375139

375398
Seriously, stop that. Its hard enough to even think my stories might be able to match up to your own, then you keep making yourself more awesome in general....

375442
I'm not doing it on purpose... Awesome is a side-effect of large projects and writing stories... I never asked for this!

375481
No, but your perfectly fine of doing them out of your own will!

375565
I've already finished coding the login and registration forms. We're already on to coding the main program itself; this is going fast.

375570
This is you. You work at sonic speed.

376714
Boy I guess. Man, I need to take a vacation or something.

Except the last time I did, I spent the whole time thinking about what I was going to write when I got back anyways. I guess this is my lot in life.

376725
You said that you were making this application in C# right?
Here's a link to possibly a way to impliment Spearhead in Linux

376725
Could be worse.

377162
Could be. I could be one of those people who gets writer's block.

377164
Low blow to all those people that get the block.

377167
It's not meant to be mean.

377169
I know, but still. Low blow.

Project Update: [Man, these seem to be coming along quickly, don't they?]

Ladies and gentlemen (mostly gentlemen, I believe), it is time for Spearhead news.

I have finished coding the two absolutes of this application already; the login and registration process. Spearhead users can now securely log in and register.

While this may not seem like much, it show good progress; and it is in fact, ten time harder in terms of data management than anything else. From here on out it's as easy as reading and writing data to and from the server and populating the various modules for user pages, stories, media, and more.

Though this is marginally easier in terms of difficulty, I now move onto the more daunting task in terms of sheer effort; coding each and every one of these pages. The users currently have nothing to log into at all, though they can be considered 'online'.

I am in the process of designing a common template for the program, which will dynamically load each type of 'page'. To simplify, there won't be any new windows once the main application opens, unless you need to change application settings or use on of the numerous built-in tools; such as our handy photo re-sizer.

You know how if you change your avatar to a non-square image here on FimFiction it ends up being a square anyways? And how usually what's in the square doesn't even come close to what you wanted? Well, we fixed that. Your avatar has to be a square, of course, but the photo re-sizer will let you decide exactly what goes in that square. Just click and drag over the original image to select the desired portion; Spearhead will convert it for you. You can do this as early as registration, or you can register with just the basics and update all of your other information once logged in. Whatever makes you happy.

I digress; This post is to notify you that I will be creating several potential layouts for the main application and then posting in my blog about it. I'll let you, the beta users, decide what kind of layout makes the most sense to you. How long will it take me to create these layouts? A while, probably, but a while by 'Razorbeam' standards is... not very long.

The project continues! It will be grand!

So, since I did a chapter of WoC this weekend, I think I'm going to spend the majority of the rest of the week coding Spearhead some more. I'm going to throw together non-sexy, working editions of all the controls, and then make them unbearably good-looking later. The code just needs done.

Barebones mode, activate!

387064
Barebones as you so put it is probably still better laid out than EqD

387131
Oh, without question.

Project Update:

It's been quite a while since our last update here.

Luckily that doesn't mean there haven't been any; just that I've been lazy in typing them out!

I have recently finished designing much of the layout for the userpage, homepage, buttons, and other various doodads that don't yet do much of anything.

The "media browser" page [this is a program, so they aren't actually pages] is my little less than original design for easy access to... well, media browsing. Based on what kind of media, you can filter it using different kinds of tags, by rating, and many other options I won't list here. For example, stories can be filtered using the "Romance" tag, music filtered by "Orchestral", video by "PMV", and artwork by "Sketch" to list a few examples. As you can see, each type of media has unique tags that will help you easily find what you want, but all types of media use the same layout.

The layout for the media browser is very simple; a menu bar at the top allows you to select or empty your filters, with a refresh button to let the page know you're ready to update your search. A nice big content area will fill up with "thumbnails" by default; bite-sized versions of the media you are looking for with the cover art, creator's name, and title. It is possible to display a more detailed version of the search results, which take up more space but show more info. You can toggle these two views [thumbnail or detail] at anytime within the browser, or specify the default settings under your account preferences.

The thumbnail system is very useful for returning a large number of entries with minimal space; perfect for people who aren't really sure what they are looking for and are just window shopping. Mousing over a thumbnail will allow you to see all of the details, such as ratings and tags, so you're not going into a media source blind. But some people might find it tedious to mouse over each thumbnail, especially if there are lots of them. in short, you can only look at the details of one story at a time.

That is what the detail option is for. Since they take up more space, fewer entries are displayed per page, and all of the details for each are visible right away, making it easier to skim tags, ratings, and more for multiple media sources at once. This will be more useful for users who are looking for something more specific.

Clicking on either a thumbnail or a detail media item will both take you to the media's actual 'page'. [God damnit, they aren't pages.]

It should be a very simple and useful system, providing a good blend of usability and performance, and allowing you to easily manage and modify your searches to return exactly what you're looking for.

The only downside to the wonderfully conceived pile of awesome that is the media browser is that it is for media only. What if you want to find an author, or a video producer, or a cover artist? And what if you want the top rated ones? Maybe you're looking for an author support unit [Spearhead's group system is called 'units'. Get it, Cavalry Units?]. Well, the media browser can;t help you.

Instead, there's a community search tool that can be used in a similar way; the layout is going to look very, very familiar; thumbnails vs. details, but with very different tag systems and sorting options.

For more specific searches, AKA you know precisely what you are looking for, there is a built-in text search which will easily allow you to search users, forums, and media by name. It will, in fact, return EVERYTHING that matches, but it will sort them by type [user, story, etc] and then by closest match. In other words, if you search "Razorbeam", if might return "Users: Razorbeam | Razorbeam2 | Razorbeam3 | ..." and "Stories: Razorbeam's a jerk". If someone hasn't written that story yet, I can't imagine why not.

I'm sure searches must seem like very simple business to all you savvy interweb users out there, but trust me when I say that to make browsing really useful and worth your while, there's much work to be done! These are my next developments, and I hope you;re excited for them!

403869

If someone hasn't written that story yet, I can't imagine why not.

I've got personal experience with you, so I'm on it.
Edit, think of DWing's troll face.

405171
I don't think it can pass moderation anymore, lol. Write it anyways!

405173
Oh, I'll be sneaky, where the whole story is a good adventure, and the last of speech will end the story, "And I have learned this, throughout my whole adventure: Razorbeam is a jerk."

405520
Well played.