# Reviews Site Merger Complete



## Michael Morris (Feb 7, 2005)

The reviews site has finally been moved to within vbulletin.  Several features aren't ready for rollout quite yet and the search is going to misbehave because I've put a block on outside scripts accessing the data. 

Getting the two databases together and safely viewable again though is a major hurdle to clear.  I hope to have many more features put together and working in the coming month, and by the end of the month I hope to have full functionality back.


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## BobROE (Feb 7, 2005)

Hazzah and Well Done.


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## GlassJaw (Feb 7, 2005)

This rocks.  Nicely done.


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## jmucchiello (Feb 7, 2005)

I don't find it very interesting. I'm sure you'll improve it over time but the nice thing about the old site was that it was designed with reviews in mind. 

When you click on the publishers list, you get a page with the first x number of publishers and a  set of page markers 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 Last. That is not very friendly for looking up a game company.

Are you going to tie the publishers' login's to the edit function for their pages? Right now, the link to my publisher page says is messed up: http://http//www.throwingdice.com

Also where are the recent reviews lists? They were how I usually went into the old review page.


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## Michael Morris (Feb 7, 2005)

jmucchiello said:
			
		

> I don't find it very interesting. I'm sure you'll improve it over time but the nice thing about the old site was that it was designed with reviews in mind.
> 
> When you click on the publishers list, you get a page with the first x number of publishers and a  set of page markers 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 Last. That is not very friendly for looking up a game company.
> 
> ...




Recent reviews are listed on all pages in the left menu.

Please understand this is a very early version - I wouldn't have released it at all except that the old code has due to security risks and problems with the new server became untenable.

As a publisher you will be able to moderate over your pages and, if you wish, allow others you designate to do the same.

According to my tracking methods we are on version 0.1build20.  In short, alpha code.  It isn't complete - not by a long shot.


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## jmucchiello (Feb 8, 2005)

Michael Morris said:
			
		

> Recent reviews are listed on all pages in the left menu.
> 
> According to my tracking methods we are on version 0.1build20.  In short, alpha code.  It isn't complete - not by a long shot.



As expected, I understand. I'm just saying I prefered being able to see many new reviews on a page (reviews in the last month I think was the default), not just the last couple in the side panel.

But if security was the problem then, yes, go with the alpha code that you presume is safer.

I noticed on another thread the apostrophe bug was part of the reason to take this down. The old review site had that bug for as long as I can recall. Thus Joe's Book of Enchantment became Joes Book of Enchantment.


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## Crothian (Feb 8, 2005)

The old default was like 10 I think, it just depended if 10 were done in a week or a month.


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## Khur (Feb 8, 2005)

I don't mean to be offensive or decry the hard work that went into this site in any way, but if the final review page will in any way resemble the one that's up now, it's simply poor web design from a user perspective. (I am a graphic design professional.)

What's supposed to be important on this page, the unchanging information about the reviews or the reviews themselves? The left-hand links to recent reviews isn't a wise placement for UI, especially for new users. That's the main purpose for the page stuffed in a corner! The recent reviews should be center-frame simply because they're the reason most people are going to come to this page.

Further, if you were going to bother to revamp the reviews page (other than just adding it to the main site), it would be even better for it to show a larger number of recent reviews on the main reviews page than the old one did. This version shows the same amount or fewer.

Finally, for the benefit of those who don't _read_ the reviews anyhow, but do care about the score a particular title gets, wouldn't it work better if the recent reviews showed the star ratings and other information, much like a subpage of the old site did?

The scheme suggested above works better than this rough for many reasons, all defensible from a web-design standpoint. The primary of these is: Give the most common user what he wants in the fewest clicks possible. Since the most common user is probably a gamer that wants the basic score for a review (not to read entire reviews, add a review, manage a publisher, or be fed the same unchanging [and superfluous] information about the d20 system), the current design isn't appropriate.

Secondarily, the longwinded header about being a community supporter that appears on every page (besides the home page, where the large premium ad space pushes the content of the page into the "scroll zone") is also a bad idea. If it must exist at all, it can be much shorter and say the same thing.

I can try and show you what I mean by creating a rough, if you care to see one.

[/constructive criticism]


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## GlassJaw (Feb 8, 2005)

I too like the format of the previous review section but since it had some issues, I have no problem with the temporary page.  Michael, I think if you could carry over the format using the newer code, that would be nice.

I really liked that the previous publisher list was alphabetical and the GUI layout of each publisher's product page.


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## GlassJaw (Feb 8, 2005)

By the way, can a review that I posted be edited or is that function not on yet?


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## Michael Morris (Feb 8, 2005)

Guys, offer your critcisms *when this is done.*  Many of the things I'm well aware of aren't right - but I wanted to have something up instead of nothing at all.  Many of the things you're complaining about are going to be fixed and I intended to fix them well before I even released this.

Now, today's projects, get the sorting features of the publisher page working, and get the all products page up.


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## Morrus (Feb 8, 2005)

Yup, I agree with Michael.  His priority right now is to get the reviews section working.  Functionality first, prettiness second. We'll worry about how it looks later on; if the site doesn't work, then who cares how it looks?


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## Khur (Feb 8, 2005)

Michael Morris said:
			
		

> Guys, offer your critcisms *when this is done.*



Criticism is more valuable during development than after completion.



			
				Morrus said:
			
		

> We'll worry about how it looks later on; if the site doesn't work, then who cares how it looks?



My criticism wasn't about looks at all. It was about functionality on a user interface level. Secondary to whether the site works at all, yes, but not the same as whether the site is "pretty."

I'll shut up now that I know this is a rough measure.


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## Michael Morris (Feb 8, 2005)

Don't shut up.  I can use this thread later on.  Understand though that right now I'm not working with that final "presentation" layer.

The code that displays this board is divided into three distinct layers.  The lowest layer is SQL and is ran by MySQL.  That layer is what stores the information.  It's complete, more or less. The second, and the one I'm working on now, is the access layer, written in PHP and stored in the server file system.  The final layer is in XML, stored in templates.  I'm not going to worry too much about the XML for the moment.

Vbulletin is a beautiful program that is very malleable.  One of the reasons for this malleability is that none of the display elements are stored in the PHP code - in stark contrast to other systems you might have worked with Khur.  I don't have to rewrite the PHP code in any way to modify the appearance of the pages.  When the time comes, I'll work with that portion, but for now I'm working with the PHP code itself.

General update.  The Publisher page now has an alphabetical list that allows you to find publishers by the first letter of their name.  It's a little buggy in that the pagenav isn't working properly with it yet - but I'm getting there.

UPDATE: Got that bug - works fully now.  Moving to products.


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## Michael Morris (Feb 8, 2005)

Product Listings complete.  Now moving to the editor routines.  Expect that to take a couple days.

EDIT: http://www.enworld.org/reviews.php?do=product


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## Khur (Feb 8, 2005)

As I said in another thread, I definitely appreciate your work. Thanks for 'splaining things. Me = not a programmer, but I certainly respect those who are. No need to waste any more time on me.


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## blizack (Feb 8, 2005)

Is it still not possible to post reviews, or I am I just not looking in the right place to do so?


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## Michael Morris (Feb 9, 2005)

You'll see nice large icons for posting reviews as soon as I get that done.  I need to test that more thoroughly than other things - it can ruin the database.


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## blizack (Feb 9, 2005)

Ah, good. Thanks for all your hard work.


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## HellHound (Feb 9, 2005)

Flippin' amazing work, Michael!

Once you are done the integration, can we switch a few things around?

1. Increase the size of the publishers list page so that there are only 4-5 pages of publishers instead of 15+

2. Bring the new reviews listing over from the left column to the central space.

Now, back to the praise. Awesome work. I'm astounded that you managed to switch the whole thing over like this.


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## EricNoah (Feb 9, 2005)

^^^ What he said!  

After you've got it functional I'm sure many of us will have productive suggestions for how to make the reviews database pleasing to the eye, easy to navigate, and set up to invite browsing.  For example, I'd love to see some sidebar or something that has a random product rotated in each time you go to the main reviews screen.


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## Khur (Feb 10, 2005)

EricNoah said:
			
		

> For example, I'd love to see some sidebar or something that has a random product rotated in each time you go to the main reviews screen.



This is a fan-flippin-tastic idea.


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