SP Happenings #191

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Yikes, I can't believe it's been nearly 6 months since my last SPH entry... it sure doesn't feel that long.

Well, I've certainly been busy working on SP during this time. A while ago a sizeable site content update has gone up; that one has finally caught up with all the user-submitted material up to that point. But sure enough, in the weeks since then new submissions have been pouring in, so it'll be time for a new update soon enough. I'm working on several new features, additions and improvements to SP with my friends and site contributors, the results of which should be visible in the near future as well. For example, Montresor has been working on a very detailed Planescape: Torment online walkthrough for SP for several months and it's now nearing completion. As always, SPS account holders can expect to have the first look at this new content once we'll be approaching finalization.

Since my last report, there have been a few new additions board-wise, namely the enabling of IMG tags, new games added to the arcade (with more on the way), the addition of tournaments to the arcade, the opening of several new social groups (we can use more members there!), the merger of Dragons Not Required forum back into The Playground, opening of a "How Do I" board support thread and quite a bit more.

In other areas of the site, certain content has been de-bugged some more (our Neverwinter Nights 2 and Mask of the Betrayer online walkthroughs should now really be devoid of any dead links, but if you do spot any errors, please let us know!), a Latest Active Threads front page bug that has gone unnoticed for way too long has been squashed (thanks Shaitan!) and the various image/screenshot galleries that got broken after the server transfer have been temporarily fixed with most of the functionality, but will be completely redone in the future in a saner way than they are now.

One thing that hasn't been done in a long time was an update to our search system, which is now fully up to date and includes all the new content on the site in its searches.

Another thing that I've finally implemented is a more sensible subsection division into multiple pages in places where there was previously little or no division. So instead of having single humongous content pages where it was hard to find what you were looking for (especially if someone referenced you a certain download on a page), the pages are now significantly "shorter" and indexed with a counter indicating clearly which page you're on at the moment.

For example, this is page #3 of the BG2 soundsets subsection. You'll notice the page counter below the center square ad and at the bottom of the content table. This has been applied in the same fashion throughout Sorcerer's Place and I hope will make it a bit more user-friendly.

Of course, I've been busy with a number of other things as well, but not everything is quite ready yet, and there's always much of the boring maintenance going on behind the scenes - unfortunately that takes time as well. Stick around for more announcements in the near future.

News-wise things are also looking up now that Uri has semi-returned and we've got a new eager recruit waiting for his training to commence, so hopefully that'll be a success as well.

Finally, I have to thank Catbert and Calis who still put up with me after all these years for their help with various coding jobs. Getting much of the stuff off my to-do list would be very hard without them. Thanks guys!