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Hello web team!! I’m really curious - what’s been the hardest part of rereleasing and maintaining the website, especially in a post-flash era? What’s been your favorite part?
Hello web team!! I’m really curious - what’s been the hardest part of rereleasing and maintaining the website, especially in a post-flash era? What’s been your favorite part?
LEAD: I was chomping at the bit to exactly recreate the visual experience of reading Homestuck in 2011, weird margins and table layouts and all, so I had a really fun time redesigning the structure and porting everything over from the VIZ repository. I was manically compelled to make this site SO fast and reliable just out of spite for the historical loading speed of every official Homestuck iteration before this. If Homestuck.com ever goes down again I'll just walk straight into the ocean as penance.
The hardest part was probably trying to configure all this 650-pixel-locked buffoonery for the modern mobile era, but even that was pretty fun. I had a blast going through Homestuck again and figuring out what inline images could be hit with the CSS beam, converting ancient javascript to based typescript, or tagging flashes for our pipe dream future Canvas upgrades. Actually, wait, nevermind, my real favorite part was making that AO3 layout for the epilogues.
ROUTT: Homestuck is very weird in a way that makes things more challenging and also way more fun to work on. Example: imagine you have to rebuild a page designed with people on their computer in mind. People read on their phones now, it needs to work that way! The menus need to be condensed, people can't play the games anymore and need major assistance, but ALSO! Keep in mind that some asshole is going to show up on page 478296341 and start literally attacking your work. Make sure it can turn into a piece of candy too? Also don't forget about this hidden button sequence... it's a constant onslaught of the weirdest tasks I have ever been given in my life. Handling screen readers became a puzzle about preserving artistic intent vs. accessibility and also an entire narration job for a Bible-length set of images and movies and games. Oh and also Homestuck is pretty good, I like that part too
MOP: I absolutely love homestuck and was really excited to help contribute! I ended up mostly working on productionizing our releases, the search functionality, along with fixing up a few of the flashes and meenahbound. It was crazy difficult but fun to parse through decompiled flash and javascript but only have to tweak it a little to make it compatible with our modern day browsers and I'm forever in awe with what gankra came up with. The other people on the team are also such powerhouses and it was so cool to see them also come up with new things to enhance the whole homestuck/homestuck rerelease experience. It made me happy to be a part of it :).
Do you also plan to do a weekly reading session with Beyond Canon, or do you have other plans to keep the site active now that Homestuck and the Epilogues have been fully released?
Do you also plan to do a weekly reading session with Beyond Canon, or do you have other plans to keep the site active now that Homestuck and the Epilogues have been fully released?
Beyond Canon will remain its own site! There are a couple more (secret) projects planned for Homestuck.com, but once all is said and done it will enter into stasis & storage mode. The new version of the site was built with long term stability in mind, so it should hopefully last a good while, as far as these things go.
not a question just something i Have to make sure you hear. when you add your game settings menu PLEASE make it use the settings gear icon from beyondcanon.com. i just want some level of consistency between these two sites.
not a question just something i Have to make sure you hear. when you add your game settings menu PLEASE make it use the settings gear icon from beyondcanon.com. i just want some level of consistency between these two sites.
It wont :P
Actually, the lack of consistency is due to a need for exact UI adherence to the pre-VIZ site. The game settings menu (which will contain things like a new reader mode, dequirking, etc) will slot into how mspaintadventures.com used to look without creating any "new" elements.
Congratulations on getting the comic back online and in its proper home! How long did it take, all told, to get things ready for the rollout this past September?
Congratulations on getting the comic back online and in its proper home! How long did it take, all told, to get things ready for the rollout this past September?
Planning was in the works for awhile, but dev work started in July!
is there a reason why the VIZ page numberings weren’t used?
is there a reason why the VIZ page numberings weren’t used?
This is going to sound fake but even the VIZ codebase didn’t use the VIZ page numbers... Everything was stored based on the original page number and then it added the “story sum” to the url to find the right text file (example: add 1 for Jailbreak, 135 for Bardquest, 1900 for Homestuck... also yes they were stored as txt files). It was just easier to port as-is.
Will [S] Collide ever get a whole Flash page?
Will [S] Collide ever get a whole Flash page?
No, it was never a flash... Right now the YouTube version is the highest quality that exists, although we are working on getting the original workprint! Once we’ve got something higher quality we will self-host Collide as an mp4.
any plans for an archive of MSPA's newsposts?
any plans for an archive of MSPA's newsposts?
This one’s a “probably not... but who knows.” It’s a little beyond the scope of the current site for various reasons. If it does show up on Homestuck.com it’ll take a while.
Do you plan to include the rest of the long incomplete Authors Commentary with the website at any point? If so, what do you intend that to look like, especially with [S] Panels or Walkarounds?
Do you plan to include the rest of the long incomplete Authors Commentary with the website at any point? If so, what do you intend that to look like, especially with [S] Panels or Walkarounds?
I’m pretty sure it will stay incomplete (there isn’t a whole lot done besides what was already published) but putting the existing commentary on the site is in the cards!
Will Homestuck Beta be archived as well?
Will Homestuck Beta be archived as well?
It’s there!
Are there any plans to further develop the website beyond functioning as it did before going down? Specifically, I've wondered if there's some way to make interactive flashes playable on mobile, like maybe a kind of virtual gamepad with arrow keys/spacebar/etc? I have no idea if this is achievable, it's just something I've thought about since it would make Homestuck even easier to recommend.
Are there any plans to further develop the website beyond functioning as it did before going down? Specifically, I've wondered if there's some way to make interactive flashes playable on mobile, like maybe a kind of virtual gamepad with arrow keys/spacebar/etc? I have no idea if this is achievable, it's just something I've thought about since it would make Homestuck even easier to recommend.
Well. Great news.
Hello, Gamze here! ):0) My question is: Are you guys doing alright? Are you drinking plenty of Water? Are you witnessing mIrAcLeS each and every mOtHaHoNkIn DAY? I hope so, and I'm sorry I couldn't join you guys there due to work obligations. It'll be alright though, because mIrAcLeS don't have a set time to dock at that station we call Life. Anyways, keep up the good work and I can't wait to see what you all have in store for us. And from the bottom of my heart: Thanks for not giving up in us. Really, thank you. You guys are absolute CINNAMON. ):0)
Hello, Gamze here! ):0) My question is: Are you guys doing alright? Are you drinking plenty of Water? Are you witnessing mIrAcLeS each and every mOtHaHoNkIn DAY? I hope so, and I'm sorry I couldn't join you guys there due to work obligations. It'll be alright though, because mIrAcLeS don't have a set time to dock at that station we call Life. Anyways, keep up the good work and I can't wait to see what you all have in store for us. And from the bottom of my heart: Thanks for not giving up in us. Really, thank you. You guys are absolute CINNAMON. ):0)
Wow, thank you so much, Gamze. We all took a drink of water after reading your message...
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