In which James talks about recent changes to the site, copy/pastes a changelog, answers some questions, and talks about some nifty tool.

Time for another report from your friendly neighborhood Seneschal with the latest ins and outs related to the site.

Deployed Code Changes

Below is a list of most of the code check-ins done to the site since my last report. This isn't an exhaustive list, and does not contain code changes that have not yet been deployed to the main website. To summarize, here's the TLDR:

1. New GMRG
2. New Join form by Orv Baxir
3. Layout tweaks (e.g. the Awards tab on dossiers)
4. Legacy Titles
5. CS Reference
6. Restructuring of the site's navigation (thanks Monty), as well as functions to allow embedding of the nav-bar into other pages (wiki)
7. Random tweaks and bugfixes

[James Entar] Clean up old GMRG code
[James Entar] Return GMRG progress bar
[James Entar] Trigger GMRG rank calculation aand promo requirements after entering someone into the GMRG
[James Entar] Update Promotheus with TiRs and competition restrictions
[James Entar] Remove GMRG progress bar from admin panel as it uses old values
[James Entar] Re-enable e-mails on GMRG rank change
[James Entar] Some typo fixes
[James Entar] Temporarily disable emailing on GMRG promote to prevent mass spam
[James Entar] Merge branch 'gmrg_reboot'
[James Entar] Hide rolling banners on phone; use fancy diff stuff for CS approval
[James Entar] Allow cloning invalid sheets (e.g. after order change or CS changes)
[Kalen] latest update to AWOL calculations
[Kalen] better reflect new AWOL calculations for summit leaders
[Kalen] bug fix for CFs/Crescents and award_date
[Kalen] CFs and Crescents should now update the award_date field on the member record
[Kalen] additional updates to AWOL calculations
[James Entar] Add option to mail organizers on receiving competition submission (might remove later if overused)
[James Entar] Don't warn about discarding changes once CS has been saved
[Kalen] added gitconfig to gitignore
[Kalen] AWOL code takes last promotion and award dates into account
[James Entar] Make some stuff more readable ;)
[James Entar] Lower a threshold
[James Entar] コナミコマンド
[James Entar] Reboot of GMRG ranks - Promotheus rules for first 10 ranks
[James Entar] Add additional martial arts to CS list
[James Entar] Fix a bug where having no robe selected could cause a server-side error
[James Entar] Add more checks to prevent accidental closing of the CS wizard
[James Entar] Disregard non-approved titles when doing prereq checking
[James Entar] Fix new titles code breaking CS, and other things depending on Requirements
[James Entar] Refactor TitleEvent so titles can be revoked without pretending people never had them; Slightly reword event mails
[James Entar] Calculate average grading time per department
[James Entar] Fix typo in Promotheus ACC Qualification check
[James Entar] Add ACC qualification and society ranks to Promotheus; small Kallisto update
[Orv Dessrx] Put our full site name in the site title
[James Entar] Show id-line popover on top and don't cap width
[James Entar] Fix dossier being broken by id line partial change
[James Entar] Tweak id-line popovers
[James Entar] Make filters on PvP and PvE overviews more useful
[Orv Dessrx] Globally change the border color on thumbnails for Odyssey theme
[James Entar] Recent promo/awards RSS feed
[James Entar] Display ID line when hovering over a person's name on comments
[James Entar] Small layout fix for awards
[James Entar] Properly wrap awards with long names on small screens'
[James Entar] Fancify Awards dossier tab a bit
[James Entar] Better new member tracking for SA/MAA staff
[James Entar] Force HTTPS when generating absolute URIs
[James Entar] Also do not include notification count in mobile view of embedded nav bar
[James Entar] Add some embedding stuff to API to embed site navbar on the wiki
[Kalen] better Promotheus handling
[Kalen] trigger promotheus check when CS approved
[Kalen] promotheus update for ACC qualification
[James Entar] Unlock Legacy at DJM
[James Entar] Implement Legacy Titles
[James Entar] Fix DemotionEvents of deleted dossiers breaking event search
[James Entar] Add option to echo answers to SA questions on feedback mail
[Orv Dessrx] Removing the double headers
[James Entar] Merge branch 'new-join-form' (deploying new join form)
[Orv Dessrx] Adding a marketing blurb from Mav. De-emphasizing restrictions.
[Orv Dessrx] Lessen intensity of Order colors on ToL. Link Covenant. Spacing.
[James Entar] Do show inactive novitates when searching by PIN
[James Entar] Search: By default exclude novitates that haven't logged in for over a year
[James Entar] Make titles look less like links
[James Entar] Update Test of Lore to new format, as well as asking for Order at the end
[James Entar] Promotheus: only count organizing competitions once they have been approved
[James Entar] Link dossier titles to their wiki page
[James Entar] Always show separator questions, even if 'answered correctly' before
[James Entar] Update new join form to ask for Path rather than Order
[James Entar] Don't error out on contact methods from deleted members
[James Entar] Polish unit page tabs and contact method thing
[Orv Dessrx] Create the new join form format.
[Kalen] Dependent destroy contact methods if the parent contact type is removed
[James Entar] First rough version of unit specific contact lookup
[James Entar] Fix tooltip placement on CS ref. (thanks ben for the tip)
[James Entar] Add search feature to CS reference
[James Entar] Move saber on character sheet page to the header bar
[James Entar] Raise sidebar slightly for non-logged in people
[James Entar] Automated leaderboards for vendetta-type competitions
[Orv Dessrx] Adding routes config... Ugh. This was the culprit
[Orv Dessrx] Creating a comics static page to consume subdomain content
[Orv Dessrx] Move join image down to balance out with carousel
[Orv Dessrx] Fix Codex link
[James Entar] Switch wiki and comics links
[James Entar] Dark Brotherhood Wiki -> DJB Wiki
[James Entar] Navbar reorganisation, pass two
[James Entar] First pass of navbar reorganisation
[James Entar] Add direct link to activity administration from Promotheus Index page
[James Entar] Switch over Mibbit widget to HTTPS
[James Entar] Add mibbit-based webchat with ability to move to kiwiirc later; add About us static page stub
[James Entar] Start filling the title tag for certain pages
[James Entar] Do not hide page title on mobile layout as it contains navigation buttons on some pages
[James Entar] Recolor cs reference quick links
[James Entar] Add sorting and more navigation to CS reference
[James Entar] Implement first version of browseable CS element reference
[James Entar] Fix event history erroring out on deleted dossiers being promoted
[James Entar] Scale down to 2 workers
[James Entar] Make sure Markdown parser correctly escapes HTML comments
[James Entar] Do not perform similarity checking on list questions when disabled for that question
[James Entar] Show dossier assets on character sheet
[James Entar] Allow removal of avatars by HRLD staff
[James Entar] Override SA access so ACC staff can judge ACC exams regardles of DOC/PROF assignments
[James Entar] Allow search for IRC nicks through API
[James Entar] Allow getting unit-specific RSS news feed
[James Entar] Allow previewing excerpt part of news post/report
[James Entar] Ensure background image change is properly picked up even if cached
[James Entar] Alphabetize saber/robe/accessory selectors

Ask the Seneschal

Q: Howlader asks: Now that the wiki has the links at the top (yay!), is it possible for the wiki and the site to have concurrent logins?
A: This is something that's been on my (and now our) wishlist for quite a while. While several solutions appear to exist on the web to tie MediaWiki into our login system, most of them are either held together by sticky tape or are a work in progress, so we may just have to roll our own solution. Once that's done, all existing accounts need to be migrated as well, so it's going to take some effort and time either way. But yes, it's on the wish list :)

Q: Halc asks: When is the green-themed site layout happening? :P
A: What can I say... halcify all the things :P

Q: Aerin asks: What sorts of updates shall we see in the near future?
A: Difficult to say really... My todo list is starting to get a bit empty, so usually features are coded pretty soon after I or other people come up with them so it's not like it's planned months in advance... This doesn't include stuff like Possessions though (I wouldn't dare promise that in the near future anyways). I guess stuff in the near future you could expect will have to do with improving the experience for newly joined members. :)

Q: Aerin also asks: How has the role of Seneschal affected your character on a roleplaying level?
A: To be honest, it hasn't much, but that's mainly because I haven't had the chance to RP this character a lot (You'll notice my character's wiki page is a very desolate place). I was dragged into the Brotherhood at some point in 2001 by Timeros (who at that time attended the same school as I did), and some people quickly figured out I could code stuff, so very soon after joining I was being dragged into building house and clan sites, and eventually ended up being Lord Archon on the Dark Council, with coding stuff eating up most of my DB time. I eventually retired, went AWOL for a couple of years (I blame university and World of Warcraft), and returned only to jump back into coding. That said, I'm looking forward to at some point properly develop James's character. If I ever get around to it, that is :)

Seneschal's Nifty Tricks

I am still getting quite a number of questions on IRC pertaining to the formatting of news items and reports. While I don't mind answering these questions, because of timezone difference it might take some time for me to wake up and answer them. Therefore, I'd like to once again highlight the Markdown courses that can be found in the Shadow Academy. They don't take a lot of time to do, and contain answers to most of the questions people have about Markdown. Links for the lazy: Markdown 101 and Markdown 201. Please note that Markdown also works in comments!

Those interested in learning to code a bit in a fun and interactive way, check out Code Academy. The link was provided to me by Nero, and while I haven't had time to do any of the tracks myself, it certainly seems like an interesting concept!

Closing/TLDR

So, lots of fixes and additions to the site, and even more to come. As always, if you have any questions or suggestions, feel free to either e-mail me personally, or have a look at the Forum.

James L. Entar
Seneschal of the Brotherhood