Blockland Glass 4.2

Author Topic: Blockland Glass 4.2  (Read 291191 times)

This is something we’re trying to improve, the four of us have been pretty busy/inactive recently so getting more moderators is a good idea. Finding the right people is easier said than done though.

Maybe a report button that allows us look at a players recent messages and ban if needed would be a good addition to the service.
I can help out if you need me to.

I can help out if you need me to.
Since my post we’ve added two more moderators to the chat. You’re not exactly active so not sure you’d be the best candidate.

Since my post we’ve added two more moderators to the chat. You’re not exactly active so not sure you’d be the best candidate.
That's understandable. Couldn't hurt but if you guys are alright then all cool.

I'll probably get more active in BL again soon.

who're the new moderators?

I really wish more people uploaded their add-ons to this.

Service and Development Update

In an attempt to grow the Glass team and separate the role of developers and administrators/moderators, we have brought on Visolator and DragonoidSlayer as moderators. We are very thankful to have them added to the team, and we are still considering another one or two positions.

I have added a Terms of Service Agreement to the website. With the growing size of Glass, and our intentions to grow as an all-around content and social platform, we found it appropriate to formalize what is allowed by the service. Several states (and countries, we are international after all) have laws that require users to be notified a minimum of 15 days before the new Terms of Service take effect. As such, the new Terms of Service are set to take effect on September 1st. The Terms of Service are written in accordance with Massachusetts law, as that is where I live most of the year. You can read the agreement here, and the next update will also contain a prompt to agree to them.

Overall, we are going to begin taking a different approach to updates and development. From now on, updates will have particular focuses and names to represent that. This will enable us to focus on certain aspects of development and set clear goals. We are also looking together to put together a Quality Assurance team that can work directly with developers for bug spotting and testing prior to release. The finite details of this group are still in the works, but there will be more to come on that later.

We have been working on The Creators Update (4.2), introducing some features that make life a little easier for add-on developers. I have been touching up minor components of the website recently to make it more friendly to navigate and moderate, as well as reviving the temporarily defunct RTB archive. I am currently aiming for the update to release near the end of the month or the beginning of September. However, with my fall semester starting soon, this could easily be pushed back a couple of weeks.
« Last Edit: August 16, 2017, 10:37:42 AM by Scout31 »

Just a small issue: adding "www." to the site gives you a 'too many redirects' error.


We are also looking together to put together a Quality Assurance team that can work directly with developers for bug spotting and testing prior to release. The finite details of this group are still in the works, but there will be more to come on that later.

How would one apply for the QA team? I'm looking to become a QA brown townyst, and I have experience with reporting bugs for games, how to recreate it, etc.

We'll likely have a form to submit an application once we start the team.

Two Years

Today is the two-year anniversary of the release of Blockland Glass. To say the least, we've come a very far way. The very first topic was posted two years and four months ago. Just a little trip down memory lane...

The Blockland Glass we have today isn't always what it's been. Over the past 5+ years, I have named a few different (but similar) projects by the same name. The name was originally derived from the core functionality of allowing servers to interact and control GUI elements while you play - a sort of "Glass" screen over your display. This is dated back before Google Glass, so the name was indeed original at the time.

This post primarily focuses on this Glass, though. In the summer of 2015, after the absence of RTB was taking it's toll, there were several projects in the works to put together full replacements. Some were mere reskins, such as oRBs, and some were large group projects intended to replace RTB from the ground up. Many of these projects were stagnant, and given my prior experience working with system-level Blockland mods, I wanted to put together a mod manager. I envisioned an open source project, open to input from all and that relied on users to mutually control content as opposed to a series of nameless reviewers.

Pre-Release

The website came along first, before the add-on. It was very rough, and working alone I tried to bring about a new way of mod management, relying on a team of reviewers to collaborate and automatic file scanning. I worked with a (very excited) community to implement features and standards they were interested in that I was oblivious too due to a long absence from Blockland. The project used standards like Support_Updater from the beginning.




The add-on followed four months after my initial posting of the site. At the beginning, it was only supposed to be an in-game interface for the website. Below is the first image posted to the development topic, with a very crude add-on view in the first generation mod manager.



Version 1.0
Unfortunately I don't have any pictures laying around for version 1.0, and I'm slightly concerned about going back through GitHub and downloading it. Our API should still support it to some degree.



Version 1.1
After the initial release, Glass expanded to have server preferences. We initially began to implement the system independently, but the idea of a common preferences platform, Support_Preferences, became popular with a group of developers. I dropped the Glass system and decided to move toward an open standard that was being developed.

 

Version 1.1 also included our first iteration of the Required Client system, which recommends client mods to download before joining a particular server.



Version 2.0
Next, the website was rebuilt from the ground up, and it's the same website that's up today. To match the changed website, the mod manager was entirely remade as well. This was also the introduction of the Glass theme that is still used, although modified.


There weren't really all that many new features, as this was essentially a rebuild of the service. Notifications were introduced, and the Mod Manager activity feed made it's first appearance under the slave labor of GlassBot.


Version 2.1 brought back some of the original features from the first version of Glass that didn't make the initial release, such as required clients and RTB imports.




Version 3.0 - Glass Live

Before version 2.0 had been released, I was already working on the framework needed for our social platform, Glass Live. Originally, I planned to release (or more likely the first beta of) Glass Live without any prior notices at Blockoworld 2016. Clearly, that never happened, so I moved along to develop it at an accelerated pace. The first images posted of Glass Live were very crude

 

Development went along pretty fast, and Paperwork/Shock became a very prominent beta tester, to the point of joining the team. Many more early development pictures can be found here.



Version 3.2

Next, Glass Live saw a huge face-lift. We introduced icons, Crown joined the team after creating the Icon Selector, and the Glass Live server was rewritten. GlassBot was officially promoted to full-time chat moderator, we got our first logo thanks to Jam Jar, and the status system was implemented. Unfortunately, development wasn't documented well between the release of 3.0 and 3.2 as I was pre-occupied with Glass Hosting, leaving us only with this early-development image:




Version 4.0

Our most substantial update yet, Glass 4 retouched everything we had made yet. We rebuilt the mod manager yet again, introduced server previews, added the ability to track your favorite servers, allowed server administrators to set custom loading screens, and added avatars to Glass Live. You could now see where your friends were playing, as well as invite and join them.






Version 4.1
Our most recent update, The Stability Update, featured our a much needed refresh of the preferences system, which we are still working to expand, as well as numerous small improvements over all systems. Server control was redesigned, and the graphing system was implemented.





Today marks two years since the release of version 1.0. As of now, we have accumulated a total of 211,578 downloads delivered by the Glass Mod Manager, with 51 percent of those downloads being delivered in-game. We have 670 verified website accounts, and 1072 active weekly users, and 5646 total. At any given moment for the past few months, over 50 percent of Blockland players in servers are running Blockland Glass, and likely more; Right now, 88 percent of online users are running Glass.

I cannot begin to express how thankful I am for the support of the community, and especially those who have contributed to the project. It would not be possible without them. I would like to thank Crown, Shock, Greek2Me, TheBlackParrot, Nexus, teozkr, Jam Jar, and McTwist for their direct contributions to the project.



We have some exciting stuff coming up in the future. The Creators Update should be out in a few days, with a load of new behind-the-scenes work and features that make life a little easier for developers, and after that we are going to begin work on our biggest update yet.

Cheers to two years.
« Last Edit: August 20, 2017, 10:35:17 PM by Scout31 »

damn, two years? feels like six months

damn, two years? feels like six months

Tells about your age.

Would be cool if hosts could register more than one loading screen so players could get different / random ones when joining :o

I'll see if we can ship that with 4.2, we've also thought about having a loading screen cycle so that it updates every 5-10 seconds. Perhaps changing the loading bar position or color too.

i remember when i acted in those little gifs for the add-on categories with nexus and rykuta. that was a funny time