Demo of new-look FAQ section

[mjharper]

Okay, I've pretty much solved the problem in Firefox - can someone check if IE is still the same? In Firefox, the problem was that it wasn't recognising the CSS files as CSS files. So I started again, copy and paste, and it works. The anchor issue didn't go away, so I decided to circumvent it by having only one footnote / source text per link. Not as useful for anyone who wants the whole set of FAQ in German, but at least Firefox works acceptably.

I've also fixed the width of the answer text - this should solve the odd problems I had with questions not closing and so on.

And, having pretty much decided to change anyway, I ran into an issue with Haloscan comments. Can't integrate them into the page. So I thought that maybe we could do away with them altogether, and instead link to threads dedicated to each FAQ (quoting old comments at the start). That would require that non-members should register (I added a link in the sidebar) but for members, the thread opens in the greybox, and you remain logged on. Also, that would mean that you can access the comments through the forums, and new comments would be contained in the RSS. So I set a link to the Discussion under each question - they all link to this thread, but you should get the idea.

Screen resolution probably needs to be 1024x768 - is that a problem for anyone?

As always, comments appreciated…

[Gantry]

Okay, I've pretty much solved the problem in Firefox - can someone check if IE is still the same? In Firefox, the problem was that it wasn't recognising the CSS files as CSS files. So I started again, copy and paste, and it works. The anchor issue didn't go away, so I decided to circumvent it by having only one footnote / source text per link. Not as useful for anyone who wants the whole set of FAQ in German, but at least Firefox works acceptably.

I've also fixed the width of the answer text - this should solve the odd problems I had with questions not closing and so on.

IE6: FAQ item #1 shows no transparent png, both the white German text and its background scroll together. The other 2 faq items' German pages are small enough that they no longer require a scrollbar, so everything appears on the popup, but there's no transparent png there either.

IE7: exactly the same as IE6 above.

And, having pretty much decided to change anyway, I ran into an issue with Haloscan comments. Can't integrate them into the page. So I thought that maybe we could do away with them altogether, and instead link to threads dedicated to each FAQ (quoting old comments at the start). That would require that non-members should register (I added a link in the sidebar) but for members, the thread opens in the greybox, and you remain logged on. Also, that would mean that you can access the comments through the forums, and new comments would be contained in the RSS. So I set a link to the Discussion under each question - they all link to this thread, but you should get the idea.

I think you already know my opinion about having 2 sets of discussion places, I'd much prefer if we can stick to 1 location.  It is simply easier for people to maintain one profile and authentication method to comment on anything Carc Central related, and finally, our forums are backed up and restorable on a daily basis from my own hosted location, there's no guarantee that haloscan will be around or let you import your comments if they go belly-up, risking years worth of discussion.  In fact I went to the haloscan site just now and they were down for a while. The only odd thing I noticed was that under both IE6 and IE7, I can be logged into CC and yet when I click on the discussion link, it opens in your little window but I am not logged in there, it doesn't seem to recognize the cookie. /admin-talk-mode-OFF 

Screen resolution probably needs to be 1024x768 - is that a problem for anyone?

The only thing with this is that when I click on the Discussion link, the window that you open is a bit too long and as a result I have to use both my browser's vertical scrollbar along with your window's vertical scrollbar, which is a bit of a pain.  Most people use 1024x768 and higher I think (I can dig up the worldwide stats but you probably already know it), for my sites I typically cater to the 1024x768 crowd.  You have to remember that some folks use more than just the default toolbars (google/MSN/etc toolbars) and some even use large browser toolbar icons which takes up a lot of vertical space.  If your window were a bit shorter, that would help. It's a cool feature, as long as it can see the cookie.

[mjharper]

I'll look into FAQ item #1 tomorrow, as well as the size of the window that opens (I'd noticed it was too big as well). Maybe 800x500 or even x400, instead of x600. I guess I should pick a maximum size and stick to it…

Odd about the cookies - it worked for me, in Opera at least. Haven't checked it in anything else yet. Are you logged in 'forever' or just temporarily? Maybe that makes a difference.

<admintalk>The main problem with the FAQ Discussion is that I'd need to create threads for all the current FAQ first, then link to them. And the forum would be best closed - I mean, people can add comments to existing threads in it, but not add new threads (since all the threads should be linked to a specific FAQ). Othe than that, I think it should be a fine solution (if we can get the cookies to work).</admintalk>

[Gantry]

Good suggestion, I logged in Forever, it can't find the cookie.

I just had meeplebot try it twice, once logged in for 1 month and one for 10 minutes, and for both of those time periods, the forums came up logged in just fine for the little rascal.  So it's only "Forever" that doesn't work atm.

[mjharper]

Okay, I've posted an update with reduced greybox window sizes. Also, I added a hack to try and get IE to handle PNGs better - but I don't know if I configured it correctly.

I've also added a new board to the forums, and included a thread for the final scoring index, quoting old comments. The link is at the bottom of the page. None of the other Discussion links have changed, though. How does it look to you?

[mjharper]

Next up on the agenda: Incorporated and Depreciated FAQ.

Until now, I've simply added a clear indication of whether a given FAQ has been incorporated or depreciated. But I think it might be better if I took these out of the main section and instead kept them all under the section concerned with the changes of the Big Box. That way, they'd still be a part of the site, but wouldn't be cluttering up the valid FAQ. After all, they're either trivial (because incorporated into the main rules) or misleading (because the answer refers to an older set of rules which contradicts the latest set).

I've always previously avoided that level of editorial interference, which is why I'm asking for feedback now.

[mjharper]

Long time, no update :-( But I had an essay to write… honest.

Anyway, I've been thinking about the design I had planned and, well, here's another one that I'm happier with. Here's the link.

Basically, this goes back to the 'blog' design I used before, but with a couple of important differences. I never used categories before, and the new version of RapidWeaver allows tags and tag clouds as well. I really like the idea of tags, as they basically allow you to make directed searches of the posts. The other alternative I suggested only organised the FAQ by 'categories' - expansions, general placement, and so on. Like this, every post has a number of groupings, and you can easily find, for example, all the FAQ that mention cathedrals or returning meeples. I think that'll add to the usability considerably.

The other thing is comments, both mine and yours. I know I kicked around the idea of using the forums, but this seems better to me. Firstly, RapidWeaver now allows inline comments, just like blogger used to - I prefer that in every way. No need to navigate away from the page to comment (though if you click 'Comments' link on the category and tag pages, you still get the pop-up), and everything immediately visible. I'd argue that using the forums would be better than the pop-ups, but inline is better than the forums… But the inline comments also provide a way of keeping the category and tag pages uncluttered - I thought I could put the original German and my 'footnotes' into the comments. That way they only appear on the main post page, which is available if you need more information, but there are no more greybox pop-ups

And also, using this system also allows people to link to specific FAQ, which the other proposal didn't.

Finally, by splitting the posts and comments that way, I can republish the FAQ in two stages - question/answer, then commentary. That means I can get a 'working' FAQ up much more quickly.

So, I really like the organisation freedom tags give, and the unified appearance of inline comments. I know it makes the FAQ slightly less integrated with CC, but I'm trying to do the best I can with the FAQ in themselves ;-)Any thoughts?

[Gantry]

(Surprisingly you might think,) thumbs up from me.  I agree, the comments are actually much better integrated, and the tags are a HUGE help in zipping around quickly to find what I want.  Well done Matt! I'll leave it up to you to decide whether to keep the Rules board as a forum resource or if you want to scrap it altogether, I'm cool with that.

One item, IE 7, the menu on the left, has partially disappeared, take a look. It actually appears in the right place upon page load, but suddenly jumps partially off-screen once the page load completes.

[mjharper]

Glad it has your approval!  - That's a weight off my mind ;-)

I'll try fixing the width of the page, see if that helps with the menu…

[Edit: done that - fixed the width to 1000px - does that solve the problem?]

[mjharper]

Right, finished the FAQ for the basic game - without commentaries or comments. Those will come later. But still, at least we've got some FAQ up again…

[Gantry]

yes, it's solved, the menus are in the right place

[mjharper]

Currently posting a completed FAQ (again, no commentary or comments - yet), including a couple of things that weren't up before. Finally!

[GameJunkieJim]

Looked at your FAQ demo on Firefox 2.0.0.4 and Konqueror, and Opera. Worked as expected in Firefox, Konquerer gave it a bit of a stutter until I did a hard refresh. Ran better in Opera initially, but after second load it rendered faster in Konqueror.  Looks like you will have multiplatform support.

(Running Linux 2.16 -gentoo- KDE GUI)

[mjharper]

Thanks. Good to know there's at least one Linux bod I can bug for info Glad it works in Konqueror… mind you, I guess that's (kind of) multi-platform now that Safari's available for Windows.

[mjharper]

I finished posting all the FAQ, and I'm about to get to work on adding the commentary. The new address (oh no! not again) is:

http://homepage.mac.com/mjharper/home/page1/page7/page4.html

It's now a subset of 'home' (along with all my other sites) rather than having it's own folder called 'carc'. I'll put in forwarding so that 'carc/index.html' leads to the above address, though.

Also, I will put in a proper front page - at the moment it just links to the CC front page. I think a description of how the CC and my site integrate would be a good idea.

[Too many problems uploading from a single file, so I split it back up. So going back to the mjharper/carc/ folder - soon. More awkward to cross reference, but hopefully more stable… Will keep you posted (sorry for the inconvenience) ]