Weekly roundups

Flintlock

Flintlock

Pro Adventurer
Lex, the newest roundup had a broken image in its top story (which is why we should always host the images ourselves rather than hotlinking to them). I have replaced it with the featured image, which was working fine on the front page :)
 
Fangu

Fangu

Great Old One
I also noticed there must be an unclosed bold tag in the excerpt, because it's making everything from the excerpt and out bold. It's probably due to the excerpt being over 160 characters**, hence not including the close tag. HTML is allowed in the excerpt, but I'm starting to think maybe it shouldn't be? Because you have to be aware that only the first 160 characters will be included - as a string. Or, just try to use plain text only as much as possible.

** It is indeed:
<strong>In this week's roundup: Sony to refund Final Fantasy XIV: A Realm Reborn customers following botched launch, Lightning Returns: Final Fantasy XIII - Inside The Square 1; Final Fantasy Producer Gives One Hell Of An Apology; Theatrhythm Final Fantasy Curtain Call trademarked by Square Enix; plus the latest from our <a href="http://thelifestream.net/forums/">forum</a>.</strong><!--more-->
Click to expand...

I suggest reducing it to this:
In this week's roundup: Sony to refund Final Fantasy XIV: A Realm Reborn customers following botched launch, Lightning Returns: Final Fantasy XIII - Inside The Square 1; Final Fantasy Producer Gives One Hell Of An Apology; Theatrhythm Final Fantasy Curtain Call trademarked by Square Enix; plus the latest from our <a href="http://thelifestream.net/forums/">forum</a>.
Click to expand...
...which will then cut the text string at 160 characters.


The 160 limit also means that if you start to include a link and don't get to finish it, your excerpt might look something like this:
This is the start of my excerpt and now you have to go to the link I am about to link <a href="http://www.somel... Continue reading this story
Click to expand...

idk. Text excerpts allowed only? You guys shouldn't have to worry about knowing what a String is and shit, but allowing HTML does make it more flexible when we would want it. Which, by the way, I don't think will be very often.

I'm not gonna edit the error, so you guys can see what it looks like.
 
Lex

Lex

Administrator
Change to excerpt made, thank you both :monster:

I honestly didn't even notice the excerpt had become emboldened.
 
Lex

Lex

Administrator
Flint can you add Shademp's previously discussed reports to the next roundup please? I forgot and am now on a boat. Sorry Shad :(
 
Flintlock

Flintlock

Pro Adventurer
My apologies for the lack of a roundup article this week. I haven't had time to do it, to put it simply. I will get something up on Monday and just say that we skipped a week. It would be good to get back to doing it at the start of each week anyway.
 
Flintlock

Flintlock

Pro Adventurer
It is done. Man, am I low on motivation (and time) right now. Probably my worst roundup to date. I really had no idea what to say about your DoC reports, Shad - sorry.
 
Shademp

Shademp

420
Nicely done Flintlock!

You said precisely what I wanted you to say about the reports: That they are now uploaded. :monster: Thanks for working despite the lack of motivation.

EDIT: Will wait about 20 hours before I publish my newspost about Unused Text Part 9, in respect of the most recent Weekly Roundups post.
 
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Lex

Lex

Administrator
Right guys I didn't do a roundup last week, I apologise for this. As it stands I'm absolutely mobbed with uni work (and I think Flint is too) so finding the time to do this is becoming increasingly challenging.

I'll take care of the one for this week, but I think it would be a good idea if someone could maybe volunteer to help us aswell, because we're obviously struggling to hit the target of one per week. Any free time I've had has been the odd post on here while reading journals to design experiments for the start of my project, which begins tomorrow morning.
 
The Twilight Mexican

The Twilight Mexican

Ex-SeeD-ingly good
AKA
TresDias
I would do it, but all my TLS efforts are going into getting the new LTD article formatted for the site (about 3/4 done, I think). I imagine Shademp is busy with the UT series.
 
Lex

Lex

Administrator
My suggestion would be someone like Avec or Force (or both of them, seriously doing one a month is nothing) or really anyone else who wants to step up to it. Honestly, when you know how to do it you can power through one in about 45 minutes, it's just finding the 45 minutes it takes to do one when you've got a thesis and moving and work and a bajillion other things on your plate that's a pain in the hoop.

I mean if no one can, it's cool and we'll do our best, but I think me and Flint have both demonstrated that it's just going to be a bit erratic from time to time because we both have annoyingly demanding schedules these days. Sorry about that guys :monster:. We really could use some help to keep it on time.
 
The Twilight Mexican

The Twilight Mexican

Ex-SeeD-ingly good
AKA
TresDias
Alternate solution: Reconsider the bi-weekly roundup suggestion from a while back. :awesome: Problem solved. :monster:

Besides, it would fit our theme. 'Cause the Lifestream is a duality of life and death and ... okay, you got me, it would fit because of the sexuality spectrum of the member base. =P
 
Lex

Lex

Administrator
Sorry for my short post last time Dark and Divine, I was serious when I said "fire away" though. Go and do one. Now :monster:

I'm kidding, take your time. It's mainly a copy/paste job to be honest but fiddling with it is the time consuming part (altering, uploading and filling in image information). Things to watch out for now are:

Tags (i.e. Lightning Returns, FFXIV etc)
Categories (weekly roundups)
Featured image (you don't see this properly until it's actually posted and it's easy to miss in the editor)
Excerpt (again, easy to miss in the editor, needs to be filled in)

Doesn't take too long to learn it though :)
 
Lex

Lex

Administrator
Thank you Dark and Divine. I have a few pointers:

  • The excerpt is missing. The text input box for the excerpt can be found below the main input box, you might need to enable the option to see it at the top of the page.
  • The title is overly long, I suggest renaming it to "FFVII PC 50% off on Steam until Monday" or something.
  • The section linking readers to currently active discussion threads/ community stuff is missing from the end of the roundup.
  • The images are too small. A good rule of thumb is to give them about 400 pixels in width.
  • The text quoted from each article should be wrapped in <blockquote> to emphasise it.
  • The third newsbit is missing an image or video.
  • At the end of the opening sentence listing each news item there should be a link to the forum: "plus much more from the forums".
  • Under each newsbit, the link to the relevant forum thread should be seperate from the main quoted text (not in <blockquote>).

It's certainly a good first attempt though, most of the errors are formatting quirks and not all of them are 100% necessary.
 
Dark and Divine

Dark and Divine

Pro Adventurer
AKA
D&D
Thanks! :)

I'll edit it tonight! :monster:

Ok, what i've edited:

  • Excerpt added.
  • Shortened the title.
  • Added links to currently active and interesting threads in the forums.
  • Inscreased a little bit the size of the photos (I didn't make them bigger because they would overshadow the text.
  • Opening sentence has now a link to the forums.
  • Didn't used <blockquote> because i prefered to write my own interpretation of the news. However, if you guys think that a quote from the original article should be added, just let me know :monster:
 
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