• Was Anders (unregistered) in reply to OpBaI

    With markup, there are two main ways to go:

    There's HTML, which is well-defined, complete and universally known. But verbose.

    And there's lightweight markup like RestructuredText and various Wiki markups, which allow things like boldface with a minimum of typing. But with the disadvantage of being ad-hoc and incompatible with everything else.

    BBCode combines the worst of both worlds: Almost as verbose as HTML, yet as ad-hoc and incompatible as the lightweights.

    Where are the specs for this particular BBCode dialect?

  • (cs) in reply to Alex Papadimoulis
    Alex Papadimoulis:
    The RSS Feed (http://syndication.thedailywtf.com/TheDailyWtf) does have the full articles in it, and it is "web friendly" I guess. But, if that won't do ... I can take a crack at putting a "Display Full Articles" checkbox on the home page that remembers it's preference via a cookie.

    Would anyone want that?

    I registered yesterday hoping that option was available. The problem with the syndication is that there isn't a link to the comments. Another option is to make today (not just the latest one) entries appear full.
  • Diablo (unregistered) in reply to danguy

    I'll second that.

  • Jeremy (unregistered) in reply to wgh

    Thanks for putting the time and effort into the site overhaul, Alex... I'm sure more improvements are on the way -- I'm just happy to see you haven't forgotten about us.

  • (cs) in reply to Was Anders
    Was Anders:
    BBCode combines the worst of both worlds: Almost as verbose as HTML, yet as ad-hoc and incompatible as the lightweights.

    From what I understand, one of the points to bbcode is that it's somewhat easier to parse some BBcode to let people do, say, links, than to go through and make sure that someone isn't trying to inject malicious tags like or a variety of crazy stunts like that. Not that it's impossible prevent that with HTML parsing, mind you, but...

    The other thing is that BBcode encodes some information that HTML cannot. For instance, take the tag [ quote user="Was Anders"]. This can be used to generate a pretty box that has a little speech bubble and the username in it (and, if you're feeling exciting, you could do more, perhaps indexing people by where they're quoted, or tying an avatar to the quote, or...) A simple HTML

    cannot encode that information directly.
  • (cs) in reply to Mcoder
    Mcoder:
    Another option is to make today (not just the latest one) entries appear full.

    Indeed! Viewing today's articles are the reason ~85% of people visit your site, Alex. You should give us today's articles (both of them) full-view, and condense the older ones.... unless you're trying to do some sort of WTFy markety stunt to double your pageviews :)

    This should be a default, not a cookie setting.

    You should also provide a direct link to the full articles with comments (since reading the comments / commenting on the articles is probably the reason most of the other ~15% of your users visit).

  • Hirvinen (unregistered)

    The site is great, thanks a lot for it. However, I'd like to see the full article texts on the front page. At least for the latest article. Maybe it could show full text of those articles that have been published since the last visit from that browser?

  • (cs) in reply to fennec
    fennec:
    Indeed! Viewing today's articles are the reason ~85% of people visit your site, Alex. You should give us today's articles (both of them) full-view, and condense the older ones.... unless you're trying to do some sort of WTFy markety stunt to double your pageviews :)

    This should be a default, not a cookie setting.

    Quoting myself silly, but, to clarify - on a day like a weekend when there has been no post, you should have the most recent day's articles appear full-view as well.

    (Viewing are the reason? Viewing is the reason. silly Edit button, where are you hiding?)

  • (cs) in reply to fennec
    fennec:
    Mcoder:
    Another option is to make today (not just the latest one) entries appear full.

    Indeed! Viewing today's articles are the reason ~85% of people visit your site, Alex. You should give us today's articles (both of them) full-view, and condense the older ones.... unless you're trying to do some sort of WTFy markety stunt to double your pageviews :)

    This should be a default, not a cookie setting.

    You should also provide a direct link to the full articles with comments (since reading the comments / commenting on the articles is probably the reason most of the other ~15% of your users visit).

    Do that, pretty please with cherry on top, I just hate having to click just to read the articles, and click twice in a row to read the damn comments.

  • anonymous (unregistered) in reply to DrPizza

    Some problems:

    • Too much clicktroughs
    • More ugly than before
    • I miss the avatars
    • Preposterous big titles for article name, and AddComment.aspx page, and buttons (Preview button looks like font 19 or something!...wait.. a preview button!!! Thanksss!!!)

    Anyway thanks for all the improvements!!

    -- me

  • FB (unregistered)

    The previous iteration of this site I had gotten used to, but now I have to click a link to read the newest story. That means more effort for the end user, hopefully you saved yourself alot of effort in the upgrade, because generally that would be disrecommended.

  • (cs) in reply to wgh

    Some might hate me for suggesting something Web 2.0, but is there any chance you could make the articles expandable on the front page? I realize this would bog down the loading time, but I liked being able to just stick to one page to catch up over a few days.

    Not a big deal, just a thought.

  • Kyanar (unregistered) in reply to Was Anders

    Well, actually, he DID post about the changes before making them. Read the "General Discussion" forum.

  • Gsquared (unregistered)

    I like it. Much cleaner, much faster. Good job.

  • (cs) in reply to Gsquared

    From a usability point of view, the articles should always be expanded on the front page. To lower the bandwidth usage, show less articles.

    Clicking the header of an article should show a page with the article and all the comments. With the "Display Full Article Text" checkbox selected, the page with only the article and no comments is totally pointless.

    The comments page should show the full article instead of requiring the user to click "[expand full text]". It should be possible to reply directly to the article and quote its text (now it's possible to reply/quote only comments).

    On the front page, at the end of the page, there should be links for viewing older articles. When a user has not read the site for some time, he will read the articles he missed starting from the newest one, and then one by one proceed to the older messages. When he reaches the end of the page, there should be one link for viewing the next set of old messages (all fully expanded) and another link to the article archive (monthly summaries).

    The article archive, the way it is now with only previous and next month links, is too slow to navigate. A better way to navigate would be to directly have links to every month/year (similar to how http://www.userfriendly.org/cartoons/archives/ is done, even better with a Calendar Strip http://www.cs.helsinki.fi/u/salaakso/patterns/Calendar-Strip.html).

    The page for writing comments should have a list of all allowed BBCodes. For example, the word "BBCode" could be a link to a help page with all supported codes.

    The time limit for editing comments should be longer than it used to be in the old system. 5 minutes is way too short, for example when the user has written a long message and does not use the preview function, he might not have enough time to proofread his message after sending it, but the time limit prevents from fixing any mistakes. Also, if some comments were added while the user was writing his message, he needs some time to read the new messages between the last message he read and his own post, after which he might want to make some additions to his own post. I recommend having a limit of 30 or 60 minutes.

  • (cs) in reply to Jackal von ÖRF

    On the comments page, the current visualization of the links Prev/Page N/Next is problematic. When there is only one page of comments, the user may accidentally try to click the "Next" work at the end of the page. Better would be to not show the "Prev" and "Next" links when there are no pages before or after the current page.

    Also, the currently selected page is not highlighted very clearly. One way to highlight it would be to have the number of the current page in bold, and all other pages non-bold. The background color may also be used for highlighting. vBulletin has the navigation between the pages of a thread done quite nicely.

  • W (unregistered) in reply to Jackal von ÖRF

    Looks good, well done.

    I especially like how you can see more than one entry on the front page now (so I can see if a CSoD has been posted without having to scroll down and potentially spoil the WTF!)

  • (cs) in reply to Gsquared

    A few things:

    1. Navigation path (i.e. Home » Articles » Announcement: New Website Software » Comments » Add Comment) must be duplicated at the bottom. I don't wanna press "back" 20 times to go back to "Articles" for example, or scroll up (yes, I know I can press Home/PGUP!) to do so.

    2. The "post reply" button is missing on top and at the bottom of the topic.

    3. Your site will not be indexed properly by Google because it (google) treats underscores as part of the keyword in URLs. I.e. "new_website_softare.aspx" will only show up on SERP if people look for "new_website_softare" but not "new website software". Replace underscores with "minus", as well as drop any non-alphanumeric characters from the URL generation, and prohibit usage of non-alphanumeric-only titles (i.e. "!!!!!!" or "...")

    4. If you edit the article title, it will no longer match the URL (unless URL is generated dynamically, I don't know how you have it set up), in any case it will create a dead link or mismatch from google. To get around this use the following format:

    my-topic-title-a12345.aspx, where "a12345" is a topic ID from the database. It's imperative that number is prepended with an alpa character, this reduces the chance topic will show up on SERP when people are looking for numbers. Basically topic ID in URL must be neither a word nor a number.

    There is a bunch of other stuff that that's critical and missing here. If you want more tips you can email me at mail[at]wartex.net I've studied SEO for over a year now and made some discoveries in the process. I optimized my site and my traffic went from 1 to ~100 unique visitors a day.

  • (cs) in reply to wgh

    Looks faster, great :-) Just wondering, did you use another CMS (if so which one) or wrote your own ?

  • (cs) in reply to Paul Nieuwkamp
    Paul Nieuwkamp:
    Hmm. There is something in human nature that resents change, but I would like to see some features of the old site return:
    • Expand at least the latest article on the frontpage.
    • Have the comments apear on the same page as the article, just as the old software did.
    • Re-add the link (though not necessarily the links to the last topics) to the Side Bar WTF.

    It may be a little faster (for me, at the other side of the pond, it was mostly the sidebar with the navigation and sponsors and the like that was very slow) but I need to visit more pages to see the same content now...

    just a thought...can we put this in preferences for registered users?

  • another Steve (unregistered)

    Sorry to be negative, but I really hate having to click through to get to the full text of an article. One poster suggested having atleast the first article in full form - which would be a decent compromise.

    Still enjoying the site though - keep it up.

  • (cs) in reply to DrPizza

    I’m having the same issue. If it is there, it sure as hell ain’t obvious.

    But other than that, great work Alex! I finally bothered to create an account in celebration of not having to deal with the forum software that everybody’s been whining about.

    Addendum (2007-01-08 08:09): Looks like somebody’s been working on a Sunday night just so we could edit/append comments; nice work, dude!

  • bramp (unregistered) in reply to Long-time-reader
    Long-time-reader:
    The home page was way too big for some people probably, but is there a page with fill-text articles for the previous several days now? Looks like the new version requires much more clicking, very unconvenient for other people like me.

    I know you can't please everyone, and these are just my personal preferences:

    I would also like a page with the full article text on of the last X articles. I don't want to have to click to read each article.

    Also I liked the article being above the comments, that way I could easily copy and paste and refer back to the original article.

    BTW thanks for the updates you do to the site, its fun to read every couple of days :)

  • (cs)

    If it is possible, the software should remember, for logged-in visitors, the last visit date and if there are new posts on the front page since that date, these posts would be fully expanded. For those who visit relatively rarely, they could see the full article right away and those who visit more frequently would only see the new articles fully expanded, which would take up less space. Of course, this depends on the size of the users database...

    I also agree that the "Add a comment" link should also be on the comments page.

    Edit: the edit functionality is already here? :P

  • MrBig (unregistered)

    Omg! Nice!

  • (cs)

    To those people who are complaining about having to click one more time, on the front page, because the articles have been shortened.

    I used to have my link to this website, linked to the forum so that I wouldn't have to wait 30 seconds to load the main page. Also because the new version comsumes less bandwidth(and also less server resources), the performance of the site as a whole has improved.

  • (cs)

    Also I do like this post editor forum better then CS. This one allow me to write code more easily. Before I had to press enter (which would give me two) then go back to the end of the previous line and press delete to just have one line between code. And also the [ code ] and [ \code ] didn't work correctly.

    Just A note to about the other forum. can you please disable the time limit on editing and/or deleting of post please!!!!.

  • tim (unregistered)

    i liked it how it was. put it back.

    j/k

    need funnier captcha texts :)

  • Random Observer (unregistered)

    We should improve by bringing bean bag girl, or someone similar, back

  • My Name (unregistered)

    The endless amounts of clickthroughs to read this site now just makes me think this site has been designed to get as many ad views as possible. To me, that's a WTF.

    CAPTCHA: chocobot. For web masters who want to get old and fat off their ad revenue.

  • Anon (unregistered)

    Better, but still no hierarchical threading.

  • Raven Morris (unregistered) in reply to danguy

    Agreed. I don't like sites that crush articles down. It's just text, the vertical scrollbar is no harder to operate for an extra paragraph of text.

  • (cs) in reply to brendan
    brendan:
    Also I do like this post editor forum better then CS. This one allow me to write code more easily.

    Cool, Alex added a [ code ] tag - now... can we now fix the ugly quote/reply buttons and have this software for Sidebar WTF too? It is finally better than the CommunityServer one.

    Only problem with [ code ] - it makes too high line spacing I think, but that could be just my personal preference.

    Edit: Oh, and we can now even delete our own posts... Not sure what that's good for, but it's certainly nice to have.

  • monster (unregistered)

    IMHO the "Read full article" link sucks. I'd prefer to have the whole article right there, just as it was before.

  • Wolven (unregistered)

    Instead of a CAPTCHA, couldn't you have gone for Akismet.com integration instead?

    I bleeding hate CAPTCHA's...

  • Jaco (unregistered)

    Ah well, I liked the ability to read the full article on the main page. Perhaps just the full text for the first (last posted) article?

  • (cs)

    The Home Page is way too big

    The Article Page should not display the Comments

    But. But. These are things it should do.

    Hiding content helps only if the update frequency is in the range of several times a day, like on NewScientist.com.

    Here, it merely annoys. Same goes for the comments. Why would you not want to read the article+comments as though they were 1 document?

    And the necessarily small avatars can be a little bigger if you use both lines of the post header. Though, Vanilla proves that icons can be small without reducing recognizability.

  • (cs) 
    main = do
    result <- testCode
    case result of
        Nothing -> putStrLn "Dammit"
        Just "ok" -> putStrLn "Yeah"

    By the way since the new version seems to have a code thing that works more easily than the old blockote pre thing, would it be possible to also have a Geshi-type code coloration (with several languages)?

  • (cs)

    Many have been suggesting, that only the last N articles should be expanded by default. However, a better solution would be to apply the Overview-beside-Detail pattern (http://www.cs.helsinki.fi/u/salaakso/patterns/Overview-beside-Detail.html) so that on the left side of the front page would be a navigation menu with the titles and short summaries of the articles, which would then link to the full articles on the same page. The navigation menu should be always visible (some CSS positioning). If possible (with some JavaScript), when the page is scrolled, the navigation menu should have the currenty visible article always highlighted.

  • utunga (unregistered) in reply to DrPizza

    Dude, I'm hoping that this might be sarcasm, because thats a terrible attitude to take.

    For crying out loud Alex doesn't any of you anything. Sure he has a successful site, but its his time, and his dime, so you shouldn't be running around acting like the worst kind of client.

    Im sure it was a ton of work to upgrade, and now that its upgraded he can change things how people want etc so please ask nicely.

    --

    With all that out of the way uhm i agree - i much preferred being able to read the whole of the latest WTF in one go - one click for comments is good too.

    --

    Cool captcha - Paula

  • utunga (unregistered) in reply to My Name
    My Name:
    The endless amounts of clickthroughs to read this site now just makes me think this site has been designed to get as many ad views as possible.

    Damn. You're probably right. Suxor.

    Alex - please. One page with the full article. I'm sure you'll lose visitors if you make it harder - WTF has to be chcekcable in the time of a major rebuild or otherwise I won't end up wasting an entire afternoon reading through it.

  • Anonymous (unregistered)

    I miss the bean bag girl :(

  • (cs) in reply to Anonymous

    The front page isn't formatted properly. The article half won't size downwards, so I have to scroll right to see the right-hand column.

    This is with Mozilla 1.7.13, in a rendering area over 1300 pixels wide.

  • Niklas (unregistered)

    While you are at it.. could you please render the comments as thread? I mean real thread - not a (probably) limited set of scattered comments with 6/7 digit refrences to their parents.

    It's a tree. We like to hug trees. Give us something to hug!

    And Beanbag Girl.

  • anonymous (unregistered)

    Hello.

    I miss the beanbag girl, and paula beam. I think this site sould upgrade these cultural TDWTF icon to page content.

    Is not something soo strange.

    Here on Spain, the governement raise some ad panel to something of public interest. You can read more about that here: http://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toro_de_Osborne http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Osborne%27s_bull

    I will love to see a "penny arcade"-ish or "userfrienly"-ish cartonish photo of the beanbag girl or the paula beam girls. If else, a real photo of a female with alike look can work, If hot. Yea!.. I suggest to add 2 photos of nice hot females to this design. It sure will add some spice.

  • (cs)

    Thank you. This is much better :D

  • TurnItAllOff (unregistered)

    Note when I click the "Display Full Article Text" checkbox nothing happens; having a form field without a submit button mildly confusing. Yes I know if I had javascript turned on it would have worked, but perhaps you could have a noscript tag in there replace the checkbox with something that would work in all cases.

    Javascript is the language of the devil, and using it you imperil your soul.

    Note from Alex: You people and your NoScript =-). I've added this to the To-Do list.

  • (cs)

    wtf?

  • anonymous (unregistered) in reply to anonymous
    anonymous:
    http://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toro_de_Osborne http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Osborne%27s_bull

    Uncle Sam was also only a banner: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uncle_Sam

  • (cs)

    It annoys me when I get what I consider to be one of the biggest WTFs related to browsers - getting a "Done" status message when the page hasn't actually loaded.

    So I retry a number of times and continue getting "Done".

    If I give up the page does then subsequently load at some point - strange because the progress bar wasn't moving and IE thought it was done so it must have finished.

    If I go into Forums then hit Home which is on the most visible menu (not the one in the top right of the page) I just get the same forums again with a Done status. I haven't waited long enough to see if anything moves subsequently.

Leave a comment on “Announcement: New Website Software”

Log In or post as a guest

Replying to comment #:

Log Out

« Return to Article