Maintenance 14/12/2012

edg3

So, things are busy changing all around you! (Dont Panic! Dont forget your Towel).

If I break stuff and seem to miss it (or if I dont fix it fast enough that you see it broken) let me know here.

New things
- Wiki is up (and spambot safe), you can register and begin editing and adding information as you please, there are already a few pages in place to give ideas as to how to organise things, you can find it here: http://makegamessa.com/wiki or from the new front page which should go live this evening.
- The portal should make things more accessible (hopefully)

Also, thanks to @tuism for the logo work he has done!

D3zmodos

Oooh a new look!

The "On Twitter" section extends past the white background on the right hand side, on the main/home page.
Also the search box is entirely invisible, I only knew it was there because of the "Go" button next to it.

edg3

Oh, dont worry about the current main page, it will be replaced with the new one soon :)

Tuism

Ooooooh :)

This is completely coincidental it seems, please check your email @edg3 ;)

edg3

Meh, so thousands of spam posts removed from the wiki and recaptcha added ( http://makegamessa.com/wiki )

bevis

thanks for the wide thing! :D

Tuism

So, we have to start over again? The wiki appears to be empty @_@ Will give you a new logo image, for that, too.

edg3

Shouldn't do. Seems I may have broken the wiki. Will fix it tomorrow

Edit: accidentally removed the main page in spam removal.

edg3

Yay, it seems there are no new spam posts/bots since yesterday, which were a daily occurrence. Time to wind down and work on other things, then will get back to the updates later.

EvanGreenwood

Near Full Screen Width for the win!

Tuism

Oh I see, here's the opposing opinion about width. Er, I like narrower, it's easier to read wallsoftexts like that...
It's not as awesome for massive pics though.

Denzil

@Tuism I have to agree with you on this one. It makes me feel as though the page didn't load successfully.

Karuji

Humans prefer reading narrow columns, though we read faster when it is wider. Not sure what the upper width on that is since the article was about newspapers. Though I'll throw my voice in the preferred it narrow column.

Also I'm not a fan of the drop shadow under the header. In some pages it gets cut of in weird place and it feels like it diminishes what is otherwise a really clean aesthetic.

edg3

Also I'm not a fan of the drop shadow under the header. In some pages it gets cut of in weird place and it feels like it diminishes what is otherwise a really clean aesthetic.

It is on the todo list...

Squidcor

Is there any chance we can see the name of the topic starter for each discussion? It would certainly help keep track of what discussions are going on.

edg3

Should be possible.

Denzil

If I have notifications, and go to the notifications tab, it just fails to show any, but clears away my notifications count anyway. Just thought it's worth a mention.

damousey

I'm finding the width quite brain hurty now.

IMO: When it was narrower (maybe a little too narrow even) the problem wasn't the width, but rather the lack of visual anchors, the seemingly arbitrary division of margin and columns, and that the negative area was completely void in harshest white. And while the new wide format does feel like it addresses those, it seems to be more of a step in the wrong direction for readability; I'm finding myself reducing my browser until my tabs are tiny spikes just to stop myself from leaving.

another something to consider
Hearting is done after reading the post, it should be below the body of the post, particularly for those long posts that that extra effort to write which then need to be navigated back before moving on to the comments. At the moment there isn't any clutter below the post body, so it's still comes off as a worthwhile sacrifice for design, but function is following form here; can we better it?

Tuism

Agreed :)

And I want columns! (too) (I think that's what she's trying to say :P)

damousey

columns would be one way of solving it, yes.

edg3

Ok, what would be the ideal forum width solution?

#1 - min. width: 1024px; max. width: inf.; no columns
#2 - min. width: 1024px; max. width: 1280px; no columns
#3 - min. width: 1024px; max. width: inf.; columns (HTML5!)
#4 - min. width: 1024px; max. width: 1280px; columns (HTML51)
#5 - Other? (and suggest something)

Currently, we are running with #1, the header layout breaks at less than 1024px which is what that is the minimum width atm, however, you will notice that the minimum width is for the header only at this stage.

Tuism

#2 is best venn junction between ease of implementation and legibility. Gets my vote.

min width 1024, max width 1280. Actually I don't really care about min width, max width is what's important to avoid running to wide.

Denzil

Yeah just limit the max width.

edg3

I handed this over, but today I figured I should resolve a few things. I fixed the width (max width is now 1280), I have fixed the spoiler tags, and I have swapped to the newer front page which is more compact and features links better for newcomers to the site (in an effort to just make the forums and wiki more accessible).

Fengol

I love the young Jobs!

Tuism

Thanks for doing the switch! I didn't even realise cos I bookmark the discussions page and skip the home page when I come here :P

Can we create an Events category to redirect the button to, and remove jobs (cos there's not really one yet, unless we wanna make one now)

GJ :)

francoisvn

Two things:

- Would it not make sense to add another discussion category for jobs? There has already been a few threads that could be moved there.
- Is the favicon meant to be a blue V or a b/w invader? Sometime I get one, and sometimes I get the other. I prefer the latter BTW.

shelton

Kudos for the homepage revamp. Liking the categories, icons and colour scheme ;)

EvanGreenwood

Is there anything stopping non-South Africans from joining?

What I'm actually asking about is that a fan of Broforce from Hong Kong wanted to join Make Games SA and said that he received an "Access Denied" error.

Don't know if that could be due to his location... or if "Access Denied" means something else.

I don't know the workings of the forum software. I'm not saying that I want Edge or someone else to work on it (I know you're busy with other things). Just wondering what could cause an "Access Denied" error and if there is anything that this person could do to solve the problem on their side.

Gazza_N

@BlackShipsFilltheSky: I access the site consistently and hassle-free from abroad, and it definitely hasn't stopped me from joining, so your friend can rest assured that he isn't being excluded on the basis of being a "dirty foreigner". :P

dislekcia

@BlackShipsFilltheSky: Is that fan in Hong Kong getting the access denied error for the whole URL or just for the act of trying to sign up? I assume that there might be Great Firewall of China issues somewhere along the line... I know that people from the UK and US access the site fine, so I doubt there's any geographical exclusion going on in the forum's software.

EvanGreenwood

Yeah, I wish he'd explained it better. Apparently he can view this website fine but gets "Access Denied" when trying to sign up.

Maybe China is onto us!

>_>

<_<

EvanGreenwood

Here's what he sees:




Could that be due to not activating the account (or something) ?

edg3

He was on "Confirm email", I have sorted it out.

EvanGreenwood

Thanks Edg3 ... sorry, he must have spaced out I guess.

epicfailnot

Hi edg3! thanks for letting me in.

epicfailnot

@dislekcia, the great firewall of China does not affect Hong Kong. Thankfully :)

dislekcia

@epicfailnot: Glad to hear it - I suspected you guys would have different internet infrastructure, given the whole handover happened after the firewall was set up ;) Welcome to MakeGames!