Discussion on recent changes in forum software.

[66485cf1055a8The Brain]

°SMAI have noticed few changes in forum soft and some of them are bit confusing at least.

Attached screenshot shows one of them. What it is and its purpose are?

Also what is this "Ready to FLEX" textbox under certain nicknames?

[66485cf105804Kolya]

I'm working on it as we speak. Patience my friend.

It's a short message system, called Skypager. New skypages for you will pop up in that sidebar window.
When there are no skypages for you, the window doubles as a minigame container.
You can start a new skypage from posts of members who are currently online.

[66485cf105962icemann]

Missile Command. AWESOME .

[66485cf105b24Kolya]

Conceptually a skypager is so complex. But the main point is that wherever you see "Ready to FLEX" you can send that person a message. Maybe I should note that skypages are only saved until the recipient clicks "Reply" or "Dismiss" on it. That makes it more like a personal chat than PMs, I guess. New skypages are collected every time you load a page on the forum. Reading and sending happens asynchronously (without pageload). I still want to work it out a bit, mainly I'll be looking at some user options to turn off/block skypages. In the meantime here's an instructionalpromo video: http://vimeo.com/3282443

[66485cf105c99Kolya]

I have written the promised option today to turn off the skypager feature and it can now be found in your profile's "Look and Layout" section.

It was very easy to avoid loading this feature for anyone who doesn't want it. Actually I had included such an option when I first wrote the feature. However the fact that someone might have disabled skypages also means that you probably don't want to write them a message in the first place (which they would never see). This required a check before you can start writing them. And that required rewriting existing parts and much hairpulling and eventually took me the whole day. I hope you never use it, but you can now.

[66485cf105dc6Kolya]

I added an option to display the Skypager/Gamepig box on the left, to be found in your profile's Look and Layout settings.

In other site related news I overhauled the Silver Theme, making it brighter and fixing some color issues.
Looks quite heavenly now.

[66485cf105f56voodoo47]

ah, nice. it' way better to have it on the left side (btw, tried to edit your layout by mistake - sorry).

[66485cf10608cKolya]

In order to make it a bit more useful I've changed the skypager so you can page people now, regardless of whether they are currently online.
At some point I'll have to write a cronjob that removes skypages from the database that could not be delivered, because the recipient never came back.
It would also be nice to be able to send skypages to arbitrary people from the sidepanel by entering their name in a form. But that requires additional checks and stuff. Some rainy afternoon.

[66485cf106372antimatter_16]

Is there a way to disable the skypager? It's kind of a pain when browsing on a mobile device.

[66485cf10645avoodoo47]

check the starfield button in the lower left corner.

[66485cf10654dKolya]

That doesn't disable it. But you can disable the skypager in your profile's Look and Layout settings.

[66485cf10662avoodoo47]

I have absolutely no idea when did skypager morph into starfield. I mean, they both start with s, but still..

[66485cf106700Kolya]

Feeping creaturism theme, I tells you.

[66485cf106845antimatter_16]

I already tried unchecking the "skypager" option in the look and layout, but the little tab still appears everywhere. Did I miss something else?

[66485cf10696fKolya]

Oh right, I wanted to still allow people to play some games, even if they didn't want to use the skypager.
What is the problem with it on which mobile device?

EDIT: The panel is turned off completely now when unchecking skypager in the profile.

[66485cf106ab6antimatter_16]

When you zoom in to read text, the tab tends to stay to the right of the screen edge. So as you zoom the tab and pane moves to cover the forum page. It also creates a large black space to the right of the page.

And thanks for changing it. The blank space is also gone when disabled.

[edit]
The main forum index still has a lot of blank space on the right side.

[66485cf106ddfKolya]

The main forum index still has a lot of blank space on the right side.

I guess that only happens on the frontpage, right?

[66485cf106f0dantimatter_16]

The laptop I use has a max resolution of 1366x768. The skypager tab is centered when closed, but when open, and say I play a game like "Super Strict farmer" the game panel goes off the page, and I can't scroll down to it, because the pager tab is still centered on the page." This makes wasting time problematic for me.

Also, "Yes" to the question you asked in February. =P (On the iPhone).

[66485cf107036Kolya]

Check it out now. Better?

It should work in most cases now. For Super Strict Farmer (great game btw) in 1024x768 I suggest you go here to play in fullscreen.

[66485cf107155antimatter_16]

Yay! It works! <3
...
>_>
<_<
^_^

[66485cf107280Kolya]

I have worked over the Skypager so now you can page any registered member directly via the sidepanel.
Also you see all pages that you received at once. And I've given the panel a small menu function.

What hasn't changed:
- New pages are loaded on every page load
- A page is only saved until the recipient dismisses it or repages to it
- You can disable the Skypager completely in your profile's "Look and Layout" section

[66485cf10738aKolya]

In the sidepanel you get a multi-line input for skypages now. Also error feedback has been improved when missing a recipient or message.

//And now you even get multi-line for replies. (How did I miss that before?)

//31. Mai 2014: I screwed around with the opacity of the sidebar handle. On smaller screens it should be much less intrusive now.