Ideas for the Abime Websites

[onkelarie]

It'd be awesome of hol would get a responsive style. I consult abime quite often with my smartphone. Luckily, eab already has a responsive skin, so the forum is already perfect for me

[TEOL]

The magazine rack needs a desperate upgrade. Internet Archeive now has a lot of dumps for some CD ISO coverdisks uploaded for a start which we need on the site like the missing CU AMIGA's expanded with more goodies and on a single disk whilst the disk versions may be on 3 disks but we don't have those but at least there is a version of them dumped now be it the CD one.

I also suggest moving it to Internet Archeive style format now where you can read it like a real mag on the server in an interactive moving pages format with no page reading limits and can also download it as a PDF and finding a cheap unlimited bandwith server which can now be cheaper than some limited bandwidth ones these days.

Final suggestion is maybe adding more homebrew mags like AMIGAVille 0-4 on there especially since the website is going down soon along with even the one paid issue and 4 free ones with the website and of course adding the missing links from the Internet Archcive dumps after getting the permission from the uploaders to reupload to the place made for them of course as there could be issues in that way but I'd imagine on Internet Archeive there is a PM feature to ask for permission to upload those missing mags and issues including the AMIGA sections of the multimags as well which there is plenty of.

Other than those suggestions I can't get enough of the Magazine Rack it just needs to be updated more regularly though and have the missing mags updated on it to make it as complete as possible and taking those silly maths equasions limits off of it especially after filling it in you don't get anymore downloads anyway I don't see the point other than bandwidth which there are plently of cheap solutions with less or no limits to it anymore which is better for that type of media site I feel to go to a cheap unlimited which works fast at the same time which now there are plently of whilst there wasn't when the site started.

Heres an AMIGA Review page of a weird Italian Multimag called K for Menace:

K Multimag 1 - AMIGA Review Menace Book View

K Multimag 1 - AMIGA Review Menace JPG Page View

Download Options View (Although Ours Would Be Like This To Make Things Simple PDF (Mag)/ADF(Floppy Coverdisk)/ISO (CD Coverdisk)

K is my example due to being the first one I ran into as different AMIGA keyword mags are under different archeives and I was looking at Additional Collections keyword AMIGA at the time but you get the idea it's just a great view for our site that I wanted to show off to discribe properly what I was talking about for if you don't want to read my blabbing of the ideas and just want to get my point and it's also a foreign multimag containing AMIGA that we needed the name of anyway for the site as our goal is to be the best for everything magazine related to the AMIGA standalone and possibly multimag with AMIGA pages only as well if we want to be the real big player for AMIGA mags from all over the world too. lol.

I think this format Internet Archeive shows is perfect for the AMIGA Magazine Rack if it's not too difficult to do something similar to this multi views thing as a reformatting for the rack site that is as being able to zoom in and out and flip it like an interactive book really brings a whole new level of interactivaty like we are reading the real deal.

I'm really passionate when it comes to ideas for sites like the magazine one as we haven't had an update in a year and a large amount of multi/homebrew/foreign AMIGA mags are missing and perhaps we need a complete look overhaul for being competative with the others mainly IA as well as that book view and with no maths eqasions which do nothing to fix the downloads is so good and I really want us to try and archeive this as well to be the best for AMIGA.

We do need to sort out the newer TOSEC and IA mag disk and CD coverdisk dumps for the site as well but take things slowly as getting a competative view which simulates a higher dpi even without having it is more important as well as getting new mag titles up on there by discovering them with Keyword AMIGA on places like IA.

Love it already but it does need to go through an overhaul transition to be better and I have AS which means I don't normally like change but in this case it won't be change as I visit IA anyway so I'm used to the view and like it better than those single jpeg files with the silly maths things alough I love the magazine rack and want to see it revived and becoming the best again and in my opinion an overhaul including taking out the silly maths questions and having PDF and JPG/BMP Interactive book view to up the dpi virtually if it's not too pixelated as it is downloading is the key to archeiving the goal of becoming the very best at what we do.

I've found another one in the same weird directory as the K one. This other weird subdirectory one is called Computer Det Nye. The regular Magazine Rack section and Additional Collections are harder to get to whilst The Computer Magazine Archives and Game and Gamer Magazines sections are easy to find so although they have their own Normal/Multi/Homebrew mags we don't have yet they are not in an underground section like the K and the CDN ones so you can find all of those on keyword AMIGA without having to look in another section:

Computer Det Nye #3

IA definitely seems a good route to get most of the PDF copies we require from especially for the Foreign Mags and the Multimags which many include the AMIGA. We need those AMIGA pages from them for completion.

Ok I'm starting to get overloaded with ideas even in my own noggin that I don't even understand what I'm typing anymore so I don't know what it's like for all you guys who are reading so I'd better stop now but do I love putting forward improvement ideas like this which I actually really want to see happen though. lol.

[Codetapper]

TEOL: Are you volunteering to do all this, or just complaining about the current site? Have you actually checked the site lately, because the page limits were actually removed about 6 months ago, you shouldn't be even getting those popping up. So either there is a bug, or you're complaining from 6 months ago.

I get an endless stream of people telling me what I should be doing with the site, but not one of them has actually offered to do anything to help like uploading the pages, indexing etc etc...

Also the PDF flipping stuff is a pain in the arse in my opinion - it's all animated bloatware crap and flipping through a non-indexed magazine full of ads is a waste of bandwidth when you want to read a particular review or article.

[TEOL]

Fair enough. Nah I wasn't complaining those were ideas for improvements. I like the Magazine Rack how it is for the most part other than the preview maths limits which is gone now anyway from the sounds of things.

So yeah, the missing multimags containing AMIGA reviews and the missing homebrew mags like AmigaVille and the rest of 880 gamer ect. and the expanded download section with the PDF's added are my only ideas for improvements now that the animated books have been declined and those should be possible to add in the near future as it's quite basic stuff due to TOSEC-Pix and Internet Archeive being things you can get the PDF's from of most of them.

[ReadOnlyCat]

Originally Posted by prowler

It is not worth the effort of reprogramming the forum merely to force members to trawl through all new posts, IMHO.

Please allow me to respectfully but totally disagree.

The point of the EAB being to disseminate information, joy and happiness about the Amiga, it is definitely in the interest of every EAB users that each post gets equal exposure.

Otherwise you are essentially saying "it would be fine if we had a mechanism which would just choose some posts at random and show them much less often than others". Nobody wants such a thing, yet, that is the treatment that the "end of page" posts get.

This said, you and RCK are 100% positively right that my solution was a bad one!
However I have a much better one below.

Originally Posted by prowler

To encourage members to read, or at least see, every post in a thread, each thread will not be marked as read until the user has opened every page containing unread posts (unless he or she chooses to 'Mark Forums Read' using the link at the top of every page).

That is not the same at all.
On one hand you have a mechanism which actively makes it harder to see some posts from the usual starting pages.
On the other hand you have the mere possibility to notice that a post has not been seen, but that does not make it any easier to access this post.

And that is what matters: ease of accessibility.
Never forget that humans rightfully follow the path of least effort so the interface must be designed to be fair right from the start because people will not make the extra effort to fix the UX's unfairness by trying to figure out why a post is not marked as read.

Originally Posted by prowler

Furthermore, any member concerned about missing recent posts for the reason you describe has the option to display the newest posts first in all threads from their Control Panel: Select Edit Options (under Settings & Options), select "Linear - Newest First" Thread Display Mode (under Thread Display Options) and then Save Changes.

Same here.
"Possibility" means 90% won't use it and that the system can thus unfairly make some posts less accessible.
It does not matter that it is possible to see these posts.
It matters that this is equally easy to see these posts than any other post.

Originally Posted by prowler

However, the fact that those "disappearing posts" receive statistically fewer replies than others in the forums indicates that most members prefer to browse threads "oldest posts first".

Well, no, not at all.
It just means that they just click on "last page" because that is the most easily accessible way to get on the last posts to be posted.

Originally Posted by prowler

The main problem with your suggestion to solve this problem, IMO, is that each new post in a thread will modify every page, which would be bad news for those who like to save offline copies of threads they are interested in for reference purposes.

Absolutely, my solution is retrospectively horrendous. You are absolutely right.

Originally Posted by prowler

As a Global Moderator, I try to ensure that any post which ends up at the top of a new page contains a quote from the post replied to (if any), inserting one if necessary for better continuity.

I concur with this and salute your work in this regard!

Originally Posted by RCK

Agree with Prowler, moreover if pages number of posts change each time someone reply, it will break the search engines indexing logic.

Absolutely, that was a very bad suggestion.
A much better one would be:

=> replace/augment the "Last Page" link with a "Last Unread Post" which would send the user directly to that post in the corresponding page.

In the end who cares about the last page? Very few people (who could still have it if they want to, via a setting somewhere).
We just want to know "what's new" and thus what are the unread posts in that thread. Sometimes it is the last page but many times there is more to it and "last page" masks that fact.

It seems that this one does not break anything as my previous bad suggestion did.

I am sure everyone whose post has unfortunately ended at the end of a page wants this feature (which should be about everyone, including you guys ).

[Arnie]

I've used EAB for years, I always click on 'Today's posts', never had a problem with it.

"If it ain't broke, don't fix it."

[BippyM]

Could always tie the various Abime sites to EAB login details. This would then stop excessive raping of the pages, and would work for HOL too..

Originally Posted by Codetapper

The 200 page limit is a pain I admit, I would like to see the end of that. Ideally I would like some kind of "verify that you're a human" system that helps build up the AMR data, a bit like Google did. Perhaps you get shown a random page and have to say whether it's a game advert, editorial page, review, what game is shown etc. And it remembers the answer. When it finds duplicates (asking several different people the same thing) then it adds it to the database. And we'd then slowly build up indexes of all game ads in the magazines and other stuff that is missing.

[ReadOnlyCat]

Originally Posted by Arnie

I've used EAB for years, I always click on 'Today's posts', never had a problem with it.

"If it ain't broke, don't fix it."

Except that you are completely off the point.

"Today's posts" which I use too, shows threads, not posts.
And from there, one only has access to "Last Page" for each post, which was my gripe: you miss the new posts which were not on the last page.
And to get them, which you obviously can, you have to do extra gymnastic, which no one does, which is why the end of page posts almost never get any replies: very few people ever see them because of "Last page".

[DH]

WRONG ReadOnlyCat

Click on todays posts, and then click on the small insignificant down arrow button on the left of the Thread title will take you to the very first unread post in the whole thread uniquely for you.

TA-DA!!!

or

Clcik on the sub forum you're interested in and do the same from there.



Sorry to be such a pain, but I run my own vBulletin forum, and no one is going to extensively mess around with the core code to accommodate what you are asking for. It's simply not viable and could break god knows what elsewhere, especially the database.

Just do the above and you'll get what you want.

[ReadOnlyCat]

Originally Posted by DH

WRONG ReadOnlyCat

Click on todays posts, and then click on the small insignificant down arrow button on the left of the Thread title will take you to the very first unread post in the whole thread uniquely for you.

TA-DA!!!

or

Clcik on the sub forum you're interested in and do the same from there.

Oh, nice! Is this a recent change or was this always there?

It is really nice to have but as far as discoverability goes, this is really not ideal. I will probably be the only one to ever know this exists just because I read your post, which is a shame because it means these end-of-page posts will keep being ignored forever.

Originally Posted by DH

Sorry to be such a pain, but I run my own vBulletin forum, and no one is going to extensively mess around with the core code to accommodate what you are asking for. It's simply not viable and could break god knows what elsewhere, especially the database.

Just do the above and you'll get what you want.

Well, you are not a pain, you give technical reasons, which is something I can relate to.
Also, this feature is exactly what I asked for, so I am happy except for the fact that nobody but a handful of people will know about it and use it.

However, if no one is willing to work in the core code to modify that, then I can volunteer.
If the source of the board is available somewhere on a publicly accessible repository with all EAB's modifications then I can give it a look and make the change myself.

You guys can then review the code and verify that I did not mess anything.
Since the feature is already there, it is just a matter of changing the display from this hidden-small-arrow to an explicit and clear "First Unread Post" link.

Tell me where to get the source and I will do it.

Update: Actually, after using it a bit, this is really nice as is but I wish these arrows would blink or something (kidding, you get the gist) to signal their purpose.
They are somewhat invisible compared to the very clear "(1 2 3 4 ... Last Page)" links.
The site should have an interactive tutorial.

[Pyromania]

Cody thank you for all your hard work on these sites. Thank you to anyone else I failed to mention. The Abime websites are awesome.

[invent]

Thank you for everyone's contributions very much appreciated

My only suggestion at the moment is to always find ways to remove unnecessary clutter.
To me an example of this would be things like "You last visited: Today at 22:40". Generally I know when I have visited but I don't ever need to be reminded.

Very happy to find other examples but in general I'm happy

[ReadOnlyCat]

Originally Posted by invent

To me an example of this would be things like "You last visited: Today at 22:40". Generally I know when I have visited but I don't ever need to be reminded.

The reason for this one is likely security: it allows one to detect that someone else is using their account.

[ReadOnlyCat]

Originally Posted by ReadOnlyCat

However, if no one is willing to work in the core code to modify that, then I can volunteer.
If the source of the board is available somewhere on a publicly accessible repository with all EAB's modifications then I can give it a look and make the change myself.

You guys can then review the code and verify that I did not mess anything.
Since the feature is already there, it is just a matter of changing the display from this hidden-small-arrow to an explicit and clear "First Unread Post" link.

Tell me where to get the source and I will do it.

Bumping this up in case my proposition was not noticed.

The "First Unread Post" arrow is really practical and I am using it all the time now but on mobile devices (and even on a computer), it can be quite difficult to target and click on efficiently.

It would not hurt if it could be made a bit more:
- Larger (so it can be tapped/clicked on more easily).
- More explicit (so people can realize it is clickable and what its function is).

If you are interested, I can give a try to modify the code to support this.
Just tell me how to proceed.

Cheers,

[Cobe]

Also never noticed that arrow. I was always clicking "last page" and I'll continue doing that cause it's nicer to me to read few posts before the last one in case I missed them and to know who's responding to who if its new thread to me or i forgot it.

[invent]

Thankyou ReadOnlyCat appreciate the response.

I do have some thoughts on the HOL site but might put together some visual concepts to illustrate the idea first.

[DH]

Originally Posted by ReadOnlyCat

Oh, nice! Is this a recent change or was this always there?

Yes, it's been there as far back as I can remember

Originally Posted by ReadOnlyCat

Bumping this up in case my proposition was not noticed.

The "First Unread Post" arrow is really practical and I am using it all the time now but on mobile devices (and even on a computer), it can be quite difficult to target and click on efficiently.

It would not hurt if it could be made a bit more:
- Larger (so it can be tapped/clicked on more easily).
- More explicit (so people can realize it is clickable and what its function is).

If you are interested, I can give a try to modify the code to support this.
Just tell me how to proceed.

Cheers,

I agree it is a tad small, and a little insignificant, but when you hover it tells you what it's for, and once you know, well, you know.

iirc, it's locked at 16x16 px in the code regardless of image size. Also it's relative to everything else on the page, so to change the size other elements will need adjustments to compensate.

I doubt RCK will openly pass the vBulletin code for adjustments as all vB php code is copyright unless otherwise stated. So passing on the code to a third party, that does not own vB could potentially be breaking (c) laws.

Best solution is to code directly using your own copy, and then present your solutions via PM so as not to openly distribute any part of vB code. I also doubt RCK would let anybody else tinker with his vB code directly, in fact I know he won't, that's why he is solely the Admin of the EAB forum

Obviously, when I have helped with some code, it's an addition rather than a change to the original code, so posting that here is OK as it's your own work, whereas if you're making changes to the original code, you probably can't as some elements will undoubtedly be part of the original vB code. A PM to RCK will probably get you your best answer fairly quickly, rather than bumping this thread. RCK is kinda elusive due to real life commitments these days, so I'm not really sure anybody else here can sensibly answer your questions regarding helping with code changes with confidence either, as no one else, as far as I know, has any access to this forums vB code.

[ReadOnlyCat]

Originally Posted by DH

Best solution is to code directly using your own copy, and then present your solutions via PM so as not to openly distribute any part of vB code. I also doubt RCK would let anybody else tinker with his vB code directly, in fact I know he won't, that's why he is solely the Admin of the EAB forum

Thanks for your explanations! This makes perfect sense. I naively assumed vBulletin code was open source.

I guess this explains why the forum presentation has changed very little over the years when other forum types usually offer features based on recent html developments and have more dynamic layouts.

Working a bit "in the dark" seems more effort that I might be willing to put in so I'll let the idea mature before contacting RCK. I have to contact him for other matters in a bit anyway so maybe...

Thanks again for the detailed reply!