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MaidMarian

Valley Sherwood: A Dragon Cave Fansite

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Valley Sherwood

 

A self-serve hatchery for Dragon Cave eggs and hatchlings.

 

http://valleysherwood.com/

 

Aug 19 2011: Released most of the new version of the site. New features include:

- An option to switch off the auto-add feature (the one that normally adds every dragon on the submitted scroll).

- Several changes to the info that is shown while viewing young dragons and choosing which to add/remove:

* Gender column added

* In site/out of site message is now displayed as a checkmark or X

* Lineage column added with a link to the lineage page, or "CB" if the dragon is caveborn.

- Viewer options now work without Javascript.

- Clicks now open in a new tab, because of the bug/framebreaker which would take you away from the fansite when clicking and would not let you return. Clicking more than one dragon on the same page should cause subsequent clicks to open in the same tab as the first click, however.

- Clicking the X next to a dragon in the viewer will run an update on it; it will be deleted if it's adult or dead, moved from the ER to the regular hatchery if it's a new hatchling, etc.

- Links page updated, finally! Sorry about that - it was so old, it still had Dragonnery and not AoND!

 

July 08 2011: Status of new version: currently unreleased. Main page re-coding finished, needs some minor style tweaks; interactive dragon removal added, but needs testing in older browsers; a few new tools still being coded, including a better scroll stats banner for signatures, hopefully with more options than currently (will of course work for new limits).

July 2011: Currently working on a new version of the site. If you have any suggestions for improvements or new features, feel free to mention them! Your ideas will definitely be taken into consideration.

 

Edit: I'll update the below list later. It currently describes the old version, and not the new one very well.

 

Add Dragons:

- Adding is done from the main page

- Enter scroll name to add all growing dragons

- After adding, checkboxes give easy add/remove functionality

- Time left and clicks/views/UVs are now displayed next to each dragon while adding/removing.

 

ER:

- All dragons under 4 days are admitted to the ER

- Automatic script runs once an hour to clean the ER and find new ERs in the hatchery

- Separate ER page allows for adding a single ER to the site

 

Viewing:

- Box of dragons is displayed on every site page & reloads by default every minute.

Viewer page has several options for giving views:

- Dropdown menu sets a time from 30sec to 30min for dragons to refresh

- Optional popup viewer shows random hatchery dragons & reloads every 3 mins

- Link to an ER popup viewer which displays all ERs and reloads once per minute

 

Tools:

Tools page has a list of available tools:

- View dragon's stats: enter a code to see relevant info about the dragon.

- Scroll status (locked/free) button. Example:

user posted image

- Lineage/inbreeding: still in the works, but currently functions to display up to 7 generations of a dragon's lineage and highlights with pink background any repeated dragons in those generations.

 

Links:

- List of links to some other self-serve hatcheries

- Contact links (including one to this thread)

 

 

 

Banners:

By MaidMarian (who is not very creative, is she sleep.gif)

user posted image

[URL=http://valleysherwood.com/][IMG=http://i42.tinypic.com/1z6ehx2.png][/URL]

user posted image

[URL=http://valleysherwood.com/][IMG=http://i44.tinypic.com/qrbu4x.png][/URL]

user posted image

[URL=http://valleysherwood.com/][IMG=http://i42.tinypic.com/dym7fn.jpg][/URL]

 

By EmpressPhoenix (Thank you!):

user posted image

[URL=http://valleysherwood.com/][IMG=http://i51.tinypic.com/2q0nl8j.png][/URL]

Edited by MaidMarian

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ER section has been added to the site. Any dragons under 4 days in the hatchery should be automatically added to the ER section by a script that runs every hour. They are then displayed first in the dragon viewing frame, before any of the hatchery dragons; and they stay in the frame with every refresh (unlike dragons in the hatchery which are displayed randomly, only 50 at a time).

So far it seems to be working. If anyone has any troubles with it, be sure and let me know. ^^'

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Hey everyone, first of all I'd like to say a big thanks to all who've tried out the site by adding dragons. =D It's helped me confirm that the coding does indeed function with numbers of more than, say, 12 dragons (about the number it had while I was first coding and testing it out).

 

I've renovated the tools page to make room for more tools, though there's still only one up there so far. Have been working on another one but it's... not entirely stable yet. [/starwars] Will be adding more as I get them functional, though. ;) Any suggestions for what tools users would like to see on the site? Otherwise I'm just coming up with what I'd like in a site, and really, since you guys are the ones who'll be using it, it should have what *you* want on it.

 

I'm going to be updating the first post with relevant site info, including a couple of banners in case anyone wants to spread the word. (& if anyone would like to make more, please feel free!)

 

And as always, if you find anything that isn't working, please let me know so I can [try to] fix it! ^^'

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I've made several updates to the site today; most importantly, fixed a couple of bugs related to adding/removing ERs. Also updated the automatic ER/hatchery cleaning script so that it runs much faster and is more accurate; still runs once an hour and it should be better at removing all dead or adult dragons now.

There are two additional tools on the site now. The lineage/inbreeding tool is not finished yet - it's stable as far as it goes, but still needs work (so that it'll be able to display more generations without breaking the page...); and I'm hoping to add more options to the scroll status button generator eventually, as well. Still, try these out and see if they're worth the work to improve them with better functionality.

Thanks again to all who have used or are using the site. Seeing it in use is the greatest motivation to update & make improvements.

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Added to the list on the wiki. Hopefully this will get active soon.

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Hi MM,

 

I like it so far. smile.gif It seems fairly easy to use, and the color is rather soothing on the eyes as well.

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Thanks for the feedback, Mal. biggrin.gif Yeah, I've heard that green is one of the easiest colors on the human eye, & since it's also my favorite color it seemed a good choice for the site.

 

Thanks for the add, Votehim!

 

 

I've now added a separate ER page to the site: http://valleysherwood.com/er Should work to add any ER dragon even if its API info is incorrect. But since it uses different coding from the main ER-detector, there could be some undiscovered bugs in it. I've tested it out pretty thoroughly from my end, but if anyone finds it not working as expected, report the details here and I'll fix whatever the problem is. Hopefully I've already caught all the bugs, but hey, since it's new code there's probably still one or two lurking. >.<

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If I may, a quick lazy-(wo)man request? The current adding method is certainly great for quick adding of the whole scroll. But do you think you could add a similarly quick removal option? As in, a checkbox to deselect all dragons, so you don't have to deselect each one individually before resubmitting to remove them. Small as it is, that would be a terrific improvement. smile.gif

 

Even without that, though, it's still a great site!

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Thanks for the suggestion, bbik, and yes it did need that! I've added select all / clear all under the list of checkboxes now. Unfortunately I had to redo a lot of the add/remove code to make it possible to select all checkboxes at once, but I was planning on doing that anyway, as the coding was kind of inefficient to start with. Should be better now that it's revamped, and dragon adding/updating might even run faster now. <3

 

Alright people, if the new add/remove coding decides to give you any trouble, let me know! I've spent most of the evening squashing bugs in it tongue.gif so crossing fingers that I caught them all.

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Have done a few minor site updates today, nothing too big but if you notice any changes and like/don't like, be sure to give feedback so I can decide whether or not to keep them that way.

 

I need another opinion on something, though. Was thinking it might be useful to add V/UV/C and time left columns next to the eggs/hatchlings that are listed while adding a scroll, so I tried it out on my local copy of the site; but the page looked a bit cluttered to me after I added these. I tweaked a few things and it seems to look better now, but I'm still not sure. Here's a screenshot: how does it look? Good / bad / iffy? If I hear it's OK (or good happy.gif), I'll go ahead and add it to the site.

 

user posted image

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I'm all for options and backups for handy stat-checking like that!

 

I don't know what you've already tried, but perhaps add a bit more space between the "C" and "Time left" columns, center the headers ("Message" looks good on the left, though), and right-align the V/UV/C numbers? Oh, and a "Gender" column would be great, too -- though that would increase the clutter-feeling. :-/

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My first impression was that it looked great. Second was of a little clutter but it was quickly followed by the thought of how handy that information would be to me in deciding which of my eggs/hatchlings to add to the site. Right now I have to keep both my scroll and the site open so I can check the U/V/C and days left. So, yes, I like the it. smile.gif

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Alright, I'm gonna need to put this idea on hold for a day or two as I have some pressing school projects to finish & a test tomorrow, and grades must come first. xd.png Thanks for the feedback and suggestions! I'll get some version of this up as soon as I have some free time and a chance to tweak it a bit more. (Gender column's a good idea too, I'll have to try putting one in and see how it looks.)

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I've now added the dragon-info columns to the add/remove function. No gender column yet, but I'll look into it as soon as I have the time (quietly shoves botany project out the window). At least the 'vital' dragon stats are up there now. wink.gif

A quick FYI, though: The dragons' days-left are pulled from the API, and since the API still has that glitch where it occasionally reports a dragon to have an extra day of time, well, it might do that to one of your dragons. We'll just hope that our DC admin will eventually have time to find out what's wrong with the API and fix it; then it won't be a problem.

 

(Ok, and since the data still looks exactly the same as it did in the screenshot, I apparently didn't update the stylesheet on the server... well, I'll do it as soon as I get back on my laptop. May look a bit different after that happy.gif)

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Added my eggs and saw the change. It wasn't as clutter-y as I initially thought, but that could be because I only added two eggs. biggrin.gif Thanks, MM.

 

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I'm having a problem with putting my eggs in :3 your site doesn't like my name, lol laugh.gif It always somehow manages to put TJ O\'Malley instead of the right form of TJ O'Malley for some reason. Is there a problem on my end or is it just a bug?

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I'm having a problem with putting my eggs in :3 your site doesn't like my name, lol  laugh.gif It always somehow manages to put TJ O\'Malley instead of the right form of TJ O'Malley for some reason. Is there a problem on my end or is it just a bug?

Ohh, you're right -- sorry about that! That's a PHP bug (ish), that apparently I didn't account for. Should be fixed for scroll names with single quotes now, though. Thanks for letting me know! (Would hate to think that frustrated people are trying to cram their scrolls into the site and me never hearing about the problem, lol. xd.png)

 

 

@Maladroit, thanks! Glad you liked the update. =D

Edited by MaidMarian

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Looks pretty good, just popped a couple of my eggs in there to check out the ratios. Thanks.

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A bit late, but a tip: Try making the clear/select all be plain text, rather than links. The easiest options I can think of would be to either not include the href part at all (it's not actually required), or to use a <span> or something similar instead of <a>, and then style that as you wish.

 

Reason: The links work great when javascript is on, since the false cancels out the link aspect. However, without javascript, the false has no effect, which means clicking rather confusingly reloads the page, rather than altering what was/wasn't checked (or not altering as the case may be, since the js isn't available, but at least without a reload it would let you see that there was no change).

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I really like this site. Thanks for creating it!

 

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Nice site! I especially like seeing all the eggs and hatchlings statuses (views/clicks as well as time left to hatch)

 

Yay!!

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Another idea for you! How about a way to check what dragons are already posted on the site, so you know if there's something to remove/add, before mass-adding (or removing) everything anyhow? It's a small thing, but I for one would love it. smile.gif

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