Latest from the GameDev.net Reboot

Published December 22, 2019
Advertisement

It's been a month since the GameDev.net reboot and nearly 200 commits have been submitted for fixes, updates, changes, requests, etc. There's still a lot to do, but here are a few updates and thoughts. Please feel free to leave comments below.

Reviewing Editor Options

Some people like the new editor, others not so much. While it appears most of the issues have been resolved with the editor, there are still quirks with it that make normal, everyday use a little challenging. We can either keep chugging along with the current editor, or we can switch to something that might lack some of the features but is more stable to work with. I'm evaluating the integration for that right now.

You can expect the editor to change within the next week or so (assuming all goes well).

Mobile Support

GameDev.net only sees about 10% of its traffic from mobile platforms, so mobile had less attention heading into launch. A lot of those problems have been fixed, but I'm sure more will pop up.

Unread Posts / Content

I know everyone is upset about us not having this right now. Myself and several moderators thought this was a less used feature, but it sounds like we were wrong. It's in the works, and the scope of this feature needs to be understood and thought about for related future developments.

Site Speed

By last measure most areas of the site are loading at ~10x what they were at site launch. Mostly due to improved caching and database use. Many optimizations to come.

Moderator Tools

Only a handful of us know about these, but the modtools still need work to make community management easier.

Spammer Detection

GameDev.net is being hit by quite a bit of spam after the launch. Luckily anti-spam measures have been mostly working, but they are set to be very aggressive right now and need more work. Some members have been caught by the anti-spam - if you are, then please reach out to me.

Challenges Entries and Profiles

This is coming, and I apologize for members who have participated in these in the past not having this ready by now. The challenge entries need to be ported to the new challenge system. It's been high on my list to take care of and will soon.

Miscellaneous Quirks

There are a few quirks throughout the site that need to be addressed, likely one by one over time.

Messaging

I'm going to replace the current messaging system with live chat/messaging. No specific timeframe but likely very soon as the current messaging system is too riddled with bugs to keep around much longer (with no intent to fix).

Follows, Feeds, and Notifications

These are coming as well. You will be able to fully customize your feed, whether it's by topic, other developers, projects, blogs, forums, etc. You'll be able to customize which items you want to be notified about.

Emails - Email notifications are included in this category. They were temporarily enabled for forum replies, but the response was overwhelmingly negative, so I disabled them for now until more refined control is available.

Newsletter

Our newsletter will resume very soon. Check your Newsletter settings in account settings.

What else?

I'll try to provide more regular updates through the Staff blog. I may setup the Trello board for public consumption as well, once I can organize it better for others to understand.

In general, expect more progress the next few weeks. Please share comments below.

Previous Entry A New GameDev Coming Soon
2 likes 36 comments

Comments

fleabay

"Site Speed

By last measure most areas of the site are loading at ~10x what they were at site launch. Mostly due to improved caching and database use. Many optimizations to come."

I don't usually LMAO but man this is so wrong. The site is slower than before at times. I always get to notice 'waiting on gamedev.net'. Just now it took 10 seconds for the front page to load. I counted. 10 f'ing seconds. Gamedev.net is currently the slowest site I know of and has been for some time.

It's not always slow but it's certainly not 10x faster. It's the same at best.

December 22, 2019 04:40 AM
khawk

I don't understand the point of such negativity.

Anyway, here's a sample for a forum topic and home page - these specific pages are ~5-8x what they were at launch. Other pages are 20x. Average is ~10x.


I've recently noticed some analytics showing that some regions are slower, though. I don't know the reason why yet. I do know if you happen to catch the site during an update you're going to see slow responses (currently anywhere from 5-20 times per day), but I haven't narrowed down the cause of that either yet.

December 22, 2019 06:05 AM
fleabay

"I don't understand the point of such negativity."

Sorry, I wasn't trying to be negative, just honest. ? Everything is fine. ?

December 22, 2019 08:15 AM
Rutin

Front page loads in one second or less for me. Sometimes other pages might take two seconds but it's usually just a second or less, but other than that I don't see drastic delays in page loads overall.

December 22, 2019 07:08 PM
Endurion

Is the broken editing function for blogs on the list? I'd like to fix up my tutorial, but when I click "Edit" on an entry the page jumps to the top and no editor shows up. Using Edge Chromium on Windows 7.

December 27, 2019 05:31 AM
khawk

Not sure what happened there, but it should take you to the Blog management page instead. I was just able to duplicate, so I'll take a look. Have you tried going to the post through the Dashboard -> Blogs path?

December 27, 2019 08:24 AM
Endurion

Ah yes, that way it works. It's not entirely clear at the first time that you're set into direct edit mode, but at least I can fix up some broken images.

Annoyingly when I edit one of the oldest blog entries I'm then returned to the dashboard sitting at the first page (e.g. the newest entries) and I have to find the previously selected page of the blog entries manually.,

December 27, 2019 07:23 PM
Endurion

When I try to edit my reply from yesterday I get a "Bad Gateway" error message. Going through the dashboard the blog entries always come up in edit mode right away. Is that intended?

December 28, 2019 04:33 AM
Endurion

Pasting some text is scary, it seems to work, but the editor scrolls to the top of the page.

December 28, 2019 04:51 AM
Endurion

Also the pagination in the blog dashboard is off. I should have 6 pages, but the display only goes to 5. Going to "last page" opens the 6th page :)
Having a way to force a specific syntax coloring for code sections would be neat. From looking at the page source I can see that the assembly gets different code colorings.

December 28, 2019 04:58 AM
khawk

Since the editor is about to be replaced, maybe better to focus on non-editor problems for the moment. :)

Pasting does work fine. I don't know why it jumps like that yet. (but, editor)

I think the Bad Gateway you received - if you saw it shortly before your comment above - is due to a server configuration change that happened roughly at the same time. I'm still learning how to make such changes without disrupting service.

I think the main takeaway I'm seeing is to improve the experience with blog management. I'm a fan of that.

December 28, 2019 05:54 AM
fleabay

The site seems faster for several days now.

Can't report spam posts, only threads. The button is there, just doesn't do anything.

This blog is not very visible. It stays buried even when someone posts.

December 28, 2019 01:04 PM
Endurion

Has there been an editor update? All code sections in the blog entries have no code formatting anymore.

Also, when replying here the site reloads without the post showing. Only after a refresh the new reply shows up.

January 05, 2020 08:24 AM
khawk

@Endurion Yes the editor is new. The editor doesn't show highlights (yet), but posted content will still show code highlights. Let me know if it's not. Might be a special case.

January 06, 2020 06:08 PM
Endurion

@khawk This thread is annoying to find, I need to always go by the old GameDev What's new-Thread and follow the link in your last reply ?

January 08, 2020 05:24 AM
khawk

@Endurion There is a way to deal with that. ? Bookmarks!

Click the green icon to save to your bookmarks

Now I know Bookmarks are not necessarily ideal for this because they're intended to be for articles/forum discussions/blogs/etc you want to save. But until follows and follow feeds are properly supported it's one way to quickly get to content you're paying attention to. And when you're done with it, you can un-bookmark it.

Bookmarks are available in the Dashboard.

January 09, 2020 10:52 PM
fleabay

Scrollbar handle is so close in color to the scrollbar that it's almost impossible to see.

January 11, 2020 07:14 AM
Endurion

Are you fucking kidding me!!!!?!??!

I had a message about the editor being completely broken, not inserting line breaks after a few lines with that dumb fake double line break. Insert, Backspace and new line breaks would not be shown at all.

After sending the message most of my message text is gone! All the non showing line breaks are suddenly there instead.

Please, get rid of this shit show for an excuse of an message editor and replace it with a HTML text box. Never buy anything again from that failures of web development again.

Resorting to copy my message before so it doesn't get fucked up is a shame for a game dev site!!

January 15, 2020 05:31 AM
khawk

@Endurion The current editor is new as of 2-3 weeks ago. The previous editor had problems, but this is the first time I've heard of an issue with this editor.

The “double line break” has been around in GameDev.net's editors for years (the current one is actually the exact same type as the previous GameDev.net's platform's editor that nobody complained about - just a newer version). And I don't understand what you mean by the non-showing line breaks.

I really don't know how to help here. I need more information, an example, something.

January 15, 2020 05:55 AM
Endurion

This is weird. I had the exact same problem with my last two replies (one here, the other in the For Beginners) forum, but now I can't reproduce it anymore.

I had written maybe two lines separated by one of those double line breaks, then went back to the first line reformatting, and suddenly backspace, delete wouldn't work anymore (visually)

It's as if the display update was erroring out, but the changed text was stored in the background.

If it appears again I'll notify, something's still iffy there.

January 15, 2020 06:19 AM
Endurion

There it was again, when I went back to edit the previous reply. A bit of enter and shift-enter mixed, then trying to delete them. Suddenly the editing doesn't work anymore.

Dang it, I can't reliably reproduce it. If I ever find how to do that I'll reply here with instructions.

January 15, 2020 06:21 AM
Endurion

I think I caught it, when the error starts this output shows in the console:

ckeditorerror.js:69 Uncaught TypeError: Cannot read property 'name' of undefined
    at Differ.getChanges (differ.js:460)
    at eval (blockquoteediting.js:56)
    at Document._callPostFixers (document.js:427)
    at Document._handleChangeBlock (document.js:324)
    at Model._runPendingChanges (model.js:819)
    at Model.enqueueChange (model.js:247)
    at DeleteCommand.execute (deletecommand.js:80)
    at DeleteCommand.eval (observablemixin.js:244)
    at DeleteCommand.fire (emittermixin.js:207)
    at DeleteCommand.<computed> [as execute] (observablemixin.js:248)
CKEditorError @ ckeditorerror.js:69
rethrowUnexpectedError @ ckeditorerror.js:124
enqueueChange @ model.js:253
execute @ deletecommand.js:80
eval @ observablemixin.js:244
fire @ emittermixin.js:207
<computed> @ observablemixin.js:248
execute @ commandcollection.js:75
execute @ editor.js:288
eval @ delete.js:58
fire @ emittermixin.js:207
fireViewDeleteEvent @ deleteobserver.js:87
eval @ deleteobserver.js:51
fire @ emittermixin.js:207
fire @ domeventobserver.js:102
onDomEvent @ keyobserver.js:30
listenTo.useCapture @ domeventobserver.js:82
fire @ emittermixin.js:207
domListener @ emittermixin.js:237
ckeditorerror.js:69 Uncaught CKEditorError: model-nodelist-offset-out-of-bounds: Given offset cannot be found in the node list. Read more: https://ckeditor.com/docs/ckeditor5/latest/framework/guides/support/error-codes.html#error-model-nodelist-offset-out-of-bounds
 {"offset":14,"nodeList":[{"data":"iCH BIN EINas"}]}
    at NodeList.offsetToIndex (webpack:///./node_modules/@ckeditor/ckeditor5-engine/src/model/nodelist.js?:171:13)
    at Element.offsetToIndex (webpack:///./node_modules/@ckeditor/ckeditor5-engine/src/model/element.js?:201:27)
    at Position.get index [as index] (webpack:///./node_modules/@ckeditor/ckeditor5-engine/src/model/position.js?:217:24)
    at Position.get textNode [as textNode] (webpack:///./node_modules/@ckeditor/ckeditor5-engine/src/model/position.js?:229:44)
    at validateTextNodePosition (webpack:///./node_modules/@ckeditor/ckeditor5-engine/src/model/document.js?:494:34)
    at Document._validateSelectionRange (webpack:///./node_modules/@ckeditor/ckeditor5-engine/src/model/document.js?:405:12)
    at LiveSelection.eval (webpack:///./node_modules/@ckeditor/ckeditor5-engine/src/model/documentselection.js?:673:29)
    at LiveSelection.fire (webpack:///./node_modules/@ckeditor/ckeditor5-utils/src/emittermixin.js?:207:33)
    at LiveSelection._setRanges (webpack:///./node_modules/@ckeditor/ckeditor5-engine/src/model/selection.js?:484:10)
    at LiveSelection.setTo (webpack:///./node_modules/@ckeditor/ckeditor5-engine/src/model/selection.js?:388:12)
CKEditorError @ ckeditorerror.js:69
offsetToIndex @ nodelist.js:171
offsetToIndex @ element.js:201
get index @ position.js:217
get textNode @ position.js:229
validateTextNodePosition @ document.js:494
_validateSelectionRange @ document.js:405
eval @ documentselection.js:673
fire @ emittermixin.js:207
_setRanges @ selection.js:484
setTo @ selection.js:388
setTo @ documentselection.js:756
_setTo @ documentselection.js:454
setSelection @ writer.js:1195
eval @ upcasthelpers.js:428
change @ model.js:188
eval @ upcasthelpers.js:427
fire @ emittermixin.js:207
_handleSelectionChange @ selectionobserver.js:178
eval @ selectionobserver.js:109
fire @ emittermixin.js:207
domListener @ emittermixin.js:237
ckeditorerror.js:69 Uncaught CKEditorError: model-nodelist-offset-out-of-bounds: Given offset cannot be found in the node list. Read more: https://ckeditor.com/docs/ckeditor5/latest/framework/guides/support/error-codes.html#error-model-nodelist-offset-out-of-bounds
 {"offset":14,"nodeList":[{"data":"iCH BIN EINas"}]}
    at NodeList.offsetToIndex (webpack:///./node_modules/@ckeditor/ckeditor5-engine/src/model/nodelist.js?:171:13)
    at Element.offsetToIndex (webpack:///./node_modules/@ckeditor/ckeditor5-engine/src/model/element.js?:201:27)
    at Position.get index [as index] (webpack:///./node_modules/@ckeditor/ckeditor5-engine/src/model/position.js?:217:24)
    at Position.get textNode [as textNode] (webpack:///./node_modules/@ckeditor/ckeditor5-engine/src/model/position.js?:229:44)
    at Position.get nodeAfter [as nodeAfter] (webpack:///./node_modules/@ckeditor/ckeditor5-engine/src/model/position.js?:241:17)
    at LiveSelection.getSelectedElement (webpack:///./node_modules/@ckeditor/ckeditor5-engine/src/model/selection.js?:640:40)
    at DocumentSelection.getSelectedElement (webpack:///./node_modules/@ckeditor/ckeditor5-engine/src/model/documentselection.js?:318:28)
    at Widget._handleEnterKey (webpack:///./node_modules/@ckeditor/ckeditor5-widget/src/widget.js?:293:44)
    at Widget._onKeydown (webpack:///./node_modules/@ckeditor/ckeditor5-widget/src/widget.js?:187:25)
    at Document.listenTo.priority (webpack:///./node_modules/@ckeditor/ckeditor5-widget/src/widget.js?:102:62)
January 15, 2020 06:33 AM
Endurion

Since I'm at it, the “Save bookmark” thingie on a post doesn't do anything? The like works, but I'd expect the bookmark to fill as well.

January 15, 2020 06:48 AM
Endurion

Regarding bookmarking, it seems to work (as in the flag is getting filled) on other forums/threads, just not this one.

January 22, 2020 07:20 AM
khawk

@Endurion Bookmarking isn't working on the blog entry? Or just these blog comments?

January 26, 2020 04:35 PM
Endurion

@khawk Doesn't seem to work on either. Weird.

January 27, 2020 06:07 AM
khawk

@Endurion This is fixed.

January 28, 2020 05:39 AM
Endurion

@khawk

Yay, that works! Thanks!

Now only the hilariously broken editor needs to go!

Just in this thread branch, it's unfortunately not too obvious if “Reply” belongs to the message above or below. The message background is just a slight blueish hue of the other white background.

February 02, 2020 06:13 AM
fleabay

Why is this official blog so difficult to find once it's scrolled off the front page?

Anyway, I couldn't hide my double post, said I didn't have permission.

ED: It seems as even posting here does not give it more visibility.

January 26, 2020 03:28 AM
khawk

@fleabay Thanks for reporting the hide. I'll check on that. Users should be able to hide their own posts.

Still working on ways to improve blog discovery and visibility. Again, easiest way at the moment is to bookmark the blog post, then you just go to your bookmarks and go straight to it. I think what might help is being able to flag when bookmarked content has an update, as well as adding proper support for following.

January 26, 2020 04:38 PM
Lactose

I just got logged out again, even though I keep checking the “Remember me” flag whenever I log in.

January 27, 2020 10:43 PM
Rutin

I wasn't sure if I should post a thread or just post comments in this blog, but I cannot seem to hide blog groups. I have my blog called: “Old Game Challenges - Pre 2020” that I set to private but it wont hide for some reason. I also noticed I cannot delete blog posts either but if I set them to hidden individually they will vanish completely, even for me to see the second time as if they were deleted.

I pretty much hid my challenge 2 posts, but wanted to hide this entire blog and set up a new one for 2020.

On my main page in my profile if I click my blogs tab those hidden posts still show as part of my feed as well and some stray in the activity feed:

January 28, 2020 10:13 PM
khawk

@Rutin Update forthcoming shortly after this comment to address these issues.

Out of curiosity, why not keep past challenge posts visible on an old blog and just make a new one?

January 29, 2020 06:27 AM
Rutin

@khawk I was mainly looking at just hiding the Challenge 2 posts as this personal challenge was a complete flop in 2019, and I have zero intention on reviving the project or doing a full redo. Going forward I was going to structure everything different for 2020 so I thought to start fresh.

January 29, 2020 04:13 PM
Lactose

Currently, the top “Recommended Member” on the right-hand side is a banned spam account. Would suggest filtering that list based on account status or something.

February 02, 2020 03:44 PM
fleabay

I think that the profile image of the last user to post in a forum thread should show instead of the OP's. I keep seeing my profile image show up in the WYSIWYG thread I created on the front page and I haven't posted in it for a while.

February 06, 2020 06:57 AM
You must log in to join the conversation.
Don't have a GameDev.net account? Sign up!
Advertisement