites like this. Not worth the effort, IMO, but it's the way to go if you want to progress to non-web-based programming, or if you're planning some really advanced site.

This site really only has a header include, footer include, and content. With bluebox I experimented with having one 'driver' page that finds and displays content, so everything seems to run from index.php. Which is better depends on what you're doing, I guess.

Get the CHM manuals come from www.php.net and www.mysql.com. They're about the most useful files I've downloaded in years And experiment!

Optimization: not really. There's always more than one way to do something - just think about the different ways and you'll work out which one is more efficient.

Hope this helps you out a bit

[Seventh: Added a slash to make one of your italic tags closed ]

Lol, that's a funny one! It's on the 'emergency todo'.

Any more? Heh, this better not turn into a multi-page thread.

That's the issue. I did buy twhl.co.za a while ago to try out the host's 'pointers' system, but it turned out to be crap - if you typed twhl.co.za/?start=0 or something, it would take you to cariad.co.za/twhl/?, which I thought was pretty damn funny.

And to support another TLD I'd have to buy a second hosting package, and that's a bit tricky, with us living under a bridge and all...

BTW, .co.za's are a mere R50/yr ($7 / ?4). .nets are $25 or more...

hmmm, not a bad idea. On the todo for further investigation.