Messages

Hi just first off all i would like to say thanks to ags for the many improvements and the time hes put in, not least since it was over the holiday season for him too. However I am thoroughly not happy at all with the issue of content from my server not being able to display on the forum anymore. I realize why, but I cannot afford to upgrade or change my server,  i simply am not in a position to change my server around since i have other sites on my hosting package.   I find this very disappointing not least since I have no issues whatsoever displaying my server content on other forums and social networking platforms that are far more modern then this forum platform.

I feel so strongly about this that I feel like leaving the forum now if its a case exceptions for people with known servers and are genuine people known to the forum cannot be made without people having to turn their servers upside down and pay money to accommodate the change on this one forum.

Just to be clear I understand the time and work gone into the improvements, and appreciate that, however this issue with blocking servers from known members is a step too far for me.

As discussed on Discord, I've turned the proxy off for the time being.  We really should be moving towards full HTTPS hosting as soon as possible though.

Edit: Another issue: Picks of the months seems to be reset to July 2017

Fixed.  The dates recent entries used were in the wrong format, so needed to be converted in the database.

The Member Map seems to link to the old one and terribly out of date. I'd remove it completely.

The map linked to on the forums (https://www.adventuregamestudio.co.uk/forums/index.php?action=googlemap) is definitely up to date... How do you define "the old one"?  I think it may be the style changed slightly, but it's definitely using up to date information, and the latest Google Maps API.

On the games page, some games don't have a screenshot in the overview, but when you open the page and click on one of three tiny preview screenshots, it is shown correctly. Happens for some of the pick of the month.

Oh yeah, I need to generate thumbnails for some of the games, forgot to do it earlier.

Thanks AGA for your efforts!

I managed to turn on https for my webspace. But I had to change the URL of my avatar manually to https.
Interestingly, other images (like here https://www.adventuregamestudio.co.uk/forums/index.php?topic=56539.msg636596982#msg636596982) seem to work.
Is it possible to update all avatar links automatically in the database?

Edit: Another issue: Picks of the months seems to be reset to July 2017

It's not safe to find and replace everyone's avatar, since currently the forum software is blocking them because they aren't HTTPS.  If the URLs look like HTTPS but actually return 404 (because the HTTPS version doesn't actually exist), then we might end up with threads full of broken images...  Hopefully active users will notice and fix their avatars soon enough.  Most inactive users' avatars have already expired anyway, so no real difference!

As for the in thread images, this is how SMF's image proxy is supposed to work - it downloads the file locally, then hosts it itself if it isn's HTTPS.  It just seems it doesn't work for avatars for some reason.

Also, the main AGS site seems to be much wider than it used to be - I usually don't use the browser in full-scrreen mode and I didn't have to horizontally scroll in the past but now the page is about ~200 pixels wider than before.

Sorry, forgot to reply to this.  This was deliberate.  The old site looked tiny on modern monitors (even on 1024 x 768!), so I increased the main text area to be wider, while fitting in the same overall dimensions.  It may be a bit more awkward on mobile now, but honestly the site has always been far from optimised for mobile!  It'd take a full redesign before we ever had the site working properly on mobile.

Perhaps this tidbit in the Modify Profile page should be updated:

"Specify your own avatar by URL
(e.g. http://www.mypage.com/mypic.gif)"

Changed to: "Specify your own avatar by URL (e.g. https://www.mypage.com/mypic.gif - this must start with https, or it won't work!)"

The Graphics on game page show:  HD, 8-bit (256 col)

If I change to 32 bit I get: Database query G.37.11 error: Column 'mirror_url' cannot be null

Should be fixed!

The current wiki is tied into the forums.  It's the same reason we host our own bug tracker.  Non technical people aren't very likely to create a separate account on a developers' site just to make an edit to a wiki page about a random AGS game.  And if we're talking about an external wiki, why not use Wikia, which is made for games wikis...

Hi

why do some games from profile show;  test.file path and show 404?

Slasher

Fixed!

The wiki doesn't seem to work - when I click the AGS Wiki link, I get a 404. The behavior is the same when I try to visit a particular Wiki page through a Google link.

Fixed!

Profile Images / Avatars don't seem to be working for everyone.

Expected! (as in the first post).  You can't have a HTTPS site that links to non HTTPS addresses, so I've turned on the forum's image proxy, which will effectively ban any images that aren't coming from an HTTPS address.  It shouldn't be a huge problem, as most modern hosting sites offer HTTPS for free.

Hello!

We have just migrated the site and forums to a new and shiny server, and I have completely rewritten the AGS site.  You shouldn't notice many differences, but some of the changes include:

• fixed site search!
• improved stability of forums and site!
• SSL! (ish - read below)
• a few small improvements and changes to the games pages

You may very well notice some glitches here and there, and I have forgotten to address issues people mentioned in the past.  Anything you do notice from now on, please let me know!

I have made the first steps to getting the site fully SSL enabled.  However, until everyone updates their forum profiles, posts and signatures to use only HTTPS links (so no HTTP ever again!) we cannot be fully compliant.

Fixed! slasher also complained about the same issue a few days ago, and I fixed it then. Either I accidentally redeployed an old version of the fixed file, or it was gremlins. I blame the gremlins ¬¬

I've readded borders, but they look a little ugly.  If anyone has any idea as what properties would make them a bit prettier, please let me know!

Can you provide a screenshot of what you see?  And if you can work out what CSS needs to be adjusted to fix it, by all means let me know!

Sorry if this has been brought up already but the bbcode tables have lost their borders.

There will be a fair few minor graphical differences here and there, but unless it's actually causing a problem (or looks horrible!) it's probably not worth 'fixing'.

I'm happy to apply it on the server, if you can give me a patched version of the relevant js file.

Okay, I give up.  I've compared every file in the AGS and AGSCompact themes, and they're identical except for a few lines of CSS.  I've tried replacing the whole AGS theme folder with a copy of the AGSCompact folder (so zero differences), but the editor issue still appears.  As a workaround I've reset everyone's theme to AGSCompact, so at least no one will experience this anymore...
If someone wants to try to debug the issue, I'm happy to give them access to the AGS theme again.  If you have the AGS theme set, there is a JS error in the console, which then disappears if you change theme to AGSCompact (even when the files are identical...).

What about now?  I switched you to use the other display theme (AGS Compact).  I'm wondering if that could be related somehow, since I use AGS Compact and have no problems with the post editor...

SMF has built in hacks for Opera, among other browsers. It's very old software, from the days before web compatibility was as (relatively) standardised as it is today. And unfortunately it's the best solution for our requirements, so not easily replaced.


I'll try changing the input method used tonight.

Unfortunately the WYSYWIG editor built in to SMF is quite unreliable.  I reenabled it because of a bug that was stopping smileys from working in the alternative we used to use.  However, at this rate it looks like having no clickable smileys is preferable to so many other things not working.
Sinitrena at least, the level of WYSYWIGness you get is a setting in your user profile.  There you can choose whether to display smileys, text options, etc etc.  Try changing that setting, see if it helps?
Also the spam is caused by my removing a plugin that was previously used explicitly to prevent spam.  I thought it might have been causing the registration issue, so was going to try running without it for a while.  Will have to renable it!

Okay, so I've made quite a lot of changes to the forums in the background, to fix the registration, plus various issues people probably never even noticed.  Please do let me know of anything that's missing, or weird looking, though.

I'm working on it.  Unfortunately the forums have been going for so long, and been upgraded so many times, things are a bit of a mess.  I'm trying to clean things up, but it might take a few days!