UPGRADE :: NEW DESIGN AND MORE !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

and here we go... this is the thread dedicated to the website's new and improved design and form and the way of operating and communicating and such and so on..  internet is gradually developing, technology is invented on daily basis, websites don't look the same any more, everything changes every hour, well enough www talk... let's get to business...1

new form and design include quite a few new and original features, most of them are still developed at the moment of writing this, but the backbone of the new way of operations is already build and pretty much mastered, although of course it might still encounter countless bugs and holes, we are all here to find out. as soon as i post this, i'm planning on switching all power users and higher into the new interface. it is pretty much tested throughly, as i said, but there are many different systems, so we're all here to test it out and enjoy it in future.

new way of ops and comm is based on the AJAX technology. as Wikipedia says, "Ajax, or AJAX, is a web development technique used for creating interactive web applications. The intent is to make web pages feel more responsive by exchanging small amounts of data with the server behind the scenes, so that the entire web page does not have to be reloaded each time the user requests a change. This is intended to increase the web page's interactivity, speed, functionality, and usability." and this is what we're doing here... to skip all tech stuff, this new way is supposed to ease a lot on database requests, and stop used to be constant re-re-re-output of same info over and over.. which will dramatically decrease out bandwidth usage, which has been constantly increasing last few months.. and it's all JAVASCRIPT, so everyone must have it, it's not some flash... =)

page now consists of 6 active elements, which will be expanded to 9 later. you will notice on "refresh" the way page is built up now: first goes main "frame" with caption, left menu, enlarged 4-line scrolling info bar and banners, then to the left of the scroller we see new control panel tabs, which are being populated still, but most of them are complete (more on tabs below). and below the scroller there's the mailbox panel with clock and joystick for scroller... below all that a hidden area which will show errors or top5 and stuff. and more - main info area, which is updated with regular page-data as we know it. so basically most of your clicks simply update one of these areas, not the main-frame, though.

tabs and tab-control pane.. like some manual words... anyways, there are 8 tabs, [status] being the one you're familiar with - replica of old control panel, 4th line of the tab is a quick handy link-menu. tabs [my] and [stuff] represent unfilled yet part for "my stuff", [yellow] is the older yellow button quick access, [i.d.c.] is for idc, [radio] shows current track on the radio, will show next track later as well, search shows three search options, later planned to 'auto-suggest' as well, and [help] joins all help directions. empty area shows spinning indicator from time to time - means there's a click-request in process, please wait a moment for page to update. each click on tabs update only the tab area.

originally AJAX is supposed to work kinda like flash websites, that keep no record of browser HISTORY of visited pages. we simply couldn't allow this to be on our website, so special history handling and storage was incorporated, and now our website differs from many on ajax - it has regular browser history. as of right now, all page-names look same in it, but later it will be fixed. and sometimes fast clicks on back-forward buttons can mess up the address-bar a little, so the page displayed might be different from the address shown, but any next mouse click will adjust that to normal. basic clicks like control tabs or torrent/ebrowser ratings aren't historized for your convenience. also for better operations our address bar now looks different and is encoded a little, some urls might look weird, if you pay attention to that detail...

although it was a tough call, since all usual links are changed to handle AJAX now, to bring back the browsers' ability to open links in new tabs or new windows, if desired by user. right-click works to display the proper context menu for a link understandable by browsers, you can bookmark links/pages as you did before, either from address bar or from right-click menu. it might look to you that the link stays the same, but it actually changes when you click it with any mouse button. javascript tricks.. took quite a few days to figure those out... while being functional and allowed, it is generally not a good behavior to open many tabs/windows, since each of them will produce 6-7 more requests, etc, etc..

cache is a big thing on one side, but on the other hand it doesn't need to be bothered about.. gmh.. in this new design page loads are to be speeded up 5 times by introducing 5 new picture-mirrors, that serve under images-1...images-5.tm.com and provide 5 times faster image loads on first page load or on refresh. saying faster i mean with those 'servers' and good fast connection of yours, your browser will load all pics 5 times faster than before, and you could notice sometimes on this website or others, when page loads, pictures are still not all completely displayed, takes few moments to display them all (it is the feature all browsers are built on and can't be changed - only 2 simultaneous connections to one host name, and each image needs it's own connection, we now have 5 more host names, so 10 more connections at each time moment, if needed).

well, back to browser cache and related stuff.. all data exchange is behind the scenes now, but browser still requests special pages and gets them as html and stores them in browser cache, as well as pictures. basically with AJAX browsers aren't supposed to cache anything, but they still do that with pictures if you have basic/common/original cache handling options in your browser. firefox2 with those simply reloads every page on every request, while ms internet explorer 6.0 seems so be widely using cache, it tries to substitute new requested data with old data from its cache at all times. some data can be reused from cache at any time, like rules, faq - those pages that barely change once a month, but most others need to be updated all the time, or at least often.. and so, it's set so that control-panel tabs will always update and keep you updated. it is going to work with most pages where you input some data and press submit, like forum posts, comments. well, if something doesn't update for you in your browser, i would recommend a) cleaning browser cache, b) setting browser not to keep any cache/update pages on every visit, c) switching to firefox2. =)

i would mention some known bugs and disadvantages here... sometimes something might go crazy, or unadjusted, or... simple F5-page-reload will solve most of the problems with weird multiple control panels and stuff like that. all communication of server and browser is hidden from you, so sometimes website's way of operations might look weird, or not like you used to see it and other websites, browser status bar might show different info-strings while pages being loaded. sometimes at the moments of highest server load (and lately it's been noticed server becomes unresponsive or takes very long to respond), well you can see something is going on, even if nothing loads, in your regular browser on a regular website, timeout on a request will be announced as a time out on a blank page, you can stop request and stuff like that, all by means of the browser. new design "makes" browser eat what's given and when it is given, since all is hidden, - reporting info and usual signs are also hidden... yeah.. clicking update on shoutbox might put a 'step' into browser history... one last thing here, annoying double-posting issue was noticed when surfing browser history back-forward buttons, and it was taken care of, although id does show some info when a possible double-post might have occurred and was prevented. if noticed such an info-passage on a page, simply ignore it, and keep surfing. that affects and is derived from server-page-redirection mechanism, that works well, but saves its first step in history instead of last, so the step of submitting info saves now in browser history, but not the step of displaying the submitted info, which worked before..

and so it's said, the new stuff is on, please test is and stuff, post your comments and wishes and regards in here, anything will help!

ps this change isn't reversible. if it proves to be heavier and slower than earlier version of the interface, we will roll back to the lighter parent. do not panic about it.. =)

I like the new design,but as was mentioned in another post,there seems to be someting amiss with the awards system,when I tried to take 2 awards they weren't added or subtracted to reflect the award.
maybe worth a look into.

hey, I have a question. Whenever I click on 'torrents' now, it shows new torrents in all categories. I tried fixing it in the OUTLOOK to make trance the default category again but it didnt work. Any idea why this is?? thanks

ps. I like the new layout, its a nice change

ps. ps.   Im finding this confusing,,, having to wait minutes for my status to update, and waiting for the website content to update, like the forums... is there a button or something i can click to update all the content? like with the shout-box...  and why arent the special characters visible anymore?? dumb boxes have replaced them =(....

I have also noticed that I have not got my bookmarks anymore

ok, let's spread the news a little here..  and thanks for your participation. uploaders have been helping me for quite a few days now with this new interface, and they have found several bugs and suggested a few things already, that is why it will be hard to find bugs now, but it is easy to suggest something you think all users may benefit from, and "it" will be accustomed to new interface... well, whatever... =)

bookmarks are back, on 'my...' tab, only now without adding new, but it will be edited shortly.

thanks for the 'all torrents' not 'default categories' noticing - it wasn't a bug, but old way of processing 'click' and 'search-submit', i sharpened it, works now.�

nothing except 'mailbox-time' pane updates automatically (of course, shoutbox, but it's been left same). i specially added 'refresh of current cp tab' when you click on the "empty" button with spinning indicator. if some request freezes and indicator keeps spinning and bothering you - double-click the "empty" button (it's the one next to 'help').. inbox can be accessed by clicking mail-picture or by clicking anywhere on the panel holding it, the long one from letter-pic to local server time counter... i think i will add either pop-up menus or special buttons on each part of the page that might require to be updated manually.. so far you can always click 'mail-box' and then 'browser-history-back-button'.

special characters problem is known but... might remain unsolved for a couple� of weeks.

as i mentioned somewhere else, if you've applied an award, refresh the 'status' cp tab to see your updated stats...

also skin-master will not accept new pictures for the time being...

so far new design was tested in following browsers (in brackets will follow the failing processes/disadvantages)

FireFox ver. 2.0.0.4 - works perfectly, except can't focus on last thread post. otherwise perfectly handles cache, follows most html directives right, and is the best browser for browsing https://www.TribalMixes.com/

Internet Explorer 6.0.290.xp.sp2 - works perfectly, except 'automatic' cache handling is a little poor.

Safari 3.0.2.winxp - works perfectly. only displays text little bit more condensed.

id you have access to older versions of listed programs or maybe using some other browser, please report here, this list must grow!!

and since i had a minute, i did test other 2 most popular browsers latest versions myself - all works in the very best way!

Opera 9.21 - seems to be very slow at start (caching all images, i guess), later speeds up, - pretty good stuff.

Netscape Navigator 9.0b - also proper page displays and loads. i didn't test throughly, but it all seems to be working just fine!

i think there should be something big for the radio..kind of a banner which stays permanently or a big button..dunno but a better promotion for our radio.

unfortunately it doesn't work properly for me at opera 9.21.

as you said slash - it is very slow at start, but later it isn't better, though.

the biggest problem is with function "backwards" in browser. actually it doesn't work i'm clicking on it and the page remains, so i can't get back e.g. to torrent list.

I'm having problems navigating the site, I can get into main page, my default genre and my personal stats, I can't move from genre to genre, any ideas ?

Im sorry but im just having too much f-ing trouble with this new site. I cant navigate the site at all hardly, like fabric8 said from moving from genre to genre and other things... My biggest thing is the grey box at the top doesnt update when u use awards and stuff... the scroling links to the right dont update either.. also the top 5 is a feature that i miss because either it isnt here or i cant find it... before i never found the pages reloading all the time a hassel... atleast i knew it worked then when i could see changes happening...  When i make forum posts too they dont seem to appear immediately, I have to restart my entire browser to see my post... bottom line, I cant use the sites functionality anymore... for example, I have 20 torrents seeding, and the site tells me [no active peers found] .

last version was better...

...AND MORE !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
You are right.
What is this?



I would prefer an online editor instead of this.

SpasV: it's a "feature" against double posting... ajax handle requests differently than regular websites, that way it is easy to prevent re-submission of data in regular pages, but not in ajax pages. This feature tries to correct this problem of ajax, and doesn't allow re-submitting a form (for ex. forum posts, torrent uploads and so on) when you press the back button of your browser..

Fabric8,LostWraith: which browser do you use? and which version? it would be required to debug such problems

Fabric8,LostWraith: which browser do you use? and which version? it would be required to debug such problems[/quote]


I'm using the latest Internet Explorer (Windows)

yeah, you're right, but interesting part is that is does work 1 time, the very first time you decide to press
browser-back. i thought opera was one of the least used browsers, so i don't know what to do here...

thanks for presenting your ideas in such a nice form.

what do you guys mean "move from genre to genre"? didn't i write before - "i've taken care of that default genre thing"..

most of the stuff you're "f-ing troubled" with has been succesfully resolved in newer version of sdt1.js. what you need to do is clean your browser's javascript cache, or all cache - whatever you prefer (and while you're at it, set your browser not to cache anything just to test website working perfectly well), and reload website, it will make your browser load new std1.js where tabs really update.

when you use your torrent software, to know how many torrents you're seeding, do you place mouse over software's icon in tray? and it shows how many, speed and stuff. at least utorrent does. there is a conveniently located 'emtpy' button, between [search] and [help], clicking on it updates your current tab, in case it's not [status] - simply click status. it is a completely same action as the one i've described above, just involves a click.

what scrolling links? what pages are they at?

top5 is located on the [stuff] tab, it says "daily top five".

and one last thing: me personally, and server machine "in general", were really disappointed with a huge kinda "hassel" of everyday processing everyone's requests for unneeded page reloads, and so far we're truly pleased with the results - with only about 1k users switched, cpu load fell twice and personal mysql-s cpu%% went down 3-4 times on average.

more angry people like this will only make me wanna never bring back old interface as an option. and by the way, all the updates i'm planning in the future, will only be developed for new interface, and their ability to work in the old one will be on JS-GOD's will.. thank you for cooperation.