New Forum Features Announcement

[LordZardeck]

While probably not the most desired, you'll notice a significant increase in page load time if you decrease the post count to 5.

[The Schaef]

Well, that kind of proves my point, doesn't it?  That 25 is better than 5 by avoiding the increase in load time?

[SomeKittens]

[lp670sv]

I think by increase he meant improvement. Increasing posts per page gives more data to load and doesn't. Decrease http requests so it makes it load slower. I get what your theory was that's just not how it works

[LordZardeck]

Well, that kind of proves my point, doesn't it?  That 25 is better than 5 by avoiding the increase in load time?

Sorry, meant DECREASE in load time. Like lp670sv said, I was probably thinking in my head "increase in performance", and thus wrote my statement wrong.

[The Schaef]

Look, guys, I'm not making this stuff up.  I researched methods specific to this software at this location:
http://www.simplemachines.org/community/index.php?topic=293441.0

If you want to argue about it, go on that guy's forum and argue with him.  I'm not interested in having a huge debate over a small issue when a). the forum was loading slow for people for the last couple weeks already, and b). I have not noticed any negative impact from bumping these settings up slightly from what they were.

[LordZardeck]

Sorry, I'm not trying to get into a huge argument. I just don't understand his logic. However, reading that post I noticed him saying to disable the Calendar. While I don't know if it will significantly change performance, is there a real need for it?

[The Schaef]

There is a real need for it if tournament hosts are using it to convey information to potential attendees by tying events to posts.

You may notice a previously locked thread that said "hey, hosts, use the calendar", now says "hey, hosts, if you're not going to use this thing, imma just turn it off", and is unlocked in case some of them want to comment on the situation.  So this is a consideration if it is a high cost with no real return.

[LordZardeck]

Ok. If it's just tourny info, there's always Redemption Connect!'s tournaments, and I'm sure I can make it do whatever you have it doing now

[The Schaef]

The interaction with the tournament forum is the big draw.  I have to wonder, though, whether doing remote calls to another server is really going to be a faster solution than doing calls within a built-in feature of the software.  And if the tournament hosts aren't making use of it anyway, the location isn't going to matter terribly, as shutting down an unused feature will always be more efficient than leaving it up.

Plus, I've resurrected the FB page for Redemption and started adding tournaments to that.  As much as I don't relish the idea of being the only guy adding tournaments - again - having the FB events I think will increase their overall visibility, provided people interact with that more than they've been interacting with the various independent websites.

[browarod]

As far as Facebook goes, can you allow other people to add events? That would make it easier on you. You could convert it to a group, rather than just a page, so that way only people in the group (could be restricted to invite-only if you want more security) could post stuff (though you should leave read rights open to everyone if possible).

[LordZardeck]

The interaction with the tournament forum is the big draw.  I have to wonder, though, whether doing remote calls to another server is really going to be a faster solution than doing calls within a built-in feature of the software.  And if the tournament hosts aren't making use of it anyway, the location isn't going to matter terribly, as shutting down an unused feature will always be more efficient than leaving it up.

Plus, I've resurrected the FB page for Redemption and started adding tournaments to that.  As much as I don't relish the idea of being the only guy adding tournaments - again - having the FB events I think will increase their overall visibility, provided people interact with that more than they've been interacting with the various independent websites.

I probably can have RC! Auto-Post to FB

[The Schaef]

The ability to assign "officers" to a group is about the only feature I would find superior to the current fan page format for the purposes the page serves, particularly promotion of the brand.

If there's a way for tournament hosts to post their events on RC and have it dropped onto the page, that would circumvent the need to have every host given admin status for a minor and probably-never-used service.

If we can raise the visibility of the FB page, though, Events can be liked, commented, and even photo'd individually, then each one could take on a life of its own if its attendees "nurtured" it.  That provides an even larger benefit for the host and the users than the integration between the forum calendar and a forum thread, the one drawback being that it drives such traffic toward Facebook and away from the forum.  But if the end goal is to promote the Redemption brand and people end up being led to the forums for other things, then it all balances out and I would imagine the result would be better.

tl:dr; I'd like to leave it as a page, but in the larger scope, if we have the social tools of FB available to us, let's find ways to use them to grow the FB page!

[LordZardeck]

A note on aesthetics:

When the card info pops up immediately on mouseover with so small an offset, it obscures the list, making it more difficult for the user to reach a card farther down the list.

Example, I search Goliath. Three versions of Goliath and several Goliath's Whatevers appear.  Excellent.  I start moving my pointer down to grab Goliath's Armor.  In the process, the pointer hits Goliath (L), and the info helpfully pops up.  Now all the card names are covered by the popup and I have to mouse away and come in at the desired card sneakily from a different angle.

Would you consider doing one (or both) of the following, so that any schlub can grab Goliath's Armor with no troubles:
- have a delay of maybe half a second before opening the popup (okay)
- offsetting the popup to push it maybe 50 pixels further right (better)

All these problems should be fixed. If you have any other advice, I'd love to hear it.

[The Schaef]

Search Goliath, scroll through the results.

A lot of the cards show a card back only.  Not sure how systemic this is, or if I just found the exact five card arts you didn't catalog.

[lp670sv]

He updated the OP to explain that, he doesn't currently have the card images for anything Rock of Ages or later so the pictures for those cards don't show up

[LordZardeck]

He updated the OP to explain that, he doesn't currently have the card images for anything Rock of Ages or later so the pictures for those cards don't show up

^^ This. Plus, some card images from the older sets ([card=405]Captain of the Host [Kings][/card]) don't have them simply because of variants in the filenames of the images. I'm working on trying to get all of the images correct.

[The Schaef]

Sorry, was too lazy to go back to the OP.

Let me know if I can help with filenames.  Once upon a time I had a complete (through the tins) copy of all the images with good names, but even if those folders are still intact somewhere, it doesn't solve the problem of having the right filenames in your db.

[LordZardeck]

Awesome! I'll pm you with login details. Thanks!

[LordZardeck]

New card browser feature. Check out op for details

[LordZardeck]

IE users can now use card info links and card search.

[LordZardeck]

A minor point, there's a typo in your entry for Goliath


Would it be possible to add Identifiers to the RC Card database as well? That's the only card information missing from this feature.

By the way Lambo, all this should be fixed now. Identifiers are added and typos should be fixed. Soon I'll allow for searching identifiers

[LordZardeck]

I don't know if I'm doing something wrong or what, but I have never been able to get the fancy drop-down menu with card names and links and what not to actually work when I'm trying to type them. The pop-outs work when I hover over other people's links, but I can't seem to make them myself.

Both of my computers use Firefox 10.0.2 for reference. I haven't read the whole of this thread, so if this is a known issue or whatever I apologize.

do you still have this problem?

[Lamborghini_diablo]

With the new feature, would it be possible to have the info window pop up after your mouse has hovered over a card for say 2-3 seconds?

[cookie monster]

I have to try this 

[cardbrowser][card=1240]Judas Iscariot [Priests][/card][card=2730]Creeping Deceiver[/card][card=1800]Philetus[/card][card=2033]Sapphira[/card][card=581]Deceit of Sapphira[/card][/cardbrowser]

Did it work?