Development complaints

[Rainfromabove]

Hi, not to be moaning but feels like in the last few months there keep being updates that are not well tested and range from making the site experience much worse to being minor annoyances

Specific pointers/bugs please:

- in games which you view in the old UI you can no longer click on the enlarged map function -> it just takes you to the new UI screen and doesn’t show the moves from last turn (eg trying to see failed supports)

- order preview works about 50% of the time (at least on mobile), otherwise map seems to crash

- the new display on mobile of the home page with the big new section means we have to now scroll past a ton of new games before you can get to the updates/notifs on games you are in

- On the above why is it necessary to see a bunch of Sandboxed games that are about to start

[Troodonte]

Hi

I believe there’s is a specific forum thread to talk about the new map.
I also pointed that I like the old enlarged map to see failed supports. However it is quite us to see them in the new version. Just go back on the arrows and you will see them. It still annoys me that I can’t see the whole map on my phone screen. But I’m getting used to it.

I have to agree with your third point. It is not very user friendly how we need to scroll on the phone to get to the notifications about the games. All those sandbox game make a lot of room.
Talking about that: what’s is a sandbox game?

[Ferdack]

in games which you view in the old UI you can no longer click on the enlarged map function -> it just takes you to the new UI screen and doesn’t show the moves from last turn (eg trying to see failed supports)

There is a quick fix this problem, when you try to click on the large map the URL is currently in this format:

https://webdiplomacy.net/beta/?gameID=xxxxxx

You can copy your game ID to the old map format, and manually adjust your turn number:

https://webdiplomacy.net/map.php?gameID=xxxxxx&turn=x&mapType=large

[JECE]

Talking about that: what’s is a sandbox game?

It's just a Diplomacy adjudicator.

Here is the thread where its implementation on webDip was first discussed:
viewtopic.php?f=16&t=4565

Good to hear from you, Troodonte!

[sweetandcool]

I've also taken note that a lot of changes made recently seem very half-baked, which is frustrating for users. I admire the enthusiasm of the dev to try pumping out changes people want, but it is frustrating dealing with broken features.

The point and click map should still be in beta since it still is not uncommon for orders to break (for those curious, you can fix the white screen problem by going to the old drop-down menu and correcting your orders there).

The sandbox is a broken mess that shouldn't have been deployed. Also, I don't think it's a feature that anyone wants. An analysis board where we can insert and delete units, move back and forth between moves, make variations, and even see bot's evaluations would be the tool people want. Comparable to a chess analysis board.

Lastly, I don't understand why the "play beta" button had to be removed. If the dev was of the opinion that it was no longer in beta, then why not rename that button something else, like "interactive board". That would avoid all of the sad people who liked the old interface and it wouldn't default to making a new tab everytime you want to use the new board.

[Ferdack]

An analysis board where we can insert and delete units, move back and forth between moves, make variations, and even see bot's evaluations would be the tool people want. Comparable to a chess analysis board.

This feature would be absolutely amazing, and would draw a lot of (Backstabbr?) users to webDip. Implementing bot eval might be a lot of work though.

[sweetandcool]

I agree that bot eval would be huge extra credit. But the rest of it really ought not to be too difficult.

[Troodonte]

It's just a Diplomacy adjudicator.

Here is the thread where its implementation on webDip was first discussed:
viewtopic.php?f=16&t=4565

Good to hear from you, Troodonte!

Hey JECE,

Been away a few years, but I'm back. Glad to see you are still around!

[Rainfromabove]

in games which you view in the old UI you can no longer click on the enlarged map function -> it just takes you to the new UI screen and doesn’t show the moves from last turn (eg trying to see failed supports)

There is a quick fix this problem, when you try to click on the large map the URL is currently in this format:

https://webdiplomacy.net/beta/?gameID=xxxxxx

You can copy your game ID to the old map format, and manually adjust your turn number:

https://webdiplomacy.net/map.php?gameID=xxxxxx&turn=x&mapType=large

Thank Ferdack, that’s a useful bit of webdip wisdom!
Nevertheless ideally the site should function as intended and kind of a pain to do every time … (esp on mobile)

Thanks for the support @rest - seems that some of this has coincided with some big departures from the site and development team, hope that it isn’t a sign that Webdip is not so slowly but surely dying :/

[kestasjk]

Hi, not to be moaning but feels like in the last few months there keep being updates that are not well tested and range from making the site experience much worse to being minor annoyances

Specific pointers/bugs please:

- in games which you view in the old UI you can no longer click on the enlarged map function -> it just takes you to the new UI screen and doesn’t show the moves from last turn (eg trying to see failed supports)

- order preview works about 50% of the time (at least on mobile), otherwise map seems to crash

- the new display on mobile of the home page with the big new section means we have to now scroll past a ton of new games before you can get to the updates/notifs on games you are in

- On the above why is it necessary to see a bunch of Sandboxed games that are about to start

Thanks for the feedback, I've changed the large map button back to opening the large map, I figured it was redundant for the classic map as the beta UI was there, but clearly people still want it so I've restored that.

I removed joinable and sandbox games from the homepage; sandbox games showing was a bug, but joinable games I thought might help make joinable games more easily viewable

The order preview not working I'm not sure why that's happening, I'll have to investigate that

[kestasjk]

I've also taken note that a lot of changes made recently seem very half-baked, which is frustrating for users. I admire the enthusiasm of the dev to try pumping out changes people want, but it is frustrating dealing with broken features.

The point and click map should still be in beta since it still is not uncommon for orders to break (for those curious, you can fix the white screen problem by going to the old drop-down menu and correcting your orders there).

The sandbox is a broken mess that shouldn't have been deployed. Also, I don't think it's a feature that anyone wants. An analysis board where we can insert and delete units, move back and forth between moves, make variations, and even see bot's evaluations would be the tool people want. Comparable to a chess analysis board.

Lastly, I don't understand why the "play beta" button had to be removed. If the dev was of the opinion that it was no longer in beta, then why not rename that button something else, like "interactive board". That would avoid all of the sad people who liked the old interface and it wouldn't default to making a new tab everytime you want to use the new board.

When do you get the white screen issue? Is that just in sandbox mode, or in regular games? If it happens can you let me know the game so I can investigate and fix

I can change it so that clicking the map doesn't open in a new tab if you prefer? I know that many people weren't aware of the new UI and I think for new users it was a better default, but you can always set your default to be the drop-down UI in your settings.

The sandbox should be working fine, can you let me know what's not working? People were asking for a sandbox feature as others have pointed out, I wouldn't add something no-one asked for. It doesn't have the ability to set units where you like quite yet, but it's a start: You can clone a game to a sandbox, test out some moves, see the results, go back a turn, delete the sandbox, create a blank sandbox. It should be fine, and if you don't want to use it you don't have to :|


Just keep the feedback coming; what people like we'll continue with, what people don't like we'll fix

[sweetandcool]

The white screen problem mostly happens in bot games/sandbox, but it has happened a couple of times in gunboat. The game will have a single red "!", similar to the double red "!!". The drop down will show an order that is empty and as long as you enter a valid order the point and click will start working again instead of being a white screen. I will try to remember to report it to you next time, instead of fixing it myself.

The sandbox is awful. Imagine being a new player, noticing the awesome sandbox feature, defaulting to point and click, and then having it behave in a buggy broken way. You've mentioned before that you haven't gotten the build phase to work. Well, even the other phases don't work. You'll enter a few orders and then the game will progress on its own. Or you'll be "assigned" a country with no units and the game doesn't let you progress. And for some reason sandbox "games" show up as joinable games. So the whole front page list of joinable games is an endless list of disappointing sandbox "games". Not only is that a horrible look for the homepage, but it leaks information, rendering analysis useless since anyone can view it.

Shouldn't these new features be beta tested before being released? Sandbox should not be available until it actually works in the UI you expect everybody to use.

Lastly, I just realized you addressed some of these issues in a previous post. But I've already drafted this post, and it's good to point out these issues again anyways.

[Rainfromabove]

Thank you Kestas, really appreciate the timely responses to feedback - think on the flipside of all the complaining, your interactions and acknowledgements I think that has been a major positive since you started being more involved and proactive again

[kestasjk]

Thank you Kestas, really appreciate the timely responses to feedback - think on the flipside of all the complaining, your interactions and acknowledgements I think that has been a major positive since you started being more involved and proactive again

No worries RFA, also behind the scenes we haven't had a deadlock error for days which is the first time it has been that long since the bots / API got started. :)

The white screen problem mostly happens in bot games/sandbox, but it has happened a couple of times in gunboat. The game will have a single red "!", similar to the double red "!!". The drop down will show an order that is empty and as long as you enter a valid order the point and click will start working again instead of being a white screen. I will try to remember to report it to you next time, instead of fixing it myself.

Righto much appreciated

The sandbox is awful. Imagine being a new player, noticing the awesome sandbox feature, defaulting to point and click, and then having it behave in a buggy broken way. You've mentioned before that you haven't gotten the build phase to work. Well, even the other phases don't work. You'll enter a few orders and then the game will progress on its own. Or you'll be "assigned" a country with no units and the game doesn't let you progress. And for some reason sandbox "games" show up as joinable games. So the whole front page list of joinable games is an endless list of disappointing sandbox "games". Not only is that a horrible look for the homepage, but it leaks information, rendering analysis useless since anyone can view it.

I've sorted out the SB games showing on the home page, and I thought I changed the sandbox games so that they will always show using the drop-down UI until I can fix the bug with the builds phase. I'll check that out and see what's going on.

Good idea about hiding sandbox games from other users, I'll make sandbox games only viewable to the creator.. That should be done now, people can no longer view others' sandbox games.
The new GitHub ChatGPT Copilot feature is really neat, I just typed

Code: Select all

	if( !is_null($Game->sandboxCreatedByUserID) 

And it actually generated this as a suggestion:

Code: Select all

	if( !is_null($Game->sandboxCreatedByUserID) && $Game->sandboxCreatedByUserID != $User->id && !$User->type['Moderator'] )
	{
		libHTML::notice('Access denied',l_t("You can't view this game, it is a sandbox game which you didn't create."));
	}

It guessed I wanted to filter out users that hadn't created the game, knew to add a check for moderator user type, knew to send the error through the translation error, very smart

Shouldn't these new features be beta tested before being released? Sandbox should not be available until it actually works in the UI you expect everybody to use.

Lastly, I just realized you addressed some of these issues in a previous post. But I've already drafted this post, and it's good to point out these issues again anyways.

It should work in the drop-down UI, and it should default to the drop-down UI:

Code: Select all

	function usePointAndClickUI()
	{
		global $User;

		return $this->isClassicGame() 
			&& (defined('PLAYNOW') || !isset($User) || !$User->type['User'] || $User->isMapUIPointAndClick() ) 
			&& is_null($this->sandboxCreatedByUserID); // Sandbox games currently not supported for build mode in point and click UI
	}

The changes are tested, but there's always a tradeoff re: how to spend very limited webDip dev time; development vs testing, and it's a hard balance to get right

[wulfheart]

I habe thought about refactoring for a long time. Would you be open for a gradual refactoring and automated tests?

[learnedSloth]

The new GitHub ChatGPT Copilot feature is really neat, I just typed

Code: Select all

	if( !is_null($Game->sandboxCreatedByUserID) 

And it actually generated this as a suggestion:

Code: Select all

	if( !is_null($Game->sandboxCreatedByUserID) && $Game->sandboxCreatedByUserID != $User->id && !$User->type['Moderator'] )
	{
		libHTML::notice('Access denied',l_t("You can't view this game, it is a sandbox game which you didn't create."));
	}

It guessed I wanted to filter out users that hadn't created the game, knew to add a check for moderator user type, knew to send the error through the translation error, very smart

Haha! It must have consumed enough similar code to predict that continuation; in the end it's just a fancy autocomplete guessing next tokens.

[kestasjk]

I habe thought about refactoring for a long time. Would you be open for a gradual refactoring and automated tests?

Of course The dev environment is pretty nice these days, you can grab docker and VS code and be up and running even with MILA bots in no time, it'd be very neat to have a test suite (beyond the DATC tests, which cover the adjudicator pretty well)

[Chaqa]

@Kestas: have you considered some sort of community-input based feature prioritization process? A lot of sites will have users vote on features they'd like to see or anything like that.

[wulfheart]

There are even plenty of free feature request trackers online available. Just noting.

[wulfheart]

I habe thought about refactoring for a long time. Would you be open for a gradual refactoring and automated tests?

Of course The dev environment is pretty nice these days, you can grab docker and VS code and be up and running even with MILA bots in no time, it'd be very neat to have a test suite (beyond the DATC tests, which cover the adjudicator pretty well)

Nice! Do you have an email address where I can reach out with my ideas?