New Site Features: Opinions

Hey guys!

Just wanted to keep you abreast (hee hee) of what changes I'm looking at making here on the site.

First I wanted to let you know that in the next couple of days I'll be trying to make the site completely mobile. So you should be able to easily get on, post, and carry on other tasks from your mobile devices (cell phone, PSP, PDA, etc) much more easily.

Secondly, I've found an interesting plugin that allows users to create and participate in very structured tournaments. It's very similar to how the Group Membership features work although since I haven't installed it I'm not sure EXACTLY how it would work.

Anyway I just wanted to get your ideas on whether you thought you would use these features, especially the second one (as I'll probably include the 1st anyway since I use it a lot).

Anchors aweigh!

 

I look forward towards the many changes you plan on implementing and the phone thing sounds great but could you make it work with Itouch maybe? i can visit and login but its not exactly built for it like some are.. idk if your familiar with apps or anything but it would be great for a SC2forums.org app hehe

 

Actually, Seradin, there will be a specific theme built EXACTLY for the iTouch and iPhone.

 

Well I have not of the following portable devices but if I did I would totally look forward to it. And about that second one, I'm not quite understanding the concept of what your are saying...but if I'm thinking correctly, I will be looking forward to it,...I guess....

 

I'm styill waiting for variable width pages, and table tags.

As for a mobile site, I don't have a smart phone right now, but I am planning on getting one of those google phones. Make sure that a mobile site can be used on more than just the iPhone.

For the tournaments, are you talking about stuff like Strarcfrat tournaments? Do we even need something for that? FOr the forum games, we altready have a tournament system.

 

great great!!, maybe a built in chat feature for it would work too.

hmm you know what would be cool a starcraft2 forum external program kinda like xfire built to run with starcraft2 for chatting while playing, though battle.net 2.0 might be good enough that we could have our own stuff and whatnot. its hard to tell till we find out how advanced it is.

edit: w00t 900 posts!!! almost 1000!!!

 

If you really plan on going for mobile compatibility:
- Check if it fully works on Opera Mobile, it has 25 million users. --I have a quite old samsung sgh-e250 and it works great with that, as well as all other phones without a touch screen--
- Try minimizing the use of imgages with a special theme to decrease load times, some pages here are over 30 kb, and that is after 90 percent compression with the latest Opera Mobile.
- If the connection fails, phones try to connect and refresh the page instantly. This results in double posting, although the duplicate post and 30 second cooldown on posting usually prevent this.
- HOWEVER, the pm system lacks these restrictions, ask ijffdrie, he got my pm about 5 times a few days ago...
- If you need help testing or anything else, I would be glad to help and report. Just pm me or something.
- Remove the tag cloud, those 30 extra links are annoying and useless. -- not really a mobile issue, but still... --
Forsaken. p.s. emoticons are not showing up with vbulletin on most phones. Noting you can do about that, though.

 

@BoP,

It is a plugin for StarCraft tournaments, yes. Although it would work with any kind of game you wanted. I need to gauge whether you guys want and/or need something liek this. I also may be able to get you those long-awaited table tags but you won't be seeing variable width forums as I don't like them for this theme. Keep reminding me and/or Kerwyn.

@Seradin,

I'm moving away from the integrated chat as it sucks up bandwidth and is not very active. Also, the external program would be unlikely unless Blizzard supports some kind of fansite plugin in SC2 similar to the "leagues" idea that never took off. Otherwise it's just too hard to execute.

Also, @ Aurora (aka Forsaken) glad you got your name change. But to answer the mobile compatibility question, it is actually a separate THEME from the regular forum. So the graphics on the main site don't much make a difference. And there will be a separate theme for iPhones and other mobile devices.

 

Though I can make due using a piece of paper and some time, a tournament plug in wouldn't be a bad thing to have.

@Ser, the chat uses IRC now, so that can be done on anything with an IRC client, as for the other stuff, thats difficult programming, but we could always make an XFire clan since it already allows you to chat while in game.

 

So are you gonna make like an app for the ipod touch/phone?

blizzard already made an random password authenticator for the accounts that have it (you use original password + generated password = login)

 

An Xfire clan sounds easier and you could still use it ingame, but it works ouside the forum. The whole point of a plug-in is that jon wants everything to be available right here. Furthermore, it goes against his plans for a mobile site and community. Or is there already some mobile xfire app? -- not really usefull since you have no xfire games to play, but still --

Wow. Holy crap. This loads extremely fast. Wow. Awesome jon.

Just a few things, though:
- It refuses to go back to the normal site when clicking that button.
- The previous page button at the bottem of the screen cannot be selected for some reason.
- No edit or delete buttons, kinda essential. :s ?
- No way to get into user cp or you contacts.

Sorry for double posting again, but there is more:
- No key thingy to explain what those post icons in topic list mean.
- Impossible to start new topics.
- Even when loading the main page by directly typing it in the adress bar, which gives the normal site, there is also no way to select the normal skin from there. All links auto-convert into the mobile theme.
- Maybe you could add some ----- symbols between posts. With no signatures and all that stuff, it is hard to see where a new post starts if you want to scroll quickly. -and to add to quick browsing, the individual page buttons are gone-

Alright, one more, then I will see if I can get to a normal computer and merge this before it goes out of hand:
- When you look at a user profile, no matter which one, it still says the --additional information-- part, but with nothing in it.
- The images on the main forum, the ones that indicate if there are new posts, sometimes disappear. Strangely, this only happens with the starcraft related boards, the social and feedback boards stay normal.
- No unread posts function. People with a limited data plan have to browse through every board to find new posts they find interesting. For others it is just a bit annoying. -example: I go into the terran board, hoping my topic has new posts, but it appears to be another topic. When using a phone, most people are short on time, so this would be really handy.

More bugs:
- PM reply button works as an anchor. It only sends you to the bottem of the page, making a PM conversation nearly impossible. - No report option present. The rep and thank yous being gone, meh, not a shockingly bad problem for now. Reporting stuff is important, though.
- All of the child boards are gone. You can only acces them by typing the right url in the adress bar, but who knows all those board numbers?

I hope this helps you jon, because I have tried every normal function now. If you want something else tested, let me know.

Now someone please report this post so it can be merged. Please.



--Burrows to get out of the way from LK.--

 

1. FFS is there no edit function?
2. It appears sigs and smileys are not inserted when you post from mobile.

 

Crap, no sig inserted? SO NOBODY HAS FED TODD TODAY?! He is so going to die now.

Anyway, there is no edit function, at all. And no sig insertion, as seen in all my posts since this skinn suddenly took effect. CAN A MOD PLEASE DEACTIVATE IT IN MY PROFILE! I really need the edit and new topic functions back. -ask LK why-