# New Features



## Michael Morris (May 30, 2005)

Ok, some additional coding got done tonight.

It's now possible for anyone to search for a specific product title.

Publishers can now be given control over their company description and the description of their products.

You can now attach images to products and company descriptions and display them in the description. Simply upload the attachment normally, then put


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## HellHound (May 30, 2005)

-WOW-

Awesome work, Michael.

As a footnote, my desk is clearing up in the next week, and I would love to get a copy of the final or near final Art of Magic material to get working on that.


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## Mark (May 30, 2005)

Thanks Michael!


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## haiiro (May 30, 2005)

I've missed the product search -- that rocks, Michael. Thank you!


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## Mark (May 31, 2005)

Care to give me access to the CMG section?  I'll take er for a test drive...


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## BSF (May 31, 2005)

Michael,
Excellent changes and improvments!  Keep up the good work.


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## Michael Morris (May 31, 2005)

Mark said:
			
		

> Care to give me access to the CMG section?  I'll take er for a test drive...




Done. Have Fun.


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## Mark (May 31, 2005)

Thanks!  So far so good.


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## Crothian (May 31, 2005)

Thanks big time!!  When the review site is all fixed, can we get an announcment on the front page telling everyoine what has been fixed and what the options are?  Also, a thread in publisher forum would be good too so that the people who can take advantage of the fixes truely can.


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## Mark (Jun 1, 2005)

Couple of things I found while cleaning up my publisher section...

You might want to disable the "Release Date" area until it can be addressed (like the "product ratings").  It's all over the place and shows up differently on the main publisher page than it does on the prodeuct page in some cases.  In any event, it doesn't seem to show up as set during new product activation and doesn't appear to be something a publisher can edit yet.

Also, I see no way to edit product lines, yet, or to adjust in what order they appear on the opening publisher page.  Publishers definitely want to assign one product line or another or it falls into the vast pool of "none" and is associated with products from all publishers that have "none" chosen as their product line for a particular product (as noted under the product listing in the "Other products in this line" list below).

(Page count, price, and a few other things that I assume you haven't yet added.)

But I think those are the only glitches I encountered.  Otherwise, it all seems to beworking well.


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## Michael Morris (Jun 1, 2005)

Mark said:
			
		

> Couple of things I found while cleaning up my publisher section...
> 
> (Page count, price, and a few other things that I assume you haven't yet added.)




All of these are tied to product formats, which hasn't been implemented yet. Products can have multiple formats - softcover, hardcover, PDF for example. It is the format that holds information about the, well, format of the product - page count, release date and so on.


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## Morrus (Jun 1, 2005)

A small formatting change I'd like to see is in the way product line dividers are displayed. I've attached a screenshot to show what I mean - the names of the product lines look too similar to the names of the products themselves.

Ideally, I'd like it to be within a shaded bar of some kind, bolded, and not underlined. That would make the product line divisions stand out much more clearly.


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## Mark (Jun 1, 2005)

Michael Morris said:
			
		

> All of these are tied to product formats, which hasn't been implemented yet. Products can have multiple formats - softcover, hardcover, PDF for example. It is the format that holds information about the, well, format of the product - page count, release date and so on.




I see.

What of the first two parts of my post?  Are release dates and product lines tied to those things in some way as well?

(Just asking.  It's already a workable system that pubs should be able to use to clean up their sections to a great degree.)


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## Mark (Jun 1, 2005)

Morrus said:
			
		

> A small formatting change I'd like to see is in the way product line dividers are displayed.




That'd be nice.  Maybe a parenthetical in a smaller font and italicized, too, would help, i.e. "_(product line)_"




			
				Morrus said:
			
		

> I've attached a screenshot




Where?


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## Morrus (Jun 1, 2005)

Mark said:
			
		

> Where?




Up there!  It only shows the current setup and circles the bit which needs changing.  I don't have the graphical prowess to actually whip up an example of how I'd like it to look, unfortunately.


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## Mark (Jun 1, 2005)

Morrus said:
			
		

> Up there!  It only shows the current setup and circles the bit which needs changing.  I don't have the graphical prowess to actually whip up an example of how I'd like it to look, unfortunately.




Sneaky... 

I don't usually use it, but I checked the "Stealth" mode and it is well delineated in that format (though I'd suyggest checnging the header to say "Product Lines and Products" rather than the other way around, but that's a nitpick, really.

Now, _I've_ attached an image...


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## Morrus (Jun 1, 2005)

Yeah, it does look a little better in Stealth.  The horizontal bar works; the text still looks the same as the product titles, though.  I think a simple bold and removal of the underlines will solve that nicely.


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## Mark (Jun 1, 2005)

After comparing the two it looks like you'd have to make some fundamental changes to the appearance of the default board style to make it more clear...and that might make some waves.  Personally, if I didn't use the pub sections and only used the mesage boards, it might get me slightly riled.  Might be worth doing in the long run but expect a slight backlash early on and toughen your skin to it.  Also, now that this is apparent, each new style that gets added down the road will need to be checked in those pub sections to see if the delineation is as clear as the "Stealth" mode or basically non-delneated like the default mode.  Just a few thoughts.


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## Mark (Jun 1, 2005)

I mocked one up that removes the underlines, raises the font up one notch, and makes it bold.  Honestly, though, I'm not sure this can be done without making changes that effect the whole message board system.  Michael will know.  I'm liking the Stealth mode more and more as I view it, btw.


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## Morrus (Jun 1, 2005)

Ah, now that looks much, much better, and far more professional.  With the addition of making the bar a different shade, I think we've got it.


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## Mark (Jun 1, 2005)

Morrus said:
			
		

> Ah, now that looks much, much better, and far more professional.  With the addition of making the bar a different shade, I think we've got it.





That, too, is probably tied to the full system, including the message boards.  However, the more I look at the Stealth mode, the more I wish the default mode had some subtle variations in the darker colors.

Thinking more about it, I'm guessing that the underlining is not going to be able to be removed from just those Product Line headers unless they are no longer links because I think that to remove the underline from any links would require you remove them from all links.  Perhaps there is a way to force the coding to not have links just at those points but that might be a strange bit of coding.  I guess the pub sections don't need to also have broken out sub-sections for each product line (currently those links default back to the main page) but there might not be a choice in that (the system might not be easily adaptable to remove that option).

Anyway, again, Michael will know what is possible and with how much work for each tweak so you guys can determine which ones are worth doing and which are a luxury that is more work than worth the trouble.


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## Morrus (Jun 1, 2005)

Mark said:
			
		

> Thinking more about it, I'm guessing that the underlining is not going to be able to be removed from just those Product Line headers unless they are no longer links because I think that to remove the underline from any links would require you remove them from all links.




Nah - if you look at the category headers (RPG Forums, Gaming Action, etc.) on the messageboards, they are bolded, un-underlined links.  It's certainly possible!


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## Mark (Jun 1, 2005)

Morrus said:
			
		

> Nah - if you look at the category headers (RPG Forums, Gaming Action, etc.) on the messageboards, they are bolded, un-underlined links.  It's certainly possible!




HmmmmmMMM! [/entish] That appears to be the case.


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## Michael Morris (Jun 1, 2005)

Changed the product line rows to tcat style (category headers). Does that help?


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## Mark (Jun 1, 2005)

That does help, IMO.  Are those going to continue to be links, though, and will they eventually lead to product line sub-sections (complete with a product line description at the top)?


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## Mark (Jun 1, 2005)

Just noticed that in Stealth mode the button on the product page for posting a review is not showing up (below "Reviews of this Product" and above "Other Products in the Same Product Line").

http://www.enworld.org/reviews.php?do=product&productid=118731

http://www.enworld.org/images/buttons/stealth/newreview.gif


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## trancejeremy (Jun 1, 2005)

Thanks a lot for the hard work. I really missed the search feature.


One suggestion/request - it would be nice to see how many times a review has been read.


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## Crothian (Jun 1, 2005)

trancejeremy said:
			
		

> Thanks a lot for the hard work. I really missed the search feature.
> 
> 
> One suggestion/request - it would be nice to see how many times a review has been read.




edit: Nope, I was wrong....


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## Morrus (Jun 2, 2005)

Michael Morris said:
			
		

> Changed the product line rows to tcat style (category headers). Does that help?




Looks fantastic.  Thanks, Michael!


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## IronWolf (Jun 2, 2005)

Mark said:
			
		

> I'm liking the Stealth mode more and more as I view it, btw.




Come to the dark side....    



			
				Mark said:
			
		

> Are release dates and product lines tied to those things in some way as well?




I am curious about this as well.  Several products are listed as 'To Be Released', but have now been released.  Not sure how to update that or if it is possible.


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## Eosin the Red (Jun 2, 2005)

I want to echo the addition of a "page read" counter.


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## Michael Morris (Jun 2, 2005)

Eosin the Red said:
			
		

> I want to echo the addition of a "page read" counter.




Pages read are being tracked, just not displayed at the moment.


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## TheLe (Jun 4, 2005)

Can I be given rights to THE LE GAMES, please?

Thanks ahead of time

~The Le Games, we enhance your world


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## Crothian (Jun 4, 2005)

you should be good to go


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## TheLe (Jun 4, 2005)

Crothian said:
			
		

> you should be good to go




Thanks! It looks pretty good.

Is there any way I can edit the "release date"? I can add it in when I add a new product, but I cannot seem to edit it for existing listings.

Also, when I edit a book, the "Product url" disappears.

In anycase, I am very happy to be able to add and edit the descriptions. thanks!

`Le


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## Crothian (Jun 4, 2005)

There are still bugs being worked out of the system.  Release date I know is still messed up.  When you edit a product is the top line "Reason for editing" bellow that being the title of the book and below that a field for the full description?  Or do you get a list of Product options above trhat section?  In the product options section is the ISBN number, product website, and small summary.  I just don't know what all you can see on your edit screen.  

At any rate hopefully MM will see this and be able to do something to help out.


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## TheLe (Jun 6, 2005)

*whoohoo!*

Everything is looking fantastic! You have all done a fantabulous job!

I may just have to direct people to my ENWorld site rather than Rpgnow.com, because having product summary is a great way to pique people's interest. Is there plans on allowing images on the publisher page in the future? Perhaps a 100x150 max thumbnail?

~Le


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## arwink (Jun 6, 2005)

Can I be put in for the Clockwork Golem Workshop section?

Thanks


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## Crothian (Jun 6, 2005)

arwink said:
			
		

> Can I be put in for the Clockwork Golem Workshop section?
> 
> Thanks




you are good to go


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## Michael Morris (Jun 7, 2005)

thele said:
			
		

> Everything is looking fantastic! You have all done a fantabulous job!
> 
> I may just have to direct people to my ENWorld site rather than Rpgnow.com, because having product summary is a great way to pique people's interest. Is there plans on allowing images on the publisher page in the future? Perhaps a 100x150 max thumbnail?
> 
> ~Le




You can already.  Attach an image to the post which controls your publisher page. You can then call it by typing


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## TheLe (Jun 7, 2005)

Michael Morris said:
			
		

> You can already.  Attach an image to the post which controls your publisher page. You can then call it by typing


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## Michael Morris (Jun 7, 2005)

thele said:
			
		

> I have a picture on my publisher page, is that what you are talking about?
> 
> What I meant was attaching a thumbnail to each product, on the pubilsher page itself (not the product page).  It would be neat to have a little thumbnail next to each summary, so that they can see the title, summary, an thumbnail. I realize this could get huge, but it wouldn't be too bad if you restrict each image to a yiny thumbmail, even 30x50
> 
> ...




I'll get around to that eventually.


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