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Development Update 4/13 I've had a 102ish fever for the past three days and an incredible ear ache, and I say that not so that you can feel sorry for me but so that you realize that I may be a bit short this week. Nonetheless, despite all that, I hope that it will not affect my narrative much -- I shall put it out of my mind 100%. Earvil IE6 I've described before that I had a voodoo doll that was the IE6 logo. Whenever you feel frustrated with IE6, then you can stick a pin in it, and it immediately causes some of the programmers in IE6 to get a foot cramp. Or, that is what the lady that sold it to me told me, and it makes me feel better to believe her. I hate IE6, and I'm not even the one that is most affected; it's those poor devs that do a lot of front end work that bear the brunt of the pain that is IE6. How to put it in metaphorical terms? Let's say you're writing a critical term paper that has to be given a good grade by three teachers. Ms. F. Foxy (who used to be slim but has ballooned out with age) would be no problem, and she'd do a great job reading your paper and giving you constructive criticism. Mrs. Eiyee Seven would also be able to read your paper and give you great feedback. Ms. Eiyee Six, on the other hand, would a) deliberately misconstrue sentences, b) if she found a certain page she didn't like she would just rip it up into little pieces, and c) would take three times longer to read the paper than the other teachers. So, what do you end up doing? You end up being super paranoid about Ms. Eiyee Six, and end up writing two different papers -- your standard paper and then a dumbed down one in exactly IE6's format. But, heck, it's two papers you had to write. We're in this situation. As a kind of off-the-wall guess, up to 20% of a typical web dev's time can be spent dealing with IE6 issues. Or, to put it another way: if the Gaians that used it IE6 instead moved to another browser, we could do 20% more features in the same amount of time. (Omgwhat/xxKarutoNageWhateverxx had the great and hilarious idea of giving Firefox users extra gold just to promote a shift away from IE6, but we were unable to convince anyone to let us do it). Nonetheless, we will soldier on. At current rates of decline, we might be able to drop IE6 in, say, 2012. Anyway the reason I bring up IE6 is because vryhngry tracked down this nasty cache problem in IE6 where it was storing pages even though we had told it, honestly, don't store this, you need to get a fresh copy! Hopefully you IE6 users will see less glitches on the site. Guilds and How You Can Make A Diffearence No promises, because all is mutable and things have a tendency to go awry when I say them, but... it looks like there might be a way to allow guilds to send PMs to their members without overloading the system. We're pretty serious about this and if it happens, it would probably happen in the next two months. More information when we drill down. A big part of how we allocate our time is based on user reaction to the features that we do, but more than just SF threads, it's how the usage patterns change. Over the next month or two guild owners will have some of the improvements that they've been asking for... and in return we ask that you show us that it actually makes a difference. Go out and recruit some more members! Get some good threads going! Get people excited about your guild! Inventory Arrangear Pushed out was a fix for the weirdness with the scroll bar in the icon view in the arranger -- please try it and see if it works out better for you. 8elly8ean is making good progress on the Inventory Arranger -- we had originally hoped to have it into QA by the end of next week, but it looks like we'll have to do some additional work into registration instead. So, plan on maybe beginning of May sometime for a new inventory arranger. Just to set expectations, it'll look like the old inventory arranger, but will just run a lot faster and more reliably and not crash all the time. Home Page Pearformance We made a number of speed improvements to the loading page, especially with regards to the aquarium and the large images in What's Hot -- we're definitely keeping an eye on it and are sensitive to complaints that the aquarium takes too long to load. Mailear I mentioned last week that we were working on a new mailer system -- it went out Monday evening from about 11:00pm to 3:30pm by a dedicated sleep-sacrificing crew including WonderSloth, [72], soundfx440 and others. Despite the huge change to the system (it touched darn near every feature on the site) it went out really smoothly, and as a result the new mailer system is in place. What does this mean for you? Well, more reliable e-mails, for one -- a lot of people that weren't getting e-mails (especially those at Hotmail and Yahoo and some other big e-mail providers) suddenly started getting them. Also, the new mailing system is a lot more intelligent about bounce handling, so it'll be a lot harder to get into a situation where you just can't get your password. Finally, the new mailing system allows people to choose to allow/disallow certain e-mails based on the type of e-mail. Earrors and Bugs Fixed - When you add text, caption, the delete "x' is missing, On IE 6 - Can't see full name of friends if longer than... - Background of "System Message" is transparent instead of white - Funkiness with outfit picker pagination and last page. - Sort owned and member guilds by latest post - Arena rollover should be consistently Monday morning, not Sunday morning - Add a LazyLoad for the Whats Hot widget - Threads with title including "?" break reply links - Link to Prize and Joy is incorrect - Membership tracking feature - Scroll bar position and size incorrect for icon view.

Posted by: Panagrammic Sat Apr 18, 2009 @ 07:58am

Read my journal!

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iChris v2
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Commented on: Sat Apr 18, 2009 @ 08:06am


	Ow, I hope you feel better soon, it's never nice to have fever gonk I'm glad I use Firefox! xd Nice to see all those things fixed, and I can't wait to see how the inventory arranger improves in the future o 3o

Commented on: Sat Apr 18, 2009 @ 08:22am


	I've definitely seen improvements in IE8 and FF's nightly Minefield releases (all except... CS can't open in Minefield, but that's not something to worry about yet; its an alpha) over comparative render times, and ~90% of Gaia renders good in IE8's version of Trident. Also, nice t-ea-pos th-ea-re.

Kiyoske Dante
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PinkFae15
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Commented on: Sat Apr 18, 2009 @ 09:36am


	The scroll bar in the icon view in the inventory arranger now works properly for me, thanks for the fix! You shouldn't be working with a 102ish fever silly goose, take a well deserved break. Hope you feel better Pan! Make sure you get plenty of rest this weekend.

Commented on: Sat Apr 18, 2009 @ 11:30am


	I made a thread about IE6! http://www.gaiaonline.com/forum/t.49182661/ I want the idea of giving users golds for switching browsers.

muhaymin
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snufflypoo
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Commented on: Sat Apr 18, 2009 @ 11:40am


	feels sorry for you anyway get well soon pan!

Commented on: Sat Apr 18, 2009 @ 02:05pm


	Oish gonk Why oh why do folks still use IE6 when there are many a better browser out there? ahem Anyway, get well soon. And thanks for the updates ^_^ Hopefully now when I get notices on my email from Gaia, they won't be days late. xd

Kimiko no Tenshi
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Anaidiana
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Commented on: Sat Apr 18, 2009 @ 02:10pm


	Thank you SO MUCH for all the work you've put in on the Inventory Arranger! I was finally able to move all of my commons out of storage (...and then promptly sell half of them because I obviously didn't -need- them...) and now I'm a wee bit overwhelmed when putting avs together, but that's ok because you fixed it! Also noticed the scroll-bar thing - it's working fine for me now, too. Get well soon! Chicken soup is awesome! <3<3 ~Anai

Commented on: Sat Apr 18, 2009 @ 02:46pm


	You write really well. :3 I hope your ear feels better, I had a tummy ache all last night and it's no fun being ickies. For IE6 - make gold grant less. My boyfriend is a graphic designer and he loaths Explorer (which I hear muffled through the office door), so I can understand your pain. Giving less gold will get those to upgrade or switch to Safari or Firefox.

pirhan
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Cosmic Remnant
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Commented on: Sat Apr 18, 2009 @ 03:21pm


	Oh could I tell you a problem with IE8? Those little type in boxes in the market place have been made smaller, as well as a few buttons around the site (like adding a profile comment button). Man, I don't like firefox though. -clings to her crappy IE- xd

Commented on: Sat Apr 18, 2009 @ 04:06pm


	As much as I support incentives for switching away from IE6, I hope that gold bonus would be given to users of other browsers, such as Opera or Safari, as well and not just those using Firefox. (I could go on a rant about how FF isn't that great here, but I'll hold it and spare you the trouble.) HOWEVER, instead of gold grants, why don't you just force IE6 users to upgrade by putting up a message on the homepage when it detects someone with the IE6 user agent that says, "Sorry, Gaia doesn't support your browser. Please upgrade to one of the following:" (underneath would be an icon for Safari, Opera, Firefox, and IE7/8 with a brief description of each.) Moving on now, I'm glad to see the scroll bar in the inventory arranger fixed. I didn't know it was a big issue and thought it was just because I use the beta of Safari 4 XD Now I have a question (that I'll bet you hear a lot) about two features that were mentioned to be being worked on months ago: new security settings and that adaptive/predictive captcha thingy. How's work coming on those? I think they're two major upgrades Gaia could really benefit from. Thanks for the updates smile

France Hopper
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Moonlight Silver
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Commented on: Sat Apr 18, 2009 @ 05:41pm


	I would be perfectly happy with giving extra gold to users who are on firefox!! rofl 102 fever?! GO HOME NOW. Dev sickness needs to be contained and recovered from, not ignored and made worse!

Commented on: Sat Apr 18, 2009 @ 05:49pm


	Ugh, IE kills me. I switched to firefox 3 years ago and I'm glad. But I still use IE from time to time, so I can go on a mule without logging myself out. I don't know what the hell happened, but it just crapped out entirely. Everytime I opened it it would take half an hour to load any page. I got so frustrated recently I finally just uninstalled it completely, and went and downloaded IE8. I don't know if it's because I had IE6, but atleast it's USABLE now. If only everyone would have the experience I did, that would completely demolish anyone who still uses IE6. Haha! Arranger fixes are awesome possum. &3 But I've always gritted and beared it, because I'm so OCD about arranging. As long as it works at all I'm happeh. xD Hope you feel better! I just got over a nasty cold last week, so the empathy is fresh. @_@ <3

Miles To Go
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HitAngel
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Commented on: Sat Apr 18, 2009 @ 08:22pm


	Hear this, Dear: Get offa yer rear, and get some chicken soup in ya. No fear. Granny-hugs for your progress. So. What are You waiting for? I love Gaia. You can not make me.

Commented on: Sat Apr 18, 2009 @ 08:38pm


	The main inventory scroll bar appears to be fine now. But the scroll bar in the inventory arranger is broken when in icon view in the storage locker. I can't scroll all the way to the bottom - the scroll bar disappears from sight! Edit: Also, the scroll bar appears to be missing entirely from icon view in the house items storage.

The Sweet Mango
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Hybrid
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Commented on: Sat Apr 18, 2009 @ 08:48pm


	Surprised Gaia is still supporting IE6, to be honest. Glad to hear about guilds. Myself and at least a few others I know are somewhat holding off until the big changes occur before getting into the GGN again. I hope the new mail system lets people re-subscribe to alerts and regular Gaia promo e-mails. I somehow stopped getting them when I switched e-mail accounts months ago.

Commented on: Sat Apr 18, 2009 @ 08:51pm


	Member tracking?! SO YOU SAW WHEN I WENT TO THAT ALLEY AND BOUGHT-- ITS FOR A FRIEND! gonk gonk

Refurbished User
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Iam WhoIAm
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Commented on: Sat Apr 18, 2009 @ 09:07pm


	Good news for guilds then. Take your time on PM feature, I would rather it come out later and work better than have millions of problems and be out tomorrow. I hope you get better soon, nobody like to be sick. Chicken soup? 24 hours every day is all i get to spend no saving up or borrowing or going back again So when I reach eternity beyond lifes final breath God will grant the choice I made Eternal Life or death the_hamster is mine heart* we wed on the 28th of September, 2013* DA

Commented on: Sat Apr 18, 2009 @ 09:23pm


	I have to say I truly love Ms. F. Foxy Two. I still have yet to go to Ms F. Foxy Three since she use to have a tendency to make dressing avies all blured. I don't know if this is still true now so i'll have to check on it. I believe I only use IE6 when checking the scroll colors on profiles I code. Other then that, it's only used for web design cross checking.

Kamikazi-Cloud
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Mistress Charlene
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Commented on: Sat Apr 18, 2009 @ 10:56pm


	What's up with all the "ear"s in the titles of the sections? O.o; Yikes. If that's all you can think of, I pity your boss. xP xD

Commented on: Sat Apr 18, 2009 @ 11:17pm


	As always an amazing update...get some rest damnit! We want you around Pan! Even though you have "ear" on the brain. xd Take care and wish your team a "kick a ****** job" as always. Mahalo!

morozco024
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Daffodil the Destroyer
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Commented on: Sat Apr 18, 2009 @ 11:55pm


	I'm so happy to hear about the new inventory arranger! hugs

Commented on: Sun Apr 19, 2009 @ 12:56am


	I know how you feel when it comes to coding in IE6. I coded some pages and my profile for accommodations to most popular browsers (except text browsers), and tweaking even CSS for IE6 was a pain in the a** for me. There was this one bug on a pre-installed fanfiction archive that I cannot quash for IE6 so I gave up on it for a YEAR AND A HALF. Stood up late at times to attempt to fix it too. Still can't, now that I'm an intermediate CSS coder.

Ami Sapphire
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Cleocatra
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Commented on: Sun Apr 19, 2009 @ 01:48am


	If I could, I'd help remove Ie6 from everywhere, but unfortunately, I can't crack admin privs on lots of computers.

Commented on: Sun Apr 19, 2009 @ 02:51am


	Yush, I use FF, I have since v1 xD EI is an alien to meeeeee /flee's. I'm very sorry to hear you are sick, look after yourself, I'd bring you some soup if I lived near by 4laugh As for the inventory arranger.. Gah you mean it'll still be click and drag words with no images? aww why can't you just make it click and drag in the dress up area ;~;

Valixrae
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Bang Wa Cherry
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Commented on: Sun Apr 19, 2009 @ 07:28am


	My say goes to this "IP Limit" thing. I read in the journal that the IP was lifted, because people who go to Gaiaonline at school or use the same computer at home might miss out on voting. I agree with that. So don't just put the limit on voting right this second, think about it a bit more. Too cap it...it feels more unbalanced than people who can currently vote from the same IP. Not everyone on Gaia has their own personal computer. My Idea... if it is possible. Is there a way for a vote to be connected to CAPTCHA or Confirmation like program? So if there was a limit to the IP alone. Various people who voted from the same IP, would have to prove that they are voting fair, by typing in the CAPTCHA. If they do not type, then their vote doesn't count.

Commented on: Sun Apr 19, 2009 @ 11:33am


	Inventory Arranger... -Explodes from joy- And a big thanks for fixing the issue with special characters in Thread titles causing issues for direct links to Posts, that was annoying, so very annoying. Surprisingly though, I didn't see much complaints from Users about it, maybe it just wasn't noticed too much?

Darien S.
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Nerelda
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Commented on: Sun Apr 19, 2009 @ 02:16pm


	Got EAR on the brain? wink Thanks for the updaes! Hope you're feeling better!

Commented on: Sun Apr 19, 2009 @ 03:57pm


	I tend to use Firefox as my main browser too, but I absolutely HATE how much of a resource hog it is after running for long periods of time. At one point my firefox was eating 500mb of ram when I only had 2 tabs open and minimal flash (tanks showing in forum sigs) .______.; It was ridiculous. I suppose Chrome is better in the memory aspect, but it's full of bugs and such in general still. le sigh. XD Keep up the good work! ~Click for DeviantArt~ If I glow, post HERE!

SplashTOMATO
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ynattirb73
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Commented on: Sun Apr 19, 2009 @ 06:24pm


	¨:·.♥.·:¨ Yay my Inventory Arranger scroll bar is fixed! Thanks a bunch! Hope you feel better soon sad Being sick is no fun.

Commented on: Sun Apr 19, 2009 @ 09:52pm


	If there ever is a petition that gives users gold for not using EI6 then please post it. I will no doubt tell people about and sign it myself.

Crimson_Chaos_Seraph
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Breakability
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Commented on: Mon Apr 20, 2009 @ 09:08am


	Good to know your ear isn't hurting that much! rofl Can't wait for the invo update! And yeah, Exploder pretty much sucks.

Commented on: Mon Apr 20, 2009 @ 04:18pm


	Took me awhile to realize all those 'ear's weren't typos. They weren't right? Inventory Arrangear I don't give a hoot about the aesthetics, as long as it functions. And if it takes less than 5 minutes to load and doesn't lag severely from trying to move crap around, the better. 3nodding

Nobara
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I Am Just Kit
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Commented on: Wed Apr 22, 2009 @ 04:13am


	Quote: When you add text, caption, the delete "x' is missing, On IE 6 Hooray! I wondeared what was going on with that. Lol, this laptop just came with IE6, and my boyfriend (who owns it) hasn't been able to get FF yet. Hooray for bug fixes! Happy now. ^_^ PS: Hope you feel bettear soon. I've had about the same thing (not as bad though, and with throat, not ear) so I know how you feel.

Commented on: Fri Apr 24, 2009 @ 12:20am


	I just notices something, I can no longer move things around in my inventory. Is this recent or did I just not notice it beffofre

Iam WhoIAm
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Arnulf of the North
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Commented on: Fri Apr 24, 2009 @ 12:29am


	can you please fix the edit button

Commented on: Fri Apr 24, 2009 @ 06:48am


	OMG, I soooo know what you mean about IE6. I mean, how hard can it be to set margins to auto? scream scream

ffreddd123
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Metalic_Noodles
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Commented on: Sat Apr 25, 2009 @ 07:52pm


	If someone is using Gaia on IE6 have a system announcemnt banner thing tell them so, and tell them t switch with a link to upgrade IE to 7 and a like to a special thread or person to PM if there is a reason you are unable to upgrade IE or use a different browser. Also, Guild Mass PMs... ^-^ The problem with guild traffic is that there are a lot of people there that are only in the GGN, and don't have more time to spend in the GGN. Then there is a large number of regular forum people that don't know the GGN exists and/or don't under stand how it works or how to get to the Guilds. Gaians browse the regular forums for threads they are interested in, but I'm not sure this happens with guilds. If this is the case advertising and invites are all you can do for gaining member, unlike threads that just have to exist and occasionally be bumped.

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