How would you like your page today?

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ID:26156
 
Jan 23 2007, 10:54 am
There's a big update to the Member pages in the pipeline, and it's time to preview. While it's geared towards giving better presentation to game-oriented guilds, it has the nice side effect of allowing all Members to customize their pages significantly more than before.

The centerpiece of this update is the new website layout editing page. In it, you can choose which content boxes go in which of the three main sections, order the boxes within those sections, and even order the sections themselves. You'll still use CSS if you want to reposition them on the page, but reording them within the HTML opens up new possibilities.

We also have several new content boxes that you can choose to display on your page, including:
  • blog calendar
  • large favorite games summary
  • full favorite games list like hub channel pages
  • recent comments like the main Members site
  • recent blog summary like the main Members site
  • recent forum posts lists

For some of the boxes, you can also customize them by setting their titles and/or parameters such as the number of items to show.

Also changed in this update is the favorite games list. You can now list up to 100 favorites, but still only the top 10 count towards BYOND ranks. If your site is a guild, your guild members' rankings also influence the "Guild Members" rank of your guild's games. We're hoping that game-oriented guilds will add games and use the new game listing boxes to emphasize those games on their pages. Especially those soon-to-be-official game guilds -- start adding games!

Play with it here: http://test.byond.com/guilds_rock/?command=edit_layout

Any layout changes you make will go live when we update the main site with this new version. There are a few more things to add before then, and maybe some bugs to fix (please report here). Suggestions and comments are also welcome!
Jan 23 2007, 10:59 am (Edited on Jan 23 2007, 11:06 am)
Sounds absolutely amazing!

edit-
Of course I'm really anxious, when do you think the update will be?
Jan 23 2007, 11:01 am
Great googly moogly! I'll be checking that out yesterday!
Jan 23 2007, 11:03 am
Mike put a lot of work into this one!

I think it's gonna make for a revolution in Member page layouts.

And the scary thing is, we just keep thinking of more features we can add for guilds, so this is just the start of more changes to come.
Jan 23 2007, 11:05 am
One quick thing: When I changed the names of titles for sidebar items, they didn't save.

A quick idea: Adding Guild Events onto the Calender. I understand the main reason is to find dates of posts, but being able to add events would be of great use, especially to Guild Leaders.

[Quick Edit] It seems the new Comments link on the BYOND Members index doesn't update at the same rate as the old Comments sidebar. If I had to guess, I would guess that it is because the center content on the index is only generated when needed, rather than on demand. Just figured I would point that out [/Quick]
Jan 23 2007, 11:09 am
Make your own review for "YOUR FAVIROUTE GAMES"
Jan 23 2007, 11:13 am
Wow, interesting. I was about to request more customisation of the member pages. I was also going to request something else- rank-based content tags. Special HTML tags that you'd define on your member page (as well as the member ranks that could see content in said tags), then you could put them on your page.

So I could put a welcome message or date of the next guild event that would show up to members of a certain rank, but not people below that rank/non-members of that guild.

It would be so, so useful to be able to control what different members see and such. For one guild I am a part of I was pondering making a flash-based events calender (similar to what you guys have apparantly already made) and I was thinking about how it could go on the page*- put in a custom box the guild owner put on the site himself (the ability to make your own sections/'boxes' for the member page to be filled with whatever content you want would be very useful), and only visible to members of that guild.

*of course, you can't embed flash in the member pages right now, which sucks, but oh well.
Jan 23 2007, 11:13 am
Danial.Beta wrote:
One quick thing: When I changed the names of titles for sidebar items, they didn't save.

Workaround: reload the layout edit page and it'll work. It's having trouble the very first time you edit a title, and I know why...

A quick idea: Adding Guild Events onto the Calender. I understand the main reason is to find dates of posts, but being able to add events would be of great use, especially to Guild Leaders.

Events are already next in the pipeline.

[Quick Edit] It seems the new Comments link on the BYOND Members index doesn't update at the same rate as the old Comments sidebar. If I had to guess, I would guess that it is because the center content on the index is only generated when needed, rather than on demand. Just figured I would point that out [/Quick]

They both update as needed, but the old (current "live") Members site doesn't know that the Recent Blog Posts box should be marked for update when somebody posts a comment. That discrepancy will go away when the new version goes live.
Jan 23 2007, 11:21 am
Mike H wrote:
Workaround: reload the layout edit page and it'll work. It's having trouble the very first time you edit a title, and I know why...

OK, no problem. Just making sure it wasn't an oversight or perhaps browser specific.

Events are already next in the pipeline.

Looking forward. Any chance of iCal feeds? Magic 8ball says no.


They both update as needed, but the old (current "live") Members site doesn't know that the Recent Blog Posts box should be marked for update when somebody posts a comment. That discrepancy will go away when the new version goes live.

Ahh, yes. That would make sense. I do have to wonder, what type of stress is all this new stuff putting on the servers? If I remember correctly, the point in the non-ondemand generation of the index page was to reduce server stress, so I would think that it is decent. Then again, with all the new members, perhaps it was possible to upgrade the server.

The original reason I started this reply was that it didn't seem I was getting comment reply emails from the new test site, but it seems it was just delayed.
Jan 23 2007, 11:36 am
Sweetness.
Jan 23 2007, 11:37 am
My page is all ready for the update. ;)
Jan 23 2007, 11:39 am
a) On displaying the edit page, the positional popups are not initialized correctly -- all the popups for a section have the same number (7 in one case, 1 in another) -- if I move something within a section, then the popups get correctly numbered.

b) I'm not sure it should default to showing the favorite games summary? That was crammed into the left column where it didn't fit, and duplicated the standard "My Favorite Games" section. Perhaps by default the summary should be in the unused section?
Jan 23 2007, 11:40 am
Keeth wrote:
Sweetness.

You read my mind.
Jan 23 2007, 11:40 am
Danial.Beta wrote:
One quick thing: When I changed the names of titles for sidebar items, they didn't save.

Should be fixed now.
Jan 23 2007, 11:40 am
Is there a way to change the calender's font color for the days without a post?
Jan 23 2007, 11:41 am
Moving the mouse cursor over the Games hub icon should display a little summary box of your personal opinion on the game.

Maybe Blog Post Ratings would be a cool feature.
Jan 23 2007, 11:43 am
Deadron wrote:
a) On displaying the edit page, the positional popups are not initialized correctly -- all the popups for a section have the same number (7 in one case, 1 in another) -- if I move something within a section, then the popups get correctly numbered.

I blame you for not testing earlier. ;)

Ack. Can you describe exactly what you did before getting to this state? Or is it possible that you played with this stuff last night (when it was still a little buggy)? If that's the case, maybe it was just in a bad state from before. I thought I fixed all of that late last night.

b) I'm not sure it should default to showing the favorite games summary? That was crammed into the left column where it didn't fit, and duplicated the standard "My Favorite Games" section. Perhaps by default the summary should be in the unused section?

It should be. Again, were you playing with this yesterday? That could have screwed yours up.
Jan 23 2007, 11:45 am
Worldweaver wrote:
Is there a way to change the calender's font color for the days without a post?

.blog_calendar_table td, .blog_calendar_table th, #blog_calendar caption {
color: #f2f7ff;
}
Jan 23 2007, 11:47 am
if Recent Posts is enabled clear the ones on the actual members page?
Jan 23 2007, 11:48 am
Mike H wrote:
Worldweaver wrote:
Is there a way to change the calender's font color for the days without a post?

.blog_calendar_table td, .blog_calendar_table th, #blog_calendar caption {
color: #f2f7ff;
}

Gracias.
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