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Over the last 6 months or so, the forum has seen less and less
activity. At the moment, we are getting about 2 - 3 posts per day,
which is considerably lower than it has been before. Only the
die-hard members are still around. My opinion on why this has
happened is due to the forums that are currently available are of topics,
which are not currently of interest to people. E.g. VB6, TGF and MMF
are all old products (as much as I love and still use VB6). In
addition, the people who joined the forum to discuss these topics (mainly
to discuss game creating software) have moved on to other things.
So the question is, how to get people to come back? One big
problem is that 99.9% of topics already have a dedicated website/forum so
it is hard to compete because of this. The best thing to do is to
probably find a topic that I am interested in and then create a forum.
But how to get people to visit?
Keep Track
I recently released version 3.7.8 of Keep Track with the following
changes:
- Full information visible in the artist and track list. The artist
list displays the artist's name, number of tracks, website, artist ID
and the time and date added. The track list displays the track name,
the filename, the play length of the track, the genre, the date, the
track ID and the time and date added.
- Keep Track Statistics added, which shows, amongst other things, the
number of times a track has been played and the last time it was played
for all databases
- Changeable background picture displayed instead of blank space
- Export customisable HTML report of artists, tracks, batches and Keep
Track Statistics
- Quick search at top-right of screen for a convenient way to search
for a track name
- Keep Track can now be registered to a user (whereas before full
versions were not personalised)
- Splash screen added
- Aspect ratio fixed for pictures - no more stretched faces
- Artist, track and batch IDs now kept static i.e. they do not change
when deleting other artists, tracks or batches
- Edit track details in its own window
- Playing bug fixed for Windows Vista
- Default font changed to Arial
- Auto wild cards in search i.e. no need to type '*' before and after
the word you want to search for
I have thought of a new feature, which will be added to the next
version: allow users to add tracks to playlists whilst playing through
them.
NoteBook
As I had updated Keep Track, I thought it would be a good time to
update NoteBook. It had not had any update since 2008. The
list of updates are:
- External programs can now be used to edit all types of pages. For
example, you can use Microsoft Word to edit Rich Text Pages.
- Browser controls have been placed on the toolbar, instead of being
in a separate window
- A default document folder can now be set for when opening and saving
files
- MS-DOS Filename added to File Properties
- Plain text pasting option added to Rich Text editor
- Delete All Pages option added
- Most identified bugs were fixed, however a problem has been
discovered where shutting down the computer while the edit window is
open can cause problems. Therefore it is best to avoid this scenario
until a solution has been found.
For the first point, there is a problem where if the page name has a
space, it can cause problems with some programs. As I use the program
myself quite often, I have discovered this and a few other bugs, which
will be addressed in the next version.
New Super Mario Bros. Wii
New Super Mario Bros. Wii
I got this game as a Christmas present and until recently have not had
the time to play. Over the last two months I have managed to get to
world 8. Some people have said that they have found the levels too
hard in the later worlds, but I have not found this myself. I have found
that the level design is good, but not as innovative as Super Mario Bros.
3 or Super Mario World. Better use could have been made of the Wii's
abilities. Another problem is world 7, where I thought that there would
be more pipes, such as in world 7 (Pipe World) on SMB 3. The world 7
map suggests that this might be the case but it isn't. World 7 on
SMB 3 is may favourite hence why I consider this a problem. In this
game, up to 4 players can play on the same level at once, which is an
improvement on previous games where you had to take turns. However
it is not perfect e.g. in fortresses where you have to go up through the
level, a player dies if he falls off the bottom of the screen. Overall,
I do really like the game and look forward to finishing it. After this I
will be playing Mario Kart Wii, which I also got for Christmas and then
Super Mario Galaxy, which I recently got for my birthday. Image
source: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/2/2e/NSMBwii.jpg |
