Upcoming Updates

[Howard]

Hi everyone,

Ray and I are braving the bulletin board code again, and there\'s a few changes and updates in store.

The current set of changes will be rolled in later tomorrow, or maybe monday... We\'re making the changes on a copy of the board on a development machine first, before transferring over to the live site. This should make it safer, but there\'s still a risk of one or both of us breaking the board completely.... again... :)


Changes I\'ve made so far today:

(*) Fixed the problem where if a \'guest\' user views the board, there\'s an SQL error, and they don\'t see any forums.
(*) Added the capability for a user to set an option in their profile to \'Hide Awards\' so that any rewards they have don\'t get displayed alongside every post. (awards are shown by default).
(*) Added in options to restrict categories and forums depending on the beta status of the user. We\'ve already had this in various forms over the past couple of years, but I\'ve made the system (internally) clearer. This is so that a later stage will be able to store what the NDA status of the user is. I will have the process for this clear and ready over the next few days.

There\'ll be more items, which I\'ll followup with on this thread, but please feel free to make comment here!

[choiberg]

(*) Added in options to restrict categories and forums depending on the beta status of the user. We\'ve already had this in various forms over the past couple of years, but I\'ve made the system (internally) clearer. This is so that a later stage will be able to store what the NDA status of the user is. I will have the process for this clear and ready over the next few days.

I am curious about this one, but I can wait the couple of days for the answer like you stated.

Is the link to the Webcam going to be included in these updates?

[Gatewood]

I am looking forward to these updates! Thanks for considering a shy old woman\'s preferences! ;)

[Howard]

The first set of updates are in!

Feel free to go an edit your profile if you\'d like to hide your awards :)

One of the major parts of our work was developing a system so that we could edit and test the board on a local machine, and have an easy system for sending updates to the main server, which is now done!

You should see more updates rolling out from us over the next few days :)

[Gatewood]

Howard, I have edited my profile to hide awards, and there one sits right there by my Avatar! What\'s up? Do I have to edit my profile every time I re-enter the site?

Gatewood

Whoa! It seems not to be retroactive!

[choiberg]

Gatewood,

You don\'t have one there anymore from what I can see.

[Gatewood]

Gatewood,

You don\'t have one there anymore from what I can see.

Look at my previous post :P

edit: and this one! Help!

[Howard]

OMG this was a fabulous bug :)

If you had awards set to show, I had it written that you either had an empty string (for no awards), or a string containing the img tags.

Unfortunately... if you had awards set to hide, it didn\'t clear the string... so it picked up from whatever value it was in the previous post...

In this case, Choiberg\'s award was being \'lent\' to Gatewood!
Wouldn\'t coincidence conspire to make it happen between two people with 1 rosette each! That made it hard to track down :) Now if only you\'d followed someone with a different number, it would have been obvious !

Ah, I love programming!

btw... my wheelie chair goes back about 3 feet when I slap my forehead with a resounding \"DOH\" after discovering a bug like this :)

*chuckle*

[Gatewood]

Chris is such a nice, generous guy, isn\'t he?

:)

[choiberg]

I think I missed something there, but I also think I understand what had happened....

[Howard]

I think I missed something there, but I also think I understand what had happened....

Life moves fast on planet Astraware... blink and you\'ve missed an entire generation :)

Almost as fast as South American governments, in fact!

[choiberg]

Had,

Would it be possible to have an option in our Profile to be notified of \"New Threads\" with an email. In the same style of email that the \"Email Notification\" feature generates.

Maybe have it setup so you can select which forums for this option to appy. Like for example, since I am Palm illeterate, I would not want to be notified of new threads in the \"Palm Beta Tests\" Forum. But I would like to be notified in the \"Pocket PC Beta Tests\".

I find myself hunting through forums and spending more time looking for new threads to be a part of.

Not sure how difficult something like this would be, but it seems to be an idea that would be similar to code that is already on the boards.

[Howard]

This would not be trivial...

A mechanism for you to choose out of all the forums on the board which you want to hear about new threads in would be a challenge!

I\'ll think about possibilities on that one.

[Massman82]

You also promised a long time ago to implement a live chat feature into the board... :)

[Howard]

You also promised a long time ago to implement a live chat feature into the board... :)

Implementing now... It\'ll not quite be live, because it won\'t require you to have a Java app or similar. Just a regular page that you can post to that updates every \'x\' seconds to see if anyone else has posted.

ETA ? If it works, maybe this week for a bit of a trial. If not, then much longer.

Howard.

[threephi]

Howard, please please please please can you try to put in some better indexing for the memberlist? It\'s currently extremely difficult to browse. Alphabet links would be most useful, as would a \"find profile\" text box where you can put in a username. It would also be nice if you could set how many profiles appear on each page (20, 50, etc)

[Howard]

Howard, please please please please can you try to put in some better indexing for the memberlist?

Added to my list of things to do.

[DBZ-GOKU-]

I\'d like to add on to choibergs idea. Instead of making it so that you can single out what categories you wnat to recieve new info on, how about just the whole board, it would make it easier for you, and tell us when ever a new forum topic has started whereever in the board. Plus, if you did not wnat the option, you could turn it off.

Or, in another way, you could do what choiberg suggested. I catually think it would be really cool to have it done that way. Just have it so that any new topic in the main froum (beta testing, palm beta testing, games galore, etc.) will send you an email. You would have to have a check box for each section of the board in the profile area, but I think it would be cool.

Oh, one more thing about the \"notification emails.\" I think it should say what froum it is from on the main email, so that you know where to go. Then you don\'t have to check every email that gets sent to you. Plus, you would not have to have a big email that tells you. The emal would get to you quicker, you would be able to know where to go without even looking at it. Then, all you would have to have would be a link to your main board (and maybe a second link to the direct posts).

I would like this alot though. I say this because most the time (about 75-80% of the time) I will get anywhere from 30-70 emails (notifications) that came from Astraware. Anyways, just some suggestions. Tell me what you think. :)

[Howard]

I\'m working on the notification system.

It is *very* hard to make a system that will be entirely user-choosable, and still catch what you want without spamming you with things you dont.

Remember that we add (and remove) forums quite regularly, and that does make it hard to make a system that is user friendly!

I propose that for everyone signed in as a Palm beta tester, every time there\'s a new palm beta starting, I email all the palm beta testers, and similar for the Pocket PC ones :)

There\'s always a message at the end of each thread saying \"new beta available\", so you shouldn\'t miss that.

I just need to work on the emails a bit :)

Howard.

[DBZ-GOKU-]

Alright. Even if you do just email us just for new betas every time, I will be fine with that. Either way, I bet it will make everyone happy in the end. :)

[ArchiveGuest]

(This post was originally by rude_dog)
Sorry, but Had & co seem to have their hands quite busy!

I\'ve only scanned a couple of threads, but the comments all seem the same.

:)

\'Ignore the newby behind the curtain!\'

Later!

Palm\'s Forever!!!

[Cheryl]

Hehe! I guess we are somewhat demanding. :) It\'s funny how I took all the stuff that\'s missing for granted. Can\'t wait til it is up again.

[choiberg]

That\'s part of our role in here as Betat Testers, demand the best so the best gets developed.... Something like that, right?

I take exception to that coment about Palms....

Don\'t knock it til you try it.... :p ;)

[Cheryl]

How about don\'t knock it til you try it? ;) I happen to prefer gaming on my PPC :) I will admit that it\'s a little harder to figure things out than it is on my Clie, but I am learning.

[Gatewood]

Oh, Cheryl, I just knew you\'d love it! Isn\'t it wonderful :)

I\'m always delighted to see a game lover trying the PPC; until I got my first one, I had no idea how nifty it was.
:)

[choiberg]

Gatewood,

I forgot to tell you, my boss got a T|T, now all we do is argue (jokingly) all day whose PDA is better....

[Cheryl]

I\'m always delighted to see a game lover trying the PPC; until I got my first one, I had no idea how nifty it was.:)
Yup, that\'s me: game lover :) I love the games on my Dell! They are so aweome ! :)

[Gatewood]

Gatewood,

I forgot to tell you, my boss got a T|T, now all we do is argue (jokingly) all day whose PDA is better....

Yours is.....and I have both of them ;)

[Gatewood]

Yup, that\'s me: game lover :) I love the games on my Dell! They are so aweome ! :)

I think you were born to this business! ;)

[DBZ-GOKU-]

Hey Had, the board looks nice. The only thing I don\'t like is how there is no longer an index link. yes, there is the community link, butI liked the index link better.

Oh, Hey, Gatewood, and Cheryl. Whats types of games do you have on your PPC\'s? And Cheryl, is that Dell on of the new ones? What are all of the specifications (screen res, mb, processor, etc.)?

[Howard]

Hey Had, the board looks nice. The only thing I don\'t like is how there is no longer an index link. yes, there is the community link, butI liked the index link better.

As I wrote.... We\'ll fix that :)

And - do try to keep on topic! There\'s better threads (i.e. in beta banter for instance!) to ask about other random stuff.

Howard

[DBZ-GOKU-]

They started it...:) But I will finish it and start it in another area (beta banter, like you suggested). :)

[DBZ-GOKU-]

One question, what does the \"here\" link do at the bottom of the \"post reply\" do? I tried it out and all it does is take you to the same page, but without the here. What exactly is the purpose of this?

[choiberg]

They started it...:) But I will finish it and start it in another area (beta banter, like you suggested). :)
DBZ-,

DELL PPC (http://board.astraware.com/viewthread.php3?FID=59&TID=919&pagenumber=10)

(Had, my apologies for this post in this thread)