Druchii.net suggestions for improvement

Throw your ideas for Druchii.net around in here...

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Dggrj
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Post by Dggrj »

Loflar wrote:"You have 2.71828182846... private messages"
*45904523 instead of 46 there... that's all of e that I have memorized, sadly.

I agree. Pop-ups these days are... tacky :-/. Now if they were pop-unders, it would be sneaky and Druchii, but sadly even tackier (like witch elves showing up to a formal ball in their usual battle garb tacky).
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Post by Andruillius »

The reappearance of the Humor forum. :D


Seriously, though. This place needs lightening up a bit.
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Post by Mr_piechee »

i can't stand pop ups. i have them disabled just cause they annoy me. As for firefox, i use it on my pc. i'm currently at uni and i'm using safari on my mac, although i have firefox in my dock and use it from time to time. but you'll be surprised at how many people think that internet explorer is the only way to view the internet, and thats hands down the worst browser.
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Post by Dggrj »

I would be surprised. I don't know many people that use ie still. IE7 was supposed to provide FF-like features with less memory usage and more speed, but in my experience while the mem usage is less (I don't care much w/ how cheap ram is) the speed is ass-tacular. Also its default tabs behavior is just plain dumb. I'd be curious to get a browser poll (behind the scenes on that on, much easier than resolution!) going for our site, too...
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Rork
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Post by Rork »

dggrj wrote:I would be surprised. I don't know many people that use ie still.


It tends to be the sort of people who see a computer as the shiny magic box in the corner. And pretty much any network :( (and even if it does have firefox present, the plugins tend not to work :?).
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Post by Rork »

darkprincess wrote:proper colour support in the chat is needed very badly, and I have some ideas on how to implement this;

first of all, the asur.org java chat has the basic 16 IRC colours. This is ok but d.net can do MUCH better than this. I propose a 256-colour system that is fully backwards compatible with the IRC colour protocols.

IRC handles colour by sending the ctrl-k control code followed by the colour number - the asur.org chat has the ability to let the chatter select a colour for all subsequent text, rather than the totally lame method used by all the others, involving the user having to manually enter the control codes for each and every line they send.

OK, so how can we get 256 colours, and how can it be backwards compatible ?

Well the answer to the first one is easy - you have a colour picker in the form of a 16x16 grid, where each cell is a different colour - the first 16 colours (coded from 0-15) will be the standard 16 colours used by existing IRC clients - this has sorted out the backwards compatibility. colours from 16-255 could be easily provided as an extended palette which would simply send the appropriate colour index code after the ctrl-k control code.

Existing IRC clients should interpret these extended codes as either black or white text, while the d.net chat, in all its awesomeness, would have a full 256-colour palette available - just like in the old days...

I don't know how to code this into Java, but I know the idea will work...

Oh yes, and let's have some better smileys too - in fact, why not have the same ones available in the forums ?

And how about having a link to a d.net member's personal gallery on their profile page, instead of being buried away and sometimes hard to locate, even for the user themselves ?

Other than that, I like d.net just the way it is - apart from the speed (or lack thereof), but I'm sure that's already being sorted out...
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Post by Dggrj »

Indeed my work network + FF do not work for many sites that I have to log in to, specifically ebay, facebook, hotmail, uh... can't think of others. But! D.net works with FF! Hurray!

Interesting requests for d.net's chat client. Do we know how many people that use the chat use this client versus using their own (mIRC presumably)?

How extensively is the chat used? Some of his, er, her (didn't notice) and your requests make sense regardless of usage, but others I think should be dependent on usage. Maybe this feeling comes from me being on a software dev team that fixes bugs and demands they be prioritized :p
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Rork
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Post by Rork »

dggrj wrote:Interesting requests for d.net's chat client. Do we know how many people that use the chat use this client versus using their own (mIRC presumably)?


Over the course of a day I'd say roughly 10 people use the applet regularly. It's difficult to predict for certain since we get new people dropping in and out quite frequently, so that number can rise dependent on the time of day/year.

About the same number use mIRC/chatzilla/IceChat (I don't really like any of them). Quirky as it sounds, little things like colour and smilies can make it a bit more inviting (which I don't feel it is right now).
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Post by Loki »

Rork wrote:About the same number use mIRC/chatzilla/IceChat (I don't really like any of them).

You don't like any of the clients or you don't like any of the people using them? Don't hurt me like that Rorkypoo!
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Post by Dggrj »

@Loki: Hahaha!

If I had a real internet connection at home instead of going through my 3g phone, I'd just log in to the chat and monitor it for a few days through scripts. I'll see what I can start looking into on the client, just give me some time to get pumped about it ;). Actually, what I'll be doing is re-starting my personal initiative to get out and meet people in my new city. I slacked off for a while and now it's costing me since the person I hung out with most is moving :(. She was cute, too... ;-p

So, I'll get on it, but I've got to try to find some Halloween weekend madness tomorrow!
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Post by Arquinsiel »

Rork wrote:About the same number use mIRC/chatzilla/IceChat (I don't really like any of them). Quirky as it sounds, little things like colour and smilies can make it a bit more inviting (which I don't feel it is right now).
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Post by Dggrj »

Holiday themes? Anyone? Like if for today it went crazy-obnoxious orange and brown and yellow?

I am being serious, something just that would say "Druchii.net is alive and active enough that we can pay attention to the date" and such. Naturally there would be a link to revert to the normal skin once you'd been bombarded by holiday cheer.
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Post by Mr_piechee »

That's why i suggested heavy css. it makes it so easy to do that sort of thing. simply have a system where users can choose from several different styles, and then either have a system where they can tick a box if they want to allow holiday specific layouts (i.e. its there chosen layout, except on the special days), or customise each layout for the day.
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Post by Sadisticity »

I feel the drop and select function formate should be removed because you need to "AIM" you cursor and move it along the list lest it going back up.

Maybe it is just me but i really do not like the skin of the website. The design is OK but the druchii pictures is wierd. Till today i still feel strange looking at the face proportions.

And the Santa Hat makes me go OMG?
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Post by Tarbo »

SaDiStIcItY wrote:I feel the drop and select function formate should be removed because you need to "AIM" you cursor and move it along the list lest it going back up.
Do you mean the navigation menu on top? If so, do you have thoughts on how it could be improved?
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Post by Shadowd1 »

a main gallary update the herald more often
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Post by Rork »

Tarbo wrote:
SaDiStIcItY wrote:I feel the drop and select function formate should be removed because you need to "AIM" you cursor and move it along the list lest it going back up.
Do you mean the navigation menu on top? If so, do you have thoughts on how it could be improved?


What would be good if it remained a bit...errr...sticky. I.e. click on it, and it only disappears if you click a link/click off it.

Right now I find you can fumble it and the menu 'collapses'.
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Post by Tarbo »

Alright, so perhaps now will the server let me post? Yes? Please? Really? Alright! Rock on, guys, rock on.

Rork wrote:What would be good if it remained a bit...errr...sticky. I.e. click on it, and it only disappears if you click a link/click off it.

Right now I find you can fumble it and the menu 'collapses'.
Fate wills that I've recently written a version from scratch that responds to clicks rather than entry/exit events. If opinions are that we should have clicketies rather than deadeye accuracy, the swap is trivial. Or perhaps a poll would be more in place.
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Post by Daeron »

A general remark is the speed of the site. There are many ways to boost this, but a simple trick that I believe efficient is to reduce the number of posts per page. When I participate in a discussion, I only read from where I last posted or read, and generally a whole page contains 2 or 3 times as many posts. It's not that bad having to click 'next' again, if that speeds up the site.

A second suggestion, which I think I posted a year or 2 ago, is a 'print' feature. When I find a very long topic/discussion interesting enough to take half an hour time to read, I like to print it out (dun worry, it's recycled or used paper with a clean side on it). Also, people summarizing/synthesing topics may find a 'lighter' template easier to read. To support printing, you don't need to implement much, just a 'print'-link on the "viewtopic" page which brings you a new, printer-friendly view of the same topic.

PHPBB2 allows to implement this very easily (and i think PHPBB3 will as well). Just copy the 'viewtopic.php' (add the necessary header/footer includes) and make it use the template 'printtopic'. Then just make a new template file for it and you're set.

I did this myself, a while back. It took me one day, including the installing, testing and making the template. If you want, I'll make it for you guys :)
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Post by Kramandire »

Mr_PieChee wrote:firefox is useful with little things like that. when your frustrated with slow loadings you can do that to speed things up a little!
this could also sort out the 'office friendly' version of the site should users not want to download/use firefox.



Also make sure to get the extension "adblock" so when someone has a big ass sig picture you can then block it and never see it again!!
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Post by Nagathi »

Daeron wrote:A second suggestion, which I think I posted a year or 2 ago, is a 'print' feature. When I find a very long topic/discussion interesting enough to take half an hour time to read, I like to print it out (dun worry, it's recycled or used paper with a clean side on it). Also, people summarizing/synthesing topics may find a 'lighter' template easier to read. To support printing, you don't need to implement much, just a 'print'-link on the "viewtopic" page which brings you a new, printer-friendly view of the same topic.

PHPBB2 allows to implement this very easily (and i think PHPBB3 will as well). Just copy the 'viewtopic.php' (add the necessary header/footer includes) and make it use the template 'printtopic'. Then just make a new template file for it and you're set.
phpBB3 has a "Print Topic" implemented and active in the mint installation. Works wonders.

Also make sure to get the extension "adblock" so when someone has a big ass sig picture you can then block it and never see it again!!
*glares at Rork*
Still, the rules say 10kB max size for sig images, which should remove most big and obnoxious images.

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Post by Diederikiii »

I have a little problem I use Mozilla firefox and no microsoft internet explorer.
so whats the problem I can see the pic. in the album they aren't any visual what the I just took a qiuck look to say what I see waths normally just black instead of a pic. I now see pic. yeeaaah maybe there still is a problem but it is half a problem now
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Post by Rork »

DiederikIII wrote:I have a little problem I use Mozilla firefox and no microsoft internet explorer.
so whats the problem I can see the pic. in the album they aren't any visual what the I just took a qiuck look to say what I see waths normally just black instead of a pic. I now see pic. yeeaaah maybe there still is a problem but it is half a problem now


Errm, would you mind being a bit more specific? I can't quite grasp what your point is.

I use firefox and took a quick tour of the album - it seems to be working fine as far as I can tell. Show us a screenshot if you can.
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Post by Draknir »

Andruillius wrote:The reappearance of the Humor forum. :D


Seriously, though. This place needs lightening up a bit.


Has there been a humour forum? :shock:

I agree about lightening up, and where some kind of humorous game thread blossoms at ulthuan.net, in Druchii.net it gets locked after three pages. It may be better to discontinue them with thinking how the server gets jammed, but they're fun if people don't get nasty.

Maybe it is just me but i really do not like the skin of the website. The design is OK but the druchii pictures is wierd. Till today i still feel strange looking at the face proportions.


Well... the druchii drawings don't annoy me, but on the other hand they remain largely unnoticed by me... there should be some artwork that is interesting to lay eyes on. And the skin is rather... colourless, only black, white text, grey and... greyish blue... and then the occasional deviants that use coloured text in their posts (e.g. RPG mods and... Beanz :D )
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Post by Rork »

Draknir Reaverblade wrote:Has there been a humour forum? :shock:


There was. It was locked about 3 years ago, and eventually deleted.

I agree about lightening up, and where some kind of humorous game thread blossoms at ulthuan.net, in Druchii.net it gets locked after three pages. It may be better to discontinue them with thinking how the server gets jammed, but they're fun if people don't get nasty.


We don't mind humour. What we're not keen on are those spammy topics that essentially go nowhere (We allow them for a while, then lock them). Humour is good, but some of the threads people come up with aren't particularly creative.
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