Delphy
23rd Dec 2006, 04:00 PM
Hello, and a Merry Christmas to all!
Over time, MTS2 has expanded from a small site with a couple of forums to the huge multi-server multi-hundreds of thousands of members site that it is today, and it's run entirely on your donations. (Don't forget to donate (/donate.php)!) That hasn't stopped us from changing and evolving with the community though, and today I bring you a whole heap of changes to the site.
The short list:
Journal creation is now hard restricted to only creators that have 10 or more uploads
The downloads page now has the filters in the left sidebar
The downloads page now has an additional filter to sort by Last Post
The downloads page, when browsing a particular creators items, now has thier information in the left sidebar, and thier custom banner at the top
The download search now no longer breaks when searching for items with apostrophes in (like 20's)
The "My Downloads" feature is back, with added goodness
Fixed bug with "1970s" PMs showing up in the Sent Items box
Added a "Paysite Mesh" checkbox to the Edit Post, for creators to indicate whether they have recoloured pay items, with a notice on the download pages to indicate as such
The Meshes section of Edit Post no longer breaks on mesh links that have apostrophes in them
The member profile pages - both creator and normal people - have been revamped for easier viewing
Creators can now specify thier own colour schemes and style presets for thier profile
Creators with less than 10 downloads now have thier total download files count updated
Implemented caching to the site so that it should no longer hang for long periods of time when replying to threads while the site is very busy
The long description:
Downloads page:
To increase usage of the downloads page, I have moved the filters box to the left sidebar and removed the "Attention Creators" box as that was more suitable for the Create section.
I have added a new filter for sorting the results by Last Post, and when viewing a particular creators downloads, thier information now shows up on the left sidebar and at the top for thier banner.
By showing creator information directly on the download page when viewing thier items, it increases usability when linked with the new profile pages. I also fixed a small bug when drilling down to forums with multiple duplicate categories.
Finally, the downloads page now displays items from creators that are linked to the profile - for example, Numenor's profile is linked to "Numenor & Marylou" since they share items.
My Downloads
Some of you who have been here a long time may remember this feature from last year (2005). It is, essentially, a way of tracking what you have downloaded from MTS2 over time. I turned on tracking of this data as a stealth change at the beginning of December, and now present it to the public.
You may access the My Downloads screen at: http://www.modthesims2.com/mydownloads.php
You might enjoy the pretty graph too :)
Creators - Edit Post for your uploads:
I have added a new option within editpost, located just underneath the Meshes section. If your download requires a mesh that is located in a pay area of another site, or requires a mesh that can only be gotten from a donation only site, or is basically not available for everybody to download, then you must check the "Paysite Mesh" box. MTS2 encourages free content for the game, and all creators should check whether they are recolouring pay content.
Journals:
I have restricted journal creation to only those people who have 10 uploads or more. Previously this was done through the Journal Moderation - even with huge text on the journal creation page people with zero uploads still tried creating journals.
Profile Pages for Members:
We have revamped the look and feel of the profile screen for normal members - it's now easier to use with all the links you need in one box, and generally easier on the eye. You can put some "About Me" text in too if you like.
Profile Pages for Creators:
The revamp for members also applies to Creators, except you'll notice that the downloads section is more of a thumbnail gallery view. Normal Creators show 8 downloads on this screen; Featured Creators show 16.
Creators have the ability to make thier Journals more visible on this page. By going into thier profile and checking the box to display the Journal in the middle, it will display part of the journal entry text above the rest of the information, with a link to get more - but only if the journal entry isn't private.
We have also made some other changes:
- We have renamed "Favourites" to "Personal Picks" to better reflect that these are items that the Creator thinks are thier personal best
- If you have "Personal Pick" items, then your Top Downloaded and Personal Picks display on the top of the Downloads list.
- If you have no Personal Picks then the Top Downloaded displays on the left sidebar
- Modding Groups the creators belong to now display on the left, but profiles that are Modding Groups display as before
- The downloads now have additional buttons: "Show All Downloads", "Show All by Latest Post" (only while you are viewing your own) and "Show All by Last Updated".
Finally, Profile Pages can be customised even further, in the following ways:
- You can choose one of the existing MTS2 colour schemes as the style for your Profile Page. For example, Lethe_s' profile looks best in Hello Kitty, so she can specify that every time people view her page (assuming they don't have the No Profile Override on - see later), that they view it in the Hello Kitty colours.
- If you want even more flexibility, you can also specify your own Profile colours - see my Profile (http://www.modthesims2.com/member/delphy) for an example. This allows you to change parts of the pages to suit your own colour scheme or preferred look without impacting the rest of the site. If you need help on this, just ask.
All members profile override:
All members can override the creators colours so that they display in the normal colour scheme, without any special colour options the creator has selected, so you can continue to enjoy MTS2 the way you have been without seeing any garish colours :)
Thread Reply Caching:
You might have noticed that, when the site is very busy, that when you click to Reply to a thread, it sometimes takes a really long time to update and take you back. This is due in part to the way the site is designed, and in part to the modifications that I have done to it over time.
Tonight I have implemented a caching feature which effectively offloads the updating of the thread information such as lastposter, last post time and reply count to a seperate database table. This table is then merged into the main one every 15 minutes.
What does this mean for you? Well, simply this: a Threads "Last" information (Last post, Last Poster, Replycount) does not update instantly now, but every 15 mins. You can still view the thread and see any replies but the counters wont update on forum displays etc until the next scheduled 15 min interval comes round. It does not affect the "New Posts" screen, so you can still use that to track changes to threads.
Hopefully this change should result in much quicker responsiveness to the site under high load scenarios as we have seen lately.
Finally:
We hope you enjoy all these changes. As always, comments and feedback is appreciated, and have a good holiday season!
Regards
Delphy
Over time, MTS2 has expanded from a small site with a couple of forums to the huge multi-server multi-hundreds of thousands of members site that it is today, and it's run entirely on your donations. (Don't forget to donate (/donate.php)!) That hasn't stopped us from changing and evolving with the community though, and today I bring you a whole heap of changes to the site.
The short list:
Journal creation is now hard restricted to only creators that have 10 or more uploads
The downloads page now has the filters in the left sidebar
The downloads page now has an additional filter to sort by Last Post
The downloads page, when browsing a particular creators items, now has thier information in the left sidebar, and thier custom banner at the top
The download search now no longer breaks when searching for items with apostrophes in (like 20's)
The "My Downloads" feature is back, with added goodness
Fixed bug with "1970s" PMs showing up in the Sent Items box
Added a "Paysite Mesh" checkbox to the Edit Post, for creators to indicate whether they have recoloured pay items, with a notice on the download pages to indicate as such
The Meshes section of Edit Post no longer breaks on mesh links that have apostrophes in them
The member profile pages - both creator and normal people - have been revamped for easier viewing
Creators can now specify thier own colour schemes and style presets for thier profile
Creators with less than 10 downloads now have thier total download files count updated
Implemented caching to the site so that it should no longer hang for long periods of time when replying to threads while the site is very busy
The long description:
Downloads page:
To increase usage of the downloads page, I have moved the filters box to the left sidebar and removed the "Attention Creators" box as that was more suitable for the Create section.
I have added a new filter for sorting the results by Last Post, and when viewing a particular creators downloads, thier information now shows up on the left sidebar and at the top for thier banner.
By showing creator information directly on the download page when viewing thier items, it increases usability when linked with the new profile pages. I also fixed a small bug when drilling down to forums with multiple duplicate categories.
Finally, the downloads page now displays items from creators that are linked to the profile - for example, Numenor's profile is linked to "Numenor & Marylou" since they share items.
My Downloads
Some of you who have been here a long time may remember this feature from last year (2005). It is, essentially, a way of tracking what you have downloaded from MTS2 over time. I turned on tracking of this data as a stealth change at the beginning of December, and now present it to the public.
You may access the My Downloads screen at: http://www.modthesims2.com/mydownloads.php
You might enjoy the pretty graph too :)
Creators - Edit Post for your uploads:
I have added a new option within editpost, located just underneath the Meshes section. If your download requires a mesh that is located in a pay area of another site, or requires a mesh that can only be gotten from a donation only site, or is basically not available for everybody to download, then you must check the "Paysite Mesh" box. MTS2 encourages free content for the game, and all creators should check whether they are recolouring pay content.
Journals:
I have restricted journal creation to only those people who have 10 uploads or more. Previously this was done through the Journal Moderation - even with huge text on the journal creation page people with zero uploads still tried creating journals.
Profile Pages for Members:
We have revamped the look and feel of the profile screen for normal members - it's now easier to use with all the links you need in one box, and generally easier on the eye. You can put some "About Me" text in too if you like.
Profile Pages for Creators:
The revamp for members also applies to Creators, except you'll notice that the downloads section is more of a thumbnail gallery view. Normal Creators show 8 downloads on this screen; Featured Creators show 16.
Creators have the ability to make thier Journals more visible on this page. By going into thier profile and checking the box to display the Journal in the middle, it will display part of the journal entry text above the rest of the information, with a link to get more - but only if the journal entry isn't private.
We have also made some other changes:
- We have renamed "Favourites" to "Personal Picks" to better reflect that these are items that the Creator thinks are thier personal best
- If you have "Personal Pick" items, then your Top Downloaded and Personal Picks display on the top of the Downloads list.
- If you have no Personal Picks then the Top Downloaded displays on the left sidebar
- Modding Groups the creators belong to now display on the left, but profiles that are Modding Groups display as before
- The downloads now have additional buttons: "Show All Downloads", "Show All by Latest Post" (only while you are viewing your own) and "Show All by Last Updated".
Finally, Profile Pages can be customised even further, in the following ways:
- You can choose one of the existing MTS2 colour schemes as the style for your Profile Page. For example, Lethe_s' profile looks best in Hello Kitty, so she can specify that every time people view her page (assuming they don't have the No Profile Override on - see later), that they view it in the Hello Kitty colours.
- If you want even more flexibility, you can also specify your own Profile colours - see my Profile (http://www.modthesims2.com/member/delphy) for an example. This allows you to change parts of the pages to suit your own colour scheme or preferred look without impacting the rest of the site. If you need help on this, just ask.
All members profile override:
All members can override the creators colours so that they display in the normal colour scheme, without any special colour options the creator has selected, so you can continue to enjoy MTS2 the way you have been without seeing any garish colours :)
Thread Reply Caching:
You might have noticed that, when the site is very busy, that when you click to Reply to a thread, it sometimes takes a really long time to update and take you back. This is due in part to the way the site is designed, and in part to the modifications that I have done to it over time.
Tonight I have implemented a caching feature which effectively offloads the updating of the thread information such as lastposter, last post time and reply count to a seperate database table. This table is then merged into the main one every 15 minutes.
What does this mean for you? Well, simply this: a Threads "Last" information (Last post, Last Poster, Replycount) does not update instantly now, but every 15 mins. You can still view the thread and see any replies but the counters wont update on forum displays etc until the next scheduled 15 min interval comes round. It does not affect the "New Posts" screen, so you can still use that to track changes to threads.
Hopefully this change should result in much quicker responsiveness to the site under high load scenarios as we have seen lately.
Finally:
We hope you enjoy all these changes. As always, comments and feedback is appreciated, and have a good holiday season!
Regards
Delphy