Marathon Donation App - Call for testers

mikwuyma

Edit history:

mikwuyma: 2011-01-20 08:42:45 pm

2011-01-20 08:36:28 pm

My feelings on The Demon Rush

Okay I am going to ignore whatever the current conversation is and just say this.

SMK I hate you forever for not putting the emails of the prize winners in the prizes tab. Angry

EDIT: If you don't understand. It is annoying to have to go to a separate tab just to check the prize winner's email, especially since it's not going to be automatically focused on the prize winner's name. Angry

P.S.

I hope that expressed my rage sufficiently.

UraniumAnchor

2011-01-20 08:37:02 pm

Not a walrus

I think maybe we're arguing about two different things here. As long as you aren't advocating putting up a wall of radio buttons that people have to click to select what to bid for instead of just typing it into a text box, then I think we're mostly on the same page.

SMK

2011-01-20 08:41:41 pm

Quote from UraniumAnchor:

I think maybe we're arguing about two different things here. As long as you aren't advocating putting up a wall of radio buttons that people have to click to select what to bid for instead of just typing it into a text box, then I think we're mostly on the same page.

Dr. Zoidberg: Is this angry yelling or broken hearing aid yelling?
Hermes: I'm afraid its both.

My apologies for the misunderstanding then. We'll cross the text vs. radio buttons bridge when we get to it.

Quote from mikwuyma:

Okay I am going to ignore whatever the current conversation is and just say this.

SMK I hate you forever for not putting the emails of the prize winners in the prizes tab. Angry

... you know, you could just ask me to print you a list of everyone who won a prize along with their email (as long as its in the db). Its like, a 4 line SQL statement. Or do you mean for not entering their e-mails into the program, in which case, don't look at me, I tried to be fairly consistent with that.

[quote="UraniumAnchor"]I think maybe we're arguing about two different things here. As long as you aren't advocating putting up a wall of radio buttons that people have to click to select what to bid for instead of just typing it into a text box, then I think we're mostly on the same page.[/quote]

Dr. Zoidberg: Is this angry yelling or broken hearing aid yelling?
Hermes: I'm afraid its both.

My apologies for the misunderstanding then.  We'll cross the text vs. radio buttons bridge when we get to it.

[quote="mikwuyma"]Okay I am going to ignore whatever the current conversation is and just say this.

SMK I hate you forever for not putting the emails of the prize winners in the prizes tab. >:( >:( >:([/quote]

... you know, you could just ask me to print you a list of everyone who won a prize along with their email (as long as its in the db).  Its like, a 4 line SQL statement.  Or do you mean for not entering their e-mails into the program, in which case, don't look at me, I tried to be fairly consistent with that.

UraniumAnchor

2011-01-20 08:43:55 pm

Not a walrus

While we're on the subject I think it'd be better to identify people by their email and not their name, at least from a data structure standpoint. We had a lot of Matthews, for example, and it's just lucky that none of them had the same last name.

Or maybe they did and we didn't notice... Shocked

SMK

Edit history:

SMK: 2011-01-20 08:45:08 pm

SMK: 2011-01-20 08:45:05 pm

SMK: 2011-01-20 08:45:04 pm

2011-01-20 08:44:20 pm

Quote from UraniumAnchor:

While we're on the subject I think it'd be better to identify people by their email and not their name, at least from a data structure standpoint. We had a lot of Matthews, for example, and it's just lucky that none of them had the same last name.

Or maybe they did and we didn't notice... Shocked

lol, agreed. Paypal ID is guaranteed to be unique; we just can keep their real names around for reference or for secondary searching.

mikwuyma

2011-01-20 08:51:41 pm

My feelings on The Demon Rush

Quote:

... you know, you could just ask me to print you a list of everyone who won a prize along with their email (as long as its in the db). Its like, a 4 line SQL statement. Or do you mean for not entering their e-mails into the program, in which case, don't look at me, I tried to be fairly consistent with that.

Do this, now! I have no idea about entering emails though.

SMK

Edit history:

SMK: 2011-01-20 09:37:24 pm

SMK: 2011-01-20 09:35:38 pm

SMK: 2011-01-20 09:25:17 pm

2011-01-20 09:17:20 pm

SELECT DONOR.NAME, DONOR.Email, PRIZEWINNER.PRIZE
FROM DONOR, PRIZEWINNER
WHERE DONOR.Name = PRIZEWINNER.DonorName

Should work, but you'll either have to send me the latest db, or grab version of the program where I re-added the raw query tab.

EDIT:
Or not, because the program up is broken. Let me fix it first.

EDIT2:
They say that you are never finished supporting an application until all its remaining users are dead. Download available at the usual place if you want: http://home.cc.umanitoba.ca/~umkiazyk/files/dmanag.zip

Just enter the SQL text I listed above in the SQL tab, and hit submit.

mikwuyma

Edit history:

mikwuyma: 2011-01-20 10:40:22 pm

2011-01-20 10:14:04 pm

My feelings on The Demon Rush

Is the sql the bulk tab, or is it only in the new version you uploaded? If it's in the new version, please tell me what I can and can't replace so I don't completely destroy all of the data.

EDIT: I'm guessing it's just the stuff in the database folders?

Couple of other things I noticed. In the donors tab there should be a section for the prize they won if they won a prize. And in the prizes tab there should be a way to search for a donor there.

Actually, there just needs to be more automation, because a TON of people (this might actually include me embarassed

) forgot to input emails for prize winners, and I'm now having to collect them from the chipin. However, it does sound like you're working on that for next year.

Oh yeah, before I sound like an ungrateful asshole, I really do have to thank you for this program, it is a nice program and it is 100 times better than a spread sheet and made keeping track of donations a million times easier.

mikwuyma

2011-01-20 11:26:03 pm

My feelings on The Demon Rush

Okay whoever thought it was a smart idea to label the Bayonetta pictures 1 and 2 needs to be struck with a switch in a 1-2 pattern until they learn that putting the labels 1 and 2 DOESN'T HELP ME DISTINGUISH WHETHER THEY'RE TALKING ABOUT THE PICTURE BY LLK OR STACY CORRON.

Yes I know this has nothing to do with the program, but this helps me vent. Also, whoever set up the prizes like that might catch this and tell me which picture is which.

Emptyeye

2011-01-21 05:50:34 am

Talk to the Hand

I know I tried to get email addresses in when I could, but during the times when we were flooded with donations, it was honestly hard enough to keep up even without putting in email addresses. So it wasn't so much "forgetting" as "trying to save myself some time and figuring email address was the least important piece of information, given most donators aren't going to win anything."

SMK

2011-01-21 06:24:59 am

Quote from mikwuyma:

Is the sql the bulk tab, or is it only in the new version you uploaded? If it's in the new version, please tell me what I can and can't replace so I don't completely destroy all of the data.

EDIT: I'm guessing it's just the stuff in the database folders?

lol, I woke up this morning and was like "I hope mike didn't copy over the database folder". In any case, its the 'SQL' tab in the new version, and yes, keep the database folder (the only thing you need to copy over is the dmanag.jar file).

Quote from mikwuyma:

Oh yeah, before I sound like an ungrateful asshole, I really do have to thank you for this program, it is a nice program and it is 100 times better than a spread sheet and made keeping track of donations a million times easier.

Negative feedback is better than no feedback. Wink

mikwuyma

2011-01-21 10:46:41 am

My feelings on The Demon Rush

Well it doesn't matter when it comes to the emails because maybe about 20% of them were actually input. I get to spend more quality time with chipin now.

Oh yeah one more suggestion, there needs to be a way to edit items without deleting them and re-entering them, and a way to split donations aside from making two separate ones that are half of the real amount.

SMK

Edit history:

SMK: 2011-01-21 11:16:07 am

2011-01-21 11:11:17 am

#1 is easy, I just need to seperate the name from the primary key (its something I considered doing before, I just never got around to it).

#2 is slightly more difficult. I don't think I could have possibly anticipated needing it before the marathon, but when it came up, I thought of a fairly consistent way of doing it. It complicates things internally somewhat, but it should be doable.

EDIT: Also, before I forget, when we do get down to implementing this, seeing as we'll have more than 1 person working on this, we're going to need:
a) an http server that more than 1 person can submit files to, and
b) some kind of version control service that people can use

For b), I generally use github, does anyone know of anything better/that they like more. For a), well, I have no idea. Maybe one of us could set up a web form that allows people to submit pages to their server?

Mystery

2011-01-21 11:20:04 am

Never used github before. I take it there is some git client that one can use to commit and stuff (ideally, non-command line)?

SMK

2011-01-21 11:24:21 am

I think there exists some GUI clients, but the most common git clients are command-line based, which is why I'm open to suggestions. Github supports Subversion repositories too, if people would be more comfortable with that (there's probably more Windows support on that end too, e.g. Tortise SVN).

Mystery

Edit history:

Mystery: 2011-01-21 02:19:17 pm

Mystery: 2011-01-21 01:46:14 pm

Mystery: 2011-01-21 01:45:13 pm

Mystery: 2011-01-21 01:44:49 pm

Mystery: 2011-01-21 11:29:15 am

2011-01-21 11:25:22 am

Yeah, I've used subversion before, so that's definitely okay.
I think I might make a admin mockup page later today, just to make sure we don't miss any important functionality we need.
Later we should do some mockup of the other pages, too, I think.

EDIT:
I've made a list of suggested admin options. You can see them below.

Suggested list for admin options:
Misc:
Reset TOS read for all users
Set Must change profile for all users
View table status

Users:
Delete user(s)
Send a message
List all users
Suspend users
Moderate users

Registrations:
Allow registrations
Disable registrations
Authorize registrations

Logs:
View logins
Clear logins

Bids:
Add
Delete
Edit
Split
Search

Prizes:
Add
Delete
Edit
Search
Assign to donors
Remove from donors

Donors:
Add
Delete
Edit
Search

Btw, we really need to fix the user interface. The app's interface was really meh. I was unsure what a lot of buttons did.
I'll upload this to my space, as well, so I have a single place where we can keep the list up to date.
There are some questions, such as if a list of all donors should be public or not. That is why I tentatively added it to the list of admin options.
Comment if something is missing or should be removed. We should also decide on if we want the system to support "regular" users, not just admins. Perhaps it might be of benefit to something that other prying eyes should not see (ie something that should require a password). I cannot think of anything such atm, though.

EDIT2: Link: http://www.essentia.site88.net/sda/admin_options.rtf

Yeah, I've used subversion before, so that's definitely okay.
I think I might make a admin mockup page later today, just to make sure we don't miss any important functionality we need.
Later we should do some mockup of the other pages, too, I think.

EDIT:
I've made a list of suggested admin options. You can see them below.

Suggested list for admin options:
Misc:
Reset TOS read for all users
Set Must change profile for all users
View table status

Users:
Delete user(s)
Send a message
List all users
Suspend users
Moderate users

Registrations:
Allow registrations
Disable registrations
Authorize registrations

Logs:
View logins
Clear logins

Bids:
Add
Delete
Edit
Split
Search

Prizes:
Add
Delete
Edit
Search
Assign to donors
Remove from donors

Donors:
Add
Delete
Edit
Search

Btw, we really need to fix the user interface. The app's interface was really meh. I was unsure what a lot of buttons did.
I'll upload this to my space, as well, so I have a single place where we can keep the list up to date.
There are some questions, such as if a list of all donors should be public or not. That is why I tentatively added it to the list of admin options.
Comment if something is missing or should be removed. We should also decide on if we want the system to support "regular" users, not just admins. Perhaps it might be of benefit to something that other prying eyes should not see (ie something that should require a password). I cannot think of anything such atm, though.

EDIT2: Link: http://www.essentia.site88.net/sda/admin_options.rtf

UraniumAnchor

Edit history:

UraniumAnchor: 2011-01-22 06:11:53 am

2011-01-22 06:11:23 am

Not a walrus

I really hope you aren't advocating putting the donation app on the web server in its entirety, because that would be clumsy and unnecessary. All the SDA server needs at best is a database of all the options, it certainly does not need to be doing any authentication.

You are way overcomplicating this to give your programming ego a stroke.

Mystery

2011-01-22 06:16:34 am

At the very least, it needs admin users. But regular users is up for discussion. I added all I could think of (bar categories). We need to fine tune this list.
And yes, we are thinking of putting the entire donation app to the server in its entirely. Anything else would be clumsy and problematic.
Like SMK says, it's best to do it properly and flexibly. We want the automation. We have the time.

Lag.Com

2011-01-22 06:28:01 am

sda loyalist

Right, because during the last marathon we didn't get any access problems to the server, right? There wasn't an insane spike in traffic or anything.

Besides that, there's no point having it run remotely if only people on site are making changes. Make it publish current bids or whatever to the website by all means, but remote access makes no sense if all editors are local.

UraniumAnchor

Edit history:

UraniumAnchor: 2011-01-22 06:29:30 am

2011-01-22 06:28:47 am

Not a walrus

I didn't want to come back because I knew it would just make me angry and I was right.

You are wrong, I wish you would shut up and go away.

If you actually managed to write that thing and it didn't blow up the instant people started using it I would eat my fucking sock.

Stop using "we" like you have any sort of actual say here. You have suggestions and that is all. And they are not good suggestions.

Edit: And it's scary when Lag agrees with me.

Mystery

Edit history:

Mystery: 2011-01-22 06:34:39 am

Mystery: 2011-01-22 06:33:17 am

Mystery: 2011-01-22 06:32:04 am

2011-01-22 06:31:16 am

Fine. Write it in Java or whatever and make it upload the database and sync it to the server. Be my guest.
The whole bloody point is that if you do it locally, then the whole "statistics" page will be useless.
Furthermore, the chipin will need to communicate with the desktop app. Make it happen and I'll shut up.

In any case, you NEED to have a bloody connection to the server, whether you like it or not. So making a local app will only complicate things.

Sir VG

2011-01-22 07:27:48 am

Fucking Weeaboo

I can see the point of not having it online based in case the site gets too much of a traffic spike - we'd be unable to use it COMPLETELY. Having it offline would at least allow us to report statistics and such in the chance that people can't see them online. Hopefully it won't happen, but one should always be prepared for anything that can happen.

I can also see how if it's coded where a refresh is never needed and the computer doesn't crash (ha, like that would happen), then online would be fine. But I agree with Lag that offline usage (and just connecting online to collect and send data) is a better choice.

Rakuen

2011-01-22 10:36:36 am

Weegee Time

People, play nice. Getting upset over an application that doesn't need to be done for about a year is silly.

Alright, in my opinion, if you can automate a repetitive task, you should do it. Even if it's a simple task, when you have to do it 2500 times, the time saved adds up. Now, Lag brings up a valid point that I honestly didn't even think about. The server is an issue. Based on this past marathon, it's known to be unreliable at very high levels of traffic. Additionally, I think we can all imagine even higher levels of traffic for the next event. I don't see this improving at all. So, whatever gets implemented online has to have some kind of a brick-and-mortar system to mirror it. The admins can't afford to lose any functionality, especially during the marathon.

I really would love to come up with a system to circumvent Chip-In completely and replace it with one that's tailor-made for our uses, but that may be unreasonable with the hardware there is to work with. Failing that, implement a system that reports statistics, which I believe was the original idea that spawned all of this. Either way, a local application needs to be developed in tandem.

People, play nice.  Getting upset over an application that doesn't need to be done for about a year is silly.

Alright, in my opinion, if you can automate a repetitive task, you should do it.  Even if it's a simple task, when you have to do it 2500 times, the time saved adds up.  Now, Lag brings up a valid point that I honestly didn't even think about.  The server is an issue.  Based on this past marathon, it's known to be unreliable at very high levels of traffic.  Additionally, I think we can all imagine even higher levels of traffic for the next event.  I don't see this improving at all.  So, whatever gets implemented online has to have some kind of a brick-and-mortar system to mirror it.  The admins can't afford to lose any functionality, especially during the marathon.

I really would love to come up with a system to circumvent Chip-In completely and replace it with one that's tailor-made for our uses, but that may be unreasonable with the hardware there is to work with.  Failing that, implement a system that reports statistics, which I believe was the original idea that spawned all of this.  Either way, a local application needs to be developed in tandem.

Mystery

2011-01-22 10:41:03 am

One option is to run it on a local server that you bring to the marathon. If the connection goes out, you can still run the script since it's all local.
The problem is only that if the connection goes out, no one can donate. But so again, if the connection goes out, you can't stream, so at least from my view, it seems like a reasonable precaution.

arkarian

2011-01-22 02:25:12 pm

gamelogs.org

one thing to note is that the huge slowdown with the server near the beginning of the marathon was due to the poorly written javascript that handled the banner rotation. one that was removed, there weren't any problems at all afaik. it can handle the traffic.