ParaTracker

[Circa]

Gonna attempt to use this again. I like the new themes you guys made. I think I figured out how to use it on my hosting now. We'll see.

 

One thing I had to do before uploading was remove the levelshots of games other than JKA. Too many excess things I didn't need. But also, I recommend putting your images through FileOptimizer or ImageOptim, so they are optimized for web properly and will load quicker in browsers. I ran all the images through ImageOptim and saved a decent chunk of space by doing so.

 

http://nikkhokkho.sourceforge.net/static.php?page=FileOptimizer

 

https://imageoptim.com/mac

[Circa]

Okay, so still can't use it on my hosting. Bummer.

 

I think the Flat themes look good, though I'd change a few things still. I'd come up with a theme myself to show you guys what I'm wanting, but using the iframe from your site forces it to use auto-refresh. That's one thing I really don't want. An option to disable that would be great. I could then use dev tools in my browser to edit things I want and send a screenshot, and maybe someone could make it happen? Again, I'd do it myself but can't without hosting it myself.

 

Also, the levelshots don't seem to be loading in Safari for some reason. On macOS or iOS.

 

[NAB622]

Hmm. Levelshots not working on iOS is very interesting. I'll add that to the bug list.

 

To stop the auto refresh, click on the refresh message, and it will stop until the next reload. I'll add an option to turn it off completely in the next update.

 

Yeah, if you can get a screenshot, I can get a skin much more to your liking. Cagelight told me to allow third party CSS files, and I didn't listen, but technically it should be possible. I can probably also add that in the next update.

 

Right now, I'm focusing on game support - I have COD1 and COD2, SOF2, RTCW and W:ET in line. But those will take a back seat to whatever options you're asking for.

[Circa]

I think options such as no auto refresh, no levelshot transitions (one is enough imo), and the ability to select a font would be nice. Like a choice of the select default browser fonts.

 

But, don't put off features just for my sake. I'm now using the tracker on my site with the flat dark theme with 0 transparent background and it's very close to what I was wanting!

[NAB622]

Oh yeah, almost forgot - if ParaTracker still isn't working on your web server, it's probably the same issue I ran into with Bravenet, unfortunately. Is it giving you any error messages, or simply telling you that it could not connect? Also, at the very beginning of the HTML code, is it giving any debug information next to the version number (aside from the array to string conversions)?

 

The ability to choose a font will be very easy to implement, although only as a global thing. I'll see about adding that as well. I'll post back when an update is pushed with some of these features, and if I forget any, remind me.

 

There is an advantage to you using our tracker service for now - when updates are pushed, you will automatically get the most updated tracker. And seriously, the bandwidth on our end is negligible anyway.

 

Edit: By the way, if you ever want screenshot(s) added for some maps, just give a shout.

[Circa]

Oh yeah, almost forgot - if ParaTracker still isn't working on your web server, it's probably the same issue I ran into with Bravenet, unfortunately. Is it giving you any error messages, or simply telling you that it could not connect? Also, at the very beginning of the HTML code, is it giving any debug information next to the version number (aside from the array to string conversions)?

 

The ability to choose a font will be very easy to implement, although only as a global thing. I'll see about adding that as well. I'll post back when an update is pushed with some of these features, and if I forget any, remind me.

 

There is an advantage to you using our tracker service for now - when updates are pushed, you will automatically get the most updated tracker. And seriously, the bandwidth on our end is negligible anyway.

 

Edit: By the way, if you ever want screenshot(s) added for some maps, just give a shout.

 

Yeah, it would just say it could not connect to the server. I figured I just needed to enable allow_url_fopen in the PHP settings, but that didn't work. Not sure what you mean by very beginning of the HTML code. If you mean in the dev tools after it's loaded, no. Just shows the . And now all of a sudden I can't even get the tracker to show up from my host. Just doesn't load at all. Path is correct and everything. So weird. Was working and then all of a sudden isn't.

 

Anyway, I still couldn't really make adjustments very well via browser dev tools just because of how the tracker is designed and coded I guess. So I made a really obnoxious annotated image instead. Hopefully you won't hate me too much for this. And also, if any of these things are too much trouble or you don't want to do, don't worry about it.

 

 

 

 

 

Edited April 13, 2017 by Circa

[Cagelight]

I'd just like to point out in case you weren't aware, ParaTracker does offer a JSON option for high degrees of customization if you're feeling up to it. The lack of the need to refresh makes it fairly straightforward.

[Circa]

I'd just like to point out in case you weren't aware, ParaTracker does offer a JSON option for high degrees of customization if you're feeling up to it. The lack of the need to refresh makes it fairly straightforward.

 

I'm not familiar with JSON. I see that as an option but not sure how to use the code it gives.

[NAB622]

I don't hate you for the image. Actually, that's exactly the kind of feedback I need. I am at work right now, but I will tackle this when i get home. Most of your suggestions should be very easy to implement, actually, especially since they involve disabling things rather than adding them.

 

I already implemented font changes, although I'll probably have it limited to basic font families.... Is there a specific font you are looking for?

 

We tracked down the issue with Safari - Apple decided they're too good to comply with web standards, just like Microsoft does. We'll get a workaround for it in place, but yeah, we couldn't have foreseen that issue. Thanks for catching it. But, for the record, if it's broken in Internet Exploder, I do not care. It's a nightmare to work with. XD Safari should work in the next update, though.

 

Text only logo is also a possibility, actually, although I'll have to update the skin files a bit. The only reason I want the tracker name visible is so other people know how to find it. It is intended to forever be a free service, just like JediTracker was.

 

The game name is visible on all skins because ParaTracker can track several other games. However, it would be very easy to allow users to disable it, so I'll add that as well.

[Circa]

I don't hate you for the image. Actually, that's exactly the kind of feedback I need. I am at work right now, but I will tackle this when i get home. Most of your suggestions should be very easy to implement, actually, especially since they involve disabling things rather than adding them.

 

I already implemented font changes, although I'll probably have it limited to basic font families.... Is there a specific font you are looking for?

 

We tracked down the issue with Safari - Apple decided they're too good to comply with web standards, just like Microsoft does. We'll get a workaround for it in place, but yeah, we couldn't have foreseen that issue. Thanks for catching it. But, for the record, if it's broken in Internet Exploder, I do not care. It's a nightmare to work with. XD Safari should work in the next update, though.

 

Text only logo is also a possibility, actually, although I'll have to update the skin files a bit. The only reason I want the tracker name visible is so other people know how to find it. It is intended to forever be a free service, just like JediTracker was.

 

The game name is visible on all skins because ParaTracker can track several other games. However, it would be very easy to allow users to disable it, so I'll add that as well.

 

If you stick to the basic fonts that are web standards (ie work in every browser without Google Fonts, etc), I'll be fine. Like Tahoma, Arial, Helvetica, Lucida Sans, etc.

 

Awesome, will be glad to see it fixed in Safari. Yes, working with all the browsers is a great pain. I know how you feel. I usually avoid IE as well, since that's now an unsupported browser anyway.

 

Text logo would be nice, though if you at least make the logo white and optimized for HD screens, I'd be just as happy. On my retina screens the logo is pixelated. If you double the resolution of the image file itself and resize to the size you have now, that would fix it. But yes, JediTracker used a text logo but made it extremely ugly with both green font as well as underlined and pasted multiple times around the tracker. If you made yours match the rest of the font and color of the tracker, would be a bit more aesthetically pleasing. You could even make it a link to the ParaTracker website or wherever you'd want.

 

And right, I knew why the game name is there, I just think its unnecessary info in most cases. Only time I'd keep it on is if we had a JK2 server as well, then I'd want to differentiate the two like that, but even then, I'd probably also add a big title above each tracker saying which game it's for or something.

 

Thanks for taking the time to listen to my critiques! It's great to see.

 

EDIT: New critique I just noticed, as we got more than 12 people on. I increased the height of the tracker, but it looks like there's a hardcoded height as well, forcing you to scroll. Can it be set to a higher height? Our server has 32 slots, I definitely will never see that number, but we do often have more than 12, sometimes up to 20-25. I'd rather have a really long tracker than it cut off and scroll. Commenting out the height in .playerTable worked. Not sure if that's something you guys would be willing to do, as I understand wanting it short. But maybe for the custom skin that you may make for me? (again, feel awful for asking for that)

 

 

 

 

 

 

btw, this is the page that my tracker is on, if you need the reference: http://shadoworder.com/server

[NAB622]

Okay, I'm looking everything over. ParaTracker has not been updated yet; I am simply going over a list of what is done already.

 

First off, some of your suggested changes would be easier with a new skin file; what do you say to a new skin called "Bigflat Huge" or "Hugeflat"?

Specifically, you said the player list was a bit small. If I make the player fields a bit smaller and increase the list size, would that work? The scroll bar is difficult to remove because it will misalign the Score and Ping headers. However, the list can be freely resized.

 

The flag alignment can be changed in a new skin. Also, flags can now be disabled.

 

Game name can be disabled.

 

Server ping can be removed in a new skin with ease. (Yes, it is the tracker's ping to your game server - I needed something to fill some space)

 

The logo can be changed to text in a new skin.

 

The orange, black and gray colors can be adjusted in a new skin as well. Can you give me exactly what hex values you would like for them?

 

Fonts can freely be changed. Users can type in several fonts, and they are applied directly into a "font-family" CSS property.

 

Levelshot transitions can now be disabled. Choosing transitions is a tricky issue and is unlikely to work well, but I'll be toying with the idea in my head for a while.

 

Auto refresh can now be disabled. However, it cannot be enabled if the config file has it disabled.

 

EDIT: Server name filtering has also been updated, and can also be disabled or enabled at will. The missing space in the server name has been fixed.

 

Levelshots not working in Safari.....this is a mixed bag. The JavaScript SHOULD work now; however, I do not have a Mac, so I cannot test to see if they do. They still don't work on the latest version of Safari for Windows, but it's 5 years old, so it's irrelevant. The JavaScript definitely works, and that was probably the holdup.

 

This is the new customization list, by the way:

https://www.dropbox.com/s/wh10dicvuxmm2lg/2017-04-14.png?dl=0

[Circa]

Wow, you work fast.

 

First off, some of your suggested changes would be easier with a new skin file; what do you say to a new skin called "Bigflat Huge" or "Hugeflat"?

Specifically, you said the player list was a bit small. If I make the player fields a bit smaller and increase the list size, would that work? The scroll bar is difficult to remove because it will misalign the Score and Ping headers. However, the list can be freely resized.

 

 

Sounds good, doesn't matter to me what it's called.

 

That could work, yeah. Or removing the height line from .playerTable would work, and not mess with any alignment. At least it didn't when I removed it in the dev tools. But yeah, as long as it can show more than 12 without needing to scroll.

 

 

Server ping can be removed in a new skin with ease. (Yes, it is the tracker's ping to your game server - I needed something to fill some space)

 

 

What if instead of server ping, you allow us to enter a custom message of some sort? If you need to fill space, that is. Could limit it to a certain amount of characters. I'd probably use it to show the server is hosted by @@Caelum's JKA.io to give him a little advertising, like what JAWA does on theirs.

 

 

The orange, black and gray colors can be adjusted in a new skin as well. Can you give me exactly what hex values you would like for them?

 

#141414 for black and #5e5e5e for grey maybe? I think #ff6605 is best for orange, gives it more orange than red like how you had it.

 

EDIT: Good to talk with you a bit in-game about it. Looking forward to the update.

[NAB622]

Most of what you're asking for can be done with a custom CSS file, like adjusting the colorizer's colors, adding a custom message and forcing a single transition to be used for all levelshots. I'm working on allowing external CSS skin files, and if they work, you can change whatever you like, whenever you like, by hosting just the CSS file on your own website.

 

Right now I've hit a snag with levelshot transitions and with the width and height of the external skin files. More to come later.

[Circa]

New bug: it shows the server set to Siege mode when it's actually set to TFFA.

[NAB622]

Cagelight fixed the gametype bug. Apparently I miscounted the gametype array and left a blank spot out.

 

Custom, external skin files are now accepted, and all the skin files are easily downloadable from the dynamic setup page. The changes are only available on the testbed - I still want to make one more attempt to fix the Safari levelshot bug before releasing this. After the release, I'll help you get a custom CSS file set up.

 

Testbed link: 

http://testbed.dogi.us/ParaTracker/ParaTrackerDynamic.php

 

By the way.....does Safari give any JavaScript errors in the console?....

[NAB622]

Good news: 1.3.4 has been released. Let us know if you find any bugs!

http://paratracker.dogi.us/

 

New in this version:

Many more customization options have been added to dynamic mode.

Custom (External) skins can be used.

Enabling GeoIP without having it installed will no longer crash the tracker.

New skin: Hugeflat (Slightly modified version of bigflat).

 

The Safari levelshots bug has been fixed. At least, it has been fixed in the Windows version of Safari (Which is 5 years old). In addition to the previous issue, I didn't know I needed to add .cssText to the levelshot script in several places, and Safari is ridiculously strict with JavaScript.

 

The array to string conversion error messages have been fixed. Nothing was 'wrong' with the code per se; PHP updated how it handled variable variables, and thus the code needed updated.

 

The gametype bug in Jedi Academy has been fixed.

 

 

 

@@Circa - I can assist you with a custom skin shortly. Now that the tracker is updated, can you update your website with the new settings you want, and do one more mockup image that specifies the remaining changes?

[Smoo]

Posting here because this thread keeps showing up near the top of Google's results.

 

ParaTracker by itself is active and released. My personal website and Parabolic's JA server are both hosted on the same web server, so ParaTracker is not going anywhere any time soon. It is still in active development, and many more games are planned to be supported.

 

http://paratracker.dogi.us/

could you maybe add protocol 27 (i think it was) for JKG support? It trys to say my jkg server is a cod server atm lol

[NAB622]

could you maybe add protocol 27 (i think it was) for JKG support? It trys to say my jkg server is a cod server atm lol

 

I need the IP address of the server. Game detection should be a very easy thing to fix.

[Circa]

Good news: 1.3.4 has been released. Let us know if you find any bugs!

http://paratracker.dogi.us/

 

New in this version:

Many more customization options have been added to dynamic mode.

Custom (External) skins can be used.

Enabling GeoIP without having it installed will no longer crash the tracker.

New skin: Hugeflat (Slightly modified version of bigflat).

 

The Safari levelshots bug has been fixed. At least, it has been fixed in the Windows version of Safari (Which is 5 years old). In addition to the previous issue, I didn't know I needed to add .cssText to the levelshot script in several places, and Safari is ridiculously strict with JavaScript.

 

The array to string conversion error messages have been fixed. Nothing was 'wrong' with the code per se; PHP updated how it handled variable variables, and thus the code needed updated.

 

The gametype bug in Jedi Academy has been fixed.

 

 

 

@@Circa - I can assist you with a custom skin shortly. Now that the tracker is updated, can you update your website with the new settings you want, and do one more mockup image that specifies the remaining changes?

 

Looks good! Safari issue is fixed! One issue I see is the flag doesn't show now, despite it being enabled.

 

I think the only things left I requested should be able to be done via my own CSS file, if that's what you're choosing to lean towards.

 

Things that won't be are the custom message replacing the server ping. You were right, it looks empty there without something. And then the text or neutral colored ParaTracker logo.

 

Also, one map we use often is RaceArena. Can you add this levelshot to the map names RaceArena.bsp and RaceArena_Pro.bsp?

[Cagelight]

One issue I see is the flag doesn't show now, despite it being enabled.

 

It seems there's a bug with the iframe link generation. Will be fixed shortly. In the mean time simply find "enableGeoIP" in your generated iframe link and set it from false to true manually.

[NAB622]

Looks good! Safari issue is fixed! One issue I see is the flag doesn't show now, despite it being enabled.

 

I think the only things left I requested should be able to be done via my own CSS file, if that's what you're choosing to lean towards.

 

Things that won't be are the custom message replacing the server ping. You were right, it looks empty there without something. And then the text or neutral colored ParaTracker logo.

 

Also, one map we use often is RaceArena. Can you add this levelshot to the map names RaceArena.bsp and RaceArena_Pro.bsp?

 

Cagelight already took care of the GeoIP issue.

 

I can add the levelshot, but actually I'd rather take several of them. Is there a specific reason you want that levelshot? If not, I'll download that map and some others and take several levelshots of each.

 

CSS can add custom text to the skins, actually. I put six divs labeled "CustomDiv1" through "CustomDiv6". Using the CSS "::before" property, you can commandeer one of the unused custom divs and add whatever text you want. I also used ::before to label all the parameters, so you can change literally anything you like except the data itself, with just the CSS file.

 

 

could you maybe add protocol 27 (i think it was) for JKG support? It trys to say my jkg server is a cod server atm lol

Actually there was a bug in the game detection routine. I forgot to check for null input, which returned an array of every game name. Garbage in, garbage out. It has now been fixed, pending a pull from GitHub.

 

JKG apparently was programmed to give a different game name than JA, so I made a new parsing routine for it. At the moment, ParaTracker is parsing the info just like any other JA server. Is that correct, or are there some special things that need taken into account? I know next to nothing about JKG. Specifically, have the gametypes changed?

[Circa]

I can add the levelshot, but actually I'd rather take several of them. Is there a specific reason you want that levelshot? If not, I'll download that map and some others and take several levelshots of each.

 

It's the levelshot from the pk3. I'm content with just that one, but if you want to do more, go for it.

[NAB622]

It's the levelshot from the pk3. I'm content with just that one, but if you want to do more, go for it.

I am personally going through every game we intend to support and taking 5 to 8 levelshots of every single level. This is merely a drop in the ocean of work I have to do. It won't be a problem.

[Smoo]

I need the IP address of the server. Game detection should be a very easy thing to fix.

64.94.100.146:29077 or scifi.jk3.in:29077 edit: oh it showing now

[NAB622]

Is there any special parsing that needs done for JKG? Are the gametypes and bitflags the same?