There's going to be stuff happening to make quoting even more distinct and hopefully thin down the forum post borders a bit so they're not so thick with useless empty space because of those huge thick borders…
Any colour changes will probably happen after the site is fully live apparently. It's just not one of the focusses right now.

…Skool and I had a session with Kinh about it last week. We all came up with some brilliant stuff, but then that has to go through further with the designer working on that aspect (Allan I think), and he's a bit stubborn for his own ideas and ways of doing things from what I gather. -_-
Our ideas were pretty solid, logical and took at lot of hard thinking and compromise. If they don't make it across I will be pretty fricken pissed off. I didn't stay up till almost 4am and suffer through migraines for the next two days because of that just for my own personal enjoyment.

ozoneocean
There's going to be stuff happening to make quoting even more distinct and hopefully thin down the forum post borders a bit so they're not so thick with useless empty space because of those huge thick borders…
Any colour changes will probably happen after the site is fully live apparently. It's just not one of the focusses right now.

Glad to know that they're doing something different to the forum though. I just checked out the preview site and the posts are looking allot better.

They still have to fix the youtube embedding complication though. All the old posts are not displaying youtube videos properly.

At Lawrence's request, I am copy/pasting the post he made on GetSatisfaction last Friday, in case anyone missed it.


Hi everyone,

It has been WAY too long since I updated you guys directly as to what has been going on. We set a relaunch date and then we pulled it. All done without much clear communication. Not the way I like to work.

Additionally, I promised to publish a list of items on a timeline so you all knew what was done, what we knew about still needed to be done therefore you could know what to test.

For all of this, I accept responsibility and I do sincerely apologize. I think you will see below that my radio silence did NOT mean work stoppage. ;-)

So let me update you all on some things:

New Site Launch Date
Last week we thought we could finish everything, (bug fixes and custom layout controls), and be ready to launch. We looked at all that still needed to be done, and all of the issues you all kept bringing up and quickly realized that was not gonna happen. Like I have said in previous posts and in QuackCast shows, we will launch the new site when it is ready.

With all that being said, the date for relaunch of the new Duck Webcomics site is July 1st, 2011.

Bug List
We have been addressing and/or implementing several issues with the site. (Even suggestions made by some of you.) As of today 5/21/2011, here is a list of issues that have been COMPLETED:

- Implemented RSS feed for each comic (located in the header links of the comic page)
- Fixed Twitter feed on the homepage
- Fixed a bug where comics titles and usernames couldn't include numbers
- When you click on “Favorites” in a comic page, it should display a list of your current Favorited comics. If you haven't favorites the comic yet, there will be an option at the top to add that comic to your Favorites list
- Comic Page – If the user is not logged in, the header links will only display Share, RSS, and the comic rating
- urls are no longer case sensitive
- “my favorites” and “my comics” are now clickable and will expand the user's list
- Added age ratings and total page counts to the “my favorites” dropdown
- Tutorials now display how many users have rated them
- When a user rates a tutorial, it will now stick to that rating within the tutorial page, and display the overall numerical average underneath
- Comic forums are now implemented. They can be toggled on and off via the Overview page in Edit Comics. The forums themselves are accessed via the “go to forums” link in the header of the comic page. Creators can create, edit, and delete their own forums
- Signature text has been shrunk to 10pt font to better differentiate it from reply text
- Topic replies and quote boxes have been slightly restyled and we've added a thin border to differentiate the reply area from the signature area of a post. This is still an on-going process

In addition to all of these, we have also put in a multi-page uploader. (MANY of you asked for this.)

Here is what is still OPEN:
- File locker: So users can keep a list of image assets to be included in forum posts, etc… (Yes, your current file locker files will be migrated over for you from the old DD site.)
- Comics stats: Each page will have
- Comic Layout Pro Controls: Better customization tools for comic page layouts

Timeline
The plan is to spend the next week and a half bug fixing and implementing the remaining OPEN issues. Then we will focus the month of June on what we are calling the Comic Layout PRO controls. The plan is to be done with that early in June so as to give you, (the community), the time you need to run both new and old systems side-by-side to identify and missing or broken functionality so we can get it in there by July 1st.

I hope I have not forgotten anything. Going forward, this will be “the list”.

As you can see, we have been REALLY busy addressing site issues but most important to me is that I hope to be communicating to you all that we, (WOWIO), are indeed listening to you. We are listening to and implementing, (where we can), your feedback, your bug reports and functionality suggestions.

In addition to thanking all of you, I want to send a huge THANK YOU out to Oz, Skool and Srdt for keeping on me and the rest of the dev team to keep communicating when all we really want to do is bury ourselves away and just code. ;-)

As always, please continue to use the Get Satisfaction system to report any issues you find on the new OR original site.

Thank you,

L.

Hey guys, just a reminder that they are still keen to hear back from people about the new functionalities (lots of them listed in the above post by srhdt). They'd like to get those nailed down before they move on to the advanced layout tool and page management stuff.

Thanks to everyone so far who has been contributing to the Feedback stuff, you guys are aces. :]

Hi, guys. I didn't want a get satisfaction account and I don't really want get satisfaction to access my google/facebook/etc… so I'll just post my “feedback” here.

Someone's probably already mentioned this (apologies if this is a repeat), but the new site's username login is case-sensitive, and so the result is that multiple of the same username can be created while the site accounts for each of them as totally unique users. I would prefer not to ask the real slim shady to stand up.

Really? They've told us three times now that the case-sensitivity should be fixed. There are a few people (among the first 50 carryover users) who will have some mixed-up usernames still, but for all the other accounts it should't matter.

Can I ask for a little more detail? Were you able to make an account for a user already there, or just not able to log in because of a caps/lowercase mistake?

Maybe my Fukujinzuke account (vs. the fukujinzuke account) was among the first 50…


The former has a test comic, the latter does not, so I figured those two accounts are currently totally independent from each other. Maybe it won't matter once they do the wipe and go live. I tried to create a third account with “fukujinzuKe” and it successfully said that it's already in use.

I think the new site should use phpbb forums. And also the site need decent speed compared to what is going on now on the current site. I think the ads might be killing the site speed because you have to wait on like 3-4 sites to stream the ad to you computer. Sometimes when you update on here you updated comic will not show up on the front page so you might have to reupload and deleted the page.

But I feel that the best change for the new site would be using phpbb for the forums.
It looks better and is fully customizable and it is free (open source)

Also Drunk duck should support comicpress.

ledpusha
I think the new site should use phpbb forums. And also the site need decent speed compared to what is going on now on the current site. I think the ads might be killing the site speed because you have to wait on like 3-4 sites to stream the ad to you computer. Sometimes when you update on here you updated comic will not show up on the front page so you might have to reupload and deleted the page.

But I feel that the best change for the new site would be using phpbb for the forums.
It looks better and is fully customizable and it is free (open source)

Also Drunk duck should support comicpress.

-The main reason for the recent slowness was transfer of info from this site to the new one.

-phbb forums are easier to hack and they're not tied in with logins with the rest of the site. Your stuff is normally separate between the forum and everything else so you can't easily move between the two.

-Comicpress- yup, that's a good idea and I agree with it, but I think DD's system might be too specific and custom to work with it… Lawrence has special plans in that regard. I dunno though, maybe something could be worked out in future, Lawrence is a bright guy.

I got a question. Will all the PQs I've received be transferred over to the new site, or will they be lost? I ask because I've got comic scripts in there.

They intend to transfer ALL data, so no, they shouldn't get lost. however you really should keep that stuff as a backup on your own computer anyway, just for general safety's sake. Never keep something important just in one place!

Yeah, I already started saving them to word documents.

usedbooks
I could get used to a new name, but if we put it to a vote, I'd vote to remain the Drunk Duck. If you must rename it, for whatever reasons, PLEASE go with something at least remotely memorable or creative. Using “the” in a website name is either pretentious or hillbilly… (I gotta go check me out The Facebook and The Google.) It just sounds… awful.

Yea, I'll vote for that too :D

Testing post.
Boobies (.)(.)
Spaces JJ JJ J

Quote uyguyguyg
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lklkhlkjhkljh
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ljlkj
Pinky TA

srhdt wrote:
http://preview.drunkduck.com

After months of development and a lot of hard work, the new DrunkDuck sitenow just called, “The Duck”is LIVE as a public PREVIEW.

While the new site is not yet finished, it has reached a state where we feel comfortable allowing you, the Duck community, to take a look at the various design and feature improvements we've made and offer your feedback! The Duck community is of paramount importance to us, and we've really made an effort to not only massively enhance speed and stability overall, but also make feature and design improvements with an eye towards ease of use and accessibility for both creators and readers who visit the site. Our goal is that fans will have an easier time finding and following the webcomics they want to read, and comic creators at all levels of experience will be able to publish and manage their work on our site with as little hassle as possible.

Some of the technical highlights of the new site include:

- 100% NEW code-base rebuilt from the ground up in Python and utilizing the Django framework.
- Significant speed improvements across the entire site.
- Improved comic image delivery system using the Amazon Simple Storage Solution (S3).
- Very speedy site search.
- NEW: Front-facing content tags.
- NEW: Videos section.
- Security: Improvements to prevent the delivery of malware and spyware.
- Security: Improved user authentication system.
- Security: Improved user registration system.
- Comic Page Customization: We give Comic creators the ability to customize their pages without using insecure user-supplied HTML code.
- SEO: Improved Comic Page search engine visibility.
- Backup: We now have double-redundancy in Comic image backup.
- Social Media: Improved Twitter integration.
- Social Media: Improved QuackCast integration.
- Faster, more robust & efficient database architecture.
- We've implemented Get Satisfaction for better community support management.

The various Feature enhancements on the new site are perhaps too numerous to list, but if you'd like a detailed assessment of many of them on a page-by-page basis, please refer to the first post of the thread HERE

THINGS YOU NEED TO KNOW ABOUT THE PREVIEW SITE:

1. Much of the content currently found on DrunkDuck has not yet been migrated over to the preview site. Again, this is simply a preview version of the new site, and so only a fraction of the actual site's content (comics, profiles, forum threads, accounts, etc) have been brought over to give users a glimpse of how they will be displayed in the various sections of the site.

2. You can register for an account on the preview site, upload comics, make forum posts, create tutorials, etc. Just keep in mind that at the end of the preview period, all data added to the preview site will be completely WIPED, and the data on the current DrunkDuck will be migrated over to the new version of the site. We're giving users the ability to add content to the preview site in order to test out functionality, UI and bugs, so just be aware that NO CONTENT WILL BE SAVED.

3. Not all of the features of the final site have been implemented in the Preview. We will be rolling out additional features of the site during the preview period, which we will announce to the community.

4. Any and all feedback you wish to provide is GREATLY APPRECIATED. In particular, any bug or formatting issues you may encounter is something we'd definitely like to know about. When reporting bugs or issues, please provide your OS version, browser (with version number if possible) and what steps you took before experiencing the bug, so that we may try to replicate it on our end.

Thank you for your continued patience and support as we have been working to develop the new site. We hope you enjoy it!

JustNoPoint wrote:
Do we not get to edit the html on the new DD freely like we can on the current DD? ;_;

I'll lose my site designs? I see Charby and Cwen's Quest lost their designs aside from backgrounds, arrows, etc that can be edited. Will this feature be added before it goes live?

If you are worried about users removing the new very large ads that are on the site, just make the rule like normal where they are required.

I could edit my site to accommodate them.

I agree. Reformatting everyone's page is NOT okay. People worked hard on their layouts, and having a good, personalized layout is a big part of attracting new readers to your comic. I need my site ready in time for a convention, and now I have to start over?

I likr the redesign…. Now I will have to play with the html with the new site. I did namage to save my old html code before everyone was locked out of the site….. I may have to launch a new web comic. I don't know yet….

18+ asks you to log in even though you're already logged in.

How do I remove my comics? Because I sure as shit am not hosting them on this mess.
thanks, by the way, to whoever told me that bold faced lie that my template would carry over
edit: oh it's in the control panel, not in the comic editing panel, because that makese sense. Jesus christ, I cannot find a single goddamn thing on here.
edit 2: I find it pretty funny how I have to add paragraph breaks to my posts, too.

I haven't seen all posts yet, so sorry if I'm repeating something that it's already been said.
About the name change: While I understand why some people would like to keep it as Drunk Duck (it is is a name with personality after all, IMO), really don't think it's a deal breaker. It should be something more catchy than just “The Duck”…
About the color scheme: It could be better, but as a web designer, I've seen (and done) WAAAAAAY worst….
I'm kinda sad about the lost of the rate system, since I always felt the 5 without comment as a way to say “I have nothing to say, but I'm still enjoying your stuff”, guess we would have to actually say that.
Now, I'm still going through some things about the site, but there is two things that I'm kinda worried.
1.- About the HTML editing: I hope there will be a way to edit HTML or at least get a way to put Site Meter or Comic Rank trackers as well as Facebook, Twitter and Google+ buttons.
2.- About the adds: I'm sorry to say that, but I HATE the fact that there is two extra adds at the comic pages. I'm OK with the one on the header, isn't that distracting after all, but the ones besides the author notes and the comment section are just awful.
I understand the need of them, but their location is just horrible.
I'm not gonna throw a tantrum and threat with leave. Honestly, I love the comunity and all the awesome options that the site offers to guys like me who do webcomics for the sake of the pleasure of making and sharing them, and I really hate to complain, but those adds are just to damn intrusive.

lefarce wrote:
thanks, by the way, to whoever told me that bold faced lie that my template would carry over

This is what we were originally told- Hey I can't even send PQs, or even see them!
Many things are still being fixed.

Well it's back and it's horrible on the eyes. I cannot use the site like this.
Is this going to be addressed? All the posts about it in the get satisfation thing were ignored which is disgraceful. The colours are too hard on the eyes, I vannot even look at the screen as i type, this is NOT an exaggeration. For a site so dependent on the community having unusable forums it an extremely bad move.

Indybot and HTML concerned people: Yes, all custom HTML and the ability to use custom HTML on the comic/archive pages is now gone. There was a lot of information about this from months back, it has been a big issue and an ongoing bone of contention for the more advanced site users. We even talked to the developers about it on the Quackcast. Although they promise we will be able to do custom HTML on side pages, they never intended people to have that on their main comic page. They did initially say that custom html would be ported over, but that turned out to be technically impossible with the different codebases of the two sites. The compromise was meant to be a really robust system of customizable elements and widgets/plug-ins to do things like vote buttons and social networking, but due to constraints on their end a lot of that doesn't exist yet. Unfortunately all we can do right now is customize the colors and some images on the main comic pages.
Regarding the colors and formatting: Lots of people have complained about the colors from the beginning, some adjustments were made but I think more needs to be done. Currently the site formatting is doing some VERY wonky things though- layout elements and text are all over the place- so I think something has gone wrong there. What you're seeing in the forums (if your forums look anything like mine) is NOT how they should look and behave. (I do think the overall design of the new forums is harder to use, though.)

I hate to sound like a whiney brat, but this is utterly ridiculous.
No site design carrying over like they promised 100 times?
No “last post” ect. on the forums because it was loading too slow?
The same f****** loading issues?!
This god awful piss the site is unusable like this. There's no way that I (or a lot of other people) can run their comics this way! I can barely even comment in the forums because they're so hard to look at.
I'm abroad right now, so I don't have a lot of time to play around with this junk, but this is pathetic. Wowio should be ashamed, and we shouldn't have been so hopeful.

You should really join us in “that other comic host”. Many other DDers are already there. We can come back here in a few months after they hopefully sort this mess out :P
I would just PQ my friends here about it instead of posting about it… but we can't PQ either, so now I wonder even more why we can't advertise that site atm.

JustNoPoint wrote:
You should really join us in “that other comic host”. Many other DDers are already there. We can come back here in a few months after they hopefully sort this mess out :P
I would just PQ my friends here about it instead of posting about it… but we can't PQ either, so now I wonder even more why we can't advertise that site atm.

They hate competition.
Even more so, They hate competition with competent people who actually listen to the community running it.

JustNoPoint wrote:
You should really join us in “that other comic host”. Many other DDers are already there. We can come back here in a few months after they hopefully sort this mess out :P
I would just PQ my friends here about it instead of posting about it… but we can't PQ either, so now I wonder even more why we can't advertise that site atm.

You're on to something.
Why don't you e-mail me the details: n.oladipo@gmail.com. Maybe we can start an email list.