Meant to be Seen

Meant to be Seen is very proud of the work we have done here.  Readers can benefit from several S-3D game reviews, countless news stories, and great interviews with industry leaders.  More than that, our members have been top contributors to the website and industry alike.



Unfortunately, while MTBS' traffic has doubled year over year from word of mouth alone, mtbs3D.com has been largely invisible to search engines like Google, Bing, Yahoo, and more.  Our presence was felt thanks to regular press releases, but the ability for search engines to properly explore MTBS was largely hampered.  This has been a very big disadvantage for us, even compared to the smallest of blogs.

Even when people would visit MTBS, it was a challenge because articles were hard to find.  The frame that the site was based on made it difficult to cross-link articles too.  In summary, MTBS' effectiveness was literally being crushed under its own growth.

Thankfully, we have been working very hard with a talented web designer named Vadim Krivosheev.  He has spent countless hours converting the original MTBS into what you see here today.  Here are just some of the leading improvements:

1. No more frame!  You can cross-link articles now.
2. Website is indexed!  You can search for keywords.
3. The website's comments engine is directly linked to our forums!  Much more convenient.
4. Your PHPBB and MTBS registration are one and the same.

This is still a beta test.  Some bugs we know about include:

1. The forum still needs some cleaning up.
2. The comments articles in the forum may be doubled.  This will stop as the site matures and new content replaces the old content.
3. PHPBB needs to be fixed still.  Smilies and embedded YouTube content still don't work.

This is just the beginning!  Please share your thoughts by commenting below.

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Cool. Maybe blogs will start sourcing MTBS for articles now.

Remember, this is a beta test.

Please don't hesitate to point out problems, etc. We aren't finished yet.

Regards,
Neil

The site looks amazing! Way to go Vadim! You are awesome!

What a relief, the frames are gone! Way to go!

If you click on "MTBS Forums" in the navbar, it still opens in a separate frame (http://www.mtbs3d.com/index.php?option= ... &Itemid=78" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;), and this badly screws forum styling, especially font colors.

Everything else is fine for me, except than when I send private messages to anyone other than myself, the sent messages forever stay in Outbox instead of Sent Items.

Yeah. The forum is a bit screwy right now. We will get this fixed up.

Regards,
Neil

Why don't you leave it at http://mtbs3d.com/phpbb/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false; for now?

That's what we will do.

Regards,
Neil

Yeah, I think I have the same issue with PMs, not sure if they actually sent or not.

We dropped the updated forum version in favour of the http://www.mtbs3d.com/phpbb" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false; version. It just seemed much cleaner.

Can you confirm that the problem still exists? Maybe send me a PM to see if I get it?

Regards,
Neil

Neil, I've sent PMs to you and to cybereality; they're still in the Outbox, not Sent items.

Are you sure it's not possible to merge the doubling news topics in the Newswire? What about moving all the older threads and posts from the MTBS Newswire to the MTBS News? Surely a time-consuming task, but I believe the forum should handle this move transparently and no hyperlinks to existing threads should be broken...

There are some bug fixes still going on. I will have this investigated. The pm you sent me that I responded to, did it stay in the outbox?

The doubling is temporary. What happened was the new system creates a thread for each article printed. We can easily choose destination categories, but not bind specific pre-existing threads. What will happen is moving forward, future threads will not be doubled.

We are still looking for workarounds.

Regards,
Neil

Neil wrote:The pm you sent me that I responded to, did it stay in the outbox?

No, it's in Sent Items now.

We can easily choose destination categories, but not bind specific pre-existing threads ... We are still looking for workarounds

I see. Hopefully you will be able to correct this eventually. Are you using a custom CMS or some PHPBB plug-in?

The site looks sharper but the box background for the main menu and submenus makes it hard to read with a white font. Solid black background or something else solid would be better IMHO.

The format for listings resources probably doesn't look as nice but I am sure administratively, it is a dream

After all, it is the contents that matters most on mtbs3d, not the container but it is a nice touch.

Thanks
Chris

Your feedback is valued. Can you as specific as possible?

Regards,
Neil

Hi Neil,

What I mean is that the gradient used as background for the submenus makes it look weird.

I would suggest either make it solid, or use the gradient that goes from clearer-darker-clearer, so that the white font stands out over the dark part of it.

See what I mean ?

I think so. We will look at this.

Regards,
Neil

The comments do not display on the news articles (like the Mass Effect review for example). Although you can post, and it does correctly post to the thread, it will not display on the article itself. The button to "show/hide comments" does nothing.

Ok. Will check.

Regards,
Neil

Just some updates:

1. I found the bug only presented itself in Firefox, and not Internet Explorer.
2. When I upgraded my Firefox to the latest version (stability fixes, etc.), the problem went away.

Can you confirm?

Regards,
Neil

I am using Firefox 3.6 and haven't changed anything recently but the comments now seem to work. Maybe it was a fluke?

They work, they stop working, then they work again. It's unique to that thread. In IE it works. I'm in touch with the software compare to try and trace down the problem.

Regards,
Neil

The remarks don't show on the news stories (like the Mass Effect survey for instance). In spite of the fact that you can post, and it does effectively post to the string, it won't show on the article itself. The catch to "show/shroud remarks" sits idle.

I will check it out - thanks! Can you share a sample link?