Aaron Lewis

GuildPortal Dev Blog

Updates from Aaron Lewis, GuildPortal Code Monkey

Entries From Aaron Lewis' Blog

Torhead Integration and More Texting

Posted 11/28/2011 11:43 AM by Aaron Lewis. 25095 reads. Share:

Today's update includes automatic integration with ZAM's Torhead in the WYSIWYG editor for Star Wars: The Old Republic guilds. To use it, simply click the Jawa icon when editing and follow the instructions.

Also going live are two new text messaging notification options: when a reply is added to a topic you've subscribed to, and also reminders about upcoming events you've signed up for. To receive these notifications, click Profile on any guild page, and then click Text Messaging. There, you'll see these two new options, in addition to all of the other things you may choose to receive text messages on your phone for.

Customizable Recruiting

Posted 11/11/2011 10:30 AM by Aaron Lewis. 14091 reads. Share:

A new widget type called "Recruiting (Customizable)" goes live with today's update! It offers a lot of flexibility as far as what you want displayed (and how) to potential recruits. To check it out, add one to a page and click the Edit link to get started. For many games, there are defaults that you can import and then modify as you see fit.

We've received many requests from members who want the ability to remove images they've previously uploaded to sites they've been members of. Sometimes after leaving a guild, they'll want to remove personal real-life pics, for example. Members can now do so by clicking their Profile link on any guild page, or by clicking their name from any GuildPortal public-side page (top right) and then clicking "Uploaded Images."

Rally Widget, Image Editor and Upgrades

Posted 11/4/2011 9:19 AM by Aaron Lewis. 11934 reads. Share:

A new widget called "Rally the Guild" goes live today! This beta widget operates much like a shout box, except instead of just adding a line of text to your site, it will send the text to members via either their cell phone or e-mail. For cell phone delivery, members will need to configure texting in their Profile (the widget itself provides a direct link to configure it, as well). Only those with officer level or higher access to your site may send out rallies, and only those marked as associate or higher receive them.

Also, images uploaded since the new file storage system was brought online (images that show as being located on a path that begins with /GuildImages) now show an Edit link next to them in the File Manager. Clicking it brings up a new web-based image editor that gives you the ability to crop, add text to, and otherwise manipulate images. The functionality of this editor already has planned enhancements, coming soon. It is also available from the Gallery widgets upon upload of new images, if the uploader has Images Admin rights on the site.

Over the past couple days, we ran across a hardware problem with one of the drives on our database server, causing some downtime. We apologize for this. The good news is, however, that we have replaced the drive with a mirrored array that has twice the space. Also, while they had the system open at the data center, we had them double the RAM as well, which should have a positive impact on performance.

To make things run even better, we have also brought in a company that specializes in the optimization of databases specific to the platform that GuildPortal runs on. They have completed their initial monitoring phase, and we will be working closely with them to implement their recommendations.

Other stuff addressed in this push:
  • Aion armory tooltips are fixed.
  • LoTRO Integration now allows manual entry of your guild name, in case your actual guild name was already taken for your server and you had to use a different one when creating your site.
  • Approving/denying item requests in the bank now visually updates the visibility of the approve/deny links, giving a better indicator that the command was performed.
  • A bug causing only one item to show when viewing item requests has been squished.
  • SuperAdmins can now delete crafting orders from the main display of the Crafting Marketplace.
  • Spotter's Order was nerfed in Rift. (Okay, so we had nothing to do with that -- we're just very, very angry about it)

Recent Updates

Posted 10/7/2011 1:45 PM by Aaron Lewis. 16875 reads. Share:

On Monday, the following updates will be deployed to live:
  • XML/XSL Transforms where either the XML or XSL files are being loaded from guild storage will work properly.
  • Text filters will function correctly.
  • Voice server purchasing will be fixed for a few guilds that were having trouble with it.
  • The main GP page login control will now correctly say that it's an invalid login if no user name and password are provided, instead of providing no feedback at all (just sitting there, staring back at you).
  • Announcements will now be shown directly on the calendar widgets, instead of being their own listing before the calendar.
In addition, many updates have been made over the past couple weeks that have already been pushed to live:
  • Performance enhancements have been made to the forums and news widgets.
  • Cache duration of guild data has been reduced, causing less of a delay between saving some changes in the control panel and being able to see them appear on your site.
  • Text Messaging functionality has been made available for open beta. Check your Profile settings to see what it's all about!
  • Registration and application completion have been merged into a single page, so that people applying to your site won't think they're done after completing the registration part, and exiting prematurely.
  • New CSS classes have been added to the forums, mostly to facilitate alternating item displays in the post listing.
  • Maximum individual file upload size has been increased from 5 MB to 7 MB.
  • The ability to enter a custom color code, instead of being limited to the drop-down choices provided by the picker, has been enabled for section wrappers.
  • Section wrappers! A new set of options are available in the Control Panel, underneath Style Tools > General Style Settings > Section Wrappers. These enable containers that wrap around elements on your site, such as the navigation bar (if you use it), the content table (where all the widgets are contained), and the footer. While they're attractive in old browsers, they look especially good in CSS3-compliant browsers (most of the latest browsers are CSS3-compliant).
  • By default, signatures will not show in forum posts when the post is by a guest user (non-associate or higher access level). In order to override this behavior, click Edit under your forums widget, then Options, and then "Show non-associate (guest) signatures and thumbnails."

Mods System Updates

Posted 8/31/2011 11:00 AM by Aaron Lewis. 11103 reads. Share:

A few (hah!) updates have been made to the new mods system:

  • Installed mods that have a newer version will now also allow uninstalling of the mod (previously it would only allow updating to the latest version).
  • Updating to the latest version now indicates that it has done so (previously, it looked like you were never up-to-date).
  • Certain widget-type mods were not rendering.
  • The "Top Mods" widget in the Admin Help Community was sorting by a formula foreign to modern-day mathematics, which we believe was used in earlier centuries to summon demons and sparkling ponies (closely related, by the way). It is now sorting by popularity, using regular numbers.
  • Media file uploads now work. Authors, pretty please with sugar on top use this for storage of files needed by the add-on, instead of linking to external sources.
  • The updating of a mod to the latest version now requires confirmation from the admin if the update includes customizable code (since it will wipe out any already-customized code the admin may have in place).
  • The listing of comments in the mod authors' view now includes which mod the comment is for.
  • The authors' view now includes the ability to search their own mods.
  • Upon saving a new mod revision, the author is asked whether they want to publish it. If they do, it will be marked as ready for review by GP staff. If they don't, it will be ready to test by the author but will not be reviewed until they edit it again, save it, and then indicate they want to publish.