Jump to content

RPC goes Invision Power - Q&A


Recommended Posts

18 minutes ago, Xihsa'li Tayuun said:

 

I'm not either. The small thin black text on a see-through background makes them really tough to read. At least before the white on black made the text pop out.

 

I wish I could figure out what you're talking about.  Maybe it's the theme I'm using?

Link to comment

Hm. The change looks good with a darker background.

I think it's safe to say the theme isn't finalized. There's several things being considered, a few of which cost money and all of which cost time. I'd think holding off further aesthetic changes until the theme is finalized is a good suggestion.

Link to comment

Promoting linkshells and free companies is kind of hard now that they've been sectioned off into clubs -- clubs that don't even appear on the front page when a new post is made.

 

For example I use to bump the ERP: NEO linkshell thread on the old rpc every other week. I'd post in the thread a screenshot, the thread would appear on the front page in the sidebar, and people would see and click on it and maybe join. But now with clubs, they don't appear on the front page and you sort of have to click through a bunch of links just to find what's up.

 

My suggestion is either the inclusion of new posts made in clubs added to the sidebar on the index page, visible to all, or maybe just revert back to using regular ole' threads for linkshells and free companies. I think it's much simpler and easier that way, and less of a hurdle for gaining exposure. I think clubs are a nice idea but they're sort of segregated in their own little bubbles away from the rest of the site in a manner that's a little detrimental in enlisting new blood.

Edited by Max
Link to comment
On 2/24/2018 at 9:00 PM, Max said:

inclusion of new posts made in clubs added to the sidebar on the index page, visible to all

 

Now that most listings have been remade in the new clubs sections, we'll likely be turning this back on. This gets a little tricky with public/open clubs as all their content ends up in the sidebar, including posts like "[FC/LS/Group's internal rules" which can make things a bit confusing for users. (However, all RPC-related posts to that end would always be posted here in the Announcements board.)

 

As we're still determining FC/LS cleaning rules and how to better increase exposure, we are looking into how to better integrate club content into the site without the need to create a public bump thread. I can look into making a club side panel box to show groups with recent activity, perhaps? As the old forum's halls were heavily specialized forums, a similar setup where the first post of a thread always displays, on top of filters is not something that can be done without heavy modification and resources. (It was all powered by an extremely complex plugin which replicated many of the features we now have here, but also many other conflicting ones as well.)

Link to comment

Also to note: a basic "moderator alert" message has been enabled on the site. While not quite as robust as the old alerts that would only be a notification to the user, this is currently being handled by an automatically generated private message to the user with some basic details. 

 

Should a staff member need to use a moderator tool on a thread or post, users should be notified automatically now! (Including a link to the post/thread if locked/unlocked or hidden/unhidden). As we get more familiar with IPS and how it functions, we may be able to adjust this to a notification instead.

Link to comment
On 2/24/2018 at 9:00 PM, Max said:

Promoting linkshells and free companies is kind of hard now that they've been sectioned off into clubs -- clubs that don't even appear on the front page when a new post is made.

 

To better help with this, I've implemented a very basic activity box for Linkshell and Free Company activity. While it can't link to the specific activity like a forum topic feed, it will display a list of all clubs marked as active. (This does mean if someone sets heir listing to inactive, it will not display in the feed.)

 


 

I've also noticed there's a memory leak with RPC Chat, which seems to target Firefox and Chrome users the worst. If the page begins to get slow and unresponsive, users should close the tap and open a new one. This removes the extra javascript data that piles up. I'm currently looking into methods to enable user-friendly experience options again. Things like "disable chat," "disable gallery," "make the gallery show recent images," "make the gallery show random images," among other things. As before, these will likely be profile options handled internally by secondary groups. A full announcement will be made once implemented/tested.

Link to comment

With the clubs' "Last Active" date and their ordering in the new "Recent Club Activity" box, I've noticed that only making club topics seems to count? Which is really inconvenient.

 

The members of the groups I manage don't use the RPC forums (we keep in contact via Discord and our main 'website'/public presence is Tumblr), so I have topics disabled in the clubs I own because they simply would never be used. Insofar as overarching group updates go, I prefer the "Blog" tab and format since it's similar to Tumblr, which I'm used to using and like more. Adding events to group calendars also don't seem to count as "activity."

 

Going forward are there any plans to make it so that adding events to a calendar, uploading images to a club album, or making posts in the club's blog updates the "Last Active" date and bumps it up on the "Recent Club Activity" list accordingly?

 

Also, are there any plans to make "custom" tabs for clubs a thing, kind of like the tabs on the old FC and LS hall where you could just type whatever you wanted? It would be great if I could make a rules/lore/contact information tab since the description shown on the "main" tab is pretty short and doesn't seem to support rich text/html?

Link to comment
On 3/7/2018 at 1:32 PM, zaviire said:

With the clubs' "Last Active" date and their ordering in the new "Recent Club Activity" box, I've noticed that only making club topics seems to count? Which is really inconvenient.

 

The members of the groups I manage don't use the RPC forums (we keep in contact via Discord and our main 'website'/public presence is Tumblr), so I have topics disabled in the clubs I own because they simply would never be used. Insofar as overarching group updates go, I prefer the "Blog" tab and format since it's similar to Tumblr, which I'm used to using and like more. Adding events to group calendars also don't seem to count as "activity."

 

Going forward are there any plans to make it so that adding events to a calendar, uploading images to a club album, or making posts in the club's blog updates the "Last Active" date and bumps it up on the "Recent Club Activity" list accordingly?

 

I need to check in on this. ...it should be pulling from -any- activity, unless the regular clubs display only shows for topics. Then that might get a little harder to pull information from. (It should be doable nonetheless because there -is- an activity feed, but seeing how/where that gets its information will require additional research.)

 

Edit: A simple test shows that other modules aren't bumping it like they should! Let me see what I can do about that. In the meantime, adding a topic section and a bump thread can help in this regard.

 

Edit2: I poked IPS support and this is apparently working as intended. I've submitted a feature request for a better activity bump, but we cannot count on that happening. :<

 

Quote

Also, are there any plans to make "custom" tabs for clubs a thing, kind of like the tabs on the old FC and LS hall where you could just type whatever you wanted? It would be great if I could make a rules/lore/contact information tab since the description shown on the "main" tab is pretty short and doesn't seem to support rich text/html?

 

Currently, the tabs mirror the modules we have on the main forums. It should be possible to hook new ones in, but they'd have to be global options for all clubs. We do have a plugin that does a little of this currently in place, where you can override the default club view with a more feature-complete "home page" post instead of a simple description text-box. It's not enabled by default, but can be turned on from the home page item inside the "manage club" menu.

Link to comment
On ‎13‎/‎02‎/‎2018 at 12:34 PM, Unnamed Mercenary said:

The theme is very...bright.

We're working on making the theme easier on the eyes. If you have experience with Invision Power board themes, please contact Unnamed Mercenary.  Users should be able to select an IPS4 Dark theme now as well. The css hasn't been check yet, but it should give a very simple black and blue appearance better for evening viewing.

 

How do you change the theme? I can't find an option in my profile or account settings.

Link to comment
1 minute ago, Charity322 said:

 

How do you change the theme? I can't find an option in my profile or account settings.

 

Theme option's on the very bottom of the page. You might need to hide the chatbar to see it (I personally do not, but others have reported they did.)

Link to comment

When we upload pictures into whichever Album we choose, there's still the problem that makes us choose between an existing album (which doesn't work) and creating a new one. Or going without Album at all.
So pictures have to be uploaded album-less and only afterwards, they have to be manually selected and transferred to the desired album. Is it possible to make it so people can upload directly into the right album at the first step of the process?

Link to comment
5 hours ago, Thunder said:

Is it possible to make subforums in the club's topics section? I want a seperate area to stick character sheets. Thanks!

 

At this time, we can only add in one module of each time. I've heard this may change later, but I haven't seen an option for it on the admin side configuration either. Unless the character sheets are purely FC/LS-only material though, something like a catch-all thread inside the club with links to Making Connections or Player Directory threads for your members might work? Otherwise, maybe something like a Character Sheets thread where each member makes a post they can edit as needed? Club Owners/Leaders/Mods can hide/unhide posts as needed, the same for splitting/merging posts!

 

22 minutes ago, Dwassyith Swanra said:

When we upload pictures into whichever Album we choose, there's still the problem that makes us choose between an existing album (which doesn't work) and creating a new one. Or going without Album at all.
So pictures have to be uploaded album-less and only afterwards, they have to be manually selected and transferred to the desired album. Is it possible to make it so people can upload directly into the right album at the first step of the process?

 

This is one of those import quirks. Ideally, everyone should be uploading into the cateogry directly, but it seems to -really- want to make an album. Normally I'd fix this by making a single category for all images, but then it'd break the gallery feed on the main page which only pulls from categories. I'm still looking for better alternatives!

 

Edit: What I could possibly do is turn off album creation for the generic categories (Artwork, PG13+, Screenshots, Other) so that people only get prompted for that if they want to add something to User Galleries.

Link to comment
12 hours ago, Unnamed Mercenary said:

At this time, we can only add in one module of each time. I've heard this may change later, but I haven't seen an option for it on the admin side configuration either. Unless the character sheets are purely FC/LS-only material though, something like a catch-all thread inside the club with links to Making Connections or Player Directory threads for your members might work? Otherwise, maybe something like a Character Sheets thread where each member makes a post they can edit as needed? Club Owners/Leaders/Mods can hide/unhide posts as needed, the same for splitting/merging posts!

 

Oooo that's not a bad idea, thank you!

Link to comment

We've upgraded to IPS 4.3 - Technical Details

  • Users can now make read-only club listings for the FC and LS halls. These are viewable to any, but require invite/membership to post.
  • The Gallery now supports anyone-can-use albums. The general categories will now allow uploads if you don't want to make a personal album. Users who already have albums can adjust the settings.
Link to comment
  • 4 weeks later...
  • 3 months later...

...I'm still trying to figure out that editor bug! (It's been narrowed down to our use of site caching engines, but without those, we'd see -really- slow page loads and a LOT more cpu/bandwidth use. Finding the right balance has been difficult /cry )

In more positive news, I've added a plugin to pin posts, demoed here in this thread. It's part of a larger update to the forums that is planned as soon as I can get said changes implemented!

Link to comment
  • 2 weeks later...
  • 5 months later...

Looking to make a section filter AND sort in a particular way? Want to know why we're using friendlier links for the club URLs? Here are some forum trick to get the site working for YOU.

 

Clubs:
All Active:               https://ffxiv-roleplayers.com/index.php?/clubs/&f7[0]=0
All Active Balmung:       https://ffxiv-roleplayers.com/index.php?/clubs/&f7[0]=0&f1[0]=0
All Active Gilgamesh:   https://ffxiv-roleplayers.com/index.php?/clubs/&f7[0]=0&f1[0]=1
All Active Mateus:       https://ffxiv-roleplayers.com/index.php?/clubs/&f7[0]=0&f1[0]=2
All Active Omega:       https://ffxiv-roleplayers.com/index.php?/clubs/&f7[0]=0&f1[0]=3
All Active Other:       https://ffxiv-roleplayers.com/index.php?/clubs/&f7[0]=0&f1[0]=4


All Active Free Company Clubs:   https://ffxiv-roleplayers.com/ips/index.php?/clubs/&f7[0]=0&f2[0]=0
Active Balmung FC:    https://ffxiv-roleplayers.com/ips/index.php?/clubs/&f7[0]=0&f1[0]=0&f2[0]=0
Active Gilgamesh FC   https://ffxiv-roleplayers.com/ips/index.php?/clubs/&f7[0]=0&f1[0]=1&f2[0]=0
Active Mateus FC       https://ffxiv-roleplayers.com/ips/index.php?/clubs/&f7[0]=0&f1[0]=2&f2[0]=0
Active Omega FC       https://ffxiv-roleplayers.com/ips/index.php?/clubs/&f7[0]=0&f1[0]=3&f2[0]=0
Active Other FC       https://ffxiv-roleplayers.com/ips/index.php?/clubs/&f7[0]=0&f1[0]=4&f2[0]=0


All Active Linkshell Clubs:   https://ffxiv-roleplayers.com/ips/index.php?/clubs/&f7[0]=0&f2[0]=1
Active Balmung LS       https://ffxiv-roleplayers.com/ips/index.php?/clubs/&f7[0]=0&f1[0]=0&f2[0]=1
Active Gilgamesh LS   https://ffxiv-roleplayers.com/ips/index.php?/clubs/&f7[0]=0&f1[0]=1&f2[0]=1
Active Mateus LS       https://ffxiv-roleplayers.com/ips/index.php?/clubs/&f7[0]=0&f1[0]=2&f2[0]=1
Active Omega LS       https://ffxiv-roleplayers.com/ips/index.php?/clubs/&f7[0]=0&f1[0]=3&f2[0]=1
Active Other LS       https://ffxiv-roleplayers.com/ips/index.php?/clubs/&f7[0]=0&f1[0]=4&f2[0]=1

 

WHAT DO THE THINGS MEAN?
    Active:        clubs/&f7[0]=0
    Inactive:    clubs/&f7[0]=1

    Balmung:    clubs/&f1[0]=0
    Gilgamesh:    clubs/&f1[0]=1
    Mateus:        clubs/&f1[0]=2
    Omega:        clubs/&f1[0]=3
    Other:        clubs/&f1[0]=4

    Free:        clubs/&f2[0]=0
    Linkshell:    clubs/&f2[0]=1
    
Want to adjust the sorting?
 

Put these at the end of pretty links (ones that end in a / )
?sort=last_activity
?sort=members
?sort=content
?sort=created
?sort=name
 

Or these at the end of a more complicated one (stuff with ?thing=stuff&otherthings=otherstuff&morethings=morestuff:
&sort=last_activity
&sort=members
&sort=content
&sort=created
&sort=name

Link to comment
  • 4 weeks later...

RPC has been updated to Invision Community 4.4!

 

You may notice a few subtle differences on the site layout from updated default themes and css. Please let me know if something has changed for the worse, so I can look into adjusting it! (Screenshots are helpful!)

 

If you're curious on what changes came with this update, the official documentation is here:
https://invisioncommunity.com/news/product-updates/welcome-to-invision-community-44-r1124/

TLDR: Lazy-loading images and animated gif editor integration are probably the biggest ones for us.

Link to comment

Please sign in to comment

You will be able to leave a comment after signing in



Sign In Now
×
×
  • Create New...