Comic links have gone back to being case sensitive. :/

Do we bother submitting feedback yet, or do we wait another day or two?

ksteak
Comic links have gone back to being case sensitive. :/

Do we bother submitting feedback yet, or do we wait another day or two?

The link thing is a server setting. I will ask if that can be fixed as well as the time issue. those are very important.

Some feedback is invaluable!
Lefarce type hypercritsism of aesthetics is pretty useless at this stage.
What's important is feedback about usability! Anything about that is needed.

The slowness issue is not down to site design, it's transfer related issues with the server. This WILL change.

It's still a little rough and I can't upload webcomics without it jamming but I have to admit, you guys work fast! The site was significantly faster and smoother to get onto today than it was yesterday. As a techy myself I have to say that this is rather impressive work. Also the site looks great. KEEP UP THE GOOD WORK!! =)

I had a page preuploaded last week to go live today.

It did go live with no problem at 1 AM EST as usual. However, there are a few significant issues.

~The date is wrong. It says “Nov 1,” while it is Nov. 2. I'm assuming this is because the clock got switched to PST instead of CST, as it had been in the past. So, not only does the date read wrong, but after one hour, it no longer reads as updated TODAY in the Favorites list.

~And speaking of favorites lists, while the update was registered on the old version of the control panel (present in the right-hand side at the forums), it did not register at all on the control panel on the right-hand side of the homepage. That “favorites list” still records the latest update as “Oct. 28”

~The update never showed up in the recently updated list on the front page. I'm used to that with pre-uploads – however, that list has not changed at all since the server switch, so I guess it's not working.

~And, as DAJB noted in another thread, the DD Alerter is completely nonfunctional.

~Now for things that do work: The page loads fine. Someone made a comment successfully. At times it loads fast, but at others it is very slow or not at all. (Which I hope just means that the site is being worked on.)

~My comic sometimes reverts to the default gray website template. It seems to be sporadic, so I'm assuming this is also related to the transfer in progress rather than a “real” issue.

~Finally, unrelated to the pre-upload, um, experiment, the “Store” link takes me to the old version of the main page instead of to the store.

I figure someone must know about all these things already, but I figured I'd post them just in case they haven't been noted yet. I can't remember whether I used to old uploader or the new one for that page. I know it makes a difference sometimes in how the site recognizes updates.

This new server thing seems dreadful.
It is painful slow to load everything.
Other than a few cosmetic changes I am not seeing any great benefit to make up for the fact that it takes ages to open every single page (and I have to refresh several times in some cases.)

Also, some how the server move has screwed up the page layout on my comic! The white text now shows up black so you have to highlight it to be able to read it.

I have raised my concerns repeatedly but had no response or acknowledgement of any kind.

Are wowio a front organisation for Smack Jeeves? Cause if this is all an elaborate plan to make DD unworkable for me, its pure genius and is working perfectly.

I agree that it's noticeably faster today than it was yesterday.

It still doesn't accept my log-in at first attempt, but today required only two passes instead of 4 attempts as it did yesterday.

Still very jerky about going to links (meaning “can't connect” error message), but seems to work better if I select a forum and then a page instead of trying to go to “latest post” or latest page. Don't know if that helps ID anything or not, but the pertinent message is that it is much better than yesterday.

Once it does go to a new page, it seems more solid. Yesterday a couple of pages funked out to serif fonts!

Also, I did receive one DD alert for the Hasben and Hash update yesterday, but that's the only one so far.

Now we'll see what happens when I hit “send” because yesterday THAT was a deal-breaker several times.

Edit: It accepted the post: Yay! And it allowed me access to edit this: Yay! But it's funked out to serif fonts again. ??

usedbooks
If I click “User Control” on the front page, I have no access whatsoever to editing my comics; while if I click “My Account” in the forum, I get the list of my comics and nothing else. I hope those are integrated.

This is the only thing related to the new site that I was curious about. I'd always edited comics and uploaded pages through the account overview, and with the new design it's… well, I can't find it at least. My last-ditch effort to get to a comic account was to use the dropdown “My Comics” bar under my faves, which I'd never used prior, and there it is.

But then when I come into the forums, the old “My Account” link leading to the account overview is still there, albeit with the old design (I'm assuming the forums haven't been finished yet, it's no big).

Is the My Comics bar the new way to get to the upload pages or will the account overview be instated in the complete version of the site? It's not something I'm really complaining about or demanding, I was just curious if it was still there and I just completely overlooked it, or if it's been replaced with the My Comics bar.

Also I see no reason to bring up YET AGAIN that the site is oh lordy so slow, but I did want to mention that I'm also using Google Chrome; in the other thread, I believe a couple people experiencing the most problems with the speed of the site also had Chrome.

Edit because I completely left out a word, go me.

Have you ever tried moving thousands of tiny little files onto a thumbdrive? That's why the sites slow. This would have to be a lot more than thousands of files though.

So, obviously the site is too slow to be usable to include usability feedback, can we request features though? Say a number of use each requested the features of the DD Updater to be rolled into the main site design, would they listen to us?

none of the new stuff works, seriosuly. it's not hyper negativity or anything, none of it works. the only time i see something working is when the code wasn't changed.

this whole thing was clearly brought online far too soon, and i think the coders knew that. i don't think they'll be able to fix it properly anytime soon, and i hope they switch back fast until they can.

Orin is right, this has been a complete mess.
Nothing works properly!

People are talking about requesting features? How about the feature of “make the website work properly and not run at a snails pace.”

The only purpose of this site is to host webcomics, so the front page layout is basically meaningless.
Right now, the site does not seem able to host webcomcis properly…so what was the point of this again?

Haha yeah, we DO have a rant thread ;)

Believe me, I know very well how frustrating this current state is. I hate it, we ALL do. But we all knew this was coming, it always does, and we know it is only temporary.

The slowness has been explained several times, especially in the help and bug forums (logical places to look)
- it's not the design it's the server move and things associated with that. There are processes running in the background in loops causing issues etc.

Everything in the new design works ok pretty much, but some things became broken temporarily during the server move when the site went live. Due to the complexity of the site there are things you can not usefully predict or anticipate till the site actually goes live


——————————————————

Aaaaany way, keep the useful feedback coming. Usedbooks has a great example of that. We can't fix what's broken if we don't know what is broken.

Hey - let's keep things in perspective, people. A major upgrade like this is almost always followed by a few days when things don't work properly. In fact, previous upgrades to DD have taken weeks to settle down. It's frustrating while it lasts but, in the end, the really important problems are always sorted out and we forget it ever happened. (Okay, we don't forget, but we do tend to forgive!)

We've been asked to report any issues which itself is a good sign that Wowio are working on getting everything running as smoothly as they can, so let's be patient and try to keep the feedback constructive.

Good to hear it won't stay that slow forever, but I've never really been concerned about that!

There seem to be a few other problems though.

Most important: I can't manage my comics any more in the new design! According to the latest Newspost I'm obviously not the only one who can't update their stuff, but I can't even find any of my comics in my controls. Are they just cleverly hidden somewhere or might this be a bug?
screenshot (as requested):

I use Firefox 3.6.12 and Windoze XP; also tried it with IE 6.0 which didn't even let me log in.
Could it have anything to do with the wrong date? (Otherwise I couldn't care less about that.)
Please note that my Public profile page doesn't have these troubles. My comics show up and can be áccessed normally. I'm also labeled as “member since July 21 2007” there, which is probably true.

2nd: I could only refer to the latest newspost, because I entered the forum and saw it in the old-style News list. It doesn't show up in any of the new ones.

I am still unable to see any comics. I can see the web layout but not the pages themselves. I am running Firefox, and I'm allowing all scripts in my script blocker.

To manage your comics you can click on “My Account” under your avatar on the right, or click on “My Comics”, also on the right.

Oh! Sorry I made such a fuss.

I tried it and it worked, even if DD prompted me to log in a second time, but that's nothing I couldn't live with.

Hope you didn't take it as a complaint. I only mentioned it because you said you wanted to know about this kind of thing.

By the way, I think DAJB is quite right in saying that nobody could possibly expect everything to work properly at once, and nor do I. Anyone who has ever dabbled in programming knows that.

Clock is running on Mountain time now. (It was Central before the update and Pacific after the update). Getting a bit confusing trying to keep up with everything. Not to mention, Daylight Savings Time will be ending soon.

I just tried uploading a new page. As others have noted, uploading does not work for me. It goes through the whole process but the image doesn't go through.

I didn't expect to be able to upload. I tried mostly to see if I saw the same Control Panel issues I saw with the pre-uploaded page. Yes, the conditions are exactly the same. The old-style control panel recognized the update and shows it as “TODAY,” but there was no change whatsoever on the homepage control panel.





I used the old uploader, btw.

The update also does not show up in the “Recently Updated” list. The new news post does not appear on the front page either. Aside from Quail's Random, the main page is basically completely static.

I have just discovered that it wont allow me to change my page layouts.

When will I be able to do this again?

(constructive enough for ya?)

Also….can I update pages? Should I wait before I do this?

If new updates aren't going through and changes to templates are not working, that means the server space is being filled up by some process or other.
Please do not try and update or change templates untill this is fixed :(

I'm going to bed now, so hopefully Skoolmunkee can take it from here.

Anyone notice how what once was black is now white, and also the other way around? I'm speaking of text - not sure why, but the comics I frequent have had this odd change where text colors flipped to one or the other. I'm using Firefox with its latest version.

Also, whenever I rollover the featured comics, the description appears behind the ad at the top. I don't feel this was intended in the design.

Does anyone have any guesses at when the site will be fully functioning?(such as being able to make pq's or edit profile page)

Is anybody else experiencing problems with their comics? Like… they don't seem to be there?

I have two long-running comics, but all they show is “This comic has no pages yet!” :( The comics seem to be in order when I check the control pannel, and the ones displayed at the main drunkduck page seem fine. I hope it's nothing permanent - DD is my backup location, but I had many comments I'd hate to lose.

harkovast
Also, some how the server move has screwed up the page layout on my comic! The white text now shows up black so you have to highlight it to be able to read it.

I have raised my concerns repeatedly but had no response or acknowledgement of any kind.

Who have you raised the concerns with? It's the first I've heard from you. Just curious about who hasn't been responding to you. Those @drunkduck.com emails are useless, if you were using those.

harkovast and blindsk - Can you tell me a little more about the black/white text thing? I can see your author comments and the user comments are now black on a black background- so it's the text that was white and is now black? Do you use an edited version of a template? I suspect this has to do with a css change somewhere, but I'm not clever enough to figure it out without dissecting everyone's css or messing about with trial and error (which wouldn't work right now).

usedbooks, most of those hadn't been reported yet, so thanks- that was useful. :] In the new-style pages, you can edit your comics by expanding the ‘my comics’ part of the right-hand toolbar, each comic should have an ‘edit’ link. However I have complained that the comic overview page seems to be missing from the new design.

But then when I come into the forums, the old “My Account” link leading to the account overview is still there, albeit with the old design (I'm assuming the forums haven't been finished yet, it's no big).

Yes, this is quickly going to be confusing for people. I suspect they left it alone because they want to upgrade the forums in a further stage, but I think leaving the old-style sidebar around is going to be a problem.

Have you ever tried moving thousands of tiny little files onto a thumbdrive? That's why the sites slow. This would have to be a lot more than thousands of files though.

So, obviously the site is too slow to be usable to include usability feedback, can we request features though? Say a number of use each requested the features of the DD Updater to be rolled into the main site design, would they listen to us?

It is my understanding that they actually moved the majority of the files over the course of several nights last week. This update was supposed to go smoother than it did. (That is always the case.)

You can suggest new features in the “Suggestions” subforum, but I don't think they will be looking at any of that until they have worked out the kinks with this current update. Do you mean the DD Alerter, telling you how many favorites you have and stuff? That is already on our “you really need to do this, when you do more stuff to the site” list, although now with the alerter being completely non-functional we hope it gets even more priority.

Niccea
I am still unable to see any comics. I can see the web layout but not the pages themselves. I am running Firefox, and I'm allowing all scripts in my script blocker.

You mean just browing the comics to read? Are the pages you can't see ones which were uploaded from Sunday onwards? Because those would be broken. Or are you hitting ‘back’ and not getting pages which should be loading?

Dark Ninja
Does anyone have any guesses at when the site will be fully functioning?(such as being able to make pq's or edit profile page)

They have at least one programmer working on this right now, and are deciding a best course of action. Unfortunately that's all I really know. I don't think they'll be able to predict that, people would probably be angry if they gave an estimate and it took longer anyway.

Elanor Pam
Is anybody else experiencing problems with their comics? Like… they don't seem to be there?

I have two long-running comics, but all they show is “This comic has no pages yet!” :( The comics seem to be in order when I check the control pannel, and the ones displayed at the main drunkduck page seem fine. I hope it's nothing permanent - DD is my backup location, but I had many comments I'd hate to lose.

If you're using the drop-down menu to navigate, that is broken. The previous-next buttons should work though. If you mean that you can't visit your comic at all, then currently the URLs are case-sensitive and require a / at the end… so http://www.drunkduck.com/Christopher/ would work but http://www.drunkduck.com/christopher wouldn't.

blindsk - with the description behind the ad thing, I'm not seeing it. What browser are you using?

harkovast
Are wowio a front organisation for Smack Jeeves? Cause if this is all an elaborate plan to make DD unworkable for me, its pure genius and is working perfectly.

LOL. It almost seems like that. I came from there to here because I liked the layout of this site better.
I dont have any plans to go back there though.
Still cant upload any pages though. looks like that wont be happening for a long while.

I've just added a newspost with a list of all the stuff we've found and I've been able to report so far. I might have missed one or two.

It looks like it might have been the Sunday on stuff.

Also, Drunkduck is not allowing tabbed browsing. Like if I were reading this forum in one tab and reading my PQs in the other. One of those tabs log out as soon as I try to do anything.

(And the clock is in Mountain Time just so you know for the newspost.)

ozoneocean
There are kinks.

Lefarce- you have uniformly despised every iteration of the aesthetic appearance of Drunk Duck. I am reassured to see that nothing has changed.

I've uniformly hated exactly two redesigns of Drunkduck because both aren't aesthetically pleasing or operational. Get bent, there are clearly defined things you don't do in web design and DD decides to say “fuck you” to that notion every goddamn time it updates. And thanks for locking in on two sentences or so sandwiched between bitching about how the site doesn't even function properly.

I'm now getting a shitload of log-outs and PHP errors, as well as half loaded pages. But hey, at least they've started to load! A small victory!

skoolmunkee
harkovast and blindsk - Can you tell me a little more about the black/white text thing? I can see your author comments and the user comments are now black on a black background- so it's the text that was white and is now black? Do you use an edited version of a template? I suspect this has to do with a css change somewhere, but I'm not clever enough to figure it out without dissecting everyone's css or messing about with trial and error (which wouldn't work right now).

I'd be happy to explain! I do use a custom template, modeled and modified off of Aelwyn's lovely design. Looking back (I was a bit dubious before since, as we all know, you can't mess with custom layouts just yet due to bugs), this actually isn't a problem, but a solution. I had always set my generic page text to white and the links to black, which for some reason did the opposite in the old version of DD (I suspect at the time I rewrote the script, I had finally realized this bug and forgot I made that correction), whereas now it reverts it back to the way it's supposed to be. In other words, the new DD fixed this problem! The irony! One point in favor of the DD change, huzzah!

skoolmunkee
blindsk - with the description behind the ad thing, I'm not seeing it. What browser are you using?

Sometime between leaving for work and getting off, this problem seems to now happen only every so often. I'm using Firefox 3.6.12 and occasionally the featured comic text appears behind the banner add when you rollover the comic. It's odd though, because sometimes it's perfectly fine whereas other times it pops up behind the ad. I'll try out random cases: like if certain ad displays do this, or if it does this when I create tabs, etc. Hopefully if someone else this problem they'll mention it as well to help you guys out.