Weekly roundups

[Wolfhart]

Ow I checked the page this morning and they were still available!

 

[Flintlock]

Flint can you make sure to put <a target="_blank"> in your HTML links please? It opens whatever link you're sharing on a new page instead of overriding the current one when people are reading .

I can, but I would like to get Fangu or Yop's opinion on the matter first. Personally, I think it's bad form for a web developer to force visitors to open new windows/tabs; it should be the visitors' choice and theirs alone. That's why middle-click (or ctrl-click) exists, after all

 

[Fangu]

I see this more as a content question than a technical issue.

Regarding custom HTML in the articles I've pretty much given up on trying to put restrictions on stuff. Do whatever you like but don't come complaining to me later, it will be solely your own responsibility. X) So should you decide to put any custom HTML or CSS in your article, you're responsible yourself for going in and editing your article if a new version of the site fucks up shit. From a developer's POV I'd rather force people to use the Visual Editor, but we are a small team and we have to trust each others words. The VA isn't exactly perfect either.

That being said I think the "_blank" thing isn't as widely used as it used to be, since most people right click and open in a new tab like Flint says. People will usually see quite clearly which links are to an external source, and choose themselves whether to stay or go. You could do a Google round and see what the general opinion is nowadays.

 

[Lex]

I think the more browser savvy a person is, we've learned to middle click to open in a new tab (or right click) on links, but I'll be doing "_blank" anyway for convenience's sake, and I would rather that's what we did for the sake of the (incredibly few) people who don't think about it too much. After all, it's better to force them to open a new tab/page than it is to force them to click the back button on their browser to read the rest of your article. We don't want people navigating away from the site after all.

And yes custom HTML/CSS is evil (and so is the visual editor), we accept full responsibility for our actions

 

[Shademp]

Sometimes I accidentally left-click on something only to find that it doesn't open a separate tab, which is annoying when I wanted it to open in a separate tab. Sometimes it becomes a game where I "trust" an article to have the target_blank function, but then it doesn't.

Maybe I'm special, but I am in love with the open-in-new-tab function that I always use it when linking stuff. That's just how I want things. I dream of a world where I never have to right-click>open-in-new-tab ever again...

 

[Obsidian Fire]

It's gotten to be a habit to middle-click every link I come across...

 

[The Twilight Mexican]

Personally, I always right-click and then open a new tab. I never trust that the target="_blank" thing is in use -- though I have gotten used to writing my own articles that way since Shademp would badger remind me of it whenever I forgot.

 

[Shademp]

Personally, I always right-click and then open a new tab. I never trust that the target="_blank" thing is in use -- though I have gotten used to writing my own articles that way since Shademp would badger remind me of it whenever I forgot.

Last time I promised that I would never badger/scold/punish remind you again of the auto-tab feature and I'll be sticking to that!

Maybe a decision has to be made here about the Weekly Roundups, but as all other features go I think each author is free to categorize links how they please. The site may be inconsistent from place to place, but I'd rather see that then to force or be enforced about this detail with how articles are written. ...Though now I realize I am guilty of turning links into "target=_blank" links in the Canon of FFVII section, even when a new link was not made by me. >__> <___<

 

[The Twilight Mexican]

I don't mind either way myself since I'm going to right-click anyway, but I do think that articles need to be internally consistent. So, if you use the auto-tab feature in a few parts of the article, you should use it throughout.

 

[Lex]

My position is what it was before, and I think consistency is better. I'm not about to force anyone to change the way they write articles if they don't want to, because

1. I couldn't force anyone to do anything and
2. If I could, you would all JUSTIFY ALL OF THE TEXT

But I would certainly rather we used target="_blank". If nothing else, it's a fail-safe incase someone left-clicks it, and it takes a fraction of an additional second per link to manually type, so I don't understand why it would be a big deal to anyone. Let's just do it, kay?

 

[Flintlock]

If we don't add target="_blank" to our links, people can still open them in new tabs by right- or middle-clicking. If we do add it, there's no easy way to open them in the current tab, as far as I'm aware. My browser doesn't have an "open in current tab" option in the right-click menu, at least.

But I'll do it, even though I don't agree with the decision. I agree that it's important to be consistent. Just to confirm, we're only adding target="_blank" to external links though, right?

 

[Shademp]

But I'll do it, even though I don't agree with the decision. I agree that it's important to be consistent. Just to confirm, we're only adding target="_blank" to external links though, right?

Oooh, you're not going to like this. I've been very consistent across most content pages/indexes (by which I mean any page under CONTENT -> FFVII Compendium) to have target="_blank" present for all links, even those within TLS.

It's just a personal taste of mine. I'd rather have have the content index page in one tab, the article I'm currently reading in a separate tab, then close that tab when I'm done reading and open a new one via the content index tab that I always kept there.

I know that if I go from Index -> Content, I can always go back one page to get back to the index, though sometimes a feature will consist of multiple pages, meaning multiple clicks backwards will be required. It's not a *problem* per se, but I just prefer not feeling cut off from the content index.

I'm not trying to argue that one method of linking is more logical than another. If I try to be objective, including the target="_blank" thing or not seems completely optional. Toss of a coin could decide this issue. ...Though my personal preference would still be there, no matter what.

 

[Fangu]

Putting _blank on internal links is a pretty unnecessary (and horrible) thing to do in my opinion The blank tag was made to keep people on a site, not for forcing them to keep track of x amount of tabs or new windows.

Remember that most people probably won't be reading TLS as they read a book (before page 4 you must have read page 3), they will be browsing it. They'll look at an article, go nah not interesting, then click on the next thing they find interesting, and probably they'll do it quite fast as well.

The problem is, one way of doing this leaves some control up to the user, the other gives them no control at all. I can't imagine what I'd do if sites like say Wikipedia forced me to open a new tab for every link, I would end up having 50 tabs open which I wouldn't be able to keep track of anyway, plus I'd be super frustrated about having to constantly close tabs.

Edit: Sorry if my tone is very rude and direct in this post, it was not meant to sound that way; been writing too much Norwegian today X)

 

[Shademp]

Fangu's argument is sound. I can go along with the change to remove target="_blank", except for in my Unused Text Series index. It may become inconsistent with the rest of the site, but I hold my vision for these select pages very tightly.

Edit: Still makes sense though to have target="_blank" for links that lead out of TLS.

 

[The Twilight Mexican]

I've gotten so used to doing it this way now, I'm just going to continue.


Flint: You can still open in the current tab by right-clicking, copying the link URL and pasting it.

 

[Lex]

Flint if you're that dead set against it, it's really not that big a deal. I'll be using _blank for external links as I've always done, my opinion is what it is. I obviously see the point about 9 bajillion tabs being annoying, but I don't really see that happening in the case of our site, and I personally find it more useful when I'm browsing.

While consistency is a concern, it's up to you what you want to do

 

[Flintlock]

Like I said, I'll do it for external links so we are consistent

 

[Lex]

I'm waiting to watch the Playstation conference at 6pm BST in a few hours to see if there's any news to put in the roundup. Also quite excited to watch the conference

 

[Lex]

Flint did I say I'd do the roundups two weeks in a row? I think I have a vague memory of that, but it could be tiredness. I only bring it up because compared to me you're usually so punctual with the roundup and I think I remember saying that somewhere but I checked this thread and can't find it

 

[Flintlock]

I've already written the roundup, it's just waiting for me to add pictures. My life is so busy right now that I just don't have time to be on TLS from anywhere other than work, where, for some reason, I can't use the Wordpress image editing features. If you want to illustrate it and publish it, please feel free - the FFX story already has an appropriate video, but the other two need pics.

 

[Shademp]

A tiny thing to mention in the next roundup.

I added the page "Omega & G Reports" to our Dirge of Cerberus section. It wasn't included in the "full game script" documents on GameFAQs, which bothered me. I copied the reports by booting up my copy of DC and typing down what I saw. Figured that it was better to have our own feature rather than linking to a random non-TLS site. =)

Question: Should I change the name of the feature? Not sure if writing "Omega & G Reports" in this way makes it sound like "Omega" is not a report at all. Should it be "Omega- & G Reports"? Omega- and G Reports? Omega Reports and G Reports?

Spoiler

I'm all confuzzled.

I understand of course if it seems embarrassing to mention such a tiny update in the Weekly Roundups, even if it's only as a small mention at the very bottom of the post (which is what I envision). If this doesn't fit in the next roundup, I'm cool with it.

 

[Lex]

I'll give it its own section Shademp, don't worry about it .

 

[The Twilight Mexican]

Omega Reports and G Reports?

That's how I would do it.

 

[Shademp]

That's how I would do it.

The change has been performed, my liege.

Edit: Except that I'm still using the "&" instead of "and". I honestly don't think one looks better than the other.

 

[The Twilight Mexican]

When it comes to proper nouns, I personally prefer the ampersand.