WAS Paint and Other Upgrades

[SokerCap]

I'm working on and planning (still mostly planning) a number of new features, toys and mods for the forums. Lately it's been pretty dead and I know most people have lots of other stuff going on, so I'd like to add some stuff on here to make casual and quick updates easier.
On a side note, I am also making these programs as my own hobby project and possibly to boost my software portfolio if they turn out well, so even if no one actually uses them it is fine with me (though I'd rather they are actually helpful). To that end, any critiques and suggestions are appreciated when I make new mods available on the forum.

Now to the good stuff in order of priority. Discussions welcome and if you'd actually use it:

WAS Paint / Paint thread:
Simple online paint tool similar to Tegaki, facebook graffiti, msn paintchat etc. Tool for drawing quick small images that save as an image online.
Also integrated into forum paint threads, where every reply is a paint image
Status: Online and working!
*update 12/04*
-the link below "User Control Panel" that either says "Spartaaa" or "Fun Menu" now opens WAS Paint in a new window, if you want to use it outside the confines of a paint thread
-There is currently one paint thread up (http://forum.thewas.org/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=1332&start=0) where each reply will load was paint in the area the reply usually goes. Currently works for wasnew and wasnewblue themes. When you are done painting, hit save, put in a name for the image, and it will automatically convert your response to the new saved image. Hit submit to post. I will add something soon so that anyone can specify a new topic as a paint thread when they create it, and put one in the Imageboard area so people can post without logging in.
-PNG support available. Select PNG or JPG for how you want your image to be saved after you paint.
-Custom cursor- the paint cursor reflects the current alpha,width and color you are using
-Undo - undo up to 10 brush strokes or background changes. Redo is not yet working so don't expect to get anything you undo back yet.

Specialized Threads (battles,collab,party,art jam)
This would just be a more organized way of doing the same thing we already do. When a thread is started you specify the type, and it organizes posts based on that
Status: Planning
For example:
-battle threads - The first post with the details and contestants would be pinned. The specified contestants will be able to mark their posts as submissions which automatically update the opening thread and make it easy to browse the actual submissions. Other posts will be organized under the submissions or general section it was posted under.
-collab - similar to the battle, but without separating each submission as a separate comment thread. The OP would specify who was in the collab group, and those posters would be able to mark their posts as official updates.
-party / art jam - An option to specify posts as submissions or comments so that all the actual submissions can be browsed separately from the any comments.

Fixed / Browseable Image Archives
Not sure how many people even noticed the links under their posts, but as of a while ago, the forum checks for any images in new posts and attempts to save those images onto one of my web accounts. If you click the link under your post you can see any images it attempted to archive for that post. Right now it seems to miss a lot of posts, so at one point I'll make it more reliable. I can also make a gallery/browser system to be able to see archived images for specific users and be able to pull up the related forum post when browsing.

Artist of the Month
I'd like to start this up again at some point and have cafepress prizes again, though my finances are kinda bad right now. Also since there is so little activity it seems a bit wonky to vote monthly within the same tiny group. If you guys liked it though I can start it up again pretty fast. It'll have a much better automated voting system built into the forum.

Better Chatty Thing
Update the chat thing at the bottom so it is smoother. Think gmail chat or facebook chat. No one seemed like they'd actually use it when I made it, so I haven't put much priority into fixing it yet though.

WAS Paintchat Room
Group paintchat rooms built into the forum, with private and public rooms. My server at the moment doesn't have enough ram to run Java required for the regular paintchat program, so I'll either put it in when I upgrade or write my own paintchat from scratch.

Gallery, Public Upload Space, Emails
Automated gallery, webspace (name.thewas.org domain), easy uploading (photobucket without crappy limits), and email addresses (name@thewas.org) . I can set these up manually but the webspace is little bit of an issue as the current server is already at 70% ish disk space. I can set up an automated way to store the actual files on my godaddy account though which has 93455345 bajillions of super gigametric megabytes. Not sure if anyone would use it considering there are already free alternatives. Email accounts can be setup to forward to your regular address also or I could write something that would turn the email into a pm on the forum.


So that's a lot of stuff but I figured I'd just dump it all here to see if there's any actual interest in these. The Tegaki thing I'm already working on though. If you have any ideas for something I haven't mentioned here, this is the place to mention it. .. i should be sleeping

[Madel]

That's exciting.
Because that makes it easier for my lazy ass to update. :B

[Seraph]

Holy crud, so much work you've been up to!

Soker, I hope all of this goes through, because that would be so super awesome.
Don't worry about doing an artist of the month! Don't spend all your money. : (

[Para-Chan]

All of this sounds awesome!! I'm super excited about the web space <3

[Ninja]

I'm kinda super excited about possibly having a "LeetNinja[at]thewas[dot]org" email. That would be so incredibly awesome.

With the live gallery thing you were talking about. Could that be a set location that we could save comics? and Archive them there or something? I know i started saving a couple series, in case something ever happened to the original work. (Legend of WAS, Was Temple, All There Ever WAS, Chronicles, and New Moon) Just a thought.

You're the one that's pretty much keeping WAS alive at this point. Thanks a lot man. I know I really appreciate it.

[Eiffel]

I can only pledge my undying love to you so many more times before it loses its meaning, Sok.

All of this looks awesome. :>

[SokerCap]

WAS Paint is working! CHECK IT:

*EDIT* I kept working on it and there is now a paint thread where the paint program is embedded into the reply page, please try that

http://forum.thewas.org/tools/waspaint/waspaint.html


The brush/circle tools don't change anything yet, that'll be one of the next things I do.

Currently has:
-Brush tool
-opacity
-width
-color picker
-BG Color picker
-Layers
-currently fixed at 3 layers
-layer opacity
-Save to JPEG
-Uses your forum login to save your current image to your user directory. If you aren't logged in, will go under Anonymous
-creates user web directory if it doesn't exist.. ie for me it created "http://sokercap.thewas.org/waspaint/IMAGE_NAME", also accessible at
"http://www.thewas.org/members/sokercap/waspaint/IMAGE_NAME"
For people with spaces or funky characters in your name it might act weird. Spaces get turned into underscores, other symbols might break it

Feedback plz!

I'll get emails n webspace configured soon.The archiver should already be saving anything posted in the forums, including any comic series, but being able to view them coherently in a gallery setting would be great.

[spacejho]

dude since im mad cazh i'll provide presents for artist of the month

but instead of month maybe make it a quarter cause a month goes by so fast