Fur Affinity Turns 6!

[Sanyi]

You need a website coder in order to create an UI. A "professional UI developer" IS a coder.

After a fashion, yes, a UI developer is a coder. Though more often than not a UI developer works on exactly that; the UI, or User Interface. They don't do all the behind the scenes coding that actually makes the site RUN. All they do is make it look good. That is their primary function. In some instances they may help to make sure that the coding works well between the design and the hard code of the site, but I imagine they wont be doing that in this case because it's likely that the design will be finished long before the actual back-end of the site is finished.

No it's not. What would be the point in mocking up a design in HTML if not to use that HTML?

It's not even finished yet. Of course they aren't going to be using the unfinished coding. All that it is right now is a preview of what the site COULD look like when they actually hire on a guy, and said guy finishes it. In simpler terms it's a "this is what we have so far" site.

Wasn't this new template announced more than once and promised for 2010?
I'm skeptical after that entire year came and went.

Which is the problem with not actually paying someone to do something. ^^;;
This should be remedied though, considering they will actually be paying someone to do it this time.

[redfoxnudetoons]

After a fashion, yes, a UI developer is a coder. Though more often than not a UI developer works on exactly that; the UI, or User Interface. They don't do all the behind the scenes coding that actually makes the site RUN. All they do is make it look good. That is their primary function. In some instances they may help to make sure that the coding works well between the design and the hard code of the site, but I imagine they wont be doing that in this case because it's likely that the design will be finished long before the actual back-end of the site is finished.

And yet a good amount of security risks seem to stem from the UI. At least some very problematic exploits have stemmed from the UI. I'm sure there's problems that run all the way to the core, but, as Eevee has painfully shown, UI features can be used against the site.

It's not even finished yet. Of course they aren't going to be using the unfinished coding. All that it is right now is a preview of what the site COULD look like when they actually hire on a guy, and said guy finishes it. In simpler terms it's a "this is what we have so far" site.

Again, I bring up the fact that ANY graphic designer using that excuse will more times than not loose the client in the real world. And UI coding actually does fall within graphic design.

This should be remedied though, considering they will actually be paying someone to do it this time.

Unless the money somehow manages not to come through. I can understand Kesteh's skepticism.

[sawblade5]

Did you make a post to artists_beware on livejournal?

No because I managed to get item in the end with not so satisfactory results. AB is for when the artist doesn't not even complete the task at hand as far as I know.

[thedarkwolfzearoth]

Awesome besides for that a rating system will allow furs to give furs bad rating just to be assholes/trolls

[Quiet269]

Will be interesting to see how it turns out. Though, I'm still waiting for the whole cub removal to pan out.

[the-pale-tailed-fox]

You're comparing live coding to a mock-up/preview as if it's some final product? That's kinda... stupid, even for FA standards.

That is an absolutely terrible idea.

well was just a suggestion after all not to be taken seriously only if it was good anyways LOL.

[redfoxnudetoons]

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/18564759/Fur...20timeline.pdf

This pretty much sums up the history of FA, and why there are people who are skeptical of implementation. Still waiting on those filters to filter out the gore/vore images that don't have nice warning thumbnails....

[FirestormSix]

Happy Birthday FA ! all the new features sounds awsome and looking forward to them

[the-pale-tailed-fox]

dragoneer are the rules gonna be revised towards submitting a TT meaning you can and will be warned for abusing them and possibly banned kinda rule.

would be great to know that whiny and destructive C***'s will be removed from the system so they stop the continuing to let many emergency based TT's become late in being answered such as art theft or even someone going outta their way to harass and even troll someone with lulzy intent for a reaction regardless of whats been done. or said between the victim.

[redfoxnudetoons]

would be great to know that whiny and destructive C***'s will be removed from the system so they stop the continuing to let many emergency based TT's become late in being answered such as art theft or even someone going outta their way to harass and even troll someone with lulzy intent for a reaction regardless of whats been done. or said between the victim.

Blame the fact that admins that were being given "their fare share" of TT's DIDN'T DO THEM.

That's why the TT system got so bad, according to 'Neer on the LJ page. ADMINS WERE NOT DOING THEIR ADMIN DUTIES. Blame them, because they are the real source of the TT problem. I've had art theft and harassment TTs go unanswered for over 6 months because admins didn't bother to do their job as admins. They enjoyed the privileges without taking the responsibilities that went with it.

[the-pale-tailed-fox]

Blame the fact that admins that were being given "their fare share" of TT's DIDN'T DO THEM.

That's why the TT system got so bad, according to 'Neer on the LJ page. ADMINS WERE NOT DOING THEIR ADMIN DUTIES. Blame them, because they are the real source of the TT problem. I've had art theft and harassment TTs go unanswered for over 6 months because admins didn't bother to do their job as admins.

personally id love to be on staff voluntarily to do TT but sadly my writing skills are somewhat bad and some complain and i don't think neer would bother with someone who is willing to do their job just yet LOL

neer im joking >.>

[redfoxnudetoons]

personally id love to be on staff voluntarily to do TT but sadly my writing skills are somewhat bad and some complain and i don't think neer would bother with someone who is willing to do their job just yet

I don't see how essay writing has any impact on ability to mod/admin. Because, as far as I've seen, some of the mods selected by that process abused their status, and had to be removed, while others still bend the rules to the breaking point for themselves and friends.

I'd write an essay for the position, except for the fact that a bias would be placed against me because I don't take crap, don't like a few of the staff members for their abusive actions to members of FA, so I don't bother. Would be a waste of my time.

[the-pale-tailed-fox]

I don't see how essay writing has any impact on ability to mod/admin. Because, as far as I've seen, some of the mods selected by that process abused their status, and had to be removed, while others still bend the rules to the breaking point for themselves and friends.

as much as admins may dislike me for this i have to agree though not gonna name a few but we already know which female ones are abusing them still and yet they could be removed and replaced with someone.
i could temp replace them by volunteer myself if doing the job wasn't difficult and since my hours of awake are normally from 3pm to whenever i go to sleep at sometime in the morning i could do TT all day taking an hour or so away breaks maybe three in a day and still more than likely get lots done eliminating lots of the BS and close without warning the fake TT and reply to the ones needed replying to.

personally i find TT the most easy admin position and moderator position available atm and thats saying something about being lazy.

[insane_kangaroo]

No because I managed to get item in the end with not so satisfactory results. AB is for when the artist doesn't not even complete the task at hand as far as I know.

AB is also for "This artist is a dick and impossible to work with" submissions. You'd be bewaring people about a particular artist.

[the-pale-tailed-fox]

AB is also for "This artist is a dick and impossible to work with" submissions. You'd be bewaring people about a particular artist.

isnt there a double section one for both reasons each since some would just call that a form of whining that they didnt get it on their own time over users time.

when things like school get in the way and limited time is available even something like an hour at a time included in im not doing so today not much to do for anyone anyways they can wait thats kinda not that bad as long as its not two whole months i say not that bad a wait art , fursuit is not like gaming something to be used to pass the time which is needed prolly just as much as art but in more cases more useful than art

[Accountability]

I'm looking at that "FA" header (the same one the forums use) and I just want to smack it off the page. ^^;; I really do. I hope that isn't a permanent fixture.

That's called a logo. Most websites, businesses, and pretty much everything has one.

Another year, another promise for the Next Great Thing. Did you know a new UI has been promised since April 2007? Now you know!

[MaxRaine]

Congrats on the six years =)

About that commission rating system, if the commissioner is allowed to rate the artist the artist should really also be allowed to rate the commissioner. Because some people are just impossible to work with (not that I have much personal experience) and it would be good for artists as well to get an idea of what they get themselves into.

Will be interesting to see if you manage to get the new look ready for the summer, it looks snazzy in the preview =)

[Athari]

Fresh, zesty new commenting, a unique commissions and rating system and a wealth of requested features. We're hiring (yes, paying!) professional UI developer to finish, refine and tweak our new design (a live template test can be found here).

<rant>

So... Basically we get some features no one cares about.

I wonder if anyone will use this “unique commissions system”. I'm used to reading commission info somewhere (on FA journals, on LJ etc.), then contacting the artist and communicating with him/her regularly (through e-mail, FA notes, AIM, ICQ etc.). Now the artist (or the commissioner) is expected to create a transaction on FA, then communicate and update status using the system. What are benefits of this? Ability to rate someone? Ability to see current state? I'm afraid slow artists who never bother to send updates won't bother to update info on commissions in the system too. If you do a few commissions a month, not a dozen a day, it's much much easier to have a local text file than to rely on some site storing all your information in a complex way, especially considering commissioner won't like responses like, "I don't have your info, FA is down". One more advantage of my own text file is that I can put anyone into it. With online FA system, both the artist and the commissioner need to be registered on FA. So neither of them can store all their commissions in the system. Useless.

For one, if I don't get notifications about notes with their complete text to my email, I'll avoid using the system. Some artists won't like it if they wouldn't be able to search among commission messages sent in the past. A lot of users will avoid using it just because it's not the way they're used to work. So the new cool great feature will be used exclusively by trolls giving negative ratings and no one will be able to do anything about that.

There's a "commissions system" on SoFurry. Does anyone use it? I seriously doubt it. Yet they put a lot of effort into it. (They failed to provide even basic features, but this is a different matter.)

On the whole, I hope this commissions system isn't what all efforts are put into. There're much more important basic things... Like unusable, if any, pagination pretty much everywhere. Or updates full of "someone did something, then cancelled, but I won't tell you who did what exactly". Or whole galleries being wiped out by either hackers or admins misreading rules and absence of cancel buttons bringing back everything. Or absence of "gender" field in profiles (looking at new template, I notice "sexuality" is there, but "sex" is not — is it intended?). Or "Commission Information" being down for what looks like forever. Or [ quote ] tag not supporting nesting. Or endless "re: re: re: re" in notes headers. And so on.

Most of these problems are easy to fix, they don't need whole system overhaul, each of them is worth an hour to a few days of work. Yet we get a complete new commissions system worth months of work no one cares about. I hope at least some of the problems mentioned above are fixed. Or all we'll get are new bugs.

</rant>

Happy birthday, FA!

[Sharlan]

How heavy on the scripts are yo planning the UI?

I used yiffstar a lot and since the sofurry update never go there because the ui is terrible and over reliant on scripts.

[sunwolfholland]

Whooo! That's a whole lotta stats! Amazing, new look looks also awesome! HAPPY BIRTHDAY FA!

[Aetherfax]

Personally I am really looking forward to the commission system. Who says it can't be used in addition to a local, personal database of commission information. Any responsible artist would be keeping one anyway, but the introduction of a system with eBay style ratings and a search tool will, in my opinion, be extremely useful. From the point of view as a buyer, if I have money I want to spend on a commission, I have to:

a) Find all the artists I currently watch
b) Determine whether they're open for commissions
c) Determine commission prices for varying qualities/types of images
d) Choose and contact one of them

Having a system where you can search for say, art within a price range and of a certain type (eg. Clean, Linework, $10-$20) and have it return a list of artists currently providing said type of commission would be incredibly time and effort saving for the buyer. A further benefit to a commission search system would be the ability to search through -all- artists on the site, not just those that you know of, potentially leading to a lot fairer system where the less-well-known artists can be discovered.

From the point of view as an artist, I would gladly welcome this as it will provide me a place to keep all of my commission data and share it with my clients. Over the past few years when I've been offering commissions, I've communicated with clients over at least 5 different platforms. This has led to having to keep accounts in several different IM softwares, and there is no overall structure in how I deliver WIPs or final drafts. With a commission system, I would be able to upload WIPs to FA and allow clients to browse through them and (hopefully) annotate with comments on improvement. I would also hope that a chatroom/livestream feature would be included for live broadcasting of the commission. This could only lead to more satisfaction all round, as less mistakes are made and the client is happier with the final result.

I believe tools such as these would be a great help to amateur artists, and help grow the community FA has built. Mature and professional artists should be skilled enough not to need it, or use it to supplement their own systems.

And all this is before what I think about a ratings system. In short, I am 100% for one, so long as the ratings are restricted to people who've done business together (as Neer has said it will be), and that it works both ways. As an artist, I am at risk if other artists haven't taken the time to report a trouble-client to a group like Artist Beware - one look at a numerical rating will provide me a good idea of how trustworthy that person is likely to be, and vice versa for the buyer.

TLDR; Yay for a commission system and its associated tools ^.^

[Waccoon]

And yet a good amount of security risks seem to stem from the UI. At least some very problematic exploits have stemmed from the UI.

Indeed. There's a number of measures that can be taken to reduce the risks, but really, all coders on a project have to design with security in mind. I've spent a lot of my time refactoring other peoples' code to patch security holes.

UI programmers are usually pretty well paid compared to UI designers and web designers. There's a reason for that.

That's why the TT system got so bad, according to 'Neer on the LJ page. ADMINS WERE NOT DOING THEIR ADMIN DUTIES. Blame them, because they are the real source of the TT problem.

I've noticed laziness among the staff, but the whole design of the TT system could be to blame, too. Things like support and administration are more a social problem than a technical issue. For example, how TTs are divided among the staff, how the staff is notified, and how TTs are prioritized. You don't make a good web site my simply having a nice looking front page. The backend tools must also be good. Most administrators are not tech whizzes.

I don't see how essay writing has any impact on ability to mod/admin.

Communication skills are a better way to put it. It's hard to find those kinds of people in any field.

I wonder if anyone will use this "unique commissions system".

I have my doubts. Any artist worth his/her salt should have a hard copy of commission details on their own computer, and not rely on a social web site to keep track of everything. What's really useful is a standard set of fields so no required details are forgotten. Every time I commission an artist, they either don't ask for certain important details I would expect them to, or have to explain what they need from me. People shouldn't have to rely on journals and their profile to tell people what information they need to do their job. A commission page is probably more useful than a full-blown CMS system.

Most of these problems are easy to fix, they don't need whole system overhaul, each of them is worth an hour to a few days of work. Yet we get a complete new commissions system worth months of work no one cares about. I hope at least some of the problems mentioned above are fixed. Or all we'll get are new bugs.

Oh my God, yes. If people stop to think about a problem as a social problem, rather than a technical problem, you usually end up with a more elegant solution. It ticks me off to no end when a developer spends a lot of time working on this fancy, overblown feature that nobody wants (animated, disappearing status bars), when some feature that everyone uses and would take one day to fix goes unfinished (moving a button to a more convenient place).

FA has seen very, very little actual improvement, because the developers were banking so much on the new code taking over. Anyone who's worked on a large project in the real world knows that recoding always takes a hell of a lot longer than refactoring. You can't plan on leaving the existing code to rot because the new code will be here "any day now."

Plus, the new design is *very* different in function. I have a feeling a lot of people are going to hate it. It's going to take a long time to learn everything and get used to it. I don't like it. It's too drastic a change, and even if it *is* coming on schedule, there's still problems that should be fixed *now*, and if done right, they won't take that long to fix.

I'm hoping I can get on the coding staff, at least for review and verification. I'm quite surprised to see this Ferrox v3 announcement, and I have a feeling a lot of things are going to go wrong during the transition.

I used yiffstar a lot and since the sofurry update never go there because the ui is terrible and over reliant on scripts.

As little as possible, I hope. Most scripts break the non-modal nature of document design. If I can't browse a site properly with JavaScript turned off, I won't go there. I remember hearing the owner of FAP go on and on about how great his UI design was and how he had "optimized it to perfection". The only problem was, if you turned JavaScript off, you couldn't post any comments. On DA, you can't even see a gallery, for crying out loud.

Scripts aren't the only problem, of course. One thing I *really* like about FA is the fact that the design is fairly resolution independent. It might still be using tables, but at least it will fill up my widescreen monitor. Other sites all seem to be locked to the new 960x6 format, which I find incredibly frustrating.

[battle_franky]

the new UI looks great and all but is there a content aware larger version for people whose monitors have a larger resolution than 1024x768?
I could imagine something like where the blue menubar stretches and leaves the Submit, Browse and Forum, etc. links aligned to the left and the Search Box aligned to the right
and the message bar below with the total amount of message numbers aligned to the left and specifics to the right
the rest of the content could scale pretty easily to great widths too, keeping the shouts locked to it's current width but aligned to the right and letting such things as the journal text and submission view on a userpage be dynamically scalable, the submission thumbnails to the right would keep the same size as currently also (due to being in the same column as the shouts) and be aligned to the right also
this way it wouldn't break the design and make the website enjoyable for all resolutions

EXAMPLES:

FA in 1024 as we've already seen it
http://i79.photobucket.com/albums/j1...nky/FA1024.jpg

FA Scalable design suggestion shown in 1440 example
http://i79.photobucket.com/albums/j1...nky/FA1440.jpg
(If your browser scales down the image when viewing, click to view full size)

This should give a general impression of what I mean by scalable design for high resolution monitors

For those of you who don't have high resolution monitors ignore this post

it's just a suggestion tho

I'm using a 2560x1600 and I'm a little annoyed at how I'm going to be forced to view everything at 1/5th size than I could be viewing it, one of the things I loved most about FA was how no matter the resolution it always looked great.
I have a feeling if viewing submissions is also going to be crammed into these tiny boxes it's a step back since it will scale down pictures rather than let us view them in a high resolution by default, I'm sure there's plenty others out there who use monitors with high resolutions such as 1680x1050, 1920x1080, 1920x1200, 2560x1440 (new high-res standard introduced with the latest iMacs) and 2560x1600
DeviantART seems to be doing stuff like this, keeping their page dynamically scalable, I'd hate to see FA lose one of its greatest features that made it enjoyable to anyone no matter the size of their computer monitor, only keeping one half of the userbase in mind when making a design would alienate the other half, and shouldn't the general concern be on the userbase as a whole? I know many websites today such a blogs and whatnot keep a locked width, but the sheer amount of content that must be displayed on a single page on FA doesn't make locked width a very good choice if you ask me

I'd expect professional webdesigners to keep in mind what type of website, what kind of content and how wide a userbase would be using a website before making a fancy design, it is my firm belief that functionality comes before looks, and the sheer amount of content on FA is simply too much to keep it restricted to a locked width
I would gladly donate larger sums of money if financing should suddenly become the problem with inserting a few lines of css code because of ????
it's for the greater good after all and for the concern of the userbase of FA

/2 cents

[SIX]

I think the proposed improvements are uniformly beneficial. Sounds good, and any kinks can be worked out as they come to show themselves.

Oh, and, Pale_Tailed? Surely, if you're joking about your ideas, you recognise that they aren't helpful to post? Making a joke suggestion is nearly equivalent to spam.

[the-pale-tailed-fox]

I think the proposed improvements are uniformly beneficial. Sounds good, and any kinks can be worked out as they come to show themselves.

Oh, and, Pale_Tailed? Surely, if you're joking about your ideas, you recognise that they aren't helpful to post? Making a joke suggestion is nearly equivalent to spam.

you do know that if i was joking and sarcasm was involved then my posts would have been deleted right?

so as they arent i think yours is more considered as much derailment as this one here so i think the mods can go right ahead and delete both now!