KerbalX.com - Craft & Mission Sharing

[katateochi]

@Impossible Aviation I've found the cause of the problem, it's to do with a string encoding conversion and one of the resources for that ship uses a symbol in it's name that is causing the error. It's the 23x115Ammo resource which is throwing the error, so for now hold of uploading anything that uses that resource.  I'll try to get a fix for this as soon as possible (got a busy couple of days at work ahead, so bear with me).

[Impossible Aviation]

7 hours ago, katateochi said:

@Impossible Aviation I've found the cause of the problem, it's to do with a string encoding conversion and one of the resources for that ship uses a symbol in it's name that is causing the error. It's the 23x115Ammo resource which is throwing the error, so for now hold of uploading anything that uses that resource.  I'll try to get a fix for this as soon as possible (got a busy couple of days at work ahead, so bear with me).

Thank you for the information. I deleted that resource module in the craft file and for now it works (when loading the craft in ksp, the resource module will be automatically added again). But please let me know when this issue is fixed. Also, I suggest adding an option in the user control panel so any corrupt file can be deleted by the users themselves.

 

 

by the way, there's another bug I'd like you to know:

the "add picture" function in the uploading prompt window doesn't really work. No matter what album I put in there, the craft will always be uploaded without pictures and later I'll have to manually add pictures again in the craft editing page (the same is true for videos). This problem did not exist in earlier versions of the site last year. 

 

Edited May 15, 2017 by Impossible Aviation

[Fulgora]

22 hours ago, XLjedi said:

Ohhh... I see.   Well that's not very intuitive at all, is it?

I gotta mouse-over it before I realize it links to my profile on the KSP forum.  I actually didn't even realize that linked to the forum, it's just a KSP logo... if anything, I woulda thought it would link to the main KSP website?

I guess I'll put a hyperlink to it in my profile description text then. But yeah, if you can rethink this one in your spare time, you've got the feature to link to KSP forum profile buried in channels... and then when you do find it and enter your info, the resulting link is not evident. 

I agree to this... its not quite intuitive.

Suggestion:

Only if that is okay with @SQUAD though of course (If you guys are not okay with that image let me know and I will take it down immediately)

[XLjedi]

45 minutes ago, Fulgora said:

I agree to this... its not quite intuitive.

Suggestion:

Only if that is okay with @SQUAD though of course (If you guys are not okay with that image let me know and I will take it down immediately)

That is excellent!  ...my only request would be to add the word "My" to the left of the rocket graphic in the smaller blue text, if possible?  ...and maybe resize it to about 256x160 standard size of a KSP flag image (would save me a step)

Edited May 15, 2017 by XLjedi

[Fulgora]

12 minutes ago, XLjedi said:

That is excellent!  ...my only request would be to add the word "My" to the left of the rocket graphic in the smaller blue text, if possible?  ...and maybe resize it to about 256x160 standard size of a KSP flag image (would save me a step)

I did not resize it though, making it smaller is easy, vice versa much less.  

Edited May 15, 2017 by Fulgora

[XLjedi]

32 minutes ago, Fulgora said:

I did not resize it though, making it smaller is easy, vice versa much less.  

Yeah... but the smaller text didn't scale as nicely...  I might try the other one's to see how they look.

How do you think it looks?  a little hard to tell here with white background.

 

...the other 2 look better smaller.  Thank you for doing these!

I added them to my kerbalx profile

Edited May 15, 2017 by XLjedi

[Fulgora]

I don't see much of an issue:

   

 

Not sure what you use to resize but interpolation isn't strong with your tool

I admit the one with the white borders is slightly less readable than the ones without a border but thats a minor detail I'd say...

[katateochi]

@Fulgora nice! I like that. Will definitely switch to using that.  I think where you've added the "My" works nicely.  

Here's quickly what they'd look like on the site; (I just hastily resized them in grub, needs to be 80px high and ~200px wide, width can be more flexible). (I resize them to 160px high and then let the css resize them smaller, so it looks better if the page is zoomed in).

I can't decide which I like best. at first I thought the first one, but I think the forum-profile text is clearer on the second one.  I do like the 3rd grey style too,...did you grab the same grey that's used in the upload craft bar?

[XLjedi]

1 minute ago, katateochi said:

@Fulgora nice! I like that. Will definitely switch to using that.  I think where you've added the "My" works nicely.  

I can't decide which I like best. at first I thought the first one, but I think the forum-profile text is clearer on the second one.  I do like the 3rd grey style too,...did you grab the same grey that's used in the upload craft bar?

Indeed, very nice work... I do like the second one without the white border for the extra text clarity.

[Fulgora]

8 hours ago, katateochi said:

@Fulgora nice! I like that. Will definitely switch to using that.  I think where you've added the "My" works nicely.  

Here's quickly what they'd look like on the site; (I just hastily resized them in grub, needs to be 80px high and ~200px wide, width can be more flexible). (I resize them to 160px high and then let the css resize them smaller, so it looks better if the page is zoomed in).

I can't decide which I like best. at first I thought the first one, but I think the forum-profile text is clearer on the second one.  I do like the 3rd grey style too,...did you grab the same grey that's used in the upload craft bar?

The similar colors in the upload bar and forum icon are coincidental - I just removed the color channels from the second one in order to make the 3rd

I could of course adjust that it if the difference matters.

 

Personal favorites are #2 and maybe #3, my beef with #3 is that next to the youtube icon it looks a bit insignificant...

Here is a final(?) adjustment - 'Forum profile' is about 30% larger now for better readability.

 

   

 

The 3rd one has matched colors with the upload bar. Due to the slight gradients it is only a rough match but I doubt many people will use a color picker tool and complain

 

Edited May 16, 2017 by Fulgora

[katateochi]

Site Update
Just deployed a few fixes;
@Impossible Aviation The issue causing your craft to fail to upload should now be fixed. I'm actually surprised this issue hadn't surfaced sooner but I guess other craft hadn't used that sort of string encoding in part/resource names before. Anyway the fix was very low level so should catch all instances of that in the future.  Thanks for bringing this up.

@TheJewelOfJool You can now bulk dismiss notifications from the notifications part of the settings page (here).  If you have notifications then you can dismiss them by type, rather than a single dismiss all, this should let you dismiss all notifications of a common type while still keeping others if you want to.  In your case you had a ton of notifications from the old notification system which sent a new notification for every action by a user you followed, now the notifications from each user you follow are condensed into a single notification so buildups like that shouldn't happen again, even if you are absent from the site for a while.

@Val spotted a couple speeling errers, those are now fixed.

And there's a new logo for the link to your KSP forum profile on the profile page.  Thanks to @Fulgora for making the new logo and @XLjedi for suggesting it needed changing! Much nicer and clearer now.  The place for setting the link is still in the same place, but I will try and make that clearer too.

Edited May 16, 2017 by katateochi

[XLjedi]

27 minutes ago, katateochi said:

Site Update
Just deployed a few fixes;
@Impossible Aviation The issue causing your craft to fail to upload should now be fixed. I'm actually surprised this issue hadn't surfaced sooner but I guess other craft hadn't used that sort of string encoding in part/resource names before. Anyway the fix was very low level so should catch all instances of that in the future.  Thanks for bring this up.

@TheJewelOfJool You can now bulk dismiss notifications from the notifications part of the settings page (here).  If you have notifications then you can dismiss them by type, rather than a single dismiss all, this should let you dismiss all notifications of a common type while still keeping others if you want to.  In your case you had a ton of notifications from the old notification system which sent a new notification for every action by a user you followed, now the notifications from each user you follow are condensed into a single notification so buildups like that shouldn't happen again, even if you are absent from the site for a while.

@Val spotted a couple speeling errers, those are now fixed.

And there's a new logo for the link to your KSP forum profile on the profile page.  Thanks to @Fulgora for making the new logo and @XLjedi for suggesting it needed changing! Much nicer and clearer now.  The place for setting the link is still in the same place, but I will try and make that clearer too.

It's very nice...  Thank you!

[Mycroft]

Hey there Kat! Been a while! I just wanted to drop by and suggest something... 

So I noticed that when I have notifications the vast majority of them are: "Craft X was just added to hangar Y that you follow." So I was wondering if we could possibly extend what you did with the craft uploading notifications and say: "Craft recently added to hangar Y" or is that not possible? I like the bulk dismiss, but I also like to look over the crafts that are added and see if there is something cool I might wanna download. Bulk dismiss makes it so easy to miss cool craft, hence my suggestion to make the site more intuitive and apply your excellent idea about craft uploaded to craft added to followed hangars. 

Oh and also i found a spelling error:

When you click "Add links to your channels" this dialog comes up:

Links to your channels

http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/index.php?/profile/

then theres a box prompting you to enter your "forum profile ID"

 

paste the url to your profile page on the forum, or just enter your profile id ie: 35203-katateochi

https://www.youtube.com/

then theres a box prompting you to enter "youtube channel or user" (I suggest we tack the word 'name' on the end of that phrase)

 

http://www.twitch.tv/

then theres a box prompting you to enter your "twitch chanel name"

In "Twitch chanel name" channel should be spelled with two 'N's but its not.

I know I know, I've been gone for a while and the first thing I do when I come back is try to fix stuff and make corrections. Sorry. I really do appreciate how awesome KerbalX is. Hope its not too annoying

Edited May 16, 2017 by Mycroft

[katateochi]

@Mycroft Hello again! Those typo/wording changes will be in the next deploy. It's always helpful to have those pointed out, not annoying at all! 
Good suggestion re the hangar notifications. I'll see what I can do. 

[katateochi]

I'm having a think about how hosting missions will work.  As I said before, I don't know anything about what the mission files will contain so I can only speculate.  But I can either wait until something is released and then have a frantic few days trying to build something or I can make some assumptions and get a rough framework ready (one assumption is that some of the assumptions will be wrong, so some stuff will have to be canned).  

I think the simplest way of thinking about missions is that they will be a set of places to visit (bodies) and tasks to perform at those places.  I am going on the assumption that I'll be able to read which SOIs you have to visit and what actions/tasks you have to perform in each SOI from the mission files.  That will form the primary way of sorting missions on KerbalX and should enable you to search for say "a satellite mission around Duna" or "rescue mission around Minmus" etc.  

One of the key things I'm trying to think of now is how to visually represent this.  Unlike with craft you can't really take a picture of a mission, so we need something to take the place of thumbnails on the main list of missions.  What I'd like to have is something that, at a glance, shows which bodies the mission involves and whether it requires orbiting or landing, if its manned/unmanned, if it's a rescue mission etc.  The list of places to go is finite and well defined (at least within the stock solar system), I think the list of things to do will also be a fairly short list.  I'm trying to think of a way of having an auto generated "thumbnail" which can just be given a list of locations and tasks and produce a visual representation.  But I don't like anything that I've come up with so far!
 

Spoiler

I don't like either of these ideas.  In both examples there's a text list of bodies shown, that's just so I can see which bodies are on each mission and apart from the first 3 they are randomly generated. ignore moons, there's nothing yet to show moons even though they are included in the list of places. ignore the red lines too, they're just position guides.

The first idea was to have overlapping disks which represent planets (not moons) for each planetary SOI the mission will take you too.  Then within each disk have an icon for the type of mission and icons for moons.  Disks are just rough colour approximations for each body with a CSS gradient.  Would probably replace that with a texture to make them look more like each planet they're supposed to represent. But yeah....don't like it, too cluttered for missions which involve lots of planets, and also too sparse for those just going to one planet. 

Another take on this was to make the disks smaller and try to make it look more like a solar system map, but just showing the planets each mission requires you to go to.  I think this is better.....but I still don't like it. 

 Would really appreciate your thoughts on how to create a visual representation for each mission.  I had been thinking that the mission page would be similar to the main craft list, but maybe this requires a completely different way of listing them.  Perhaps even a much simpler, more text based list might be better.  What do you think?

 

What else do we want to have for missions? (suggestions please)
Each page for a mission will be similar to craft pages, in that it will be customizable with text and images if needed. But I was thinking that it might have a more defined structure of sections, each section being dedicated to each body the mission requires you to go to (and automatically including a picture of that body and icons representing the required actions).  
Missions will definitely have comments like on craft page and probably votes/favourites too.

One thing I was also thinking is that missions should have an association to craft.  The user who uploads the mission could then link it to 1 or more craft and say these craft are recommended or viable for completing this mission.  And perhaps also allow other users to link their craft and say "I performed this mission with this craft".  Craft associated with missions could then display links to those missions on their craft page giving more ties into the mission section. 

Things I need help with:
At the minute any suggestions/ideas would be great. Both about what you'd expect missions files to include and about how to present them on KerbalX.
Icons.  I am not good at art! I could really do with help making a set of icons for representing the various actions/task that missions require.  Things like an icon for orbiting and an icon for landing (ie something like a silhouette of a lander), icon for manned, science, rescue.....etc.  They need to be simple and well.....iconic! And they also need to be black and white SVG images - that will enable me to convert them into glyphicons and include them in the KerbalX font pack.  

 

[XLjedi]

I do like the idea of linking craft... definitely need that! 

As for the graphic display...  My idea is this, keep everything you have now for the craft displays, but add one thing.  A dedicated slot for uploading a 256x160 Mission Flag/Badge, maybe even require one, or suggest missions without one are less popular (like craft without pictures).  With the idea being people will want to paste that badge on their creations when they do the mission!  Then just display the missions by badge and title!  If you notice, on the forum here, there is a LOT of interest in people creating and collecting these mission badges (in my sig below for instance) and your site could facilitate this!  ...have you seen the mission badge art here?

I would keep the graphic display simple; just like the craft display.  Show the Mission Badge and the Mission Name and leave it at that.  Use database fields and your search tools/filters for dealing with stuff like planets included, rescue missions, etc... 

 

Edited May 20, 2017 by XLjedi

[swjr-swis]

1 hour ago, katateochi said:

I'm having a think about how hosting missions will work.  As I said before, I don't know anything about what the mission files will contain so I can only speculate.  But I can either wait until something is released and then have a frantic few days trying to build something or I can make some assumptions and get a rough framework ready

I like your enthusiasm and initiative about this, but I think you're forgetting option nr 3:

Wait until the the darned thing is actually released and reviewable, see what kind of files it produces and what handholds it offers to work with, and then design and build something based on hard facts.

 

Right now speculate is ALL we can do. They have given us nothing tangible to work with, other than telling us what it's NOT going to be: supposedly, it's going to be nothing like contracts. Which leaves us still knowing... nothing. Heck, even their own user interface is still in mock up.

What exactly is the worst that will happen if there is no 'mission-sharing' option on KerbalX from the absolute day 1? People will use dropbox or equivalents and place links in forum posts. Which a lot of people will do anyway even IF KerbalX had something ready and 100% functional from day 1, and a group of people will keep doing it that way anyway. You (calmly!) work on it and announce your new feature when ready, and in no time at all KerbalX is the default site for mission-sharing and no one even remembers it ever being different.

Instead, by trying to avoid the above 'doomsday' scenario, you're going to be stressing yourself out over way too little workable information and then almost 99% guaranteed prepare something that will still not work right, if at all, from day 1, then stress even more for the next week while idiots complain how it doesn't work, even though it'll likely take weeks before anyone even gets familiar enough with the mission builder to put out stuff they'd be willing to share in the first place! <deep breath> Sounds like setting yourself up for failure and bad feelings all around.

 

It's not my call of course, but I say wait until you have the facts in hand, and don't stress over not having something from day 1, or even for a while after release. It's not even important whether you're the first with it. We all remember what happened with craft-sharing 'competitors' that were going to do it all grander and better and faster...  oh that's right: they've silently gone nowhere, I don't even remember the site names anymore.

Save your creative muscles for when you have a base to unleash them on. With your track record of service-minded practical work ethic, I have no doubt you'll deliver, it'll do what it needs to do, and KerbalX will become the de-facto mission-sharing site, just like it has for craft files. And all we users will need to do is have a little patience for a time, time that will probably pass unnoticed while we get to grips with the released mission builder. Peace, man.

[XLjedi]

Never too early to plan ahead...  and thankfully, it's not his call.

Another idea that comes to mind, and since you're going down the path of linking craft files.  In the process of designing that linking structure, also maybe think about linking missions?  Maybe the folder system you have could be piggy-backed on to group missions into a campaign?

...and along the lines of my previous suggestion for Mission Badges.  A way to mark a mission completed and have a publicly available Mission Badge display wall page!  With notifications to mission designers that user X has completed your mission.

Edited May 20, 2017 by XLjedi

[katateochi]

20 hours ago, XLjedi said:

As for the graphic display...  My idea is this, keep everything you have now for the craft displays, but add one thing.  A dedicated slot for uploading a 256x160 Mission Flag/Badge, maybe even require one, or suggest missions without one are less popular (like craft without pictures).  With the idea being people will want to paste that badge on their creations when they do the mission!  Then just display the missions by badge and title!  If you notice, on the forum here, there is a LOT of interest in people creating and collecting these mission badges (in my sig below for instance) and your site could facilitate this!  ...have you seen the mission badge art here?

I do like the mission badge idea, but I want to avoid using user images for the thumbnails for this. Primary reason is that those image have to be hosted by KerbalX (so adds to hosting cost), they can't be hosted on imgur (ran into trouble with this last year and imgur blocked KX for a while), and people would probably want to use their mission badges in other places like here so if they where hosted on KX that would put even more demand on it.  But mission badges (or any image) added to the mission page can be hosted on imgur (and not violate their TOS) so I might add a specific section for adding mission badges to the mission page.

 

19 hours ago, swjr-swis said:

Wait until the the darned thing is actually released and reviewable, see what kind of files it produces and what handholds it offers to work with, and then design and build something based on hard facts.

That is probably the sensible option! but there's also quite a bit I can do now to get a rough framework in place (which will still be valid regardless of what is in the mission files).  So while doing the "boring" stuff (basic model, associations, general page stuff) it's also quite nice to mull over how the overall result will look. But yes, we don't know anything about what they will include in the files, but I think the assumption that each mission must require specifying a location is fairly solid and that's pretty much all I'm going on for now.

 

The other thing we don't know is how the DLC will be packaged.  I hope (and it seems logical) that it will basically be like a mod and have it's own folder in GameData, rather than being merged into the Squad folder. Either way the mod processing part of KX will be able to determine the difference, but this raises another question; If a craft is made with original stock parts and parts from the DLC, do we call it stock? Right now KX sees craft as being either stock or mod, but with the DLC we might need to add a 3rd type, maybe stock+. So we'd have craft as Stock, Stock+ and Mod.  That's actually something I do need to figure out before the DLC launches because people always upload craft from a new version within a few hours and currently KX would class those as mod craft.

[swjr-swis]

55 minutes ago, katateochi said:

but this raises another question; If a craft is made with original stock parts and parts from the DLC, do we call it stock? Right now KX sees craft as being either stock or mod, but with the DLC we might need to add a 3rd type, maybe stock+. So we'd have craft as Stock, Stock+ and Mod.

DLC would work. DLC can only be from Squad, after all, or it would be a mod.

Stock+ could be interpreted in all kinds of ways that do not necessarily equate with 'only parts from Squad'.

[Mycroft]

10 hours ago, katateochi said:

I hope (and it seems logical) that it will basically be like a mod and have it's own folder in GameData, rather than being merged into the Squad folder. Either way the mod processing part of KX will be able to determine the difference, but this raises another question; If a craft is made with original stock parts and parts from the DLC, do we call it stock? Right now KX sees craft as being either stock or mod, but with the DLC we might need to add a 3rd type, maybe stock+. So we'd have craft as Stock, Stock+ and Mod.  That's actually something I do need to figure out before the DLC launches because people always upload craft from a new version within a few hours and currently KX would class those as mod craft.

it would seem simple to me to count it as a mod craft, since all mods are DLC really, but mebbe you can call it like "SQUAD Official DLC" or something. The 'stock+' idea seems overly complex and too ambiguous... if I was a noob to KerbalX and KSP, I might look for craft with the official DLC in which case the search by mod feature works fine. But if I saw "Stock+" I know I'd go: "What the heck is stock plus? Is it some thing for elite KSP players? Is it like stock but better?" Because to me stock plus says "Im a deluxe version of stock" and not "Im a SQUAD made DLC" 

In the end i think it just works better if you treat it as any other mod since it is not in the stock game, it is downloadable. I think 'stock+' is too confusing. 

Know what I mean? 

[LFE Inertia]

If I update an imgur album, how do I update it on Kerbalx? It won't change for me.

[katateochi]

6 hours ago, LFE Inertia said:

If I update an imgur album, how do I update it on Kerbalx? It won't change for me.

If you go to edit the craft's page, click on the container with the album and add a space after the album tag (so the page registers a change in content) and click save (or wait for autosave) it should update. I have found in testing that sometimes you need to do that process twice for it to work (bit of a crufty area, I'll try to improve how that works).

[LFE Inertia]

4 hours ago, katateochi said:

If you go to edit the craft's page, click on the container with the album and add a space after the album tag (so the page registers a change in content) and click save (or wait for autosave) it should update. I have found in testing that sometimes you need to do that process twice for it to work (bit of a crufty area, I'll try to improve how that works).

Thanks!

[XLjedi]

Image Display Fail

I notice that some images I have on the net where the name of the PNG file included a space...  The blank space gets converted to a "%20" in the URL and although your preview shows the image correctly, it doesn't get saved by the editor.  Also, the window that pops up to "Save Image" on my laptop screen gets half-cutoff with no way to scroll it up so I can see the bottom of the window gadget.  I'd post an example of the URL I'm trying to display, but this website correctly interprets the URL and displays the image, and I don't really want to spam the image here.