J2O Feature Roundup

Posted:
22 Jan 2010 at 19:49

In the past few weeks several new features were added to Jazz2Online, so I thought it might be useful to give a short digest so you don’t miss out:

  • The sidepanels on the frontpage (those boxes you see at the right side of this page) are now more easily configurable. Simply click “Customize” at the bottom and a configuration panel will pop up, allowing you to add new panels. Similarly, panels currently shown can easily be removed or rearranged by dragging them around using their title bar as a handle.
  • One new side panel has been added; with thanks to the jazzjackrabbit.net staff, J2O can now show a quick overview of the most recent clan matches added to JJ.net.
  • You can now organize downloads into lists; this might be useful if you, for example, want to make a list for yourself of downloads you want to review at a later point. Simply hover your mouse over the star icon in the downloads list and a menu will pop up for you where you can organize your lists.
  • You can now view what other uploads a particular file has also been used in. This allows you to easily get an overview of all uploads using a particular tileset, for example. Simply click a filename in the file content listing for a download (and then “More downloads containing this file” if a preview pops up) to view related files.

We hope you appreciate these new additions. If you have any suggestions or questions, don’t hesitate to leave a comment!

- Stijn


Comments

Grytolle on 22 Jan 2010 at 20:29

Nice work :D

Zoro on 23 Jan 2010 at 03:47

Yay…:)

Tik on 23 Jan 2010 at 06:10

You guys are awesome and I will bear you children

Ivo on 23 Jan 2010 at 10:01

I like the new additions.

I have something to suggest, though. Can you please add support for the Cyrillic alphabet?

Stijn on 23 Jan 2010 at 13:14

Depends on what exactly you mean. Issues with supporting different alphabets are harder to address than it may seem at first hand. Can you give an example where you’d have use for such support?

Ivo on 23 Jan 2010 at 15:30

Well, I think it’d be nice if I could have some of the information in my profile written in my own language. You might say it’s not that important, provided that most people here are, in all likelihood, unaware of our alphabet. Still, there are other people from Bulgaria, Russia or Serbia around too, so such support may be of use to them as well.

But I expected my idea to be easy to implement. I don’t reckon it’s a necessity, especially if it’s something difficult to cope with.

On the topic of language support, I wonder if you have ever thought of making J2O available in other languages too (I just remembered that April’s Fools joke with J2OPoland)? It might be useful, knowing that most players are not English. There’s a possibility some don’t come here just because they have difficulties understanding the language.

So, if you ever consider translations, I’d be happy to help.

Ivo on 23 Jan 2010 at 18:54

Actually, it seems there’s already support for Cyrillic already, to a point at least.

For example, I can name downloads lists in our azbuka and they’d appear fine on the downloads page. However, the names would look messed up on the My lists page.

Stijn on 23 Jan 2010 at 23:02

The subject of a language-specific version of J2O (with Polish being the most likely localization) has been brought up before, but there’s a few issues with such a sub-site. For example, while the static texts could in theory be translated without huge problems, the problem remains that the site content (news, downloads, articles, comments) is predominantly English. If people start adding Polish content, English people won’t be able to read it. We could create two completely separate sites, but that would create a division within the community and I don’t think that’s a good idea.

Ivo on 24 Jan 2010 at 09:48

I agree completely. I’m against the idea of creating two separate sites when there aren’t that much users anyway.
The localized versions might include article translations as well, should there be people willing to make them. It may be done the same way like the ERE – everyone being an editor. About news, comments and downloads, they should probably remain the way they are.

News comments – is it possible to allow people to edit their own messages? Users can do in other site sections. (And it has happened to me to make a mistake in a comment).

About downloads and reviews – I have noticed that when several reviews are posted, the download’s author would usually make a review himself, replying to the other commentators. It looks rather messed up. On some other sites, the author can add a paragraph to the review with his or her opinion on it. Would this have its place on J2O too?

I think this has been suggested before – a download can have more than one author and when the level is added, the user could specify who else was involved in the project. His or her name would then appear as an author in the download’s details too.

Cobra NF on 25 Jan 2010 at 02:21

And could you fix the Change Styles bug?

Stijn on 25 Jan 2010 at 10:57

For the gazillionth time, that is not a bug but a conscious decision to disable a feature, and it’s not coming back any time soon.

Just to make you shut up about it though, I’ll remove all traces of it from the site for the time being.

andbr98 on 2 Feb 2010 at 07:04

wooooooooww, so now can I organize the downloads I like or I need the most???? cool :-bd(on YM this emote-icon should be ‘Thumbs Up!’) :)))))) u made me HAPPY!!!

Post a comment

You need to log in to post comments on this newspost.