Problems with the new site?

Älphämönkëy · November 2005

Let me know here. Gripes about the design should go in this thread. I am the code monkey, not the design monkey, and while I will proxy your requests over, it is really not my place to make those changes independetly. That said, if you notice something looking wrong let me know. Issues I am aware of :

Opera displays the top nav incorrectly. - Fixed
IE sometimes displays things wrong - Only happens on windows boxes with direct x turned off.
RSS has some issues - Fixed (Gabe still needs to use ")
IE 5 Mac doesn't look right at all - I have to make a template just for IE 5 Mac as it doesn't support a lot of features.
Server forces page reloads - trying to reproduce
Bullet points are broken. - Going to hand iterate through all news posts soon.
The "next" and previous buttton get kinda buggy a long time ago. - Fixed, though please post if you find broken dates.

A note : Gabe and Tycho use some really old and invalid HTML syntax, and they aren't too consistent about it. I understand it is broken at places, but really, I'm only one man and there are hundreds of news posts.

Thanks guys. Sorry if I've been a bit grouchy, I'm running a bit low on sleep and a bit high on bug reports. If for nothing else, enjoy the speed of the new site, it really cooks.
-Alpha

autono-wally, erotibot300 · November 2005

well, that automatic reloading error is bugging me quite a bit

Krikee · November 2005

It could of just been a freak accident but when I first hit the new frontpage; (Firefox 1.5) it asked me if I wanted to download index.php while it loaded the page.

Pifman · November 2005

The first time I viewed the site in Firefox 1.0.7 it loaded the page but asked me if I wanted to save some index.something or view it. You know, the normal download popup window you get when trying to save a file. I just hit cancel.

[edit] What he said ^

Also, the site looks like this in Internet Explorer 6.0.2600 for me:

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v326/Magick0ne/Penny%20Arcade/IEcrap.gif

Knob · November 2005

Navigation of old comics is messed up. Sometimes hitting next will skip one or two comics, I'm getting quite a few RAILS ERRORS or whatever those are, and occasionally clicking Next will go the the same comic you are looking at, causing an INFINITE LOOP IN THE TIMESTREAM

IronstorM · November 2005

Looks good so far and with a few tweaks it could look great I'm sure but my question is will there be a new forum template to match as well?

Älphämönkëy · November 2005

Knob wrote:

Navigation of old comics is messed up. Sometimes hitting next will skip one or two comics, I'm getting quite a few RAILS ERRORS or whatever those are, and occasionally clicking Next will go the the same comic you are looking at, causing an INFINITE LOOP IN THE TIMESTREAM

TIME PARADOX
Any examples. This is a good bug to fix.

Nexus Zero · November 2005

It seems to me that the Opera and IE problems are the result of trying to be clever with PNG transparancy and hacks. JPGs and GIFs would work perfectly, and it would be less of a hack job.

Elendil · November 2005

Knob wrote:

Navigation of old comics is messed up. Sometimes hitting next will skip one or two comics, I'm getting quite a few RAILS ERRORS or whatever those are, and occasionally clicking Next will go the the same comic you are looking at, causing an INFINITE LOOP IN THE TIMESTREAM

Same here. Wasn't there also a two-part comic with one half as the "alt" version? I can't remember which one, but it was a ransom letter if I remember right. How does that work now?

alphamonkey wrote:

TIME PARADOX
Any examples. This is a good bug to fix.

I got hung up at around 5/25/99.

Edit: Yes, 5/25/99 did it.

Knob · November 2005

http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2005/08/01

Hitting Next should take you to A Horde of Pewter Treasures

But it actually goes to The Nemesis. Hitting back on The Nemesis takes you to Horde, like it should

It seems like many, if not all comics are doing this. They seem to skip exactly one comic.

I haven't been able to find one that loops again quite yet,

AbsoluteZero · November 2005

The RSS feed live-bookmark dealy is pretty fucked up right now too.

Älphämönkëy · November 2005

AbsoluteZero wrote:

The RSS feed live-bookmark dealy is pretty fucked up right now too.

Define fucked up

AbsoluteZero · November 2005

alphamonkey wrote:

AbsoluteZero wrote:

The RSS feed live-bookmark dealy is pretty fucked up right now too.

Define fucked up

Well, it points to a number of rather old newsposts and comics, and when I click one of them, I get redirected to nowhere.

EDIT: Oh, wait. I see whats happening. It displays the newest post/comic at the bottom of the list now instead of the top. It still doesn't redirect me to anywhere though. (using firefox)

Älphämönkëy · November 2005

Nexus Zero wrote:

It seems to me that the Opera and IE problems are the result of trying to be clever with PNG transparancy and hacks. JPGs and GIFs would work perfectly, and it would be less of a hack job.

Ideally, I'd like to use alpha transparency.

Älphämönkëy · November 2005

AbsoluteZero wrote:

alphamonkey wrote:

AbsoluteZero wrote:

The RSS feed live-bookmark dealy is pretty fucked up right now too.

Define fucked up

Well, it points to a number of rather old newsposts and comics, and when I click one of them, I get redirected to nowhere.

EDIT: Oh, wait. I see whats happening. It displays the newest post/comic at the bottom of the list now instead of the top. It still doesn't redirect me to anywhere though. (using firefox)

Let me look into it.

YF 19 AVF · November 2005

Are we getting search back soon?

Älphämönkëy · November 2005

YF 19 AVF wrote:

Are we getting search back soon?

Yeah. I just had to move a bunch of stress of the mysql.

Antilon · November 2005

Nexus Zero wrote:

It seems to me that the Opera and IE problems are the result of trying to be clever with PNG transparancy and hacks. JPGs and GIFs would work perfectly, and it would be less of a hack job.

I can't agree with this enough. It's just... why put so much work into making PNGs work when gifs or jpegs will do just fine in this case? I love PNGs (< see avatar), but they're a pain in the ass to make work on all browsers.

ALSO! I just did a random search and found the front page F's up when they use bullets... By The Letter L 05/27/2002

Älphämönkëy · November 2005

Yeah I know. I have to hand edit all old news posts as they don't put their lists in <ul>s

Viendin · November 2005

http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/1999/05/24

"Nothing to See Here"

Next comic takes you to.. the exact same thing, even the same URL.

Interestingly enough, the next date, as referenced earlier, http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/1999/05/25 is the same comic. Past that you get redirects to 28, which redirects to 31, which redirects to 06/02, which redirects to 04, to 07, and finally to the comic at http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/1999/06/07 "Inspired by the movie", and then comics seem to work again for a bit.

Also to note: none of those redirects are automatic, they're all manual.

Dog · November 2005

Thanks for fixing the error in Opera, and alpha-transparancy will be fixed in I.E. 7 so you have to wait until then. :roll:

Älphämönkëy · November 2005

poko wrote:

Thanks for fixing the error in Opera, and alpha-transparancy will be fixed in I.E. 7 so you have to wait until then. :roll:

No problem. Yeah, IE 7 is nice, I have a copy through MSDN, and it is a fairly nice browser. I still prefer Firefox though

Dog · November 2005

alphamonkey wrote:

poko wrote:

Thanks for fixing the error in Opera, and alpha-transparancy will be fixed in I.E. 7 so you have to wait until then. :roll:

No problem. Yeah, IE 7 is nice, I have a copy through MSDN, and it is a fairly nice browser. I still prefer Firefox though

Firefox is a fairly nice browser, I still prefer Opera though.

Anyway, the point is IE7 will fully support alpha transparency and the internet will be a more beautiful place. Now, if everyone would pass the Acid 2 test, I'd be a happy girl. Is it foolish to dream of web browsers that implement everything the same way?

autono-wally, erotibot300 · November 2005

poko wrote:

alphamonkey wrote:

poko wrote:

Thanks for fixing the error in Opera, and alpha-transparancy will be fixed in I.E. 7 so you have to wait until then. :roll:

No problem. Yeah, IE 7 is nice, I have a copy through MSDN, and it is a fairly nice browser. I still prefer Firefox though

Firefox is a fairly nice browser, I still prefer Opera though. Anyway, the point is IE7 will fully support alpha transparency and the internet will be a more beautiful place. Now, if everyone would pass the Acid 2 test, I'd be a happy girl. Is it foolish to dream of web browsers that implement everything the same way?

So you're using Opera 8.5 and don't get random reloads on the forum pages?

Älphämönkëy · November 2005

poko wrote:

alphamonkey wrote:

poko wrote:

Thanks for fixing the error in Opera, and alpha-transparancy will be fixed in I.E. 7 so you have to wait until then. :roll:

No problem. Yeah, IE 7 is nice, I have a copy through MSDN, and it is a fairly nice browser. I still prefer Firefox though

Firefox is a fairly nice browser, I still prefer Opera though. Anyway, the point is IE7 will fully support alpha transparency and the internet will be a more beautiful place. Now, if everyone would pass the Acid 2 test, I'd be a happy girl. Is it foolish to dream of web browsers that implement everything the same way?

To each his (or her) own.

Yeah, my point was in IE 7 transparent PNGs work without having to use the DXImageTransform. Though it might be foolish to dream of all browsers passing acid 2, it is good to be optimistic.

Dog · November 2005

autono-wally, erotibot300 wrote:

poko wrote:

alphamonkey wrote:

poko wrote:

Thanks for fixing the error in Opera, and alpha-transparancy will be fixed in I.E. 7 so you have to wait until then. :roll:

No problem. Yeah, IE 7 is nice, I have a copy through MSDN, and it is a fairly nice browser. I still prefer Firefox though

Firefox is a fairly nice browser, I still prefer Opera though. Anyway, the point is IE7 will fully support alpha transparency and the internet will be a more beautiful place. Now, if everyone would pass the Acid 2 test, I'd be a happy girl. Is it foolish to dream of web browsers that implement everything the same way?

So you're using Opera 8.5 and don't get random reloads on the forum pages?

No I got that. It loads, and then reloads right away. After that it acts normal on that page.

autono-wally, erotibot300 · November 2005

hm, I was using firefox now since that reloading was pretty annoying, and it seems FF forgets the cookies somehow.

Anyone got a similar problem, or is it on my side?
(And I'm not doing something silly like using http://penny-arcade , either

)

Älphämönkëy · November 2005

It works for me, but that means little.

autono-wally, erotibot300 · November 2005

Now I get "416 - Requested Range Not Satisfiable" with FF..
Edit: Error's gone

Krikee · November 2005

Pifman wrote:

Nexus Zero wrote:

It seems to me that the Opera and IE problems are the result of trying to be clever with PNG transparancy and hacks. JPGs and GIFs would work perfectly, and it would be less of a hack job.

I can't agree with this enough. It's just... why put so much work into making PNGs work when gifs or jpegs will do just fine in this case? I love PNGs (< see avatar), but they're a pain in the ass to make work on all browsers.

ALSO! I just did a random search and found the front page F's up when they use bullets... By The Letter L 05/27/2002

PNG is much more preferable for a graphical interface. It is a lossless image format (BMP based I believe) that does a hell of a job compressing. Lass thing anyone wants is artifacts in the graphics and on a website of this popularity a hundred kilobytes saved on 1 load adds up awfully quick.

EDIT: To give you an idea, my sig is 3.3kB and to make it a gif or jpg of similar quality it was 50+ kB.

Ramius · November 2005

Is it possible to keep supporting the old links?

Like links to specific comics ( http://www.penny-arcade.com/view.php3?date=2003-04-14&res=l )

or links to specific newsposts ( http://www.penny-arcade.com/news.php3?date=2003-04-14 )

Älphämönkëy · November 2005

Ramius wrote:

Is it possible to keep supporting the old links?

Like links to specific comics ( http://www.penny-arcade.com/view.php3?date=2003-04-14&res=l )

or links to specific newsposts ( http://www.penny-arcade.com/news.php3?date=2003-04-14 )

Yeah. I'll tack that on.

Ramius · November 2005

Check out the bottom result on this search:

http://www.penny-arcade.com/news/search?keyword=blizzard

Ramius · November 2005

I think I mentioned this once somewhere before, but in case it got lost along the way...

The "Rollover for trailer" flash ads on the comic page load the trailer inside the iframe that the ad is in. Which means you can hear it but you cannot see it.

Älphämönkëy · November 2005

Ramius wrote:

Check out the bottom result on this search:

http://www.penny-arcade.com/news/search?keyword=blizzard

We are still repopulating the keywords table, meaning there is an active program reimporting everything...

Älphämönkëy · November 2005

Ramius wrote:

I think I mentioned this once somewhere before, but in case it got lost along the way...

The "Rollover for trailer" flash ads on the comic page load the trailer inside the iframe that the ad is in. Which means you can hear it but you cannot see it.

Oh. That is no good. No good indeed.

seanoc · November 2005

Ramius wrote:

Check out the bottom result on this search:

http://www.penny-arcade.com/news/search?keyword=blizzard

There are 9 posts in the database that have zero length subjects, this is one of them. I'll dork out a fix for the search results if the title has zero length.

Ramius · November 2005

alphamonkey wrote:

Ramius wrote:

Check out the bottom result on this search:

http://www.penny-arcade.com/news/search?keyword=blizzard

We are still repopulating the keywords table, meaning there is an active program reimporting everything...

Actually, if you go there: http://www.penny-arcade.com/2002/02/14

The newspost is missing its title. As well as the newsposts for the next and previous days. I don't know what's up with that.

Chuffy · November 2005

More oddities in IE.

Lews_Therin · November 2005

Could you put the first; back; next;...etc buttons in their own spans, like the buttons on top? I'm trying to make a theme, but can't move those buttons down farther in their box.

Ramius · November 2005

Every page should have a unique title instead of being all the same. I would suggest including the date as well as the title of the fist post on that day. I think the newspost is usually named the same as the comic, so you might want to throw the word comic or somesuch into the title for the comic page.

Because search engines value the page title very heavily, and because the newspost / comic titles are not typically very descriptive, you might get more milage out of a title like:
"Penny Arcade - 2005/11/14 Newspost - News, reviews, comics and commentary on video games and the gaming industry"

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