Some of you may remember how forever ago I was making a website for SonicSpot. And... I kind of never mentioned it again except maybe in passing. Well, I am on a really long vacation and I'm tired of wasting my time playing stupid games and such, so I figure keeping a blog here as to what progress has been made will keep me motivated slightly since, at least in my mind, ppl are caring and waiting eagerly for the next update... or something like that. Oh, and yes, if you look way back, I had one of these site blogs before. I know. I fail. I will not fail this time... (he says knowing he'll probably fail again...) Also, if you read anything that I talk about and have any suggestions for things that could be added to the website, feel free to post your ideas.
Oh, and yes, if you look way back, I had one of these site blogs before. I know. I fail. I will not fail this time... (he says knowing he'll probably fail again...)sonicphc
You already had a thread for this.demoman_chaos
Yeah, I acknowledged that, but the forum search tool was being really wonky and I didn't want to search through hundreds of topics.
Today I implemented my combination Facebook GameSpot ripoff. Logging in, posting, writing reviews, will earn you points. Getting positive reports on your reviews and comments will earn rings. Negative reports lose rings. These rings and points can be collected to show off awesomeness or spent on medals and stuff for your user page. Where's the facebook ripoff? Well, those of you that use fecebook know about that bar that hovers down at the bottom of the page. The one I have isn't quite as high tech (no chat functionality etc.) but is where all your login stuff, ring count, score count, etc. goes, as well as user-specific links. A cool graphical note: Anytime your ring or score count changes, the net change floats over your ring/score count, appropriately colored, and then floats downwards. Anytime you log out, though, it'll show minus however many rings or points you had, since when you log out the website deletes any cookies it placed on your computer. Don't fret, you still keep all your rings and points.
Completion status is meh. I got REALLY frustrated while back and put the thing on hiatus, planning on coming back in a few weeks, but then I got swamped with Marching Band and school work. I'm currently aiming for having a complete site (NOT INCLUDING FORUM) by the end of August. -Completed User Settings Change page. Settings you can change at any time are: Name, Name visibility, email, email visibility, birthday visibility, avatar, AIM, MSN, and YIM contact info, wii, xbl, and PS3 info, sonic rush adventure and smash brothers codes.
You can get a good free-forum from invision pwoer boards. co.nr is a good place to host everything, but it has an odd domain name (everything ends in co.nr instead of teh regular com or org).
That's not what I meant at all. When you log into the site you can write reviews, rants, comments, etc, and you earn credit in the form of points and emblems and stuff for that. I want to tie that whole system into the forum, and I can't do that with invisionfree because when you log into an invisionfree board you're logging into THEIR server and not mine.
I was initially concerned about the strange database space limitations, but I've decided that I'm going to go ahead and implement a friends/messaging system anyhow. Granted, the amount of space for messages allotted to each user has to be limited, as i can only divvy things up into 100MB chunks because the rules are strange like that, and I don't want to have to be constantly archiving things.
Completed the series of 5 "viewuser" pages. Well, ish. I only really had to do three of them, since two of the tabs (competitions and forum) don't have anything to put in them yet, since the tournament ladder system and forum system aren't complete.
Right now the user page displays the following tab contents: "Profile" contains your avatar, an about me mini-paragraph, personal and contact details, the last two reviews you've written, and any emblems you've marked as "favorites" "Reviews" lists all the reviews you've written "Emblems" shows all the emblems you've collected, as well is where you go to mark your favorites for the profile page (max 6 favorites) "Competitions" currently displays your SRA and SSBB friend codes, and will eventually display ladder rankings and scores, tournament results, and contest results. "Forums" will eventually display your last few posts in the forums, as well as last few topics created.
Been stepping back and actually looking at the amount of progress I've made and what I have left to do, and I'm really liking what I'm seeing. Aside from one or two pages of lists, such as member listings, the entire structure of the website is COMPLETE. Yeah, I COMPLETED something on this project. Impressive, no? There are a few things missing, such as spaces I left blank because I knew I wanted to put something there and I just am not sure what yet, but they're hardly noticable. The only technical, server scripting item that it still missing is the Report/Warning system for offensive or inappropriate content, but I'm hoping I shouldn't need to make use of that system very often, and it's something only the officials and I are really going to have to deal with anyhow. Also, I've outlined the structure for the forums, so all the server-side scripting for that should be a cakewalk. It's going to be the graphical design and site layout for the forums that will take the longest there. All in all, I feel very confident in saying I will be able to release the site by the end of the month, barring a hard drive breakdown or a server explosion or something. I suppose the only non-extreme thing that could push back the release will be training and explaining how to use the entire system to the officers and filling up the database of games. EXCITEMENT!!!!
Quite! Learned a few new SQL techniques today, which are going to make creating the forum about a five times easier endeavor than it was going to be before.
I did say I was aiming for the end of the month, did I not? Granted, I've set about 6 deadlines for this project by now. About time I actually kept one.
I'm prepping like crazy for the release on at midnight on the first of the month. I'll still be adding stuff after the release, but the site will be usable and have enough content for people to play around with and start using the site to it's near full potential. No forum will be available. That should be released October 1st, assuming the transition to college doesn't kill me :)
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