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Maynne

Maynne

Forum Moderator Posts: 52,416 Emerald Posts by user Forum Profile RuneMetrics Profile
RSOF is a very old beast, any changes to it involving one of its fundamental limits may break some other parts of the forum software.

I understand where the OP is coming from, but I don't think this will happen until Jagex decides to replace the aging forum software with a modern one.

14-Jun-2020 09:28:13

Draco Burnz
Dec Member 2011

Draco Burnz

Posts: 79,296 Emerald Posts by user Forum Profile RuneMetrics Profile
Maynne said :
RSOF is a very old beast, any changes to it involving one of its fundamental limits may break some other parts of the forum software.

I understand where the OP is coming from, but I don't think this will happen until Jagex decides to replace the aging forum software with a modern one.

Even if they did i still dont think it should happen for the aforementioned reasons.
Draco Burnz
Anime Fanatic
Defender of the logical

14-Jun-2020 15:53:47

Spearmint30
Apr Member 2012

Spearmint30

Posts: 23,350 Opal Posts by user Forum Profile RuneMetrics Profile
The age of the in-house forum software is not as big of a problem as it may seem on the surface. Sure, there are some behind-the-scenes challenges on that aspect but all together isn't a very good catch-all reason for why the forums are not updated. For instance, one of the biggest benefits about the forums being built upon in-house software is that they can be updated and scaled to do whatever Jagex would like it to do.

On the topic of those behind-the-scenes challenges, I suspect one of the biggest chores to modernize the forum software is likely to be the conversion/porting of the code from web script to the newer language they're using today. The biggest hurdle in the way of forum updates is not age of software or code, as I mentioned earlier, but prioritization from the powers that be in charge of deciding which projects will receive development time from the web team. Mods Allstar and Lyon have commented at various points that they'd love to work on the forums, but noted the prioritization issue.

That being said, at such time the web team might look through the forums, longer titles might not be necessary - and might lead to other challenges if given a length beyond 30 characters if the forums are given a mobile-responsive theme. There's not a lot of screen real-estate for lengthy titles on narrow screens (while phones are in portrait view). I've done some playing around in this area myself and fitting 30 character titles is comfortable, but too much beyond that forces word-wrapping that either breaks formatting or just looks clunky. That doesn't mean it's impossible or that I've thought of every way to do it, either - who knows, maybe with some thinking outside the box, we'll end up with 45 character titles or something later on.

If we are given an increase, I don't feel it needs to be much as 30 characters seems to be plenty sufficient in most circumstances.
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Spearmint30
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14-Jun-2020 18:11:26

Maynne

Maynne

Forum Moderator Posts: 52,416 Emerald Posts by user Forum Profile RuneMetrics Profile
Spearmint30 said :
The age of the in-house forum software is not as big of a problem as it may seem on the surface. Sure, there are some behind-the-scenes challenges on that aspect but all together isn't a very good catch-all reason for why the forums are not updated. For instance, one of the biggest benefits about the forums being built upon in-house software is that they can be updated and scaled to do whatever Jagex would like it to do.

On the topic of those behind-the-scenes challenges, I suspect one of the biggest chores to modernize the forum software is likely to be the conversion/porting of the code from web script to the newer language they're using today. The biggest hurdle in the way of forum updates is not age of software or code, as I mentioned earlier, but prioritization from the powers that be in charge of deciding which projects will receive development time from the web team. Mods Allstar and Lyon have commented at various points that they'd love to work on the forums, but noted the prioritization issue.

That being said, at such time the web team might look through the forums, longer titles might not be necessary - and might lead to other challenges if given a length beyond 30 characters if the forums are given a mobile-responsive theme. There's not a lot of screen real-estate for lengthy titles on narrow screens (while phones are in portrait view).

RSOF is an aging spaghetti code, maybe no one in Jagex today currently understood it in full. That was why there were previous updates to RSOF that broke down other parts of it. Look at the forum titles and the forum avatar bugs, long standing bugs with no solution yet on sight even after many many months of decay.

There are regular requests for thread title renames, because people tend to over estimate the limits.

I no longer buy the alibi of "Jmods are busy with other stuff" its been ages ago when RSOF received a needed facelift.

16-Jun-2020 04:13:12 - Last edited on 16-Jun-2020 04:16:20 by Maynne

YtHaar-Mej
Dec Member 2005

YtHaar-Mej

Posts: 24,670 Opal Posts by user Forum Profile RuneMetrics Profile
Maynne said :
RSOF is an aging spaghetti code, maybe no one in Jagex today currently understood it in full. That was why there were previous updates to RSOF that broke down other parts of it. Look at the forum titles and the forum avatar bugs, long standing bugs with no solution yet on sight even after many many months of decay.
1) Forum titles are a javascript fetch to the playerdata api that returns the requested display name's player data and appends any title available to the post. It is not part of the forum system itself...it's a request done through client-side javascript (so your browser does it). They broke when titles were rewritten in-game and the api was never updated to display the new title variable.

2) Avatars are generated in-game through the photobooth and stored in the avatar module, they are not part of the forum system as they're only requested by loading the image url with the player's display name in the request.

As for the forum system itself, the age of the code means literally nothing. The issue is it's written in a proprietary templating language that Jagex no longer supports in developing, not that it's a 2006 forum system. The code has been maintained up to at least 2015 when the company moved to freemarker for templating. So in reality the forum code is basically 2015 code now as 2015 was the last major change to the codebase with the theme update (signatures, more bbcodes, etc added with it).

For editing a title length, since most languages follow similar design patterns, it would be finding the string trimmer when submitting the title or title edit and changing the integer 30 to whatever higher number picked would be.

----

Back to OT:

Personally I still stand by what I've said on other similar topics and what others have said on this thread. If there was an increase I'd support up to 45, but titles are meant to be short and the content in the post body. Can I turn in a paper without citing all sources?
"No."[1]
1. William Shakespeare, Hamlet , Act III, Scene 1, line 96.

16-Jun-2020 18:15:15

Mrs Ana

Mrs Ana

Posts: 8,998 Rune Posts by user Forum Profile RuneMetrics Profile
I'm going to share the same response I posted on this thread: Increase max length of title .

I also believe that the current limit is fine as is. The title of a thread is supposed to give you an idea of what's ahead. You are supposed to be concise and to the point so that it can be catchy. A lengthy title isn't necessary as it may push people away. The real content and discussion should be reserved for the first post. The title should leave me intrigued and wanting to click on the thread and I believe this is already possible with the current character limit.

I always think of quality > quantity in this case.

16-Jun-2020 18:36:06

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