Thursday, April 30, 2015

Changelog for 2015-04-30

Changes

  • Added Donate menu item.
  • Changed "Support Clan Tools" text to "Donations" as the former devalued all of the other ways people support Clan Tools. Everyone who provides suggestions, reports bugs, spreads the word, or simply uses Clan Tools supports the site in their own way. Thank you!
  • Switched to meta.count field for WG API interactions.
  • Added client WG API keys for NA and EU regions, though I do not expect this to have any impact.
  • Added meta tags for SEO to Clan and Player lookup pages.
  • Changed the wording of the "Clan Leadership?" message on the home page.
  • Changed the wording of the "Alpha" page, though I suspect I should stop calling Clan Tools an alpha altogether because of the negative connotations associated with the word.
  • Removed "Attendance Home" link from Code Types index page.
  • Enabled the ability for users from the RU and ASIA regions to sign in.

Fixes

  • Fixed collapsed menu not expanding.

Sunday, April 26, 2015

Changelog for 2015-04-26

Results for Matches

Matches now support having a Result (win, loss, draw) in a similar manner to Clan Wars battles, though due to the generic nature of Matches, the success rate for automated result determinations by the system is lower, especially for draws. Furthermore, the entire concept of the Clan winning or losing doesn't make sense all of the time for many replay types.

Specifically, Clan Tools will try to determine the result for the match for Company, Stronghold (Skirmish & Attack/Defense), Tournament, Clan Wars, and Team (Ranked & Unranked) replay types. Of these, Company, Stronghold Skirmishes, and Team (Ranked & Unranked) battles are assigned "absolute draw" automatically in the case of draws, otherwise "Indeterminate" is assigned. Even in the case of one team outright winning, if there are members of the clan on both sides the result will also be "Indeterminate".

As with Clan Battles Result, the result for any Match can be edited manually via the Actions drop down.

With this addition it's very important to understand how the matches system works; specifically, a single Match (which has a single "result") can have several replays from several different battles associated with it. This is by design, as it allows "grouping" of replays which is desirable in some cases. However, the result is a per-a-match, not per-a-replay, so caution must be used that new matches are being used to upload replays from separate battles, if that is desired.

New Replay Rule Filters

Several new filters have been added for replay reward rules:

Users Source

Previously, replay reward rules always used the replay player list when looking for members who met the requirements for the replay reward rule. Now the code linked to the clan battle (or match for matches) can be used instead. What this means is you can give rewards to players outside of a battle (say the reserve players) based on the same factors as could be applied to those who participated in the battle.

Please note that, while the linked code is used to load a list of players, a replay must still be uploaded to the match or battle in question for it to be checked.

Landing Zone Tournament Battle Type (for Clan Battle Reward Rules)

A new, special, battle type has been added: LZ Tournament. This battle type is special because it doesn't refer to a specific battle type, but rather to the collection of battles that make up landing zone tournaments. To put it simply, it groups landing zone tournaments (by province and day) into what is effectively a single battle, with a single result, and a single "team" consisting of every player who played in any of the battles in the landing zone. (Note that this simply explication glazes over some of the fine details, see this Guide for a more accurate and detailed look at how this battle type behaves).

As to use cases, this has been added primarily to allow assigning rewards based on the overall result of a landing zone, rather than any particular battle in that landing zone.

Result (for Match Reward Rules)

Added in conjunction with the addition of results for matches. Allows filtering by the result for Match Reward Rules the same as Clan Battle Reward Rules.

Group by Match (for Match Reward Rules)

This setting, effectively, makes Match Reward Rules behave as someone might logically expect. Before now, Match Reward Rules always ignored any groupings of replays from separate battles into single Matches. Or, to put it another way, before you could add replays from several different battles to the same match, and that would correctly assign the same Code (if any) to all of the players across those battles, but the Match Reward Rules would completely disregard this grouping.

Enabling (checking) this setting makes Clan Tools honor those groupings and give any given player a maximum of one result from any one Match regardless of the number of different battles linked to a Match.

All existing Match Reward Rules have this set to disabled; all new Match Reward Rules will have this default to enabled.

Other Changes

  • Improved robustness of replay tank to API tank matching.
  • Added "Auto Determine Match Result" setting to Match Types (under Replay Settings). Defaults to enabled.
  • Removed "Add Replay to Match" link from Match dropdown; it does the exact same thing as the "Add Replay" link and just clutters up the drop down even more.
  • Added supported for Ranked Team Battles replay type.

Fixes

  • Fixed Match Type Date check using user's selected time zone rather than regional time zone.
  • Fixed Grant page switching to Revoke page if the grant action couldn't be completed due to the entered Code being invalid.
  • Fixed JS error if Clan Battle Reward Rule result filter was set to "N/A".
  • Fixed Match Search not showing dates for replays.

Landing Zone Tournament Battle Type Guide

The LZ Tournament battle type effectively divides the rest of the filters for the Clan Battle Reward Rule into two groups, one which applies only to the last battle for the LZ Tournament that your clan participated in (so, if your clan played in the 1/8, 1/4/ and semi-finals, losing in the semi-finals, then the semi-finals would be the last battle for that particular tournament for your clan), and one for each battle within that tournament (or rather each player).

First, for the last battle in each tournament, the system checks that the result (win/loss/draw/etc...), arena (map), and province type match. If they do, all battles in that tournament are checked for the next filtering, otherwise all battles in that tournament are excluded.

Then, for the tournaments that made it through the first filtering, for each player the side they were on, the battle role, group, and uploaded replay filters are checked. If a player meets all of these criteria for even one battle within a LZ tournament, then they are considered to have met the criteria for the entire LZ tournament, and thus are said to have met the criteria for the Reward Rule once.

Notably, because often there will be several battles in the same LZ tournament, a player could meet the criteria for several battles within a LZ tournament. Duplicates are not allowed, so in such cases, the last matching battle within the LZ tournament (so, the last battle that player played in that matched) would be selected, and all others would be discarded.

This unique combination can lead to what may seem to be counter-intuitive results at times, specifically when reviewing the Replay Reward Rules in a Payout users will be displayed within the last matching battle, which may actually have a different result from what the Clan Battle Reward Rule specifies (because, recall that the system only checks the result on the last battle participated within each LZ tournament).

Hopefully you now have a better understanding of how the LZ Tournament Battle Type works.

Wednesday, April 22, 2015

Changelog for 2015-04-22 (2)

Fixes

  • New French tanks from 9.7 have been loaded from the API. No tanks appear to be missing, though the english localization doesn't appear to be finished.

Changelog for 2015-04-22

Fixes

  • Fixed issue where upon trying to delete a Code Type pre-checks did not look for links to Clan Battles or Matches, just code entries, causing issues if a code type wasn't set to automatically grant for those activities.
  • Fixed Private Notes still being displayed on clan applications, if present.

Tuesday, April 21, 2015

Changelog for 2015-04-21

Fixes

  • Fixed possibility of usernames and primary group name values overflowing onto other areas on Forums
  • Fixed Edit link for Clan Applications saying "Edit Status & Private Notes" as private notes are no longer used.
  • Added missing EU tank locking tables (same as NA).

Monday, April 20, 2015

Changelog for 2015-04-20

Clan Forums & Discussions

Private Clan Forums and Discussions (currently for Clan Applications and Payouts) have been added. Clan Forums are a customizable forum for each clan with support for subforums (everything is a "subforum" technically), per-a-forum permissions, and a few other features. You can access the clan forums from the new Forums link on the Clan Home side navigation bar, though they are "Some Assembly Required" in terms of creating subforums to suit the needs of your clan (basic forums guide available here).

Discussions are an extension of Clan Forums which embed automatically generated and linked forum threads onto the pages they related to, making it easy to have discussions. Clan Applications have two discussion threads, one in which the applicant can also participate, and one which is clan only; Payouts have a single discussion thread.

"All Members" Group

I've added an "All Members" group to all clans; this group applies to all members in the clan and thus is useful for granting permissions to everyone in the clan.

Permissions Granted

Along with the Forums came a new set of permissions; the "All Members" group has been used to give all members basic forum access, though it doesn't really give them access to anything due to each "subforum" having its own permissions. Additionally, the existing "Admin" and "Commander" groups (if present) were granted Forum Admin if they already had the "Groups > Edit" permission (which they should).

Content Security Policy

Short version: It's enabled now on every page, sans those under "Tools" and, if you're not the member of a participating clan (or not signed in), on the main page. If you want it enabled on every page, there's an option available in your settings.

Long version: I talked about enabling Content Security Policy (CSP) in a previous post. That was a month ago and I did run into a somewhat "significant problem"; user's browsers, mine included.

More precisely it's the mix of browsers and add-ons; it's my understanding, technically speaking, browsers should exclude any user add-ons (and thus anything those add-ons do or add to the page) from the current website's CSP. That doesn't happen so CPS logging gets filled with entries that aren't caused by a problem with the site itself. Even with filtering it's unmanageable. Add to this the fact a single page load can fire off several CPS logs (which isn't good for server performance at peaking times), and I was forced to rethink my approach.

Thus the current solution. I'm reasonable sure the site functions correctly with CSP enabled, so CSP is now enabled (without logging) on almost every page. CSP is specifically turned off for the "Tools" pages because I consider the likelihood of someone reporting an error, caused by CSP or otherwise, much lower for those pages. I would much rather keep logging enabled (because, even with all of the random crap, if something on the site breaks it would most likely be very noticeable), but the overhead is currently too high.

Other Changes

  • Switched Clan Applications to a tabbed navigation approach (instead of expanders).
  • Changed how Clan Application questions are displayed; the former approach sacrificed far too much readability in an attempt to save space in far too many cases, at least from my personal observations. As always, feedback is welcome.
  • Added "All Members" options for Clan Role Setting mappings.
  • Removed Payout "Note" and Clan Application "Private Notes" fields (use Discussions; existing notes were moved to posts in the relevant discussions).
  • Fully enabled support for EU clans.

Fixes

  • Fixed answers to questions for Clan Applications being escaped before being saved. Note any existing values will still display incorrectly, this fix only applies for new entries.

Clan Forums & Discussions Guide

Table of Contents

  1. Quick Start
  2. Forums Overview
  3. Discussions Overview
  4. Audits
  5. Deletion
  6. FAQ

Quick Start

  1. Go to the Clan Forums (Clan Home > Forums) with an account with Forum Admin permissions (Admin and Commander groups should have this by default).
  2. Click on "New Subforum", fill out the relevant information, making sure to setup permissions (via the Add Permission link on the editor), then click Save.
  3. Repeat step 2 until you have all of the subforums you want.
  4. (Optional) Click on Edit Layout and customize the layout of the Clan Forums.

Forums Overview

Clan Forums are rather simple; there are (sub)forums, threads, and posts. Forums are the "folders" of the Clan Forums, each one can hold any number of other forums and any number of threads. Forums are also where permissions are (primarily) assigned; for each forum you can set the following permissions per each group:

  • View - Allows viewing of the forum and all threads within.
  • Reply To - Allows replying to existing threads in the forum.
  • Create - Allows creating new threads in the forum.
  • (Moderate) Threads - Allows editing thread settings (stickied, locked, hidden, and which forum it's located) in addition to being able to view hidden threads.
  • (Moderate) Posts - Allows editing posts by any user and setting the edit permissions on posts.

Threads, as noted above, have a few settings which function as follows:

  • Stickied - Threads are displayed above non-stickied threads.
  • Locked - Threads cannot be posted in by anyone who doesn't have permissions to unlock the thread.
  • Hidden - Threads are not visible to anyone who doesn't have permissions to unhide the thread.
  • Parent Forum - Sets which forum the thread is located in.

Posts have one setting of interest, "editing restrictions". Editing restrictions allow moderators (and forum administrators) to limit who can edit a post. It's designed for preventing a user from reverting their post after a moderator makes a change, though I'm sure there's other uses.

Discussions Overview

Discussions are an extension of the forums and are really just automatically created threads which are linked to the thing being discussed. This makes them very powerful because it means they act just like any other thread.

Though discussions also can, and by default do, have a special set of permissions assigned to allow anyone who can view the thing being discussed to automatically be able to view/reply to the discussion. Essentially, out of the box, discussions "just work" but they can still be customized, or outright disabled, if desired.

Audits

Audits, or change history, is available for every post, thread, and forum. For posts clicking the Posted/Last updated text will pull up the audit records. Threads' audits can be accessed from the similarly labeled text near the bottom of the page the thread is displayed on. Forums' audits can be accessed via the This Forum dropdown.

Deletion

Forum admins have the ability to delete threads and forums, though using the existing tools to move, hide, or edit content is recommended as deletions cannot be undone.

FAQ

My clan already has a forum, why should we switch?

That really depends on what features your current forum software has, and what features you want; if you are perfectly happy with the forums software your clan is currently using, Clan Tools' Clan Forums doesn't have much, if anything, to offer. Much like Clan Tools as a whole, the question is what is the best tool for your clan and its' particular needs.

As always, I'm happy to answer any questions, either via the forums, in-game, or over TS.

Can clans share parts of their forums with other clans or the general public?

At present, no. This is certainly something I recognize will stop a large portion of clans from being able to use the Clan Forums and it is something I'm planning to add in the future, but it's a complicated issue and I don't have an ETA.

Tuesday, April 14, 2015

Changelog for 2015-04-15

Fixes

  • Fixed users not being displayed on the clan's member list under certain conditions.

Wednesday, April 8, 2015

Changelog for 2015-04-09

Fixes

  • Fixed issue with Replay Details view not displaying Replay Download Links next to players who had their replay for the battle uploaded.

Friday, April 3, 2015

Changelog for 2015-04-03

Fixes

  • Fixed "WG API Error: Value given for fields is not valid" error on Clan Wars map details page.

Wednesday, April 1, 2015

Changelog for 2015-04-01

Changes

  • Added Stronghold Skirmish and Stronghold Battle (Attacks and Defenses) to Player and Clan Lookups.
  • Renamed All Stats to Overall Stats to better reflect what those stats are considered by both Wargaming and the general community, rather than actually being the sum of all of the battles a player ever played in.
  • Added "All Stats", which is now actually all battles a player has ever played in that is reported by the WG tanks API (Pub, Clan Wars, Tank Company, Team, and Stronghold).