Alters [library support]

[Wormopolis]

Aug 5, 2013 12:37:05 GMT -8 riddlekins said:

Tried something similar, but it doesn't pull up any information.

I was replying to Tohsaka.. I totally didnt see you sneak in your post.


I put alters on their own tab because it seemed like people would want them seperated.  my code creates the tab itself and populates it. 

you are looking to just make a list of Alter names and that is it? 

[Tohsaka Rin]

Hm, yep that didn't change a thing wormo! Please don't murder me... I tried taking out the line breaks (<br>) and putting all the code into one like without "enter" breaks between them like I usually do with the code and nothing different was displayed. I copied your code in, took out all additional center tags too.

[Wormopolis]

can you link me to a post so I can look at one directly. I tried last night but I kept finding posts where the later had been deleted (or possibly lost)

[Tohsaka Rin]

Aug 5, 2013 16:04:41 GMT -8 Wormopolis said:

can you link me to a post so I can look at one directly. I tried last night but I kept finding posts where the later had been deleted (or possibly lost)

Hahaha, yeah, after the updated code wiped all the alters a week or so ago I had to remake them and so all those posts are obsolete. This is a new one!

[Bloop]

[Wormopolis]

If you remake characters with the exact same name, they should re-attach




so this is what Im seeing when I look at that mini-profile:


she likes the word "Snip"


do you still have all the <br> tags removed?

maybe put the name into the avatar div?

[Tohsaka Rin]

Well, yes, all the break tags are removed but what you posted is different from what I see on my screen in my plugin box as well. Some of the center tags in what you posted are not the same either. I don't really know what is being posted now. What I placed in the quote stuff here was what is in my avatar plugin.

Even when taking out the other breaks, the space under the avatar and below personal text remains.

[Wormopolis]

did I get the wrong profile? I thought was an alter based on the URL in the username link...

[Tohsaka Rin]

Yes, it was. Just that the code you posted most certainly does not look like what I have typed in my plugin. I will show you an example..

Snip!

Yes, it was. Just that the code you posted most certainly does not look like what I have typed in my plugin. I will show you an example..

What is in my alias MP plug:

Snip snip!

[Wormopolis]

wait wait.. I found it. its when it pulls the avatar and personal text info from the plugin settings, I have some HTML added at the end of that. Im clearing that out now, but unless you update you wont see changes.

I would wait to update until Tim finishes his project.

sorry about all that. it was at the end of a really long line and I didnt scroll over far enough

[Tohsaka Rin]

Nope, that is fine! I am patient enough to wait. For now I will revert my changes till the update is ready to go.

You deserve breaks for your effort on keeping up with so many plugins; or my pestering.

[riddlekins]

Aug 5, 2013 12:41:20 GMT -8 Wormopolis said:

I put alters on their own tab because it seemed like people would want them seperated.  my code creates the tab itself and populates it. 

you are looking to just make a list of Alter names and that is it? 

Yes.  Just a quick view (without the avatars or links) on the Summary portion of the profile page that says, "Characters: Alter 1, Alter 2".  I just can't figure out how to get those alter names to show up, though.  XD

[Wormopolis]

put this in the profile template in the spot you want the list to appear:


               <script type="text/javascript">
                   var alter_settings=proboards.plugin.get('wormocodes_alters').settings;
                   var alter_results='';
                   if (alter_settings) {
                       for (ss=0; ss<alter_settings.character_field.length; ss++) {
                           if (alter_settings.character_field[ss].user_id==$[user.id]) {
                               var groupclasses='';
                               if (alter_settings.character_field[ss].forum_groups.length>0) {
                                   for (fg=alter_settings.character_field[ss].forum_groups, gg=0; gg<fg.length; gg++) {
                                       groupclasses+=' group-'+fg[gg];
                                   }
                               }
                               
                               alter_results+='<a  class="user-link' + groupclasses + '" href="' +
                                   (alter_settings.character_field[ss].character_bio ? (alter_settings.character_field[ss].character_bio) : '') + '" ' +
                                   (alter_settings.character_field[ss].display_name_color ? 'style="margin-left:10px; color:#'+alter_settings.character_field[ss].display_name_color+'"' : '')+ '>' +
                                   alter_settings.character_field[ss].display_name + '</a><br>';
                           }
                       }
                       if (alter_results) {
                           document.write('<div class="content-box center-col">Alters:<br>'+alter_results+'</div>');
                       }
                   }
               </script>


[riddlekins]

Perfect! Thank you so much. Such amazing support for this plug-in. =D

[Wormopolis]

A few people have expressed interest in "community" Alters. where more then 1 person has access to post with an alter.

the access is easy, its not difficult to make it appear in the dropdown, its the other parts of a "community" alter that have to be defined.

unless you are using companion to track the ACTUAL alter postcount, how do you define the postcount for the alter? currently it takes a percentage defined by admin (or whoever created char) and applies that towards the owners postcount. so if you have 15% for the alter, and the owner has 400 posts, the alter shows 60 posts. if youhave mutliple owners, the alter will have a postcount all over the place as each different person makes apost with it. the only viable solution would be to never show postcount for a community alter (unless runnig companion).

also, alters are displayed on a tab in the owners profile. do community alters display on someone's profile tab as well?

once these are defined, I can add them in.

---

update on current version. I have fixed a bunch of small bugs people have found, but the biggest obstacle still remain of quoting an alter. currently if you quote a post an alter has made, it puts the owner's info into the message area for the quote. I have been able to sorta manipulate the UBBC side of things, but I am having a lot of difficulty with the live preview part. Im still trying to get it to work.

I also added in a "username" variable that when you create the alter, you give it a username AND YOU NEVER CHANGE IT. just like a forum username. except not as secure since you actually CAN change the username. however you wont want to because all future posts will be stored by username instead of display name. why? because then you can change the displayname to anything you want and it wont unbind from the posts. just like a regular account. its like inception now. alterception.

---

2 additonal ideas:

expansion pack - an additional plugin that doesnt use any keys, but allows you to store more characters that are appended to the main code's data store. the main code can not hold an infinite amount of characters, it would depend on how big they are. plugins hold 64K of data.. so roughly 64000 letters. if each character was 4000 letters - roughly- then you could store 12-15 characters in the main code alone. if you needed to have more, the second plugin would hold roughly the same (its all estimated folks). and the main code could access them just like its own.

character submissions - because I had to store the characters in the plugin (because there just wouldnt be enough room ina super-user key for more then a few characters), the admin has to do most the work in setting up each alter. so based on the idea that Peter came up with for restoring lost data after an update, I was thinking of a predefined posting template style code, where a member can put in all the information an alter would need. once the admin approves, they hit a button and copy some text. then go to the plugin settings and run a bookmarklet. the bookmarklet asks for the copied text, finds the blank character form, and fills it in. reduces a lot of the work involved that way, AND can keep someone from putting naughty things that doesnt get vetted by staff.

thoughts?

[Tohsaka Rin]

Aug 6, 2013 16:37:14 GMT -8 Wormopolis said:

A few people have expressed interest in "community" Alters. where more then 1 person has access to post with an alter.

the access is easy, its not difficult to make it appear in the dropdown, its the other parts of a "community" alter that have to be defined.

unless you are using companion to track the ACTUAL alter postcount, how do you define the postcount for the alter? currently it takes a percentage defined by admin (or whoever created char) and applies that towards the owners postcount. so if you have 15% for the alter, and the owner has 400 posts, the alter shows 60 posts. if youhave mutliple owners, the alter will have a postcount all over the place as each different person makes apost with it. the only viable solution would be to never show postcount for a community alter (unless runnig companion).

also, alters are displayed on a tab in the owners profile. do community alters display on someone's profile tab as well?

once these are defined, I can add them in.

^ Though I will not be using this, my thoughts would be that the companion might be a less stressful headache than taking the percentages of x fluxuating variables of members belonging to a specified group. Say that group has members that drop out, or are added, and then they drop or get re-added, that number would constantly be changing.

You could advise that a person be promoted to the group "leader" and then the designated leaders posts are tracked by that particular alias...rather than everyone.

But, that requires people to constantly remember to promote someone in the group to the leader.

As far as having them displayed, the way we have it now is that it is a vertical row of alters listed in the profile, why not put an hr break and put a title "x" group alters and a horizontal list?

Then again, why not do it as a horizontal list for the whole thing?

Tohsaka's Alters:
Avatar Image            Avatar Image            Avatar Image            Avatar Image

    Name                       Name                        Name                      Name
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Magi (Group) Alters:
Avatar Image            Avatar Image            Avatar Image            Avatar Image
   Name                        Name                       Name                      Name

Rather than:

Tohsaka's Alters:
Avatar Image
    Name

Avatar Image
    Name

Avatar Image
    Name

Avatar Image
    Name

----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Magi's (Group) Alters:
Avatar Image
    Name

Avatar Image
    Name

Avatar Image
    Name

Avatar Image
    Name

What you can do is create an option in the plugin of how many columns (max) you allow per line to help with all the custom widths sites use; then it auto'fills the rows up to the max number of columns defined.

My personal suggestion is to go with the "group leader" post count.

---

Aug 6, 2013 16:37:14 GMT -8 Wormopolis said:

update on current version. I have fixed a bunch of small bugs people have found, but the biggest obstacle still remain of quoting an alter. currently if you quote a post an alter has made, it puts the owner's info into the message area for the quote. I have been able to sorta manipulate the UBBC side of things, but I am having a lot of difficulty with the live preview part. Im still trying to get it to work.

I also added in a "username" variable that when you create the alter, you give it a username AND YOU NEVER CHANGE IT. just like a forum username. except not as secure since you actually CAN change the username. however you wont want to because all future posts will be stored by username instead of display name. why? because then you can change the displayname to anything you want and it wont unbind from the posts. just like a regular account. its like inception now. alterception.

Hahaha, same as above. I probably won't use this, but here is my thought on it.

If you give the alt a username variable it might help with saving key data later in the event something crashes between versions. By doing this, you might be able to tag the "quote" function to finding the username variable rather than the original author's variable? It should have the quote target the thread/post number that was still made by said alias without much problem, right? Is the issue that it is linking to the user owning the alias or the fact that the alias itself may need a username to target the quote?

I don't have answers for that since these are things that even I don't know.

For the username variable, as stated earlier, maybe that will help with saving key data so that if versions change/crash/do not save right the key can retrieve that information after it is recreated because a "hard" save version of the username still exists? The thing that I see as a benefit here, if this is the case, is that say you make a post with an alter today, tomorrow the plugin crashes, you go reload everything but that post you made yesterday isn't going to have your alter tagged to it because that post was no longer counted/targeted by your alter (as it stopped existing 24 hours later.)

If there is a username tagged to it the post might show up that a "guest" posted it, but leave the username behind? Or can something be put in as an {if}{else if} where:

{if} - alias exists, key to username and pull alias data for post.
{else if} - alias somehow does not exist, key username to user and pull user data for post.

Again, I really apologize, I do not code...but all I can help with is theory here on things I use to know and worked with in the past.

---

Aug 6, 2013 16:37:14 GMT -8 Wormopolis said:

2 additonal ideas:

expansion pack - an additional plugin that doesnt use any keys, but allows you to store more characters that are appended to the main code's data store. the main code can not hold an infinite amount of characters, it would depend on how big they are. plugins hold 64K of data.. so roughly 64000 letters. if each character was 4000 letters - roughly- then you could store 12-15 characters in the main code alone. if you needed to have more, the second plugin would hold roughly the same (its all estimated folks). and the main code could access them just like its own.

character submissions - because I had to store the characters in the plugin (because there just wouldnt be enough room ina super-user key for more then a few characters), the admin has to do most the work in setting up each alter. so based on the idea that Peter came up with for restoring lost data after an update, I was thinking of a predefined posting template style code, where a member can put in all the information an alter would need. once the admin approves, they hit a button and copy some text. then go to the plugin settings and run a bookmarklet. the bookmarklet asks for the copied text, finds the blank character form, and fills it in. reduces a lot of the work involved that way, AND can keep someone from putting naughty things that doesnt get vetted by staff.

thoughts?

If you designate some space on the original plugin, or hell the companion can save the username function, saving the data to either the original plugin or an expansion slot plugin might not be too difficult because all that information can be fetched between plugins using the username and/or whatever.

Crud, this turned my brain to jelly in a mere moment. Let me revise this a little.

The companion should save all super-key necessities such as username, variables for {if}{elseif} mentioned above to help quotes, and track that specific information to help alleviate the headache of data crashes. The ability to try submissions could also be designated to the companion.

The alias plugin itself could then have some room freed up for additional character spaces, and if an expansion plug is needed then both it, and the original, could always target the companion?

The bookmarklet sounds like you need to just make a "request form" for the plugin to save data put in by the user, and have staff approve it's saves into the key of the plugin itself. Rather than an admin having to do all the work I like the idea that everyone can fill it out themselves and just allow us to approve it. I already use a manual template for that myself to save time but I still have to go back and manually edit everything in on my own.

Enable alias request auto-form? Yes please~

Why not try that route with a custom page? "Copy this code into a blank custom page" and the submit function can send whatever is necessary to the mods in charge of plugins (or the plugin itself) displaying the following:

Alias Requests:
 -You have x requests pending.

Avatar Image                                Approve|Deny
        Alias Name                                By: User

Avatar Image                                Approve|Deny
        Alias Name                                By: User

---

Have I hurt your brain again?

Even re-reading this over makes me wonder if we can swap the original plugin to a super, and have all expansions be normal plugs without supers. ^@,@^ I don't know how hard that would be but rather than have stuff go between THREE different plugins (regular, companion, expansion) it would use TWO (regular+companion, and the expansion)?