an idea : lobby integrated news database

[Satirik]

people here are too lazy to do anything useful except bitch about stuff

i hope you include yourself ... because you could post news and you don't need anyone to do so, but ofc if you wait for someone to do it and insult other people who just do like you (ie waiting for someone) it won't work

[Forboding Angel]

It was never meant to be a one man show, and I said that repeatedly. I also said repeatedly, here is a framework that everyone can use. Lets use it. But no one ever made an effort. Considering the massive amount of effort I had already put into it (all those little articles at the top that explain spring? I wrote most of those from scratch, and ran out of gas when I got to the lua widgets section).

[Licho]

I offer to make and run server backend when format and stuff is finalized.
I suggest its using simple rss - html/browser is nicer but imo too heavy weight.

[hoijui]

as it was said, there were discussions about this before, and RSS was the winner, as it seems to be this time again. have some RSS feeds (eg one for users, one for devs, ...) plus, if hte lobby wants to be fancy, they can show springinfo in an html enabled view. doe springinfo or the mian spring site use rss already? if so, then nothing more would be needed, except the lobbies that want it to integrate it. right?

[Forboding Angel]

Springinfo uses RSS for darn near everything, even the forums and topics are RSS ready.

[KaiserJ]

i apologize forboding, i didn't put much thought into my comment about springinfo. it's a well designed site; my intentions were more to point out that there isn't enough push for visitors to the site in terms of redirection... it was never my intent to insult or degrade anybodys work... especially something that i find to be good! it was wrong of me to categorize and dismiss your hard work with a single brash sentence, the facts of which clearly werent even correct.

you have to consider that i'm a newbie compared to you guys; i assure you that my intentions are good.

i think the reason that the links in #main and #newbies often go unnoticed is because there is not enough visual contrast to draw the users eye there; the windows are generally walls of text similar to my posts . people who are unfamiliar with an IRC type of interface probably find this daunting and confusing (not to mention people who are paranoid about clicking links to unknown sites in the first place.) i find a good rule of thumb in terms of accessibility is "could grandma use it?" i realize the information is already there for people to use... but i want to coat it in tabasco and jam it up their nose so that they are FOR SURE aware of it

i had a fairly simple vision for a news page... a popup window similar to the tips/tricks window that already exists on TASclient; appears on connection to the server, displaying the latest five articles from any category... with a tab interface at the top so you could click and look at the top five in a certain group of articles (subdivided into articles about mods, tournaments, maps, engine etc.) each link would be contained in rectangle and require need something like a title, a byline and a small content summary as well as a picture or icon to help the user visually identify what the particular article is about, or in the case of something like a mod release be eyecatching... when clicked, links would open a browser window and lead to springinfo or the equivalent so that the user could browse the full article and possibly be inclined to browse the rest of the news site... i can easily make a mockup if needed for a critique & analysis.

http://ca.yahoo.com/?p=us

if you direct your eyes to the right hand column, there should be a heading "explore yahoo"... the style of the links below is pretty much exactly what i was thinking of.

[Pxtl]

Remember that this is not the same as #main and #newbies. Those features are things that _NEED_ to be read by every single user. Those are warnings, bugfixes, file-sources, etc.

This is not. This is something that just needs to be fun - this is ads, and promotion. Having the default-page of the lobby be a screen of news and images harvested from SpringInfo (with links to the articles for details) would be perfect.

edit: I agree, the right-hand sidebar is a good format for articles. I was thinking of moddb.com, which is similar - image, headline, blurb - keep it small and dense so that the eye can catch any images or keywords that the user is interested in, and just use the blurb for a teaser to see if you can draw the user into clicking the article for more info.

[zwzsg]

We need more news & advertisement about the new news & advertisement system!

And also, a manual on how to publish news there.





I've been dimly aware of the existence of a website called www.springinfo.info, for years I though it was just yet another file hosting website, only recently I went there, and the info about K.P. was so extremely outdated I sincerly hope no one get his info from www.springinfo.info.

I see that Satirik posted some code snippet, but I have no idea who's supposed to do what with it.

I used the "community news" tab on the spring.clan-sy.com frontpage while it lasted, though the character limit made it tricky.

Also, please don't make me post the same new in ten different obscure places using ten different systems each time I have a piece of new to annouce to the (Spring) world.

[Wisse]

While you're at it here's my suggestion:

It looks like that if you don't like it. Takes away whole 5px!!!! of ur screen.


If you like it, you drop it down and it shows channel bound info.


For clan info, which doesn't need to be refreshed on it's own from any source you just need to make some kind of channel tied login (maybe let only channel ops) and exactly the same box as i'm writing in with enabled BB codes. All you would have to add is background color code.

I don't rly know or care how you would feed #main's box.

@Satirik: No, I'm not doing it myself. It's just an idea

Disclaimer: That's just fast mock-up, don't judge my photoshop skillz.

[KaiserJ]

i really like that idea too wisse... hehe if i had my way, BOTH would be implemented.

a colorful channel heading would give more room for advertising, it's true, but it could also be used (as you've shown) to nicely customize channels and give them their own feel and identity.

official channels could have advertising injected very effectively (have a rotation of titles on main to show new mods / maps etc); set the title image in your channel settings, and you're good to go! anyone have comments as to how feasible this is? i like it.

not 100% sure about using BB code specifically though; i can imagine griefers exploiting it and spamming massive thick wads of glitter graphics enhanced spam all across the lobby all too well hehe

[Wisse]

No BB codes in chat. Those info boxes would only draw content that would be uploaded and edited on some web page. No need to implement lobby editor. Only channel owner/ops could edit channel banner content.
Exactly like custom signatures which are used on certain forums, where you can add ur pictures and text using BB codes.

[KaiserJ]

ahhh, gotcha; for some reason my brain didn't register that the titles were in seperate windows from the channel text.

[Forboding Angel]

We need more news & advertisement about the new news & advertisement system!

And also, a manual on how to publish news there.





I've been dimly aware of the existence of a website called www.springinfo.info, for years I though it was just yet another file hosting website, only recently I went there, and the info about K.P. was so extremely outdated I sincerly hope no one get his info from www.springinfo.info.

I see that Satirik posted some code snippet, but I have no idea who's supposed to do what with it.

I used the "community news" tab on the spring.clan-sy.com frontpage while it lasted, though the character limit made it tricky.

Also, please don't make me post the same new in ten different obscure places using ten different systems each time I have a piece of new to annouce to the (Spring) world.

THat info was taken from your latest KP post on these forums as of about 6 months ago or so. If it's not up to date, maybe you should update it eh?

http://www.springinfo.info/?feed=rss2 Gentlemen I invite you to take a look at this page. OMG what could it be? COuld it be an RSS feed that could be put into a little window with little clickable links??? OMG OMG OMG IT IS!?!?!!

Z, don't be a nub on purpose, it doesn't really fit your extensive knowledge of most things very well.


http://spring.clan-sy.com/phpbb/viewtop ... fo#p290670
That is the link to the original springinfo thread.

I really don't appreciate degradation of the IMMENSE amount of effort I went through to find what information I could on those mods. As stated *A mods were left out originally only because there are so many, and CA/BA because I could not find any good contextual info that I could copy pasta. The pages at the top with all that info (excepting the faq and getting started) I wrote myself!

I designed this thing so that the very pricks that make fun, troll, and cause me all kinds of irritations could manage the site by themselves!

Here is a list of the current users and their roles.

Code: Select all

admin  	  	  	Administrator  	7
	Authekduhmime 		 	Subscriber 	0
	clumsy_culhane 	Chris Culhane 	 	Author 	2
	Drorcepyptorp 		 	Subscriber 	0
	Enzydaysara 		 	Subscriber 	0
	Forboding Angel 		 	Administrator 	0
	Gota 		 	Subscriber 	0
	Grooryloatbub 			Subscriber 	0
	KingRaptor 			Subscriber 	0
	KingXXXxxx 		 	Subscriber 	0
	langeleMats 		 	Subscriber 	0
	LordMuffe 			Editor 	0
	mariuszdudek 			Subscriber 	0
	NOiZE 		 	Editor 	0
	Pressure Line 		 	Editor 	0
	rowboriblalia 		 	Subscriber 	0
	Saktoth 		 	Editor 	0
	Warlord Zsinj 	Adam 	 	Editor 	0
	wergoHare 		 	Subscriber 	0
	xof 		 	Subscriber 	0
	Zemabumma 		 	Subscriber 	0

The role of "Editor" Means that that person can do ANYTHING on the site except edit the php/css. Author means that that person is authorized to make news posts.

All those editors and authors, and no one of them has done ANYTHING!

All you have to do is sign up, and ask for access!! Is that so tough? It takes all of 30 seconds, then (assuming you are a modder, dev, or luaguy) you have access to do anything and everything on the site! I mean jesus christ, what more do you want? I'm trying to give all these people an outlet to do what they've been bitching about not being able to do for a VERY long time, but no, the majority of the people here prefer to BITCH WHINE and COMPLAIN instead of ACTUALLY DOING SOMETHING! You're damn right I'm pissed off, I went to the trouble of hosting this thing on my server (which doesn't go down every time fnordia has a bachelor party at his house), the domain, the site itself, wrote a lot of content for it, set up what I could as an example of a good way to do it. RSS feeds ffs! Hello? Anyone tell me the one thing the Spring site is missing? Oh yeah, RSS capability!

Look springinfo was NEVER meant to replace the spring site, it was to be an ADDITION to it. Similar to TAU - Cavedog or Annihilated - Cavedog. The fucked up thing is the fact that nearly ALL of you could have access to manage it, but NONE of you will actually step up!

On an additional entertaining note, last time I checked the site was still registering 100 unique hits per day. Tbh I should save the trouble and just delete the site and redirect to supcom or something similarly dumb, come on guys, the tools are already there, you have the power to do it! Are any of you actually willing to do something besides talk about it?

Let me point it out again. For what kaiser wants, all you would have to do is have a small popup in the lobby, displaying HTML pointed to the springinfo rss feed. Could it be more simple? Honestly.

Also, when the spring site takes a crap cause someone tripped over the eth cable, where do people go for info about what is going on (a few of us head over to smoth's site btw)?

[Peet]

The founders of youtube did not become billionaires by hosting a basic cms and then saying "do it yourself".

[Forboding Angel]

That must be why spring isn't up there in the charts, mainly because there is an engine, now, "Figure out how to use mod it by yourself, and get bitched at for asking pointless questions" or my favorite. "It's in the wiki".

There is a big difference here peet. I didn't do springinfo for my own gain, and B, I did a lot of work getting it all set up for everyone to use. I did it for people like you, who prefer to troll me as opposed to doing something useful.

C: Nice mod trolling.

On terms of "Basic CMS", the current spring site is a wiki. Care to tell me how that is any different?

[Tobi]

Since springinfo has RSS I suppose it could be given inertia by actually making an integrated RSS reader in some lobby clients with by default some feeds from springinfo added.

[zwzsg]

Is it some sort of wiki I have to register to and then I can edit by myself all I want?

If so I guess I'll have to do it, some days. I wonder if it would be possible to tell SpringInfo to just fetch the latest page from clan-sy's wiki or I'll have to edit both every time.

[KaiserJ]

http://www.springinfo.info/forums/viewt ... d=1&t_id=4
i've started a thread at springinfo about specifically using their RSS feed to populate a news window popup... i encourage anyone who would like to help me to pop by there and leave anything you think might be helpful (not to discourage the discussion in the current thread in any way)

[Forboding Angel]

Look guys, springinfo isn't perfect. I myself have stated that several times. Case in point, the forums database and the actual site database is not linked (so essentially 1 login for site, one for forums), but phpbb doesn't support RSS feeds for the posts and I had no luck finding a mod to do it, and tbh I'm not familiar with phpbb enough to do it myself.

THat said, it's not necessarily a bad thing per se, nor is it uncommon for sites to be set up that way. In fact, this site was separated too up until the new site design, and it may still be separated (haven't bothered checking).

If you don't like the layout of springinfo, that is fine tbh (users can actually choose what layout they would like to see displayed), but if you would like a different default theme, set one up (they are actually pretty easy to do), take a screenie of how it looks, and make a post about it, with a zip including the files for it (cause that way, it could be added to the current site and everyone could see it for themselves).

There is a lot of flexibility here, we just have to make use of it.

Edit: http://www.springinfo.info/forums/xml.php?id=1
^^ that is the rss feed of the springinfo general discussion board.

Edit2: Individual threads are also RSS ready, for example http://www.springinfo.info/forums/xml.php?id=1&t_id=2

[KaiserJ]

hey satirik... tried the script, it worked pretty well thankyou very much; it would have taken me ages to figure that one out i imagine... hopefully you've started the ball rolling on something really cool and helpful to spring.

now a python noob question / bug

if you close the news window, log out, but dont exit TASclient, then login again, theres a big white box that appears in the upper left of the news window, over top of the html... you can close it again, and log out, but TASclient will not naturally close from a quit anymore, you have to kill the process... if you were to not try to close the client and log back in at this stage, the news window will not appear anymore.

i assume i'm somehow leaving a remnant of the news page in the memory...

i see gui.AddForm ... is there something like a gui.RemoveForm that i need to tie to the window closing? another code snippet will indebt me to you immensely, i'd love to get this working without borking the lobby :)

also : how do i apply the lobby skin to my window?

thanks in advance.