By far the worst

[CrashTester]

Since starting to Play Planetarion in round 1, and seeing the progression of the portal, I think this latest one is by far the worst.

Sorry to all those who made the effort, but thats my opinion.

Its very bulky and cumbersome. I absolutely dread to think I may have to go here everytime I want to log on. Still, I suppose it will only be for two weeks anyway.

[Maddix]

You are unable to bookmark a direct link to the login page?

[Don't.]

[CrashTester]

Originally posted by Maddix
You are unable to bookmark a direct link to the login page?

[Don't.]

IF THE FKING THING WOULD LOAD THEN MAYBE!

[And you too.]

[A2]

If you so choose you can still login to Planetarion at http://jpaweb01.planetarion.com/login.pl

We advise that you do register for a passport account as well since the system will be expanding over the next few weeks. It is recommended that you use the same e-mail address for passport registration as you use for game registration.

If you do signup for a passport and login to it then you can login to the game by clicking the "Game" link, or signup by clicking on the "Events" button.

[SOL]

i think the portal looks cool,well done to those that worked on it :-)

[Maddix]

Originally posted by CrashTester
IF THE FKING THING WOULD LOAD THEN MAYBE!

If the login page won't load how the fk can you log in anyway, be it from direct link or via the portal?

Hmm wait, you probably weren't clever enough to realise the url had changed slightly and decided to run here whining about it instead

[Eventh]

i think this is the best planetarion portal i have seen.. good job..

[CrashTester]

Originally posted by Maddix
If the login page won't load how the fk can you log in anyway, be it from direct link or via the portal?

Hmm wait, you probably weren't clever enough to realise the url had changed slightly and decided to run here whining about it instead

Look, I CANT LOG IN USING THE LINKS PROVIDED TO LOG IN. If the product doesnt work. It isnt my job to work out why. Now shut it.

[Sokar]

Your acount has now been registered.

The login page can be found here:
http://jpaweb01.planetarion.com/login.pl

And oh my god, it works!
The product does work, it's just sometimes the customer who isn't clever enough to use it.

[JC]

I logged in this morning before i had got a passport account and then again after i had got one. Everything works fine for me but it doesnt seem one or two people are having problems.

[Kal]

try http://195.149.21.29/login.pl it might be an issue with your isps dns

[Robin]

It's sad to see the things that made PA a great game
for everyone go ...

The portal is nice ... but not useable ...

I've logged in from work with IE and a 15" 800x600 ... bah ...
Retried at home with Voyager 19" 1024x 768 ... horror ...

PLEASE ... Offer a plain HTML-Version ... not everyone
is using IE and not everyone has cable or dsl modem.

With 56k it's a pain !

Ingame the same ... please offer a HTML-Only skin.
Not every browser supports CSS ... so the galaxy-screen
does not show who's GC or Minister here for example.

[Leshy]

Originally posted by Robin
please offer a HTML-Only skin.
Not every browser supports CSS ...

All major browsers support CSS and have done so for various versions. Mozilla, Firebird, Netscape, MSIE, Opera, Konqueror, Safari, all of these browsers can render style sheets normally.

If your browser does not support CSS files, then it is horribly outdated and you should definitely consider upgrading. You will find that more and more sites will be relying on CSS for layout management in the future, and if your browser does not support that, then you are missing out.

[Tactitus]

Originally posted by Leshy
All major browsers support CSS and have done so for various versions. Mozilla, Firebird, Netscape, MSIE, Opera, Konqueror, Safari, all of these browsers can render style sheets normally.

If your browser does not support CSS files, then it is horribly outdated and you should definitely consider upgrading. You will find that more and more sites will be relying on CSS for layout management in the future, and if your browser does not support that, then you are missing out.

Actually, I think it's PA that may be missing out--on some potential customers. Every "new" html feature that PA uses runs the risk of losing customers or potential customers (not everyone will know why pages don't display properly or will bother to find out. They may just assume the game is buggy and leave--without ever giving the game a proper chance). At the very least, HQ should make it clear which levels of which browsers are necessary and/or are "supported" (instead of letting customers try to puzzle it out on their own); and they should use html validators to ensure their pages comply with some stated level of the standards.

Also, a number of players use computers at work, schools, libraries, etc over which they have little or no control (for example, I only had Netscape 4.7 available at work until a few months ago. Yes it was horribly outdated and no I wasn't about to go to IS and explain that I needed a newer browser so I could access Planetarion ). Telling players to 'just upgrade your browser' isn't always a solution.

For a game that's desperate for new players I don't understand why anyone would want to make it any harder to access/use the game than is absolutely necessary. The phrase "browser-only game" has some positive aspects, and yet HQ seems to find ways of turning it into a negative.

Unfortunately, this seems to come up nearly every round--as the game and/or portal discovers yet another "new" feature that not every browser can handle. :/

[Leshy]

Originally posted by Tactitus
Unfortunately, this seems to come up nearly every round--as the game and/or portal discovers yet another "new" feature that not every browser can handle. :/

Normally, I would agree with you. In this particular case, no.

The internet uses several standards, at this point they are HTML 4.01, XHTML 1.1 and CSS-2. These standards have not been brought in overnight, but have been developed for several years and are still being developed today (apart from HTML).

Browsers supporting CSS have been around literally for years. If you wish to call the use of a Cascading Style Sheet "new", then you would be incorrect.

In regards to the user above, he is using an Amiga running a browser which was created for HTML 2.0 support and a few extensions which were put in because they were expected to show up in HTML 3.0 - the only reason it is able to even render standard tags such as <p>.

The Portal team is based on volunteers - there is neither the time, nor are there the resources to create an alternative version of the portal in a standard which was already obsolete over 5 years ago in order to please the one or two users that are running an outdated browser which cannot keep up with today's web standards, whereas a multitude of browsers that in fact can, are freely available for a large variety of platforms.

[Dante Hicks]

Without wishing to add to the bitch fest, is it me or does anyone else find the pages (Port and in-game) unnecessarily "busy"? Colours, boxes, options, etc?

Don't get me wrong, I'm sure they're technically very impressive, but they seem to lose more simplicity every round :/

[Robin]

Thanks Leshy (not) !

Well, if it were updating a browser fine ... that I could
and would do for sure ... please point me to an
amiga browser that is capable of css ...

Or point me to a flatrate that is available for my 56k modem.
Here in eastern germany ... thanks really ...

There is a standard out there ... it's called options.
It's only a few more code to add BOTH css-support and
colors.

But never mind ... I just asked ...

[Andy_r]

The big problem with the new portal is that it is far too graphic heavy. Taking up so much space with a huge detailed letter X that you have to scroll around to see the content is just silly, you can't assume that people have a browser window that is a thousand pixels wide!

Loading the page took TWO MINUTES FOURTY SECONDS! This is just totally ridiculous, and I think someone is going to be in for a big shock when they get this month's bandwidth bill.

Ditch the obviously repeating textured backgrounds, shrink all the graphics by 50% and, and use good old fashioned reliable tables instead of CSS so that the page resizes to fit the width of the window, and you'll have a nice portal, but even if you do all that, it's still a totally different graphic style to the rest of planetarion. We now have the 'grainy' portal, the glowy white X logo style, the forum smart blue style and the in game default dark blue wobbly style, why is none of this consistent?

Oh and while I'm at it, isn't it dumb to have 2 links on the portal home page that lead to the portal home page?

[Tactitus]

Originally posted by Leshy
Normally, I would agree with you. In this particular case, no.

The internet uses several standards, at this point they are HTML 4.01, XHTML 1.1 and CSS-2. These standards have not been brought in overnight, but have been developed for several years and are still being developed today (apart from HTML).

Browsers supporting CSS have been around literally for years. If you wish to call the use of a Cascading Style Sheet "new", then you would be incorrect.

The quotes around the word new were there for a reason. Even standards which are several years old may be new to some products. In the case of CSS2, it's a relatively old standard but implementation has varied by browser. Netscape 4.7 in particular did not handle CSS2 (even it's CSS1 support was problematic), and as I mentioned, I was "stuck" on Netscape 4.7 until recently). Feel free to write me and my experiences off as a total fluke if you want; but I don't think they're as rare as you suggest.

[ParraCida]

Robin, you have to understand that any product will always be made more compatible for the majority of users (96% of the internet uses Internet Explorer). With a limited amount of resources the main stream product will always get priority. We would like to be able to cater for every single user out on the web but sadly right now that is not an option. Once the portal team is finished with finalizing the passport system this matter will get some attention.

In the meanwhile the portal seems to work with text only browsers.

[Leshy]

Originally posted by Robin
Well, if it were updating a browser fine ... that I could
and would do for sure ... please point me to an
amiga browser that is capable of css ...

I am afraid that your system does not have any available browsers that I know of that are capable - maybe support for the Amiga was discontinued for a reason.

If I have a 1928 Ford T that can only go 30mph, and insist on driving that instead of a new car, I can't complain about not being allowed on the interstate either.

Or point me to a flatrate that is available for my 56k modem.

You only need to have your browser cache the images once, after which they will be retrieved from your hard drive, rather than taking up bandwidth. I have no experience with Voyager, but I persume that it has the option to cache images.

Originally posted by Andy_r
The problem with CSS is that it's far too easy to write things that work with one particular version of Explorer, but that do not work with anything else.

The same goes for plain HTML, and even more so than CSS. By using valid HTML and CSS, and testing it on several browsers, problems like that can be almost completely eliminated though.

and use good old fashioned reliable tables instead of CSS

First of all, it does use a table layout, not a CSS one. Give the source code a look. Second of all, with CSS compatibility available in all recent browsers (eg those that aren't older than 3 years) more and more sites are moving away from using tables for layout, as tables were never designed to do layout, whereas CSS is.

Using a CSS layout instead of a table one has many advantages, especially for compatibility on rare non-standard browsers, such as those on mobile phones or text-to-speech ones for the visually impaired. Google around for more info.

Originally posted by Tactitus
Netscape 4.7 in particular did not handle CSS2 (even it's CSS1 support was problematic), and as I mentioned, I was "stuck" on Netscape 4.7 until recently).

I believe Netscape 6 was released a few years back already - let alone 4.7. And I reckon even Netscape 4.7 would be able to correctly render the current portal, as it only uses rather basic CSS-functions.

Backward compatibility and the use of standards is a good thing - but there is a limit as to what you can still support.

[Andy_r]

Originally posted by Leshy
it does use a table layout, not a CSS one

Then why doesn't it resize to fit the browser window?

[ParraCida]

Originally posted by Andy_r
Then why doesn't it resize to fit the browser window?

The table is defined in pixels, not percentages.

[Tactitus]

Originally posted by Leshy
I believe Netscape 6 was released a few years back already - let alone 4.7.

Yes, and I've already explained why upgrading wasn't a solution. Basically, it was a work computer and I didn't have admin privileges. It was also running IRIX and, last time I checked, 4.7 was the latest port. :/

And I reckon even Netscape 4.7 would be able to correctly render the current portal, as it only uses rather basic CSS-functions.

Well, you reckon wrong. I just tried it on one of the old IRIX boxes and the top row of buttons is messed up. Sorry.

Backward compatibility and the use of standards is a good thing - but there is a limit as to what you can still support.

I have no problem whatsoever with drawing a line and saying 'this is what we support.' What I do have a problem with is not drawing a line and then letting the customers find it by tripping over it.

[Robin]

Well, have a look at the successfull websites.

amazon,ebay,yahoo,google,heise.de

Sure it's nice to be colourfull and blinking,
but does this make windows xp secure ?
does it make it stable ? does it protect it
from catching a worm ?

I use my amiga for a reason and it's fun.
Next to my amiga is pc and laptop running
Win XP pro and Home. It's just that my
favourite image-format for webdesign
is not supported in IE. PNG with alpha-channels
just dont work.

The amiga uses the web in a fast way, sure
it's old and outdated (my browser get's
updates more often than IE ;-) ) but it's
more comfortable and offers me more influence
on whats going on.

I'm running a website, and I can tell you that
10-20% does not use IE/NS in it's latest versions.

Sure my case is a special one as I'm really alone
in this world ;-) But if it's only 5% of players
you reject then this is not good.

But thats just my opinion ... I will play anyway ;-)
And when PAX is as addictive as PA since round two
I will stick to it and perhaps fire up the evil
MS-ridden-monsters to see the four colour of
the galaxy-screen ...

[furball]

Still, it shouldn't take much to let people with 800*600 resolutions use the portal properly. Personally, since my flat screen monitor is only about 15", stuff is too small in 1024*768. Everything else works fine...why not the new "advanced" portal?

I can understand not supporting old versions of netscape, but this is just silly

It can't be that hard, surely...

[ParraCida]

Originally posted by Tactitus
I have no problem whatsoever with drawing a line and saying 'this is what we support.' What I do have a problem with is not drawing a line and then letting the customers find it by tripping over it.

So instead of telling people what we are offering, we should also make a complete list of what we are not offering? I'm sorry but I think it has been made pretty clear in this thread where the line is drawn, so I'm not quite sure what your point is.

[Andy_r]

Originally posted by ParraCida
The table is defined in pixels, not percentages.

I wasn't asking HOW it's wrong, I was asking WHY it's wrong!

[ParraCida]

Originally posted by Andy_r
I wasn't asking HOW it's wrong, I was asking WHY it's wrong!

You asked why it was not resizing even though it was using tables, not CSS. The answer is that the tables have a set width and height (defined in pixels) and therefore will always remain at those specifications no matter how much you will resize the window.

I'm sorry if I was a bit unclear in my first answer

[Tactitus]

Originally posted by ParraCida
So instead of telling people what we are offering, we should also make a complete list of what we are not offering? I'm sorry but I think it has been made pretty clear in this thread where the line is drawn, so I'm not quite sure what your point is.

Suppose I'm a potential customer. Suppose further that I'm running version X of browser Y[*]. Can I find out ahead of time if PA/Portal will (or is supposed) to work with my browser or not?

That was my point.



*Feel free to restrict Y to the set of (IE | Netscape) if necessary.

[Leshy]

Originally posted by Tactitus
Well, you reckon wrong. I just tried it on one of the old IRIX boxes and the top row of buttons is messed up. Sorry.

I haven't worked with Netscape 4.7 personally, so I'm not 100% sure what it does or does not support CSS-wise. The only CSS-related reason for the top buttons not working I can think of is the CSS background property not being supported.

At any rate, having a look around various global internet statistics sites indicates that less than 1% of internet users is on Netscape 4.x. I doubt many people will be in the position you may have been in at work/university.

Originally posted by Tactitus
Suppose I'm a potential customer. Suppose further that I'm running version X of browser Y[*]. Can I find out ahead of time if PA/Portal will (or is supposed) to work with my browser or not?

If you can view the pages, then it works. If you can't, then it doesn't.

[Andy_r]

well, Parracida, you know how to fix it then!

[Leshy]

Originally posted by Andy_r
well, Parracida, you know how to fix it then!

Unfortunately replacing the pixel widths by percentages isn't going to fix the portal, but break it.

May I ask as the forum admin how with the limited browser you have on Amiga.
you can read these forums.. these forums use both CSS and images


and if you suffer now.. your going to suffer worse as the new forums are extremely CSS intensive (not my fault but the way they have been designed)

I CAN create a text only version.. but i cannot get round the CSS (even making it black and white requires a minimum amount of CSS else the pages don't load at all)

however making the text only version requires a great deal of effort - though i am planning it for the future


if any of the above have been answered of discussed already i apologise but i got bored of reading the arguements

um.. can i query the comment that netscape 4.7 doesn't allow CSS


I user 4.79 and 4.03 on 2 different systems at work
all works webpages are based on CSS(some more complicated than the portal) and there are no problems with any pages

[ParraCida]

Originally posted by Tactitus
Suppose I'm a potential customer. Suppose further that I'm running version X of browser Y[*]. Can I find out ahead of time if PA/Portal will (or is supposed) to work with my browser or not?

That was my point.



*Feel free to restrict Y to the set of (IE | Netscape) if necessary.

Can you find out from any page on the internet if it will work on your browser? The only way to do that is to put in a page in front of the original page you were trying to visit analyzing your browser and telling you wether you can or cannot view the following page correctly. For the same reasons as the rest of the internet, the portal team choose not to do so. So I guess the answer to your point and/or question is as such:

                                     'No'
---------------------------------------------------------------------

See, I drew a pretty line for you

[Tactitus]

Originally posted by ParraCida
Can you find out from any page on the internet if it will work on your browser?

Yes. Many pages say 'requires IE X.y or later' and/or 'requires Netscape X.y or later', etc. That tells me that if I have an earlier version then it probably won't work and that if I complain to the site they'll just tell me to RTFM and go away or upgrade. However, if I have a later version then it probably will work and if it doesn't, then there's obviously a problem somewhere that I or they might consider worthwhile tracking down.

See, that isn't so hard.

Originally posted by Karmulian
um.. can i query the comment that netscape 4.7 doesn't allow CSS

Actually, what I said was that Netscape 4.7 didn't handle CSS2 and it's CSS1 support was buggy.

I user 4.79 and 4.03 on 2 different systems at work
all works webpages are based on CSS(some more complicated than the portal) and there are no problems with any pages

But have you actually tried them on the portal though?

90% of my problems with 4.7 came from two domains: planetarion.com and my bank.

Originally posted by Leshy
If you can view the pages, then it works. If you can't, then it doesn't.

Obviously; but that doesn't tell me if it should work.

[Leshy]

Originally posted by Robin
It's just that my
favourite image-format for webdesign
is not supported in IE. PNG with alpha-channels
just dont work.

In case you're interested by the way, both Mozilla and Opera handle .png files with alpha transparency.

[Spinner]

This is turning 1 egg into a whole chickenfarm.

Planetarion has used CSS, Images, tables and not, since it came out in February 2000.
We are not turning customers away through demanding a lot of technology, on the countrary, Planetarion is a game with very few, almost none, requirements.

99.5 % of all internet surfers can use us, becuase we use quite standard HTML with some simple style sheets.

Planetarion has been tested with most browsers released over the last 5 years, and as a direct result of user feedback from a MAC-user, we had to remove the special effect we had added to buttons to avoid double-posting messages etc.

Robin, as you say, next to your Amiga, you have a normal PC with WinXP and Internet Explorer. You choose not to use these programs, and you come here asking us to work extra to support your Amiga browser because "you dont want to use your IE" ???
Heh..

Tacticus, what exactly doesnt work with Planetarion in Netscape 4.7 ?
What new features do we come up with every round that changes browser requirements? Back up your arguments please.
Apart from trying some javascript on some buttons, which was now removed due to problems for Macintosh users, I fail to see what new and horrible new html features you can find here ???
And which did you find last round?
And the one before that? And the one before that?
I can help you though:
Absolutely none.

[queball]

Originally posted by Tactitus
Yes, and I've already explained why upgrading wasn't a solution. Basically, it was a work computer and I didn't have admin privileges. It was also running IRIX and, last time I checked, 4.7 was the latest port. :/

Well, you reckon wrong. I just tried it on one of the old IRIX boxes and the top row of buttons is messed up. Sorry.

I have no problem whatsoever with drawing a line and saying 'this is what we support.' What I do have a problem with is not drawing a line and then letting the customers find it by tripping over it.

Mozilla 1.4

[Tactitus]

Originally posted by Spinner
Tacticus, what exactly doesnt work with Planetarion in Netscape 4.7 ?

Currently, the buttons along the top of the portal aren't displayed properly. They are overlapped/broken up.

What new features do we come up with every round that changes browser requirements? Back up your arguments please.

I have reported all the problems I have found (and not just browser problems) on the forums at the times I found them (primarily the Bugs forum--when it existed). Even if the problem was already reported I usually added a 'me too.' If you have archives of the forums, you can look them up. These were bugs involving mainly Netscape 4 (from round 1 up to round 3 when I stopped trying to use 4.7 with PA) and then IE 5 on Mac OS from round 4 up to round 6. I also moderated the Newbie Help forum for some time and received a number of reports of browser problems. The not-obviously-a-user-problem bugs were forwarded to the Bugs forum--some of which were resolved and some not (to my knowledge, anyway). I have not played since the end of round 6, so my complaints since then have been limited to the portal (although I'm not sure the portal team ever accepted bug reports posted on the forums) and the odd beta (beta bugs would have been reported on the beta forums, of course).

[Robin]

I can read the forum because it's supporting skins
and some are more html than others.
Dreammaker is supporting both. This way I can read
the forums. And they look nearly the same they
look on ie.

worst css problems is a not set background and text/link-color
in the body. It does not hurt if it's set because
css overwrites it when available.

@Spinner: Yes, I asked. Adding real html color codes
for gc/ministers in galaxy-screen and setting bgcolor,text,link
would not really be a lot of work.
I've not asked to rewrite from scratch.

For the portal it's just too big, too much gfx.
It looks great and with my laptop I can even read/use
it. But the philosophy of webdesign teached me
different.

I would not have posted this, if there were not this
thread indicating that there are more ppl with probs.

[Robin]

@Leshy

Did you know that Voyager supports PNG alphachannels ;-)
I'm tempted to install LinuxPPC on my Pegasos,
(Yes, I'm not using a real amiga ... just a 600Mhz g3-clone)
to check if it would show PAX correctly :-D

[ParraCida]

Originally posted by Tactitus
Yes. Many pages say 'requires IE X.y or later' and/or 'requires Netscape X.y or later', etc. That tells me that if I have an earlier version then it probably won't work and that if I complain to the site they'll just tell me to RTFM and go away or upgrade. However, if I have a later version then it probably will work and if it doesn't, then there's obviously a problem somewhere that I or they might consider worthwhile tracking down.

See, that isn't so hard.

You asked can one find out ahead in time if a page will work or not, not if you can find out if a page will work yes or no. There is a difference between loading a page and then finding out it won't work, and checking in advance if a page won't work. So, you simply cannot find out if a page will work yes or no in advance, yes you can run browser version tests but not all browsers tend to send the correct version information. This information from the test then has to be communicated to the user and they have to be given a choice (since otherwise people would be upset they would be redirected to lesser versions of the page without having a say in it), this would require extra pages before the original page doing so, so just like the rest of the internet we choose not to do so.

See, it isn't that hard indeed, but if you keep changing your point then it's going to take a lot more posts before this is settled.

[dabult]

Here's something different:
Imo the portal is the best and most user-friendly we have seen, I like it a lot. I guess I can call myself the *average user personified, and for me it works like a charm. It also has the best over-all layout by miles compared to earlier, it draws your attention and makes you want to have a closer look at the game, rather than many other games and portals that just make you think 'euw nah thanks'.


*XP, IE6, no particular puter-skills what so ever.


My input eventhough I'm clueless as to the problems presented, vouch for a lot. The majority of net-users actually. And we like the Portal

(I have issues with the game however, but thats not what this is about)

[Andy_r]

You like having to scroll all the time just to see the content, having a top menu that duplicates the side menu, buttons that lead to the page you are already on, bright jiggly flash ads in the middle not at the top so you can't just scoll down a bit to hide them AND a huge loading time?

I don't think that makes you very average!

[Leshy]

Originally posted by Robin
Did you know that Voyager supports PNG alphachannels ;-)

Yes, I was merely pointing out that Windows-platform browsers do exist which support alpha transparency png images, in addition to being able to render all the latest standards, including HTML 4.01 and CSS-2

[A2]

Originally posted by Andy_r
bright jiggly flash ads in the middle not at the top so you can't just scoll down a bit to hide them

Unfortunatley we don't have any control over what adverts go in the banner rotation. Most of them are fixed banners which stay where they're supposed to (although admittedly the background was not designed to hold them and the place where they are was the best option). The few banners that do appear in the middle of the screen and float around all have a close button so you can banish them whenever you like. Personally I'd rather we didn't have to have them at all, but like the forums we were told that we must have them, and at the end of the day they generate revenue for Planetarion and help to keep the game going.

[Andy_r]

Originally posted by A2
...The few banners that do appear in the middle of the screen and float around all have a close button so you can banish them whenever you like...

Wow, you have those too? I didn't know.
I guess that means Mozilla's popup blocker is working :-)

The stupidity of advertisers never ceases to amaze me, do they really think that the more they annoy me the more likely I am to buy something from them?

If I wasn't making money from developing (advert free) Flash websites myself I'd ditch the plug-in and get rid of the Flash adverts too. As it is, I have to manually kill the adverts with PrefsBar > KillFlash and then do a bit of detective work to block the ad servers.

[Obliterate]

I think the portal looks good.

This whole argument about what browsers are supported or not could be solved by a simple "Best viewed in IE 5.5+" or something along those lines at the bottom of the page.

That way, if you're using an ancient browser you have no grounds to complain that the page isn't rendering properly.