KerbalX.com - Craft & Mission Sharing

[XLjedi]

On ‎3‎/‎25‎/‎2018 at 9:15 AM, katateochi said:

Probably just a matter of flipping the list of old_part_name => new_part_name, but I'll need to do some tests to make sure that it works.  Working on another feature right now, but I'll have a look at this once that's done.

I managed to get a script working that will convert my craft files from 1.4 to 1.3...  Unfortunately, it was not quite as straightforward as new_part => old-part. 

No need to waste any time on it.

[katateochi]

54 minutes ago, XLjedi said:

I managed to get a script working that will convert my craft files from 1.4 to 1.3...  Unfortunately, it was not quite as straightforward as new_part => old-part. 

No need to waste any time on it.

ah nice 1, I'll prob add this feature anyway as others might find it useful, but less priority now. yeah, script from scratch not as straightforward, I meant for my existing code (which btw I posted on another thread if you're interested)

 

 

 

[katateochi]

Site Update

From time to time, someone forgets the KerbalX rule about not reposting other people's craft! In most cases the community reports the reposted craft and I can sort it out, but some do slip by.
So I'm trying something a bit experimental; the KerbalX Repost Check System (KRCS). Each craft now gets a digital signature which is generated of various info from the craft file and should be unique to each design.  If you upload a craft and it's signature matches and existing craft then you will see a warning on the craft edit page and a popup will be shown when you go to publish it that just reminds you of the no-repost rule. If you then continue to publish the craft it will be flagged for moderator review.  

It's not a perfect system by any means, and won't catch everything and may also produce some false positives. So if you see a warning on a craft that you know is genuinely your own creation, don't panic and go ahead and publish it and it will get sorted out.  

Let me know if you get any erroneous alerts!

 

Couple of bug fixes:

Fixed and edgecase issue when uploading craft with certain partless mods.

Fixed performance/browser-freeze issue with craft #tags

On 16/11/2017 at 7:17 AM, Krog34 said:

Hey @katateochi! I've been using your site for some time now and I really like it. But I've been encountering an issue lately after the latest update.

When I go to add Tags to my craft during the Publishing phase, generally the drop down box will try to auto guess what you are trying to type. For me

when this happens, the drop down bar causes a very long loading period that freezes everything and occasionally crashes the browser (Chrome with current updates).

Is this a known thing or am I maybe doing something wrong?

On 16/11/2017 at 7:20 AM, Mycroft said:

Odd, same for me. It occurs on both the first edit page, and the normal one. Glad to know I'm not the only one noticing it. I too and using chrome for this, but six months ago, it worked fine, I wonder what happened....

really sorry for taking so long to get around to fixing this issue! The problem was in the jQuery library and I was hoping that they would release a fix, but that hasn't happened yet. I have managed to find a workaround that should stop that major performance spike/browser freeze from happening when adding #tags to craft.

 

[KerbolExplorer]

Hello again

First of all the misión posting for me is now working at the end it was a problema with the browser and sorry for not sending you an e-mail because i had a virus problem in my computer and i didnt  wanted to pass you a virus (now the problem is fixed)

Second: how can i update the misions?

[katateochi]

On 11/04/2018 at 3:21 PM, KerbolExplorer said:

Hello again

First of all the misión posting for me is now working at the end it was a problema with the browser and sorry for not sending you an e-mail because i had a virus problem in my computer and i didnt  wanted to pass you a virus (now the problem is fixed)

Second: how can i update the misions?

Not to worry, glad it's working now.
Currently there isn't a way to update missions. For now just post the update as a new mission.
I've got a lot to add to missions, updating them is something that I'll add when I get to that.

[Azimech]

Interesting new situation: it seems Imgur has done something with the album format again. Album links or ID's are no longer recognized by the website.

This is the album link I'm trying to use: https://imgur.com/a/nhghAKF

Edited April 28, 2018 by Azimech

[katateochi]

New Mod!! - Craft Manager

I've just released a new mod which I hope will supersede the current KerbalX mod.  Craft Manager is a replacement for the stock craft list shown in the editors and it enables you to search, sort and tag your craft..and of course upload to KerbalX. The KerbalX integration bit is optional so non-KerbalX users can use the core features without needing to link to KerbalX.  With KerbalX integration switched on Craft Manager does everything the current KerbalX mod does (just better!). 

Tagging your craft makes it easy to group craft. As well as standard tags which you manually apply to craft you can also create 'auto-tags' which are given a rule like "crew-capacity > 5", "part count < 100" or "name starts_with 'whatever'" and those tags will automatically get added to any craft that match the rule.

Would you like to know more? - https://kerbalx.com/CraftManager

@Azimech thanks for pointing that out. I'll have a look and get that sorted. looks like they've increased the length of the album ids.

[KerbolExplorer]

is anyone else getting something that says NET neutrality is it just an add or is it something else?

[katateochi]

2 minutes ago, KerbolExplorer said:

is anyone else getting something that says NET neutrality is it just an add or is it something else?

KerbalX is taking part in the BattleForTheNet - RedAlert campaign to help raise awareness about the issues surrounding Net Neutrality. It's not a topic that can really be discussed on these forums due to its political nature, but PM me if you have other questions regarding it.  I know it is only applicable to those in the USA, so sorry to everyone else (I'm in the UK, but KerbalX is hosted on American servers). If you don't care then just dismiss the banner and it will go away for 24 hours and it's only going to be about until the Senate vote takes place.

[Klapaucius]

What an amazing site. I'm new to this and am like a kid in a candy store. One question: is there a way to search hangars in the way you can craft?  I would love to be able to browse in a more directed manner than just scrolling down though hundreds of hangars, but if it can be done, I cannot locate any instructions as to how to do so.  For example, I was thinking of creating a Flying Wing hangar but I wanted to search and make sure I was not replicating what someone else hadd already done.  Also, under "Load More" there is no indication of the number of the number of total hangars.  This information is all stuff you have in the standard craft search.

And just to be clear, this is a wish, but truly, the site is great. Thanks for all the work.

[MaverickSawyer]

Hmmm... I try to download any craft file from KerbalX, both at home and on public networks, and I get this message instead:

Any idea what might be causing this?

 

Also, tried to use the KerbalX mod to download the craft files... no dice. Still won't pull them down.  

[katateochi]

On 5/18/2018 at 11:29 PM, Klapaucius said:

What an amazing site. I'm new to this and am like a kid in a candy store. One question: is there a way to search hangars in the way you can craft?  I would love to be able to browse in a more directed manner than just scrolling down though hundreds of hangars, but if it can be done, I cannot locate any instructions as to how to do so.  For example, I was thinking of creating a Flying Wing hangar but I wanted to search and make sure I was not replicating what someone else hadd already done.  Also, under "Load More" there is no indication of the number of the number of total hangars.  This information is all stuff you have in the standard craft search.

And just to be clear, this is a wish, but truly, the site is great. Thanks for all the work.

Thanks @Klapaucius! 
Hangars are an area that I really need to spend some time improving. Currently there isn't any search functionality built into hangars and that's something I really need to remedy.  I'd not noticed the load more button didn't give a remaining count, I'll add that to the list of improvements that hangars need!

 

19 hours ago, MaverickSawyer said:

Hmmm... I try to download any craft file from KerbalX, both at home and on public networks, and I get this message instead:

Any idea what might be causing this?

Also, tried to use the KerbalX mod to download the craft files... no dice. Still won't pull them down.  

KerbalX does have a slightly unusual approach to serving downloads. It prevents script kiddies/bots from scraping content off the site (there was a problem a while back with people downloading craft on mass to setup mirror sites), while still allowing users to download without having to login.  Basically if you go to the download url directly as an http GET request (as it looks like you have in the screenshot) it won't serve you the file, you have to let the craft's page make the request for you (as an ajax POST request) which puts the download behind some javascript and the site's CSRF protection.....erm...in less nerdy terms; opening the download url in a new tab won't work, when you click the link it should start the download on the same page.  The problem with this method is that it does cause a problem if you are using a download manager or some other tool that's intended to perform the download for you.  

To use the mod to download craft (aside from your own craft) you need to switch on "deferred downloads" in your settings.  Go to /settings > KX Mod (that link will take you there if you're logged in) and click "switch on deferred downloads".  Then when you click download on a craft it won't download the craft, but instead it will add it to your "download queue" which you can then access via the KX mod or Craft Manager. OR you can favourite craft to make them accessible to the mods for download.

 

[MaverickSawyer]

1 hour ago, katateochi said:

erm...in less nerdy terms; opening the download url in a new tab won't work, when you click the link it should start the download on the same page.  The problem with this method is that it does cause a problem if you are using a download manager or some other tool that's intended to perform the download for you.

I'm using Chrome and simply click the "download" button, but it doesn't start the download. It just kicks to the page I screencapped.

Quote

To use the mod to download craft (aside from your own craft) you need to switch on "deferred downloads" in your settings.  Go to /settings > KX Mod (that link will take you there if you're logged in) and click "switch on deferred downloads".  Then when you click download on a craft it won't download the craft, but instead it will add it to your "download queue" which you can then access via the KX mod or Craft Manager. OR you can favourite craft to make them accessible to the mods for download.

I'll have to give it another try. I'll report back soon with results.

 

EDIT: Tried to download through the game, having followed your directions above...

No dice. Does the error message mean anything to you?

Edited May 23, 2018 by MaverickSawyer

[Klapaucius]

One other question...Does you site not accept Vimeo? I tried adding a video and I noticed it says to upload Youtube. I put in my link anyway and it will not play. I just get an error message.

[katateochi]

15 hours ago, MaverickSawyer said:

EDIT: Tried to download through the game, having followed your directions above...

No dice. Does the error message mean anything to you?

That's really odd. You should not even be able to get that particular error! But just incase I've added an extra double check around the line that threw that error, so it shouldn't happen again.

15 hours ago, MaverickSawyer said:

I'm using Chrome and simply click the "download" button, but it doesn't start the download. It just kicks to the page I screencapped.

Also odd! Chrome is the browser I design in so it's the least likely to be the cause of issues (but any webkit browser is also fine). Clicking the link shouldn't open a new tab....unless you have a setting (or an extension?) that might be causing that to happen. 
Are you able to try downloading on a different (fresh install) of another browser, ie Firefox?

Sorry you're having these issues, I'm kinda puzzled why they are happening!

 

 

1 hour ago, Klapaucius said:

One other question...Does you site not accept Vimeo?

I've not added Vimeo support yet.  Youtube and Twitch videos are supported and I will add Vimeo when I get a chance (RL has been rather hectic recently!).

[katateochi]

GDPR and KerbalX

I had hoped to be on schedule with a release of a privacy policy today that reflected GDPR requirements, but RL has been heavy on me this last month, so please bear with me! I'm working hard to get this sorted ASAP.
I'm also a bit confused as to what exactly I need to do, so I'm going to explain a few things and see if you guys can help.

I have always regarded user data as sacred and something that belongs to the user. The site has been designed with that in mind and as such the only PII (personally identifiable information) that KerbalX stores about each user (those who sign up) is their username and email address.  It has always been stated (in the terms) that at no point would your email address ever be shared with a 3rd party. 

Your "right to be forgotten" has also always been present. I've always believed that if a user creates something, that user must be able to delete it too and that has been built into the structure of the site from your User object (which stores your account settings, username, email) and every object you create (Craft, Comments, Hangars, ModPacks etc) is owned by your User object and inherits that right to delete it. Deleting your account (deleting your User object) deletes all your associated objects; it utterly nukes you from the site.
But what about backups? This is my first point of confusion and one I can't find any relevant information/guidelines.  The database is backed up every day and backups are retained for a month. If you delete your account, your data is instantly removed from the site, but it will remain in the backups (and fyi, I am the only person with access to those).  So....I'm not sure what is required in this aspect.

Your craft are your craft. Yes, I do sometimes joke that I own the largest collection of KSP craft in the known universe, but they are your craft. I own the database that contains them, I am the curator, but you have the right to change and/or remove them whenever you want; they are your intellectual property and you retain all rights over them.  The only right I reserve is the right to delete a craft if it goes against the rules of the site.
One thing I might need to state is that in cases of craft that throw a bug/edge case situation or are an example of something new (ie use a partless mod which I've not supported yet) then I will use that craft as an example test case in my local development environment. A handful (4-5) craft have ended up as part of the site's automated test suite as they represented a particular feature that I didn't have in my own craft, but most of the craft in the test suite are my own.

Now here's a edge case thing. What if you are really stupid and put your credit card information (or some other personal bit of data) into a craft's description and upload it.  I may not know that you'd done that (although I do try to review most craft, I can't check them all), but now it's in my site's database and I'm facilitating it being shared.  Would that level of user stupid put me at fault?

 

Google Analytics.  KerbalX uses GA and it has been tool that has enabled me to understand how you use the site, what pages take the most traffic and most importantly enabled me to see current traffic levels, which has let me adjust the time of day that I release updates so as not to update the site when traffic is high (and to know when I need to panic due to the site getting overloaded!) Over the last week I've been going over my google analytics settings trying to understand the details and switching off anything that wasn't absolutely necessary or that could be considered PII.  I've never used any of the of google advertising features (which is where the majority of PII could be found) but I did have user demographics enabled. That is now switched off.  Remarketing, Ad reporting features, are also off.
Under data sharing; 
Google Products and Services" (which would "Share Google Analytics data with Google to help improve Google's products and services") is switched off, 
Account Specialists (which would "Give Google marketing specialists and your Google sales specialists access to your Google Analytics data and account so they can find ways to improve your configuration and analysis") is switched off. 
Benchmarking ("Contribute anonymous data to an aggregate data set to enable features like benchmarking and publications that can help you understand data trends. All identifiable information about your website is removed and combined with other anonymous data before it is shared with others.") is switched On,
Technical support ("Let Google technical support representatives access your Google Analytics data and account when necessary to provide service and find solutions to technical issues.) is also switched on.

As far as my reading of this goes, that means that my use of GA does not push any PII to google, it just provides me with info about site traffic, traffic origin, average time spent per visit, types of device, OS and browser used and a few other things which help me improve and maintain the site.  I think....that means under GDPR I don't need to say anything about the use of GA or get consent for GA to be present in that form. If users could choose not to allow GA that would really detract from my ability to fine tune the site, so I hope that isn't necessary. 

 

The consent to cookies things has always bugged me, it's like having to confirm that you're ok with each car you get into having and engine. of course a website uses cookies, and html, javascript, css and everything else that makes a website a website. So yes, I've been a bit lax about cookie consent in the past (it is mentioned in the terms), but I'll rectify that and add an annoying cookie consent banner. sigh.
Also, everyone talks about cookies which you can pack a max of 4kb of data into. No one mentions "HTML-5 web storage", which enables a site to write upto 5mb into the browser's data storage. I guess because unlike cookies it isn't included as part of each request (and probably because rule makers don't have a clue about it). KerbalX uses web-storage to speed up loading when you go back to a search/list page. You might have noticed that if you click on a craft on the main page and then hit the back button you jump back to the main page very quickly and also retain the same scroll position as you had before. That's because the content of the main page you were looking at before you clicked on a craft gets cached in your browsers web-storage and then reloaded directly from there, rather than requesting it from the server again. schneeky, but I don't think that's something that GDPR requires any action for.

 

Anyway, that's me being as transparent about data usage as I can be and the privacy policy that I'm creating will reflect the key points from here.  I am still somewhat unsure if I need to have an "I consent" checkbox for the use of your PII (which again, is just your email and username which are required to let you login) or if just stating what it's used for on the sign up page is sufficient. 
Sorry for the bit of a brain dump here (just writing this has helped me colate the key aspects), but I'd appreciate any thoughts you guys have about this and if you think there's anything I need to be doing.   

 

[Klapaucius]

@katataeochi

I'm guessing you have gone above and beyond prior to the new rules, and that your current privacy policy may already exceed the new rules. Having said that, I'd ask around a few other forums, but really, this legislation is directed big players like Facebook and Google.  You are small fry in this whole thing.  If it is of any use, here is what the Khan Academy is doing.  Their privacy email showed up in my inbox today. It might be of some use.

https://www.khanacademy.org/about/privacy-policy?utm_email_kaid=kaid_64074447409695093355167&utm_source=Sailthru&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Privacy policy announcement to the ROW&utm_content=B&utm_term=All Users

If need be, just create a tab with the privacy policy and condense what you have said in your email above to some key bullet points. I think the main thing is transparency.

[Kerbalwerks]

Heya  katateochi,

Anyway to post videos on our craft page from say Vimeo or others besides youtube, not that there is anything wrong with them but just asking.

 

 

Thanks

 

[katateochi]

Just now, Kerbalwerks said:

Heya  katateochi,

Anyway to post videos on our craft page from say Vimeo or others besides youtube, not that there is anything wrong with them but just asking.

Thanks

 

Youtube and Twitch are currently supported, but I will add Vimeo support (and any others that get specifically requested, assuming I can). You can always post links to vids (I know that's not as great). 
Can't say exactly when I'll get around to doing it as RL is being awkward at the moment and I've not got much time for adding things to KX, but I will get to it!

[Kerbalwerks]

1 hour ago, katateochi said:

Youtube and Twitch are currently supported, but I will add Vimeo support (and any others that get specifically requested, assuming I can). You can always post links to vids (I know that's not as great). 
Can't say exactly when I'll get around to doing it as RL is being awkward at the moment and I've not got much time for adding things to KX, but I will get to it!

No worries, please just when ever you get the notion, I put a few vids up on Vimeo the other day and it was painless and kind of like their format, very clean and So under used it is refreshing.                           PS;  Don't tell Google or youtube or I may never be able to use the internet again  

[MaverickSawyer]

On 5/24/2018 at 5:57 AM, katateochi said:

That's really odd. You should not even be able to get that particular error! But just incase I've added an extra double check around the line that threw that error, so it shouldn't happen again.

Also odd! Chrome is the browser I design in so it's the least likely to be the cause of issues (but any webkit browser is also fine). Clicking the link shouldn't open a new tab....unless you have a setting (or an extension?) that might be causing that to happen. 
Are you able to try downloading on a different (fresh install) of another browser, ie Firefox?

Sorry you're having these issues, I'm kinda puzzled why they are happening!

Well, whatever you did, it's working now. Thanks!

*gleefully downloads several craft he's been eyeing for weeks*

[Klapaucius]

I'm having trouble changing my thumbnail. It shows the change up top, but when I go back to the main page, my old thumbnail is still showing.  It seems to change it in the edit tool but does not actually apply the change.

[XLjedi]

18 minutes ago, Klapaucius said:

I'm having trouble changing my thumbnail. It shows the change up top, but when I go back to the main page, my old thumbnail is still showing.  It seems to change it in the edit tool but does not actually apply the change.

Agreed, I noticed this too...

Edited May 29, 2018 by XLjedi

[katateochi]

On 5/29/2018 at 9:41 PM, Klapaucius said:

I'm having trouble changing my thumbnail. It shows the change up top, but when I go back to the main page, my old thumbnail is still showing.  It seems to change it in the edit tool but does not actually apply the change.

On 5/29/2018 at 9:59 PM, XLjedi said:

Agreed, I noticed this too...

The thumbnail changing process is working, but it can take a while for the change to appear on the main page; KerbalX uses CloudFlare to cache images so that cache has to be updated (that should happen right away as the image is changed) and your browser also caches images. It's usually the browser cache that's the thing holding onto the old image (and exactly how it behaves varies between browsers).  On chrome usually a ctrl+shift+r reload will be enough to fetch the updated image, or you could tell your browser to clear it's cached content.  
If you want to be sure which image has been saved as the thumbnail, you can look at the hosted image directly (bypassing CloudFlare & browser caching).  First you need to know your craft's ID. Go to the edit page for your craft and look at the url, it'll be something like https://kerbalx.com/crafts/44272/edit, in this case 44272 is the ID.  Then open a new tab and enter https://t.kerbalx.com/44272.jpg?refresh The ?refresh bit is important.  That should show you the actual thumbnail that is stored (and ignores the CloudFlare cache) and if that's correct then your browser will get the right image before too long.

If that doesn't show you want you expect then let me know which craft you are trying to update and which image you're trying to set as the thumb and I'll have a look.

[Klapaucius]

1 hour ago, katateochi said:

The thumbnail changing process is working, but it can take a while for the change to appear on the main page; KerbalX uses CloudFlare to cache images so that cache has to be updated (that should happen right away as the image is changed) and your browser also caches images. It's usually the browser cache that's the thing holding onto the old image (and exactly how it behaves varies between browsers).  On chrome usually a ctrl+shift+r reload will be enough to fetch the updated image, or you could tell your browser to clear it's cached content.  

Actually, after I posted this, I did notice the thumbnail had updated. But thank you for explaining what is going on. That clears it all up.