|
|
| Don't have an account yet? Sign up as a New User
|
|
| Support uws |
 |
|
|
|
|
| uwstudent.org, version 2.0 |
Contributed by: Jesse Helmer on Thursday, March 13 2003 @ 04:27 AM CST
|
The first uws news story was posted on 9 November 1999 by uws co-founder Rob Schmidt. More than three years later, we are finally switching from the software developed by Schmidt and enhanced by uws co-founder Paul Schreiber to more robust software. The new software, Geeklog, provides more functionality than the first version of uws.
Old site frozen and archived. The first version of uws has been frozen and archived at archive.uwstudent.org and all the stories and comments from the first version have been ported to the new version. User accounts have been introduced. Please register for an account. It doesn't take very long, and it let's you customize the interface to uws to some degree (more on that later). User accounts will be allocated on a first-come, first-served basis, so get yours quickly. Multiple accounts per person are fine. More blocks on the left and right. Geeklog makes it easy to create blocks for the left and right sidebars of the site. If you are a registered user, you can choose which of these blocks you would like to see when you login to uws. We've created some blocks that we think will be useful. If you've got an idea for a block, send us an e-mail. To choose which blocks you would like to see, login to uws, then click on display preferences. Check all the boxes that you would like to see; leave boxes that you do not want to see unchecked. Comment preferences. You can choose how you would like comments to be displayed. Comments can be threaded, nested, flat, or not displayed. You can also choose to see the newest or oldest comments first. You can change your display mode and sort order in comment preferences (in the User Functions block). Topics. The first version of uws had two classes of content: stories and comments. Geeklog allows for more variation on this simple classification. To start, there will be four main topics: uws, News, Announcements (by organization), and Reader-directed content. The uws topic will contain announcements and discussion about uws; the news topic will contain the regular uws stories; an announcement topic will be made available for organizations reported on in news; and reader-directed content will be -- well, I suppose that that's up to you. If you want to talk about something with other uws readers, post a story in reader-directed content. More topics may be introduced later. User-friendly calendar. The first version of uws had a calendar, but no link to the "Add event" page. Geeklog's calendar is quite nifty. If you have an event that you would like to advertise on uws, add it to the calendar. If an appropriate event type doesn't exist, e-mail us. We expect the uws calendar to be the best place to find out what's happening on and about campus. Amazon.ca block. uwstudent.org is an amazon.ca associate. This means that we earn referral fees for purchases made by visitors who arrive at amazon.ca via uwstudent.org. The search box on our main page is intended to provide our readers with an easy way to search for books, but it is also intended to generate modest revenue. For each item that is shipped to a customer who arrived at amazon.ca via uwstudent.org, we earn from 5-15% of the sale price. We hope that this referral revenue will cover the costs of operating uwstudent.org and allow us to purchase equipment. If you have any questions about this service, please e-mail us. Credits - Rob Ewaschuk installed and configured Geeklog, ported and archived uws 1.0 stories and comments, and told Jesse Helmer what to do (Jesse did the uws theme for Geeklog).
- Simon Woodside, Stephen Forrest, Paul Schreiber, Douglas Stebila, Jesse Rodgers, Matt Goyer, Jonathon Niemi, Rob Schmidt, Ryan Chen-Wing, Josh Chud, Chris Inch, Jon Willing, Stephen Snuggles Skrzydlo and David Drewe beta-tested version 2.0.
- Chris Inch tweaked the uws logo to give it a new feel.
- The Geeklog developers provided a great software base.
Bugs. If you find a bug, please let us know about it. We'll try to squash all of them as quickly as possible.
|
| |
|
|
|
| Authored by: Rob Ewaschuk on Thursday, March 13 2003 @ 04:33 AM CST |
..to make sure everything is peachy with the changes.
-Rob
---
-Rob[ Parent ]
|
| |
| Authored by: Craig Sloss on Thursday, March 13 2003 @ 08:36 AM CST |
Nice work, guys, I like it!
And you were doing it at 4 in the morning, too -- that's dedication![ Parent ]
|
| |
| Authored by: Anonymous on Thursday, March 13 2003 @ 08:51 AM CST |
| I liked the old one A LOT better. Especially the comment layout.....Changes can be frustrating. I might stop using UWS. You guys should go back to the old comment layout. [ Parent ]
|
| |
| Authored by: ColdCock2000 on Thursday, March 13 2003 @ 10:16 AM CST |
| I liked the old "what's hot" section better where I could see what stories the comments are attached to. [ Parent ]
|
| |
| Authored by: dsibley on Thursday, March 13 2003 @ 10:28 AM CST |
Hi,
I clicked "Frequently Asked Questions" which led me to "beta.uwaterloo.ca/faq" (I didn't notice this), then I clicked on the uws logo and got to a different story site which confused the heck out of me o-:
Great job though, the new site looks great!
- Doug[ Parent ]
|
| |
| Authored by: jrodgers on Thursday, March 13 2003 @ 10:42 AM CST |
| ... [ Parent ]
|
| |
| Authored by: ryan on Thursday, March 13 2003 @ 10:53 AM CST |
| The archive submit link seems to go to the old form. Should we direct submitters to the old site to the new submit page? [ Parent ]
|
| |
| Authored by: Alex Sloat on Thursday, March 13 2003 @ 11:23 AM CST |
I wake up to find my precious UWS desecrated! Noooo!!! And now I notice how small the text appears(like 6-8 point font) when I'm typing it in here, is that just me, or is that normal?
Anyways, there are a few things I like about the new design and a few things I dislike. I like the sign-ins, it makes life a lot nicer and getting rid of anonymous postings is good. I like the new logo, very nice. I like a few of the new options, like view methods.
However, there are also a few problems IMO. Firstly, the "what's hot" list should most definately include which story the post came from. Secondly, in the view options, please add a "UWS Classic" view method(i.e. you see the comment you're looking at and the direct replies with links to comments past that), that is still my favourite display style of all the web forums I have visited. And third, replying to the main storey, I can't actually read the main story, and I can't click "parent" to any of the comments on any main story. There should also be a link in every comment to the story it was posted off of. Well, that's all the incoherent rambling I can think of at the moment, but if I come up with more, you'll all be the first to know.
---
- Alex, ripping off Rob's sig(and checking out how autosigs work)[ Parent ]
|
| |
| Authored by: dstebila on Thursday, March 13 2003 @ 01:11 PM CST |
| What's the URL for the new RSS feed? [ Parent ]
|
| |
| Authored by: Anonymous on Thursday, March 13 2003 @ 01:54 PM CST |
| Just wanted to let you guys know that the new site doesn't work with Netscape 4.79 (which is the version currently available on the unix math severs) [ Parent ]
|
| |
| Authored by: Alex Sloat on Thursday, March 13 2003 @ 03:13 PM CST |
| I tried to load "Feds' Town Hall Fizzles" with nested view(my default) on. Instead of the story, I got this message:
Fatal error: Allowed memory size of 8388608 bytes exhausted (tried to allocate 2051631 bytes) in /home/uws/websites/geeklog/system/classes/template.class.php on line 500
Amazingly enough, nearly 500 posts of ranting goodness can use up a fair chunk of memory. I don't think I've seen 2 megs of text in one place before, but then of course I still haven't.
I can understand why this sort of thing would happen, but is there a convenient way around it(other than me switching my view style)? ---
There are 10 kinds of people in the world - those who understand binary and those who don't. [ Parent ]
|
| |
| Authored by: Anonymous on Thursday, March 13 2003 @ 04:05 PM CST |
User accounts will be allocated on a first-come, first-served basis, so get yours quickly.
What, 'cause you'll run out?
Looks like a great job, guys.
-Roberto[ Parent ]
|
| |
| Authored by: saforrest on Thursday, March 13 2003 @ 04:17 PM CST |
The speed of the new UWS is pretty good. Loading of the main page seems faster; some sub-pages seem a bit slower.
Is it just me, or do pages load noticeably faster than they did when the new site was beta? Has some optimization or tinkering been done?
---
'Þæs ofereode, þisses swa mæg.' - Deor[ Parent ]
|
| |
| Authored by: Ross on Thursday, March 13 2003 @ 06:17 PM CST |
Seems like you guys have pretty well everything, except a moderation system. Is this intentional?
[ Parent ]
|
| |
| Authored by: saforrest on Thursday, March 13 2003 @ 09:14 PM CST |
When I try to post to the new story about arbitration, UWS tells me I need to become a member, despite my being logged in.
---
'Þæs ofereode, þisses swa mæg.' - Deor[ Parent ]
|
| |
| Authored by: Anonymous on Thursday, March 13 2003 @ 11:24 PM CST |
| I'm getting super confused when I click on a sub-comment. I can't figure out what I'm seeing, where is the comment I wanted to see? I liked the old UWS two-level comments better. [ Parent ]
|
| |
| Authored by: Ryan Bayne on Friday, March 14 2003 @ 03:22 AM CST |
uwstudent.org - What else are you going to do all day?
I'm sure I'm not the only one for whom that hits too close to home :)
On that note, is there a lite version of the new uwstudent.org suitable for handhelds?[ Parent ]
|
| |
| Authored by: saforrest on Friday, March 14 2003 @ 03:14 PM CST |
The time printed next to a comment on a hot list is not the time the comment itself was posted, but instead the time the article to which it's attached was posted.
For example, look at it now, and all the comments on "uwstudent.org, version 2.0" are stamped with time 2003-03-13 04:27:10.
---
'Þæs ofereode, þisses swa mæg.' - Deor[ Parent ]
|
| |
| Authored by: Rob Ewaschuk on Sunday, March 16 2003 @ 08:46 PM CST |
Many tweaks have been done this weekend. If you notice anything new acting up, or if we changed something in a way you don't like, or if you think we might have forgotten about a request, let me know (here or by email.)
-Rob
---
It could be *much* worse...[ Parent ]
|
| |
| Authored by: Anonymous on Monday, March 17 2003 @ 11:46 AM CST |
| the word counts on each article is usless [ Parent ]
|
| |
| Authored by: Giant Space Hamster on Monday, March 17 2003 @ 10:13 PM CST |
The size of text in the comment box (when replying) is way too small. What's wrong with making it the same size as the rest of the text on the page?
I'm using IE 6, if that's important.[ Parent ]
|
| |
| Authored by: Alex Sloat on Thursday, March 27 2003 @ 11:10 PM CST |
I'm just curious as to everyone's opinions on the new version of the site. It's been up for two weeks now and I'm assuming most of the bugs have been ironed out. I'm wondering what public opinion is on the update. I've heard a lot of gripes and wish-lists, but I haven't heard much comparison between complaints and improvements. Was it a good change? Do you think it should be rolled back?
As for my opinion, I think it's been a decent change. Logins are good(I don't have to type in my name every time this way, I get to have a sig, and I can pick my display options instead of living with the default), but the elimination of anonymous names is bad. The new thread views are nice, but the old one had its virtues too(the answer obviously being "Give me both!" ;-) ). The elimination of the "What's hot" was a big annoyance, but it's back now, so that's good. Not to mention the cool new logo. Overall it's good, but I think it'll be a fair bit better in a couple months(Work harder, Ewaschuk!)
---
Socialism is a first-approximation discipline.
Linear approximations don't do well in the warped world of politics.[ Parent ]
|
| |
| Authored by: Anonymous on Thursday, April 03 2003 @ 09:32 PM CST |
theweathernetwork.com has been really slow for me today, and at least in Mozilla 1.3 the main UWS page won't render until the weather information is loaded. This slows page-load time appreciably.
I know, I could just remove the weather data from my version of the page, but I don't want to remain logged in that long, or bother logging in just to read news.
I suggest you locally cache the www.theweathernetwork.com/weatherbutton/images/YKF.gif file. If the Weather Network has a problem with this, we can wait until they come with a cease-and-desist.
Another option is to process and use the data from weather.uwaterloo.ca instead. It *is* right on campus.
-- saforrest[ Parent ]
|
| |
|
|
|
