The Energon Pub

News Credits: 1 · by **vectorA3** » Sat Mar 13, 2010 9:40 pm

i'm not getting the error message anymore so far. Yay! Now if only i could find my OG SW. He's probably buried under boxes & will turn up in the last place i look. I bought a re-issue Ravage recently & want to 'eject' him!!

by **Quaternion** » Sun Mar 14, 2010 12:24 am

One last little nitpick. This is not a problem so much as a suggestion for the next site redesign. I know that the designer of this site loves his big featured news auto-changing billboard at the top of the front page. However this is kind of annoying from an human-computer perspective. Here is why.

I would bet that most people come to the front page for the same reasons as I do: 1) to look at the latest news roll and 2) to look at the galleries. The featured news billboard is so rarely updated, I usually just ignore it. This means that every time I come to the site, I have to scroll down below the featured billboard just to get at what I want to see. A way to make everyone's experience at the site more efficient is to put the most sought after information at the top of the page, thereby removing the need for a frequent scroll interaction.

So, my suggestion is to make the featured news billboard smaller and move it to a less obstructive position on the front page.

News Credits: 1452 · by **Blurrz** » Sun Mar 14, 2010 12:31 am

Oh no, scrolling down is so much hard work!

You've got a great opinion but the Spotlight is there to do it's job - being a spotlight. It's not difficult to scroll down and it's not that obtrusive.

by **Quaternion** » Sun Mar 14, 2010 12:55 am

Blurrz wrote:Oh no, scrolling down is so much hard work!

You've got a great opinion but the Spotlight is there to do it's job - being a spotlight. It's not difficult to scroll down and it's not that obtrusive.

The field of human-computer interaction might disagree with you.

I bet if you could track user's mouse actions, you would find that most people interact with the site in the same way that I do, by scrolling through and skipping the spotlight. I'm just offering a suggestion to make the site be easier to use. At least testing these kinds of ideas can make for happier users. It is always important to consider how your users interact with your site and never get attached to some part just because it is a proud example excellent coding. If your users don't pay attention to the spotlight, then it's time to reevaluate its importance and the usability if your site.

perhaps this could be helpful: http://www.usability.gov/guidelines/

News Credits: 1452 · by **Blurrz** » Sun Mar 14, 2010 1:10 am

I think regardless of what we do our hits will be fine. The spotlight's been up there for years and we haven't lost users when we've changed our website layout... the only reason hits go up and down depends on whether or not the Movie craze is on or a cartoon produces episodes every week or we get huge news.

You've got a good point, but the Spotlight's been a tradition. It sets us apart from the other Transformers websites and I really don't think it hinders us one bit.

by **Quaternion** » Sun Mar 14, 2010 1:26 am

Understood. But I'm not saying get rid of it. Maybe it could be next to the news instead of taking up the whole screen above the news.

If you must keep it the way it is, then my only suggestion would be to use it more effectively. For example, you could update it more often.

News Credits: 1452 · by **Blurrz** » Sun Mar 14, 2010 1:34 am

Hey, I wish I could. In all honesty I don't really have much of a say although I've been the face of the site since my tenure of the news. We generally use it on news related only to things that promote our site, like galleries, reviews and such. In all honesty the months of March and April tend to be slow every year, regardless if there's a movie or anything else coming up. Everything went haywire ever since the Frightening Fiasco of February where our server just tanked... I'm just happy that we have a site that works.

News Credits: 1 · by **vectorA3** » Sun Mar 14, 2010 7:05 am

quaternion -- So demanding!!!!!!!!

Are you sure this guy's not a quint??!?! :-?

by **Quaternion** » Sun Mar 14, 2010 10:38 am

vectorA3 wrote:quaternion -- So demanding!!!!!!!!

Are you sure this guy's not a quint??!?!

No, I'm innocent. But be careful what you say, or I might throw you to the Sharkticons...

News Credits: 1 · by **vectorA3** » Mon Mar 15, 2010 3:20 am

Oh with your bailiff Roy? I'm good friends with him. :lol:

News Credits: 1 · by **Didicos** » Mon Mar 15, 2010 10:28 am

While checking the Usergroups section of my User Control Panel today I noticed that I am a member of the "Autobots" group.The last time I checked it(probably a couple of months ago!) I was only a member of the "Registered Users" group. Also,according to the group's description This is a closed group, new members can only join upon invitation of a group leader but I don't remember being invited by anyone..! I don't mind being placed in this or any other group but I would like to know how the whole thing works and what does it mean for me as a user and member of Seibertron.com...

News Credits: 1452 · by **Blurrz** » Mon Mar 15, 2010 11:39 am

I think that's the Heavy Metal War Faction. I'm not sure if you play the game, but if you do you're generally assigne to that faction.

News Credits: 1 · by **Didicos** » Mon Mar 15, 2010 12:43 pm

I used to play HMW for a short time period,so it has to be that.
Thanks Blurrz...

News Credits: 127 · by **Counterpunch** » Thu Mar 18, 2010 11:28 am

Problem: Typing long amounts of text in the forum reply box

When I do this, particularly when there is more text than the box can show at one time, the cursor will jump between where the last bit of text actually is (when I'm typing) to where the first space is on the last line of the visible text box.

I have to go and type in a Word document when the post gets lengthy and then paste it because otherwise, I can't see what's being typed as the jumping gets so bad.

I've described it the best I can.

News Credits: 456 · by **Sabrblade** » Tue Mar 23, 2010 1:35 pm

Beast Wars Rhinox's gallery images are included in the McDonalds Rhino gallery.

News Credits: 1 · by **vectorA3** » Wed Mar 24, 2010 4:53 am

FL, the neglected state?? Not with Botcon and Celebration V months apart!!! Lucky *(&%^^&*(!!!

by **Necessary Evil** » Sat Mar 27, 2010 2:38 am

Counterpunch wrote:Problem: Typing long amounts of text in the forum reply box

When I do this, particularly when there is more text than the box can show at one time, the cursor will jump between where the last bit of text actually is (when I'm typing) to where the first space is on the last line of the visible text box.

I have to go and type in a Word document when the post gets lengthy and then paste it because otherwise, I can't see what's being typed as the jumping gets so bad.

I've described it the best I can.

I can vouch for you, CP. I have the same problem when I'm typing up a fair sized RPG post.

All that "jumping" kills me, too. So, yeah, I do the same thing and type in a Word document then paste it in the reply box.

Real painful, isn't it?

News Credits: 3 · by **Name_Violation** » Sat Mar 27, 2010 11:26 am

when i click on the link to show a post from someone i've marked as a foe i get a error 404 message saying the page doesn't exist

News Credits: 88 · by **DavidT** » Mon Mar 29, 2010 3:55 pm

Over the last week, the loading time between pages has slowed down. It's like the page loads and then freezes for 5 seconds before I can navigate. It's only happening on this site...

.

News Credits: 33 · by **Amelie** » Mon Mar 29, 2010 9:00 pm

Counterpunch wrote:Problem: Typing long amounts of text in the forum reply box

When I do this, particularly when there is more text than the box can show at one time, the cursor will jump between where the last bit of text actually is (when I'm typing) to where the first space is on the last line of the visible text box.

I have to go and type in a Word document when the post gets lengthy and then paste it because otherwise, I can't see what's being typed as the jumping gets so bad.

I've described it the best I can.

This. It's happened to me as well - I was beggining to think it was my own fault for using IE8.

Also, sometimes when I posts, it claims I've posted and when I click to view my post - nothing is there.

News Credits: 8 · by **Forgotten** » Tue Mar 30, 2010 10:27 pm

Amelie wrote:
Counterpunch wrote:Problem: Typing long amounts of text in the forum reply box

When I do this, particularly when there is more text than the box can show at one time, the cursor will jump between where the last bit of text actually is (when I'm typing) to where the first space is on the last line of the visible text box.

I have to go and type in a Word document when the post gets lengthy and then paste it because otherwise, I can't see what's being typed as the jumping gets so bad.

I've described it the best I can.

This. It's happened to me as well - I was beggining to think it was my own fault for using IE8.

Also, sometimes when I posts, it claims I've posted and when I click to view my post - nothing is there.

That happens to me on my Mac and on my iPhone, but my desktops don't have that issue and I use IE8.

News Credits: 88 · by **DavidT** » Thu Apr 01, 2010 10:05 pm

Still having the 5 second pause before I can navigate through each page... any ideas?

.

by **Necessary Evil** » Fri Apr 02, 2010 2:09 am

DavidT wrote:Over the last week, the loading time between pages has slowed down. It's like the page loads and then freezes for 5 seconds before I can navigate. It's only happening on this site...

Actually, I'm having this problem, too. Well a similar problem, at least.

Seriously, it feels like I'm spending all my time on here refreshing and waiting for the pages to load. It can be so slow at times... I think I'm about to lose my mind. 8-}

In fact, as I quoted DavidT, I had to refresh the page. Twice.

News Credits: 8 · by **Forgotten** » Fri Apr 02, 2010 5:51 am

Plaything wrote:
DavidT wrote:Over the last week, the loading time between pages has slowed down. It's like the page loads and then freezes for 5 seconds before I can navigate. It's only happening on this site...

Actually, I'm having this problem, too. Well a similar problem, at least.

Seriously, it feels like I'm spending all my time on here refreshing and waiting for the pages to load. It can be so slow at times... I think I'm about to lose my mind.

In fact, as I quoted DavidT, I had to refresh the page. Twice.

I figured it was just latency issues due to the server hosting the site being hit by all of the people needing their plastic crack fix.

by **Quaternion** » Thu Apr 29, 2010 2:08 pm

Blurrz wrote:Hey, I wish I could. In all honesty I don't really have much of a say although I've been the face of the site since my tenure of the news. We generally use it on news related only to things that promote our site, like galleries, reviews and such. In all honesty the months of March and April tend to be slow every year, regardless if there's a movie or anything else coming up. Everything went haywire ever since the Frightening Fiasco of February where our server just tanked... I'm just happy that we have a site that works.

Since this last comment, it seems you guys have been updating the spotlight a lot more lately with things other than just seibertron.com promotion. Now, I don't just skip over it. I actually find the spotlight interesting now that it changes so much. I don't know if this is just due to the influx of news or if you guys are actively trying to make more spotlights, but lately it's been much improved. Thanks!