Mahz's Dev Journal

[Captain Jordan]

Etherpad is great. @Mahz did you hear it's now in Sandstorm.io?

@Captain Jordan

Haha that's how I heard about it. Until then I'd only heard of EtherPad from people on the Guild using it off-site. I assumed it was some proprietary but freemium SaaS. When I saw it on Sandstorm (well, which I saw on HN), it blew my mind that it is open-source with a simple API. I could immediately see how I'd integrate it after skimming through its docs. Has session support and everything to integrate into the guild's system.

@Mahz

Mahz are you telling me you could implement a multi-person Etherpad into the actual RPGuild website

@Mercenary Lord

I think he is

@BBeast

It's pretty fantastic, considering the only other RP-centric system I know of (Nova, formerly SMS) has a post collaboration system that is functionally the same as passing a word processing document back and forth. Unfortunately, the main dev of said system seems violently opposed to incorporating third-party libraries or extending to allow them, so the Guild will probably remain alone in this feature if it gets implemented. Although, @Mahz, I can't guarantee I won't steal this idea for other BB software. ;)

[Genkai]

@LegendBegins and @Mahz if you/general public do prefer it at the bottom, that's cool with me. I just thought not scrolling to the bottom may save people some trouble. Though now that we've got it implemented, will we in time, be able to see "Last Seen" as what thread or page they're looking at, as opposed to just being online? And a quick question about the Etherpad, will GMs be able to turn it on/off at will? I think the last time the site tried to have a live feed of people posting (or I'm making things up because I'm old and tired right now?) it created a ton of lag. If there are say 50 Etherpads in use (which is a low number compared to the hundreds of active RPs going on) wouldn't things begin to get glitchy or slow? It's a cool concept for quick chit chat but I'd rather not risk any lagging page loads or server overload. If it won't, I say go for it. :3

[Mahz]

@LegendBegins and @Mahz if you/general public do prefer it at the bottom, that's cool with me. I just thought not scrolling to the bottom may save people some trouble. Though now that we've got it implemented, will we in time, be able to see "Last Seen" as what thread or page they're looking at, as opposed to just being online? And a quick question about the Etherpad, will GMs be able to turn it on/off at will? I think the last time the site tried to have a live feed of people posting (or I'm making things up because I'm old and tired right now?) it created a ton of lag. If there are say 50 Etherpads in use (which is a low number compared to the hundreds of active RPs going on) wouldn't things begin to get glitchy or slow? It's a cool concept for quick chit chat but I'd rather not risk any lagging page loads or server overload. If it won't, I say go for it. :3

@Genkai

- I put the viewer list on the top and bottom. That way you actually see it. I think it's too fun of a feature to tuck away, although I will have to consider ensuring it's not too annoying when a forum has many viewers. - The new viewer system is pretty much the start of what will be the "Latest Activity" system. Right now it just supports the activities of viewing a forum and viewing a topic. I'll surely extend it with more. - Yeah, the EtherPad tab should be opt-in on the GM's part. EtherPad is definitely not something most roleplays will want or need, but it'll be there for the groups that want it. It also shouldn't be bound to roleplays alone. For example, you should be able to create a pad with some selected friends if you want to.

[ML]

For no real reason except curiousity, @Mahz, what is the status on a potential facelift for the guild? I know it's completely unneeded, but I just like to derp around with the idea

[Captain Jordan]

@Mahz, I noticed the ↑ Top link is actually a full-width div. I just mention this because sometimes I click under the posts to re-focus the window, and found myself launched up to the top of the page. It might be better for the bottom of topics to be more compacted by reducing the click area of the ↑ Top link to a smaller space (or to the text itself), and perhaps moving some other elements in the center space to the right of it.

[Mahz]

For no real reason except curiousity, @Mahz, what is the status on a potential facelift for the guild? I know it's completely unneeded, but I just like to derp around with the idea

@Mercenary Lord

I'd only be able to pull off an ambitious facelift if an entire cohesive design was entirely stubbed out for me to just copy/implement. Or if I just chimped the cross-product of multiple designs that we liked. But in the short run, I think we'd get better bang for the buck making some incremental improvements to the current theme. For one, the shades of grays don't match. Help.

[Mahz]

@Mahz, I noticed the ↑ Top link is actually a full-width div. I just mention this because sometimes I click under the posts to re-focus the window, and found myself launched up to the top of the page. It might be better for the bottom of topics to be more compacted by reducing the click area of the ↑ Top link to a smaller space (or to the text itself), and perhaps moving some other elements in the center space to the right of it.

@Captain Jordan

Nice catch. I meant to put the link inside of a <div>, not make the link itself span the width. #willfix

[ML]

For no real reason except curiousity, @Mahz, what is the status on a potential facelift for the guild? I know it's completely unneeded, but I just like to derp around with the idea

@Mercenary Lord

I'd only be able to pull off an ambitious facelift if an entire cohesive design was entirely stubbed out for me to just copy/implement. Or if I just chimped the cross-product of multiple designs that we liked. But in the short run, I think we'd get better bang for the buck making some incremental improvements to the current theme. For one, the shades of grays don't match. Help.

@Mahz

By this, do you mean like, a design for the post box, and another design for the post button, and another design for the logo, each one premade? First of all, if we're making adjustments, I think the white of the post box could be reduced. It's kind of a glaring outlier in an otherwise nice gray theme Second, inline text is kind of hard on the eyes too but idk how to make that better

[Mahz]

@Mercenary Lord: Yeah, those are easy issues for me to fix. #willfix

[Mahz]

Alright, darkened and tweaked the color of some components.

[Hank]

The reply box looks infinitely better now, thanks. EDIT #1: I don't know if it's been mentioned yet (not by the looks of it?) but mentions aren't creating notifications. Or at least they weren't yesterday. Being quoted, however, does create a notification. EDIT #2: I also noticed just now that the viewer list at the bottom of the page (sometimes) doesn't update immediately when you enter a thread to include oneself. Considering this is, as a bug, totally negligible since you really ought to know that you're looking at a thread when... you're... looking at it, you can ignore it, but I thought I'd mention it anyway. Might be a sign of the viewer list not updating as fast as you'd like.

[Ellri]

Things are slowly, but steadily gettin' better and better... Nice signature, Hank...

Please keep in mind that the Guild is Mahz's full time job and any suggestions and requests you have must be addressed by him immediately. If not, complain vocally.

@Hank

[Hank]

I'm the eternal rebel.

[Hank]

Minor gripe: profile URLs no longer contain our user ID? Damn you, Mahz. How am I supposed to boast about being the 14th registered user now? Minor suggestion: make the notification counter (not the bell icon itself) a different colour. Something brighter. Blue, perhaps? _{yes i'm taking a page from facebook's design ethos, sue me}

[Captain Jordan]

Minor gripe: profile URLs no longer contain our user ID? Damn you, Mahz. How am I supposed to boast about being the 14th registered user now? Minor suggestion: make the notification counter (not the bell icon itself) a different colour. Something brighter. Blue, perhaps? _{yes i'm taking a page from facebook's design ethos, sue me}

@Hank

Gold or red would look better, IMHO.

[MissCapnCrunch]

Minor gripe: profile URLs no longer contain our user ID? Damn you, Mahz. How am I supposed to boast about being the 14th registered user now? Minor suggestion: make the notification counter (not the bell icon itself) a different colour. Something brighter. Blue, perhaps? _{yes i'm taking a page from facebook's design ethos, sue me}

@Hank

Gold or red would look better, IMHO.

@Captain Jordan

Agreed. The gold that is used on other things on the site would look GREAT!

[Hank]

The exact colour doesn't really matter to me. I only mentioned blue because it's used sparsely in the Guild's colour scheme (reply and preview buttons, notably) and, as such, stands out more. Facebook does the same thing with red, which is used exclusively for notifications. ... so red is probably a better choice. What am I saying?

[Captain Jordan]

The exact colour doesn't really matter to me. I only mentioned blue because it's used sparsely in the Guild's colour scheme (reply and preview buttons, notably) and, as such, stands out more. Facebook does the same thing with red, which is used exclusively for notifications. ... so red is probably a better choice. What am I saying?

@Hank

You've come to see the light. Embrace it. Relish in it. You are home.

[booksmusicanime]

Hey Mahz I have a question. Will you be readding in the youtube video link format?

[Mahz]

Hey Mahz I have a question. Will you be readding in the youtube video link format?

@booksmusicanime

Yeah, I'll be adding the youtube BBCode at some point.