Bugs and development improvements(WAS: What do you want to see in TP?)

[G6Cad]

Not at all offencive, just tried to explain why things take time 

[Inny]

just tried to explain why things take time 

arghh that reminds me of X.... grrrr

On a serious note im a member of TP.net for almost one year, i do understand how you work. Just found the the opportunity to express my opinions and thoughts about TP on the 2 current hot ongoing topics

I should stop replying now

[Lafemme]

my request would be:

There are many blockcodes that are submitted by users. Some users who submits them, alters every time the first post as soon as something is changed at the code. Some however don't. Sometimes a topic is 40+ pages long... and for a user who want to  use the code.. it takes a lot of time to read all those posts... So is it possible to have a rule that all the changes made at the code, that it has to be put in the openingpost?
Also sometimes members make several editions of a code... Is it possible for them to open a nother topic or something, putting in there the altered code? But... explaining that the first setup (the copyright) was from someone else with a link to the original code?

[JPDeni]

I completely understand where you're coming from, MissyNL. I know it's confusing. I can explain a little bit about why things are as they are, though.

Most of the time when I write code, it's custom code for someone that has started in the Requests child forum. The first post in the topic is not code at all, but someone asking for code. Often it takes a number of posts for me to even figure out what someone wants. Right now I'm working on custom code for someone where there was a whole page of back-and-forth before I was able to write anything at all. Should I post the code in the first post of the topic? I don't think so.

Then there is the problem with the fact that people post block code snippets and then move on. We haven't seen some of the contributors for years. I am very uncomfortable with editing someone else's posts. Very uncomfortable. Personally, I don't like even tweaking someone else's code. I do it sometimes, but I don't like it.

As for a new topic for every variation and tweak, that would soon become even more confusing. We would need to create entire child forums for some of the snippets.

However, keeping all that in mind, understand that we are aware of the problem. We (and, in particular, I) have done quite a bit of work behind the scenes to try to organize things a little bit better. It's easier said than done. We have considered and discussed several ideas, but haven't come up with anything that is really workable as yet. It's a process.

It is likely that, whatever we decide upon, it will apply to code that is posted from that point on, rather than trying to go back and organize all the code that is currently available. It's simply too much work and we all have lives aside from the time we enjoy spending at TP.

We are going to work more with the blockcode files that you can upload. We haven't done much with them as yet, because the concept is pretty new. But I'll get around to it.

I also doubt that there will be any rule, as such, about much of anything. There will more likely be a request.

I appreciate the thoughts, though.

[Inny]

Maybe will be a good idea to create a child board with all the complete versions of the blocks. Only and only topics for the complete codes with a bulleted list and the different variations of the block.

I can take the responsibility and update that board on daily basis, if that ever happens.

[JPDeni]

Maybe will be a good idea to create a child board with all the complete versions of the blocks

I'll see you in about three years.

Seriously, that's what I started doing. Updating on a daily basis is the easy part. The hard part is getting it organized in the first place.

[Inny]

As because we talk about an indexing board mainly, you wont be able now at least to index all blocks, needless to say that a fair big amount of them isn't working now or they got updated in different topics.

I saw your idea a few topics back about creating a categorized list. If you use very general categories like Recent Topics Blocks, Warcraft Blocks and have different topics with links in them and the codes for them it should work just fine. (html permission and anchors inside topics for easy scrolling up and down please  )

Problem at this point is that you probably wont know from where to start (too many topics too many blocks) and will seem a bit chaotic. As soon as you get the rhythm it will be fine . Also you need to set a limit of how many pages/months/topics back you will go to start indexing.

My volunteering offer still stands if you ever want help, either way im online in TP for a fair amount of time lately and i dont see that changing till summer. (you gotta love proper scheduling  )

[JPDeni]

As soon as you get the rhythm it will be fine

Been there. Tried that.

It really is too much for twenty people to do. It's not just a case of reading 40 pages of a topic. It also requires testing every code and variation of the code so that we know that it works.

Actually, I think that the only way to do it is to delete everything in the block code snippets and just start from scratch. But I don't think anyone would like that.

[Lafemme]

oke.. i completely understand you... but what if you ask the members to test? I mean... i have a few codes working, so i could tell you what codes work for me.. and that you only apply those codes who have been added by the members... after all.. you do it for the members.. why not ask something in return?

And an file upload system would be great with an rating system in it. Maybe you can have a look how SMF has arranged it. Now we even get e-mails when a mod is updated..  simply perfect!

[JPDeni]

Mostly the reason that I don't ask people to do things is that I can't count on them. Also, I'm in the midst all the time of writing custom code for people. My brain is working on writing new code rather than figuring out how to organize old code. I can stop writing new code for people, I guess.

Bloc would have to respond to the file upload system thing. That's completely out of my area.