Spring RTS Engine

So a while back I was talking to Jazcash who as most of you know is working on springnetwork.info

Springnetwork takes a massive load off of what springinfo was designed to do and for that I am very grateful.

So... in lieu of the advent of springnetwork it has allowed me to convert springinfo into a proper news site. Complete with a new look, and syndication to every spring game site with an rss feed (including syndication with this site as well) I present you with the new, completely revamped, and much much much better springinfo.

Located of course, here: http://www.springinfo.info

The principle behind it is simple. It runs itself. I don't have to hardly ever even touch it anymore.

Here is the way it works:

All game sites that have rss feeds are syndicated. What this means is that if I make a post on http://www.evolutionrts.info, an excerpt of that post is then sent to springinfo (And the Evolution RTS facebook page: http://www.facebook.com/#!/pages/Evolut ... 284?ref=ts << fan it NAO! ). In turn, that post is then sent to the spring facebook page and anything else that is actively syndicating springinfo.

What does this mean for you?

If your game or spring related site has an rss feed and you are not currently syndicated, let me know either in this topic or via pm, with a link to your feed. It must be a proper rss or atom feed. I cannot syndicate malformed feeds (In other words, validate your feeds!).

The entire point is that it will increase your exposure and help out on the newsgathering front as well.

A quick note on the excerpts featured on springinfo... Springinfo is just the syndicate. What I mean by that is that springinfo pulls excerpts. If a user is browsing springinfo and clicks on a news item, that user is taken to the original post on the original website.

Direct posting on springinfo is still possible, and it's absolutely fine if you want to, the old ways still work and that post would be able to be viewed on springinfo itself.

Also, I have some plans for the community news forum that I have to work out with Tobi and the other site admins, but suffice it to say that the idea is that you would be able to make a post in that forum, and springinfo would syndicate it as well. There are some kinks to work out before that happens though, so just stay tuned

The gadget DB is kinda dead (ok, was never alive) cause it was never really maintained by anyone. Better remove the link until there is one who is willing to maintain it.

Please add
http://www.moddb.com/games/conflict-terra

Thanks

@snoop, Done. Keep in mind that feeds from moddb ONLY contain what is in the excerpt, so you might want to start putting a wee bit more info in them (Of course it's totally up to you .

Also, I forgot to explain the thumbnails. It works in 3 ways.
The steps are:
1. look and see if the post has an image, if it does, use that image as the thumbnail.
2. look and see if the post has "Homethumb" (Homethumb is a custom failsafe image for posts without images), if it does, and there is no image in the post, use homethumb as the thumbnail image.
3. The post neither has an image in it nor homethumb defined, use default image (Spring logo).

Don't worry about the homethumbs, I set those up for each individual feed. It'd be kinda boring if every newspost had a spring icon

@Vbs, ok well fair enough, but there is some good stuff on there

That was not meant as an order, was just a suggestion Ofc you are free to keep it if you have use for it, I just assumed there is none.

All the videos seem broken, they show as

I did a little Trailer yesterday and was asked to post it, so here it is: [stream flv=x:/www.springinfo.info/wp-content/uploads/ ... railer.flv width=560 height=340 img=x:/www.springinfo.info/wp-content/uploads/ ... slide1.jpg bandwidth=high title=Spring Engine Trailer skin=imeo /] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2mKhQD2SVqw

"important links"
XTA Forever: http://xta.darkstars.co.uk/forums/ <-this does not work
http://xta.darkstars.co.uk/ <-this does work but seems very outdated

SpringFiles should be at very top of list as it the most important one to get maps. The description should also reflect this otherwise people might click through all the "important links" looking for map downloads...

They don't maintain that site and haven't done in a while, I made clear I wasn't available to do so myself, your best starting s thread in the XTA forum

knorke wrote:All the videos seem broken, they show as

I did a little Trailer yesterday and was asked to post it, so here it is: [stream flv=x:/www.springinfo.info/wp-content/uploads/ ... railer.flv width=560 height=340 img=x:/www.springinfo.info/wp-content/uploads/ ... slide1.jpg bandwidth=high title=Spring Engine Trailer skin=imeo /] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2mKhQD2SVqw

Thanks for reminding me about this.

Why isnt replays.adune.nl on the "important links" ?

Uhh prolly cause no one ever suggested it and I never thought of it.

widget database downloads are broken, ie check this link:
http://widgets.springrts.de/lua_manager.php?m=10&id=293
gives "file not found"

Maybe the layout of the article preview in lists thing could be better.
Ie the "[Date] posted by" and "Category:" could be one line, leaving more space for the thumbnail. Because some thumbnails are unreadable/ugly due to strong downsizing. (thumbnails should never be resized)

And link http://www.youtube.com/user/XtaReplay maybe? These guy(s) have some good commentated games.

knorke, go there and do ctrl + f5

still looks like this for me:
http://img15.abload.de/img/thbuwsg.jpg
right is the picture in full size. downsized its hard to see anything.
Maybe the text can flow around the images more?

Problem is if I have a large image and not enough text, it messes with the layout. I suppose I could force a pagebreak, but that's messy.

knorke wrote:widget database downloads are broken, ie check this link:
http://widgets.springrts.de/lua_manager.php?m=10&id=293
gives "file not found"

That's an invalid link. Its not lua_manager.php, its index.php. And it is all making sense now.

very_bad_soldier wrote:

knorke wrote:widget database downloads are broken, ie check this link:
http://widgets.springrts.de/lua_manager.php?m=10&id=293
gives "file not found"

That's an invalid link. Its not lua_manager.php, its index.php. And it is all making sense now.

It is still broken? It always wants to download a .php file instead of the widget.
I did empty cache and reload but its still messed.
Videos too, either show some textstuff (http://www.springinfo.info/spring-engine-trailer/) or are resized to 1/2 of their original width. (=1/4 of area)
For example this one:
http://www.springinfo.info/kernel-panic-3-5-2/

VBS fixed http://widgets.springrts.de/ but didn't fix http://widgets.springrts.de/springinfo

As for the videos, I hadn't gotten around to it yet.

*later*
There they should be fixed.

EDIT:
Sorry, I shouldnt post in that condition. I will take a look soon.

click on "Widget DataBase" in Nav Bar links to
http://www.springinfo.info/lua-widgets/widget-database/

click download button, shows
http://widgets.springrts.de/lua_manager.php?m=10&id=259 on mouse over
arrives at http://www.springinfo.info/lua-widgets/widget-database/
-> error there


http://widgets.springrts.de/
dling from there works but that link is not in the Nav bar

Knorke

http://www.springinfo.info/lua-widgets/widget-database/

only displays

http://widgets.springrts.de/springinfo

In an iFrame (in other words, a browser within a browser)

Now go to: http://widgets.springrts.de/springinfo and click the download button on any widget. You end up being referred to http://widgets.springrts.de/ without any file being downloaded.

Upshot of it is that I really can't do anything about it, only VBS can.