Guide To DS-Scene Features

If you want to know what you can do on DS-Scene, then you have come to the right place! Here at DS-Scene we like to give you as many options to help you customise your experience on our site to the maximum. Now I understand that I have packed quite alot into the site and this may take a little while for some of you to get used to everything. You may also not have noticed everything that is new so here is a little guide on everything that may not be quite so obvious to you comparing our site to others available and of course to the old DS-Scene aswell.

DS-Scene - A Historical Website

I mainly hope this guide further helps to enhance your time that you spend here.

Prepare to be enlightened.... perhaps bored as I will probably waffle discussing this topic in public for the first time.


Movable Panels



This should be fairly obvious but you may miss it. You can actually slide the side panels up and down on DS-Scene. On some pages the top panel may be static but moving the other panels on the pages allows you to customise the order you want them to appear in as demonstrated in the image above. Hovering over the side, top or bottom bars will show you a icon. You can then drag the boxes into position. Some of the panels are related to other panels on different pages, you should be able to work this out but just incase for example; The "Recent Downloads" box in the download section is related to the "Recent Forum" discussions so if you move these the related panels will change their order aswell.



You can also do this on the forum index aswell. Allowing you to display your favourite forum at the top. Clicking on the name of the forum in the bar at the top of the forum box will take you to a page that displays just that forum index on it's own, so try not to click there when you move them.



To reset the panels back to the default setting, click the link for the appropriate panel set at the footer of the page. You will be asked to confirm your actions before they are reset.

The settings for sliding panels are stored in a cookie. If you experience problems with this feature, you can always try clearing the cookies in your browser which will reset the panels to default. You also need to know this incase you clear your cookies and wonder why ds-scene's panels reset.


Skin Selection



You can choose a different skin for DS-Scene. They are selected by choosing from the bottom right in the footer, next to the reset panels links.

We currently have 1.5 skins available. I say the half because at time of writing we have the Jet Black skin and the Noble Pink for selection. The Noble Pink skin is still in development and has a few buttons missing but you can check it out if you wish. We plan to add more in the near future so keep an eye open for those!

If you have the (Default) skin selected, when we change the default skin for the site, your skin will also change. You will of course be able to change back and we may never change the default skin, only time will tell.


Refresh Icon



This is quite a convenient little number if I must say so myself. At the bottom of certain boxes you may notice this icon, on clicking it you will notice it start to spin and a few seconds later, the box you requested will be refreshed! This should help conserve our precious server aswell as the main reason for this feature, to save you having to refresh the whole page to check what is new!

I will point out a few of these icons in the rest of this guide, so read on my fellow DS-Sceners.


Current Users Box



What? DS-Scene has more than one site you ask? For sure you hear us cry! We also have the ever growing popular Wii.DS-Scene for all of your latest Wii Scene news. You can also view the site from your wii (there is a better skin for this purpose if you wish) and there is a section for viewing the DS news if you want to look at that there instead (read-only).

Now what was I saying about the current users box after blatantly plugging our Wii site there? Oh yeah, well you can now select the other sub domains of DS-Scene by using the drop down box provided to check if any of your buddies are hanging out there or maybe you are just interested in what is going on there. This box also has one of the refresh icons I mentioned earlier so this box is refeshable.


Other Information Box



This box has 2 functions at present:

• View your watched topics
  
• Organise WiFi matches

To view your watched topics, simply select the option from the drop down box above. There you will see the other options for setting up your WiFi matches which is a little more complicated.



To make yourself available for a WiFi game, first you must add a friend code for the game in your profile. After you have added a friend code, you can choose if you wish to be shown as available to play that game. To do this you choose the My WiFi Requests option from the drop down box and tick the game you wish to play.



After making yourself available to play a WiFi game, your name will then show for that game if you select it
from the drop down box. This will allow people to see that you are available for the game and can send you a
PM or email through the site so you can share friend codes etc.

Have fun!

Other Boxes



There are several other boxes on DS-Scene that have a drop down box in them similar to the current user box. This time though the box allows you to choose the quantity of items you wish to display in that particular box. Handy no? We have done away with the "Older Discussions" box here as you can now choose 20 items for "Recent Discussions".

Take care not to get confused. Although the positions of the boxes may be relative to eachother (see sliding panels), the quantity setting is unique for each box so have fun customising your views in this area.

These boxes with drop down boxes all have the refresh icon aswell, so that's another few boxes for you that are also refreshable!


Pop-up Pms



When you recieve a new pm on DS-Scene, you will get a convenient pop-up box which will show you all of your unread messages. This box should only show once so take note if it pops up especially if you are on an automatically redirecting page as you do not get long on those (currently 7 seconds).

Note - This feature is not supported by IE6 and lower! Users browsing with these browsers will get a javascript message then will be linked to their inbox.


Image Viewer



On certain pages we have links to images, a good example of this are the rom boxes on the news page and the rom list. When you click the link, a box will pop up showing the image you chose. This box will stay static on the page as you scroll up and down and can be moved about and positioned at will. Just click the icon to close the box once you are finished.

Note - This feature is not supported by IE6 and lower! Users browsing with these browsers will get a javascript message then will be linked to the image in question.


Hidden-Filter & Sort Options



This is a feature added by popular demand. It allows you to filter each section of certain lists around DS-Scene. This should help you find your pages alot faster. The filters are hidden away when you load the pages and they can be found at the bottom right hand corner of the list if it supports it. These are hidden away due to the fact that the sheer amount of information in some of them ruins the display of the site for people viewing in 1024x768 resolution.



After clicking the "Show Filters" link, a filter bar will pop up allowing you to choose the filters of your choice.

A quick note on sorting tables. All of the same tables that are sortable now were sortable before but we have added a few extra for you. For instance you can sort the download sections which I know was a massive problem on the old site.

It shouldn't take you long to find what you are looking for now I am sure you will agree.


Download Section Improvements



As mentioned before, you can now sort the download sections. We also have the hidden filters here aswell to make things a bit easier and as requested again, you can now vote for you favourite files in the download section! We also have the image viewer implemented on this page aswell for viewing the images of the files be it a screenshot or company logo etc.



We have also implemented a new page in the download section where you can view the statistics for the files. Here you can see again see the image that goes with the file, see more information about the file than is dipslayed in the list and of course, register your vote for your favourite files.


Icons For Your Threads



When creating a new thread in the forum, you now have a selection of well over 60 different icons you can choose to label your post a bit better in the forum. Previously you had a few smileys and that was your lot so I hope you like these. We will be adding more aswell as I coded an nice easy way for us to add to them.


My Topics and Post History Sections



We had watch topics before but there was no way for you to view what you were watching. Here we have a section for you to see the topics you are currently watching. On top of this you can view your posting history here with a record of all your posts you have ever made. You can also view other peoples posting history by going through a link on their profile but you cant view their watched topics naturally.


Profile & Settings



Last the list is your profile and settings. I have tried to group the sections a bit better whilst adding a few bits while I am there. You can now reset your email address using the section provided and you now have your own settings option. Currently in there you have your standard "recieve emails" options etc, plus your normal view options for the news page of DS-Scene and finally a couple of new options to allow you to customise your avatar and signature view options for the forums.


Other Stuff

I left a few things out so I may aswell list the other new things here whilst I am at it. Just briefly as there is an afwul lot new as you can see already.

• Site security upped and extra protection in place for user profiles etc.
  
• Can hide and show parts of the boxes while making posts and polls etc.
  
• New site "modes" added to allow closures and read only modes.
  
• Show screenshots in main rom posts (additional to image viewer). Shown in a hidden box under ther rom.
  
• Site coding totally revamped in every way shape and form. Optimised coding.
  
• New background color option for posts.
  
• Search now higlights words searched for in the posts + search optimised for speed (limited to 200 posts, 100 from each section; news or forums).
  

This post has been edited by retrohead, Sat, August 25th, 2007 at 23:58

Reason: Added other information box guide