The Dink Network

Well, after passing innumerable deadlines like 15 MPH cars on the expressway, Miasma v2/Generation 8 has launched. It isn't complete yet... I'd estimate it at about 80%. However, everything that is visible right now should work fine... if it doesn't, please post a message on the board right away. And if you can't post on the board... use E-Mail.

Kudos to Superwolfman for designing the new logo, and misc. other graphics.

There is some more information in the Comments section.

What's new?

* New Design, which is (IMHO) much better than the old one.
* Password Retrieval in case you forget your password.
* E-Mail Verification upon signing up for an account.
* Blogs. Visit the account section for more information.
* Misc. Account tweaks (reviews are much easier to modify, previews can be deleted, and so on).
* The ability to change your password.
* Board sub-forums, and other new/different board things.
* Unified Login. If you log into the account, you're logged in everywhere.

What's Different?
* The Timeline has been taken down. If there is a demand, it will probably be brought back, but changed.

What's Coming?
* Archive, Articles, Awards, and Help areas (soon).
* Messaging with 'Buddy Lists' or something.
* Re-adding all of the old screenshots and links.
* Other Misc. Things.

Hm.
This will take gettin' used to.
I miss not being able to see who responded in a thread, but now we can pick the type of messages we browse.
Hm.
Good deal.

I miss not being able to see who responded in a thread, but now we can pick the type of messages we browse.

Check out the preferences... to see who responded in a thread, try Threaded or Column Threaded for the Index, or Nested for the Message.

The whole thing slowed down !!!
At least 5 times slower than before...

But no prob : it's only 80 %

Cannot find : "mark all as read" or something like that ???

Yeah, same here, nitronic. I have some other complaints and questions too, after looking through most of the site:

- Where is the complaint box? (i like complaining, you know. :-P)
- Where are the "Latest files" and "Latest reviews" now?
- I thought you were going to have dual sidebars?
- Hey, that sword in the logo is way too short... Dink uses a longsword. :-P
- I really miss the ability to sort/filter entries in the databases.
- Will there be a more complete search function on the board?
- Will there be a list of members somewhere?
- Why do I have to give my password again when i want to update my profile?
- Shouldn't there be a link from each profile to a list of posts the member has written?
- ";-(" should be written ":'-(", and ":-O" should be written ":-D", in my opinion...
- The "Reviews" part of my account page still says Full/Mini, not Excellent/Good.
- The bold/italic stuff on the board doesn't really work good...
- I replied to nitronics post, then I changed my post, but now it doesn't show up as a reply to his post anymore, but as a separate part of the thread. Update: Now it works again. :-P
Update 2: It seems like the board doesn't always remember that i have chosen nested mode for viewing threads, so it sometimes uses flat instead...
- The message posting page still asks for my email address when I'm logged in.
- Hey, why does it say both "Message board" AND "Forums"? I suggest changing it to "Forums" everywhere (in the top bar too), because... because it's more than one board now. :-D
- When I reply to a message, the submit button is changed so I cannot click it after it's clicked once, but the same thing doesn't happen when I modify my posts.
- Like nitronic pointed out before me, everything seems to work a lot slower now than before, and it isn't perfectly stable either ("Internal server error").
- Why is "Comments (x)" placed inside parentheses? :-P

More coming soon! :-P

Hey, ELSE this new design/database stuff really rocks! :-DDDDDD ;-)

Update: HEY! My correct way of writing smilies doesn't work anymore! >'-(

After giving myself a headache, setting up the board the way I like to see it (what happened to the banana's?), and then getting a few *page not found*, which I figured is just a few wrinkles in the system. I found it quite a refreshing new look. (What's with the different coloured stars around our names?). Very Kewl >^..^<

Yes nitronic it is slower and sometimes its like couldnt find the site and i must go back and click again! >

The slow-ness is something that popped-up last night... it was working at a normal speed for most of yesterday. It seems to be a problem affecting gamespy, and isn't caused by Miasma v2... I think.

Generation 8 looks kinda nice.. That sword looks nice too, only it's a bit short. Ah well. Why you always have a slayer cutting a duck's head in the title line?

- Where is the complaint box? (i like complaining, you know. :-P)
- Where are the "Latest files" and "Latest reviews" now?

They are coming later, maybe today.

- I thought you were going to have dual sidebars?

It was an idea for some pages... but I decided to drop it.

- Hey, that sword in the logo is way too short... Dink uses a longsword. :-P

Um... looks like a long sword to me. *shrugs*. I guess it could be longer.

- I really miss the ability to sort/filter entries in the databases.

Some filtering may return... but it won't be at the same extent as before.

- Will there be a more complete search function on the board?

No.

- Will there be a list of members somewhere?

Possible... most likely not. If so, it would be opt-in, so you'd have to do something in account, otherwise you wouldn't be listed. There will be a staff page soon (today?).

- Why do I have to give my password again when i want to update my profile?

So if you didn't log out, someone wouldn't be able to change your e-mail address, and then have the ability to change your password.

- Shouldn't there be a link from each profile to a list of posts the member has written?

No, because the list would be too long.

- The "Reviews" part of my account page still says Full/Mini, not Excellent/Good.

Yep, that should be fixed.

- The bold/italic stuff on the board doesn't really work good...

It should...

- The message posting page still asks for my email address when I'm logged in.

It was like that before.

- Hey, why does it say both "Message board" AND "Forums"? I suggest changing it to "Forums" everywhere (in the top bar too), because... because it's more than one board now. :-D

Message Board = Forums. They both mean the same thing to me.

- When I reply to a message, the submit button is changed so I cannot click it after it's clicked once, but the same thing doesn't happen when I modify my posts.

Yep. If you accidently double-click the submit button, you'll double post. If you accidently double-click the modify button, nothing happens.

- Like nitronic pointed out before me, everything seems to work a lot slower now than before, and it isn't perfectly stable either ("Internal server error").

That seems to be a Gamespy-wide problem, and doesn't seem to be related to Miasma v2.

- Why is "Comments (x)" placed inside parentheses? :-P

Why not?

::- Hey, that sword in the logo is way too short... Dink uses a longsword. :-P

:Um... looks like a long sword to me.
:*shrugs*. I guess it could be longer.

It should have been about 5 cm longer... two inches. ;-)

::- I really miss the ability to sort/filter entries in the databases.

:Some filtering may return... but it won't be at the same extent as before.

Sorting and filtering is really useful. You SHOULD enable it everywhere, in my opinion.

::- Will there be a more complete search function on the board?

:No.

OK...? There should. ;-)

::- Shouldn't there be a link from each profile to a list of posts the member has written?

:No, because the list would be too long.

I meant a link from the profile to ANOTHER page with a list (with sorting and filtering, of course. ;-)) of posts written by the user.

::- The bold/italic stuff on the board doesn't really work good...

:It should...

Hey, it's just that it changed the left tag to "[b]" or something, while it left the other one like "".[/b]

::- The message posting page still asks for my email address when I'm logged in.

:It was like that before.

(cough!) "If it's broken, fix it". :-P

::- Hey, why does it say both "Message board" AND "Forums"? I suggest changing it to "Forums" everywhere (in the top bar too), because... because it's more than one board now. :-D

:Message Board = Forums. They both mean the same thing to me.

I meant that it doesn't have to say BOTH "Message board" AND "Forums".

::- Why is "Comments (x)" placed inside parentheses? :-P

:Why not?

Because the extra parentheses fill up extra space on the server. :-P

Hey, you didn't answer ALL my complaints/questions! Here's one more, by the way... :-P

- There should have been some quote system on the board/in the forums (:-P). What about being able to view the message you are replying to while you are writing?
- And where is the "Notify me if reply" thing now? THAT's necessary, at least.

(and you forgot about my CORRECT smilies. ;-))

Hmm. This will take some time getting used to, but it looks kinda cool. Lots of new things, which is a plus. The board is a bit.. 'complicated' though.
There's only ONE thing that really has to change back to normal. The news. Now, if you want to post in the news sections, you have to go to the board and crap, but I like it way better if the old way. Please change that

This is a reply to Christiaans post but it seems It's impossible to reply because it becomes a new reply without warning !!!
So there is no text to reply to ...

Whatever, but indeed the news should be brought back to its old place !!!
What were you guys thinking when creating such a complicated upgrade ???

And something that bothers me a lot !!!

There is tooooo much space used for the name and picture.

It's just a huge waste of space ... unbelievable !!!

There's only ONE thing that really has to change back to normal. The news. Now, if you want to post in the news sections, you have to go to the board and crap, but I like it way better if the old way. Please change that

Um... wha? You know there are links to the comments under the news posts, right? I assume you do... it just doesn't make any sense at all to create two seperate message board systems (board/news comments), when they perform exactly the same task.

Why not let people to upload their own picture (if they want) to the character image thingie thing, (where I have spikes and a spike) so other dinkers could know what kind of an uglie they're talking with? I think that that would be a nice improvement, and after all, we have this mighty miasma whatever now, so all kinds of improvements would be nice. Make miasma "like ever before"

I am actually very pleased that CC got 2 votes (1 being mine) as out of the 5, 2 were epics, and the other 2 were from the comp, so I regard it as a great success! And let's not forget CoE and LS are both Alternative Heroes files...and I wrote the book on that theme.
And I think the new site looks great. But how come WC is a noble, Purevil is a bard and many others are peasants?
I guess it's down to amount of posts made, but I'm just checking...

Hrm... I'm not getting it to take away the "NEW" tag next to this post.. and ya, there isn't a "mark all messages as read" tag either, that helps out a lot... And when i have it flat, does it still bump messages when they are posted at? I hope so..

King = redink1 (or, if for some reason he resigns someday, Webmaster)
Noble = Staff Member
Bard = Junior Staff
Peasant = Visitors

I think you would be a bard, unless you're no longer on chat staff.

Cheers Tal. I quit Dinnk chat a while ago, but maybe it would be nice for one or two of the more active members of the community to have a little thing of their own.
It could be something sensible, or something silly. I got the idea off the Edge forums (Arik is a moderator on them), and i think it would be pretty cool.

The 'new' image system is a tad different... basically, a post will lose its 'new' tag after two visits, that are about 10 minutes apart. A 'Mark All As Read' button is planned.

And yes, messages are 'bumped' in Flat mode.

It should have been about 5 cm longer... two inches. ;-)

I did lengthen the sword about 50 pixels... any more, and it would overlap Dink.

I meant a link from the profile to ANOTHER page with a list (with sorting and filtering, of course. ;-)) of posts written by the user.

Even then, its just too long.

- There should have been some quote system on the board/in the forums (:-P). What about being able to view the message you are replying to while you are writing?

Done.

- And where is the "Notify me if reply" thing now? THAT's necessary, at least.

Um... that was necessary? I didn't even know if it worked, and I didn't think anybody used it.

(and you forgot about my CORRECT smilies. ;-))

Never happen.

Another, if you go to the view all forums, then post in a thread, there's no good way to get back to all forums..you can take the tree to the forum the thread is in, but i think there should be something to go back to all forums..

::I did lengthen the sword about 50 pixels... any more, and it would overlap Dink.

Then you could move Dink down a bit.. or something like that. Anyway, that was a nice improvement. :-)

:::I meant a link from the profile to ANOTHER page with a list (with sorting and filtering, of course. ;-)) of posts written by the user.

::Even then, its just too long.

No. ;-)

"Notify me of reply" is necessary. You REALLY should add it.

ehasl, you sure do complain a lot. Go figure! Actually some of his complaints are really good ones though.

As for Generation 8, it is so much better than Generation 6 and 7. Finally it looks more professional than the previous versions.

I think for the news comments when you reply to the message there should be like a [re:yourname] after the subject like how the elderscrolls forum does it.

I remember ehasl complained earlier about the sword. Did redink1 enlarge the sword to compensate Dink's Smallwood?

There is something fishy about that sword.. MY EYES MY EYES! THEY ARE GONE!

wow... Nice site.

hate to give you bad news, but the front page has a huge problem on my computer...

the first news item appears jammed up to the right of the "latest file reviews"... It could be the resolution I'm running at (1280X1024), or the browser (Mozilla 1.2.1). the same thing happens under both windows and linux...

bad tags??

also, clicking on the smilies to the left of this message doesn't insert them anymore... not that i care much about that...

Yeah, Mozilla handles CSS differently than IE. I'll have to look into that.

Same problem in the Opera 6.03 that I use. It's not prefect in Netscape either, Latest Reviews is below Latest Files instead of beside it, but at least nothing overlaps.

: It should have been about 5 cm longer... two inches.

: I did lengthen the sword about 50 pixels... any more, and it would overlap Dink.

Well, lo make it look longer you may do it narrower

there's an w3.org page around the net somehwere showing the CSS RFC... if you can handle the terseness of the document, it's a good read for web developers..

Great, I see the problem the the news item alignment has been cleared up.

Bap.

Hang me,

Bap.

'tis not the current forum layout. I'm pretty sure we're on Generation 9 by now.

...Which seems to have been in 2004.

You're just full of surprises, aren't you, scratcher?

When can we expect generation 10 then? I'm going to guess tomorrow?

That, or April 1st 2013.

That seems the most likely.