A Glorious Dawn
posted by max on April 04, 2010 at 12:24:12 PM
Hello friends,
Now that we're a few days in and some of the rage has settled, I figured I would update with a more complete news post and changelog for YTMND 2.0.
Users should note that there's a new contest to see how you can make use of the new YTMND template options, so far they've been mostly overlooked but they are major. Info inside.
As I mentioned previously, this recent launch required a considerable amount of work (and literal pain endured) over the last couple years. The codebase YTMND was running off of was in some places over five years old, and a terrible representation of everything I've learned since starting YTMND. While it may not seem like it at the moment, this massive code upgrade will make for a much nicer future. Now that I have a working development environment, and every page on the site is properly templated (over 30,000 lines of HTML and CSS!), working on the site is infinitely easier. I'll be updating the old TODO over the next week or so, as huge chunks of it have been implemented or resolved.
YTMND has been worked on now in some capacity for more than half a decade. I've made a nifty video using gource to visualize the work on YTMND and wrote a brief history of YTMND's code and design to go along with it. If Youtube isn't working you can always try Vimeo.
You'll notice the video goes much further than April, and some of the denoted events are a little lagged, but I think the end result is pretty nifty. For more information on the YTMND codebase, you can visit this page. Now, on to the meat.
So you may have noticed We're running a contest to highlight the new features of the YTMND template. It uses the quot;only new sites can enter" rule that was recently added, and it hasn't been tested yet so try it out.
For those of you that have been filing bug reports and feature requests, your feedback is invaluable and I thank you. For those of you who haven't, give it a shot. I'll be working on the site to implement any outstanding features and bug fixes as often as I can, but my unpaid time is off starting tomorrow, so YTMND will be a free-time thing only again.
So there it is. I hope you like it. Even if you don't like the design, it shouldn't take nearly as long to move onto the next one as it took to get this one going, and the site is going to be seeing a lot of visual changes over the next few weeks.
Now that we're a few days in and some of the rage has settled, I figured I would update with a more complete news post and changelog for YTMND 2.0.
Users should note that there's a new contest to see how you can make use of the new YTMND template options, so far they've been mostly overlooked but they are major. Info inside.
As I mentioned previously, this recent launch required a considerable amount of work (and literal pain endured) over the last couple years. The codebase YTMND was running off of was in some places over five years old, and a terrible representation of everything I've learned since starting YTMND. While it may not seem like it at the moment, this massive code upgrade will make for a much nicer future. Now that I have a working development environment, and every page on the site is properly templated (over 30,000 lines of HTML and CSS!), working on the site is infinitely easier. I'll be updating the old TODO over the next week or so, as huge chunks of it have been implemented or resolved.
YTMND has been worked on now in some capacity for more than half a decade. I've made a nifty video using gource to visualize the work on YTMND and wrote a brief history of YTMND's code and design to go along with it. If Youtube isn't working you can always try Vimeo.
[2005-03-29] YTMND is moved into CVS.
[2005-05-31] First new redesign of ytmnd.com launch (everyone thought it was terrible.)
[2005-06-22] Ross Mawdsley creates 17 logos for YTMND. He says his favorites are 11 and 16 and that "17 is just a joke".
[2005-07-07] New codebase launched.
[2005-07-31] jon is given access to write an admin system. (sadly none of his code was ever used)
[2005-11-25] first redesign for ytmnd.com made by a real designer launched (everyone thought it was terrible.)
[2006-05-01] max starts working on YTMND full time.
[2006-05-08] syncan is given access to write the private messaging feature.
[2006-09-24] new redesign for ytmnd.com based on the YTMND star logo. (everyone thought it was terrible.)
[2007-03-10] ytmnd.com's admin system started.
[2008-01-05] Work on ytmnd.com's codebase is stopped. New branch is created to start a full recode and technical redesign.
[2009-03-29] First comps of new YTMND design received.
[2009-04-07] YTMND 2.0 development is in full effect.
[2009-08-01] max starts working on YTMND part time again.
[2010-02-23] 2.0 Branch is merged into main YTMND trunk (notice the large explosion.)
[2010-03-24] max takes unpaid time off work to finish and launch YTMND 2.0.
[2010-04-01] YTMND 2.0 launches, with a new design (everyone thought it was terrible.)
You'll notice the video goes much further than April, and some of the denoted events are a little lagged, but I think the end result is pretty nifty. For more information on the YTMND codebase, you can visit this page. Now, on to the meat.
YTMND 2.0 Changelog
Global Changes
- Brand new design created specifically to infuriate you.
- All URLs are now rewritten, so most pages with query strings have new, cleaner URLs.
- All pages are now fully templated XHTML strict; all CSS, JS, etc moved to external files for speed and cleanliness.
- All pages are now available gzipped for faster load speed.
- YTMND has had its database completely overhauled and scrubbed, the majority of the site is now fully UTF-8 compliant.
- Login and registration completely rewritten to be more secure and quicker.
- All captchas changed to use Recaptcha.
- New style for starbars.
- All server-software updated.
- All Javascript (except for the starbar which is dying for an update) moved to jQuery.
YTMNDs
- YTMNDs can now have both a foreground and background image.
- YTMND foreground and background images can have finite placement on the page (e.g. top right, bottom center, middle left etc).
- Site descriptions, origins, etc have all had their size increased and support rich text.
- Citations are now shown on site profiles.
- Inbound links are now shown on site profiles so you can see where traffic to YTMNDs is coming from.
- New version of the YTMND Flash loader has been stripped down and streamlined to be as fast as possible.
- Logged in users will never see ads on YTMNDs, logged out users will see an ad in the bottom right with a close button.
- No more start-delay on YTMNDs with ads.
- Image text changed so it's only as long as it needs to be. On the old site, it would be 1000x1000px no matter what, causing all sorts of scroll issues. It's been shrunk depending on the text size.
YTMND Site Creator
- Brand new, fully stateless YTMND creator allows you to pick up and drop off during the process of making a site at literally any point in time.
- Very thorough file processing, which will verify and in same cases re-encode your files. For example if you upload a non-standard WAV, most of the time we can fix it for you!
- Steps streamlined to make editing easier.
- New preview function gives you a unique preview URL which lasts for an hour and can be sent to friends for approval.
- You can now provide a YTMND asset id or md5 instead of uploading a file.
- Files are uploaded with AJAX, allowing you to continue changing options while still uploading.
Rich text
- Rich text is supported in multiple areas of the site.
- Rich text includes bold, italic, underline, code (pre-formatted monospace), spoiler (hidden until mouseover) and user/site/asset links.
- User/site/asset links are currently undergoing a retooling, so it's advisable to not try to use them.
Activity
- User activity is now tracked thoroughly. This can be changed somewhat in your user preferences.
- Site/Profile views, votes, comments, site creations/edits etc all show up in your activity page.
- /spy is now a crapflood.
Frienemies
- YTMND now supports friends and enemies.
- Becoming friends or enemies with a user makes their user name change color around the site.
- Befriending someone makes them show up in your "feed", where you can stalk them.
- Currently making someone your enemy does nothing beyond making a statement.
Comments
- Comments have had their size increased to 2000 characters (less if you use multibyte).
- Comment nesting now goes to five levels, for multi-threaded conversations.
- Longer user-names are now visible in comments.
- Wide comments no longer push controls to the side, or break boxes.
- Comments now have unique immutable links which can be copied from their timestamp.
- Comments on user profiles now link to the parent comment if the comment is a reply.
- Comment links will go directly to the page the comment is on.
- Posting a comment on a paged site/news post will now redirect you to the page your comment appears on.
Private Message System
- Completely rewritten from scratch.
- Messages are now threaded, so every reply is added on to the original message, instead of copying the entire message multiple times.
- Number of unread messages is now shown on every page.
- No more unnecessary AJAX, each message has a full URL.
- Removed blocked users, because no one used it and it never worked that well.
- New option to receive an email if you get a private message (off by default to combat possible spam).
- Messages in the "trash" older than 30 days are now automatically deleted.
- Private messages support rich text.
- Filters on the main mail view:
- Quick-filters to hide read/unread messages.
- Filter text box to filter by Sender/Subject.
- When composing a new private message, each comma-separated username will auto-complete.
News
- News now has an RSS feed.
- The five news posts listed at the bottom of the news now show surrounding news posts instead of the most recent five.
- New news page listing available at /news/list
- News is now searchable.
Options/etc
- Lots of options added and removed.
- You can now change the email address associated with your YTMND account.
- You can now retrieve a forgotten username.
- When you use the "reset password" function, it sends you a verification mail rather than just changing your password.
User Profiles
- All pages rewritten to make use of AJAX where applicable.
- Added some basic comment statistics.
- Now shows latest activity.
- Now properly sorts on all applicable fields, sorting should also be much faster.
- Has a default sort based on URL, e.g. /users/max/sites sorts oldest-to-newest, sites/recent is newest-to-oldest, sites/top_rated is highest-scores first.
- Comments page now also shows news comments.
- Comments now link to all associated parties/pages, e.g. the parent comment, site, news post etc.
- Removed for now. RIP :(
- Frienemies page - Gives an overview of who your friends and enemies are, as well as all "inbound" relationships.
- Activity page - Shows your recent activity.
- Feed page - Shows when people comment on your site, and all of your friends' activities. Sort of like a personal /spy.
Default page
Sites page
Comments page
Lists page
New user profile pages
Permissions System
- A finite permissions system allows permission/punishments to be doled out for very specific actions or groups of users.
Info section
- New "about" page, new "staff" page, new "page removal" page, etc.
Users List
- New sections which allow you to see (Most/Least) sponsorship and Most/Best/Worst commenters.
Contests
- New contest option to only allow new sites.
- Contest placement is calculated based on votes between the start and end date of the contest, so old sites no longer have an advantage.
Assets Page
- Now shows a plethora of extra information.
- URLs can now be /assets/<asset id> in addition to /assets/<asset md5>
Keywords Page
- Tried to make it slightly more useful and failed miserably.
Misc
- All services (AJAX and others) now require a custom shared-secret to avoid a number of security and usability issues from the old site.
- Passwords are now hashed before logging in so plaintext passwords are no longer sent.
- A PayPal calculator built into the sponsorship page.
- Hall of fame and other content boxes were dropped, as they required too much manual work to maintain, and were never very good representations of YTMND.
- All server configuration (for php, apache, mysql etc.) has been chopped up and turned into M4 scripts so we can easily launch and move servers as needed.
- In addition to "must be logged in" pages, we now have "must be logged out" pages, like register and login for instance.
Technical
- Nearly the entire back end was replaced, more will be described in the future on the YTMND Dev Blog.
So you may have noticed We're running a contest to highlight the new features of the YTMND template. It uses the quot;only new sites can enter" rule that was recently added, and it hasn't been tested yet so try it out.
For those of you that have been filing bug reports and feature requests, your feedback is invaluable and I thank you. For those of you who haven't, give it a shot. I'll be working on the site to implement any outstanding features and bug fixes as often as I can, but my unpaid time is off starting tomorrow, so YTMND will be a free-time thing only again.
So there it is. I hope you like it. Even if you don't like the design, it shouldn't take nearly as long to move onto the next one as it took to get this one going, and the site is going to be seeing a lot of visual changes over the next few weeks.
Add a comment
Richtext links should be okay now, although they don't get verified, so make sure you don't typo. Also for those of you without bad browsers you'll notice [b]Ctrl + B[/b] [u]Ctrl + U[/u] and [i]Ctrl+i[/i] work in richtext fields. You can also highlight a chunk of text and hit control + b or click a link on the left to wrap your selected text.
i recommend BBcode style links. bbcode is well known these days, especially on forums.
1. [url]http://mywebsite.com[/url] (RENDERING: creates 'a' tag element, href attribute becomes whatever is between the "url" opening and closing bbcode tags, as well as being the displayed text)
2. [url=http://mywebsite.com]My cool, awesome link[/url] (RENDERING: creates 'a' tag element, href attribute becomes whatever is right of 'url=' ; display text becomes 'My cool, awesome link')
1. [url]http://mywebsite.com[/url] (RENDERING: creates 'a' tag element, href attribute becomes whatever is between the "url" opening and closing bbcode tags, as well as being the displayed text)
2. [url=http://mywebsite.com]My cool, awesome link[/url] (RENDERING: creates 'a' tag element, href attribute becomes whatever is right of 'url=' ; display text becomes 'My cool, awesome link')
I truly appreciate the work that you and the people who helped made on this site. I believe coding is like watching a child growing up and getting healthier and stronger. I just couldn't be happier to be here, to express myself, see what other people have to say, all for free. Just like a lovely park in the middle of the city.
In the past I said I was leaving this site, not because of the site itself but because of some users. But maybe I'll give another shot. I'm proud to be a YTMND user.
In the past I said I was leaving this site, not because of the site itself but because of some users. But maybe I'll give another shot. I'm proud to be a YTMND user.
For the record, I thought the last update was awesome and I like everything but black on white text and Ed Hardy t-shirt style graphics on the new one. Oh, and I wish my own name were a different color than 'random user' like it used to be because I only care about my own comments. That's the narcissism in me talking. It's the only thing worth listening to. Also, this is all off the record, just like last time.
I, like many others, really like all of the new features except for the actual design. Your past redesigns weren't unlikeable - they just took time to get used to, as most people don't like change. This redesign, however, is quite an eye-strain. I use a 720p monitor running hdmi>dvi, and for some reason, any text (no matter the color) on a red background shows up garbled and difficult to read, which includes the submit button below this comment box, as well as the entire top bar, news bar, and contest bar. I'm frustrated that this will be how YTMND will now look for me until I get a different graphics card or monitor.
Aside from that, good job and thank you for the new features. I'm excited to see how they'll be used.
Aside from that, good job and thank you for the new features. I'm excited to see how they'll be used.
Off the top of my head, my favorite new features are reusing site assets, having separate background and foreground images, flash player loads everything for uniform compatibility across platforms, nested replies to comments, frenemies (might want to make it more like facebook, ie, other guy has to confirm), rich text comments.
The stalker mode on ytmnd.com/spy is pretty intense. I half-expect it to follow me everywhere.
egonym logged off YTMND.
egonym opened his fridge.
egonym ate peanut butter out of the jar with his finger.
egonym decided to put off homework.
egonym farted.
egonym smelled his fart.
egonym looked up an exgirlfriend on facebook.
egonym spent two hours at a porn site.
egonym cried himself to sleep.
egonym logged off YTMND.
egonym opened his fridge.
egonym ate peanut butter out of the jar with his finger.
egonym decided to put off homework.
egonym farted.
egonym smelled his fart.
egonym looked up an exgirlfriend on facebook.
egonym spent two hours at a porn site.
egonym cried himself to sleep.
You aren't the first person to mention it, and I can't reproduce any problems on Chrome.
First try clearing your cache completely. Second, help me out by giving me your OS and Chrome version (little wrench icon on the right -> About Google Chrome). That will also let you know if you need an update.
I tested on IE8, Firefox 3.6, Chrome 4.1.249.1045 (42898), Opera 10.5 and Safari 4.0.4 (531.21.10). I noticed on mobile Safari (which is also a webkit browser like Safari and Chrome) lots of stuff looks broken, but I'm assuming it's because mobile Safari needs an update.
Another helpful thing you could do is on open the Chrome developer console (Ctrl+Shift+I or Ctrl+Shift+J) at the bottom left there's an icon which looks like a > with 3 lines next to it. It will turn blue when it's open. Screenshot that on a page that isn't working and it will show you if there are any errors on the page (which is probably the cause of your issue). If I can reproduce the error, I can fix it, or at least try to backport a patch to the code.
This goes for anyone having issues for Chrome, not just Keaton. I'd really like to get this all worked out before I start adding new features/resolving feature requests.
First try clearing your cache completely. Second, help me out by giving me your OS and Chrome version (little wrench icon on the right -> About Google Chrome). That will also let you know if you need an update.
I tested on IE8, Firefox 3.6, Chrome 4.1.249.1045 (42898), Opera 10.5 and Safari 4.0.4 (531.21.10). I noticed on mobile Safari (which is also a webkit browser like Safari and Chrome) lots of stuff looks broken, but I'm assuming it's because mobile Safari needs an update.
Another helpful thing you could do is on open the Chrome developer console (Ctrl+Shift+I or Ctrl+Shift+J) at the bottom left there's an icon which looks like a > with 3 lines next to it. It will turn blue when it's open. Screenshot that on a page that isn't working and it will show you if there are any errors on the page (which is probably the cause of your issue). If I can reproduce the error, I can fix it, or at least try to backport a patch to the code.
This goes for anyone having issues for Chrome, not just Keaton. I'd really like to get this all worked out before I start adding new features/resolving feature requests.
I don't know. Light text on black background hurts my eyes. Reminds me of the early 2000's like when sites like Stileproject used to do it, but if you haven't noticed, all sites post 2005ish stop'd using light text and dark backgrounds for the hard of seeing.
I'll probably stop visiting the site as frequent simply because my eyes don't agree or at least stop reading
Actually this guy writes it much more eloquently about his eye problems as well:
http://www.456bereastreet.com/archive/200608/light_text_on_dark
_background_vs_readability/
I'll probably stop visiting the site as frequent simply because my eyes don't agree or at least stop reading
Actually this guy writes it much more eloquently about his eye problems as well:
http://www.456bereastreet.com/archive/200608/light_text_on_dark
_background_vs_readability/
What the hell is going on. I thought both the ytmnd and new youtube layouts were some freak april fool's jokes. Well the jokes have gone far enough. Please revert to old style, at least the layout. And youtube, I can't believe you removed ratings. How am I supposed to filter through all the bullshit. I hate my life.
And many more people have to not hate the absolutely disgusting website design.
Max, I know you're a coder, and not a designer, but the basic principle of designing something is to ask yourself "does this fit what the message is?"
The message of YTMND should be to be funny. It should not be checkered gray and black BS on top or elaborate gray and black wallpaper with grey text on top of that and pink stars. That doesn't imply humor, that implies a complete lack of taste in design and any coherent concept of what you're doing.
Max, I know you're a coder, and not a designer, but the basic principle of designing something is to ask yourself "does this fit what the message is?"
The message of YTMND should be to be funny. It should not be checkered gray and black BS on top or elaborate gray and black wallpaper with grey text on top of that and pink stars. That doesn't imply humor, that implies a complete lack of taste in design and any coherent concept of what you're doing.
Haha, you know April Fool's is over, right Max? Your site looks like it went to hot topic and while there some emo fag slit his wrists and bled all over it, then it bought some fishnets and eyeliner.
So my eyes are now fully raped and emo'd. I'm not going to continue to take it. See you when you unfuck your site.
So my eyes are now fully raped and emo'd. I'm not going to continue to take it. See you when you unfuck your site.
Max, I do not like the web design treatment to the site. There are a shit ton of new features that you have put into it, but I think it's far too busy to explore them all. Im a fan of clean design and this site would do well to incorporate a modern treatment. Web 2.0 is a nonsensical term, but to me it just means clean design and good user interface utility. I like the two column approach, similar to the structure of my old design at -- http://nutnics.com/ytmnd/ -- other than that, I'm just bombarded with detail every time I visit a section of the site.
I'd love to help skin this if you want, just give me sample page and I can apply the styling. You should want the content stand out (the sites) not the site if that makes any sense, well to me the sites provide the color, and the ytmnd can provide the stage.
I'd love to help skin this if you want, just give me sample page and I can apply the styling. You should want the content stand out (the sites) not the site if that makes any sense, well to me the sites provide the color, and the ytmnd can provide the stage.
I vote for this. Please let nutnics do this, he hasn't just articulated what everyone has been saying (and thinking) perfectly and in a friendly way, but he is offering to help make it better with his known professional expertise.
I've only been here for two years and I'm really not ready to see ytmnd die, especially just because people didn't like the way the site looked. I still have a lot of creative energy and free time, and now users I've become friends with seem to be leaving for youtube or anywhere else to continue their work. I can't move on and go somewhere else, it's cold out there.
I've only been here for two years and I'm really not ready to see ytmnd die, especially just because people didn't like the way the site looked. I still have a lot of creative energy and free time, and now users I've become friends with seem to be leaving for youtube or anywhere else to continue their work. I can't move on and go somewhere else, it's cold out there.
My absolute stupid comment is that the new design is shit . The old style was perfect, one can´t improve a perfect style Max. And one can´t find anything here anymore it´s a torture to surch for new stuff, yea i know if i don´t like it i´ve to fuck off....don´t worry bitches that´s exactly what i´m doing
Listen to nutnics. His design is pleasant and clean. And [i]professional[/i].
I can't articulate how much I dislike the new design without going on another rant. Some of the new back-end features might be nice, but they're useless without a decent UI. I'm honestly considering pulling all my content from this website, and I've submitted a lot under other aliases other than blommer.
I can't stand the look of this place.
I can't articulate how much I dislike the new design without going on another rant. Some of the new back-end features might be nice, but they're useless without a decent UI. I'm honestly considering pulling all my content from this website, and I've submitted a lot under other aliases other than blommer.
I can't stand the look of this place.
The new design is shit . The old style was way better , and one can´t find new stuff here in this dark shithole, i even posted my first comment somwhere into the fucking cyberspace as fodder for the trolls .There are so many shitty faults in this new surch options , one can find nothing anymore where the fuck is the new stuff ?? Do i have to fight through a bunch of 5000 garbage vids till i can find a good one from now on? If i use the advanced surch mode i only get a fragment of the content. The old system was perfect, i only had to watch the icon and i knew if it was worth watching or not and the new stuff was at the end of the domain where it should be
a couple of years and this is the best you can do? i like the new features, but the color and back ground are the gayest crap i've ever seen. The older design was better. Glorious dawn? yeah right, i couldve made a better site with my ass cheeks. This is more like an end of an era, a dynasty at its nadir.
After a month of 2.0, I must admit that I'm enjoying the new YTMND. The background/foreground option is phenomenal, and the frienemies list makes cyberstalking fun and easy. I love the new comment rating system, and the UI design changes don't even annoy me anymore. Great job Max!
Here are my only complaints, and I don't believe they have been mentioned. First, when I try to view a site's assets and the file type is .jpg, I always get a 404 file not found error. Also, I wish that the comments still showed when someone has FAV'd the site on which they are commenting.
Here are my only complaints, and I don't believe they have been mentioned. First, when I try to view a site's assets and the file type is .jpg, I always get a 404 file not found error. Also, I wish that the comments still showed when someone has FAV'd the site on which they are commenting.
M'yeah, I don't know where I should go with this, so I'll just leave it here.
Since the layout change, I haven't been able to view about 80% or so of YTMND sites. Which ones work and which don't seems random, but it seems to happen no matter what computer or broswer I use. I made an account to see if it solved the problem, but it's still showing up. Is anyone else having this problem? Failing that, where can I submit bug reports?
Since the layout change, I haven't been able to view about 80% or so of YTMND sites. Which ones work and which don't seems random, but it seems to happen no matter what computer or broswer I use. I made an account to see if it solved the problem, but it's still showing up. Is anyone else having this problem? Failing that, where can I submit bug reports?
Here you have, Max. 9 days after the new YTMND layout (also 6 years after start of YTMND) Polish President died in a plane crash. YouTube and Wikipedia also fucked them up. The best way would be (my opinion):
* Old layout
* Foreground and background.
Eh... since Safety Not Guaranteed is still a mystery, we won't be able to go back in time and convice you.
* Old layout
* Foreground and background.
Eh... since Safety Not Guaranteed is still a mystery, we won't be able to go back in time and convice you.