An early May update

Hello everyone, Liam here to give you another overview of things done and future plans for GamingOnLinux.com. A lot earlier than usual but still plenty to talk about! This was first posted on Patreon.


The Forum

Turns out some people liked the old "classic" category/forum view, rather than a clean list of topics. So, I added that back. This time though, it's a more streamlined experience. There's now two buttons at the top of the forum, to switch quickly between them:



Additionally, the category view is actually a little responsive now to smaller screen sizes.

On top of that, the actual forum read/unread icons for category view were completely re-done. I didn't even realize (since I don't use the category view) that it still had the old super-low resolution space invader, which had really bad quality and looked terrible. So I taught myself some Inkscape basics to make sleek new ones:



Bright = Unread. It's noted at the bottom of the category view.

Another update for the forum is to do with user blocking. Previously, it simply removed topics from view for users you have blocked. However, if someone sent you a link to a topic from a user you had blocked, it just showed you it. Now, it will warn you first and let you temporarily override it for your current login session for that topic.


JavaScript

Continuing the work done last month, to ensure GOL works nicely for people with JavaScript disabled or blocked (when possible), the Quote button on comments and forum posts now goes to a dedicated new-post page with the quote added in. This way, people with no JS don't miss out on being able to quote when replying to anything.

The same has been done for the "Who Likes" link, if you have JS on it works as an overlay as normal, if it's off it will go to a new page. Ensuring no one missing out on it.


User Accounts

The "deepin" Linux distribution, along with its icon has been added as an option to pick for your profiles.

With the Patreon Linker, where you can refresh your status in the User Control Panel, it should now mention to new Patrons if a payment hasn't been taken and why (it's only once a month) to prevent some confusion.

The User Statistics page (and where you enter your PC Info) no longer asks for distribution architecture, we're long past the point of people using 32bit and it became a bit pointless to see 2-3 people each month.

Also on the User Statistics Page, the title of each chart is now an easy to use anchor link to that chart. Making it easy to share a specific one to people. That's live for both the Monthly and Trends views.

I've merged together the pages for managing article comment/forum topic subscriptions, making it easier to see what you're subscribed to. This also fixes the issue of the page style being broken for the forum topic subscription list, plus the original forum topic subscription page was quite old and didn't have the easy way to adjust your subscriptions like articles did so now it does :). Find it under Manage Subscriptions in the User control panel.


Lazy Loading

Turns out, the lazy loading of the tagline/homepage image for articles (the image that sites next to the title/description) implemented last month showed up a little flaw in our design.

Our homepage/article list images are now being set to a specific size, so they will in future all match-up and look better and work nicely with lazy loading.


Steam Play

Say hello to our own dedicated Steam Play section.

But why?

I was actually building a Steam Play tracker/database as soon as Valve announced it, but with many other priorities I stopped it. Not a "because I can" type of thing. I think the way ProtonDB shows data with a thoroughly mixed-up rating system, with proton forks and launchers and a ton of extras which has become too watered down and confusing. I think it loses sight of what Steam Play should be aimed at - simplicity and just hitting play.

For now though, it's just going to be a quick Steam Play home page for reference info for people to find easily. If/when we do add a ratings system to it, it will mostly be "is it click and play?" -> yes with x proton version. Not much more though, to make it easy and streamlined.

An idea I've been playing with: https://imgur.com/a/vt160Bk

Feedback: happy to take feedback on. If there's something essential you think that page needs, do let me know. I want it to be useful to you. Whatever features might make it interesting, I can hook them up. I would rather not rely on anything external though.


The GOL Games/Software Database

Linking in with that, our own AppDB pages now link to the Steam Play page if we have a Steam Store link for it and it's set as not supported on Linux. See the DOOM page as an example - if/when we add a rating thing that can link directly to the ratings and/or list it right there too. We have a lot of what would be needed for such a system in place already, and have done for a long time.

Also added quick links to the Forum and Discord on the AppDB pages below the article list.

Actually gave the database a friendly URL: https://www.gamingonlinux.com/itemdb/ - eventually I will actually link that page from the home when it's ready enough. Slowly getting there.


Steam Tracker

Our Steam market share tracker now has a simple trend line to make it easier to judge at a glance (thanks for the idea CatKiller). As you can see, we have a slow and steady upwards trend. People have repeatedly written off the monthly survey, and you could for 1-2 months claim it as noise, but an upwards trend over ~18 months can't be ignored. Let's hope it continues!

The key thing is: Steam is constantly growing, and it pretty much always will. If the Linux share stayed the same (even without an upwards trend), the actual number of Linux users would still be rising. However, we obviously need visible growth for more developers to care. Running GOL to provide the news and supporting developers is my mission and hopefully it's helping in some small ways.


Livestreams

Our community Livestream Tracker had a small update - anyone who submits their own can now delete their own. Say if you had major issues, wrong timings, wrong name and so on or you cancelled your livestream - now you can just remove it yourself. I will also look to add editing sometime as well :)


Style issues

- Dark theme distribution icons on profiles now have the correct background so you can actually see them.

- Hid article view counter on mobile screen size, saves space and looks better. It's fluff info we don't need to show on small screens/windows.


Linux For Everyone

I returned to the Linux For Everyone podcast in a fresh video, this time talking about Chronicon. It should continue to be a monthly thing!

Final Stuff

New articles live since last update: 137~

See you next month. Want to support GOL? See how on this page.

Last edited by Liam Dawe on 13 May 2020 at 1:55 pm UTC