Some Minor AusGamers Site Updates

Post by trog @ 11:47am 14/11/13 | 84 Comments

Just wanted to drop in a quick note about a few minor updates that we've done around the AusGamers website to make sure people know that every now and then, some things do get crossed off our ever-growing TODO list.

Remembered that we made this neat Steam stats tool months ago and forgot to tell anyone. It's a work in progress but is still sort of cool.
Fixes for video streaming to ensure videos start playing (almost) immediately - an encoder issue was causing many of them to buffer fully before playing (boo).
Added initial testing support for tablet view on the site by dropping the right side column
Added a new front layer of caching to improve network access performance.
Allow forum embeds for Vimeo, SoundCloud, Kickstarter, TED talks and other requested media types.
Fixed files search page to correctly search the whole library.
Fixed the top daily downloads page so it correctly shows the most popular files of the day.
Fixed some broken links and removed some tracking code that is no longer required.
Fixed some instances where 'insecure' content was being loaded when on HTTPS pages.
Fixed a huge stack of tiny little bugs that are too boring to mention in any great detail.

Always keen for feedback on what we're doing - and what else we could be doing. So if you have any neat ideas let us know and we'll see if we can throw them onto the TODO!

ausgamers

Latest Comments

Link

TiT
Posted 12:34pm 14/11/13

I would love it if you could provide a little box that add the "quote" & "img" text code so that i don't have to keep typing it out every time i want to do it :)

Link

Hogfather
Posted 12:37pm 14/11/13

I would love it if you could provide a little box that add the "quote" & "img" text code so that i don't have to keep typing it out every time i want to do it :)

Post a Reply is basically the quote button

Link

fpot
Posted 12:40pm 14/11/13

Post a Reply is basically the quote button

Holy s*** I never knew this existed.

Link

TiT
Posted 12:50pm 14/11/13

Post a Reply is basically the quote button

true I mainly want the img one as its so annoying when you get it wrong

Link

Hogfather
Posted 12:58pm 14/11/13

By the way while its on my mind, the Post a Reply button borks new lines, so quoting:

Hog is a useful form member.

He posts feedback

Becomes

Hog is a useful form member.He posts feedback

Hopefully its on a todo somewhere, if not it should be :)

Link

trog
Posted 01:31pm 14/11/13

Hoggy, yeh, that is a relatively new thing that is also bugging me. Ticketed!

Link

trog
Posted 01:42pm 14/11/13

I would love it if you could provide a little box that add the "quote" & "img" text code so that i don't have to keep typing it out every time i want to do it :)

Also ticketed. It was in the TODO a billion years ago but got lost; I know it's been there for ages so will try and get that done Real Soon Now.

Link

paveway
Posted 02:15pm 14/11/13

Allow forum embeds for Vimeo, SoundCloud, Kickstarter, TED talks and other requested media types.

my n****h

Link

copuis
Posted 02:50pm 14/11/13

need a new mix pave,

I've already given this quite a few spins in the car already

Link

Mosfx
Posted 04:57pm 14/11/13

Giving it a crack now on my workstation, try and give me that post 3pm energy I need.

Link

crazymorton
Posted 05:09pm 14/11/13

So if you have any neat ideas let us know and we'll see if we can throw them onto the TODO!

organise xmas drinks.....stat!

Link

RuleofBooKz
Posted 05:37pm 14/11/13

little button to bold underline italics and change size and color of font?

Link

Whoop
Posted 06:55pm 14/11/13

Post a Reply is basically the quote button

but it's broken and only quotes half the post if there's a quote in the post you're quoting. Easier to just copy / paste.

true I mainly want the img one as its so annoying when you get it wrong

Most image hosting sites (photobucket, imageshack, imgur) give you links you can just copy and paste directly in here. Just be sure you pick the html one, not the ubb one. Giving people the option to click a button to embed an image is a bad idea because they'll go to imgur, copy the UBB code and just paste that straight into the box here anyway. That or they'll think it's to upload an image directly to the forum.

little button to bold underline italics and change size and color of font?

that'spretty easytooso's this :D

Link

Lynx
Posted 07:29pm 14/11/13

The main thread page always shows all threads as red folders, as though they all have had new posts in them since I last visited.

Link

Spook
Posted 09:01pm 14/11/13

is it even worth asking for any updates to qgl?

basically, qgl.ausforums.com = not banned at work
ausGAMEers = banned at work.

so ill be sticking with qgl until i get too old for posting on this forum.

Link

Whoop
Posted 01:43am 15/11/13

should be doing work at work anyway spook :)

edit: come to think of it, about those quotey imagery fonty button things, a couple of years ago someone posted up some greasemonkey scripts that messed with the forums to make ausgamers look like qgl (before the theme existed), is it possible for someone who isn't me and who is actually smart to make a user script that just adds those buttons into like a right click menu or something?

Link

ph33x
Posted 10:56am 15/11/13

I post on a few forums where you can select text and Ctrl+B for bold (Ctrl+I, etc). It'll add the tags at either end of the selected text.

Makes formatting a post rather breezy.

Link

trog
Posted 11:38am 22/11/13

By the way while its on my mind, the Post a Reply button borks new lines, so quoting:

Hopefully its on a todo somewhere, if not it should be :)

this is

fixed bro!

Link

Hogfather
Posted 11:41am 22/11/13

this is

fixed bro!

PRO AS

Link

ph33x
Posted 11:42am 22/11/13

this is

Have you tried to...

fixed bro!

...quote someone with quotes in the middle of their post?

Link

Hogfather
Posted 11:45am 22/11/13

...quote someone with quotes in the middle of their post?

IMO this is a sign that you are balls deep in a s***** quotefest e-fight and need to think about backing the f*** up anyway!

Link

baz
Posted 12:40pm 22/11/13

I would love it if you could provide a little box that add the "quote" & "img" text code so that i don't have to keep typing it out every time i want to do it :)

I would also like this as my HTML skills are not good. I tried to post a picture of a pair of cheap tongs the other day and accidently posted a picture of cheap bongs!!

This is quite embarrasing so if you could do somthing about it, I would appreciate it.

Link

ph33x
Posted 01:36pm 22/11/13

IMO this is a sign that you are balls deep in a s***** quotefest e-fight and need to think about backing the f*** up anyway!

I was referring to when someone replies to several people in a single post. So dramatic, huh.

This is quite embarrasing so if you could do somthing about it, I would appreciate it.

That'd be great.

Link

Saint
Posted 02:13pm 22/11/13

I would also like this as my HTML skills are not good. I tried to post a picture of a pair of cheap tongs the other day and accidently posted a picture of cheap bongs!!

This is quite embarrasing so if you could do somthing about it, I would appreciate it.

We're slowly getting there, should definitely have something in the next week or two (there's a few other tasks that need doing before we get to that).

Link

Creepy
Posted 02:45pm 22/11/13

I live a life of multiple devices. It would be REALLY awesome if my login dictated what was read/unread as I jump from device to device.

Also, the "view first unread" button never actually jumps to the latest unread/newest reply.

(Currently using the QGL forum theme for www.ausgamers.com, with 30 threads/posts per page)

Link

Hogfather
Posted 03:06pm 22/11/13

I live a life of multiple devices. It would be REALLY awesome if my login dictated what was read/unread as I jump from device to device.

Also, the "view first unread" button never actually jumps to the latest unread/newest reply.

I'd be interested in how that works out. I wrote a forum for AUS-1 and we wanted this, it ended up not being especially scalable as we needed to store and track the read status of every damn thread basically.

Was on the to do but we ended up canning the site, be interested in a scalable and per-thread accurate algorithm for it.

Link

Creepy
Posted 03:21pm 22/11/13

Yeah I'm not sure how far down the rabbit hole the powers that be wanted to go with the forum software. vBulletin and phpBB seem to have a handle on it, but I dunno the voodoo that they do...

It's by no means a must have, but Trog did ask for ideas... :)

Link

deadlyf
Posted 03:32pm 22/11/13

My post a reply box now stretches across the entire screen instead of a little box at the bottom. The frames were messed up for a while yesterday but seem to be sorted now.

I guess this works better on tablets or something but it's a bit extreme on a 27" monitor.

Link

baz
Posted 03:39pm 22/11/13

We're slowly getting there, should definitely have something in the next week or two (there's a few other tasks that need doing before we get to that).

Im glad to hear it because I who knows what images I'll post next....crackheads fisting a donkey?

Link

ph33x
Posted 03:43pm 22/11/13

I live a life of multiple devices. It would be REALLY awesome if my login dictated what was read/unread as I jump from device to device.

Also, the "view first unread" button never actually jumps to the latest unread/newest reply.

(Currently using the QGL forum theme for www.ausgamers.com, with 30 threads/posts per page)

I believe Chrome can sync your cookies now IIRC.

If that's the case, things should work from device to device if the forum is using cookies to track what you have read.

Link

Whoop
Posted 05:01am 23/11/13

it ended up not being especially scalable as we needed to store and track the read status of every damn thread basically.

Wouldn't you just put a "has read threadid=8675309" tag in the cookie? Then when the forum loads it just looks at the thread ID and sets a different CSS if the has read tag exists and adds a different colour text to threads that have been read or something.

Link

TiT
Posted 01:39pm 28/11/13

is it just me, or is the comment box really really small. I am using Chrome

Link

fpot
Posted 01:46pm 28/11/13

You can drag to make it bigger from the bottom right hand corner.

Link

paveway
Posted 01:46pm 28/11/13

need a new mix pave,

I've already given this quite a few spins in the car already

i've started grabbing tracks for a new one

it's going to be a big room type banger this time though

Link

Saint
Posted 01:48pm 28/11/13

is it just me, or is the comment box really really small. I am using Chrome

It shouldn't be, although the styles were updated this morning making it fixed width again. Stylesheets should've been cache busted but maybe your browser is still caching the old version for some reason. Try a shift-refresh?

Link

greazy
Posted 01:49pm 28/11/13

It shouldn't be, although the styles were updated this morning making it fixed width again. Stylesheets should've been cache busted but maybe your browser is still caching the old version for some reason. Try a shift-refresh?

Yeah it's tiny for me and I have to expand it everytime I write a comment.

Link

kappa
Posted 01:54pm 28/11/13

Yerp

Link

ph33x
Posted 02:15pm 28/11/13

^ This is new. I see it as well.

Link

Hogfather
Posted 02:31pm 28/11/13

Wouldn't you just put a "has read threadid=8675309" tag in the cookie? Then when the forum loads it just looks at the thread ID and sets a different CSS if the has read tag exists and adds a different colour text to threads that have been read or something.

He's talking about cross-device. Cookies is how thread read status is typically handled.

^ This is new. I see it as well.

Yep, fortunately chrome is boss and lets me unsquisherise it

Link

Saint
Posted 02:36pm 28/11/13

Those who are getting the small comment box, can you please try a shift-refresh and see if you're still having the issue now? If so, can those using Chrome please right click on the comment box and go to "Inspect Element" and tell me if you get the styling like I do in this image?

Link

demon
Posted 02:40pm 28/11/13

yeh i was getting the small box but shift-reload & it's back to regular size.

Link

TiT
Posted 02:46pm 28/11/13

fixed! thanks

Link

greazy
Posted 04:07pm 28/11/13

shift f5 works. What the hell is shift+f5 anyway?

Link

ph33x
Posted 04:59pm 28/11/13

Forces a full refresh without loading anything from the local cache.

Updates cache with fully reloaded code.

Link

Whoop
Posted 06:42pm 28/11/13

Yep, fortunately chrome is boss and lets me unsquisherise it

Yeah and chrome can sync cookies across devices can't it?

And there's my post limiter which gives me an idea that I saw on another site. What if you have no post limits, but the more you post the longer the limits within a given period? So if you're like me and post s*** for a couple of hours a day you might have a short limit, where as if you're posting posts every couple of minutes all day it might make you wait say 10 minutes between posts. Just an exaggeration but you get the idea. Then after an hour or two the counter resets (either to zero or a minute or whatever)

Link

FaceMan
Posted 07:56pm 28/11/13

dammit I couldnt log in for the last few days with IE.
Some weird problem, thanks to Dan for the help.
I got logged out and it wouldnt let me log in, Id enter the name/pass but it would just go back to the forum like nothing happened.

Instead of clearing IE cache I'll just use Chrome for QGL.
(I thought Id been banned or something lol )

Link

Whoop
Posted 08:12pm 28/11/13

You should be banned, for using IE

Link

Hogfather
Posted 08:39pm 28/11/13

Yeah and chrome can sync cookies across devices can't it?

Not sure, it synchs some of my settings on PC, but doesnt on my little android tv box thing that's basically a tablet.

Link

TiT
Posted 11:23am 04/12/13

can anyone tell me why this wouldnt work

iframe src="https://embed.spotify.com/?uri=spotify:album:5WwesTmhyEx9cNre8fwnm9" width="300" height="380" frameborder="0" allowtransparency="true">

Link

ph33x
Posted 12:10pm 04/12/13

Site screws with tags when a link is about 30+ characters long.

Eg:

http://www.testsiteforlulz.com/lulz/lulz/lulz/lulz/lulz/lulz/lulz/lulz/lulz.jpg

Link

ph33x
Posted 12:12pm 04/12/13

TiT, try removing the 's' found in https

Link

TiT
Posted 12:19pm 04/12/13

TiT, try removing the 's' found in https

nope didnt work

Link

Saint
Posted 04:18pm 04/12/13

can anyone tell me why this wouldnt work

iframe src="https://embed.spotify.com/?uri=spotify:album:5WwesTmhyEx9cNre8fwnm9" width="300" height="380" frameborder="0" allowtransparency="true">

Spotify isn't in the allowed embed list at the moment, I'll add it to TheList™

Site screws with tags when a link is about 30+ characters long.

Eg:

http://www.testsiteforlulz.com/lulz/lulz/lulz/lulz/lulz/lulz/lulz/lulz/lulz.jpg

Intentional to prevent long links from causing formatting issues. If links were added properly (using HTML) it wouldn't happen, it's just the dodgy auto-linking the CMS tries to do.

Link

TiT
Posted 04:45pm 04/12/13

Spotify isn't in the allowed embed list at the moment, I'll add it to TheList™

Thank you this will make me very happy!

Link

HeardY
Posted 04:47pm 04/12/13

It should auto shorten the url saint, register agn.us or .me or whatever domain and run your own....

Link

ph33x
Posted 05:51pm 04/12/13

Agree. I know the tags but being 2013, every other site just works in that regard. Is it going to be fixed in the future?

Pretty sure on phpBB you can even highlight text within an edit box, press Ctrl+B and it'll throw the bold tags on for you (etc).

Link

Saint
Posted 07:43pm 04/12/13

Pretty sure on phpBB you can even highlight text within an edit box, press Ctrl+B and it'll throw the bold tags on for you (etc).

As mentioned earlier in the thread this stuff is coming real soon, keep an eye out.

Link

trog
Posted 08:41am 05/12/13

It should auto shorten the url saint, register agn.us or .me or whatever domain and run your own....

link shortening is evil.

Link

HeardY
Posted 08:58am 05/12/13

Is that why all the major players on the internet have embraced it trog? Also it'll fix the 30 char limit....

Link

Hogfather
Posted 12:08pm 05/12/13

What's the blue-grey thread link stuff? Looks like some sort of read status dealio?

Also wtf bold link etc buttons. S*** is getting real yo

Link

ph33x
Posted 12:14pm 05/12/13

Yay, and you can use keyboard commands to modify text.

http://www.whataboutsuperlinks.com/because/everyone/likes/links/that/dont/work.jpg

Edit: :

Link

TiT
Posted 12:15pm 05/12/13

wow so much better now!!

Link

Hogfather
Posted 12:23pm 05/12/13

AGN treats their new kids better than their old kids!

Back in the day you had to wait years to get something onto the to do list, let alone actioned! Bunch of fancy pants refugees getting treated better than citizens.

I like the kboard shortcuts.

Link

ph33x
Posted 12:32pm 05/12/13

Mate.

I don't need to sit around and take this kind of abuse. We were all new sometime.

Link

Eorl
Posted 12:33pm 05/12/13

I'm so cool I type in all bold.

Link

Saint
Posted 12:35pm 05/12/13

What's the blue-grey thread link stuff? Looks like some sort of read status dealio?

Yeah, a very subtle colour change using the basic a:visited css, more so you can see what links are new / that you haven't visited yet. For the HTML newbs, a:visited is based off your browser history so it'll only work per-device.

And yay the quick buttons and keyboard shortcuts! Only shortcuts for the text formatting for now.

Ctrl-B: bold
Ctrl-U: underline
Ctrl-I: Italics

Link

ph33x
Posted 12:38pm 05/12/13

Chrome can sync history between PC and Android (etc) - So it should work cross platform if you roll this way.

Link

TiT
Posted 01:04pm 05/12/13

just waiting for the Spotify acceptance and then its all go for me :)

Link

copuis
Posted 02:48pm 05/12/13

i've noticed some colour coding going on, (colour blind, so colours stated might not reflect those being used)
there is like a red-ie colour for threads started by normal members
darker brown/black for threads stated by admins,

is there another for noobs?

Link

Nerf Stormborn
Posted 04:28pm 06/12/13

Haven't read the thread sorry, but can I make a suggestion? (because, I'm a brilliant ideas man)

An orange triangle thing > between newly updated and seen threads since the user last entered any thread would be great (not updating if the user just visits the forum but doesn't click anything). From what I recall, there used to be a thread title indentation system that did something like that.

Link

Spook
Posted 05:31pm 06/12/13

things are still super peachy here on the qgl forums

Link

Whoop
Posted 05:59pm 06/12/13

link shortening is evil.

I agree with trog. I never click on any of those kick.me/to? links or goo.gl/etc links. Who the hell knows what kind of nefarious bulls*** some joker is linking to. Could be porn, could be a funny picture of cats, could be a link that lands you in jail with bubba.

Link

trog
Posted 07:00am 07/12/13

Is that why all the major players on the internet have embraced it trog? Also it'll fix the 30 char limit....

what 30 char limit?

Link shortening is useful for:

a) Twitter
b) Scamming people, often via Twitter

I don't think it's useful on a forum like this, where you can reduce links to a single character if you want to save space!

Link

Whoop
Posted 02:33pm 07/12/13

Is it possible to get the read-thread colour user selectable? I only ask because the highlighted colour is only sort of marginally different on this screen. That's why I thought I was seeing things at first, I thought my screen was failing or windows had gone screwy.

Also if you go to add a link and type out the url, but in the 2nd box for the name text if you hit cancel it still adds the link to the post box with the url but "null" as the text. Maybe it should just completely cancel the request?

Link

Saint
Posted 04:24pm 07/12/13

Also if you go to add a link and type out the url, but in the 2nd box for the name text if you hit cancel it still adds the link to the post box with the url but "null" as the text. Maybe it should just completely cancel the request?

Noted, thanks.

Link

Saint
Posted 02:26pm 09/12/13

just waiting for the Spotify acceptance and then its all go for me :)

Spotify embeds should be good to go.

Is it possible to get the read-thread colour user selectable?

No, but the colour has been tweaked a little to be a bit darker now.

Also if you go to add a link and type out the url, but in the 2nd box for the name text if you hit cancel it still adds the link to the post box with the url but "null" as the text. Maybe it should just completely cancel the request?

This should be fixed now.

Site screws with tags when a link is about 30+ characters long.

Eg:

http://www.testsiteforlulz.com/lulz/lulz/lulz/lulz/lulz/lulz/lulz/lulz/lulz.jpg

Auto linking should be more robust now, give it a whirl.

Link

ph33x
Posted 03:43pm 09/12/13

http://hey.ijustgotasked.com/to/give/the/new/links/a/whirl/watchitgo.png

FYI: There is no extra line above that link in the editbox, but the site wants to put a spare line there once posted. I can edit and I still don't see the extra line.

It's also still throwing a word break in there eg: ...ed.com/to/give/the/new/links{wbr}{/wbr}/a/whirl/watchitgo.png

It doesn't affect the output but it's in there nonetheless.

Link

Saint
Posted 04:35pm 09/12/13

It's also still throwing a word break in there eg: ...ed.com/to/give/the/new/links{wbr}{/wbr}/a/whirl/watchitgo.png

Yup that's fine and is how it's meant to be.

Link

Whoop
Posted 06:46pm 12/12/13

If you click on a number to open a thread (like say you open a page straight to the last page) the thread title doesn't change colour, only the number of the page(s) you've read. I get not changing all the numbers if you haven't read them but shouldn't the thread title itself change even if you haven't opened the 1st page at all?

Also, the colours are still rather hard to distinguish, thus:

Link

Saint
Posted 07:50pm 12/12/13

If you click on a number to open a thread (like say you open a page straight to the last page) the thread title doesn't change colour, only the number of the page(s) you've read. I get not changing all the numbers if you haven't read them but shouldn't the thread title itself change even if you haven't opened the 1st page at all?

As stated the link colour change is based off your browser history, and because each page has a different URL they each need to be clicked separately. It's too much effort to get it to change the colour of the thread title when you click a number, especially when most other popular forums don't do this either.

Also if you want the read colour different consider writing a greasemonkey script or something.

Link

Spook
Posted 07:52pm 12/12/13

i preferred the old ausgamers.

Link

Whoop
Posted 08:29pm 12/12/13

Also if you want the read colour different consider writing a greasemonkey script or something.

I don't know how

Link

ph33x
Posted 09:25am 13/12/13

It works well in a way, as once you're reading brand new threads it'll tell you what page you were up to and/or if you've skipped any pages.

Commenting has been locked for this item.

84 Comments

Show

Features

Reviews

ASUS ROG Rapture GT6 WiFi 6 Mesh System