Thanks a lot! That's just what I was looking for! If you guys hadn't told me, I wouldn't have found it myself. If anyone from GB staff is reading this, it might be a good idea to make the feeds more prominent.
You know? People call the, uh, protagonist Sackboy. No point in changing that. And while I appreciate your effort to rid the world of this grave injustice, I'm certain the Sackpeople of the world won't be offended. After all, they're fictional.
I haven't found a topic concerning this, so here I go:
When I play my games and choose to use a guide, I like to either put it on my psp/laptop/iphone/whatever and use that rather than constantly alt-tab to it. While it's presently possible to save an offline copy, there are some problems with that.
- In Firefox, the table of contents is broken (0 and 1 instead of section titles) - The TOC doesn't work on browsers that don't support java script. - Saving the printer-friendly version leaves the TOC without links you can click. - It's inelegant - it saves as a .htm file and some files in an additional folder, whether or not it's the printer-friendly version. Come on. There's no JS required for an inherently static document meant for printing!
So I'd like to make a request for an offline copy feature.
Wishlist: - Either get rid of the CSS altogether, or embed it. Don't put it in a .css file. Users may want to use the file with the very primitive browsers in devices like phones and handhelds. Stick with simple HTML and basic anchor links if you can. - Don't include any images in the layout unless they are usefull, rather than decorative. A small giant bomb logo is acceptable though. - Zip it. Saves bandwidth. Preserves directory structure. I understand it would strain the servers a bit. But the relatively small files would only require compression upon edit, and even then it doesn't have to be immediate. You could schedule compression for when there's more cpu-power to spare. - Make sure the file is named properly - like "Fallout 3 attribute and skill guide - 16.11.2008.zip" rather than "1827631019281092.zip". - Put a perma-link to the online guide somewhere in the document. - Make sure the offline copy doesn't use any online content. Some cellphones have a tendency not to ask for permission to go online. - Ideally, a guide that doesn't use any images should only consist of a single, self-contained file after decompression. - Make sure the colors, if any, are printer friendly - some people will want to print the offline file rather than the printer-friendly version already available online. - Text-only advertising would be OK, I guess. Large images not so much. - Don't define font sizes. Most devices will know the right size for them. So will all modern browsers.
Portability was one of the saving graces of text-only guides. It would be awesome if that portability could be preserved for giantbomb's guides.
P.S. First post! P.P.S. If this has been discussed somewhere else, or if this happens to be the wrong section, sorry. One tries.
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