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18:14, 28th March 2024 (GMT+0)

New site design.

Posted by jase
JohnB
supporter, 2108 posts
Demigod of the Stunties
Mon 7 Dec 2020
at 20:27
  • msg #459

Re: RPoL Design Update

*grin*  I have said my bit.  That you guys don't like my reason or that you don't run or play games in the same way as I do - isn't my problem - and it is not something that I am going to debate  with you at length.

I come to RPoL to play games -  not fuss about how other people play games  :)  I am sure that Jase will make whatever decision HE thinks is best for the site and the vast majority of the people who use it.

PS:  I played in a Mafia game here once.  It didn't enjoy it much  *shrug*
Locke1221
subscriber, 52 posts
Mon 7 Dec 2020
at 22:24
  • msg #460

Re: RPoL Design Update

@JohnB, I think we're passing in the night in regards to our arguments. I agree that a player should be able to see who is in their groups. I don't believe they need to see who is in another group that they are not.

I simply pointed out that there were alternative ways to see that other than the cast list showing the group listings to every player.

You're right, we don't all play the same way, but we do come here to debate in a civil fashion so that Jase has the ability to see what arguments exist on the site, especially when he specifically asked for feedback on this matter.
JohnB
supporter, 2109 posts
Demigod of the Stunties
Mon 7 Dec 2020
at 23:09
  • msg #461

Re: RPoL Design Update

TBH -  I responded to

"With that in mind, however, I would like to request two compromises that I don't think anyone will disagree with (if you can make them happen)."

I wanted to point out that wasn't accurate, I disagreed with it *shrug* and that the people who come here to 'debate' aren't really representative of the RPoL community.  Discussion groups never are.  BUT, it got turned into something pushy with reams of 'argument'.  I get fed up with that quite quickly.

TBH, if I wanted to run a game where players didn't know who was in other groups - I would set up half-a-dozen fake groups and pop people into them at random.  I wouldn't even bother putting a port into the group -  but it would obscure  'secret' groups quite nicely.

There are other ways to manage your groups, without hiding anything.  *shrug*   :)
theseeker
member, 30 posts
Fri 25 Dec 2020
at 20:30
  • msg #462

Re: RPoL Design Update

Printing threads from the responsive site has significant difference to legacy. One thing I like about it, is that it will do a page break to start a post on a new page when it will not fit at the end of the current page. However, there is a, possibly related problem. It also truncates a post that will not completely fit on a single page. Instead of continuing on the a new page, the remaining content is just thrown away.

Another, more minor complaint, is that it includes the full menu page at the top. When printing, that should be suppressed.

So for now I switch (after making sure to log out) to the old site to print (to pdf).
Chernobyl
supporter, 137 posts
Area of desolate waste,
Mutation Central.
Fri 1 Jan 2021
at 13:47
  • msg #463

Re: RPoL Design Update

Love the responsive site in general. Wish that I had the option for the regular site to redirect to the responsive site if I had it selected in my profile.

I’m sure I’ve seen it before, but the cast screen is significantly worse as you can’t see when a player last logged on without clicking each member one by one. The old one was way better.
jase
admin, 3791 posts
Cogito, ergo procuro.
Carpe stultus!
Sun 17 Jan 2021
at 01:40

Re: RPoL Design Update

In reply to SunRuanEr (msg # 426):

I believe the roll links use square brackets to encapsulate the results.  The first "]" will close the private message as the old site is ignorant to embedded rolls.  Not much I can do about that without trying hack at the old site while it's in production, which is a risky proposition at best.


Due to ongoing performance issues with Perl (the pages with a ".cgi" extension) and also an overall desire to move to PHP (the pages with ".php"), I made the rash decision to rush moving game.cgi to game.php.  You should now find all game.php (which is the screen that lists the threads for each game) loads/renders faster (general testing shows down from around 0.7 seconds to under 0.3).

That page is the second most popular at 25% of all page views, so if you add the front page (which is top at 35%) then 60% of all our page hits are now PHP.

The responsive site is essentially the second level of testing (lucky you!), with me being the one and only first tester.  I think I got everything migrated successfully but I hope you'll let me know if anything is amiss.  This is only relevant for game.php pages.  Though a simple post to write, the change was pretty heavy.

Other changes:
  • I also detected that a lot of pages were being rendered without a "doctype" which means some browsers were activating "quirks mode".  Quirks mode makes all sorts of old compatibility quirks happen.. basically some layout tweaks/oddities.
  • On top of this I also tweaked some font sizes and some padding/spacing.
  • Added red notification text to the "rMail" top nav menu on new rMail.  The additional menu block that comes up has stayed.
  • Additionally a check for new rMail is now performed when on the game menu (and will alert the same as above).
  • Further changes to the cast list based on feedback, tried to find the best possible compromise.
  • Printing a page removes the navigation, side and footer menus, page navigation row, up/down arrows.  Additionally sets the post information and content to be one after the other and also tries to keep an entire post on one page whenever possible.
  • Goodness knows what else I've messed with and "tweaked"!


Regarding the quirks mode fixes -- If you see any slight adjustments to page layouts then hopefully it's an improvement, if you think something has taken a turn for the worst then let me know.
This message was last edited by the user at 01:56, Sun 17 Jan 2021.
Skald
moderator, 923 posts
Whatever it is,
I'm against it
Sun 17 Jan 2021
at 05:14
  • msg #465

Re: RPoL Design Update

Not sure if it's me or the update or it was happening before ...

On Responsive, just noticed if I view a thread in Technical Discussions and then go back to the forum menu, the unread flag is still present.  If I then go to the main menu it correctly shows no unread messages for that forum, but when I return to the Technical Discussions thread that unread flag is still there.

Reloaded old site and it all works fine there - unread flag cleared as expected when return to forum menu after viewing thread.

Technical Discussions just happened to be where I was at the time when I noticed it, don't know if problem extends elsewhere.

Win 10, Firefox 84.0.2.
jase
admin, 3798 posts
Cogito, ergo procuro.
Carpe stultus!
Sun 17 Jan 2021
at 06:03
  • msg #466

Re: RPoL Design Update

Haven't fallen into the trap of being logged into rpol.net at the same time, have you?

r.rpol.net sets cookies for the domain r.rpol.net while rpol.net (and the www variant) sets cookies for plain rpol.net.

Unfortunately when browsers retrieve settings for subdomains they'll also grab any cookies for the parent domain.  So when a webpage at r.rpol.net requests a list of the cookies it'll return a combination of r.rpol.net and rpol.net cookies.  As far as I can tell in a random order, and the order also seems to differ between PHP and Perl (though haven't done any testing on that).

So when the page asks for a list of the threads that have been read it can either use the cookie set for r.rpol.net (which is correct) or the cookie from rpol.net.

Furthermore we rationalise cookies as we go, but that uses the information we've grabbed from the browser to collate the relevant information and then trim the list.  So we can ask for the read indicator cookie, get the list from rpol.net (the wrong cookie), rationalise it and then set it for r.rpol.net.  Then we've got cookies set for r.rpol.net poisoned with what was retrieved from the rpol.net version of the cookie.

I've done a work-around for the beta site to avoid the cookie conflict but I can't do the same on the responsive site.  I suppose I could just use and set the cookies for rpol.net... will have to contemplate whether that'll cause any issues.  Can't actually think of any issue at the moment.
Skald
moderator, 924 posts
Whatever it is,
I'm against it
Sun 17 Jan 2021
at 08:10
  • msg #467

Re: RPoL Design Update

I did have both sites open the first time I noticed it, but subsequently closed the old site and retried a couple of times and couldn't get the flag to close ... but it might have been too late by then if the cookie had already been broken ?

Edit: just had a new forum thread pop up and have been able to open and view and clear flag on responsive ... so yup, jase is right yet again, it's the old/new/simultaneous trap.  Something to ignore.  ;>
This message was last edited by the user at 14:12, Sun 17 Jan 2021.
SunRuanEr
subscriber, 357 posts
Sun 17 Jan 2021
at 17:00
  • msg #468

Re: RPoL Design Update

In reply to jase (msg # 464):

Thanks for all the updates, jase, especially the new red rMail notification.

I do feel that the player-view cast list is a step backwards, since it returns Last Login to being automatically viewable (when it previously required a mouseover on responsive), but I appreciate the removal of the groups from the automatic list so I suppose it's a wash in the end. I'll just have to accept that I'm in the minority about wanting stuff less obvious to players, and deal, I guess. =)

(Any kind of rough ETA on having PMs trip Last Logins for GM-controlled characters?)

As a complete aside, just noticed an interesting glitch with the Last Post for characters that have never posted publicly...

quote:
Wed, 31 Dec '69

This message was last edited by the user at 17:06, Sun 17 Jan 2021.
Locke1221
subscriber, 53 posts
Sun 17 Jan 2021
at 17:19
  • msg #469

Re: RPoL Design Update

Thanks for the updates Jase, I imagine it's been busy and I appreciate the effort.

Acknowledging that I'm in the minority in regards to last login as well, I do have to say that the current bareness of the Cast List, showing -only- last login and last post is jarring and not terribly attractive.

I also have to put a request forward for Tag to return to being automatically displayed. In my current military games, I use those for player rank, and find that being obvious rather than the players having to mouse over for the dropdown to be far advantageous. I feel like I'm probably not the only one who uses it in some way that feels like it's more integral to the game than either login or last post.

Is there any possibility of GMs getting to select what is visible for their games? Not knowing what sort of coding that would require, I can understand it not being so, but it sounds like a great compromise if it is.
jase
admin, 3799 posts
Cogito, ergo procuro.
Carpe stultus!
Mon 18 Jan 2021
at 04:37
  • msg #470

Re: RPoL Design Update

Forgot to put in my last change notes, posting a private message now updates your "last post" (which will also affect last logon).  A post is a post, just because everyone doesn't have access to it doesn't negate that's the date of your last post.

As for the cast list, I don't disagree that's it's pretty bare now.  That's the problem when we enlarge the font and also start to care about not having some crazy squished view on narrower views.  The only thing I could possibly squeeze in is post count.  Tags can be long and I'm pretty sure it will cause issue if the tag is near maximum length (though I'll double-check).
jase
admin, 3800 posts
Cogito, ergo procuro.
Carpe stultus!
Mon 18 Jan 2021
at 15:13
  • msg #471

Re: RPoL Design Update

Try the cast page now.
  • Changed the way each cell/block is rendered, which will make text wrap rather than potentially overlap other text.  On really narrow screens (or a very long name with no spaces) it'll force the screen to scroll left/right.
  • To give us more room I removed the weekday from the date of last post/logon.
  • Added both post count and character tag columns.  Groups are still hidden (until mouse over/tap).
  • The post count column will automatically hide on small screens (695 pixel with and lower) and instead appear under the mouse/tap section.

Also fixed the 1969/1970 post date (depending on your time zone).  (c;
This message was last edited by the user at 15:19, Mon 18 Jan 2021.
SunRuanEr
subscriber, 358 posts
Mon 18 Jan 2021
at 15:23
  • msg #472

Re: RPoL Design Update

Thanks for putting the tags back, jase! \ o /

In regards to PMs tripping last logins...that's not currently working. =( Just tested, using a GM-controlled character and a regular character, and the PM didn't trip Last Post for either, or Last Login for the GM-controlled character. (Obviously, the regular character tripped login like normally).
jase
admin, 3801 posts
Cogito, ergo procuro.
Carpe stultus!
Tue 19 Jan 2021
at 05:51
  • msg #473

Re: RPoL Design Update

Whoops, I was updating the user last logon.  Have now done what I said, posting a private message will update the last post for that character (regardless of who posted it).

So hawk eyed cast-list-watchers beware, GMs posting for a character played by someone else can make the last post be newer than the last logon.  That'll add some more confusion to those trying to figure out who plays what.  (c;

I'm also thinking about making the last logon field be "this week", "this fortnight", "this month", "this quarter", "this year" and "ages ago".  Or something like that.  Apparently we need to go to great length to hide GM controlled PCs.

Was a fair bit of work and pretty pleased with the new cast layout so would appreciate any other feedback.  (c;
nauthiz
subscriber, 698 posts
Tue 19 Jan 2021
at 06:12
  • msg #474

Re: RPoL Design Update

Works good.

The only issue I can forsee is that the date can already cause word wrap making the visible line entry two lines high on narrow screen devices

While I'm thankful that everything is at least top aligned now (vs one of the mockups previously presented where it was the opposite) anything more verbose might make it visually worse unless you force it to stick to one line and horizontally scroll or something.
SunRuanEr
subscriber, 359 posts
Tue 19 Jan 2021
at 14:49
  • msg #475

Re: RPoL Design Update

Sweet, thanks jase! Works just like it's supposed to, now. \ o /

Aesthetically, I'm down with the new layout. The four columns give it a balance that it didn't have when there were just two, while providing the information that the majority of people need & obscuring what most people didn't - so it's win-win.

I wouldn't argue with the last login field being something like 'Today', 'This week', 'This month', 'Months ago' for players if you really wanted to go there, but it's probably not necessary now that PMs trip logins. (I'll admit that I *do* wish that PMs could trip logins without tripping last post so that it could be done more surreptitiously - so that GMs could just have all their characters in a PM with each other without it looking like they were all in a PM with each other - but I feel those two things are clearly just inextricably linked with regards to GM-controlled characters, so I'll take what I can get! An obvious PM post that trips login is waaaaay better than a hidden PM post that doesn't.) I do think that keeping the 'Today' is going to be important for people who want to know if someone else has seen a recent post, if you do decide to obfuscate last login dates more.

quote:
Apparently we need to go to great length to hide GM controlled PCs.

Ironically, what necessitated the need for being able to trip last login for GM-controlled PCs with posts of any kind is the first layer of hiding them! =)

Years ago, GM-controlled PCs logged in whenever the GM logged in, then the code started making that last login appear random from the player side, while the GM still saw their characters all log in at the same time*. Which meant that it was necessary to force-update the last login to 'Today' if those characters made a post, because otherwise it looks like a bizarro glitch from the player side and the GM wouldn't have had any idea.

Truthfully, you could do away with that original obfuscation entirely, and it would solve the issue just as much because then GM-controlled characters would just look like active players, instead of needing a way to trip logins for characters that look (to other players) like they've taken a weeks'/months' long powder. =)

* - this is still weird, and for GMs that don't have a friend/spouse/etc that play in their games with them that know their characters, they tend to have no idea that their characters have wonky login times that probably should be tripped so that they don't look inactive.
Low Key
subscriber, 251 posts
Tue 19 Jan 2021
at 15:23
  • msg #476

Re: RPoL Design Update

Thanks for your work on this Jase, and for not taking 'last logon' away from us players who make use of it.

jase:
I'm also thinking about making the last logon field be "this week", "this fortnight", "this month", "this quarter", "this year" and "ages ago".  Or something like that.  Apparently we need to go to great length to hide GM controlled PCs.


I'd second the idea to add "today" to the options.
Otherwise a lot of functionality to me (as a player) would be lost. (I made a post a while back explaining how/why I use last login as a player. I can repeat the relevant points if that'd be helpful, but I don't want to wall o' text the thread with things I've already said if it isn't helpful to anyone).
This message was last edited by the user at 15:23, Tue 19 Jan 2021.
jase
admin, 3804 posts
Cogito, ergo procuro.
Carpe stultus!
Thu 21 Jan 2021
at 09:35
  • msg #477

Re: RPoL Design Update

After letting it stew in the back of my mind for a few days I've now set the responsive and traditional site to share cookies.  This means you should see the exact same message read/unread over both sites.

Please relog one more time to make sure all the old cookies from the responsive site are cleared.  As always if you're switching browsers/machines it's recommend that you relog to sync up the cookies.
evileeyore
member, 442 posts
GURPS GM and Player
Joined August 2015
Thu 21 Jan 2021
at 20:49
  • msg #478

Re: RPoL Design Update

Low Key:
I'd second the idea to add "today" to the options.

I'm in this camp.  I use Player login dates to determine if we're waiting on someone to login to post so I don't spotlight hog or step on people's toes by post more prolifically than they are able.

If I see they've been in repeatedly and said nothing, I'll happily steal all their spotlights and step on all the toes.


Side note, what does Last Login measure?  Last time logged into RPoL?  Last time they opened threads to that game?  Last time they posted?
bigbadron
moderator, 15992 posts
He's big, he's bad,
but mostly he's Ron.
Thu 21 Jan 2021
at 21:02

Re: RPoL Design Update

In reply to evileeyore (msg # 478):

It reports the last time they opened that particular game.
evileeyore
member, 443 posts
GURPS GM and Player
Joined August 2015
Thu 21 Jan 2021
at 22:09
  • msg #480

Re: RPoL Design Update

bigbadron:
It reports the last time they opened that particular game.

Thanks!  That's what I hoped.
jase
admin, 3811 posts
Cogito, ergo procuro.
Carpe stultus!
Sun 24 Jan 2021
at 05:04
  • msg #481

Re: RPoL Design Update

Small update popped on.

  • Removed javascript requirement for the "wanted" forums search box.  Now just uses HTML, a checkbox and the CSS general sibling selector.  Same as what the menus use on small/mobile screens.
  • Removed most usages of "document.write".
  • Added SLA Industries to the dice roller (as per that thread, Cyberpunk RED coming as soon as I can figure it).
  • Fixed (presumably) some small stuff as I encountered/spotted it.

jase
admin, 3815 posts
Cogito, ergo procuro.
Carpe stultus!
Mon 25 Jan 2021
at 09:50
  • msg #482

Re: RPoL Design Update

Popped on another update.  Small tweak to the CSS colours so update your themes when you can.  You'll have some minor overzealous border colouring for the below until you do.
  • Improved(?) the mutli-private window.  Also removed table usage.
  • Also tweaked the selection toggles for the portrait searching.
  • Changed the user preferences on/off selections to toggles while I was at it.

SunRuanEr
subscriber, 362 posts
Mon 25 Jan 2021
at 13:43
  • msg #483

Re: RPoL Design Update

Awesome.

Do we need to relog again? I'm seeing instances of unread threads not keeping the unread message flag, now that I wasn't seeing before this morning. Like when I open a forum, read one thread with new messages but not another that also has new messages, but then go back to the main menu - the forum is no longer popping red even though there are still unread messages in it.

That's not an entirely new thing I don't think, but I'm pretty sure that for a while here recently (at least after the recent cookie synch) that wasn't happening... (Or I could be losing my mind, always a possibility!)
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