How should hub pages be changed?
Okay, Mike's Herculean efforts on the Member pages and Lummox's progress on Dream Daemon are shaming me into getting some work done. Next up on my plate is moving the hub pages from the C++ to the Perl backend and adding new hub page functionality.
I'm not sure we've covered this previously, but the BYOND website and hub infrastructure were originally created in C++, and raw C++ with almost no libraries used at that. Everything was built from scratch.
C++ is not the friendliest language for implementing web functionality or for text-based processing, and especially not when you are building everything from scratch. On the other hand, Perl is a text-processing language with a rich set of libraries available to make it easy to generate web pages and access databases and the like. And object-oriented Perl provides a nice clean way to solve problems.
So a few years ago I built a new Perl-based web infrastructure and experimented with it by creating a new admin system for the BYOND staff. That went well, and we started implementing most of our new web functionality, such as the Member pages, with the Perl backend using modern program methodologies such as template-based text generation. This resulted in a vastly simpler, easier to maintain code base (I mean, I can't even express how much simpler) than the original C++ infrastructure. So much so that I coldly left Mike to handle the C++ while I cuddled up to the warm and friendly Perl and promptly tried to forget everything I almost knew about C++.
In the intervening time, Mike has significantly enhanced the Perl infrastructure and we've managed to solve performance issues and such to our satisfaction. So it's our desire to move more and more of the website over to the Perl backend, thereby allowing us to make changes much faster than is possible in the C++ (as evidenced by all Mike's work to upgrade the Perl-based Member pages).
Now that we have this cool new guild functionality in place, we want to extend the hub pages to include guild-related information and whatever else makes sense. So as the first step, I'm in the process of porting the current hub page functionality over to the Perl.
While I'm doing that (hopefully the first pass can be mostly handled this weekend), here's your chance to give us ideas for how the hub pages should be upgraded.
So, how should hub pages be changed?
I'm not sure we've covered this previously, but the BYOND website and hub infrastructure were originally created in C++, and raw C++ with almost no libraries used at that. Everything was built from scratch.
C++ is not the friendliest language for implementing web functionality or for text-based processing, and especially not when you are building everything from scratch. On the other hand, Perl is a text-processing language with a rich set of libraries available to make it easy to generate web pages and access databases and the like. And object-oriented Perl provides a nice clean way to solve problems.
So a few years ago I built a new Perl-based web infrastructure and experimented with it by creating a new admin system for the BYOND staff. That went well, and we started implementing most of our new web functionality, such as the Member pages, with the Perl backend using modern program methodologies such as template-based text generation. This resulted in a vastly simpler, easier to maintain code base (I mean, I can't even express how much simpler) than the original C++ infrastructure. So much so that I coldly left Mike to handle the C++ while I cuddled up to the warm and friendly Perl and promptly tried to forget everything I almost knew about C++.
In the intervening time, Mike has significantly enhanced the Perl infrastructure and we've managed to solve performance issues and such to our satisfaction. So it's our desire to move more and more of the website over to the Perl backend, thereby allowing us to make changes much faster than is possible in the C++ (as evidenced by all Mike's work to upgrade the Perl-based Member pages).
Now that we have this cool new guild functionality in place, we want to extend the hub pages to include guild-related information and whatever else makes sense. So as the first step, I'm in the process of porting the current hub page functionality over to the Perl.
While I'm doing that (hopefully the first pass can be mostly handled this weekend), here's your chance to give us ideas for how the hub pages should be upgraded.
So, how should hub pages be changed?
Posted by Deadron (BYOND Developer) on Friday, February 02, 2007 05:59PM
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#38 Lummox JR:
DarkCampainger wrote:
Also, what about some form of awards given out by the official guilds? I suppose they could just post a picture of the award linked to the guild, but some official way would be nice.
In my experience online awards are little more than a form of link-whoring on the part of the giver. Back when I ran the Norn Underground, I got bombarded with awards from sites that just made them up out of the blue, including one that sent me a horrible .bmp made in Paint and then gave me specific instructions on how to display it. (I didn't.)
What would be more interesting would be allowing guilds to feature a game of the day/week/month, with the option of either setting up a pipeline of upcoming honorees or choosing them at random from the list of games in the guild.
Monday, February 05, 2007 12:03AM
#37 Deadron:
What if I don't want to advertise my competition on my hub entry? "Like this Pokemon game? Well, then you'll really want to abandon it and play this Pokemon game!"
Of course, this also means your competition would be advertising for you...goes both ways. And a rising tide floats all boats -- the more people playing all BYOND games, the more players we all get.
We'll take the argument into consideration, but following it to it's logical conclusion, we wouldn't have guilds promoting multiple games or the ability to search for games.
Sunday, February 04, 2007 05:29PM
#36 Crispy:
Airjoe wrote:
> lace it with heroine so that they don't want to leave ;]
So, like this?
http://members.byond.com/Crispy/files/firiona.jpg
;-)
Sunday, February 04, 2007 03:15PM
#35 Airjoe:
IainPeregrine wrote:
> Deadron wrote:
> > How about something that checks members favourites, and then on the main hub index, it has a little list of other games that might interest them.
> >
> > It's a good idea; don't know if we'll do it for the first pass.
> >
> >[...]
> >
> > Yeah, at least some of this will be there. It should be easy to click around and discover related games.
>
> What if I don't want to advertise my competition on my hub entry? "Like this Pokemon game? Well, then you'll really want to abandon it and play this Pokemon game!"
Then <s>make your game better</s> lace it with heroine so that they don't want to leave ;]
Sunday, February 04, 2007 01:16PM
#34 IainPeregrine:
Deadron wrote:
> How about something that checks members favourites, and then on the main hub index, it has a little list of other games that might interest them.
>
> It's a good idea; don't know if we'll do it for the first pass.
>
>[...]
>
> Yeah, at least some of this will be there. It should be easy to click around and discover related games.
What if I don't want to advertise my competition on my hub entry? "Like this Pokemon game? Well, then you'll really want to abandon it and play this Pokemon game!"
Sunday, February 04, 2007 01:14PM
#33 Deadron:
How about something that checks members favourites, and then on the main hub index, it has a little list of other games that might interest them.
It's a good idea; don't know if we'll do it for the first pass.
Oh, that reminds me, a list of people who've added your game to their favorites.
That will definitely be there.
Ideas for additional drop-in bits of content: Guilds this game is in. Other games by this author. Related games (i.e. what other games are in the same guild as this game).
Yeah, at least some of this will be there. It should be easy to click around and discover related games.
Just a quick question about this Perl transformation. Will all of BYOND be changed, including the forums?
Over time I think most of the websites will be moved over. The forums are an exception -- they have years of high-performance development in their current codebase that would take a lot of time to replicate, possibly for little benefit. We have set it up so that the Perl code can access forum information, though, so there'll be more forum info popping up throughout the site.
Also, although this is a bit out there, what about a review section?
We have an idea of how to easily integrate reviews into the existing system, and I think you'll see them soon.
Sunday, February 04, 2007 12:24PM
#32 DarkCampainger:
*cough* hub filters *cough*
The screen shot page sounds like an awesome idea! Maybe you could tab the hub page like the new www.byond.com page.
Also, although this is a bit out there, what about a review section? Where players can post their ideas on the game and maybe score it? Most other sites have something like this. I suppose a member could just make a forum section for it in the mean time, though.
Also, what about some form of awards given out by the official guilds? I suppose they could just post a picture of the award linked to the guild, but some official way would be nice.
Hmmm, I'm really bad at suggesting ideas and not pointing out their unnecessarilyness..
..Hub filter!
Sunday, February 04, 2007 11:23AM
#31 Airjoe:
There goes Lummox, stealing my ideas again!
;]
Sunday, February 04, 2007 09:55AM
#30 Lummox JR:
I agree on the screen shots, Zilal, and the other items too. The interconnectedness stuff is extremely important. I'd also add: "People who like this game also like..." based on rankings.
Sunday, February 04, 2007 09:34AM
#29 Tiberath:
Just a quick question about this Perl transformation. Will all of BYOND be changed, including the forums?
Sunday, February 04, 2007 02:44AM
#28 Zilal:
I like the idea of prompting users to enter links for screenshots... I personally am less likely to play a game unless I can see a screenshot of it, and maybe other people are too. So I think it'd be good to officially encourage people to post 'em.
I don't like the idea of customizable hub pages though... I'm afraid of overdesigned pages (and the lack of standardization) being off-putting to people who just want to be able to see at a glance what a game is about. I'd rather have every hub page have the same look and layout so users don't have to hunt for information. I mean, people pretty much *have* to use the hub to find games... I'd leave the customization to more optional stuff.
There could be a compromise, of course... have the top of the hub page (containing important info like a basic description, download & subscription info) look the same for every game, and allow users to customize the bottom.
You've heard my other suggestions, which basically go along the line of what Crispy said:
> Ideas for additional drop-in bits of content: Guilds this game is in. Other games by this author. Related games (i.e. what other games are in the same guild as this game).
Definitely. The idea is to link everything up into a huge web of interconnectedness, which will hopefully keep people at the site longer as they keep seeing another link to something that looks interesting on every page they load.
Semi-related idea... I would love a "random game" link somewhere that, well, takes you to a random game.
Saturday, February 03, 2007 06:16PM
#27 Worldweaver:
Oh, that reminds me, a list of people who've added your game to their favorites.
Saturday, February 03, 2007 02:52PM
#26 Smoko:
I've had an idea. How about something that checks members favourites, and then on the main hub index, it has a little list of other games that might interest them.
Saturday, February 03, 2007 02:51PM
#25 Deadron:
Thanks for the comments, and keep them coming.
I think it would be great to create a standard screenshots section. That may have to come later, though, as it probably involves changing the hub editing functionality, which isn't in my short-term plans.
Similarly, allowing CSS customization as we do for Member sites seems like a good idea, but might have to come in the second stage for the same reason.
I highly doubt we're going to allow the importing of an external web page/site. We'd love to provide that level of flexibility, but for security reasons we just can't. People consistently abuse features like that to try and scam users through JavaScript phishing schemes and the like.
For this round I'd like to focus on ways we can integrate guild info and the like into the page...
Saturday, February 03, 2007 01:26PM
#24 Android Data:
Soil wrote:
> BYOND Members should be allowed to edit their hub any way they want with html/php etc..
> that way if they do abuse it, their membership can be taken away or restricted or something
Not necessarily for BYOND Members here, but I think they should allow us to link the entire hub entry to another site. By that, I mean a simple textbox we can input a URL in. When we then view the hub entry, it will just create an iFrame with acceptable size and load up the URL to it and such. The border of the iFrame could be removed too, making it look nice.
The purpose of this would be to create websites of the game within the hub entry itself, which I think would be awesome. Of course, the ?format=text method should still work so we can obtain information from the hub entry the old fashioned way.
Saturday, February 03, 2007 01:34AM
#23 Acebloke:
Pay pal support. *cough*
Friday, February 02, 2007 09:49PM
#22 ACWraith:
Here's yet one more vote for showing the channels/guilds that a hub entry is listed in.
As Crispy mentioned, I would also like to be able to edit the colors (and maybe the borders) of a hub page.
Friday, February 02, 2007 09:44PM
#21 Tails5:
Soil wrote:
> personally I always liked the hub pages
> but maybe you could remove the tables and the download now, forum links etc...
>
Removing that would remove the hub functionality in the BYOND pager...
Friday, February 02, 2007 08:08PM
#20 Soil:
BYOND Members should be allowed to edit their hub any way they want with html/php etc..
that way if they do abuse it, their membership can be taken away or restricted or something
Friday, February 02, 2007 08:07PM
#19 Worldweaver:
Smoko wrote:
> Worldweaver wrote:
> > Nah, we pay money for these extra perks, of course it's fair.
>
> Then that would make non members pissed, more than loosing the pager did. There is no reason for not letting them have their own screen shot thing(If it were made), because it would hardly use any of BYONDs bandwidth.
>
> It would also give members games an unfair advantage. Because, I never buy a game with out reading about it, and looking at screen shots. And I bet I'm not the only one.
Maybe that'd give them some incentive to help out BYOND.
Friday, February 02, 2007 08:03PM