runouw.com

Yeah, you got it. It's another one of these topics of mine. As the title describes, it's a fairly old "issue" on this very site here.
Please note that the bold/underlined parts are reflecting my personal view. Making them obviously subjective. So go and make up your own opinion.

It's simply the complicate and hard to find level submission process, everyone seemed to have forgotten about after submitting their first levels.

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I'm fairly certain that the majority of level designers had problems with actually finding the option itself already. This includes me actually. It took me quite long and it even ended up frustrating me to some point I wanted to give up trying. Huh, boy I would definitely have missed something if I would have given up back then. A thoughtworthy idea would be implementing a link to the submission process in the user control panel for me. As I can imagine not everyone being too fond of having additional options up there, I'd like to remember that this site still centers about levels to some extend. Which will be submitted at some point. (BY the way. I used the somewhat tiny link at the bottom right of the portal page to submit my levels.)

First things first. Please let's find a solution to make the submission option far more obvious and easier to find. If needed in multiple locations.

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The more or less frequent topics of users, especially beginners who seek help shows, that this problem is persistent up to this day. You cannot rely on users especially beginners to go find and read a topic helping them to find something they should be able to find BY themselves in the first place. Especially if said topic title(s) don't make it clear that they'll be helpful with this specific problem.

Every additional step that has to be taken is one too much.

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That's probably the shortest @-Topic I've done yet. The problem itself is obviously not the most complex one, so it's probably fine, the way it turned out.
I'd like to ask of you guys to seriously consider this as issue, as it's often things like this, we're losing sight of.

So yeah. Thanks for your attention. May the next @-Topic be of a positive nature as this one.

Couldn't we essentially remove the text from the portal page and just have a left and right image, linking to the separate portals?

I agree, the process is very complicated, unless you are or were around during the days the system was developed, discussed, or before it was ever thought of.

This could go along with the header rework (if that's even still happening...).

Anyway I just want to point out that one possible solution is to just make the "Submit a Level" button on the portal pages (which can be accessed from here) larger. It's really puny as is:

And even on the Levels List page that can be found on the forum index, the submit buttons are still tiny, though more visible than in the other two lists:

So either increasing the text size/placement of those buttons, or just converting them into flashy images could help, in addition to maybe having better links in the header? Not really sure.

I know this is a shot in the dark, but why not dropdowns on mousehover?

The first thing that new users are encountering before registering are our general rules. Those should be filled with links to every important topic and feature on the site, including the links leading to submitting a level, so if a new user claims that he couldn't find the way to submit a level, then it's just their own fault. The portals are merged into the forums for a reason. If a new user wonders on where to submit a level, they'll just have to scroll down the Board Index page. And if they still have trouble on the process then they have a note in a vine red border linking them to the new level posting rules/guides from now on.

I agree however that the links on the portal lists pages are not very shiny and, referring to OJ's post, this could be improved in a way like the LL site already does (if you look at the bottom of the LL portal you know what I mean).

Idk about everyone else but I didn't come to runouw for the forums, I came to submit levels. So I went straight to the runouw.com main site page. And saw the tab "levels" or "portal" now. I went there and was able to post up my levels straight away.

Obviously it has changed now, but there are still links to each level portal on the main page. If you go to the forum portals it says at the bottom "Submit a Level", which is the first place I would have looked if I was a newbie wanting to post levels.

If I'm honest I'm not sure I agree that it's that big a priority. My opinion.

Seconding OJ. I am only just now actually seeing the submit a level button- if he hadn't said "way down in the bottom right" I would still be looking.

I think I was on my tablet when I looked at the portal yesterday so that might be why it was so easy to find for me, because the screen was able to zoom in etc.
Then yes, with that point, I agree that we should definitely either move that link to the top of the page right in the centre, or increase the size of the writing. Or just do both lol.

But I have a feeling we'd still need access to the inner workings of the site to be able to do this, and afaik it's not worked so far.

Actually, no. I can get to most of the page structure through the ACP...

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How does it look now?