Now that I've got the time, I've been testing the new site. Semi-custom html for the main page? That's a start, and there are some good tools there. But, I'd still like the liberty of having other pages; a lot of other comic site allow users to create custom pages with the tools already laid out on the new site to create main pages. I'm guessing it wouldn't be too hard for the team to allow us to have customizable extra pages that way…?
I put this on the feedback site as well, but I completely agree with this, especially about extra pages. To the point where, while I won't leave The Duck over it, I would not have put my comic here in the first place had there been no option for extra pages.
(No, I haven't taken advantage of the extra pages here yet, but I'd been starting to work on a custom layout when the April Fool's Crash hit, and just put it on hold to see what happened with the preview site. At this point, I can't be sure I'll have the time to finish it before the site switch, and if I can't update the character page, it's kinda pointless, since I'm not ready to list certain characters.)
I think we're all getting a bit frustrated at this point. You guys because of the wonky communication and timescales and things promised but not yet delivered, and us because we keep telling the same things to the same people and don't seem to be getting very far any more. And I suspect the people at Wowio may not be having the best time either, dealing with increasingly grumpy users and admins, their own wonky deadlines and restrictions, and so forth. I think anyone can deal with a short period of annoyance/frustration but the last 5 weeks have really started to drag on me and oz (and probably others I can't speak for).
(a) I still don't know where to look for the Wowio "to do" list
As ksteak said, they probably forgot about it. I've tried to follow up with them a few times and don't get a response. I suspect it's a case of "I could spend time doing that, or I could spend time actually making that stuff"… the problem there is that we still don't know what's coming.
Would it be useful to make a clear list of the stuff we're most concerned about, and getting some kind of yes/no responses at least on those?
So it might look like,
1. Further page customization options 2. Side pages 3. Area for uploading images
?? what else? (I think we'll have to distinguish some line between 'stuff we need' and 'stuff we want', I suspect most 'stuff we need' is going to be stuff that already existed on the old site?)
This is just a guess, but I know they've periodically been 'pushing' updates to the code, which may have an effect on those things. I'd say that any mysterious changes like that are just down to things they're doing on the backend, and not bugs or issues to be reported.
(d) We were given a heads up (but not much of a heads up) that the move was occurring this past Weds.
To be fair that was a "probably" date which I was careful to say. :] This launch has already been delayed a few times and I think there is some 'buying time' going on behind the scenes. Most of the people directly involved with the preview site would probably be happy to have it delayed more. Probably the best way to show them that the site is unready is to continue detailing just how unready it is.
As to 'how much is enough,' I suspect it's going to be some time… however long it takes for them to see that the way people use the site is just as important as the stuff they want people to be able to do. Some of the things they've put in already, and have planned, are great- but it's the usability (which is ALWAYS an issue with any new development) where there are a lot of roadblocks. And describing usability issues is a lot more difficult than describing than a neat feature you want, since it's more dependent upon preference and habit.
I really would like a status update from the programmers on each of the problems reported in getsatisfaction before there's another imminent move announced.
I'll remind them about that. I suspect that some of their noncommunication would be down to having to spend so much time trying to get as much working as possible. Reading and replying to all the stuff on there can get pretty time consuming. I think their internal bug reporting system has had some problem too, which has made things a little more difficult for them.
Going back to what was said earlier, if the reason for not having full custom HTML is because of the possibility that less savory people can upload malware using the HTML editor and by uploading script files, then why not have a "doorman" check the files? I suggested scanning files as they're uploaded to check for malicious code, or behavior. This would probably kill upload times, but it'd be worth it if it actually works. The main problem would be testing for homebrew viruses, I think. I could be wrong, but if it helps, I don't think I'm too far off if I am.
Another solution is to disable scripts altogether. This would be a pain for those that actually use them, but I really don't think there's another way to do this.
We've suggested all kinds of alternatives to them, and Oz is very good at sending them all the bad ad reports and saying "look, it's the ads that have the security issue, not the html"… but everything we've been told is that Lawrence is adamant that html scripting will not be allowed. The three things (there may be more, but I can't think of any just now) that they have never budged on is that the name stays, the html coding is going, and users can't have ads (and we still haven't heard back about PW).
The PNG converter just took a 211kb jpeg and resized it to 2.01mb. That is classic. I tip my hat to the genius who thought that was a good idea.
We warned them that their PNG idea was ridiculous and wouldn't work. Maybe now they have seen it they'll be willing to rethink that one. That is extra stupid because a 2.01mb image is above the image upload limit for comic pages. so, sorry folks, you can't upload images bigger than 2mb because that is OUR JOB! Haha. :]
Drunk Duck is running incredibly slowly again. This usually means the powers that be are trying to change something. Is this a sign that the change is currently underway?
They've been migrating data (mostly all image files of course) for the last week or so. I suspect that's the cause of any slowness. I've experienced it too, at odd times of day, so it's not the normal traffic.
It may even be the data migration which is causing the delay in the changeover.
I'm certainly very confused and frustrated because we've been told that all our layouts, banners, buttons, links etc. will be transfered over with no changs, but now we're being asked to test out the new customization tools for adding all that stuff which as I said above should just be transfered over, and yet it's all buggy with spacing issues and as I stated in my previous post their tool for adding links makes it look to me like when then change over takes place I'm just going to get a list of text links to voting sites rather than what the links are supposed to let people do which is actually vote for my comic.
I have had a look at the site customise thing…. To be honest I would rather stick with putting it together in sharepoint, then copypasting the code to the HTML editor on DD.
I'm certainly very confused and frustrated because we've been told that all our layouts, banners, buttons, links etc. will be transfered over with no changs, but now we're being asked to test out the new customization tools for adding all that stuff which as I said above should just be transfered over
I asked the same thing. Supposedly it is happening in parallel- people with custom html should have it transferred over. The layout tools can still be there to be used by other people.
That was as of Monday though. I'm not certain that the plan won't change if the changeover continues to get delayed and they think they are adding 'enough' functionality.
was a 247kb jpg… it turned into a 614kb png (that's huge for a 600 pixel wide image)… and, examining the png image with hex editor, a VBS script has indeed been embedded into the image. I can't tell what the script is because it's encrypted.
I don't think there is a link. If there was a to-do list I'm sure it would be on there, but….
Tim, I can't find anything on the web that says you can hide script inside a png file. The website you linked earlier describes how to hide malware inside a pdf-png, not a png by itself.
png images are so 'fluffy' (so many spaces with no code at all) that they can be easily manipulated. This is a new field and one hackers are using to spread virii right now (check Norton's and other antivirus websites for the info). You embed a code in a png, then call the code from a separate script.
I am saddened. NO! I weep. I weep for they are pathetic. I mean seriously pathetic. They don't even cover visited and active links, nor do they allow us to move things around. The part I'm most miffed about is the fact I can't try a really slick idea I had a little while ago.
That said, is there even a remote possibility that they'll allow full HTML editing in the very near future?
I am saddened. NO! I weep. I weep for they are pathetic. I mean seriously pathetic. They don't even cover visited and active links, nor do they allow us to move things around. The part I'm most miffed about is the fact I can't try a really slick idea I had a little while ago.
That said, is there even a remote possibility that they'll allow full HTML editing in the very near future?
They've said to us that they want to have a more robust system, just that it takes time. So this is (hopefully) just the first stage of basic stuff.
As for allowing full HTML editing- everything they've told is is an adamant no. :I
Can you supply us with an email address so we the users can petition them outselves. That way they can get a feel of how much HTML editing is needed by their content providers.
Can you supply us with an email address so we the users can petition them outselves. That way they can get a feel of how much HTML editing is needed by their content providers.
the HTML thing realy bothers me . if there is no HTML editing i will prolly be making DD my mirror and not my main i lik it the way it is now, i like playing with the page layout myself , templates and stuff like that feels like those plastic scissors you have to use in preschool, BORING !
templates and stuff like that feels like those plastic scissors you have to use in preschool, BORING !
Yup. Very true. The idea is to code in much more advanced tools that's much more WYSIWYG, so it won't always be as basic as that.
Even so, I love having that sort of easy template editing functionality for basic users, but all of us more savy types should be catered for as well (with full html access). There's no reason for us ALL to have to sit at the kiddy table.
All I can do is repeat that the tools will get a lot better.
…Now I just wish the change over would go ahead so we can get all the grumping over with. My prediction is for Monday or Tuesday.
Can you supply us with an email address so we the users can petition them outselves. That way they can get a feel of how much HTML editing is needed by their content providers.
It is a good idea because they kinda need to understand that banning HTML editing is kinda a deal breaker for allot of users. While the name change is annoying enough, this is gonna be the thing that will drive allot of users away.
As for the customizable tools they promised to replace html editing, they have to understand that in order to make something that offers even half the freedom that HTML editing offers, they're going to have to construct one hell of a site editor (maybe not as intensive as Joomla, but close). That's going to take allot of time and effort on their behalf. Are they really up for that?
As it is the preview is a decent enough place to upload comics to. The problem is though a lot of people are looking for a host, not a place to upload comics to. I wonder if Wowio recognizes the difference between the two.
I'm curious also to see what readers reactions to it would be. The feature set for readers is something like: comments. email alerts. favorite. share. recommend. like. (are those last five the same thing, or is it just me? And the difference between favorite and recommend is confusing.) profile with bio, friends, video linking, trophies.
Okay, this has got me annoyed. How hard can it honestly be to make a parser that removes the and tags and everything in between? I'm not trying to be a smart ass, but they won't budge on custom HTML because of malware. HTML is a markup language. It, in conjunction with CSS, just defines the look of content. There are some neat hacks you can do with them to get some nice menus (like here), but it's the browser that has to do most of the heavy lifting. It's executables that they are worried about. That means scripts, whether they are in files or tags, and you have to have a and pair to make the script work in an HTML file! All they have to do for files is look at the file extension and refuse to upload it if the extension isn't one of the approved file types.
If I'm wrong, well I'll eat my crow and not complain, but I don't think I am. I'd also like to say this is in no way directed at our awesome admins. This is directed at the guy who'd doing his best to impersonate an immovable object, and that is going to cost a lot of creators, and the people who read their stuff.
stuff about converting files to PNG to "save on server space"
i want you all to consider that these peoples professions happen to be designing sites, for the internet. good god, ya'll
i like to imagine at DD they just have a big wheel with 3 segments, and on the top one is like "move", "convert", "add", "remove", the middle is "images", "servers", "advertisements", and the last is "to PNGs", "again", "completely", etc and they just spin and do whatever it lands on i cant wait until they try to convert servers to png or move images completely
seriously, i'm reeling at this png thing, i still can't believe that's real. that actually happened.
Filthy Assistant 12:43 am assitant
Lefarce 12:43 am don't care furthermore, i'm converting your name to a .png
Filthy Assistant 12:43 am how dare you WHAT
Lefarce 12:43 am sorry but it's too many characters too long
Lefarce 12:43 am unicode takes up too much server space, mister do you have any idea how many bits are in a letter!? THOSE ADD UP!
I don't have a big problem with the layout tools now… you can do almost the same as rawHTML, but the banner placements are still a problem.
My major problem at this point is no stats page… we rely on stats when selling ad banner space (and for the ego boost).
Still, overall, I think we've come a long way from what Wowio thought we would settle for in the beginning. But, we definitely need a stats page.
No one has really talked about all the ad banners Wowio is plastering the webcomic pages with, and that's the reason I would not use The Duck as a primary host.
Time Girls was going to be a Featured comic before I removed it (according to Oz in a post he made) and it was a top 50 comic here. Even after the concessions gained, I still wouldn't put Time Girls back on The Duck with all those ads and popups and stuff. Wowio doesn't seem to understand that we comic artists and creators have an audience to please… it's not just some egotistical website or blog, we have actual audiences, and many times with newer readers, they're going to be reading dozens of pages… that's dozen's of pages of ads… 3 ads a page, including popups and Flash (and whatever gets embedded in the png images)… I certainly wouldn't wade through that mess just to read a web comic, and I wouldn't put my audience through that either.
The thing is, and this is important, perhaps the most important thing of all…
We're fighting Wowio just to get back to where we are right now. Nothing more, we're asking nothing at all, no additions, nothing. We're fighting just to try to keep what we have. And no matter how Wowio spins things, we're right. They didn't have to buy DD, we didn't ask them to. We just wanted to be left alone with what we had. Yes, maybe a faster server, but nothing more. Wowio's 'improvements' have taken away most of the things we had… we just want what we had. That's not being unfair or angry… just let us have what we have right now. Why would you want to take those things away? Those things made DD great, the biggest webcomics host on the net… why did you think you could 'improve' things by destroying the site? Stop experimenting with DD, we're not lab mice… we're the only reason anyone visits the site and you need to listen to us, not yell at us through 2nd-hand messages.
I can't thank Wowio for changing the webcomic site designs… they took away all freedom of design to begin with, then gave a little bit back. That's not praise-worthy, that's how dictatorships work, take away everything, then give a little back. But it seems that's how they've decided to work… take away everything, then give a little back to make it seem like they're trying to help us. Just remember, THEY took everything away… WE'RE trying to get back to just where we are right now. The war continues…
stuff about converting files to PNG to "save on server space"
Actually, the idea behind the PNG thing was the mobile version of the site. Nothing to do with space saving. The idea is that PNG is the standard format for mobile devices so they may as well have images standardised as PNGs throughout the entire site… The normal version of it.
Yes, that is amazingly, incredibly, soooooper dooper enormously flawed, and yes all along Skool and I have told the people involved time and again about the size thing, but they said it'd be ok. We're STILL talking to them about the size thing.
I think the problem is that they may be thinking of the setup like a news blog site or something like that where all content is simply standardised across the whole thing- all text styles are the same, colours are the same and all images fit into a limited set of dimensions (depending on where they go) and they're all fairly small (even feature images), so the lack of compression in 24 bit PNGs is never really an issue there.
But of course DD is VERY different.
Still, overall, I think we've come a long way from what Wowio thought we would settle for in the beginning. But, we definitely need a stats page.
Not really Tim. The editing tools were slated from the beginning. The schedule they're working at though meant that the site got put up as it was for bug testing etc before some of the other features were done. The Stats page is a perfect example of that! The designs for it are all ready, Skool and I saw different versions of those months ago, but other aspects are taking priority- The layout editing for example, which is only in its most basic prototype version right now.
The ONLY single one solitary change that the designers have made is the inclusion of linking banners, which I rode them HARD about from the beginning, and are still completely unsatisfactory, but at least they've been added.
Yes, that is amazingly, incredibly, soooooper dooper enormously flawed, and yes all along Skool and I have told the people involved time and again about the size thing, but they said it'd be ok. We're STILL talking to them about the size thing.
But… With pngs coming out at the size they are, any mobile would run out of ram to display the page anyway.
Actually, the idea behind the PNG thing was the mobile version of the site.
Someone posted that it was to save space and I didn't feel like reading all these walls of text to find out where it originated. But yeah, it's still incredibly stupid and I'm stumped how everyone seems to realize this but Wowio.
But… With pngs coming out at the size they are, any mobile would run out of ram to display the page anyway.
I think the main issue would be usage caps on some plans and download speeds on congested mobile networks… But yeah, pages full of bloated 24 bit PNGs won't load very well.
Someone posted that it was to save space and I didn't feel like reading all these walls of text to find out where it originated. But yeah, it's still incredibly stupid and I'm stumped how everyone seems to realize this but Wowio.
There's a bit of crossed communication: -Originally all of those massive images that noob users upload in the wrong formats and the wrong sizes for the web would be converted to something at a more sensible file size- JPG would've been the best choice for oversized offerings. That was back in the planning stages.
-SINCE then, they're not worrying about file sizes anymore because the images are being hosted on the Amazon cloud service and aren't on our old shitty webhost anymore. SO Lawrence and Dan have forgoten about any file size issues and are only thinking in terms of mobile sites.
They're programmers, not graphic designers, they are exceptionally good at programming, but have very limited understanding of the net as a comic artist or graphic designer sees it.
TIM WELLMAN HAD A TOP 50 COMIC. (Actually the last time he gave us numbers in this thread it was #65 overall, but hey close enough right?) Just you know, in case you missed his constant repetition.
Also, get off your high horse. You bitched and moaned, increasingly tried to stir up shit, didn't actually contribute to the constructive feedback going on, took your toys and stomped off saying you were leaving forever, then you came back all friendly and acting like you had some part in effecting changes that WERE ALWAYS GOING TO HAPPEN ANYWAY. GTFO you ass. I have no patience for you any more.
