KerbalX.com - Craft & Mission Sharing

[Raptor9]

39 minutes ago, katateochi said:

oh, opps! soz! I see you've updated a bunch now (which I got all as a single notification, yay). I noticed three have the wrong thumbnail (C7 325R 'Atlas', C7-320-Atlas and C7-200-Albatross), did they get changed by updating them this time or was that from before?  I'll double check anyway when I'm back in KX dev mode. 

Ah, I may have mis-clicked the wrong image for the thumbnail updates.  Thanks for the catch, I corrected them so hopefully they'll start populating the correct images soon.

[katateochi]

My host (heroku) seems to be having a case of server ferrets at present. KX is down right now, but will be back up soon. https://status.heroku.com/

----

Site is back up now!

Edited March 1, 2017 by katateochi

[drhay53]

I'm trying to create a modlist from a .ckan file and I'm getting an error window that says "Was that the primary buffer panel!? Something has gone wrong! I have been notified about it and will investigate." I have tried both the installed-default.ckan file and the file created by CKAN's "export installed mods" menu item.

[katateochi]

1 hour ago, drhay53 said:

I'm trying to create a modlist from a .ckan file and I'm getting an error window that says "Was that the primary buffer panel!? Something has gone wrong! I have been notified about it and will investigate." I have tried both the installed-default.ckan file and the file created by CKAN's "export installed mods" menu item.

Can you email the .ckan file to me (at [email protected]) and I'll see what's going wrong (I'm just about to go to bed, so it will be tomorrow). I can see the error in the logs, I think it's due to one of the mods not having enough info available on the site, but if you send me the file I can tell you which mod is causing the problem and also make it so it handles the error and still creates a mod list for the info that is available. 

[drhay53]

Just now, katateochi said:

Can you email the .ckan file to me (at [email protected]) and I'll see what's going wrong (I'm just about to go to bed, so it will be tomorrow). I can see the error in the logs, I think it's due to one of the mods not having enough info available on the site, but if you send me the file I can tell you which mod is causing the problem and also make it so it handles the error and still creates a mod list for the info that is available. 

Will send after I get my son to bed, so definitely wait till tomorrow to look at it.

[Beetlecat]

Hey @katateochi -- I can't express how awesome kerbalx has been and continues to be as you develop it. I especially like (sorta) the new nested announcement/update feed.

Any chance of an additional sort-by criteria for "updated" ? This is a major way I browse KerbalX these days --well, for Raptor9's updates, anyway.

[katateochi]

2 hours ago, Beetlecat said:

Hey @katateochi -- I can't express how awesome kerbalx has been and continues to be as you develop it. I especially like (sorta) the new nested announcement/update feed.

Thanks @Beetlecat! 

2 hours ago, Beetlecat said:

Any chance of an additional sort-by criteria for "updated" ? This is a major way I browse KerbalX these days --well, for Raptor9's updates, anyway.

haha yeah, that @Raptor9, he's like a craft factory! (and was the main user who made me realise I needed to nest the update/upload notifications). 

yes I could probably add a sort to it, I'd not thought of that.  Would just a sort by name or date be enough? (notification objects are v light weight so they load fast, but that means they don't have the full craft info to hand).
FYI (as the site doesn't mention this) if you get a notification with say 5 uploaded/updated craft, if you don't dismiss the notification, but instead click view on one of the craft, you can then reopen the notification from your user menu and now it will just have the remaining 4. 

[Beetlecat]

55 minutes ago, katateochi said:

FYI (as the site doesn't mention this) if you get a notification with say 5 uploaded/updated craft, if you don't dismiss the notification, but instead click view on one of the craft, you can then reopen the notification from your user menu and now it will just have the remaining 4. 

I really appreciate that feature -- I was worried when I first saw the nested list, and thought I had to open a ton of spare tabs before I lost the new notification, but, voila! You built in that safety.

I was thinking "updated" could be another button in the sorting selectors on the top right of a mod browsing page (such as here: https://kerbalx.com/Raptor9/craft ).  It would make it super easy to see the latest changes to existing craft for a specific author, or the main craft list in general. This way, if the notification is dismissed/ignored, the newest versions of things could still bubble up to the top.

Still using our friend @Raptor9 as an example: If the "updated" button was clicked, the 'Titan 4N' (a brand new upload) could still be near the top (as "update/date" could be set to the same at first upload?) along with the older X-plane craft that all got action group tweaks this week.

I hope that makes sense, and thanks for considering this!

-Layne
 

Edited March 3, 2017 by Beetlecat

[katateochi]

1 hour ago, Beetlecat said:

I was thinking "updated" could be another button in the sorting selectors on the top right of a mod browsing page (such as here: https://kerbalx.com/Raptor9/craft ).  It would make it super easy to see the latest changes to existing craft for a specific author, or the main craft list in general. This way, if the notification is dismissed/ignored, the newest versions of things could still bubble up to the top.

Still using our friend @Raptor9 as an example: If the "updated" button was clicked, the 'Titan 4N' (a brand new upload) could still be near the top (as "update/date" could be set to the same at first upload?) along with the older X-plane craft that all got action group tweaks this week.

oh, I see. yes that's very doable (easier in fact than adding a sort in the notifications). I'm fairly sure upload_date == update_date when the craft is first uploaded, unless I used a nil update_date as the way of checking if a craft has been updated at all (not in front of the code right now).  
On the interface it will most likely have to go into the hidden sort by options (accessed by clicking the "+" next to "invert"), just to keep the interface so it scales onto smaller screens, but you could set it as your default sort by in your settings if you wanted and then it will always be shown.  
yeah, I'll add this (maybe over the weekend if I get time). 

[drhay53]

So now I have the problem that it seems like adding mods to the search and using "will work with selected mods" doesn't seem to work right. This is why I was playing with importing the ckan file as a mod list in the first place.

 

When I import the ckan file I e-mailed to you, and use it as a "will work With selected mods" filter, I get "No Craft matched your search". This had been my experience in adding mods to a search filter by hand, so I'm confused as to what's happening here. 

 

The behavior I'm expecting is that all craft will be checked against my mod list, and only ones where all mods are in my mod list will be returned. Do I somehow need to explicitly include stock parts?

[katateochi]

8 minutes ago, drhay53 said:

So now I have the problem that it seems like adding mods to the search and using "will work with selected mods" doesn't seem to work right. This is why I was playing with importing the ckan file as a mod list in the first place.

 

When I import the ckan file I e-mailed to you, and use it as a "will work With selected mods" filter, I get "No Craft matched your search". This had been my experience in adding mods to a search filter by hand, so I'm confused as to what's happening here. 

I'd actually noticed an issue with the mod filtering when testing your .ckan file. The problem is that the search system uses "+sci<somepartname>" as the trigger for filtering by science parts, there are two mods in that mod pack which start with the word science (sciencerevisitedrevisited and sciencerelay) and so the search is trying to find craft that have two science parts called "encerevisitedrevisited" and "encerelay" which obv don't exist.  It's a design flaw in how the search string is generated but I think it should be an easy fix.  Meanwhile if you remove those two mods (science revisited revisited and science relay, any mod with a name that starts with sci) then the mod filter will work (just check and it returns 537 craft ).

 

14 minutes ago, drhay53 said:

The behavior I'm expecting is that all craft will be checked against my mod list, and only ones where all mods are in my mod list will be returned. Do I somehow need to explicitly include stock parts?

yes that's right, it will return craft that use 1 or more of the mods in your mod list. You don't need to include stock parts, that's assumed, but it omits pure stock craft from the results with a mod filter. 

 

[drhay53]

7 minutes ago, katateochi said:

I'd actually noticed an issue with the mod filtering when testing your .ckan file. The problem is that the search system uses "+sci<somepartname>" as the trigger for filtering by science parts, there are two mods in that mod pack which start with the word science (sciencerevisitedrevisited and sciencerelay) and so the search is trying to find craft that have two science parts called "encerevisitedrevisited" and "encerelay" which obv don't exist.  It's a design flaw in how the search string is generated but I think it should be an easy fix.  Meanwhile if you remove those two mods (science revisited revisited and science relay, any mod with a name that starts with sci) then the mod filter will work (just check and it returns 537 craft ).

 

yes that's right, it will return craft that use 1 or more of the mods in your mod list. You don't need to include stock parts, that's assumed, but it omits pure stock craft from the results with a mod filter. 

 

 

Ok thanks, yes I get 537 craft. String matching will get you every time

[katateochi]

Just deployed a couple fixes;
- CKAN files which list mods as "recommends" rather than "depends" are now compatible 
- Fixed conflict in mod filters which was triggering the science part filters to be switched on.
(thanks @drhay53 for reporting those)

Added a sort by updated option.  Orders craft by the date they were last updated (or if they've never been updated by their upload date).  
(thanks for the suggestion @Beetlecat).

The by updated sort option is under the hidden sort options, click the + next to the invert sort button to see those. You can also change which sort option is your default by going to settings -> interface (or click here if logged in).
 

[RuBisCO]

Suggestion:

It would be nice if we could post more than one craft per page, for example this guy had to put 3 rockets together in one craft file: https://kerbalx.com/Rune/General-Lifters

Either that or increase the description options for hangers. 

Besides that I love KerbalX and I addictively post my craft and I would take a bullet for you. 

 

[katateochi]

On 11/03/2017 at 4:10 AM, RuBisCO said:

Suggestion:

It would be nice if we could post more than one craft per page, for example this guy had to put 3 rockets together in one craft file: https://kerbalx.com/Rune/General-Lifters

Either that or increase the description options for hangers. 

To have more than one craft per page would be a big shift in thinking. The site is built around the idea that a craft is a separate object which can be assessed for its mod dependencies and has craft specific attributes (read from a single craft file) which can be reference when searching for craft.  
Hangars are the way I envisaged for grouping craft together but I agree that hangars need improving. When you say increase the description for hangars do you just mean increase the char limit for the description text?  What else do you think would improve hangars?

On 11/03/2017 at 4:10 AM, RuBisCO said:

Besides that I love KerbalX and I addictively post my craft and I would take a bullet for you. 

Much appreciated, but lets hope it won't come to that! 

[RuBisCO]

1 hour ago, katateochi said:

To have more than one craft per page would be a big shift in thinking. The site is built around the idea that a craft is a separate object which can be assessed for its mod dependencies and has craft specific attributes (read from a single craft file) which can be reference when searching for craft.  
Hangars are the way I envisaged for grouping craft together but I agree that hangars need improving. When you say increase the description for hangars do you just mean increase the char limit for the description text?  What else do you think would improve hangars?

Much appreciated, but lets hope it won't come to that! 

Ok here are some ideas

1. Add a button to download all crafts in a hanger simultaneously.

2. Make hanger pages such that pictures, videos and detailed descriptions can be made describing the hanger of crafts.

Consider the problem this guy has, in which he wants to share 3 sub-assembly boosters simultaneously, his solutions is kind of innovative: https://kerbalx.com/Rune/General-Lifters  

I would like to share these as a pack, at best I can make a hanger but I can't make much describing them in the hanger, at best I could make each page nearly identical linking to each other.

[Amechwarrior]

Thanks for this site!  I just bit the bullet and uploaded a lot of my craft after someone on r/KSP asked for a craft file.  Here is my impression from adding 39 items in the span of 2 weeks:

 

I found myself using the numerical addresses(http://kerbalx.com/crafts/25931) instead of the named URL(https://kerbalx.com/Amechwarrior/Joolian-IV) when linking craft in my descriptions for future proofing.  For example, I misspelled my first upload and needed to change the filename.  I believe I found one more craft with spelling errors and had to change that one too.  I'm glad I used the numerical URL and I don't have to worry about updating my craft name breaking links in other crafts descriptions.  Sadly, that URL is hidden behind the edit page.  If there was a public "Share" link like in the edit window, others could use this as well as making crosslinking craft faster and more reliable.  I can't say I see any reasons why you couldn't offer that (security or simplicity maybe?) but it could go next to the "add to hangar" at the top bar.  If this is already available and I missed it, my bad.  It would have saved a lot of clicks going in to edit mode.

The reverse of that, is that "add to hangars" isn't in the edit page.  More than once I forgot to add to hangars as it drops me in to edit mode after I publish.

I tried uploading directly from the mod in game, but found just doing it from the website better as I had easy access to the other tabs with imgur and craft I intended to link to the new craft's description.  This was while using fullscreen for the game on a single monitor.  Windowed mode or multi-monitors would have changed my situation.  The mod is great for updating a craft.  I don't know if there is a way to update a craft without it.  What would happen if I dropped a craft in the website with the same filename as a current craft?  Does that update it?  I don't know.  I didn't see anything about web based updates on the site, so that is why I had to install the mod.  I also didn't find the main mod on CKAN.  The part picker mod is there, but not the uploading one.  That might be a CKAN issue.

I have one craft with a youtube video and somehow that video became the auto thumbnail even though it was the last thing I added to the page.  I changed it to the first image uploaded, but I wasn't expecting that.  Most popular craft I've seen in my short time since I registered don't use the video as main craft thumbnail.

Again, thanks for a place to share, showcase and backup our creations!  I know my uploading blitz might not be the average user experience, but that was my experience.

Edited March 27, 2017 by Amechwarrior

[swjr-swis]

5 hours ago, Amechwarrior said:

I don't know if there is a way to update a craft without it.  What would happen if I dropped a craft in the website with the same filename as a current craft?  Does that update it?

That is exactly what happens, yes. Note that the site decides this based on the name of the craft in the craft file (not the filename of the craft file itself): if there is an identical name already uploaded on your account, it will tell you and ask if you wish it to update the craft.

 

[katateochi]

@RuBisCO (sorry for slow reply!) I am planning to improve hangars, it's mostly layout and presentation which needs an overhaul (which I'm having a hard time thinking off right now), but some functionality improvements too (your suggestions will get included in that).

@Amechwarrior The ID based links are there for just that, but I'd rather they weren't used as the normal/default link.  Reason is google penalises you in search ranking if you have multiple urls pointing directly at the same page, so there can be one main url and the others have to be redirects, which is fine (and is what the ID based url does), but I'd rather have the main traffic going through the direct route rather than via a redirect. 
As @swjr-swis said, if you upload a craft with the same name as one you've already uploaded the site will ask you if you want to update the current one, or if you want to create a new upload. If the craft you want to update has a different name to the updated version, if you go to the edit page and then upload it will ask if you want to update the current craft with the uploaded one, regardless of the names.
Yes, I really need to sort the CKAN situation out! (been on my todo list for ages and keeps getting nudged down by other stuff!).
Re the thumbnail. The order in which images on the page are processed is a bit....non-intuitive. The page is a collection of containers and each container looks after itself and they are processed asynchronously so the order in which they are stored isn't a known/predictable thing. That doesn't impact on how they appear at all, but it does alter the order in which the images are processed (and the default image is simply taken as the first image).  But I take it you found that you could change the thumbnail to any image you'd added.
Thanks for the feedback and comments on the site!  

[Amechwarrior]

12 hours ago, katateochi said:

@Amechwarrior The ID based links are there for just that, but I'd rather they weren't used as the normal/default link.  Reason is google penalises you in search ranking if you have multiple urls pointing directly at the same page, so there can be one main url and the others have to be redirects, which is fine (and is what the ID based url does), but I'd rather have the main traffic going through the direct route rather than via a redirect. 
As @swjr-swis said, if you upload a craft with the same name as one you've already uploaded the site will ask you if you want to update the current one, or if you want to create a new upload. If the craft you want to update has a different name to the updated version, if you go to the edit page and then upload it will ask if you want to update the current craft with the uploaded one, regardless of the names.
Yes, I really need to sort the CKAN situation out! (been on my todo list for ages and keeps getting nudged down by other stuff!).
Re the thumbnail. The order in which images on the page are processed is a bit....non-intuitive. The page is a collection of containers and each container looks after itself and they are processed asynchronously so the order in which they are stored isn't a known/predictable thing. That doesn't impact on how they appear at all, but it does alter the order in which the images are processed (and the default image is simply taken as the first image).  But I take it you found that you could change the thumbnail to any image you'd added.
Thanks for the feedback and comments on the site!  

Thanks for the reply.  I knew there must have been some reason, but I'm not a web dev. so that kind of issue with google is interesting to see how it affects ranking.  I don't see as many people cross linking everything together in the description box often, so I'm being a niche issue.  I did already know how to change the thumbnail (and be patient for it to update) before that issue was found.

As for updating via the website, basically it came down to no documentation that I could find.  Adding a bullet to the about page would fix that.

[slubman]

Hello,

On the home page there is an option to filter by craft using certain mods. But would it possible to filter by crafts not using a mod too ?

[katateochi]

On 06/04/2017 at 0:18 PM, slubman said:

Hello,

On the home page there is an option to filter by craft using certain mods. But would it possible to filter by crafts not using a mod too ?

Sorry for the slow reply! been away for a couple weeks. 

That's an interesting idea, wouldn't be straight forward though.  Would you want to be able to say "has mod X but not mod Y"? Just having it work to exclude a set of mods shouldn't be too hard, but having it able to include some while excluding others would be tricky (both from an implementation (keeping search fast) and and interface point of view).  I'll think about it. 

[Thor Wotansen]

Hi katateochi,

First off let me say I love the site and upload stuff a fair bit.  I have a craft I'm trying to update and when I try to drop the .craft file with the same name I get a message that "unique url has already been taken".  The problem is that it was taken by me.  I checked and I am logged on, so i don't know why it's doing that.  Would it be possible to have a button in the edit page for updating?  Just something that would leave the images and text alone but put a new .craft behind it?

[XLjedi]

I notice I'm accumulating points on KerbalX.

I have no idea why I'm getting points.  What purpose do they serve? ...or if/how I can use these points? 

It would be helpful to include some explanation of what this point system is and why it's good/bad to have points.  Are you ranking authors by points somehow? 

[swjr-swis]

3 hours ago, XLjedi said:

Are you ranking authors by points somehow?

Registered site users can (dis)like each others' crafts (green arrow up, red arrow down, top of the craft pages).