Bad Links and Page Errors

[James]

maybe keep the links in a broken link section
their urls are still useful, one may use archive.org to check it their previous contents were archived

Very good point... there were a few I actually replaced with functional archive.org links. Hmm...

[I would be willing to expand the encyclopedia's descriptions if you wish to by the way, I would be very happy to expand the information about really obscure guys along with others, and my ability as a (mediocre) translator aids too. I wouldn't help much with the Romance part since I never really looked into the novel in depth.

That’s great! Especially since so many of those obscure guys and gals could use at least a little bit of love! I actually have a back-end and pretty advanced tool for editing everything in the Encyclopedia, and I can add people to the project. It is currently one of the database-driven things which are broken, but I’ll cobble it back together pretty soon, and it would be great to have you onboard.

[Hyper90]

The search box at the side bar in the side seems not working. Attached screenshot below (Being Form is not secure, tested with Browers Edge, Opera, Chrome)

The encyclopedia works! Minor Suggestion, would it be better to open a new tab for Sanguozhi or comprehensive links?
Just my personal opinion for a browsing experience.

Back to the sidebar, under 'Games'. Are the Music and downloads link still relevant to use? It still requires to login but the login is entirely different from the forum login details and its broken.

Family trees section, for Zhuge and Sun. Can we have a text-based family tree like the Cao/Xiahou and Sun (Detailed)

Sorry for the randomness.

[James]

The search box at the side bar in the side seems not working. Attached screenshot below (Being Form is not secure, tested with Browers Edge, Opera, Chrome)

The encyclopedia works! Minor Suggestion, would it be better to open a new tab for Sanguozhi or comprehensive links?
Just my personal opinion for a browsing experience.

Back to the sidebar, under 'Games'. Are the Music and downloads link still relevant to use? It still requires to login but the login is entirely different from the forum login details and its broken.

Family trees section, for Zhuge and Sun. Can we have a text-based family tree like the Cao/Xiahou and Sun (Detailed)

Sorry for the randomness.

Thank you for the feedback!

1) Yep! Does not surprise me that the search box is not working. I haven't even started tinkering with that, yet. I also need to decide how to even tackle it. Previously some specific software was used to create an index, but some stuff is still broken. I may revise things with that same approach. Maybe I can turn it over to a search engine for the time being. But some re-indexing needs to take place with changes made after bringing the site back online, and that will certainly take some time.

2) Opening links in new tabs. Normal practice on the internet is to 1) always open links within the same website in the same tab (with only specific exceptions), and 2) maybe or maybe not open links to another website website in new tabs (windows). I generally follow that approach. What I would recommend is that browsers should have a certain key you can hold down (e.g. in Safari on my Mac that is the Command key) when you click on a link which over-rides this choice, and opens the link in a new tab. That way you can just make a habit of holding that button down when you want to make sure the link opens in a new tab. There is usually another modifier key which can be held down to 1) open the link in a new tab, but 2) remain in the current tab without changing focus.

3) Previously, the music section was, I believe, tied to a little quiz. The purpose of that quiz was just to make sure that the whole broad internet wasn't rummaging about and creating big bandwidth expenses, instead keeping it to the community. There is also an "odds & ends" section which featured other various archive downloads which did not make a whole lot of sense to openly link (again generally for bandwidth reasons) and this was shared with people who made donations to the website. I think I will restore that section, but this time it will be tied to our new Patreon. Currently the only thing tied to it is my gratitude!

4) Family trees. If someone in the community has prepared one or wants to prepare one, I will be happy to host it.

[DragonAtma]

Speaking of bad links, all four links in the first post of Forum Rules and Introduction link to the wrong SoSZ url (.local instead of .com).

[James]

Speaking of bad links, all four links in the first post of Forum Rules and Introduction link to the wrong SoSZ url (.local instead of .com).

Oh wow... that is quite trippy. I do my local development under the .local domain, and I was not actually able to figure out how it managed to sneak into being used, there. Nor did those links reference it directly. But this ended up being very helpful! It led me to adjust some board settings which may standardize some components of the board domain and cookie handling, and could actually be helpful in reducing some of the sign-out issues people are experiencing, so thanks!

[Lord Yang Jiahua]

I'll add this here as we are attempting a major addition and something of an overhaul to our community here:

Any Externally Linked SGZ Biographies etc, will probably have to be either rewritten or migrated over here. I just ran into this issue with
Sun Shao (Gongli) biography link, at least most of the Kongming's Archives hosted stuff still work.

[rcsha]

Just a question - does anybody else have the problem that the 'Remember Me' thing doesn't work? Or is it just me?
When I come back to the forum, it gives me the impression of remaining logged in (pfp in the top right, new unread posts labeled, etc.). But as soon as I navigate to anywhere, or refresh the page...logs me out.

I ask because I figured it was just something on my end I'd have to figure out - but the SimRTK forum doesn't do that to me.
I cleared all of my stuff and it's still happening. It seems that each time I come back to the site, it thinks I've logged out, and when I log back in - it creates a new 'login key' as if I was on a different computer. Same IP address, though.
Again, I'm trying to figure out where the issue is on which end, because the other forum doesn't so this to me. And I am confused.

[James]

I'll add this here as we are attempting a major addition and something of an overhaul to our community here:
Any Externally Linked SGZ Biographies etc, will probably have to be either rewritten or migrated over here. I just ran into this issue with
Sun Shao (Gongli) biography link, at least most of the Kongming's Archives hosted stuff still work.

We could certainly request permission to republish some that have vanished from the internet...

I've been pondering what sort of best practice makes sense for valuable resources which have gone offline. Maybe a good choice, for the encyclopedia, is to replace those links in cases with working archive.org links?

Just a question - does anybody else have the problem that the 'Remember Me' thing doesn't work? Or is it just me?
When I come back to the forum, it gives me the impression of remaining logged in (pfp in the top right, new unread posts labeled, etc.). But as soon as I navigate to anywhere, or refresh the page...logs me out.

I ask because I figured it was just something on my end I'd have to figure out - but the SimRTK forum doesn't do that to me.
I cleared all of my stuff and it's still happening. It seems that each time I come back to the site, it thinks I've logged out, and when I log back in - it creates a new 'login key' as if I was on a different computer. Same IP address, though.
Again, I'm trying to figure out where the issue is on which end, because the other forum doesn't so this to me. And I am confused.

Part of it, from what I've gathered so far, is that the team behind phpBB has tightened down session management to address security concerns, which seems to also create more conditions in which sessions are expired. I have the option to ease back some restrictions, but I'd like to spend a bit of time understanding why they published them in the first place—what the actual consequences are for easing them.

But it's interesting that you aren't having that issue at SimRTK. I have made some changes in relatively recent history to the domains and settings for the two forums and there are some differences. It would be informative to know if you continue having issues here but not there.

It technically should't matter, but that doesn't mean it always won't. But you could also try updating your bookmarks to this forum, if you are using any, to use: https://the-scholars.com

[rcsha]

It technically should't matter, but that doesn't mean it always won't. But you could also try updating your bookmarks to this forum, if you are using any, to use: https://the-scholars.com

I don't have the forum in my bookmarks; either one. Just KMA - then from there I click the links. So it extra shouldn't matter, haha.

[James]

I don't have the forum in my bookmarks; either one. Just KMA - then from there I click the links. So it extra shouldn't matter, haha.

Okay, cool. Good to know! That would serve the same purpose as KMA is using the current standard link. Although in any case, this shouldn't really be interfering with the session anyway, as the forum should redirect to the proper domain in all other cases.