Idea for the file news page

[DoctorCox]

I have a suggestion that will make http://www.tessource.net/files/news.php a bit more useful, user friendly and probably save the site a bit of bandwidth too.

 

A three column table would work much better than the current simple list of links.

 

Title Game Category

 

Sometimes it's hard just from the title alone to figure out what the mod actually is, and I've often wasted time (and the site's bandwidth) by viewing a mod I don't care about, and no doubt missed a few gems too. I am mostly interested in new quests and locations for Oblivion, closely followed by new locations for Morrowind and maybe new quests for it too if it looks especially good (I've already got sooo much to do in Morrowind as it is). I really don't give a damn about new clothing or save games, nor new weapons and armour unless it has a decent quest associated with it. With the above table, I could see if there is anything I want at a glance, rather than have to click through a whole bunch of links.

[Dark0ne]

I've been thinking about coding a new system that allows subscribers to remove categories from their view -- sort of like a category banlist. I.e. if you don't want to see any files in the Save Game category you just add it to your banlist and you no longer see save game files, or the category itself. Sounds cool.

 

I like your idea; I'll have to look at how the current system is setup and whether it is doable without adding to the SQL queries run (which increases load).

 

Thank you for your feedback.

[DoctorCox]

Dark0ne,

 

Thanks for considering it. If I had to hazard a guess, that new files page is generated at a specific time each day, correct? I say this because there is often dead links in there. If it were generated with every access then those links would be removed (theoretically).

 

Whether or not extra queries are needed will depend on the table structure. The main files table may track game and category either with the exact words (no queries needed) or with numeric ids (queries needed to reference back to the categories table to get the right category name). Even if the later is true, I would think a few dozen extra queries once per day (which really is not that much of an ask on even an older server) is a small price compared the resources this will save the server by cutting down on needless page views.

 

Your idea of a category banlist is a good one but would be even more resource intensive, alas. The page would either have to be rebuilt every time the user accesses the page, with many SQL queries being run each time, or a page for every member would have to get generated every day.

 

FYI I'm a professional MySQL/PHP developer so I've got a reasonable idea of what I'm talking about ;)