Hi All,

Short version:

Todays changes to the site include:

• Addition of /creator/ shortcut, to go directly to a creators profile by name
• Addition of /member/ shortcut, which acts like the above
• Change to the download pages, whereby the Featured items now get shown in pages other than the download root, so you can, for example, go into the Sims section and see only the featured Sims.
• Changed some of the links to the members profiles on the download screen to use the new shortcuts above

Long version:

Firstly, As you know, on MTS2 - as on every vBulletin board - member profiles are traditionally accessed via your userid (the id number you get when registering - mine is id 1 for example).

Some of you may have known about the /members/ shortcut to access your profile for a while, however, previously this just did a straight redirect to your profile. Today I have slightly changed this system to the following:

- All download pages now reference the creator by using /creator/creatorname, for example /creator/Numenor or /creator/V1ND1CARE
- You member profile (and thus, downloads), can be referenced by using /member/membername. This is essentially the same as the creator shortcut above.

What does this mean really? Well, instead of being http://www.modthesims2.com/member.php?u=1, you can be http://www.modthesims2.com/member/delphy (well, ok, you can't really be me, but you know what I mean). Essentially this gives you a "home" on MTS2 thats linked to your creator or member name directly - much more friendly and above all it's easier to remember.

You can put your /member/ shortcut in your signature, on other boards - wherever you like, and you'll be much more accessable.

Secondly, I have extended the featured creation system so that it follows you as you "drill down" through sections. Click on Downloads has traditionally given you only the latest 3 featured + a random one. This has meant that once a featured item is bumped off the front page, it's only accessable through the normal download browsing or through the special Featured page.

Today, when you browse down through sections, you'll see that sections featured downloads at the top. As an example - if you go to Downloads and then click on Lots & Housing, you'll see only the featured items within Lots & Housings. Then, if you click into Residential, you'll see only Residential Featured items. It means that Featured items are much more visible and also gives the staff a little more flexibility since bumping something off the front page wont be as detrimental to a downloads popularity anymore.

That's it for today - small changes, but some nice ones. I'd recommend that everybody start using either the /creator/username (for creators), or /member/username (for normal people).

Additional information: 12th December 2006

I have implemented a caching system for the Featured item slots on the download pages. This saves 2 mySQL database queries per user per refresh of the download pages, but has the caveat that the "Random" featured item (the right most one) only updates every 30 minutes now - however this has the knock on advantage of creating more exposure for older featured items in addition to having them on the sub-forum download pages.

Don't be suprised if, after being used to having random featured items show up on the download pages, you see the same one for a while.

End of changes

As usual, any comments or feedback or questions, let me know.

Regards
Delphy

Last edited by Delphy : 12th Dec 2006 at 04:53 PM.

Nice Update!

Clovests2

Being John Malkovich is outdated - Being Delphy sounds much better, No. 1 (Poser! ) As long as it's just temporaty...
The new member "homes" (either the creator or member way of finding a certain one - it even works to find a creator with his/her member name only ) are great, a lot better than trying to remember a number! (I made it to remember 2, too lazy to search all the time )
Took me a moment to understand what you mean with the Featured Item improvement (because of language troubles) but after understanding I think it's a clever solution, offers better fitting featured items, cool!

Very well done!

I love having a name instead of a number. I feel like a real person with my pseudoname now. sniff.

Thanks, seriously. Those are thoughtful changes.

Awesome, it will be very easy to write credit an thanks lines !
thank you http://www.modthesims2.com/member/delphy

Nice update and thanks for everything you've done for MTS2 Delphy !

I have a little problem... as you can see there's a weird character in my name ( ♣ ) so clicking on it to see my profile isn't possible now... maybe I shouldn't have registered with this character but I hadn't had any problems until now.

Cool, seems to make things a bit easier, thanks.

This really will help out those linking to people, now they dont have to remember the ID, all they need to know is how to spell their Username!

Thanks alot for these great changes!

Hi Ben,

Thanks for the report - the "foreign" and strange characters obviously aren't liked by the member.php script. I'll see if I can fix this.

Great update as usual, Delphy. You're like a vBulliten Deity.

or how about... The G-O-D of P-H-P?

I dunno... I've just had too much coffee today. Excuse my idiocy. ;p

Very good Idea, Thanx SO much Delphy!

I like the changes, it'll make things much easier! Thank you Delphy!

I wasn't aware we had numbers, but nice improvement. Feels better than a number. Like patul said it will be very easy to write credits and thanks when linking directly to a creator's page as it's much easier to remember names than numbers. Thank you for the thoughtful updates.

Okay, Ben, (and this affected Marylou & Numenor too), I've fixed the problem with the illegal characters not linking to the right profile - thanks for the heads up.

Regards
Delphy

The changes are all great, but I can't for the life of me figure out how to get to the featured items now.

As usual, Downloads -> Featured Items, then choose a Subsection OR Downloads -> Section, there click the Featured Object on top of the page.
Roger?

Thank you :D

Ah, I love how the creators aren't normal people.

BTW, thank you very much! This will really improve site usability.

Ooh these "member" urls are fantabulous, but the "creator" ones don't seem to be working right. Examples:

http://www.modthesims2.com/member/Numenor

http://www.modthesims2.com/creator/Numenor

http://www.modthesims2.com/member/fanseelamb

http://www.modthesims2.com/creator/fanseelamb

Last edited by fanseelamb : 11th Dec 2006 at 01:06 AM.

Great idea, thank you.

Now we know the truth about creators, we don't really exist :D
I am sure it's just one little character or something that slipped in there... :P

I'm not sure if I should thank you for the improvement, or pout because you've made a site that is already so well-designed and friendly even more fun to navigate around-- my loved ones are going to hold an intervention if I spend anymore time here than I already do!

fansee, thanks for the heads up - turns out when I added support for the foreign chars in the names I broke the /creator/ links It's all fixed now though

I like the idea about the featured downloads being applicable to the type of download you are browsing. It took me almost a year to actually get to browsing the featured downolad area and I noticed that I had missed a lot of great stuff.

Dream

Last edited by dream_operator23 : 11th Dec 2006 at 10:41 PM.

I still can't see the full-list of featured downloads anymore - whenever I click on the 'featured downloads' link it bumps me to the root download menu, and the featured list is empty...