Mahz's Dev Journal

[Cyndyr]

I noticed a trend with these errors. It tends to be when switching pages and the Guild doesn't register the new link compared to the old one. To fix it, I've double or tripled clicked and it seems to have worked for the most part thus far.

[Techspert]

@Cynder

Double clicking only seems to help at times. I noticed it as well.

[Mahz]

Wow, yeah one of the servers was spinning at 100% CPU again. Didn't have time to look today since I've been with family but I'll look tomorrow.

Can't think of what it could be. I don't see how it could be the image upload system since the images are just uploaded to Amazon. The big change I made was a big platform version upgrade a few days ago.

Until then I'll reboot the server every once in a while.

[Genkai]

Not in the past. I could build that feature quickly until I can build a better system if yall think it'd be nice.

@Mahz

I must have been imagining things. Weird...but yeah, I wouldn't mind giving co-GMs some power since when making/editing long information based posts (for example in the OOC), I feel both GMs should be able to tweak accordingly without waiting for one to be around to make changes. I know you want to do more with the tabs and other perks so it's nothing something immediate but it's something I guess I thought we had already. *laughs a little*

[Ellri]

aye, even editing first posts in each tab would be excellent.

[Cyndyr]

I have two recommendations myself that I would love to see implemented at some point.

One, I would like to add the opportunity to accept or deny friend requests instead of just simply ending up on someone's list (or at least get a notification) as this ruins the "Invisible" feature entirely. Secondly, I think notifying people when you respond to their visitor messages would be absolutely rad. Let me just say that this has caused quite a few miscommunications in the past.

[NuttsnBolts]

But... that will make stalking harder.

On another note, the ability to filter the Latest Checks and Latest Roleplays on the main page side menu with the Tag Systrm would be great. Seeing five 1x1 checks or a Free High School RP may not be things I'm after, but if it can be filtered down to any Casual and Advance RPs, or a particular Genre would greatly help with spotting what's new and to your personal taste.

[Mahz]

I have two recommendations myself that I would love to see implemented at some point.

One, I would like to add the opportunity to accept or deny friend requests instead of just simply ending up on someone's list (or at least get a notification) as this ruins the "Invisible" feature entirely. Secondly, I think notifying people when you respond to their visitor messages would be absolutely rad. Let me just say that this has caused quite a few miscommunications in the past.

@Cynder

Thanks. Both of these features are pretty necessary.

Maybe the simplest iteration for the friendlist might be to allow you to set each friend as "visible to" or "invisible to". That way if you're in invisible mode, only your "visible to" friends can see you.

I'll also create a formal issue for the visitor-message-reply notifications. I forgot that I hadn't finished that.

Also reminds me to fix the invisible-mode system so that instead of saying "invisible" it shows something like "last seen within 24 hrs, 1 week, 1 month, more than 1 month", etc. Right now it's way too hostile to not even ballpark when you were online last.

- github.com/danneu/guild/issues/110
- github.com/danneu/guild/issues/111
- github.com/danneu/guild/issues/112

[Mahz]

aye, even editing first posts in each tab would be excellent.

@Ellri

Hmm, @Genkai @Ellri, here's the simplest implementation I can think of for the "0th post system":

When you create a roleplay, the system also creates a first placeholder post in the other tabs. All GMs/coGMs can edit that first post.

Made an issue for it as a reminder-to-self: github.com/danneu/guild/issues/113

[Mahz]

My dicerolling friends, I've written a quick dice syntax parser (e.g. 2d6-4+1d8).

You can test it here: jsfiddle.net/danneu/u670tu3s/3



Once it looks good, I can build a quick dice system.

[Celaira]

@Mahz This isn't a request for a feature it's more of a question. A long, long while back I asked if CSS/HTML in posts could be a thing. You said no because it could break the forum (totally fine, by the way). I've seen some other forum software pull this off though, and was wondering what the difference was. Aside from code, obviously (one of the forums was based off of the IPB software which had this feature implemented. MyBB can also do it, but I haven't figured it out). I was wondering exactly how/what it would break, mostly. Like, how detrimental would it be?

Also, thank you for all your hard work <3

[LegendBegins]

@Celaira

Allowing users to write code adds vulnerability to the forum, creates strain on the server, allows malicious users to infect legitimate ones, allows people to slow the server with their code, and adds heaps of others code related issues. It's a fun idea in concept, but in practice, rarely pans out without being incredibly limited.

[Mahz]

@Mahz This isn't a request for a feature it's more of a question. A long, long while back I asked if CSS/HTML in posts could be a thing. You said no because it could break the forum (totally fine, by the way). I've seen some other forum software pull this off though, and was wondering what the difference was. Aside from code, obviously (one of the forums was based off of the IPB software which had this feature implemented. MyBB can also do it, but I haven't figured it out). I was wondering exactly how/what it would break, mostly. Like, how detrimental would it be?

Also, thank you for all your hard work <3

@Celaira

Those forums are basically doing the equivalent of implementing BBCode that looks like HTML and then transforming (sanitizing) it into HTML that's unlikely to break the forum or introduce security vulnerabilities.

After all, the only reason forums use BBCode syntax over HTML syntax is that BBCode is a little nicer to read/write. e.g. [ @Mahz] vs <quote user="Mahz">.

The benefit of supporting a safe subset of HTML is, as you probably know since you're asking, that it gives people (power users) more formatting control and it's an existing language.

However, when I was making a decision on which markup language to support on the Guild, I went with BBCode since I figured it would be the most convenient for most people.

Like pretty much every aspect of the Guild, it was simply a compromise in the interest of getting something working quickly with the largest impact per user.

Improving the Guild's editor is definitely something I want to do. It just takes some solid uninterrupted work. I'd love to introduce one of those polished editors like froala.com/wysiwyg-editor. Hopefully it's something I can do soon because I find writing on the Guild very painful from my smartphone.

[Ellri]

@Mahz one other thing that'd be helpful...

Adding a few more RP tags.

We have that old suggestions thread, but its been dead for quite a few months due to nothing happening on the front, so while it has plenty of ideas, it may be somewhat outdated. To decide what tags would be best to add, it might be wise to reopen it and get more responses in.

In there (we believe) you'll also find the discussion we had on a "split" tag system with both official and community tags. If its not there, then its earlier in this thread.

[Cyndyr]

one other thing that'd be helpful...

Adding a few more RP tags.

We have that old suggestions thread, but its been dead for quite a few months due to nothing happening on the front, so while it has plenty of ideas, it may be somewhat outdated. To decide what tags would be best to add, it might be wise to reopen it and get more responses.

@Ellri

While this is brought up, I'd like to say that I think this site suffers horribly from certain genre Roleplays (horror comes to mind) and I do think that it might be related to the lack of tags in regards to that.

[Celaira]

@Mahz@LegendBegins

Thank you both for your answers, I really appreciate it! Also, that editor looks really cool! :D

[Mahz]

@Ellri Agreed. I need to give the tag system some tender loving care.

I'd also like to move to a better UI. For example, something like select2.github.io/examples.html#multiple.

Thanks for the reminder, made an issue: github.com/danneu/guild/issues/117

[Ellri]

There's just far too many good ideas out there to cover them all, but a few now and then will slowly chew the list down.

Chew it down sufficiently, and people will help you out... They'll be nice fill it back up. Practical, eh @Mahz?

One other thing... is it possible to rename that "like" function to "approve"?

[Mahz]

@Ellri roleplayerguild.com/posts/3612443

[Shienvien]

Improving the Guild's editor is definitely something I want to do. It just takes some solid uninterrupted work. I'd love to introduce one of those polished editors like froala.com/wysiwyg-editor. Hopefully it's something I can do soon because I find writing on the Guild very painful from my smartphone.

@Mahz

It actually shows a white box on my cell phone in place of the demo... Works on PC.

Also, keeping the code editor (and being able to switch preference, as well as toggle while writing) is a must. All WYSIWYG I've ever seen will at some point consistently misinterpret something or another and keep happily breaking it. I generally avoid anything WYSIWYG as long as possible.
(I've also seen more pain and frustration from Office-type programs than general fragmentation faults, annotation auto-magic not working and fixing someone else's undocumented messes of noodle-soup code combined. That should be fairly telling...)

On another note, the selection for sorting what folder your PMs should go on is white. Could you perhaps style it not white?