Shienvien

Mahz's Dev Journal

Ghrnh... Text is easily three-four times the size I normally have it on mobile version, and there is a bit over a centimeter of free space on both sides of the text (and userbits are on the tops of posts, where I don't want them). ...Not keeping the "Force device width" ticked on cell. (Also, the "Edit" button under my username on my profile is tiny. It is a notch shorter than the letters "Sh" and has even less height.) Also, huh, new layout...

The Prophecy

I kind of feel that the instrumental pieces (be they the epic orchestral kind or the other type(s) I have found myself enjoying ... I think I could partially blame certain computer games from the second half of nineties for the latter) fit what I am generally using the playlist for best. I am most often listening music as a background when I am doing something a bit more mechanical, such as drawing (not so much as a mood-setter, but rather somewhat independently). Helps with focusing on the task... (I've also done the opposite in the past - drawing to keep my focus on audible input. Something about the optimal level of occupation, I suppose.) I recall about TSFH and audiomachine, yes... (I also recall Ashgan actually commenting on your choice to go with audiomachine's tracks for your characters, and approving of it.) I already did go over TSFH's music a while back - a significant fraction of it, in any case; I am positive I probably still missed some, though. I haven't gone over audiomachine's yet, though, even if do have some of their tracks (probably over half of which are there exactly because you have linked those in the past). Brand X Music and Immediate Music and Ethos Music I have heard of, but not really looked into yet; Michael Riske doesn't ring a bell, so he's perhaps completely new to me. Halo and Chrisis Core's music is likewise new to me, since I've only played very little of the former (don't own it myself) and none of the latter. *mutters something vague over videogames* Thanks, in any case; I will be finding a few playlists and sorting through them as I do other things (as I typically do in these instances). @The New Yorker: Still waiting for your computer to be fixed?

Mahz's Dev Journal

<Snipped quote by TheFake> Perhaps. It'd be nice if there was more than just color used to denote the status.

@Captain Jordan

Such as the word written on the tag? :-P I maintain that black text would be more comfortable to read on tags so light-colored, though. Or that the tags themselves need to be darker. I can second that red/green is by far the most common type of colorblindness, though. (It doesn't help that both GuildRed and GuildGreen are a bit on the faded side.) Ehh... I know at least one person with several types of color-blindness on RPG, so I could ask them, should we want to make it as colorblind-friendly as possible. It can be a bit hard to tell what'd work and what not when all talkers have decent to perfect color-discrimination.

Mahz's Dev Journal

Speaking of tags - the white-on-lightish gray is especially bad with low-brightness, low-contrast settings (which most of my monitors are, to combat anything with white background or neon text). That white on the green-ish Apply tag, though, begins to creep into realms of painful (same with subscribe tags). (I propose giving tags either black backgroud or black text...) I agree on the Full/Apply tags generating too much void, though.

Mahz's Dev Journal

@oakman: As mentioned above, different browsers handle content differently. (Not limited to mobile browsers, though. Take IE, FF and Chrome, for example, and in cases you can get pretty different results on PC, too.) EDIT: My cell also has userinfo next to post, as I prefer it... Ehh... Keep using the PC version on cell as an option? I prefer this outlay, even for cell. I also like PM/sub buttons visible at all times, and RPG doesn't really require zooming for me, since elements are large enough to hit. FF and Android,for the record. EDIT2: RPGred is distinctly a sad bleaced-red pink on cell-screen, too.

Mahz's Dev Journal

As I noted before, I am not exactly a fan of avatars and various meta between posts - when I'm browsing forums on mobile, I generally have it set so that these parts are left out of my vision altogether. Frankly, I'd like a (perhaps cookie-based) device-specific* setting that would remove all poster-info besides the username (and perhaps online status, but only if it is on the same line) for cellphones if user info is to stay at the tops of posts for mobiles... Other than that... Eh, I suppose I really haven't found the experience inconvenient enough on mobile devices to conclude it needs fixing? (Edit: My textboxes actually adjusted to screen size...) *For enabling/disabling those things every time depending on whether you're are on any of your dozen computers or your single cell phone that actually needs the setting can get a it tedious.

Mahz's Dev Journal

Why, if it was mine to decide, I'd probably meld arena into 1x1 and free/advanced/casual, too. (1x1 is a bit of a weird creature just because it won't typically ever recruit after started; the level-division would only really matter with IntChecks...) NRP is just one subtype of RP which I personally have been participating quite frequently (as opposed to approximately one proper arena RP in the past eight years), which is also why it also came up first for me.

Mahz's Dev Journal

If we can disable notifications, then they kind of lose their function... The ratings notifications might be a bit uninformative for some, but in most other cases, notifications are supposed to be (or in my vision they are, in any case) the "summon person" buttons that you use somewhat sparingly, but which certainly are a convenient and useful tool. Hence, I'd rather have a system that makes you make an extra move or two to specifically notify someone over one in which you'd have to resort to PMing people old-school style because the person turned notifications off after receiving eighty-seven when they left for a family vacation for the weekend.

Mahz's Dev Journal

I think you should just quote-mention. Clicking in to a quote-mention from the notifications menu clears it. Though I need to improve notification auto-clearing and allow users to delete specific notifications from the list. But altogether I think it's better to err on the extraneous side.

Well, I just got two to this thread, and clicking on one won't make the other disappear with it... I guess the notifications (and how useful you find them) probably depends heavily on how avid "patroller" you are and how many threads you frequent. For me, it is mainly just this thread and the RPs I'm in ... and I have all of those open as tabs to start out with (which I typically just go over horizontally every now and then), so the alerts end up being a bit redundant and extraneous. I am aware the notifications disappear when you click on them, but I normally either only notice or look at them after I've already visited the thread(s), or I just get several to the same thread at once.

Mahz's Dev Journal

Fortunately, in the meantime, the sidebar usually seems to have 1 check and roleplay from each of the Free/Casual/Advanced sections when I glance at it.

If it makes a difference, then I managed to spot five intChecks and five newest RPs being all in casual for several hours in the run during the day (or what constitutes for a day for me). It is actually part of why I brought the suggestion up to begin with. :-P

Also, one nice thing about subforums is that they can foster their own subcommunities/atmospheres. Clicking into the Nation or Tabletop Roleplay forum is much different than just clicking a "Nation" or "Tabletop" tag filter. I will have to think about what this means for the tag system and how I can possibly preserve the phenomenon with tags.

I consider the "creating its own subculture" a bit of a problem rather than advantage, to be honest ... pack-mentality of smaller communities and all that. Furthermore, as I am predominantly an advanced player, I've somehow found myself completely excluded from the NRP scene of RPG ever since it got its own subforum ... which is bizarre, considering that across all sites, well over half of the RPs I've joined have been NRPs this past year. Oh, and what about the quote/quotemention matter (as right now, the only way to make "normal" quotes is to remove the '@' by hand or type the name in manually)? I'd rather avoid sending unnecessary mentions, since with threads that will be browsed by the person anyway, it just means they will have to separately go to the alert tab to dismiss the alert.