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Vanilla forum is operating at better performance levels this week



I spoke too soon...

Nope it is dead again...

The Next: I noticed a login problem. PMed you the code output (dunno what's in there or if it's a potential security issue).

Thanks for letting me know I was just fixing that issue on the FPSCR site, we have had a server upgrade today and it has caused a few issues. It doesn't present a security issue, I think I have patched the issue can you let me know if it still happens for you.

It's working fine now, mission success!

Beta forums are feeling a little slow today. Reloading the last page in the Posting Competition probably took around 10 seconds, and loading the GC board has been taking probably 6 or 7 seconds today.

The live forum is even worse! D=

It looks like there are some issues with embedding youtube videos in the betaforum. All the borders seem to disappear from the thread and the post underneath the post with the youtube video gets offset

http://betaforum.thegamecreators.com/?m=forum_view&t=210757&b=48&p=0#m2517831

I think all the sites were running slow that day not sure why.



The issue is actually that the user hadn't closed his tags in his signature correctly, I have fixed his signature and posts and will add some code to prevent that in future.

Indeed, stuff seems fine today.

Is it possible to fix something that's bugged me for a long time:




Making the date format the same on join and post dates?

I'm getting this error when sending a PM to somebody I haven't PMed before:

The MySQL server had problems trying to fulfill that last query, it might be under heavy load right now or it might have been a linking/query error. Please try again in 10 minutes. If it happens again drop a note to paul@thegamecreators.com trying to give as much detail as possible.

Sorry to say that, but I don't like the new look. It seems unprofessional judging only from the color scheme and from the thick black borders around the posts.
The combination of gray color with the black border is dominant.A forum for game programmers, in my opinion, should have a fancy and a happy look.

Yes I will add that to the list as a reminder.



Odd I don't get that I will take a look



As it was said before the new look is not final in anyway the layout CSS is what matters the colours and style will all be switched out, I jut needed a basic style to sort out the layout code.

One thing you may be aware of - the divider line between the actual post and the poster-info on the left breaks at the level of the PM button - where there is a small gap. This looks a bit odd, however I'm on an odd screen res, so is it like that for everyone - or just screens at 1440x900?

It's probably not really an issue, just for some reason I find myself noticing small things like that, and then I notice it every time I look at a post haha

Now that you mentioned it, I can see that gap aswell. I think some margin between the PM button and the bottom of the post wouldn't hurt either

I am sorry, I missed that

I think, for programmers, functionality and optimization would be priority, not pretty. Admittedly, I'm a minimalist but I find too much decor on a forum to be annoying. It should be, within reason, free of clutter. The very-decorated sites are targeted at general users.
As for a "happy" theme, I think' that's preference (for me, I prefer readability and unobtrusive colours) but I'd wager an unhappy theme fits programmers best, especially us game-makers who start out full of dreams and end up with our backsides kicked by reality (that was a joke). The good news is that there will be themes, if I heard right ealier, so I'm sure one will exist for everyone; happy, sad or indifferent.
Honestly, I'm not keen on change at all but when I look at the site objectively, I think it is on the same level as many popular forums -- sans the clutter.

Just a random question; I still like all of the gradientish style interfaces that were popular several years ago; I much less like the current flat color/super simple/Metro UI look everything on the Internet is moving to. Well, everything off the Internet too. Will the beta forums have the option for any sort of gradient looks, as opposed to just flat colors?

Sorry if this was mentioned, but how about posts have a "Reply" button.
Button action: Copies and pastes the post, enclosed in [ quote ] tags, to the Message form. I think it may be really cool and a big time-saver.

@nonZero

Why didn't I think of that, seems like a really good idea when I get some time on the forums I will add that.

Cool, glad I made a useful suggestion

webmaster--

2 things:

1) this page is broken (the menu)
http://www.appgamekit.com/platforms-and-features.php

2) it was nearly impossible to figure out how to contact someone about this. I had to jump thru a bunch of hoops just to post it here. arg.

It doesn't look broken to me, what is wrong with it?

Doesn't look broken to me either.

BETA FORUMS THREAD

I've just finished reading this entire thread, and while there was a lot of chaff in the posts, there were a few very good posts also. I'll return to those in a moment.

THE NEXT - WHO?

I'd like to learn more information about "The Next". Who is this new web-admin, what's his background, etc.

As we already know, members of the TGC forums, as a community, have very strong feelings about the forum. And, I guess, about the TGC products as well.

Many here have first learnt to program using TGC products, and have been members of the community for years. So, when I ask for a bit more background information about The Next, I think it might be of interest to everyone, because you're working on something that has become precious to many.

I've been away from the forums for about a year, and I'm just catching up and reading all of my unread messages; starting with the AppGameKit forum.

I saw some contradictory information... In the very first post The Next writes:



Later, The Next writes:



So, you're working for TGC, but as an independent contractor?

MSG 2505477 BY CLONKEX

Original message

In this post Clonkex already commented on everything that I would have commented about - there's very little I can add to that. His observations and comments were SPOT ON with mine.

I'll comment with additional details to only a few points in Clonkex's post.





I don't know if this has been fixed on the beta forums already, but it's very simple to do even on the live forums.

I'm assuming everyone knows how to use user style sheets on their browser, either using Stylish with Firefox, or something similar on other browsers.

All you need is:



You adjust the width to suit your needs, and all images within posts, that are larger than the specified width, will be resized to fit within this max-width.





Hmm.. Manual carriage returns are already respected, so I think the original quote refers to something else, such as ADDING CARRIAGE RETURNS AUTOMATICALLY at the line wrap positions? Which would indeed be a terrible idea.





Exactly - floating stuff, such as fixed navbars, headers or footers are generally a very very bad idea.

They may be ok for someone who uses a 27 inch monitor in portrait orientation, but they're usually just eating up space that could be used for actual content. (And if you REALLY need them, you can always make them using a user stylesheet just for yourself.)

Anyone remember what a pain it was trying to read the AppGameKit online documentation on a phone or tablet, because both the header and footer were fixed (floating)?

Like this page for example:
http://www.appgamekit.com/documentation/Reference/Sprite/CreateSprite.htm

Imagine that with a fixed header and footer, which together take up about 25% of screen realestate even on the average PC monitor.

So, I feel very strongly about this - NO fixed elements, such as floating navbars, headers or footers!





Indeed. Why would the avatars need to be larger? Why do you care about them? The avatars are nothing but a distraction from the text content; same thing with the badges and signatures.

Personally I've gone as far as to hide ALL profile information from every post, except the posters name.

So, I don't see your badges, avatars, signatures or any other crap, just your name, date of the post, and actual post content. The following image illustrates what I mean:







I agree. It can't be hover activated.

Also, I can see that I'm going to have to replace that Spoiler cover image with something that has a bit more ambient or calm feel to it. It's terribly "in your face" as it is.





Yea, the very first time I read The Next's comment saying that the highlighter is case sensitive, I thought to myself that's going to fail.

(Even if you would supply lower-case, upper-case and camel-case definitions of all keywords, you wouldn't get it right, because people don't always follow those conventions in a case-insensitive language.)





We can already use google to search the forums.

For example, in this search we're looking for information about atlas images, and restricting the search to the forums:

"atlas image site:http://forum.thegamecreators.com"

However, this isn't perfect, so yes, I can't wait to see better search functionality. And if that fails, we can always fallback to using the google search, although the google search is always a few weeks behind the live database - meaning that it's results won't include the latest posts.

MSG 2506136 BY THE NEXT

Original message



Please, don't even bother trying to please everyone, instead concentrate on building the color customization features that were requested earlier, such that everyone could tweak them for THEMSELVES.

As we already know, colors will never ever be 100% identical on different devices, different eyes and different lighting conditions.

MSG 2507221 BY Libervurto

Original message



I'm going to have to agree with this 100%, even though I already saw The Next's reply, where he said he wouldn't do this...

But I need to emphasize that you can't make any presumptions about the resolution (or orientation) of someones display, and pages should always be designed to be as scalable as possible. I'm strongly against fixed width elements, they are just bad design.



Yes. Assign unique ID's or classes to EVERYTHING!

MSG 2508077 BY EASTER BUNNY

Original message



Let's review our current options.

The Codebase

My feelings about the Codebase are very divided.

On the positive side, at first the Codebase seems like it might be great. It has very extensive code categories and a somewhat more complete search capability than the forums...

But on the negative side, we can't comment on anything in the Codebase, we can't provide revised code versions except by a tedious process of contacting the original author, or by creating a new entry for the revised version without the original authors permission.

And the Codebase is just TOO STATIC. It's not easy to see when new entries are posted.

I can't think of a better way of describing the current Codebase, except as a sort of a hidden corner of the TGC website. It feels like it's not ALIVE, like the forums are.

The AppGameKit snippets thread

It's failure is that it tries to keep all of the examples in a single thread.

It would be much better if Examples and Snippets, as a whole, had their own board, where each example and snippet had their own thread.

Also, the AppGameKit Snippets thread depends on a single person (Baxslash) to update the list of snippets whenever something new is added.

(I think the "AGK Snippet" thread suffered a slow death, and the focus of the thread shifted from "Examples by Baxslash" to "Examples by the Community". Then, at some point, the thread just died. The last post is nearly a year old already, and the last update to the list of examples is even older.)

The AppGameKit Commands Online Docs (with examples)

It was a nice addition when User Contributed Examples were added... but these online docs would be even greater if "User Contributed Notes" were allowed also! There are many ambiguities in the command documentation, and there would be no better way to point them out, than by allowing user contributed notes to commands.

Wasn't a help rewrite project started at some point? And how is it going? Forgotten and buried?

Compare the AppGameKit online docs to PHP online docs. The PHP online docs are seriously professional, and there's very good community participation.

http://php.net/manual/en/function.date.php

Or, check out the MSDN library for another professional example with the "Community Additions" feature.

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms633559%28v=vs.85%29.aspx

Summary

Therefore I second, that new boards for Tutorials and Example Code (whether they be snippets or complete programs) would indeed be very useful.

Authors of example code and tutorials enjoy receiving comments and feedback - which the Codebase doesn't facilitate at all, and which is the reason for it's greatest failure - there is no feeling of community participation.

I could have written about this with fewer words, but I wanted to cover it exhaustively from a few angles, and I'm not even sure if I succeeded.

MSG 2508085 BY NONZERO

Original message



What Help Section? You mean, this? http://forum.thegamecreators.com/?m=forum_view&t=206078&b=41

I strongly disagree. A dedicated examples and snippets board is the way to go.

MSG 2509997 BY SEDITIOUS

Original message



Exactly. This excessive use of empty space always annoyed me.

And it would still annoy me - had I not created custom stylesheets to get rid of it.

In the following screenshots, I have the same post visible in each tab, at the default Firefox zoom level.

Image 1 - Beta forum


* Amount of empty space: IMMENSE
* User style: Disabled

Image 2 - Live forum


* Amount of empty space: A LOT
* User style: Disabled

Image 3 - Live forum / User style


* Amount of empty space: MINIMAL
* User style: Enabled

About the user style:
- The empty space is reduced to maximize visible message content.
- Message height determines the maximum profile height, instead of the other way around.
- Has the ability to hide the profile column completely, even further maximizing visible message content.
- "caffè latte" color theme, which is easy on my eyes.

MSG 2519539 BY NONZERO

Original message



I guess I'm in the minimalist camp also, because I couldn't care less about page decorations - my concern is more about the ease of content consumption. (My time is limited, so I don't want to see any distractions.)

Having said that, I'm not opposed to anything you do to make the Forum look - amm, prettier.

Because, quite frankly, I won't be looking at it. I will override everything, exactly the way I like it to be, no matter what styles the forum uses internally.

USER DEFINED FORUM STYLES

It's great that the forum software and layout is finally receiving some attention.

The old forum was a bit of a pain to customize, because many elements didn't have their own CSS classes or IDs; whereby creating CSS selectors for anything more than very simple customizations ment having to use complex child combinator paths to be able to select exactly the elements that one wanted. (Instead of doing that, I usually resorted to using local HTTP filter proxies that inject new classes where I needed them. But those filters aren't a pleasure to maintain either. Their power is unparalleled however.)

In order to make customization easier, I do care a lot about the CSS classes and IDs in the internal structure.

This is the HTML produced for the thread list of the AppGameKit Product Chat beta forum, particularly the "Stats" column entries:



Let's assume that I wanted to create a user-style sheet for myself, which does NOT show the "Views: 12,875" entry at all; but only shows the number of posts - reducing the column height by a factor of 2. (Or maybe I wanted to see these entries horizontally, instead of vertically.)

It would be relatively difficult to do that, because both "Views" and "Posts" are included under the same div-element using the same class. Same goes for the div-element that has the "value" class.

However, if you used this:



Do you see how much easier it would be for user styles to hide and rearrange these elements now?

(If sections like that aren't fixed on the server side, I will have to resort to using local HTTP filters with relatively complex regexp patterns to fix them before they're being fed to the browser.)

THE TEAM

Could a page like this be created for the actual TGC website, with a slightly more complete list of people responsible for TGC operations... perhaps including the independant contractors, such as Baxslash, Jeku, Daniel, The Next, etc... Unless these people are opposed to it.

Well, it's just a suggestion - but I would like to know more about the people behind the scenes who have worked with TGC over the years.

Cheers,
AgentSam

That was the biggest wall of text I've ever seen :p
(No offence intended )
I did actually read all of it, which with my concentration span is rare.. I do especially agree on the use of space point, though I usually read on a big screen so I've not been that bothered by it

@AgentSam

Wow that is a very large post indeed, to start things off I am happy to give certain amounts of information to the community, however I do not like to share certain information publicly without reason privacy is still something I take seriously.

My name is Jason and I am happy for anyone on the forum to use my name when chatting instead of "The Next". Like many here I also care greatly about this community Now to answer your questions on my role with TGC, I work with TGC on a daily basis and I handle almost everything web facing. My background I will keep short and to the point, I have worked directly with Web Development for 7 years now (working on bespoke e-commerce systems). My role is that of Software Engineer so I am not a designer although have the basic skills to use Photoshop.

Sorry for any contradiction in my posts, when I first started work on the forums it was in my spare time and not as a contractor, now that has changed hence the differing posts.

Now to address your other points

Image Resizing

Yes fixed.

Fixed Elements

Don't worry I have no plans to use this method.

User Info - Avatars

This is very much a preference and I will ensure that everyone is catered to within reason, an option to toggle all that info will most likely be added.

Forum Images


Again a preference so you can change if you wish, it was made very quickly and was intended as place-holder, forum development is on hold for the moment hence why it has stayed.

Search

I agree Google is good but a built in site search is more user friendly so I will write one that is effective and those who choose may use google instead.

Pleasing people

All I can say is agreed

Page resizing
This will be addressed when a final theme is introduced the current theme is locked as it doesn't handle very small sizes, I plan to address this I also agree with you on the fixed width debate.

White space
This will be improved for sure the theme I am using at the moment is a mess with bugs and I do not intend to keep it, it was a place-holder for development work for converting tables to divs.

However I will say that your theme does not improve very much of the classic TGC style for saving space the only reason you have less whitespace, is you have not shown avatars or user info to push out the right hand boxes. This is not an option I have as default as most users want all of that information, and you would be the minority.

Styles

I am aware of this and it will be fixed at that stage in development I was more interested in clearing up the mess of a database and the style became messy, there will be a nice tidy one when I get back to the forum.

The Team

This will most likely not happen a lot of these individuals will not want their information posted, not to mention they are also not linked to TGC in a way that means they need to have any sort of public face at all. You will also find a page like that will become outdated fast as TGC works with many individuals.

I think that is everything let me know if you have comments, I look forward to another long post

Wow, the text. I had to start using swap just to read it. I'm just kidding, btw. I mean about the swap :p

BTW: Jason is the best name ever in my humble and unbiased opinion. Really unbiased, it has nothing to do with my birth-name. *Quickly edits profile*

POST LENGTH

Well, I came late to the party, so I had a lot to catch up on. (But then again, it's not uncommon of me to write lengthy posts, as people who know me would testify.)

However, after I had posted the message, I was worried that it came across as really grumpy - which is definately a character flaw of mine. I'm trying to get a more positive vibe going on. You guys are all so great - I hope some of that will rub off on me too.

Also, thanks for the background Jason. Sounds very good.

And wow - absolutely amazing answers. Looks like ARE going to make every forum user happy.

CUSTOM STYLES



My "theme" is definately not good for the general public - yes, I know I would be in the minority with my super minimalistic style.

I'm going to show you some of the things it does, however, because that image (the one I posted in my previous message) doesn't make it clear.



Those are style mods that can be toggled on or off, and they are all just small bits of CSS.

Then there's the local HTTP proxy (Privoxy), which does some heavy lifting and actually injects additional styles and completely kills off some page elements so that they don't even reach the browser.

The TGC action file that activates these filters looks like this:



That clip is completely unusable by itself, it needs the associated filter definitions also - which I'm not sharing; nor would there propably be much demand for them, since as mentioned, I'm in the minority - possibly the ONLY one doing this.

HIGHLIGHTS FOR INDIVIDUAL MEMBERS (or groups)...

One additional thing I've done through the HTTP proxy is, that I've highlighted some forum members in the thread list, so that I can see just by glancing at the screen, if any of my "favorite people" have made new posts.

So, for example:

GROUP 1 (GOLD) = TGC employees or independant contractors
GROUP 2 (RED) = Senior forum members (JimHawkins and Ancient Lady, just to point out two great individuals) whom I've come to respect.
GROUP 3 (GREEN) = Some other members who have gained more than average respect in my own "hall of fame".

Anyone outside of these three groups would be shown in the default color I've reserved for "other forum members" - grayish.

As I mentally assign more "respect" to someone, I will move them up in the highlight categories (all the way up to group 2), such that they too will be highlighted and easier to distinguish from all the "noobs".

This is a feature that I think other people might find useful also; the ability to create sort of personalized "favorite members" highlight lists. People in a list do not know if they are in somebody's list - because the categories and the list of people in them, are not visible to others.

Cheers,
AgentSam

I quite enjoy that color ranking idea! So would one assign for themselves what colors relate to different members, and only they would see those colors? Or would it be global, where moderators or polls or such would choose what color a member appears to all?

Yes, that's how it works in my current implementation - and that's how I hope it would work for everyone, should Jason choose to implement it.

Cheers,
AgentSam

Note: I haven't read the entire thread.

Regarding the post up-vote system:

I've been active over on GDNet for almost a year, and their method of handling points fairly works well. It follows these simple rules:
* Person A creates new account -> Person A starts with 100 points
* Person A upvotes Person B -> A gets 1 point, B gets 3 points
* Person A downvotes Person B -> A loses 1 point, B loses 3 points
* Person A logs in -> Person A gets 1 point (only works once a day).
* Person A writes an article/tutorial -> Person A gets 15 points.
* Moderator rejects tutorial -> Person A loses 15 points.
* Moderator accepts tutorial and publishes -> nothing

The points are part of each users profile and count towards their "reputation", which is displayed next to their avatar.

Obviously, the voting system should only be used on boards that require filtering, i.e. DBP discussion, newcomers corner, etc. and not on Geek Culture, WIP, or Program Announcements.

Personally I'm not too fond of publicly interactive voting systems for reputation, as it can cause resentment if it supports being down voted.

If there was some sort of publicly viewable/intractable voting I'd prefer as system such as Plus (+1) that Google use so they were only one way.

Another problem if the voting system were too prominent you could end up with a system where everyone is out for votes, and not being particularly helpful.

Valued member badges or whatever seemed like a good system to me, as it highlights the best contributors, but there aren't a vast amount given out - I have seen in some forums where there are level-up points a simple question with about 14 answers saying the same thing all trying to collect as many points for being helpful.

You want at all times to remain a forum, not a 'level-up' game. Thats my thoughts anyway

On a slight side note, you could consider enabling sorting threads by posted responses, (or author etc), as this would enable any threads with few responses to have more assistance by people helping out, or make it quicker to see which threads were attracting the most attention.

Gotta agree, don't like the voting system too much. Mainly, for social reasons. I think the mods should choose who to bestow honours upon, even though there are plenty deserving cases that get missed. It's better than the potential fallout a points-system can have -- aside from the fact this is an easygoing forum (mostly).

@AgentSam
I like the look of that colour coding idea I will see about adding that when I am back on the forum tasks.

@Everyone else
I am also not in favour of a points style system it causes users to post just to gain points, I think the TGC system of handing out badges to valuable users is unique and works really well.

This post got a bit lengthy again, but there's not a whole lot of new information here, so feel free to skip.

I'm just summarizing a few topics and giving one feature suggestion near the end of the post (in the reply to NonZero).

TheComet wrote:



If you had read the entire thread, you would have noticed, that various points systems ("reputation", "like", "don't like",
and other variations), have already been discussed - and the consensus has been, that they don't do any good for the community or the information content.

So, don't feel bad that this idea gets rejected, but it's really not something this forum needs.

Sparrowhawk wrote:



My reply here is not directed to Sparrowhawk -- his comment just reminded me of the issue.

The greatest failure of these up-vote systems is, that they don't mean anything -- a +1 vote does not tell us anything without the ability to make a -1 vote.

For example, let's assume 1000 people on facebook like a certain "entry" (be it text, video, image or whatever). What does that "1000 likes" tell us? Without being able to see how many people DON'T like it - it tells us nothing.

(Well, it does tell us that 1000 people liked it, and in relation to the amount of likes in other similar entries, we can calculate a subjective rank for it, and therefore assign some value to the rank.)

In any case, my point is -- the statistical value of "1000 likes", is VERY DIFFERENT compared to "1000 likes and 50000 dislikes", for example.

So, a system that intentionally drops the -1 votes is inherently faulty - it's built on the premise that "everything is positive".

Sparrowhawk wrote:



This is what I call the "number game". On a forum where information content (not the number of posts) should be the highest priority, these number games are extremely detrimental; the number game is a distraction and results in an increased number of replies at the expense of information content.

Also, the number game does not favor those forum members who post very rarely, but whose posts have high-value on-topic content. (Or lots of source code.) The number game is a no-lifers way of spending time in order to achieve satisfaction.

It's a bit surprising that there aren't many articles in game design sites or psychology journals dealing in exactly what it is that makes us addicted to levelling up attributes.

As game designers and programmers we need to be familiar with this topic - it can be used in games to successfully hook playes on the numbers when implemented in a way that makes pursuing the numbers enjoyable and rewarding - levels, skills, attributes, score, etc.

More links to related topics can be found here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Experience_level

I'd be interested in reading more about it, if anyone happens to know good articles about the psychology of games.

Sparrowhawk wrote:



Exactly.

NonZero wrote:



Again, it's a pleasure to notice that people on this forum are rationably against the voting systems and really concerned about the social and content implications.

WARNING: Some grumpiness ensues... sorry about that.

BOG - Beginning of grumpiness

A few words about the badges... I know I'm in the minority with my opinion on this - but, I really don't want ANY badges on my profile.

For example, I didn't ask for that FPSCR backer badge, I only bought it for my kids to play with. I look at the FPSC as nothing more than a kiddy toy - and I don't want to be seen "backing it".

EOG - End Of Grumpiness

SUGGESTION: could it be possible, that once someone has been granted a badge of any kind - that it would be up to the individual to show or hide the badge on their profile? (Or maybe it's already possible to manage the badges - is it? How?)

The Next wrote:



Thanks - the implementation can still be improved upon in several ways. The important thing is, of course, to keep the highlighting customizable, personal and invisible to the public, for lack of a better description.

Cheers,
AgentSam

We don't need no badges???

*smile* .. I think I've seen that movie adaptation where the bandit leader is played by Alfonso Bedoya. Didn't remember the quote though. Amusing refresher.

Cheers,
AgentSam

Can I just say how much I appreciate the improved code snippets with line numbers, embedded scrolling, and a "mark all" option! Are we going to see some syntax highlighting soon? If so, can HLSL and GLSL be options?

OMG! (As in Oh My Gosh, not Oh My Deity)
I visited the beta forums just now on PC and it looks great, IMO. It's like a polished version of what we've all come to love.

One last feature request (for now):
Can we have a login that redirects us back to the page we were on or the forum list rather than TGC home? It's been a pet peeve since forever, tbh. Reasoning: if we login from the forum, chances are that's where we wanna be. I'm not saying change the main login redirect, just the one you get when you select "My Threads" without being logged in. Or have a "Forum Login" that's for the forum.
Sorry, I'm being vague. On Stack Exchange a rude mode would've nailed me for that. Anyway, I'm sure I've conveyed my general thinking.

Glad you like, syntax highlighting will be coming back once I get back onto forum development


Glad you like it, it isn't finished yet but is looking nice already.



I understand what you mean and I will do this for sure, won't be for a while as I am about to go away on holiday for 2 weeks so have a busy few weeks before and don't have time for forum changes.

@AgentSam:

I agree with everything you've said so far, with the exception of the super-minimalistic style you prefer.

I don't care either way about being able to colour posts by some people depending on their "status", as long it's not forced on me; if I can change it so that everyone is the same, I'm happy.

I'd never thought about the badges being a bad thing for some people. For me, badges are awesome, the more the better I don't ever do things specifically for the sake of getting a badge, but when I get one it's nice to see my efforts recognised. Still, I can see that the option to hide them could be great for some people, so I'm all for it



NOOooo..... I liked our old code boxes.... Ok, so maybe I would have preferred to have side-scrolling so they didn't push the page out sideways, but I've always loved the way they just opened up and you could instantly see the whole lot. Made it so much nicer than most forums' code boxes.



I instantly like you.



Totally agree! I was so pleased to come here and find it looked almost the same as the old forums, only with all the new features!



This sentence explained it well because we all already wanted this as well....you confused yourself with the subsequent sentences



Have fun!

Until a noob decides to accidentally his entire codebase into the forum post

Have fun and don't do anything I would do.


You almost got an instant admission into nASA.


I was sure I only confused everyone else. I must've had the situation confused

That instantly made me laugh.

I just noticed a little thing. When logged out, the beta forums don't look any different than when you are logged in. Like even when logged out, it would seem that "Logout" and "My Account" buttons still exist and may be clicked. I was awfully confused when the My Account button took me to an account field with a bunch of blank fields; then I realized I was logged out.

Also, there is no way to log in from the beta forums; one must first go to the live forums to log in.

I'm sure you know about this stuff already, but I figured I'd let you know just in case. It may be a very overlooked issue with log in cookies and all.

I'm new so i think my opinion is unbiased. When i saw this forum first i thought it looked old and had been practically abandoned. It's not very busy anyway. Then i saw the beta forum. I think it looks much better and i now only use it. I did not read this thread because it is very long so maybe this has been answered and i apologize. Why are there extra format tools on the beta forum and not on the normal one? Are the new features only for the beta forum?

Indeed, the new features are only for the beta forum. The old forum is very old (early 2000s era) and the underlying structures do not support these newfangled formatting options, AFAIK. The idea is that when the beta forums are finished being developed, the old forums will no long be available to use. That will probably be a little while from now. In the mean time, both forums can be used, just the old one doesn't support the new features.

By the way, in case you didn't know, the old forum and new forum are really just different interfaces for the same forum. Anything you post on one will be on the other. Therefore, note that the old forum is not abandoned per se, although its style would suggest that it is. I am currently using the old forum, as it's slightly less buggy. The old forum is very stable, but it is getting very slow these days.

@Dark Java Dude 64: Thanks, i did realize that about just different interfaces but did not know about the tools.

@The Next: I'm going to report 2 bugs.
1: When i login, my browser (firefox) hangs and says something about not being able to redirect. I forgot to copy and past the exact error message. The other day i couldn't login at all but the main site was still fine.
2: When i login i go to check my thread and it asks me to login again. I thought it was a bug but i realised today that it's not logining me in on the main site.
3: Both these bugs only happen on my company's laptop, never on my phone which is an old nokia e75 with opera mini browser.

@The Next:
I found the only way to login from my work laptop is here: http://betaforum.thegamecreators.com/?m=forum_mythreads
Also the beta forum login button in the top right corner doesn't work. I clicked it but nothing happened.

For now i am using the normal forum again because the beta does not seem to work very well. Sorry to complain, i am not criticizing you, just reporting bugs. Regards,
Liz