Petopia Usability Improvements

FuzzyDolly · **Posted:** Mon Jul 26, 2010 3:59 pm

Mania wrote:

FuzzyDolly wrote:

As I said before it looks awesome, however... when you're looking at an animals page, there is no longer the thottbot link to get to a map of the pet's location. I used that feature almost every time I checked Petopia. Any chance on putting it back or even just linking to a map directly?

I wanted to shorten the text links ("Thottbot - Allakhazam - Wowhead") down into something shorter. I've used just initials before ("T-A-W") but I have trouble clicking on the tiny little links. I figured the icons for each site were a good compromise, but if they don't stand out enough then that doesn't quite work. Do you think it would help if they were in their own column in the table?

I might not have explained myself properly... what I'm missing is the links direcly on the pet pages that take you directly to that pet's thottbot (or other) page. It's a great help when you need to see a map to find a pet. Especially the rares.

Kalliope · **Posted:** Mon Jul 26, 2010 4:27 pm

FuzzyDolly wrote:

Mania wrote:

FuzzyDolly wrote:

As I said before it looks awesome, however... when you're looking at an animals page, there is no longer the thottbot link to get to a map of the pet's location. I used that feature almost every time I checked Petopia. Any chance on putting it back or even just linking to a map directly?

I wanted to shorten the text links ("Thottbot - Allakhazam - Wowhead") down into something shorter. I've used just initials before ("T-A-W") but I have trouble clicking on the tiny little links. I figured the icons for each site were a good compromise, but if they don't stand out enough then that doesn't quite work. Do you think it would help if they were in their own column in the table?

I might not have explained myself properly... what I'm missing is the links direcly on the pet pages that take you directly to that pet's thottbot (or other) page. It's a great help when you need to see a map to find a pet. Especially the rares.

That's where those links go. Just click on them and you'll see!

Mania · **Posted:** Mon Jul 26, 2010 4:30 pm

FuzzyDolly wrote:

I might not have explained myself properly... what I'm missing is the links direcly on the pet pages that take you directly to that pet's thottbot (or other) page. It's a great help when you need to see a map to find a pet. Especially the rares.

Hmm .. I think we are missing each other here.

Let's try this:

Open up this (random) page: http://www.wow-petopia.com/look/mothskinyellow.html
At the bottom, under the picture of the moth, is a table with the columns Name, Level, Location, Notes.
In the Notes columns, every row has three little images (and maybe some text).
The first image is a circle thingie (Thottbot), the second is an A (Allakhazam) and the third is a red rocket (Wowhead).
Clicking on each icon should take you to the linked site and do a search for the pet's name.

Are those the links that you meant, or am I completely misunderstanding?

Note that for a creature with a fairly specific name, like the Fern Feeder Moth, you will often go directly to the map; for something like Silkwing you'll probably end up with a results page with multiple things (Silkwing Cocoon, Silkwing Larva, Silkwing). This is because I do a search rather than having the item ID in my database. I could add the item ID ... but since I enter the data manually it might take a while.

Mania · **Posted:** Mon Jul 26, 2010 4:34 pm

Teigan wrote:

I noticed something, due to my recent owl obsession. Nevar mentioned an owl that tames as a Carrion Bird, so I went to look for it. It's the Akkarai Hatchling under http://www.wow-petopia.com/look/owlarrokoagreen.html.
You noted it is in fact a carrion bird there, on the page for the skin. But I was thinking, since you have the "other beasts with similar looks" section at the bottom, with the crow in it, why not throw the ferocity owl into the similar beasts section as well, to make it more apparent that there is indeed a ferocity owl? And also maybe add to the mouseover table that it's a Carrion Bird?
And, it's not listed under the Carrion birds section. You have the brown owl listed under the "other beasts with similar looks" section of the Carrion birds page, but the ferocity owl itself isn't listed as a Carrion bird.
So, the only way people would know there's a ferocity owl is to be looking at the actual brown owl page itself. And, those are probably people looking for a normal bird of prey owl, not a carrion bird owl.
So, there's my really long and complicated two cents worth.
I REALLY like the new features, though!

I have a special nickname for the Akkarai Hatchling: "that damned bird". Like "Count" Ungula (that damned netherray) he tends to ruin my scripts. Skin are currently linked to one family in the DB, but I should be able to add the family to the index and get something a little more accurate. I'll see what I can do, anyway.

Edit: And here is what you've wrought:

Code:

$seeAlsoLooks = $db->fetchAll(  "(SELECT DISTINCT looks2.look_key,
                                        looks2.look_name,
                                        looks2.look_plural,
                                        looks2.family_key,
                                        looks2.look_order AS final_order
                                    FROM looks looks1
                                    INNER JOIN looks looks2
                                        ON looks1.look_key = looks2.look_key
                                        AND looks1.family_key != looks2.family_key
                                    WHERE looks1.family_key = ?)
                                UNION 
                                    (SELECT DISTINCT looks.look_key,
                                        looks.look_name,
                                        looks.look_plural,
                                        looks.family_key,
                                        looks.look_order
                                    FROM looks
                                    INNER JOIN pets
                                        ON looks.look_key = pets.look_key
                                        AND looks.family_key = pets.family_key
                                    WHERE looks.see_also_family_key = ?)  
                                ORDER BY final_order", 
                            array($id, $id));

FuzzyDolly · **Posted:** Mon Jul 26, 2010 8:15 pm

Mania wrote:

FuzzyDolly wrote:

I might not have explained myself properly... what I'm missing is the links direcly on the pet pages that take you directly to that pet's thottbot (or other) page. It's a great help when you need to see a map to find a pet. Especially the rares.

Hmm .. I think we are missing each other here.

Let's try this:

Open up this (random) page: http://www.wow-petopia.com/look/mothskinyellow.html
At the bottom, under the picture of the moth, is a table with the columns Name, Level, Location, Notes.
In the Notes columns, every row has three little images (and maybe some text).
The first image is a circle thingie (Thottbot), the second is an A (Allakhazam) and the third is a red rocket (Wowhead).
Clicking on each icon should take you to the linked site and do a search for the pet's name.

Are those the links that you meant, or am I completely misunderstanding?

Note that for a creature with a fairly specific name, like the Fern Feeder Moth, you will often go directly to the map; for something like Silkwing you'll probably end up with a results page with multiple things (Silkwing Cocoon, Silkwing Larva, Silkwing). This is because I do a search rather than having the item ID in my database. I could add the item ID ... but since I enter the data manually it might take a while.

No, that's exactly what I was looking for. :oops:

Teigan · **Posted:** Mon Jul 26, 2010 9:59 pm

Mania: I looked at the brown owl update. That looks great. Makes sense and is easy to find from either bird family.
Anyhow...Brown crow-owl! I shall call him Crowl when I tame him. Yay!

And thanks for the name inspiration.

Mania · **Posted:** Mon Jul 26, 2010 11:20 pm

I'm glad you like it! I went back and forth on how to make it understandable but I think it more or less works. And now the framework is set up so that any other two-family (or three- or six- or 32-family) looks will work also.

Vephriel · **Posted:** Tue Jul 27, 2010 11:07 pm

I was perusing the Gallery of Pet Looks page just now and I think the regular Jormungar skin may have been overlooked there. The Ghost model is listed, but not the normal one. ^^

Mania · **Posted:** Tue Jul 27, 2010 11:33 pm

*cough* Yeah ... well, I never liked those worms anyway ...

Vephriel · **Posted:** Tue Jul 27, 2010 11:34 pm

Mania · **Posted:** Tue Jul 27, 2010 11:41 pm

Well I got the regular jormungar back, but broke the gallery ... and every other page on the site.

Let's try this again.

Vephriel · **Posted:** Tue Jul 27, 2010 11:42 pm

Oh boy, I can see why you never liked him. Seems to be quite the trouble maker.

Mania · **Posted:** Tue Jul 27, 2010 11:50 pm

Okay, I think we're good. Let me know if you see anything else.

Explanation: I changed the name of the jormungar skin to make space for the new jormungar colors (because eventually I'd like to have a page with unused looks, if nothing else). But I only changed the look table, not the pet table. So that's why it wasn't showing up.

To fix it, I changed the pet table locally, uploaded the fix, then regenerated the pages. But I'd forgotten that I'd removed a column from my table locally in testing, and so the remote table and the remote table-loader SQL didn't match and all the info was off by one index (i.e. pet notes were showing up instead of location).

I uploaded the fixed table-loader SQL and voila-- all better. I hope.

Sarayana · **Posted:** Wed Jul 28, 2010 8:06 am

Aaaand this is why I don't like coding.

(Mind you, working on stats in SPSS isn't much better when you have a 20 page syntax file... Huh. I guess I am not so different from my family after all...)

Foru21dr · **Posted:** Thu Aug 05, 2010 10:30 am

I know this is late, but I liked the indicator on the front page that the pet family was exotic. I myself know which ones they are, but I think it was a helpful tool. I do see it is on details bar once you go it, but just think it was useful having it on the front page.

Arrol · **Posted:** Fri Aug 06, 2010 12:47 am

I agree, i know most of the exoctics but if im not sure(i wasnt about a warp stalker, silly me im such a noob) i sat here trying to find it for a little while.

Ixnay · **Joined:** Tue Aug 17, 2010 1:00 pm **Posts:** 6

Like the improvements, definitely.

I do have one suggestion. Going through and levelling a lowbie hunter made me want to check and see what skins are available in which zones, especially the lowbie ones.

I know we can get to that information from the Search functionality on the site, but it'd be nice to be able to click the Location links on the pet skin page to be taken to a listing of all the pets in that zone.

For example: http://wow-petopia.com/look/crabskinsapphire.html

Being able to simply click on "Darkshore" or "Durotar" to bring up a list of the skins in each location would be handy, if this even makes sense...

Kayb · **Posted:** Tue Aug 31, 2010 3:56 am

Just a quick note, for the page listing the green tiger skins, shouldn't it also include the one in Shattrath hangin out with the He-Man homage battelmaster?

Kalliope · **Posted:** Tue Aug 31, 2010 5:07 am

Kayb wrote:

Just a quick note, for the page listing the green tiger skins, shouldn't it also include the one in Shattrath hangin out with the He-Man homage battelmaster?

Why would it? That cat uses the Swift Zulian Tiger model.

Kayb · **Posted:** Tue Aug 31, 2010 6:11 am

it does? hm. then my memory is broken ^_^ nevermind then

i must have been thinking of the actual Cringer and not the WoW version

i return you now to your regular programming

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