Timestamps, avatars, topic link to news commits

[Tametomo]

Instead of using the static date stamp that we are now (as well as the images as well), it might be nicer to pull the date (probably even a time as well) straight from perl within the submit_news file. Then, the server can add in the timestamp on receiving the news item, and the frontpage won't be inaccurate anymore on when the topic was posted.

It would also be nice to have a field where we could specify a link to the forum discussion for the news topic, so that we could link directly back to the forum, so that users could then comment on the news story. I'd suggest getting rid of the number of comments next to the comment link, but use this field to link back.

Lastly, it would be nice to each news story to use an avatar for the person posting the news topic. This however, isn't urgent, but I think would be better than the current 3 static images. Just something to keep in mind for a future addition.

Should be a fairly easy issue to address once add_news is moved to using generated perl like the index page. ;)

[bels]

The news items are actually stored in a database. Each news item has a entered column that is time stamped with a default value of now() when each news item is created so that part is taken care of. I just haven't setup the perl files to pull from that but I will shortly. It shouldn't be hard at all since the data is being recorded, I just have to extract it.

Adding custom avatars will not be difficult. The difficult part will be tying that information to user accounts in the forum. I'll start looking into that database structure. I might even be able to pull the avatar information for the forum out of that database and utilize that as well.

[Tametomo]

It doesn't necessarily need to be tied to the data on the forum initially, but I would eventually like to do that (it probably would be better though to have reporters post their news items in http://www.aethyraproject.org/forum/viewforum.php?f=38 first, then provide the link to it later, so as to not accidentally open up a security hole in the front page by having the news poster do it for them in proxy). Basically, if someone is in the reporter group, I'd like for them to be able to add news on the front page. I have a special forum for frontpage posts, if you haven't noticed it yet (I exposed it to you and a few other people. Will get on the ball with that again and expose it completely when I start to have a use for it).

Thanks for getting the timestamps working though. I'll admit in advance that I'll have to brush up on my perl a bit before being able to make too many meaningful comments on the code itself, as well as get a local version of apache set up for myself so that I can debug my own perl file changes (I do manage to have my own mysql database for other things, but since I don't regularly do a lot with web coding, I haven't seen much of a reason to keep a local apache around).

It might also be nice to put a simple add news link at the bottom right of the front page, so that you don't just need to know where exactly the news page is. Simple enough to do there, though.

[bels]

I think I am going to go for the gusto and tie the login credentials to the forum. By the time I setup a credentials table and write the code to insert and have people create an account i'll probably have figured out how the forum credentials work. I've written a session handling perl module that will be able to handle people being authenticated to the main site. I should be able to use that with no adaptation.

Trust, me i'm not a perl wizard by any means. I'm sure you'll look at some of my code and wonder "why the h#||" did he do that and the short answer is because i'm still learning. I've only very recently been able to spend any decent amount of time coding due to the nature of my work so you'll probably see my code get much better over the life of this website.

But anyway, I'll start working on this probably today.

[Tametomo]

Nah, I haven't really thought "why the h#||", just that while I can follow the code, I'm not too much use to contributing to it at the moment. What I can't do at the moment is fly through it blindly without checking the code against a browser, like I can with C/C++, which is why I need to brush up a little (so while I can look at it and see exactly what you're doing at the moment and understand it, I'm not exactly wired at the moment to be able to run through and debug things if I had to).

Most of these issues so far haven't exactly been because of not looking at where you're going, but mainly seeing where the state of things is at the moment. I'm fairly sure that as it comes together, there'll probably be a lot less of issues that are easy targets, or seem to be overestimating complexity (not trying to, just mainly been trying to come up with ideas that match the current pace a bit better, even though that probably simplifies things more than they have to be).

In any case, now I'm being drawn between getting some pixel art done for some elements of the webpage (banner, possibly other elements as well), so as to get that together faster, or to actually get some more code pushed out. Code will probably win this one. ;)