- This topic has 82 replies, 21 voices, and was last updated 14 years, 5 months ago by
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Hi all,
Myself, Ian H and Dave K are currently involved in moving gamedevelopers.ie from DCU to a commercial server. This should happen this week and following this we are going to look at a site redesign.
So please post your comments, suggestions and criticisms here about how to improve this site. Can’t find stuff, need to move things around, whatever..we want to hear.
I have a list of suggestions made by people during the year but there are more people involved now so all your comments are welcome..
we can’t promise we’ll be able to implement everything but we will give it a go…
thanks..
Aphra.
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Drop down menus for the front page are a must. There are so many parts of the site that arent getting the attention they deserve because they are just too hard to find.
Dave
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Can we make this a sticky thread Dave?
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On ian’s forum suggestions could I nominate a move to a phpBB for the forum software? I’m thinking its a nicer easier way to view/maintain a forum. Pretty popular too.
In truth I don’t use the site part too often, but when I initially was looking about the game development industry in Ireland I thought it was an excellent resource, so kudos on the goodness that’s already there.
The directories are good and the articles but I feel that forum is certainly my focal point.
Good luck.
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One of the goals is to make the forums a much greater part of the front page since it is the most active part of the site.
Dave
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One of the goals is to make the forums a much greater part of the front page since it is the most active part of the site. [/quote:c9e9158803]
Well I definately would like to nominate a move away from vBulletin to phpBB, I use a couple of boards based on it and its altogether nicer and more efficient, certainly from the user’s point of view although I know the admin of one board and have never heard any complaints.
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Havent had any significant problems with these boards either (that werent server related), what are the concrete benefits of switching over?
Dave
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Anyone got a few good comparisons to GameDevelopers.ie? For research purposes!
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ian,
you might like to take a look at the current version of the IGDA Ireland site and suggest how it could be better integrated into the GD site as a whole… i.e. should it be a separate section on its own with maybe some of its more generic content integrated into GD elsewhere?
you can access it at: http://www.thememorypalace.org/igda/
i know Dave’s been working on a new design for it which is pretty nice, but i’m not sure how the colour shceme will fit in with GD… something to think about anyway
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I havent done anything on the one I was working on since i got bored one evening.
its at http://matrix.netsoc.tcd.ie/~skyclad/igda/ , but kinda dead.
Dave
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Next shindig date & link to info (including map)!!!!!!!!
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From: omen
Any chance this [“skills” update process] could be improved upon in the future. This could be a part of your profile that you could edit at will with a tick-box to show whether you want it displayed or not. Having to create new and delete old ones seems nasty. Leaving it all up to the user would be more beneficial.
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The ability to comment directly below news stories & articles
…or the new story or article automatically generates a thread for discussion.
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You’ve got some fantastic ideas there, Ian.. I mean.. Tommy. :confused:
It looks that the site is going to have a great future. Now, must get back to working on this college project. Our ICT teacher has decided to live up to his reputation by setting us assignment after assignment.
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This could be solved by one of those wiki thingies (drupal or something?), not too sure on the technical end of things, but they seem to be perfect for community sites and seem to get around the problem that I was having updating the site when the server moved, and that it makes it easy for certain members to be granted write priveliges, that anyone can submit stories etc. and you can have it set up so that people can submit pieces and these can be passed before they are published, if a person submits a piece then they can update it themselves (might solve the skills issue) and it also lets people post replies to any story, although I’m sure you can limit this to certain areas.
Not too sure how easy it would be to work, but then again it might simply be a case of copying and pasting pieces over, and you could attach the relevant old dates to articles too.
Just an idea
Jamie
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Ian,
I agree about the skills updates..users should be able to update and overwrite their old entries…
[/quote:d18276f48f]*cough*i said that*cough*
But yeah, I would have updated mine my now, only its just to much hassle with the current system.
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Of course you did Omen!!!!!????
Damn my cover is blown! :mad:
[EDIT]
OK then OMEN!!!!!!! If that is your real name!!!!!!!! ;)
What about a “featured developer” profile. This could be a featured developer of the month style widget, where at random an Irish company or individual within a company is selected and profiled (similar to GI.biz) or indeed Irish people working in the biz abroad could be profiled.
We could also include people working hard on behalf of the Irish games industry where ever they may be…. such as people in Enterprise Ireland or the IGDA etc…or Rob Fahey at GI.biz etc. etc.. You get the idea?
Let’s just say it is part of the wider “education about the industry” function of GD.ie.
Cheers,
Ian -
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Nice idea Ian.
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We met briefly over the weekend to discuss possible upgrades to the site and we are going to take some time to investigate various options before coming up with a new look and feel to the site. One of our main concerns is to improve the navigation to the various subsections and create a more fluid front page with more frequent updates.
We are now thinking in terms of various designs and features that can be added in a new design, so it is an excellent time to keep those ideas coming.
In short, expect good things to start happening soon. :)
Dave
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Just to update people. The redesign team involving Ian H, Dave K, John L and myself met with Ronny and Craig on Sat.
We discussed site redesign and fixing various problems which have arisen since we moved server.
We are hoping to have a site design agreed by the end of the week and Dave has agreed to programme it over his Christmas holidays.
John L. meanwhile is going to look into upgrading our forum software and then we will look at the threads.
It is taking some time as everyone is voluntary so bear with us.
Hopefully gd.ie will have a whole new look for 05..!!
Aphra.
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This Designosaur is even breaking a sweat! ;)
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Designosaur[/quote:48b303a21f] ya should be shot for that one, Hannigan!
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Looking forward to seeing the progress made over Christmas. Keep up the work.
ya should be shot for that one, Hannigan! [/quote:03e054cb02]
At least he didn’t give in to the ways of Hasselhoff! You were my last hope, whatever happened to ridding him from Muff?? Now we must endure yet another 100 pics of him throughout the year. ;) -
At least he didn’t give in to the ways of Hasselhoff! You were my last hope, whatever happened to ridding him from Muff??[/quote:df9b1d4148]sorry, Ronny – I sold out!
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I’m working on some image recognition software that will identify and automatically delete any pictures of the Hoff in the new gamedevelopers.ie. In addition, any posts with Hoff showing chest hair (or Hoff dressed in tights) will result in the poster automatically being subscribed to over 1000 spam mail lists. You have been warned…
Dave
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for the record – Pete is the only member of Torc SOOOOO infatuated with the Hoffmeister that he posts pics of him publicly. The rest of us content ourselves with glossies sellotaped to our monitors, and his Greatest Hits playing on our iPods
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on the Jobs home page… under the ‘New Additions’ section it would be better to simply list the new jobs posted by date and location. Listing all of the job details pushes all the other jobs off the page
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Still a load to do…the skill section will be finished over the courseof the day and there are a few small sections after that. As mentioned, let us know.
Dave
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you guys know that every PM notification is sent from ‘dave@gamedevelopers.ie’? just wanted to let you know
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any chance of putting the ‘new post’ button at the top of the page as well as the bottom? would make a big difference in terms of user experience
thanks
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I second that.
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It’s something that has been annoying me to no end, especially as I tend to be long winded when I answer :oops: so I thought I’d ask: is there a way to show the message you are answering to in the Post a Reply menu ?
I know it probably wouldn’t be easy and for most people it’s no problem, but hey, I think it’s a useful thing.Cheers,
Philippe
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It’s something that has been annoying me to no end, especially as I tend to be long winded when I answer :oops: so I thought I’d ask: is there a way to show the message you are answering to in the Post a Reply menu ?
I know it probably wouldn’t be easy and for most people it’s no problem, but hey, I think it’s a useful thing.Cheers,
Philippe[/quote:d8b2db7e72]
Yep that would be extremely helpful
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Hey,
Ill see if i can get it done tonight. I had to move the site over the weekend to provide more bandwidth and database space, so we are now ok in terms of hosting for a while. I think its a pretty minor update to get the posts thing working.
Dave
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Hey Dave, that’s pretty cool.
I realised I could just quote a person’s message, but I tend to look back at several posts at once, most of the times, and my short term memory isn’t so brilliant, eheh.
Philippe
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Oh, I also realised something : I think your clock isn’t on time.
Or is it just me? -
Hey,
Ill see if i can get it done tonight. I had to move the site over the weekend to provide more bandwidth and database space, so we are now ok in terms of hosting for a while. I think its a pretty minor update to get the posts thing working.
Dave[/quote:e8ba6e1c43]
Looking very spiffy.
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man, that was seriously fast an update :)
Yes, much better with all the little messages.
Cheers!…although, ummh, is it me or suddenly the confirmation page doesn’t send you directly back to the forum. Just thought I should mention it. I am on Firefox BTW.
Philippe
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Its just you. Or at least it’s not me.
Dave
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Yeah, sorry, it seems to work now… I cannot understand. :oops:
But the time is still one hour, err, late? marks 16:24 when it should be 17:24
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Wehey, excellent work! I really missed the ability to see the previous posts in the thread when I was replying..
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I think that it’s great people are able to do a poll like that, but I find it particularly annoying to see the poll repeated above each and every bloody post in the thread.
Wouldn’t it be simpler to just leave it at the top of the thread?Philippe
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Agreed, I was going to post about that last week but then forgot to…
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Am aware of it, will fix as soon as a chance occurs to.
Dave
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cool, cheers!
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I am not sure this is a problem just with me, or with the forum in general, but here it is:
I never get noticed when I get a new personal message, i.e. it ALWAYS says “0 new messages”.Also I don’t seem to be able to access the “user’s options” link.
:?
Philippe
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Nope everyone has those problems.
To edit your profile is
http://www.gamedevelopers.ie/forums/profile.php?mode=editprofileTo view the memberlist
http://www.gamedevelopers.ie/forums/memberlist.phpFinally to search use
http://www.gamedevelopers.ie/forums/search.phpIn other words pretty much what you’d get from most php forums… I think it was peter b that pointed out the search and edit profile to me… could be wrong. Credit goes to whoever it was :wink:
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Hey just a little thing that could be changed. One the main page where it shows the latest posts on the forum and who has posted them.
Could you link the username to the profile??
It’s something really minor but hey I thought I’d put it out there!
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@krudd: Done
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Cool thanks!
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I mentioned this to Dave the other day, but he’s slacking off, so i’ll post it :)
A while ago you used to be able to edit the ‘member status’ tag on your forum settings. This seems to have disappeared for some reason. Can we have it back please?
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Do you mean where it says “Member” or “Junior Member”? I might not be able to change that, because it’s probably a setting in phpbb itself, and I don’t have admin access, otherwise, I might be able to
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Yup, thats the setting, some people are even Hoffaholics
It used to be accessible on the Forum Settings page, as you can see, there are people that have changed it. Not sure when it went missing -
Hey,
Just noticed that if you are viewing a topic and then decide to sign in you get “The topic or post you requested does not exist” and have to go back to the forum index and then find the topic again!
Just letting you know!
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Any chance of an option to show / hide images in threads?
There have been some high image content threads recently which can be a pain to scroll through the all the time.
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Any chance of an option to show / hide images in threads?
There have been some high image content threads recently which can be a pain to scroll through the all the time.[/quote:6dd4235676]
The hide BBcode mod would do that but not sure if you’d want to start adding mods to the boards they have to tendency to go belly up(or at least some of them do)
Just for clarification the mod I’m talking about just adds javascript code, as far as I’m aware it would still require someone to use the hide tags…so possibly not the nicest of solutions….
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Yeah, that’s got to be an easy one. Refuse a 2nd posts from a user until 30 seconds or so has gone.
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The only way i seem to be able to view my Private messages is by clicking the gamedevelopers.ie logo and going to the main page.. nowhere else does there seem to a mention of private messages. Not even when i click my login name and go to my profile.
Not really an error, more a want..
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Yeah, that’s got to be an easy one. Refuse a 2nd posts from a user until 30 seconds or so has gone.[/quote:458df1a1c8]
If I remember correctly, that negatively affected your own posting schedule in the past :) -
True, but we don’t have spambots back in the good ole days :)
I’ve got a fast machine now, so don’t have time for several postings while waiting for a compile now, so I think I’m prepared for it now. And I think the pros outweigh the cons now :)
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And I think the pros outweigh the cons now :)[/quote:ee418c2783]
And before? :lol: :lol: -
And I think the pros outweigh the cons now :)[/quote:586f053271]
And before? :lol: :lol:[/quote:586f053271]Of course not, before we weren’t being spam-botted, so obviously not.
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Please remove the requirement to have one post before being able to post URLs.
Or don’t – either way – this post should allow me to post URLs…. :)
Wesley
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Please remove the requirement to have one post before being able to post URLs.
Or don’t – either way – this post should allow me to post URLs…. :)
Wesley[/quote:9772a79ba1]
I’d imagine that’s one of the measures that stopped the constant flow of spam the forum used to have.Welcome to the forum!
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Aye, but also to stop "manual spam" – people who sign up once just to post their link to improve their Google pagerank and who have no intention of participating or ever coming to the site again :(
Dave
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I don’t know if it has been suggested before but it would be great to have a RSS feed for the forum, news, articles etc. so you don’t have to enter the site manually everytime you want to check if there is something new on the site
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Hi Martin,
Welcome to the forums, I see this is your first post, (re: RSS feeds). Good idea.
ITU looks like a cool place, and has a great reputation. Are you working on anything interesting at the moment? any links to YouTube footage (or equivalent) of final project pieces for the students of ITU gamedev?
-Brendan.
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Hi Martin,
Welcome to the forums, I see this is your first post, (re: RSS feeds). Good idea.
ITU looks like a cool place, and has a great reputation. Are you working on anything interesting at the moment? any links to YouTube footage (or equivalent) of final project pieces for the students of ITU gamedev?
-Brendan.[/quote:7638c629a9]
Thanks Brendan!! :wink:
My last big project was Puzzlebloom which made it to PAX10 2009. The game can be tried on puzzlebloom.com or a video can be seen on Vimeo.
I also just finished my Master’s thesis on camera control in games. The camera system has been tested out on Puzzlebloom and the modified version can be tried here (I don’t think level 2 is working online at the moment) and the thesis report and be found here.
For some of my other projects please browse my portfolio.
Enjoy :)
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The logout action is probably due a fix I think. Would help improve security too.
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A partial solution to theschwartz’s suggestion could be to automatically make a new thread for each article that is posted on the site. That way it appears on the current RSS feed, and means people don’t have to create a thread themselves to comment on an article.
The news would be a bit harder, as the current RSS feed is linked directly into the forum. The easiest solution would be a separate feed altogether for news, which could be useful anyway as it seems to be updated fairly frequently.
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people will be happy to know that some of us had a meeting last night to do a shortlist of fixes we want to work on between how and the birthday shindig…we will see how many we can get through and then we will have a phase two of fixing stuff after the birthday.
But if there is a Php programmer out there with a little spare time on their hands please drop us a PM….
Aphra.
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Is there a search function on the site? I can’t find it. (ironic)
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Where is the search button? I have to come into this thread to find it :p
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