Mahz's Dev Journal

[ArenaSnow]

Can't wait to see bulk management of PM's... I've given up going through them individually :P

Unless that function is somewhere and I just lost a few awareness brain cells...

[Ellri]

Its not there yet, @ArenaSnow

[NuttsnBolts]

Got a few general enquiries for the new PM management system that I've been thinking about as I know that some of these questions and things may come up.

• When a thread is moved to the trash pile and eventually given the option to delete.
  - What will happen to that thread on the other person's end? Will it be as if it is hidden on the deleted end, but still visible on the other end?
  - If this is the case, what would happen if the second person was to reply? (I'm assuming it still remains open to replies) Would the thread be revived back into the inbox?
  - If it doesn't remain open, I do think that would be weird as you could be having a conversation with someone and a deleted thread would signal a rather abrupt end to the conversation.
• With the folders, how necessary is the need for creating custom folders. Would another and possibly easier option is to have a limited number (eg 10) of folders and then give the ability to just change the title of everything aside from Trash, Inbox and Archive. It would also prevent people from going through and creating 50 different folders and force people to manage their messages better. We have a limited number of boards on the forum that we have to work with so I don't see why that same logic can't be applied to PMs.

[Ellri]

yes, a limited number of nameable folders with no special functions in addition to the default inbox & trash would be good.

We feel that (when the system is implemented) deleted threads should show up the same way locked topics do in the forums. Visible, but not possible to reply to.

[Genkai]

Will we be able to select multiple PMs in the future for bulk migration? Probably 99% of my PMs will be put into "trash" because they're old dead ends with people who I don't interact with anymore (plotting didn't go anywhere, for example). It's a pain to go through the numerous steps to move a PM, and I'm sure there are many in my boat, who need to clear out a lot of their accumulated PMs. I don't need the feature now but I'm sure some check-box on each PM would be really welcomed at some point. If it's planned, I can wait to mass delete/move PMs but if not I'll just take a few hours aside since that's about what it'll take me haha. But I am glad you're giving PM Systems some attention, thanks!

[LegendBegins]

@Genkai
Yes, that is a planned feature for PMs.

[Genkai]

@LegendBegins Thanks, I figured but I wanted to double check. ^^

[Shienvien]

Re: Trash conversations not being open to replies: What of conversations with n>2 people where one person might want to drop out, but the remaining n-1 wish to continue talking?

[BBeast]

@Shienvien, That is a good point. My suggestion is that putting PM's in the Trash folder should function similarly to leaving a conversation, so you won't get new notifications from it, and only when all people have left that conversation would the PM go into whatever state we put data we don't want anymore (after an appropriate delay, of course).

[NuttsnBolts]

Re: Trash conversations not being open to replies: What of conversations with n>2 people where one person might want to drop out, but the remaining n-1 wish to continue talking?

@Shienvien

Maybe it stops updating for the one that dropped and prevents replies from being submitted? Like a white list feature that you have oped out of.

[Ellri]

We're thinking that when such a system is coded, it would naturally also include the complex function of adding people to conversations.
Even that would need two varieties... One for simply adding them from that point onwards, another for letting them see what came before.

A tough nut to crack, wethinks.

[Mahz]

Got a few general enquiries for the new PM management system that I've been thinking about as I know that some of these questions and things may come up.

• When a thread is moved to the trash pile and eventually given the option to delete.
  - What will happen to that thread on the other person's end? Will it be as if it is hidden on the deleted end, but still visible on the other end?
  - If this is the case, what would happen if the second person was to reply? (I'm assuming it still remains open to replies) Would the thread be revived back into the inbox?
  - If it doesn't remain open, I do think that would be weird as you could be having a conversation with someone and a deleted thread would signal a rather abrupt end to the conversation.
• With the folders, how necessary is the need for creating custom folders. Would another and possibly easier option is to have a limited number (eg 10) of folders and then give the ability to just change the title of everything aside from Trash, Inbox and Archive. It would also prevent people from going through and creating 50 different folders and force people to manage their messages better. We have a limited number of boards on the forum that we have to work with so I don't see why that same logic can't be applied to PMs.

@NuttsnBolts

About trashed convos:

>What will happen to that thread on the other person's end? Will it be as if it is hidden on the deleted end, but still visible on the other end? If this is the case, what would happen if the second person was to reply? (I'm assuming it still remains open to replies) Would the thread be revived back into the inbox? If it doesn't remain open, I do think that would be weird as you could be having a conversation with someone and a deleted thread would signal a rather abrupt end to the conversation.

I'm not sure, yet. On one hand, deletion seems like it's purely a personal organization concept so I don't like the idea of necessarily broadcasting "NuttsnBolts deleted this convo". But on the other hand, I don't like the idea of people getting silently ignored when they reply to a convo.

So far it might make most sense to display something like "NuttsnBolts has left the convo" or something.

There are other features I should be focusing on. This one always seems to waste a lot of my brain cycles for what frankly amounts to a rather niche use-case.

>custom folders

I like the idea of having some built-in folders that address the 90% use-case (Inbox | Starred | Archive | Trash) and then allowing customization beyond that. Custom folders are just more complicated.

Similarly, I like the idea of having built-in roleplay tabs (IC | OOC | Chars [Optional] | Chat [Optional] | Dice [Optional]) and then allowing customize beyond that. Customization is the harder engineering feat, of course.

That said, the PM system is something I want to focus more energy towards since about 50% (crazy!) of the Guild's activity is over PMs. I'd like to work out the bugs with the current folder system and then incrementally improve PMs altogether. For example, the convos list really needs real pagination, not [First Page] / [Next Page].

[Mahz]

on my private PMs it won't let me get into my folders when a click on it the page just refreshes

@DerpyDragonFire

Can you elaborate?

Looking into the half-baked folder system some more right now.

[Ellri]

we're guessing (semi)wildly when we suspect that much of the reason for those 50% comes from people wanting to write 1x1's not restricted by the guild's maturity rules...

[Mahz]

Update: Improved pagination when viewing your list of convos:



This is the sort of pagination I'd like to have all over the Guild, but it takes some thought to do performantly / correctly.

Lemme know if it's buggy.

[Ellri]

Looks like it works well to us.

[ArenaSnow]

How about a "Home page" for the PM boxes? For example, should you end up putting your main convo's in starred and decide you simply want to land there every time and check the inbox for any new ones.

[SgtEasy]

Uh, question. Is there a way to delete your posts? For example, if I was to post in the wrong section, is there a way to delete that or do I just edit it and say Ignore?

[NuttsnBolts]

Uh, question. Is there a way to delete your posts? For example, if I was to post in the wrong section, is there a way to delete that or do I just edit it and say Ignore?

@SgtEasy

PM a mod (Roo is online at the moment). They can delete it for ya

[Darkmatter]

@Mahz
It has been brought to the chat's attention that the Guild's color scheme very very closely resembles that of a certain website often visited in Incognito Mode.

Thank you for this service bulletin @SgtEasy