New site - bug reports
Moderator: Alastair
- Gunness
- Site Admin
- Posts: 1939
- Joined: Tue Dec 07, 2004 7:04 pm
- Location: Copenhagen, Denmark
- Contact:
Re: New site - bug reports
Yeah, that's certainly an issue. Our tech wizards have tried to deny access to some of the search engine bots, and we've made various other small tweaks, but in the long run I think I'll have to start thinking about ponying up some more money and look for a better web hotel.
-
Mr Creosote
- Posts: 1121
- Joined: Tue Sep 22, 2009 9:23 am
- Contact:
Re: New site - bug reports
Mark, are those slowdowns always related to screenshots loading (on pages with screenshots or the page loaded directly after a page with screenshots) or do they occur independently of that?
Re: New site - bug reports
Involvement of screenshots is definetly a key trigger, yes. Can't quite remember if slowness happens in other situations as well, to be honest.
Re: New site - bug reports
I'm getting slowdowns on all pages sometimes (over 10 seconds to load in one case).
Re: New site - bug reports
The language field and the "- (use author only)" option in the company field are great new features!
But there seems to be a bug with the latter.
I wanted to edit the Adult 1 page (but I guess it could have been any page which had already the author in both author and company fields -- at least, it did the same thing for Adult 2 and apparently does the same thing for other Simon Avery games), but the "- (use author only)" didn't appear in the company menu! (I tried with both Firefox and Opera.)
At first, I thought the option was actually called "(freeware)", but it wasn't true (what's the difference between the "-" and "(freeware)" options, by the way?). Finally, I found a solution: I had to select "n/a" in the company field, then submit, then edit the page again: only then was the "- (use author only)" there!
I wanted to edit the Adult 1 page (but I guess it could have been any page which had already the author in both author and company fields -- at least, it did the same thing for Adult 2 and apparently does the same thing for other Simon Avery games), but the "- (use author only)" didn't appear in the company menu! (I tried with both Firefox and Opera.)
At first, I thought the option was actually called "(freeware)", but it wasn't true (what's the difference between the "-" and "(freeware)" options, by the way?). Finally, I found a solution: I had to select "n/a" in the company field, then submit, then edit the page again: only then was the "- (use author only)" there!
-
Mr Creosote
- Posts: 1121
- Joined: Tue Sep 22, 2009 9:23 am
- Contact:
Re: New site - bug reports
The "-" option can always be found in the last "company" dropdown box. If you want to apply it on a game which already has a company attached to it, you have to select it in the second one. This option will also purge/disregard/override any previously entered companies, so no need to change those to "n/a".
- Gunness
- Site Admin
- Posts: 1939
- Joined: Tue Dec 07, 2004 7:04 pm
- Location: Copenhagen, Denmark
- Contact:
Re: New site - bug reports
I didn't know whether adding the (freeware) tag was a good idea. I've used to indicate games that started off as being commercial releases and were subsequently released as freeware. The "-" games have always been freeware.Eriorg wrote:(what's the difference between the "-" and "(freeware)" options, by the way?).
But I realise that the distinction isn't awfully obvious. Any suggestions?
Btw, as far as I can see, the "-" isn't part of the batch update screen? Otherwise I could fix all Avery's games in five seconds.
-
Mr Creosote
- Posts: 1121
- Joined: Tue Sep 22, 2009 9:23 am
- Contact:
Re: New site - bug reports
I'm not sure the company field is the right place to indicate this. A game can be freeware, but published by a company and it can be commercial, but not be published by a company.
Re: New site - bug reports
Thank you! I hadn't noticed.Mr Creosote wrote:The "-" option can always be found in the last "company" dropdown box. If you want to apply it on a game which already has a company attached to it, you have to select it in the second one.
-
Mr Creosote
- Posts: 1121
- Joined: Tue Sep 22, 2009 9:23 am
- Contact:
Re: New site - bug reports
Of course, it's one of these completely non-discoverable and counterintuitive features 
Re: New site - bug reports
Be careful of this, there were occasions where programmers sold their own games directly to the public - these programs were definitely not freeware.Gunness wrote:The "-" games have always been freeware.
- Gunness
- Site Admin
- Posts: 1939
- Joined: Tue Dec 07, 2004 7:04 pm
- Location: Copenhagen, Denmark
- Contact:
Re: New site - bug reports
It seems that the "freeware" tag is impractical so - at least for the time being - I've simply scrapped it.
-
Mr Creosote
- Posts: 1121
- Joined: Tue Sep 22, 2009 9:23 am
- Contact:
Re: New site - bug reports
If you want this information, a dedicated "licence" field would probably be the best option. Of course, you'd have to think about a policy how to deal with changes over time (i.e. "formerly commercial game, now freeware").
- Gunness
- Site Admin
- Posts: 1939
- Joined: Tue Dec 07, 2004 7:04 pm
- Location: Copenhagen, Denmark
- Contact:
Re: New site - bug reports
Unless people want this information really badly, I don't have any particular urge to add it.
Re: New site - bug reports
A question about solution and hint files. I've uploaded a couple of standard text files for Aquanaut 471 but their formatting goes awry when viewing them on the site. That is, the lines don't wrap, so you need to use the horizontal scrollbar to read the whole line. Is there a way round this, or should text files be formatted differently - perhaps by having a hard return after a certain number of characters appear on a line?