The position for a casual web developer we placed early last month has been filled.
I'm pleased to say that this person fits both the basic and desired requirements we demanded and started working our 'todo' list already. He will remain anonymous for the time being as we haven't checked if he wants to reveal himself yet.
Some updates so far include:
- User blogs being published as news fixed
- Updating passwords fixed
- Registration form compatibility issues with different browsers fixed
- Post editing feature implemented
Keep your eyes peeled as more updates are rolled out.
Share your ideas
We'd like to hear your suggestions too on the site usability - basically what will make the site easier to use for you. Anything is possible.
- Inbuilt Online ladder
- Better forums, similar to ESAU I'd say (nice and simple)
- Also something like ESAU, I dont know if you guys browse forums like this but I like to just press 'Front' for the most active/off topic threads and the 'Counter-Strike' icon for only CS based threads.
I'll try think of some more.
Also perhaps sort events/coverage by state where you can.
My suggestions
and i'm on ff and IE with diff resolutions #4 :S
weird
- team database attached to user profiles
the possibilities are endless but those two features would be quite good and relatively easy to implement (at least i would think)
agreed
No offense but this forum sucks imo. Its so crammed and looks like it was designed for 800x600 usage. Being on 1920x1200 makes this look rather stupid. And I don't get why no one can make a forum with proper thread tracking (ie. email notifications and the option to see all "new" posts like I had on Czaustralia.
Does this site have a private message system?
I started working, and as far as i remember got it to a working state on a php script that boots up servers (cs/css)/kills them etc so if you guys want to use that to do a server booking area or something let me know.. I'm not going to use it again. You'll just need a dedicated running linux to host the game servers on.
I kinda wish I saw this ad earlier, I quite enjoy on working on web things in the gaming scene. but then again we don't want any kiddies crying because I'm working too close to their 'e-haven' ;)
.DvMain {
^ that needs a min-height on it so the layout doesn't have a big ass white background behind it when viewed in a high resolution OR fix the footer so it has a bottom gradient and just use the background you've got tiled across the whole page.
Our forums suck
No doubt they do. A designer who helped us make posters did a quick mock up which I'll find later and post.
Email notifications for forum threads? Definitely possible. Email notifications for PM's on the other hand are a must and is in the works.
Demo/movie comments
Soon. The trouble I see with this is that comments you make on the demos will be buried within the respective file itself essentially leaving any discussion about the file unknown to those who haven't viewed it (like comments in our gallery). My solution to the problem is to replace the forums section on the home page with an active threads section that will be sorted by latest replies to include all items where comments are postable. Thoughts?
Online ladder
The dream (aka at the end of the todo list) as there's literally a done of fix's and todo's that take priority.
Stats
Dave brought it up the other day when at Midcity and it's something that I'd like to see as well. If it were to happen, I would imagine it will take place within the demo section. Demos will be uploaded via FTP for a batch processing (or one at a time through the site) where a script will open the demos and record all the match stats and display it along with the demo when published.
Lukeft: Where's the AUSCSL ladder? Google doesn't bring up anything relevant.
Neil: Thanks for your interest and pointers. This isn't like an ESAU call because I don't want to promise anything. We've never asked for anything as I'm a believer of leading by example and voting with your feet. I'm not going to disclose the budget, but it's a significant amount for a small site like this.
Before you start working on the design for the new forum can you at least show some people? I can tell you right now you'll find some good pointers that you can work on.
Demo/movie comments - how is all you data structured? You could just make a "latest activity" page on the website that shows any new comments/forum theads etc. It will be pretty easty to make. just do one big sql UNION select on all your data tables and print it out in a timeline.
Don't bother doing a ladder until everything else is 100% complete, it takes all the focus away from the rest of the site trust me ;)
Are you saying that demo files contain the match logs? I wish I knew that ages ago. Or did you mean you'll be uploading the log file from the server and process them that way. If you end up making your own ladder, just setup a cronscript to automatically get the server log from the dedicated server via SCP and automate it all. less work for you to do!
tinyurl.com/yh53spd
tinyurl.com/ykd8tot
There's no plan to update it as yet because it's a lot more than just updating the forum skin - we need to rethink all our pages like the demo/movie/news comments.
On that note, I think we're talking about displaying all those items the same way Neil. It's not a question of if, but when.
As for the demo files containing match logs - it depends how much detail you're after in stats. Personally I don't think it's worthwhile collecting matchlogs for the sake of displaying DPR. It's simply too much of a manual task for one statistic when all other information can be taken directly from the demo - idea derived from complexity demo viewer where it scans through the demo, finds the simple stats like kills/death/defuses/plants/TD's.
The key to success is simplicity for the admins
The recent activity bar on the right side of the website can go right above the footer as well imo. That way you'll have some decent places for ads (maybe a 300x250px ad) and then the latest activity module.
The layout of listing the threads needs to be re-worked as well. As soon as someone has a username longer than 5chars (burbz) the whole thing will go out of place. Just have the time posted underneith the username (so every row goes over 2 lines)
If you REALLLYY want the latest activity, make a 10px wide bar along the right side of the page that snaps in/out using javascript that will hover over the rest of the site. This slide-in/out hover can contain the latest activity. If you have an unread messages system you can show in the bar how many new posts there are or something.
Can you link me to a small demo file I can open in vim or something haha.
cheers
people can just be like /amsg 5 serv pmfw diceAC