Forum update and submissions

Looks good, only question is, other than going through every thread one by one, what options are there for viewing/searching?

Or is that another section entirely?

Granted, could have tags, or the very layout should pull it up in a search based on the name of the sprite if you know what your looking for. That being said, I can't make even a remote suggestion on how to do such a thing without it turning into the mess we have now, so I can't complain.

Other than that, nothing really jumps out. Looks good.

Looks good, only question is, other than going through every thread one by one, what options are there for viewing/searching?

There's none. My second step is to make something similar to this, but for sprites. That one thread per submission thing is really temporary, only a way to record the submission info in the database, save the screenshot/sprite on the server and show we have approved it. Otherwise there's no incentive to submit anything unless the whole display page / search option are 100% done. It's like building a cheap wooden stairway during your house construction, everyone knows it's not permanent and serve only during construction.

Granted, could have tags, or the very layout should pull it up in a search based on the name of the sprite if you know what your looking for.

Tags are efficient if most of submitters used them properly.

What is sure is that there's gonna be one search dropdownlist for every submission characteristic (ex: size, type, palette). The only fields that would be a search textbox (input) is search by submission title (partial or complete title). Palette I'm not sure it could be a list from 0 to 7, "custom" and "not important" because I don't really see someone searching for a monster that uses palette 482 and not using the sprite because the said palette is already taken, thought not impossible lol, but palette search does make more sense for PC/NPC sprites.

That plan should work for searching, would it be possible to display either the screenshot or sprite itself as the link? Well, I guess that would fall in as the description wouldn't it?

Eitherway, best search on the net would still be limiting if you have to go through every single link. Sure, looking for a vanilla full sheet or maybe a "Cloud" sprite would be fine, but just looking for a cool custom sprite would take awhile (other than narrowing it down to "full character sprite" through search.

Get the feeling I'm asking for the impossible. Hell, guess while I'm at it I'll ask for an onsite AI that will sort and give suggest sprites based on the user's profile. Back in the real world, yeah an exact field by field drop down search would get it done. But wait! What if I want a PC sprite that uses palette #482?

That plan should work for searching, would it be possible to display either the screenshot or sprite itself as the link? Well, I guess that would fall in as the description wouldn't it?

I'm thinking an admin could crop a teaser (1 pose, magnified to 32x48) for character sprites or even the user could upload his own when submitting. However this is irrelevant to portraits or monsters, the teaser being the sprite itself. One thing is sure is that the result list will look ugly regardless of what I do if I have result images that are different size... unless I crop/pad/resize everything to a 48x48 teaser just for the purpose of having an idea what the sprite look like. 48x48 allow portrait, special sprites and a magnified pose to be fully displayed while monster could be 1/2 of their original size and center croppped to 48x48 at worst.

Sure, looking for a vanilla full sheet or maybe a "Cloud" sprite would be fine, but just looking for a cool custom sprite would take awhile (other than narrowing it down to "full character sprite" through search.

You'll be able to search something like "Cloud" + [NPC] + [12+ colors]. However while browsing stuff on RHDN or art site like deviant art, I learned that you are sometime better to look all entries in a specific category or look at a one word result in ALL categories rather than doing very specific search that give few results.

Hell, guess while I'm at it I'll ask for an onsite AI that will sort and give suggest sprites based on the user's profile.

Haha. Nice one!

But wait! What if I want a PC sprite that uses palette #482?

It's like looking for a FF6 patch for SNES that fixes the item duplication bug. 0 search result lol.

hey madsuir

when will the board be ready for the full upgrade

when will the board be ready for the full upgrade

I will have a two weeks vacation starting December 25th. So I will close the board on the 26th or 27th for a few days to do the full upgrade. I'm confident the new forum will be functional on December 31th.

Until then I'm polishing stuff and work on the submission system. Really at this point the most critical things I haven't done are testing some pages with Firefox and other browsers. I dunno if I should care about Opera or Safari, considering this as far as Desktop computers are concerned. With Microsoft dropping IE7, 8 and 9 support in 2016, I should probably focus on making the forum look good and working on Chrome/Firefox on desktop and Safari/Chrome/Android on phone/tablets.

looking forward to a chrome icon

looking forward to a chrome icon

You mean a favorite/browser icon? Zeemis sold the magicite one we had to fund his poke-battle forum.

I know would be nice to have a new one

I use Opera so it would be great if you tested that too :P

Can't wait to try the new forum. From what I've seen it's great!