OldGameMags

Hello people!

I'm confused and would appreciate if someone can clear it up for me.
I was a member on oldgamemags.net, and before that i was on older one, i believe but that one was migrating to new one (now the old one) and now to this one (i hope there is no newer one still).

So on older sites i could easily navigate folders of what i'm interested in, like say EGM magazine.
But ever since this website i cant really navigate, its confusing.

Can someone guide me to how to find, and, or browse issues on this (hopefully) new site that oldgamemags migrated to? Its really confusing to me.

Also, is this the last one, no more migrations?

Thanks!

What? Is this a joke?  :o

Clearly not so here's a quick history OGM in the 12 years I have been running it.

First started on WordPress. Really liked it but thanks to the security holes infesting it some hacker locked me out of the admin interface and thus the site was dead in the water so I .....

Turned to Joomla as it states that it is a "content management" system. Turns out the download manager couldn't handle the volume of files and after 4000 or so I couldn't add any more content. Serious issue for a site wanting to host files so I .....

Turned to PHP-Fusion using oldgamemags.net so I could try and use the old site to credit the scanners for their work by keeping the old site up in the background. Also allowed me to migrate the member base across. This platform was okay but kitsunebi and a couple of others who used the site for more than just posting a couple of posts/comments identified a set of glaring deficiencies which were unfixable due to the small developer base for that platform. After looking at the options I settled on .....

SMF forum as it doesn't cost $100's like IPBoard to purchase (followed by more money to pay for yearly updates). I purchased a download manager and here we are hosting 11,000+ files with no problems seen at my end to date.

No more migrations you say?
 
Well, you don't pay for the running or hosting of the site so you don't have any say whatsoever in what I do with the site. It costs me more than the usual yearly donations to pay for hosting and the seedbox which provides you all with the fast http downloads rather than the awful Mediafire file hosting used previously.

What you are suggesting is that IF the site platform breaks at some point in the future that I just shut it down and not look at alternatives to getting it back up and running? Why didn't I think of that? I mean to say, it'll give me ALL my free time back rather than spending a huge chunk of it toiling every day uploading files and adding them to only receive negative responses from people. Maybe I should take that advice? Sounds like a good plan.

With the huge number of downloads being made by other members of the site there clearly isn't a big problem with them finding files.

As I'm in a bit of an annoyed mood over this post I'll take myself out of this and let one of our members politely explain the download area and how to search, click on categories, links etc.

;D

Instructions to find what you are looking for:
1. Click downloads up the top.
2. Everything is sorted conveniently into categories.. EGM is a multi-format magazine, so this is where you will find it.
3. If all else fails, there is a search button on the downloads page.

Yeah, Kiwi's reaction was perhaps a bit...too sensitive... ;D  but I'll admit I chose not to reply to this myself because I wasn't sure how to explain how to use the download section without sounding condescending.  Because it really isn't difficult and should be self-explanatory. 

That said, there is ONE caveat regarding the current site which is an apparently unfixable bug in the software.  When browsing through any mag (like EGM) which has more than one page's worth of downloads, the first page will list the available mags in numerical order.  However, when you click on the next page (either by clicking the "2" or the arrow at the bottom), the mags will suddenly switch from numerical order to an order based on the time they were first uploaded to the site.

In order to work around this, you should click on the "title" category, which will set it to search by the issue name (numerical order).  From this point on, the number/arrow buttons will work as expected, without changing the type of sorting order.
(https://i.postimg.cc/qB6vZTvd/Untitled-1.jpg)

Quote from: kitsunebi on Oct 04, 2023, 09:25 PMYeah, Kiwi's reaction was perhaps a bit...too sensitive... ;D 

I saw this after I got home from work with a severe back ache issue so I wasn't in the mood to deal with somewhat inane comments in a constructive manner yesterday.

@BugBug - If you want you can also click on "List All"

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.... which will give you every file added from the latest to the first (567 pages worth). This is useful if you just want to see what has been added recently as the main download page only shows the last four mags and I've been adding a lot of archived files lately so you can just click through the pages if you simply want to browse.

Also, the search button on the top of the website itself is a pure forum search button and NOT a downloads search button. Clicking on "Downloads" menu takes you into the Download Manager where a file search button is available beside the "MyFiles" button.

02.png

The search is very full featured. For example, if you want to search for an issue number you can by entering #00<number> and it will return all results for that. Same for name/part name etc.

Give it a try.

QuoteFirst started on WordPress. Really liked it but thanks to the security holes infesting it some hacker locked me out of the admin interface and thus the site was dead in the water so I .....

Ah I remember the old WordPress like it was yesterday... 12 years is a massive accomplishment  ;D

The only thing I find a little confusing is that the old domains don't redirect here which I imagine confuses a few new users but I don't find the downloads section confusing personally.

The fast seedbox download speeds are very much appreciated, it's impressive that they are fast both in the UK and in NZ/AUS! Plus the 11k+ files, Couldnt ask for more really

Hiya Ali.

The OGM .com address points directly to the forum. The .net address still points to the old site as I wanted to refer back to it to credit scanners for their files. Not that I've had time to do that in recent times though. At some point though I'll shut it down and redirect it to this forum for sure.

The website definitely is confusing to use to new arrivals. To be honest I'm still trying to figure out how certain things should work. However, the website tech has nothing to do with Kiwi, kitsunebi or any other contributor here. It's the hand we've been given. If Kiwi gets a good deal for a website then navigation flaws are just something we'll have to put up with. For the files on offer it's a reasonably good balance of positives so it's not a problem for me. The positives truly seem to outweigh the negatives so all good.