Monkey Forum / Site Enhancements

Monkey Archive Forums/Monkey Discussion/Monkey Forum / Site Enhancements

therevills(Posted 2012) [#1]
Since the Monkey site is very similar to the BlitzBasic site, could we please have a few simple enhancements?

Forum:

* Preview Post Button
* Link to forum codes
* Fix the first day of the month bug!!!

Site:

* Wiki / Docs Link


(Image by Shinkiro1)

Thanks!


Samah(Posted 2012) [#2]
lol.


muddy_shoes(Posted 2012) [#3]
Pagination, please. I'm tired of loading up 100 post long pages full of massive code pastes, images and signatures just to scroll down to the bottom to see a one line post.


Soap(Posted 2012) [#4]
Maybe hire someone to upgrade the site / manage marketing? Monkey is great, but the marketing for it is almost non-existent...

Compare the Monkey site to: http://www.scirra.com/construct2

There are too many great things to list which they do to improve their reach and and sales. I am not interested in using their software, but their site is really good.


mardrag(Posted 2012) [#5]
One marketing strategy could be to sell a boxed version of "Monkey"(but still remaining to sell it online through this site too).

I think Blitz3D had a boxed version several years ago (which was sold in shops). Did that had an effect on its overall sales?


Paul - Taiphoz(Posted 2012) [#6]
I own two copies of the boxed B3D, its still one of the best manuals iv seen, reminded me so much of my Amstrad CPC 464 manual.

There is something nice about flicking through the pages of a book to find what your looking for.

As for fight enhancments, I would like forum avatars, post counts, and a + - thumb up and down buttons on posts so people can easily highlight the responses that helped them the most.

Either that or change forum software to something professional.


Shinkiro1(Posted 2012) [#7]
I have to say i like the familiarity of this board and wouldn't change much.

* Wiki Link
* Post Preview
* RSS Support

RSS Support may be the biggest one because you don't waste time looking for things that aren't there.

@Taiphoz: Please not thumbs up/down buttons. The tendency is that many just post 'funny' comments to get a thumbs up. Avatars and post counts would be ok I guess, on the other hand they don't really add anything useful.


Paul - Taiphoz(Posted 2012) [#8]
Shinkiro, could easily rename them then to [Helped][Didnt Help] or something like that.

I'v used a number of forums with this type of functionality and bar a few silly things people use the feature for its intended purpose and it really helps .

The last one I used a few hours ago, found via searching for a bit of code help via google when I found the forum and noticed the feature was in use I didn't read any of the replies and quickly scrolled down and then through 7 pages until I found one that was flagged as thumbs up, and it had my solution.

Had that forum not had that feature in use I would have had to read through pages and pages of random stuff to get to what I wanted.


Soap(Posted 2012) [#9]
I agree with no avatars / post counts... the only features which are annoying for me are no pagination, and it would be nice to have a "New posts since last visit" option to quickly see anything new.

It's better to just be positive so if a karma type thing were added only have an upvote/heart option not downvote.

At the top where about and download buttons are I'd add a tutorial button and then allow us to post articles / videos explaining things to new people.


Paul - Taiphoz(Posted 2012) [#10]
Post Counts have never been something I have thought of as anything other than an indication of how active some one is in a given community, but I guess some people use it as a way to have a go at others.


Paul - Taiphoz(Posted 2012) [#11]
Something I forgot to add.

http://www.facebook.com/BlitzResearchLtd

Get that more integrated to the site, get a facebook fans block on it filled with little monekey fans face's glaring back at us, with a like button in a better place to click.

Id also put a like button in each news post, and at the top of each forum thread.

The more ways you give your own community to easily spread the word of the site without having to do anything more than click a single button, the more popular the site will get, which all leads to more money, more funding , and more monkey.

Developers simply cant ignore facebook any longer.


TeaBoy(Posted 2012) [#12]
A few enhancements would be nice on this website, but the simplicity of the forum is what makes a decent forum IMO. As muddy_shoes suggested, pagination would be a welcome enhancement :)


matt(Posted 2012) [#13]
I'd like to see these changes, too


simonh(Posted 2012) [#14]
Yes, we do intend to promote the Facebook and Twitter side of things a lot more than we are at the moment. I'll look into the other things (although just missed the May deadline for the start of the month bug!).


therevills(Posted 2012) [#15]
Excellent! Thanks for the reply Simon, look forward to the tweaks :)


MaxPower(Posted 2012) [#16]
I second what therevills says,would be nice.

Time posts aswell i posted something 2 days ago,and it says i done it 1 hour ago. :)


Paul - Taiphoz(Posted 2012) [#17]
In regard to facebook there seem to be a few pages, and the one I think or at least seems to be official http://www.facebook.com/BlitzResearchLtd does not seem to match the number of likes on the front page so its clearly not the same thing.

If the link I gave above is indeed one of the BRL team then you need to sort out the like button so the people see that page when they goto it via facebook.


Neuro(Posted 2012) [#18]
How about a PSS sub-forum since we have a nearly functional new target now :)?


therevills(Posted 2012) [#19]
Ohhh I can see a couple of small improvemets to the site at the top of the page: Links to the german Monkey site, Facebook and Twitter.

(Not that keen on the red background on the icon on the Twitter logo though)

Hopefully we will get the forum improvements/fixes too ;)


Paul - Taiphoz(Posted 2012) [#20]
Yeah they welcome changes and well worth it in the long run, there is room up there for other social media links as well which is nice.

I second the bad logo with the red. I would be willing to make one if its needed, im sure others would as well.


MaxPower(Posted 2012) [#21]
Why is the Monkey site separate,from the other BRL product sites ?.


therevills(Posted 2012) [#22]
Why is the Monkey site separate,from the other BRL product sites ?.


My guess is that Monkey is not part of the "Blitz" range, since it hasnt got Blitz in the title and also maybe to get away from the myth that Blitz = BASIC...


ziggy(Posted 2012) [#23]
It makes sense. Monkey is much closer to Java or C# or even .net than any of the previous Blitz products. The language complexity and flexibility make Monkey a very different product compared to any traditional Basic dialect. And also, They're presenting something new, to a new market, so it makes sense to be coherent and have a new page. Not even BRL is mentioned in the Monkey page AFAIK.

In my personal experience with Monkey, when I was in the beta test dev team for the Monkey development, and I was designing Jungle Ide:

I first tried to make it as an extension of the currently existing BlitzMax BLIde parser. then:
* Datatype inference --> Need to rewrite sensible parts of the parser
* Case sensitive language --> Ok, need to rewrite other areas that involve mostly any identifier matching algo.
* Very different Imports structure --> Ok, another rewrite
* AST building differences --> Ok, this has to be changed too
* Compiler interoperation --> Very different, better change it instead of extend it...

At the end... It felt I was really creating a parser and IDE for a new language and not for the natural evolution of a pre-existing BlitzMax, and that was what decided me to make a separated IDE for Monkey, and I'm happy I did becouse I could take the oportunity to redo all the areas that I wish I had done different when writing BLIde.

Now I'm creating an interpreted language called Harpl http://code.google.com/p/harpl-project/ and i'm writing all the compiler, runtimes abd intermediate code in Monkey, and I have had no issues with it. It's ultra powerful. I just wish it had delegates and it did not use the < and > for generics. It's a very bad idea to use the same symbol for different tasks if you want a language to be easy to parse (that was avoided in D for exactly the same reason and I can only say it was a wise decision). Other than that, for me, it's perfect, and rock solid.


Why0Why(Posted 2012) [#24]
That was interesting Ziggy, thanks for posting. I was wondering why you had started from scratch when you already had an existing framework in place.


therevills(Posted 2012) [#25]
Yay! Preview and forum codes button and links \o/

Also the Wiki link too and a couple of new forumn section... but we've lost the Module Registry Link?


therevills(Posted 2012) [#26]
Looks like the first day of the month bug is still here :(


jpoag(Posted 2012) [#27]
Out of curiosity, what is the first day of the month bug?


Soap(Posted 2012) [#28]
The post times are messed up on the first day of every month?


jpoag(Posted 2012) [#29]
lol, well ... don't fix it until I get to see it.

Gotta wait at least another month :P


Samah(Posted 2012) [#30]
Monkey/Blitz forums: Reviving dead posts for 3 days... no, 9 months... no, 1 second... hold on, let me get back to you yesterday.
;)


MaxPower(Posted 2012) [#31]
Just make it feel like the BB site.Job done.


therevills(Posted 2012) [#32]
The BB site also has the first day of the month bug ;)


Paul - Taiphoz(Posted 2012) [#33]
on the subject, and sure i said this some where else but forget where, How about having options in the app creation section to set the playable apps width and height.

Would be nice for those games or apps that we make that have odd resolutions.