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ARCHIVE: Snarkpit v6 Feedback Thread
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 Re: ARCHIVE: Snarkpit v6 Feedback Thread
Posted by larchy on Wed May 20th at 7:52am 2009

That's what the icons are for.



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 Re: ARCHIVE: Snarkpit v6 Feedback Thread
Posted by larchy on Wed May 20th at 4:25pm 2009

There is now a favourites system.

Look for the little heart icon in the info for maps, articles and downloads. You can add and remove these items to and from your favourites list with a simple click.

Your list of favourite items will appear on the front control panel page, allowing you to keep track of your favourite content across the site.

The number of people who have added a submission as a favourite is shown amongst that item's info, and clicking the link will open a popup window listing each user.



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 Re: ARCHIVE: Snarkpit v6 Feedback Thread
Posted by Yak_Fighter on Wed May 20th at 8:03pm 2009

When clicking on my profile the default section that displays on the right is 'downloads' instead of 'maps', which is what I would prefer. Is there no way to choose which one is the default?



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 Re: ARCHIVE: Snarkpit v6 Feedback Thread
Posted by larchy on Wed May 20th at 8:12pm 2009

It defaults to whatever section has the most content, but I'll have a look into letting you override it.



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 Re: ARCHIVE: Snarkpit v6 Feedback Thread
Posted by tnkqwe on Wed May 27th at 2:09pm 2009

go-mod for half life is 1.0 is ready for playing,so the Pit should have a go-mod maps section


Never think about bad things!
TNKqwe:The New Killer qwe

I am Engineer - Play Free Online Games

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 Re: ARCHIVE: Snarkpit v6 Feedback Thread
Posted by Riven on Wed May 27th at 4:03pm 2009

I'll add it, but it doesn't have a personal icon?

-I'll use this time now to make a request...

I think for our maps section, people may not know what all the games listed are all about, or where to go find them. I think each game added to the database deserves an info page of some sort that has links to where it can be found and images of the game itself, as well as a section at the bottom showcasing some of the content we have for it in our database (like the randomly generating featured maps list).

Here's a simple idea of what I think the page could look like:



Imagine at the bottom there are links to a mix or articles, maps and downloads (instead of the featured maps smiley ). Once a game is selected on the left, the content at the bottom would reflect just that game's content. But if it's on the "Welcome to the Content Database" page, then it can be purely random content of any sort from any game. I imagine for a Game's Info page, there would be the Game's banner, then an almost article style layout. (you could use the same article paginating bbcode to allow for extra long descriptions if needed). Allow the admin making the game info page to upload images for that page and reference them. -You could add it to the "edit" page for games in the super admin cp.

Now, in order to link to it, I think people could find it by visiting any of these pages: (also note some of the other feature requests within the images)







-Similar links could be had at the top of the download and article pages.

Clicking on icons of a game like the ones boxed out on the images, would bring you directly to that game's info page section. BTW, the list on the left of the page would remain there regardless of which game is selected.

There's more to it, but I think you get the jist of it. smiley


Blog: www.playingarchitecture.net
LinkedIn: Eric Lancon
Twitter:@Riven202



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 Re: ARCHIVE: Snarkpit v6 Feedback Thread
Posted by Niborius on Wed May 27th at 7:04pm 2009

Quoting larchy
That's what the icons are for.

Oh, I didn't see those. Thanks
But when I am at the main forum page, there is no way I can see if a new post has been made but looking at the date and time.


Youtube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/c/Nibgames



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 Re: ARCHIVE: Snarkpit v6 Feedback Thread
Posted by Yak_Fighter on Fri May 29th at 6:45am 2009

Quoting Riven
I think for our maps section, people may not know what all the games listed are all about, or where to go find them. I think each game added to the database deserves an info page of some sort that has links to where it can be found and images of the game itself, as well as a section at the bottom showcasing some of the content we have for it in our database (like the randomly generating featured maps list).


I think this is a really good idea, especially if it were expanded to include things like links to quick start guides, console command lists, important editing files, level editing guides, bots, etc.

I recently got on this Quake 1 kick which involved getting a new client, a bunch of editing tools, bots, and a ton of deathmatch maps. In addition I had to dig around to find console commands and stuff like 'what's appropriate r_speeds for a Quake 1 map' or player dimensions and movement distances. This involved scouring thirty or so sites in a community I have no experience with, and it involved alot of broken links, archives, and webpages long lost. If this could have been found on one reliable page it would have been so much easier.



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 Re: ARCHIVE: Snarkpit v6 Feedback Thread
Posted by larchy on Fri May 29th at 7:08am 2009

More game/mod info would be excellent. I have (I think) a better idea of where to put it all though... I don't like that big long text list of all the games smiley Lemme work some stuff up.



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 Re: ARCHIVE: Snarkpit v6 Feedback Thread
Posted by larchy on Fri May 29th at 10:06am 2009

Take a look at http://www.snarkpit.net/index.php?s=maps&game=4

Notice the new 'game info' icon on the top left.

Clicky! smiley

smiley This new info pane will only appear if a game has a description - all the admin stuff is there to edit this info Riven smiley It's just on the normal edit game page.


I haven't missed the other little things you've pointed out... will add them as I go smiley


Edit:

I think instead of having a separate 'game' landing page it would be better just to have that inline infopane. It could be added to the articles and downloads sections in the same way, and the stats box info for "maps: x number, articles: x number, downloads: x number" etc could be links to the maps/articles/dl sections for that game.

At the moment I'm not sure how well will work for the dl/article sections though since all the existing content from the old system is just lumped together into "HL" or "HL2" games...

I mean... we could have a full complete page for each game with loads of bits of content from all the site sections randomly pulled together. I guess I just thought the way I've done it was a bit more elgant.

Maybe the info pane could be expanded to have a load of small thumbnails running along the bottom with random content?

ooo

/larchy gets busy



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 Re: ARCHIVE: Snarkpit v6 Feedback Thread
Posted by Riven on Sun May 31st at 5:51am 2009

ooh! -Shiny! I like that new info pane! I also checked out the new form fields for the edit games page, seems easy enough!

I really like the Game Info Pane A lot, and I think we should use it. I'll have to get busy one weekend filling out all the info for each game and find out what information could be standardized for fitting into that quick info pane you have appearing on the right-hand side. Because I believe in what Yak_Fighter was describing. -Places to go for command lists, and what the player sizes are and limitations. This is all info that we could include in that space, but for some games it could get pretty lengthy, and push everything down quite a ways. -Would that technique look like tacky web-design? I'm no serious web-designer, but what do you think in your opinion?

So yea, I like the info-pane setup you made a lot, -really I do! -BUT... for the aforementioned reasons I don't think it would allow enough space for all the info to appear in a nice formatted way.

SOO....
Quoting larchy
I don't like that big long text list of all the games smiley Lemme work some stuff up.


Well frankly, I would like to see an actualized full list of all our games in the database. I mean, it's nice to see them in the dropdown list box when searching for maps, but if they were spaced apart and perhaps organized via engine type or mod (now I don't mean to re-organize our database to setup which games are mods of others or anything like that because I know you went out of your way to consolidate them, and I like how they are all listed as games now) But a page kinda like the one I shop'd-up real quick with maybe a tree-style format to the games (and a little bit more space between lines) would make it easy to understand how these games fit into the Half-Life universe (along side the information displayed on that page).

I imagine the game selected would get highlighted and have double arrows pointing to the right to show you that's the game info you're currently viewing. I also wanted to use the "Welcome to the SnarkPit Content Database" page as a chance to explain our mission statement (without having to view a FAQ page. BTW: -I think FAQ pages should be for explaining common difficulties people come across when using the site, or wondering why things are setup the way they are...) I could use the "Welcome to" page to not only explain ourselves, but also point users to the nav links at the top and explain the site features and tools. Of course, the "Welcome to the SnarkPit Content Database" page doesn't have to say that exactly -that was a quick title idea... If people think it might become important enough, it could get it's own nav link at the top along the lines of "Game Info" or "All Content" or simply "Games". Maybe I'm getting a little ahead of myself here, but I like the idea of the user being able to see a fully organized list of our games -A Lot.

-Some other notes: The new "ABC" for filters, is nice. I must admit though, at first I didn't understand how to use them. Maybe I'm just ignorant when it comes to this, but now I realize. They are all highlighted by default, and as you grey them out, they get "filtered out" of the list. -Genius, except I'm not one apparently, cause it took me a little playing with it to figure it out. Now I understand the simplicity of it for quick filtering for return users. But If others agree with me I think some ways to make it more obvious for someone like me, you could add green and red 'lights' or colored green and red hues of the letters, or checkmarks and X's. Somehow, I need to know that it was filtering to begin with, and that those buttons are indeed for filtering. The reason I included the default checkmarks in my quick mock-up, is because people are used to them, and that's how I thought it might work. After using it, I like your method better, but I can only blame myself for not 'getting it' at first. -Just tell me I'm dumb, and ignore this comment -It won't hurt my feelings. smiley

Now, I understand that if you were to filter the games so that they could organize themselves dynamically on that game landing page in terms of games-mods, that's all the organization should be for. I still like the alphabetical layout for the drop-down lists that should stay like that. It doesn't need to be something that the user should be able to filter for or anything. It's just a technique for organizing them on the landing page, so it wouldn't need to be elaborate. -Perhaps (if you did make this landing page) the organization could be tacked-onto the existing database. All I'm saying is, if it's too much work, don't bother, because the organization wouldn't be seen anywhere else on the site.

A couple of other feature requests (that I think might have been already mentioned) To make it easy on users, -everywhere a game name appears, I want to see that game's icon. -This means for all drop-down lists (just like the map's search lists) and even the map, download and article edit pages. I want users to be able to associate the icons with the game names, because some users are familiar with just the icons before realizing the game name) -Also, those dropdown lists (on the map, article, and download edit pages) should be alphabetically organized as well.

-Oh, one more thing, -About the game banners: Whatever we decide to do about having an info pane or entire info page (or both), I want to be able to use the same game banner image that's used for the Map's featured game's list for the banner image for game info. Perhaps, (if it's too big for some places) -You could either add code to resize it for say the info pane, or add another upload box that asks for a re-sized version of it (I don't mind resizing a second version before uploading). -Again, this is for the ease of user association. If I were a new user to forums or databases, I would have liked being able to find my content without a lot of reading. If I can click a couple of icons or simply find my content without having to read anything, the better. -And if those same images start to appear in different places, I can freely (unconsciously) associate what they are and only worry about 'Why they're there' in order to understand that particular site's layout all the more better. Doing that for fly-by-night guests, who are only visiting our site cause they heard we have some older maps for download, would help them get in and out quite easily. -Now this may seem like dooming us to guests only, I imagine those guests would return in the future knowing how easy it was to search through our database, then we may be able to attract them via our community posts and forums. But with that said, that's the ultimate goal -To make our database the easiest to understand and search. To be better than 40 pages of forum threads with different headlines (like most sites do) for their user-created content. I want to standardize the content and it's organization very well so that ANY user noob or veteran alike can enjoy our site along with its wealth of information! Those last few comments reflect this, and I'm sorry for posting such a huge wall of text. -It's a bad habit, and normally wards off most everyone except the one concerned...

So, yea, those are my thoughts. I hope I'm being more constructive here?


Blog: www.playingarchitecture.net
LinkedIn: Eric Lancon
Twitter:@Riven202



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 Re: ARCHIVE: Snarkpit v6 Feedback Thread
Posted by larchy on Sun May 31st at 6:17am 2009

Nah that all sounds great m8

There isn't anything stopping us having a larger game info page at all... I was actually thinking we could have a game landing page that looked something along the lines of this:

http://gameservers.multiplay.co.uk/game-servers/

Obviously each info pane image would easily fit into that sort of setup! Clicking a game would then take you to a full info page for that game.

Yes image resizing is nps whatsoever, although would have to settle on some sort of dimension ratio just to lay the content out correctly.

As for the text we could have a short description/overview that would appear in the info pane and as an introduction on each game's full page. We could then have a longer section of text that only appears on the full page, with any other additional info that was needed.

Filter icons? Yeah... if you hover over them the tooltips should make it clear what they do, but maybe I need to think of some different icons.



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 Re: ARCHIVE: Snarkpit v6 Feedback Thread
Posted by Riven on Sun May 31st at 6:48am 2009

Quoting larchy
As for the text we could have a short description/overview that would appear in the info pane and as an introduction on each game's full page. We could then have a longer section of text that only appears on the full page, with any other additional info that was needed.

AH, ok, I follow ya now! I'm up for that Idea. Intro text that didn't pass so many characters (in order to fit in-frame for the pop-up info pane) in the form field box.

Alright, yea, I like their semi-icon layout (with the cool gradient roll-over). That makes a lot of sense. And I noticed they have a nice alphabetical text list below that. -sweet! Although, I think we could resolve that even more, by simply lining those games into a list format (with perhaps columns, in order to fill the page width) I imagine a layout reflecting our links page. -In order to organize it better. -And on top of those banners (perhaps included) the icons for that game should appear! -woo, yea! -Now THAT would be ease of user association! hehe, ok ok. smiley

-Ok, now, about that list I owed ya {nvm, hl2 joke}. Even though what you described and what I just wrote above sound great, I keep returning to the list. I think of the list of games (along with their mini-banners and icons) as acting like tabs. If Instead of having the landing page separate from the info (since the info for all intents and purposes is static for users), the tree-layout (denoting games and mods) would act as a nice way to see differences of info from game to game. I imagine the user will be switching from info page to info page, and keeping the list of games as tabs for each info page makes it easy on the user to do that (much like how you setup tabs for the control panel). Does that make sense? -And does it make any sense for web-design?


Blog: www.playingarchitecture.net
LinkedIn: Eric Lancon
Twitter:@Riven202



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 Re: ARCHIVE: Snarkpit v6 Feedback Thread
Posted by larchy on Sun May 31st at 6:58am 2009

Not sure I'm understanding you fully... you mean have a tab for each game? Like the CP tabs?

Could do... but that is a lot of tabs.


Don't have to have the fancy rollovers like on that multiplay page, I just like the layout with the image for each game tbh. Could make it more like the links page with a bit of text... dunno, might seem a bit cluttered if you just want a page with a long listing of every game.



Edit:

I think one of the things making me wary of having a page with a long list of games like on your mock-up page is that we had that on the first version of the 'new' site last year and it got totally ripped with people saying it looked horrible and was crap smiley People on that twhl thread were very harsh about it, not that I could understand why as I thought it was just an easy way of laying out the pre-restructured archaic mods/games database tables.



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 Re: ARCHIVE: Snarkpit v6 Feedback Thread
Posted by Riven on Sun May 31st at 7:04am 2009

Quoting larchy
Could make it more like the links page with a bit of text...

Well, instead of a brief amount of text, just have the game name next to it. Any yea, just like the links page but lined up in one list like I shopped in my first image.

And by tabs I mean, in principle. No, I don't want them lined up like the cp (at the top that is) I mean, when you have a game selected, that slot for that game looks like (visually) it is connected to that info page, as if they were tabs in a file bin. But essentially, they would act like tabs, because they appear on the side 'bar' per-say as a forever hugging nav bar (when looking through the games page only)

[EDIT]:
Quoting larchy
dunno, might seem a bit cluttered if you just want a page with a long listing of every game.

Well, (btw, I just read your last couple of lines) Yea, we did get torn up about that. But now that we have a map's landing page with drop down lists, all that stays in-tact, and appeases the old masses familiar to the old system. -Maybe this is my way of trying to resurrect your old list of games, cause I really like that a lot. -maybe Im alone in this regard, but if you think of it as an addition and not the main way (or only) way for users to search game info or content, then I think it a splendid method for showing off our extensive database.


Blog: www.playingarchitecture.net
LinkedIn: Eric Lancon
Twitter:@Riven202



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 Re: ARCHIVE: Snarkpit v6 Feedback Thread
Posted by larchy on Sun May 31st at 7:09am 2009

You could... say have a load of tabs running down the side, each with a game icon. Would present an issue for any games without an icon, and would use up a bit of space on each page...

I dunno, you could do it that way, but wouldn't a dropdown list just be better, same as on the maps page?

Have a think... I'm off out now, back in tonight, will have a further think about things then smiley



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 Re: ARCHIVE: Snarkpit v6 Feedback Thread
Posted by Riven on Sun May 31st at 7:15am 2009

Ok, Ill think about it some more. I need to get to bed anyways. I'll Shop something up tomorrow... Peace.




Blog: www.playingarchitecture.net
LinkedIn: Eric Lancon
Twitter:@Riven202



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 Re: ARCHIVE: Snarkpit v6 Feedback Thread
Posted by RedWood on Tue Jun 2nd at 1:24am 2009

Is there a way to get a gif to work as an avatar? It uploaded but it doesn't play.


Reality has become a commodity.



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 Re: ARCHIVE: Snarkpit v6 Feedback Thread
Posted by Niborius on Wed Jun 3rd at 5:46am 2009

Quoting RedWood
Is there a way to get a gif to work as an avatar? It uploaded but it doesn't play.

Did you try ctrl + F5 after uploading the gif?


Youtube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/c/Nibgames



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 Re: ARCHIVE: Snarkpit v6 Feedback Thread
Posted by larchy on Wed Jun 3rd at 7:04am 2009

Animated gifs are reprocessed and will not work.




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