[Discuss] People bugging mappers for betas... (http://ugx-mods.com/forum/index.php?topic=3695).
What is it?
The Beta Request System is two things:
- For the mapper, it is a method for keeping track of who wants to access your beta and who actually has your permission to access the beta. You can send a PM to the people you have approved for beta access in order to give them download links, changelogs, or other updates related to the beta and you can generate a list of your current approved beta testers for pasting into a credits list in your map release.
- For everyone other than the mapper, it is a way of letting the mapper know you want to play his beta without contributing to forum spam and/or bothering the mapper by posting in his WIP topic asking for beta access. The mapper does not receive any annoying notifications that you have requested beta access, he simply sees your name added to a list of other people who have requested access to his/her beta. The mapper can then approve or deny your request. You will receive a Private Message on the forum if you are approved by the mapper for beta access.
I'm a regular forum user, how do I request beta access to a map?
Start by navigating to any current Work in Progress topics that you want to participate in a beta of. If the mapper has enabled beta signup requests on his WIP topic, you will see a "Request Beta Access" button next to the Reply button at the top of the post. All you need to do is click this button and the mapper will see that you have requested access. Once the mapper accepts your request you will receive an automated Private Message notification with more information. If your request is denied you will notice later that the "Request Beta Access" button is visible again. Currently you are free to request access as many times as you want.
I'm a mapper, how do I use this?
Start by navigating to any of your current Work in Progress topics. Next to the reply button you should see a button called "Manage Beta Access" - click this to visit the management page.
The beta management page currently looks like this:
(https://www.ugx-mods.com/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fi.imgur.com%2FExQiW0W.png&hash=24dec059e2c0cf1891eadaa8bc9b8791a0682289)
Here is a description of all of the items on the page:
- Enable Beta Request button for the topic - this checkbox controls the ability for regular users to request beta access to your topic. If you uncheck this box, users will no longer be able to request access to your beta. If you check this box, users will be able to request access to your beta. The status of this checkbox does not affect your ability to use other options on the management page. You must click the Done button in order to save your choice.
- Pending Beta Access Requests - This is a list of all currently unapproved requests from people who want to participate in your beta. You can approve or deny these requests - users can re-apply if they are denied, so if you don't want people to constantly re-apply for your beta then just leave them in the list.
You can select multiple people at once in this list by holding Ctrl on your keyboard and clicking more names - this works the same way as selecting multiple files on your computer. Any action buttons you click next to the list will apply to all selected users, which allows you to do mass operations groups (or all) users in the list. - Approve Selected - This button will approve all the beta requests you have selected in the Pending Beta Access Requests listbox. The usernames will be moved to the Approved Beta Access Participants listbox and each approved user will receive an automated Private Message on the forum which notifies them that their beta request for this WIP was approved.
- Deny Selected - This button will deny all the beta requests you have selected in the Pending Beta Access Requests listbox. The usernames will be removed from the listbox and the users will be able to request beta access again
- Select/Deselect All - This button will select every username in the Pending Beta Access Requests list. If at least one user is already selected in the list, it will deselect all users in the list.
- Approved Beta Access Participants - This is a list of all currently approved requests from people who you want to participate in your beta. You can remove anyone from this list at any time - users who are removed can re-apply which will put them back into the Pending Beta Access Requests list.
You can select multiple people at once in this list by holding Ctrl on your keyboard and clicking more names - this works the same way as selecting multiple files on your computer. Any action buttons you click next to the list will apply to all selected users, which allows you to do mass operations groups (or all) users in the list. - Manually Add by Username - This button will allow you to manually add a user to your approved list. It does not matter if they have requested access or not, they will be automatically placed into the Approved list and removed from the Pending list if they were there. You can use this feature to add close friends or other users who you already know will be interested in participating in your beta. Users who you manually add will receive the same PM notification that regular approved users receive.
- Send PM to Selected - This button will open a draft Private Message with the selected users automatically placed in the "To" field of the PM. Currently users are limited to sending 15 PMs per hour to prevent spam abuse, so make sure not to message more than the limit because it will not work.
- Copy Selected to Clipboard - This button will open a pop-up window containing a text list of all approved beta testers for your map. You can paste this list into your future map release topic as a tester credits list or paste it in a PM to other beta testers as a list of people they can play co-op with.
- Select/Deselect All - This button will select every username in the Approved Beta Access Participants list. If at least one user is already selected in the list, it will deselect all users in the list.
- Refresh Userlists - This button will refresh the page and update the lists of pending requests. You can also just use the built-in refresh button in your browser.
- Done - This button will save your choice for Enable Beta Request button for the topic and bring you back to your WIP topic.
I think I found a bug!
I wrote this entire php script by hand and it's very hard to test every possible situation by myself, so there's bound to be some bugs that I didn't already know about. If you find a problem with the Beta Request System please either PM me or reply to this topic and I will do my best to fix it.