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Site I've been working on every evening for six weeks - ycnews feedback would be awesome

clutu.com

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Re: Site I've been working on every evening for six weeks - ycnews feedback would be awesome

#11

Post by abstractbill »

PindaxDotCom wrote: post #3

Not bad, I like the concept. The crossword grid doesnt quite look right in IE6. This is the sort of concept that you infinitely play around with. Some ideas for your to-do list: 1. Widgetize it 2. I know its collaborative, but throw in a few features that cater to the solo user 3. Add in some kind of top-score list or top-user list and put on home page 4. Screen shot of game on home page 5. Allow users to pick games…

"The crossword grid doesnt quite look right in IE6"

Typical :-( I tested in IE7 (and firefox, safari, and opera). Thanks for the heads-up.

Thanks for the ideas also!

Re: Site I've been working on every evening for six weeks - ycnews feedback would be awesome

#13

Post by abstractbill »

patrickg-zill wrote: post #6

If you are having problems with legitimate email being stopped by spam there are a number of ways to improve your odds of getting through. What email address - your domain or the email of the person doing the invite? Do you have SPF records set up? Reverse DNS? What does dnsstuff.com have to say about your IP being in any spam databases? Or DNSreport have to say about your domain?

I've tried every suggestion from every article I could find on the subject - SPF is set up; DKIM is set up; dns records are fine according to every checker I could find; SpamAssassin doesn't report anything bad; the IP's not in any blacklist I could find.

Thanks all the same though.

Re: Site I've been working on every evening for six weeks - ycnews feedback would be awesome

#14

Post by davidw »

binarybits wrote: post #8
binarybits wrote: post #7

This is a very slick little application! Some random thoughts: It wasn't obvious to me that the anagram clues were anagrams. Woul it really kill you to spell out "anagram?" Maybe even put "Anagram:" before the clue instead of putting it in parentheses afterwards? What's the point of the "play" button? Why not just give the user a puzzle right out of the gate? The delete key should let me delete a letter, and probably…

Huh, I guess asterisks have special meaning in the site markup. I was trying to make a bulleted list, but instead I got every other point italicized.

See: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27783

Re: Site I've been working on every evening for six weeks - ycnews feedback would be awesome

#15

Post by mynameishere »

Black-on-blue lettering very painful.

The puzzle itself looks nice, but I think there is a slight contrast problem with the black-to-white fading of the white squares against the black background. It just feels slightly off, no big deal.

However: You've clearly got some bad bugs in this. I went to answer "Country whose capital is Tehran" and it took a good minute before I could enter the answer. I clicked on it, the correct row highlighted green, and when I went to type "I", the second letter filled in "I". Then I pressed the first square of four, but the attached (horizontal) row highlighted. So I clicked on the IRAN squares again, typed I-R-A-N, it didn't work, and after some fiddling, I typed it again, and it seemed to enter I-I-A-N, then I-I-I-N, then it highlighted the last square, which flashed I then R then A then N as I typed them, then finally I typed it again, it seemed to go I-I-I-I, then changed to IRAN, finally. ???

Re: Site I've been working on every evening for six weeks - ycnews feedback would be awesome

#16

Post by abstractbill »

mynameishere wrote: post #15

Black-on-blue lettering very painful. The puzzle itself looks nice, but I think there is a slight contrast problem with the black-to-white fading of the white squares against the black background. It just feels slightly off, no big deal. However: You've clearly got some bad bugs in this. I went to answer "Country whose capital is Tehran" and it took a good minute before I could enter the answer. I clicked on it, the…

Thanks for the feedback!

It's possible the site is overloaded to the extent that ajax messages are getting lost (I have no resend mechanism right now).

Out of interest though, what browser/os are you using?

Re: Site I've been working on every evening for six weeks - ycnews feedback would be awesome

#17

Post by ian »

I think cryptic crossword players would be particularly interested in this. There is a significant amount of kudos associated with solving an unusual clue and therefore perhaps more desire for users to share solutions with the community/collaborate on solutions. I know avid fans of the Times (UK) crossword who pass their part-complete solutions back and forth throughout the day, your app would be an easier way for them to collaborate. For more details see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cryptic_crosswords

Re: Site I've been working on every evening for six weeks - ycnews feedback would be awesome

#18

Post by brlewis »

abstractbill wrote: post #2

clutu is a crossword game you can play online with your friends. I've been working on it every evening and a couple of weekends for six weeks now, after being inspired by counttonine.com If you want to play clutu fast, you can instantly see what your friends are doing thanks to ajax. If you prefer to play slower you can bookmark your game and/or subscribe to an rss feed for it. clutu runs in sbcl, using hunchentoot a…

Overall looks great.

Sometimes single-clicking on a square made that square get the next letter typed, sometimes it didn't. Other than that it seemed smooth.

I don't think there's a reliable route past spam filters for any kind of web-site invite. You might give users some text to cut/paste into their own email to friends.

Re: Site I've been working on every evening for six weeks - ycnews feedback would be awesome

#19

Post by abstractbill »

brlewis wrote: post #18
abstractbill wrote: post #2

clutu is a crossword game you can play online with your friends. I've been working on it every evening and a couple of weekends for six weeks now, after being inspired by counttonine.com If you want to play clutu fast, you can instantly see what your friends are doing thanks to ajax. If you prefer to play slower you can bookmark your game and/or subscribe to an rss feed for it. clutu runs in sbcl, using hunchentoot a…

Overall looks great. Sometimes single-clicking on a square made that square get the next letter typed, sometimes it didn't. Other than that it seemed smooth. I don't think there's a reliable route past spam filters for any kind of web-site invite. You might give users some text to cut/paste into their own email to friends.

Thanks.

I really should have noted that you can just cut and paste the url of you game and send that to your friends if the emails don't get through.

"Sometimes single-clicking on a square made that square get the next letter typed, sometimes it didn't"

I've never seen this myself - what browser/os?

Thanks again.

Re: Site I've been working on every evening for six weeks - ycnews feedback would be awesome

#20

Post by abstractbill »

ian wrote: post #17

I think cryptic crossword players would be particularly interested in this. There is a significant amount of kudos associated with solving an unusual clue and therefore perhaps more desire for users to share solutions with the community/collaborate on solutions. I know avid fans of the Times (UK) crossword who pass their part-complete solutions back and forth throughout the day, your app would be an easier way for th…

Excellent, thanks!
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