[WEB DEV] - What do you want to see?

[Wirah]

Hey all,

I've got a bit more free time right now thankfully and I'm getting bored with the YouTube stuff so this thread is for us to prioritize some web work.

Here are some ideas. Just let me know what you want to see.

TWL / TWDT WEBSITES
Ability to backtrack previous seasons (dropdown in top right?)
Feature to see total star ratings for each team (TWDT only)
Links to YouTube next to each match that was recorded and uploaded.

TWL / TWDT APPS
Would we benefit from having native apps for TWL and TWDT? Could this be fun? Would people install them and use them? How could we use push notifications to do interesting things?

FORUM REWRITE & APPS
I think everyone will agree that these forums have almost HAD IT. vBulletin has some issues. vB 5.0 just feels weird. I feel like it's overkill.. The skin looks like crap, we barely use most of the useless features that it comes with, Threads are now Topics. Forums are now Channels? Dumb. And most importantly some of the important features like EDITING POSTS are still half-broken even though we're on the latest stable major version.
A fun project could be to write some forum software in React, host it on Firebase (same tech as the TWL/TWDT websites), import all the threads and posts over etc. Basically keep the functionality as simple as possible and style it in a modern way. We would get true real-time functionality and there's also the added bonus of being able to roll out native iOS and Android apps that work alongside it. Wouldn't be too tricky if this was built using modern frameworks.

TWD SITE REWRITE & APPS
Does the TWD website need cleaning up? We could do it. Apps could be fun too. Match reports as pushes etc.

There's also existing work like fixing up the TWRC website ready for Bosshawk's racing championship that I need to look at too.


Any other ideas?

I'm most excited about rewriting these shitty forums to be honest, but can work on whatever feels like it will bring the most value.

[Rab]

previous seasons: meh
team total star ratings: sure
youtube links: meh
apps: no
replace the forum: I think it's ok, it works. If replacing it, I like https://xenforo.com/
twd site: not worth, twd is basically dead
twrc site: ok sure, could just remove the flash and call it done though.

My 2c:

I'm concerned about having websites on a server without access to the tw database. Manual data entry means projects will eventually fail to be updated and will die off. See: https://subspace-events.com/ I'm concerned about using a stack which afaik only you use. If you get hit by a bus all the sites die with you. We're getting fragmented into pre/post wirah sites. For this particular game, the most important requirement for the sites is requiring little/no maintenance. I'd rather see a simplification of existing sites. Updating to the latest PHP version. Usability updates for wider monitors and bigger fonts. Smaller surface area to exploit to improve security. New home pages for tw.org and twd sites to show people stuff they actually might want, instead of outdated news.

So really I guess I want to see that we have a strategy which covers tw's entire web presence, which can be scrutinized, approved, and followed. I realise this takes a lot of the fun out of the work :/

[Tiny]

Hey all,

I've got a bit more free time right now thankfully and I'm getting bored with the YouTube stuff so this thread is for us to prioritize some web work.

Here are some ideas. Just let me know what you want to see.

TWL / TWDT WEBSITES
Ability to backtrack previous seasons (dropdown in top right?)
Feature to see total star ratings for each team (TWDT only)
Links to YouTube next to each match that was recorded and uploaded.

TWL / TWDT APPS
Would we benefit from having native apps for TWL and TWDT? Could this be fun? Would people install them and use them? How could we use push notifications to do interesting things?

FORUM REWRITE & APPS
I think everyone will agree that these forums have almost HAD IT. vBulletin has some issues. vB 5.0 just feels weird. I feel like it's overkill.. The skin looks like crap, we barely use most of the useless features that it comes with, Threads are now Topics. Forums are now Channels? Dumb. And most importantly some of the important features like EDITING POSTS are still half-broken even though we're on the latest stable major version.
A fun project could be to write some forum software in React, host it on Firebase (same tech as the TWL/TWDT websites), import all the threads and posts over etc. Basically keep the functionality as simple as possible and style it in a modern way. We would get true real-time functionality and there's also the added bonus of being able to roll out native iOS and Android apps that work alongside it. Wouldn't be too tricky if this was built using modern frameworks.

TWD SITE REWRITE & APPS
Does the TWD website need cleaning up? We could do it. Apps could be fun too. Match reports as pushes etc.

There's also existing work like fixing up the TWRC website ready for Bosshawk's racing championship that I need to look at too.


Any other ideas?

I'm most excited about rewriting these shitty forums to be honest, but can work on whatever feels like it will bring the most value.

I think TWDT being completely on a website with complete functionality with HONs on it, teams, schedules, scores, standings, stats, and maybe a team builder option that has every player in twdt for each league. Could be a quick way for staff to look up roster caps too etc etc. TWDT should be focus if we have your efforts ready to plug away. Thanks for this ahead of time for any work you donate.

[Tiny]

A trade page to post trades and have the op come approve it etc..not on forums

[Jerome Scuggs]

considering when the twd website was designed, its safe to say it could use some updating - even if nothing changed outwardly, i'd wager the backend could use some refining to take advantage of newer tech and methods which have since been written. i get the feeling that quite a bit of bandwidth could be saved, but i'd have to sit down and really dig in with an inspector to be more specific

i am wary of an app because it seems like the trend now is to basically take a website and throw a wrapper around it (fuck you electron), though it seems like you clearly intend to put some actual effort into it so it cant be dismissed outright...

but i think the approach which would be used by a wider base would be to simply design a mobile-friendly twd webpage, which displays the information people tend to look at the most when on a phone - i'd wager that would most likely be things like current matches, recent match results, on the move, and maybe player profiles. nix the graphics and fluff to a point where someone with one or two bars of signal in the middle of brazil could see match results in 15 seconds or less after pulling up Jajajabrowser or whatever

[Exalt]

I'd like to know why the site all of a sudden has an invalid certificate and why I'm getting server errors everytime I try to post from my phone. I can't use my phone at all to post now. Please update the certificate on this forum before you try working on something else.

[Bosshawk]

yeah i just posted that to dev exalt..