The above image shows the Clan Management feature of the SFPH. The Clan Management Panel is only available to the Clan Master of a clan. It contains privileges only available to the Clan Master such as accepting members through the Join Request Approval feature and kick members trough the Manage Members feature. Below are the details of each feature.
Use Clan Items - Not functional.
Buy Clan Items - Not functional.
Edit Clan Info - Allows the clan master to change the Clan Introduction and Clan Image.
Manage Members
*Note: Investigate whether fake-names and fake-ranks appear on the Manage Members feature.
In summary, the Member Management feature only allows the clan master two actions.
1. Change the Member Level of each member.
2. Kick a Member.
Both of these have a very inconvenient quirk. Doing any of these actions brings you back to Page 1. For example, after kicking a member at Page 100, you will be returned to Page 1. Updating Member Levels at Page 150 will also bring you back to Page 1. This is very inconvenient, especially if a clan master is trying to clean up inactive accounts.
Below are some features that would have made managing clans less tedious:
1. Ability to search and sort codenames and ranks.
2. Ability to ban users. Especially useful if a member is repeatably offending clan rules.
3. Ability to search Date Registered ranges. Useful if a clan master wants to promote loyal members who have stayed and never left.
4. Keep a log of members leaving. This will be useful if a clan master wishes to ban members who frequently leave and join the clan.
These features can be made using the only two functionalities provided by the Member Management feature through a third party program.
Join Request Approval
The Join Request Approval allows a Clan Master to Approve/Reject incoming player request to join a clan. The image below shows the Join Request Approval page.
The Join Request Approval page displays 3 Join Requests at a time. Each Join Request the Codename, Rank, Gender, Province and City, Favorite weapon, Fave Map, Game Style, Request message, and a check box that is used to reject/approve each join request. The page navigation is at the bottom of the bottom most request and below it are the Approve and Reject buttons. For a clan master to approve a Join Request, he must click the check box on the row of a Codename then click the Approve Button. If he wishes to deny a request, he must also click the checkbox on the row of a Codename then click the Reject button. On the bottom of the page, the Select All and Deselect buttons can be found which checks/unchecks, respectively the 3 checkboxes of the join requests displayed.
Problems and quirks of the Join Request Approval page
Similar to the Manage Members page, it contains quirks and lacks features. Below are some of the quirks and features that should have been present to effectively manage a clan:
1. The join date of each Join Request is not present and the Join Request are sorted with the most recent join request first. Usually, a clan master would prefer to approve those whose join request are pending the longest so that he can avoid potential members canceling their request because of the long wait.
2. It lacks the ability to sort Join Requests Date, Codename, and Rank. These would have been useful if a clan master wishes to approve/reject join requests based on those.
3. It lacks a ban / autodeny feature. Clan masters may want delinquent members to be permanently denied entry of the clan. They might also want to deny members whose rank is lower than a set minimum. Some clans might only be local to some places.
4. An Auto approve feature. Some clan masters may wish to base the approval/rejection of a Join Request only on a potential member's rank. If this is the only basis, it need not be done by hand.
5. Compact view. Each page only shows 3 Join Request. It makes the usage of a checkbox and a common button not practical since there are only a few Join Request per page.
6. Only Codename and rank are retained after a Join Request is approved/rejected. The other information are discarded / not visible after a request is approved/denied.
7. Log denials. A clan master may wish to see if a player repetitively joins after a request is denied.
8. Similar to the Manage Members page, Accepting/Rejecting a Join Request takes him back to the first page. This is very inconvenient if the clan master approves those who have applied first since those are at the last page.
All these features are possible with only the Approval/Rejection abilities of the Join Request Approval page. By building a third party program to process the Join Request Approval page, all of those features can be achieved.
Designate Leader
This allows a Clan Master to pass the leadership and his privileges to an officer.
Disband Clan
Allows a Clan Master to disband a clan. A clan will be disbanded after 7 days of the confirmed disband request.
Summary:
The current Clan Management system lacks features. The current Clan Management system only have:
For the Manage Members page:
1. Change member level
2. Kick a member.
For the Join Request Approval page:
1. Approve/Reject a request.
By building a third party program, I aim to add the following features:
For the Manage Members page:
1. Search and sort codenames and ranks.
2. Ban users.
3. Search and sort Date Registered ranges.
4. Keep a log of members leaving.
For the Join Request Approval Page:
1. Show Join request date of each Join Request.
2. Sort by Join Request Date, Codename, and Rank
3. A ban / autodeny feature.
4. An Auto approve feature.
5. Compact view.
6. Keep a record of the Join Requests' Codename, Rank at the time of Join Request, Gender, Province and City, Favorite weapon, Fave Map, Game Style.
7. Log denials.
8. Remember and go back to the page where the approval/denial was performed.
On the next issue, I will release the first prototype which will have the ability to search names in the Member Management page.
