Site Updates

[Einar Saukas]

OK. But you have to convince Peter, not me.

[PaulJ]

I agree with Ralf. An update page should be an update page regardless of age of content.
WOS was lambasted for not updating the 'update' page and to a casual user it seemed the site had folded.
Yes, if you dig deep enough into the forums, you could see something was happening.. but with no instant visual queue a site was active, the chances of that were slim.

The page noted in this thread was excellent, and I had not seen it before. I think it should be linked from the home page. It shows the brilliant and hard work being done by you guys and community to keep the Speccy alive. It may even encourage more contributions and permissions if the site is seen to be really active in ALL areas and not just a dumping ground for games.

Database updates, uploads, new games, MIAs.. everything should be included.

[Einar Saukas]

Good point!

Thus perhaps it would work even better if the UPDATES button from homepage linked directly to this page instead:

app.php/site-updates

[PeterJ]

I agree with the points, but if an existing title gets updated for example the ID stays the same. Unless [mention]Einar Saukas[/mention] can think of a way to identify titles where anything has changed I'm not sure how the could be done. I suppose a database compare could be run, but we would need a volunteer for that at each update.

The Site Updates page is linked from the home page, and the latest update ZXDB date is also printed (although I don't think I changed the date for last night).

I'm very happy to consider changes as long as it's possible in ZXDB and isn't going to take days of manual work each time an update arrives. I would rather the team spent their time currently on stuff like screens and getting permissions.

On the site updates page I do spend a lot of time providing hyperlinks to the new titles. This latest update is unusual because of the huge numbers of updates.

Practical suggestions most welcome. I'm happy to make changes.

[R-Tape]

Practical suggestions most welcome. I'm happy to make changes.

The updates tab on the home page seems to be causing more confusion than it's worth, I agree with the suggestion of it linking to the site updates tab we have at the top of the forum and removing that page altogether - latest releases can be found easily enough in the "advanced search", and will be even easier when we have "more advanced search".

IMO that would be an easy solution with no extra site coding for Peter & Ricardo. I could have given a more detailed list this time, but as pointed out this has been an atypical update - we can't expect 1000s of new entries every update.

Unless it's every update from now on

I'll give more info on the text adventures etc later or tomorrow.

[R-Tape]

Am I the only one that gets confused whenever PaulJ posts on the forum? I keep thinking it's PeterJ.

There's only one solution - one of you will have to change your name by deedpoll.

[Ralf]

I agree with the points, but if an existing title gets updated for example the ID stays the same.

Is there something like LAST_MODIFIED column of date type in ZXDB?

Or eventually we could do something like SELECT * FROM GAMES ORDER BY ID DESC
I would show the games in order of being added to database. It would ignore updates like an instruction being
added to existing title but still would be very useful for me.

At this moment we have a descrpion saying for example:

144 +3 Text Adventures authored with ZXZVM (thanks Lady Eklipse )
But it's not clickable, you cannot actually see these games easiliy.

[PeterJ]

Is there something like LAST_MODIFIED column of date type in ZXDB?

[R-Tape]

At this moment we have a descrpion saying for example:

144 +3 Text Adventures authored with ZXZVM (thanks Lady Eklipse )
But it's not clickable, you cannot actually see these games easiliy.

I can't comment on the site coding but this is an example where I could and should give more info/links.

[PeterJ]

[mention]Ralf[/mention]

https://spectrumcomputing.co.uk/index.p ... 6&id=21817

I don't see an issue in doing a descending order ID page for the last 100 entries.

[Einar Saukas]

Is there something like LAST_MODIFIED column of date type in ZXDB?

Nope.

Or eventually we could do something like SELECT * FROM GAMES ORDER BY ID DESC

That's exactly what I wrote a few posts earlier

At this moment we have a descrpion saying for example:

144 +3 Text Adventures authored with ZXZVM (thanks Lady Eklipse )
But it's not clickable, you cannot actually see these games easiliy.

This one is easy, all of them are listed here:

https://spectrumcomputing.co.uk/index.p ... 6&id=21817

[PeterJ]

[mention]Ralf[/mention] This gives you the last 1,000 entries added to ZXDB (IDs starting with '3':

https://spectrumcomputing.co.uk/index.php?cat=100

[Ralf]

Thanks! Exactly what I needed.

Actually it should be available somewhere from the main website menu, I believe

[PeterJ]

Thanks [mention]Ralf[/mention]

We are looking at the placement of the updates pages over the next week.

[PeterJ]

On the advanced search options under 'Type' there is a entry for 'Electronic Magazines'

[PeterJ]

Following feedback from [mention]PaulJ[/mention], [mention]Ralf[/mention], [mention]R-Tape[/mention] and others Ricardo (4thRock) has kindly made some changes to the home page which now looks like this (notice the extra button!):



Updates takes you to a page which shows the last 1,000 titles (This may change to 250 depending on database load) added to ZXDB, and also gives you a link to the weekly updates page.

Releases takes you to a page which shows you the latest new games releases.

As mentioned before what this won't do is show you a title where an additional file has been added. The only way of doing this would be a database compare between the newest and previous versions of ZXDB. That is a lot of work for little benefit (unless someone feels strongly enough and would like to volunteer)

Peter

[PeterJ]

The latest ZXDB has now been applied. Don't forget the new links on the homepage which give you the last 1,000 entries added to the database and a link to the 'Site Updates' Page.

The last updated date on the homepage will be updated to 05 April as soon as I sort out my issue with Filezilla.

Thanks always to all those involved.

https://spectrumcomputing.co.uk/index.php?cat=100

New Entries:

• ZX SPACIES!
• 3D-Dungeon demo
• Discovery (never released demo)
• Lightfire (never released demo)
• Kryssy, Kryssy 2, Kryssy 3, Nostalgie, Garden Zone
• Steamed Hams by PROSM
• Nearly 1000 Russian electronic magazines* (As [mention]Einar Saukas[/mention] mentioned in his post the files will be added in a future release)

Files:

• Rucksack games. (thanks John Blythe!)
• Bugfixed version of Brum-Brum (thanks ThEpOpE)
• Spanish translation of Castelbasic (thanks AnarchyZoft)
• Updated file for Manager

* Electronic magazines

• ZX-News
• On-Line
• Nicron
• Maximum
• New Special Playgames
• Micro
• Marazm
• Life
• KrNews
• Gorodok
• Fantastic
• Cossackos
• City
• Body

General thanks to Dario Ruellan (screenshots, communications)

[Ralf]

Great!

Some corrections to the stuff I was involved with:

1.
ZX Spacies!
https://spectrumcomputing.co.uk/index.p ... 6&id=33461

is a demo version. It's not completed, you cannot die, shields aren't destroyed etc.

2.
Nostalgie
https://spectrumcomputing.co.uk/index.p ... 6&id=33468

is actually a compilation of 4 games run from common menu.

You can see the titles after loading up the disk:

Forestland Zone
Small Cowboy
Labirint Two
Town Zone

Press 1-4 to start the appropriate game.

I could attach downloads and screenshots here if required.

[R-Tape]

Thanks Ralf,

Spacies: i forgot to add a "demo" comment by the file download, will sort that.

I added "Nostalgie" after looking through Epsilon's page on that Russian site, I should have waited until you gave more info before I gave it an ID. Any screenshots & info you can give (either by email or in the old/new game thread) would be splendid.

[PeterJ]

[mention]PaulJ[/mention] has been most helpful in starting to catalogue the reviews in his Spectrum Show videos. Series one is now completed and where a game is reviewed you will see an additional link under 'Related Links' called 'The Spectrum Show (Youtube) (English)'. The link will take you to the YouTube page for the video and to the time when the review starts. Most impressive!

A good example is one of Paul's own creations:

https://spectrumcomputing.co.uk/index.p ... 6&id=27506

Thanks to Paul for doing this work and to [mention]Einar Saukas[/mention] for incorporating it within ZXDB.

[Juan F. Ramirez]

A really cool idea!

[Ralf]

I added "Nostalgie" after looking through Epsilon's page on that Russian site, I should have waited until you gave more info before I gave it an ID. Any screenshots & info you can give (either by email or in the old/new game thread) would be splendid.

And here are game images and screenshots for Nostalgie and another game from Alexei - Garden Zone.
I saved all games from Nostalgie as snapshots. Maybe it would be a good idea to make separate entries for each of them? Please decide.

For Garden Zone I added autobooting to .trd image

The download:
https://www.sendspace.com/file/l45duu

[PeterJ]

The update released by [mention]Einar Saukas[/mention] yesterday has been applied. These are the main changes (courtesy of [mention]R-Tape[/mention].

New entries and files:
Aeon
Murdac
Forestland Zone
Small Cowboy
Labirint 2
Town Zone
Tumitak z Podziemnych Korytarzy
ZX Digger 1
Sapper
Sokoban
Snake

Many new ZX81 screenshots (Thanks [mention]kolbeck[/mention])
Replacement screenshot for Pippo (thanks Dario Ruellan)
Replacement screenshot for Manager (thanks Anonymous)
Downloadable files for the Electronic Magazines in the previous ZXDB update

Don't forgot all these updates are also recorded on the new site updates page.

[PeterJ]

The latest update from [mention]Einar Saukas[/mention] has been uploaded. Thanks to all those who contributed to this one.

These are the new entries:

Attribute 2 You - New demo from MatGubbins
Monte Dorado - never released, rediscovered Text Adventure by Dario Ruellan
Pixel Quest Zero - magazine "Espectro" exclusive
Tea-Leaf Ted
Snake now split into Snake and Python
Davey-Duds loves peas (2017 AGD game)

A full history of recent updates is available here.

[R-Tape]

Coolio, btw for some reason Pixel Quest Zero and Tea Leaf Ted are listed in the "ACE" Series, which is not in any way correct!

Looks like some brackets need closing (or whatever the hell it is you PHP guys do).