Hi Friends!

[Gary]

I've added a quick and dirty friends system to MTG Vault. It's a pretty simple one; you have "My Followers" who are people that have chosen to follow you and you have "People I'm Following" which are people that you are following. You can access both of these pages from the "My Friends" menu item once you're logged in to an account.

There are only two places at the moment that you can follow a user, one is from a profile page, just click the follow button next to the users name and the other place is from the list of people following you.

If you would be so kind as to test the system out and let me know what you think, that would be great! Let me know what you think would make it better or if you like it just the way it is. Also, the first person to get to 21 friends and lets me know if the paging works will be a star, and yes I put the page live without testing it, I couldn't be bothered to follow 21 people and I ran out of time! :P

[crackjunior1]

This system but it gets kind of boring, when you're checking a deck and you want to follow the builder you have to go to the user's page...
I'm suggesting that there was a "follow" button on the deck, if that's possible.
But, hey, you're the boss ;)

[Gary]

That seems like a valid request, this is why I asked after all! :)

The only problem with the view deck page is where to put the button I guess, some decks have long names and I don't want to break the page by adding buttons next to the builders name. Hmm, I'll have a think about it... thanks for the suggestion!

[crackjunior1]

You're welcome, I'm always glad to help

[Gary]

Heh some people are following themselves, how did you manage that you naughty people! :D

EDIT: Fixed! ;)

[crackjunior1]

AHAH seriously, they're following themselves!! AHAH they always find a way around it don't they...:p

[Gary]

they always find a way around it don't they...:p

More than anyone can imagine... We get there in the end though! :)

Just added Follower/Following stats to the profile pages by the way.

[surewhynot]

Why 21 if I may ask? So far the "rough and dirty" version is working nicely. :D

[Gary]

The page should be showing paged results and showing 20 per page but I simply ran out of time yesterday to really test this, I'll probably give it a go at some point today! ;)

[surewhynot]

Oh, that makes sense. I'm at...19 right now so I hopefully should be able to give you some feedback soon. :D

[SavajCabbaj]

I don't mind having to go to somebody's profile to follow them. I'd rather that than to accidentally follow someone random while viewing a random deck.

This is exactly what MTGVault needs, a little bit of player networking :) What sort of features are you considering for the friend system?

[Gary]

I'm not sure yet to be honest, I do have a few ideas but I'm just taking baby steps and getting *something* out there. I'm willing to listen to any suggestions you guys might have, what would you all like the friends system to do? :)

[Snowball]

The follow an un follow buttons look fairly ugly in my browser, they stick out like a sore thumb from the rest of the theme.

What I'd like from friends is to have a recent activity view so I can see what they've been up to.

[SavajCabbaj]

A friends system doesn't do much good without notifications :)

Perhaps on a players profile page, you could display their deck comment history and their recent decks, then within the friends system, alert followers when there is new activity.

[surewhynot]

A friends system doesn't do much good without notifications :)

Perhaps on a players profile page, you could display their deck comment history and their recent decks, then within the friends system, alert followers when there is new activity.

The vegetable speaks wisely. :D

[Gary]

That was the general idea... Baby steps. ;)