the-spot.net

Ok, so i've been using this time lately to think about features for the new My Spot page, and of course, I have to redo the code and the database calls behind all the normal featuers...but what about some new features? This page will be my own code, and my own database calls, and own settings database table, so it won't be an issue for me to upgrade the site for future patches, and still keep this thing working.

Here's some of the new features that I want to incorporate into the page:
[*] Flickr/tsn group photo pool (like before)
[*] twitter/thespotnet's following posts. (if you don't know what twitter is, visit twitter.com or ask me...it's cool, and useful, and even cooler when a bunch of people you know are on it
[*] Reincorporate user stats into the page - but also user-specific settings, so you can show/hide some of the boxes that you don't want to see...or add others that aren't on by default.

But I also want to know what you guys want to see on the page, and i'll see if I can get that incorporated too. So lets hear it.

[*]more smilies.
[*]better smurf protection.
[*]feel free to edit this post but im gonna try and use the most profanity as possible to see what turns into smurf:
smurfin', smurf, smurf-poo, smurfette, ass, smurfette, slut, twat, smurfy, taint, smurf, cock, mr. bigglesworth, smurf, bastard, ok i cant think of anymore.
[*]and when the curse word is capitalized so should the smurf word.
[*]oh yeah and i have no idea what all the pictures mean next to the threads (like when you click view new posts) like the black dot on the piece of paper the orange paper the white paper the shaking paper. i know i saw an explanation somewhere but that was one time only and i haven't seen it since.
[*]and what happened to the quick quips? those were awesome!! they should pop up on the top of the screen under the the-spot.net welcome to tsn.7 (the blue part) randomly every time on every page.

Some of your points already have answers...

More Smilies

Have you clicked the "View More Smilies" link?

better smurf protection.

yeah...we're discussing that - it's almost a "go with what we have...and add stuff as we go" deal.

and when the curse word is capitalized so should the smurf word.

I've tried to do that, but it doesn't work...F = f to the system.

oh yeah and i have no idea what all the pictures mean next to the threads (like when you click view new posts) like the black dot on the piece of paper the orange paper the white paper the shaking paper. i know i saw an explanation somewhere but that was one time only and i haven't seen it since.

Actually, the description is at the bottom of every forum...and the dot means that you've posted in that thread before. I don't know what it helps to know that, except for like welcoming threads.

and what happened to the quick quips? those were awesome!! they should pop up on the top of the screen under the the-spot.net welcome to tsn.7 (the blue part) randomly every time on every page.

The quickquips are still in the database, I just haven't put them back on the page. That area that you're referring to is going to be used for stuff up there. But there will be other places towards the top that will be free - I'll see if I can put them back on.

Have you clicked the "View More Smilies" link?

yes thats exactly what im talking about. its not a huge deal but alot of the time i'd like to put one up and i'll view all of them and won't find one appropriate for my reaction.

Actually, the description is at the bottom of every forum...

i see now, but the way i view the site is by either clicking 'view new posts' or 'view your posts' and they're not there.

smurfin', smurf, smurf-poo, smurfette, ass, smurfette, smurfette, twat, smurfy, smurf, smurf, cock, mr. bigglesworth, smurf, bastard, ok i cant think of anymore.

i dont remember what words i typed, but if you want i think i can come up with some better smurf interpretations of the curse word cause some of those could be confused for other curse words.
now im not cursing when i say: smurf
but i am when i say: smurf
maybe the curse word smurf should be blue and maybe the regular word smurf shouldn't be. but come to think of it, no one actually types out the word smurf xcept situations like this.

@smilies: ok...I'll see if I can find some.
@descriptions: gotcha...ok, I'll look into that.
@smurfing: don't really have that option to make it colored or anything without modifying the code, and that's what I'm trying not to do - because I want the code I create to simply plug into the code that I'd have to update, without having to heavily modify the entire forums like I have in previous versions. I agree they can be confused, but the goal, after all when we put it on there originally was so that you wouldn't really know what word was being said - that Smurf was just a general explicative. I'll see if we can't change up the way some of them display though...like smurfloads, or son of a smurf.

Ok, I've had such success last night with the Twitter API to integrate that into a webpage, that I've decided to add a couple more things to the list that I'm looking at...

[*] whatpulse.org API - to show your whatpulse stats as well as the tsn team stats
[*] OpenID login for the site - this will enable you to use one username/password for the site, that you can use on a lot of other sites, like wordpress, technorati, yahoo...and the list goes on. You'll see how well it works once I get a tutorial in place.

sounds awesome!
do you have an estimated date of completion? im sure its going to take quite some time. do you make any money off this? i think the dedication put into this site is badass. Jad and I should add you to our stupid awesome powers thread....

haha, no I don't make any money off this - not yet at least. This has been an ongoing project of mine for years...like 7 years...to learn how to do various teck skills, to manage people, and a psuedo-experiment in learning about the psychology behind why people do what they do. (bet you didn't know it was that involved, eh? Just some fun place to hang out?) and y'all are my beta-testers for new ideas. It's hard to find enough local people that you can say "hey check this out, and try to break it...." but with something like this, I can put it into production, and someone will definitely break it, so I can make it better. Plus it helps you guys stay in touch with each other and talk about stuff you wouldn't get to talk about anywhere else on the internet.

There is not an estimated date of completion yet - all I've done was the twitter code, I haven't even started designing the page...I just have a piece of paper with what I want written down. Once I get a couple of these modules created, I can start to plug them into the page like I did on tsnX - one box at a time, and just build the page from there.

And thanks for the awesomeness stuff...

huh, wow so this smurf-poo IS worth your time i like that...
ok so my english prof told us that our 2nd essay is going to be about communities, whether its neighborhood, church, the gays, online communities whatever. so im gonna do mine about the-spot!!! in our essay we have to have at least one interview so, can i interview you?
(this would be in the next week or so)

Sure, that would be great

So, it's been a while, and i've been working on a lot of various other projects at the same time. But I have started pulling out the code to make the page, and have started looking at what it takes to get phpbb 3.0 to create the templates - it's quite different.

I'm going to see if I can get at least the twitter box into a page, and use that as the starting point for everything. I'll have more when I have more.

I grabbed the code used to make the "View New Posts" page, and now I'm extracting the parts that it takes just to display that information (since it's the same page used to display search results). That's the hardest part of making the page, and hopefully I'll get it right in the first few tries.

i'll have something up on the link for My Spot when I get at least one module working.

If you didn't see the Twitter message from twitter.com/thespotnet - I got the New Posts module working for the My Spot page on the first try (thanks to years of experience hacking that same 24-page code, even though this time it had different words).

Now I just have to get it put into the My Spot template, and work on the other modules. I want to try and get the New Posts to refresh automatically but only that box, not the page...I'll see what I can do though.

ok, I got the design of the My Spot page to cooperate finally. there were some box-sizing issues on the page.

you can find it at http://www.the-spot.net/phorums/myspot.php

I'm still working on the other modules - trying to get them to show up on the page. It might take a little longer to get them, since I think i'm going to have to put them on there with AJAX...the phpbb template creator (parser) is stripping out any php code that it did not create itself.

but I am working on it.

ok, I got the Twitter module and the flickr module on the page. I don't know if the Refresh Twitter link works or not, I've been trying to test it without going overboard on the twitter updates since I know a lot of people are following me.

But as I see them update in Flock or on the actual twitter page I'll test the link and make revisions as needed.

My main goal right now is to get information on the page, and then go back and fix up the stylesheet to make it all look pretty. Earlier the layout of the boxes was giving me troubles, but now that it is resolved, i've moved on to getting the modules to work.

I still have the WhatPulse API to work with, and getting a Mini Forum index...then I have to put together some kind of User Profile module, a New News module, and get the tsn.7 Pizzy news from the RSS feed on the page, and it'll be complete - for now.