ideas Site Suggestion Box

[CaptCity 4,868]

On 8/13/2025 at 10:07 AM, CorinaMarie said:

...For members who are no longer active, but have new files appearing then that will be a staff upload restoring lost of missing content (or even a newly tweaked and bundled version of their content).

...Once they upload it, they have a tool to change the author's name to the original creator.

 

On 8/13/2025 at 10:33 AM, Tyberius06 said:

...actively restoring/updating contents, when we have time and motivation to deal with them.

For the most part, I (and I've seen the others do the same) try to present a short blurb about what any 'found' material is when uploading it. I, myself, only enter anything in the changelog if the files were actually re-hosted and altered (which is rare for me). Otherwise, they're presented as is...

I suppose 'something' could be added (although most already do) to the post indicating that the item is not necessarily 'new' for some as a way to clarify... "This item is being offered as previously available material that may be considered 'lost' from a source that is no longer accessible or made by a member who is no longer active in the community. It is presented as is with the understanding that it is for the benefit of the community."

Just a thought...

[CorinaMarie 29,774]

24 minutes ago, CaptCity said:

I suppose 'something' could be added (although most already do) to the post indicating that the item is not necessarily 'new' for some as a way to clarify... 

That's certainly acceptable all around if you and they do.  

OTOH, y'all are working your fingers to the bone just to make all of this content available so if there's no special note, I feel that's ok too. It's implied it's a restored (or altered file) when a long gone member suddenly appears to have uploaded something. 

I happy when anything is restored however it's done and documented (or not). 

[simmering 2,706]

On 8/13/2025 at 10:33 AM, Tyberius06 said:

Luckily now there are more of us now. Captcity, Ulisse Wolf, Nos.17 and yes myself are actively restoring/updating contents, when we have time and motivation to deal with them. ChangeLogs only appears if the one used the "upload new version" option, even if they didn't actually replace the existing file with a new one.

Could you guys then perhaps add little info boxes to such new uploads, like the ones being done for obsolete files? It would give us players some context.

On 8/13/2025 at 6:12 PM, CaptCity said:

For the most part, I (and I've seen the others do the same) try to present a short blurb about what any 'found' material is when uploading it. I, myself, only enter anything in the changelog if the files were actually re-hosted and altered (which is rare for me). Otherwise, they're presented as is...

I suppose 'something' could be added (although most already do) to the post indicating that the item is not necessarily 'new' for some as a way to clarify... "This item is being offered as previously available matrerial that may be considered 'lost' from a source that is no longer accessible or made by a member who is no longer active in the community. It is presented as is with the understanding that it is for the benefit of the community."

Just a thought...

Thanks @CaptCity

[nos.17 5,177]

23 hours ago, CaptCity said:

For the most part, I (and I've seen the others do the same) try to present a short blurb about what any 'found' material is when uploading it. I, myself, only enter anything in the changelog if the files were actually re-hosted and altered (which is rare for me). Otherwise, they're presented as is...

Sounds good. I'll start doing this for things I add.

[Simizen 1,099]

On 1/9/2025 at 9:51 PM, Simizen said:

But, yeah, otherwise, i was wondering if maybe it's possible to update the guest avatar, to maybe supply it with something similar to the default member avatar style, but maybe provide a random color each log on? Granted, the random color thing is generally pointless, but might be neat to see when checking out the "who downloaded this?" list. But, I figured, since we've already updated the default member avis, why not update the guest one too.

so, another idea along these lines when scouting around the site:

was wondering if we could make the forum icons a bit more colorful

sadly idk what else to add to them (maybe the effects on the letters could be used on the icons themselves with a colored disc?), but would certainly be cool to have

like, not too crazy though, so, probably just color code each group, so you'd have the SC4 section one color, C:S another, Simtropolis related stuff another, etc

 

also, been enjoying the super subtle improvements for site aesthetics (or maybe i'm going crazy who knows). Definitely been enjoying the subtle gradient texture on the pink buttons. I remember seeing it a while back, but was having trouble confirming it then, and then i was doing something today that reminded me of it and I went to check it out, so I at least know that those got updated

[Simizen 1,099]

so a bit of a weird request

throughout the site, most of the stuff is in the center, with blank space on either side, and I was thinking it'd be neat if we had like, a pale silhouette of buildings flanking either side. Though, I'd have it with the tallest on the outside, and the shorter ones towards the center as a great way to frame it and focus attention there

But also, there's the bottom portion with the links, privacy policy, etc, and I realized a great way to add to the effect is to provide a street level view there

So as you scroll you'd get this sense of being in a towering metropolis, and then at the bottom you'd get the ground level view, just cause it'd be a cool effect

Spoiler

did a quick thing in MS Paint. and realized that the darker buildings and road should be further down in the area with the links and such, lol

the blue ones would be up and down the main page, which can be fairly small since there's some CSS code somewhere to allow the image to remain static while the page scrolls around

And of course, the designs and colors can be different but the idea was to make them blend in with the basic theme of the site, so that they're not really overwhelming with excessive detail

Basically it's something similar to what we have in the SC2K and SC3K manuals, lol

[Simizen 1,099]

heyo, this is pretty cool:

rip to my thumbnail image tho...

 

oh, and RIP the chat that happened in here previously since my last post, cause that was where I ended up providing feedback on the member title badge things. I know those weren't really all that impressive, but still, it was fun to look at and such

eta: y'all missed a prime opportunity to run with Lab LLama instead of lab rat, lol

[CorinaMarie 29,774]

20 minutes ago, Simizen said:

rip to my thumbnail image tho...

I see you fixed that file so I deleted the Message Banner and now the Download Button is back.  

[simmering 2,706]

I hope this is the right place to raise this: I recall trying to archive some of my own posts which failed (using the "Save Page Now" feature on https://web.archive.org/). I was wondering if there is a way to exempt the Internet Archive (Wayback Machine) from the bot defence mechanisms? Not sure if that is even feasible.

[CorinaMarie 29,774]

@simmering 

Have you heard of the Single File browser extension? I'm not sure it'll help any, but it's what I use with FF to save webpages including images. If you can point me to something which is failing for you, I'll give it a whirl.

[Cyclone Boom 17,016]

1 hour ago, simmering said:

I was wondering if there is a way to exempt the Internet Archive (Wayback Machine) from the bot defence mechanisms?

There is a Cloudflare rule I added sometime a year or two ago which specifically allows Internet Archive crawlers to access ST.

(cf.client.bot and cf.verified_bot_category eq "Archiver") or (ip.src.asnum eq 7941)

This then skips other firewall rules and lets it browse the site freely. I can see from today alone, there has been 240 of these.

However, from experience I've also found sometimes using the manual "Save Page Now" function doesn't always work. It makes me wonder whether this is separate, and perhaps I need to expand the rule slightly. Or maybe the Wayback is rate limiting manual archival requests and possibly something on their end. They must get numerous requests from many different sources at once.

[simmering 2,706]

Thanks @Cyclone Boom and @CorinaMarie. Sorry, I was not very clear. I was using this feature on https://web.archive.org/:

 

And I can save pages but the only content captured is the human verification tool:

https://web.archive.org/web/20260531235347/https://community.simtropolis.com/forums/topic/764065-LEX-files-new-download-links/

[Cyclone Boom 17,016]

@simmering 

Fixed it!

For some reason the checkpoint verification didn't accept the Save Now requests, while it still allowed the automatic Internet Archive crawlers.

I've now edited the rule which specifically lets it proceed unhindered through the checkpoint security. Thanks for letting us know!

[simmering 2,706]

Following the mentioned issue of lost files that were attached to posts, I was wondering if there is a way to search for posts that have such attachments. If not, could this be added? I feel that there is a number of very valuable or useful ones amongst those files-in-post. Yet they are hidden in a kind of darknet as they cannot be searched for.

Here are a few examples of those files-in-posts:

• Wallibuk's files
  https://community.simtropolis.com/forums/topic/761930-wallibuks-bats/?do=findComment&comment=1774965 
  https://community.simtropolis.com/forums/topic/761930-wallibuks-bats/?do=findComment&comment=1790739
  https://community.simtropolis.com/forums/topic/761930-wallibuks-bats/?do=findComment&comment=1799863 
  https://community.simtropolis.com/forums/topic/761930-wallibuks-bats/?do=findComment&comment=1802716
   
• memo' NAM.dll: https://community.simtropolis.com/forums/topic/762985-namdll-open-beta/?do=findComment&comment=1788789

• rsc204's Diagonal Bridge bugfix: https://community.simtropolis.com/forums/topic/763609-diagonal-bridge-rrw-issue/?do=findComment&comment=1807747

• 11241036's Secret Railway Stations: https://community.simtropolis.com/forums/topic/73220-cant-find-it-ask-here/?do=findComment&comment=1745711

   

   

   

[CorinaMarie 29,774]

24 minutes ago, simmering said:

I was wondering if there is a way to search for posts that have such attachments. If not, could this be added?

Yep. It's definitely on CB's agenda.  

This is from an internal staff forum post:

On 6/14/2026 at 10:55 PM, Cyclone Boom said:

Thanks everyone for the continued help with restoring files, each effort collectively adds up.

Also I'm glad to hear the missing attachment notes came in handy. I'll be unleashing an Attachments Tracker in due course, which will help find those and hopefully re-uploading them without need to edit individual posts. But for any which can be fixed in the meantime, that gets them restored sooner.

We do need for the heatwave in England to subside. 

This is from his computer room upstairs earlier today:

He set it to Fahrenheit for my benefit.  

[Turnstyled 517]

On 5/31/2026 at 5:06 PM, CorinaMarie said:

Have you heard of the Single File browser extension?

I know that this was said a while ago, but I can totally vouch for that browser extension! I used to use Save Page WE, which I believe is also a Chrome/Firefox extension. Single File is much, much better, though!

And yes, my mother is watching the French TV and seeing plenty of stories about the heat wave in Europe! She was supposed to go to Spain for a vacation before she had that broken arm only to find that it was 46 degrees in Bilbao. I never really cared enough about units of measurement to think much about conversion between what's used in the United States and what's...not used in the United States, but that number feels unusually high to me.

I hope I didn't distract too much from site suggestions!

 

[pikachu_SQ 1,082]

Is it possible to add a feature of changing the order of images in STEX and Club files?

[Propfam 2,294]

52 minutes ago, pikachu_SQ said:

Is it possible to add a feature of changing the order of images in STEX and Club files?

You have to do it manually, unfortunately. But I wish, we could get that.

[CaptCity 4,868]

3 hours ago, pikachu_SQ said:

Is it possible to add a feature of changing the order of images in STEX and Club files?

Just curious, do you mean they appear on the Home page? Or do you mean the thumbnail images when you open the entry postting? There is an option of selecting which one appears on the Home page, but to reorder the images (as mentioned) you would have to delete and then add them back in the order you want.

[pikachu_SQ 1,082]

6 hours ago, CaptCity said:

Just curious, do you mean they appear on the Home page? Or do you mean the thumbnail images when you open the entry postting? There is an option of selecting which one appears on the Home page, but to reorder the images (as mentioned) you would have to delete and then add them back in the order you want.

The latter one. I found a file to be added to a compilation, so I want to reorder the images with an additional image.

[CorinaMarie 29,774]

11 hours ago, pikachu_SQ said:

Is it possible to add a feature of changing the order of images in STEX and Club files?

11 hours ago, Propfam said:

You have to do it manually, unfortunately. But I wish, we could get that.

7 hours ago, CaptCity said:

Or do you mean the thumbnail images when you open the entry postting?

1 hour ago, pikachu_SQ said:

The latter one. I found a file to be added to a compilation, so I want to reorder the images with an additional image.

I'll jump in with a definite Maybe for sometime in the future. I suspect it could be after all the other coding CB will be doing like Forum Attachments Tracking and other site recovery needs.  

So yeah, as Propfam and CaptCity have said, there is only the workaround option right now.

On a tangentially related note: I long ago learned when you click Delete for an image or file, that is instant. By this I mean if you chose to Cancel your editing without saving that does not reverse any image or file deletions you did while performing the now abandoned edit.