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Mark
11-14-2006, 06:43 PM
I feel really bad about all my broken promises on delivering the swap board. The good news is that I've finally solved all the really big problems and it really is getting close to ready. In an effort to stay in y'all's good graces, I've begged and Sherry has given me permission to give you a little preview of the swap board.

Before you get too excited, you need to know the conditions:

It is NOT ready to actually use. This means you are free to play with it, but be aware that everything you enter on it now is very likely to be annihilated in the near future.
It is NOT finished. I know this is obvious but I want to emphasize it because...
The email function does NOT work. In fact, I've done nothing with it yet and I cannot be responsible for what might happen. Clicking the email button may kill a kitten for all I know.
The "Feedback" is guaranteed not to kill any kittens but I've worked on it only slightly more than email so at this point it doesn't do much and what it does do is not at all useful.
There are some things that are decidedly unpretty. I haven't cleaned up all the style tidbits and there are a plethora of minor glitches, such as...
The makeswap script that is invoked when you click the edit button or the "New Swap" link works but the redirect to return you properly after you submit the form does not work right. I encourage you to play with it (be sure to check out the nifty popup calendar!), but you'll have to click your back button twice and then refresh the main page manually after submitting anything.
It will currently allow you to access it without being logged in (I think). That probably won't be the case when it's done and it probably isn't a good idea now.
Sherry probably cannot answer your questions or help you with any of it yet. I would prefer that you not bug her about my shoddy work just yet. (I'll let you know when I'm ready to shirk all responsibility and then she's fair game. :eek: )
I'm not likely to be around much this evening to answer questions and if/when I am around, I may decide it makes more sense to work on the code in response to your feedback rather than respond to it here. That most certainly does NOT mean that I don't want your feedback. One reason I'm doing this is so that I can get an idea of what you like and don't, what problems you're having, etc.


In addition to the feedback and email, I also still need to add the list of participants in the details of each swap. Those are the top three things on my to-do list right now, followed by a long list of minor fixes and clean up tasks.

If there are things you don't like, please be vocal about it. Ultimately I work for Sherry and I'll make no changes without her approval. It's good to have one point of decision. But I've done a lot of this based on my own ideas and I'm not a sensitive type. If you hate it, say so. You cannot offend me.

Speaking of which, I'm not ashamed of it, but it's not the way I wanted it either. The vBulletin issues took so much time that I decided to focus on "functional" so that I could get you something to use. There is a lot that I want to change on it, but right now I just want to get it complete and ready for you to use. I'll enhance it later. In particular, I don't especially like the "lightbox" thing I'm using for the "popups." When I have time to finish it the way I want it, everything will be updated in the page, "in place" and real time so that there is never a need to load or reload a whole page for any of the functions.

Oh, and I was just joking about the kittens. Click on anything you want. You can't hurt anything. Play with all of it 'til your heart's content. If there is anything you can do to totally destroy it, I'd prefer to know now so I can fix it before you actually start using it.

You can get to it by adding swap/ to the end of the main page address like so: http://stamp-shack.com/swap/

Have fun, but remember you've been warned. Don't come crying to me if you get hurt.

Update: As a couple of you have pointed out and/or questioned, there is some stuff there from Sherry's old site. It's just old data that I've been using for development and testing purposes. We'll get rid of all that when we are ready to "go live" with this board. (Which is why I warned you that anything you put on there will probably get disappeared at some point.)

Erin K
11-14-2006, 06:50 PM
I like it very much. The text part is just wider than my viewing area though. Hmm. I'm not a techie but ya know... it cuts off the end of the word "Join swap" and somethign about "use..." in the top part. Is that the kind of feedback you want. You do want feedback right, I hope you don't kill a kitten because I said that!

I made a swap on it and it was fun. :)

teabear
11-14-2006, 06:50 PM
I just joined 2 pretend swaps....I feel much better now! Also, it shows a swap I joined at inkstains with Barb here....love that! Thanks for all your hard work.

Mark
11-14-2006, 07:13 PM
I like it very much. The text part is just wider than my viewing area though. Hmm. I'm not a techie but ya know... it cuts off the end of the word "Join swap" and somethign about "use..." in the top part. Is that the kind of feedback you want. You do want feedback right, I hope you don't kill a kitten because I said that!

I made a swap on it and it was fun. :)

Cuttin' off text, eh? You are truly talented, Erin, because that's unpossible. (j/k) Don't tell me. Let me guess. Internet Explorer? It's a dynamic table that is supposed to shrink or expand to the width of your window. In all my browsers, it works that way, just like these forum threads. I narrowed my window all the way down below 700 pixels wide (about the width of a really old, 14" CRT monitor) and it didn't truncate anything.

But, yes. This is the kind of feedback I want and I never said anything at all about ME killing kittens. I just said the email button might be unpredictable. May I ask what browser and version you're using? I'm gonna take a stab and say Internet Exploder 5.5 or 6? Am I close?

lost luggage
11-14-2006, 07:16 PM
I don't suppose you're going to test it on IE 7??

lost luggage
11-14-2006, 07:20 PM
Boy howdy...that's a big post for me to read with my little brain...but I figured out what Erin says and I concur with the text cut off...I'm getting cut and I use version 6 for the meantime...we're upgrading soon though...very soon.

I am curious...what browser you guys use?

Sherry
11-14-2006, 07:31 PM
Looks and works perfectly on Mozilla :)
No text issues here.

iloveflipflops
11-14-2006, 07:35 PM
and when i put in the date, I used tomorrow's date but i guess it thought it was today's date and it threw me back to 1999 so i went in and deleted the whole swap and started over. I chose a later date and it is fine and worked just great.

Not sure this is a concern at all, just thought i would mention it ...

GrammaStamper
11-14-2006, 07:37 PM
Looks good on Netscape 7.1, too. This is gonna be so cool!

Christie
11-14-2006, 07:50 PM
It is also cutting off mine. Same as Erin's and Julie's but other than that it's all great!! Can't wait til it's up and running.

Sherry
11-14-2006, 07:50 PM
When viewing the the swap description, and the light box pops up, some of the text in the description/instructions area is cut off. By this I mean that is appears that you are allowed to have only so many characters in your description/instructions details.

Not sure if you intended this or not, but thought I would mention it anyway.

mcourtney
11-14-2006, 08:13 PM
I can't see the little calendar that pops up. It shows the month and year and the days of the week but that's it. Is it supposed to be a full calendar? It won't let me scroll down any further.

Sherry
11-14-2006, 08:16 PM
I can't see the little calendar that pops up. It shows the month and year and the days of the week but that's it. Is it supposed to be a full calendar? It won't let me scroll down any further.

Click on the little image next to area where you enter the due date. It is a little hard to see but it is there.

Erin K
11-14-2006, 08:18 PM
after re-reading Mark's post I apologize, he indeed does not say HE will kill a kitten, just that one might die. (and of course it's all a joke anyhow)

I have internet explorer and it's the one that came with my old computer in 2002. I don't know what"Version" it is, what do you think I am some sort of computer know it all? hehe, No really I can't find where it says that under properties or anything. I'm just happy it's not just me that has the problem.

lost luggage
11-14-2006, 09:08 PM
Sooo....when it's finished will it work on Internet Explorer? (It's the most widely used browser, Erin. Click on Help, then About Internet Explorere to find your version.) I can probably safely say I will not change my browser....

Jadyeebugsaunt
11-14-2006, 09:13 PM
Ok it cuts me off too and im on interenet explore 6.0. Like julie said will it work with explore envenually I hope so. Just so you know I can't read the top of the swap instructions.

mcourtney
11-14-2006, 09:50 PM
Click on the little image next to area where you enter the due date. It is a little hard to see but it is there.

I did that and the calendar that pops up only shows the month, year and the days of the week. The rest of the calendar is cut off. I have IE 6.0 so that may be my problem with all the "cut off" stuff.

workin4stamps
11-14-2006, 09:54 PM
ROCKS!!! I have text issues, but I can deal with that!!!!!!!! Woo Hoo!!

I joined 4 swaps, and I don't have to complete ANY of them! Yippee!!

Traci

Jadyeebugsaunt
11-14-2006, 10:01 PM
Just to clarify whats goin g on I can not read the whole swap description before I join . Is this going to be like this forever w IE or only w the test board?

Far North
11-14-2006, 10:13 PM
The title would be in caps and bold but this site has its rules LOL:p ! Indeed the swap board is going to be worth the wait. Love how friendly it is to get around!
SWEET I say!...Ya-boy you do GREAT work Mark!! Thanks a bunch!
...Jan

Sherry
11-14-2006, 10:14 PM
Just to clarify whats goin g on I can not read the whole swap description before I join . Is this going to be like this forever w IE or only w the test board?

I noticed this earlier and I've already brought this issue to Mark's attention. This is just a test board to see how everyone's browser will react to the new swap board. Once Mark has all of the issues addressed (and fixed), then we will take the board live. The text issues that you see now will not be there in the final version.

Sherry
11-15-2006, 09:20 AM
Sooo....when it's finished will it work on Internet Explorer? (It's the most widely used browser, Erin. Click on Help, then About Internet Explorere to find your version.) I can probably safely say I will not change my browser....

Don't panic. Of course the swap board will work on internet explorer :D
It will work no matter which browser you are using.

Just because the test board isn't working properly for IE users right now does NOT mean that it will never work for you. The TEST board is just that, a test so that Mark can see where users are experiencing problems so that he can fix the issues before the board goes live. Mark has stated in his message that the swap board is by no means complete.

Hope this clears things up!

Sherry

Beaglelover
11-15-2006, 10:01 AM
I haven't played around with it much, but it cuts me off on the right side so that Join Swaps just says Join Swa.. I have MSN. Also I need to find out how to check who joins my swaps and the rest of the stuff.

So far very user friendly.

Thanks Mark. You are da Man.

Teresa:)

lost luggage
11-15-2006, 10:27 AM
Don't panic. Of course the swap board will work on internet explorer :D
It will work no matter which browser you are using.

Just because the test board isn't working properly for IE users right now does NOT mean that it will never work for you. The TEST board is just that, a test so that Mark can see where users are experiencing problems so that he can fix the issues before the board goes live. Mark has stated in his message that the swap board is by no means complete.

Hope this clears things up!

Sherry

Great. I wasn't in a panic... I have the ability to remain calm in a crisis...