Fate of Io: Fate of Io web site version 5.0 beta 1!

Fate of Io web site version 5.0 beta 1!

Posted by Temporal at 2005/02/15 10:03:31 PST
Edited at 2005/02/17 03:38:35 PST

As you can see, the site has been updated! Finally!

This is version 5.0 beta 1 of the Fate of Io web site. It is running on Io Community Manager, a web application written in my new programming language, Evlan. That's right: I wrote the software powering this site all the way down to the programming language virtual machine.

This site is BETA. There will most likely be many bugs, crashes, etc. to come, so please bear with me. I chose to put the site up in this incomplete form in order to facilitate testing. The more people viewing this site, the faster I will find problems with it.

This site is INCOMPLETE. There are many features I have not yet implemented, not the least of which are file submissions and chat rooms. These features will be added over the next week or so. For more thorough lists of current features, future features, and known bugs, read on...

These lists are probably incomplete. I'm too tired to get them right.

Current Features

Dynamically content tree editable via web browser.
Forums allowing users to post topics and replies with moderators.
Awards: The site admins may award points to a good post, or revoke points from an abusive one. The total number of points a user has accumulated is shown next to their name in all their posts. These points are called "influence".
Polls, both normal and Condorcet (ranked), both weigthed (by influence) and unweighted (one vote per person).
Weblogs, where news entries like this one may be posted.

Near-Future Features:

User info pages.
User rewards. Once you reach certain levels of influence, you may purchase rewards such as colored posts, avatars, and sigs.
File submissions. Unlike in v4, there will be a rating system for submissions, allowing visitors to quickly find the best material.
Chat rooms. Using Java and Javascript, a chat room will be integrated directly into the site.
Activity log, for keeping track of recent site activity.
Ability to ban users by IP temporarily or permanently. Banned users will still be able to read and watch but will be unable to post or speak in chat.

Known Bugs:

Currently, if you click on a user's name link, you will get a "not found" response, as user info pages are not implemented.
Users can see sections in the tree which should be invisible to them, although they cannot actually access the sections. (As of now, Fate of Io has no invisible sections.)
Some pages generate slowly right now (like, only two or three requests a second). This will get better with optimization.
Lots of links and images are broken! This is because I imported all the data from the v4 database and haven't updated said links to the new system. As a related problem, lots of information on the site still pertains to v4 and not v5, since I haven't updated it yet.
Probably tons of other stuff.

Other notes. Um... If you had at least one post on v4, your username has been imported into the new system. No need to get a new one. Blah blah.

OK, guys. What I want you to do is try to find problems with this site, and post about them here.

Dammit, I've been up coding for 24 hours straight. I'm going to bed. Break my site while I'm asleep. See what I care. You damn kids.

2005/02/15 10:30:59 PST by Temporal [manager]

Oh yeah, forgot to mention:

Today is the fourth anniversary of the start of the Fate of Io project!

2005/02/15 12:43:23 PST by Captain Vimes [0/13]

I expect I'll find more things later as I become more of a member in Fate Of Io, but currently, I just have to say I like the layout very much. I've always been a fan of minimalism. And the color white. The index page might change to reflect this.
Anyway, pointless gibbering beside, does the log-in screen always redirect you to another page, whereupon you had to enter your password, and be notified that the login was successful with the code we have now? I liked the way that you could immediantly begin surfing just by entering your user-name in the side bar.

2005/02/15 16:03:02 PST by mystik3eb [0/43]

I agree with the log-in comment, though I do like the option of keeping me logged in, that always frustrated me in v4, though I understand the security reasoning. Currently the News section has nothing when I go there, a "problem" or whatever that I noticed. There is no user database, edit your profile options (which makes sense since profiles are lacking), and no updates features, but I'm sure you're aware of that. Just making sure, letting you know what I notice. I do like the layout, it makes loading much faster, and I'm always in support of that.

I'll ask now: what kind of options will go along with posts, like HTML editing or whatnot (emoticons, text and background coloring (if desired, that's probably overkill), linking, image sourcing, quoting, standard font editing (like bold, italics, underlining, etc), and that kinda stuff)? Also how does a "quick reply" option sound? I'm sure you know what I'm referring to: click "quick reply" at the bottom and a small space for a reply appears for anyone not wanting to load another screen and have the easy options of all the above named editing options available off to the side as usual, and then an easy post right there, still with an option to preview. Just an idea, to help get things moving.

Temp, great job! I'm happy with what I see so far, and I'm excited for this new system. How big are avatars gonna be once made available, just wondering? =)

Added at 2005/02/15 17:34:45 PST

Sorry for the edit, but I posted this a bit prematurely. I looked through ever single node and have a few extra comments. For one, we probably don't need the v4PM node anymore, but I'm sure you're working on replacing/updating that with v5 info. Also, the charter needs updating under the staff section, simply because AdStaff does not exist right now. I would like to update my earlier question about "HTML editing" to "v4 code" options, as it was referred to in the v4 node. And...obviously...in this case it would be v5 code...but now I'm just being obnoxiously specific.

More comments: the vast majority of links inside nodes lead to a page that indicates they have be removed or relocated. This is either an indication or a reminder to you...sorry if I'm stating the obvious, but I'm just helping in the way I can. The [image] locations need to be updated (basically another reminder)...and I honestly see no other problems. I love what I'm seeing here, and I'm excited for where the project will head after this.

2005/02/15 18:27:12 PST by Temporal [manager]

Quote from Captain Vimes:

Anyway, pointless gibbering beside, does the log-in screen always redirect you to another page, whereupon you had to enter your password, and be notified that the login was successful with the code we have now?

That's somewhat necessary as the login system is as independent component from Io Community Manager. I intend to host more sites than just Fate of Io with this, and they will all use the same logins. So, you won't have to register again for every site.

Anyway, since there is now a "Remember me" option, it shouldn't be a big deal. You won't have to log in much.

Quote from mystik3eb:

I do like the option of keeping me logged in, that always frustrated me in v4, though I understand the security reasoning.

Regarding that security... Just so you know, if someone manages to "hijack" your session in v5 (like, if you accidentally leave someone else's computer logged in and they come and start posting), you can easily cut them off by just logging in again from another computer. Only one computer can be logged in an a time, so the old session will be logged out. I realize this has other problems (namely, if you commonly use multiple computers, you have to log in every time you switch), but I think the benefits outweigh the problems.

Quote from mystik3eb:

Currently the News section has nothing when I go there, a "problem" or whatever that I noticed.

Please describe this is more detail. I see the news section just fine.

Quote from mystik3eb:

Standard forum code editing with square brackets is supported. It's pretty much exactly the same as before, with some minor simplifications (namely, you don't have to use quotes around tag parameters anymore).

Quote from mystik3eb:

Also how does a "quick reply" option sound? I'm sure you know what I'm referring to: click "quick reply" at the bottom and a small space for a reply appears for anyone not wanting to load another screen and have the easy options of all the above named editing options available off to the side as usual, and then an easy post right there, still with an option to preview.

Actually, that's quite doable. Good idea. I'm going to implement that. It would be helpful to allow you to scroll up and read the previous posts.

Quote from mystik3eb:

How big are avatars gonna be once made available, just wondering? =)

Probably the same 64x64.0

Quote from mystik3eb:

I looked through ever single node and have a few extra comments.

Most of the old nodes are taken directly from the old database and have not been updated for the new site yet. I added this to the list of known bugs.

Added at 2005/02/15 18:29:00 PST

BTW, I may end up deleting everything that is posted to the beta site, or I may not. I am not sure yet. So, be warned.

Added at 2005/02/15 21:17:34 PST

Oops, I think I meant to say avatars would be 32x32.0

2005/02/15 18:39:36 PST by mystik3eb [0/43]

Quote from Temporal:

Quote from mystik3eb:

Currently the News section has nothing when I go there, a "problem" or whatever that I noticed.

Please describe this is more detail. I see the news section just fine.

Never mind, it's working now. Earlier it was saying that it was an undoable command.

2005/02/15 18:47:11 PST by Temporal [manager]

Quote from mystik3eb:

Never mind, it's working now. Earlier it was saying that it was an undoable command.

Yeah, I found the problem and fixed it. Actually, it's technically not fixed in the running site, but I made it go away. I accidentally had it set so that anyone could post news, and the exception was related to the news post button for non-admin users. Oops.

Added at 2005/02/15 19:17:37 PST

Note to self: Add padding inside quote boxes.

Added at 2005/02/15 20:15:36 PST

Note to self: Done. (Others may have to refresh to see it.)

Added at 2005/02/15 20:26:47 PST

Oh yeah, another thing regarding the separate login system:

You may have noticed that the login form was on a secure site. Unfortunately, due to the nature of HTTPS, only one secure site can be hosted per server. In my case, "secure.evlan.org" is that site, not "fateofio.org". Again, since I want to host other IoCM-based sites in the future, I don't want them all going through fateofio.org for login... that would be weird.

Anyway, point is, if I put a login form right in the sidebar of v5, it wouldn't be secure. And that would be bad, because you know there's leagues of crackers salivating at the thought of cracking the Fate of Io web site. That was sarcasm. But, yeah. There you go.

2005/02/15 22:19:10 PST by mystik3eb [0/43]

Padding?

Also, is there a way you can, like Angelfire, deny the direct linking to images from outside the website? That would help stop alot of bandwidth, wouldn't it? Just an idea.

Added at 2005/02/15 22:20:12 PST

Oh also, can avatars be larger if they're hosted on another website? Or are you gearing more toward faster loading times?

2005/02/15 23:03:15 PST by Temporal [manager]
Edited at 2005/02/15 23:03:57 PST

The reason for keeping avatars small has nothing to do with file size. We experimented with double-size (64x64) avatars once, and I think the general concencus was that they were too big and looked ugly. Either way, I want avatars to be hosted locally, in order to prevent people from using avatars hosted by sites that didn't give them permission. It would suck if one of those sites got angry and pulled something like my login box on us. :P

As for preventing incoming hotlinks, I fully intend to put a system in place for that, yes. It will probably be based on links which change over time. That is, after a file has been downloaded X times, its URL will change. The only way to find the new URL will be to go back to the submission page which linked to it. This way, people will still be able to send links to their friends and such on a limited basis, but if any particular link gets overly heavy traffic, it will be automatically cut off. Perhaps, if it continues to generate such traffic, it will eventually start producing the annoying login box like I did before.

(Simply checking the Referer [sic] HTTP header won't always work since there are many situations where browsers do not send it.)

2005/02/16 00:02:26 PST by mystik3eb [0/43]

I was only thinking 100x100, but if that's still too big, then that's ok.

Also, what's Padding? And is there anything I can do to help while you're getting the other features loaded?

2005/02/16 01:14:07 PST by mystik3eb [0/43]

After having some fun with v4 (or v5) bracket coding, I've discovered that the only things that don't work that could before are H4-6,

, and there is no [left], but I guess that's pointless.

2005/02/16 03:21:36 PST by Temporal [manager]

Quote from mystik3eb:

I was only thinking 100x100, but if that's still too big, then that's ok.

OK, I once again ammend my size comments. We were, in fact, using 64x64 avatars before, not 32x32.0 Anyway, I think the old size is appropriate and would rather not change it.

Quote from mystik3eb:

Also, what's Padding? And is there anything I can do to help while you're getting the other features loaded?

Padding is just blank space around the edges of the quote box. Before there was no padding, so the text in quotes was actually touching the borders of the box, which looked ugly. So I added some blank space. It's really not a big deal. :P

Quote from mystik3eb:

After having some fun with v4 (or v5) bracket coding, I've discovered that the only things that don't work that could before are H4-6,

, and there is no [left], but I guess that's pointless.

[left] never worked because it interfered with v4's design, causing certain bugs to manifest on certain browsers (*cough* IE *cough*).

However, I no longer think [left] or

should have been supported in the first place. The potential for these (which invoke the CSS "float" property) to mess up page layout is too great, especially considering the numerous bugs that many browsers seem to have with them (especially IE). So, I have now completely disabled them.

But, yes, other than that, everything works. In fact, the [code] tag now works better than it ever did... in v4 it had a bug where all line breaks were doubled (since it used <pre> but still inserted <br>'s at line breaks... woops). I fixed that.

You can also now more easily prevent forum code from being applied by inserting []'s (empty tags) in your text. These will be removed from the output, but if they are placed inside something that would otherwise be parsed as forum code, it will stop it from being parsed.

For example, to write [code] without creating a code block, I actually write "[co[]de]". (And to write that, I actually write "[co[[]]de]". And to write that, I... well, you get the idea.)

Also nicer in v5's forum code parsing is general layout issues... Previous problems with spacing between block elements are solved, so you don't have to do crazy things to get it right, etc.

That was probably more info than you needed or cared to know. Oh well. :P

2005/02/17 12:15:09 PST by Temporal [manager]

Progress!

With a few optimizations I have improved performance by about 400%, maybe more. The change probably won't make much difference to you guys, since your network latency is probably more than the CPU delay, but it's noticeably faster here, and the server can handle more users at once now.

Added at 2005/02/17 12:19:41 PST

(And I'm still running on a debug build, BTW. Compiling optimized is going to add all kinds of performance. :P)

2005/02/22 16:56:41 PST by Morpheus [0/5]

I like it, I know it is only in beta testing stage and it is not as you would want us to see it, but from the looks of it, it is going to be a very cleanly laid out site. Very nice, and yet another anniversary of the project.

2005/03/02 05:27:22 PST by 3Der [0/7]

Question: How does the reward system and influence points work?
I

2005/03/02 17:05:15 PST by Temporal [manager]

Quote from 3Der:

Question: How does the reward system and influence points work?

Dev and I will be able to "award" posts with points. We'll put together some sort of system where, say, making a good point in a post gets you +1, posting a longer, useful idea gets you +3, etc. These points accumulate and become your "influence". Then, when you vote in influence-based polls or rate submissions, your vote will be weighted by your influence.

Also note that influence will fall off over time. We're thinking that your influence will gradually decrease at a rate such that it halves every three months. This gives new members a chance to build up significant influence without being constantly overshadowed by those who have been on the project longer.