Forum software update Oct 12, 2003 phpBB 1.4.4 -> 2.0.6

Organization and Administration

Moderator: Jani Soderhall

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Forum software update Oct 12, 2003 phpBB 1.4.4 -> 2.0.6

Post by Jani Soderhall » Sat Oct 04, 2003 8:11 pm

This is a pre-announcement to let you know that the forum might be updated and take on a new look any day now.

We are currently using version 1.4.4 of phpBB and I intend to upgrade it to the most recent version - 2.0.6.

The update will be done maybe tomorrow, maybe soon thereafter. Ie as soon as I have all details under control and I dare to take the next step.

If anybody has opinions on this matter, or experience to share, please let me know, either in this thread or through a private message. PS, the sooner the better.


If everything collapses, then you know why and who to blame.

/Jani
Last edited by Jani Soderhall on Thu Dec 02, 2004 3:01 pm, edited 3 times in total.

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Post by Adam Trahan » Sun Oct 05, 2003 1:03 am

Thanks for the heads up Jani.

It is an exciting time in skateboard slalom, thanks for your enthusiasm and ability to make it happen.

If the forum goes down we are all going to hunt you down!!!

*grin*

Good luck and hope to see you in Paris.

adam

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Post by Jani Soderhall » Sun Oct 05, 2003 5:42 pm

I tried to update the forum but never managed to go the full distance. The update script doesn't want to convert the existing database.

Six hours wasted, lots of knowledge gained, but I still don't know why I couldn't make it work.

I'll postpone the update until I can find some more information.

I'll let you know when I'm about to make the next attempt.

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Post by Jani Soderhall » Tue Oct 07, 2003 8:12 pm

I'll give the update another try next weekend (October 11-12), probably starting Saturday morning (midday central European time). From the moment I start the backups I will shut down the forum, so it will be unavailable during the update.

Once it is online again it might take some time to figure out the configuration options etc, so please be kind to the forum and don't jump at it all at once. Ideally no new posts should be added until I make a comment in this thread again that either I've succeeded or I've re-installed the old stuff.

I might even keep it down over Saturday night (while I get some rest) if that is needed to be able to continue the work on Sunday.

Just so you know.

/Jani

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Post by Jon Warburton » Tue Oct 07, 2003 9:36 pm

good work fella

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Post by Dan Mitchell » Wed Oct 08, 2003 1:59 am

Jani,
Thanks for your hard work and dedication!
Dan Mitchell, aka PA Dan

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Post by Jani Soderhall » Fri Oct 10, 2003 7:16 pm

Just a reminder...

I have planned to attack the whole thing tomorrow morning. Hopefully you'll see the forum up Saturday evening, but software and database updates are never without surprises. It was hard work last time and little success, but at least I learned things. Let's hope I can take it all the way through this weekend.

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Post by Dan Mitchell » Sat Oct 11, 2003 4:35 am

Good luck, Jani!
Everyone, please be patient :smile:
Dan Mitchell, aka PA Dan

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Post by Jani Soderhall » Sun Oct 12, 2003 8:49 pm

Sunday Oct 12, 21:00

After two days of serious sweating I have upgraded the engine and database of our forum from version 1.4.4 to 2.0.6.

The new forum will give us a number of new features and enhancements such as:

- New design
- Better handling of private messages
- Easier formatting (font sizes, colours), please use with caution
- Easier posting of image tags etc with quick-use buttons
- Preview of messages before posting to avoid mistakes and edits
- Faster searching
- Create polls to let users vote on topics
- Sticky topics and announcements allow moderators to create topics that stay on top
- Better forum adminstration to help the administrators

... and much more.

With the latest version we'll also be able to add features more easily then before. There are plenty of add-ins called "mods" that we can eventually add to gain even more functionality. One of the things we intend to add at a later stage is a replacement for the current homepage, in order to have something which is more easily updated and have more "life".

In the update process I couldn't test it all and I didn't have the time either to do all that I wanted. If you see something that doesn't work the way it should please post to this thread and I'll look into it.


Things noted so far:

- Certain [img] tags with relative paths no longer compatible, needs editing. This means that many images will no longer display.

- All "avatars" ie pictures of posters have been moved and renamed. Should work as before. If one is missing let me know.


I didn't want to keep you out of the forum, any longer, so here it is, enjoy!

Jani

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Post by Jani Soderhall » Sun Oct 12, 2003 9:17 pm

Hmm, I wonder how to set the time of this thing...

I had to configure the System Timezone to be GMT +2, any mine too. The forum is hosted in the US, but seems to considers itself where I've done the updates from.

Try this:

Before logging in check the time which is displayed on the forum index page. Is it correct?

Then log in. Is it correct?

Then go your profile and set the time zone. Add an extra hour for winter time. The forum does not automatically handle that.

Hopefully it works. If not let me know.

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Post by Vlad Popov » Sun Oct 12, 2003 9:24 pm

Congrats!
And thank you!

PS. Testing the new edit button. Fun!
Last edited by Vlad Popov on Sun Oct 12, 2003 9:58 pm, edited 2 times in total.

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Post by Howard Gordon » Sun Oct 12, 2003 9:50 pm

Jani -

Looks great. The new editing features are nice.

One suggestion - if possible on the main forum page, move the "who is online" section to the top. It's nice to quickly see the activity level of the forums, especially when the number of users are in double-digits.

Howard

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Post by Adam Trahan » Sun Oct 12, 2003 10:46 pm

Great job Jani.

I inderstand how much time and effort that this takes, my hat is off to you and I am familiar with this version in it's administration.

I will go to werk fixing what I can.

Best to you and all the rest.

adam

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Post by Wesley Tucker » Sun Oct 12, 2003 10:55 pm

Jani,

It looks GREAT. This is much easier on the eyes. The typeface in the previous version was at times a bit hard to decypher. Couldn't tell the difference between a "c l" and a "d." This is much clearer.

Also, I'd like to second Howard's motion to move the "current users" info back to the top. The number of posts tally would tell me at a glance if there was any activity. If it was "9521" yesterday and "9521" today, that would show that Gilmour and Vlad were away from their computers for a few hours.

One last thing. The "Search" function isn't doing as it did. I'm assuming there's some default that's not selected anymore, but I can't find it. We could click "search" and get a complete list of all posts from all forums with the most recent at the top. Now when I did that all it did was return to the "search" window. What am I doing wrong?

Keep up the good work[/b]

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Post by Adam Trahan » Sun Oct 12, 2003 11:03 pm

With this version, you have "View Posts Since Last Visit" which will let you see who has posted what since your ahh, last visit. The search function now becomes a search function.

Regarding "users online" I'm sure that Jani can do it but he has gone through the mill doing this update. I realize the request HG, no worries.

There are a lot of things we can do with this version as Jani has indicated. It will serve the technician in us and again, we will continue to be the best web site dedicated to skateboard slalom on the internet, that would be an objective statement...

Anyway, clik the "View Posts Since Last Visit" and you will get the skinny on hot topics or otherwise.

Thank you again Jani.

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Post by Vlad Popov » Sun Oct 12, 2003 11:09 pm

The "Search" function isn't doing as it did. I'm assuming there's some default that's not selected anymore, but I can't find it.
Yes, without the old-type of (double-click-and-you-are-there) search function it will (also) be harder Image for people from other forums to borrow quotes from slalomskateboarder.com and start interesting discussions to keep their sites’ ratings up. It would be great if we could ease their loads and help promote slalom in other places on the web.

Slalom! Image

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Post by Vlad Popov » Sun Oct 12, 2003 11:15 pm

adam trahan wrote:With this version, you have "View Posts Since Last Visit" which will let you see who has posted what since your ahh, last visit. The search function now becomes a search function.
Adam, it seems that this function is only available to the ss.com members. Therefore, our dear guests from other places will have to work harder to get the intellectual information on slalom.

Guest

Post by Guest » Mon Oct 13, 2003 12:58 am

Jani,
I have a feeling of brand new software and having to learn all sorts of new features....Good job! I like the new UI, the old black/blue/grey one was not the most "pretty" or functional thing.

I also love the new "keep me logged in" feature!!!

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Post by Wes Eastridge » Mon Oct 13, 2003 1:50 am

adam trahan wrote:With this version, you have "View Posts Since Last Visit" which will let you see who has posted what since your ahh, last visit. The search function now becomes a search function.
I don’t see this option anywhere. Will it require me to log-in in order to do the search? That seems like the only way that such a search would work.

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Post by Adam Trahan » Mon Oct 13, 2003 2:54 am

Yup.

But as UR13 noted, you can keep logged in by cliking the "keep me logged in" button.

This is definately a little different feel, a slight departure from the old forum. It's not so much the forum as it is the version that we are making current. There are "plug ins" that we can integrate into the database. The site is going have added features coming up. Be patient though, I know Jani has put about 24hours of time into this just this weekend.

We haven't changed the "way" we want people to view the site though. You need to still register to make a entry and we still require you to use your full name (first and family name) for obvious reasons...

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Post by Leonardo Ojeda » Mon Oct 13, 2003 4:47 am

ITs really good now! it feels like the light was off!

Leo
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Avatars, colors, video integration

Post by John Gilmour » Mon Oct 13, 2003 1:18 pm

I've seen this version used for other BBS groups. This "read new posts since last logged in" feature is great. Thanks Jani! Some questions that either you or Adam T. might be able to answer.

1. The avatars look a little small to recognize the person. The exposure level might also be off. Are these adjustable? Or are they limited in DPI?
2. Can the forum's colors be customized by the viewer. I thought the older forum was easier to read for me- though others seem to prefer this way.
3. Will this version support something dynamic like a small quicktime movie clip of slalom racing running on the "front page"? You could allow for a bypass for dial up users.
4. I hope we could have an informative video clip section a "How To" section of small 15 second or shorter clips. They could be contributed by many different people and eventually edited together. Not as cohesive as a video shot by a single person, but likely sufficent for newbies to get a easy start.
5. I also like the "notify me if a reply is posted" so that threads will have more continuity.
6. One other thing is some threads wander about in topic when the information should move to another pre existing thread is there a way to put a "split in the road" to show the offshoot conversation has moved? That way teh threads would stay more focused...I know I am a cause of this thread wandering.....hmmm
One good turn deserves another
john gilmour

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Re: Avatars, colors, video integration

Post by Jani Soderhall » Mon Oct 13, 2003 1:50 pm

John Gilmour wrote: I've seen this version used for other BBS groups.
phpBB is a very popular forum and one that I really like having seen the inner secrets of it. I think the database and program design is really well thought out. After completing the upgrade I configured some stuff the way I prefer it and then edited some of the designs to my own liking. There are still things I want to do with the design, but time ran out.

Most of the features that you see were not invented by me or Adam. The phpBB people have invented a lot of good features in this release and our work is only to fine tune the stuff to our liking.

John Gilmour wrote: 1. The avatars look a little small to recognize the person. The exposure level might also be off. Are these adjustable? Or are they limited in DPI?
John, we use the same avatars as previously, but in the new layout they might not look as good. We could make them larger, there's no strict limit on that. It's just the time it takes to download them. Most of them are 3 kb in size and I think we could make them wider (there's room in the column) and maybe a little bit higher as most people tend to post long replies anyway. 6 kb might be a reasonable limit.

We're looking into a new way to handle the avatars, and there's a lot of them to be re-done, so expect no immediate change. Those who haven't got any yet, might get a larger version as Adam prepares and uploads them.

John Gilmour wrote: 2. Can the forum's colors be customized by the viewer. I thought the older forum was easier to read for me- though others seem to prefer this way.
There is a whole set of "templates" that you can use to layout the forum in different ways. These "templates" are easily downloadable and installed and I had intended to install a whole lot of them. Unfortunately much of the page layout is in the same templates, so any customization that I want to do I'll have to do multiple times. Ie any new, moved or removed feature must be implemented once for each template.

John Gilmour wrote: 3. Will this version support something dynamic like a small quicktime movie clip of slalom racing running on the "front page"? You could allow for a bypass for dial up users.
Adam and I have been discussing a new front page to replace the static stuff to make it easier to update and more "alive". To do that we first had to move to this version. When we get there we can discuss it again.
John Gilmour wrote: 4. I hope we could have an informative video clip section a "How To" section of small 15 second or shorter clips. They could be contributed by many different people and eventually edited together. Not as cohesive as a video shot by a single person, but likely sufficent for newbies to get a easy start.
John, the forum is open, you can just start working on it. We can host the videos for you no problem.

John Gilmour wrote: 6. One other thing is some threads wander about in topic when the information should move to another pre existing thread is there a way to put a "split in the road" to show the offshoot conversation has moved? That way teh threads would stay more focused...I know I am a cause of this thread wandering.....hmmm
This is one of my concerns too. How will later readers be able to find stuff it we keep changing subjects in the middle of a thread?

Moving posts was a bit cumbersome before and they say it should be easier now, but I have yet to try it. If it's not easy enough I might program my own "feature" to handle this. This is important. Please help by avoiding it in the first place. Just start a new topic yourself and continue the discussion there.

Good to see that most comments are positive.

/Jani

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Post by Wes Eastridge » Mon Oct 13, 2003 2:31 pm

Please add a feature that lists the 50 most recent posts and an option to go back farther than that. One reason is that many times, I don’t have the time to read all of the new topics and I try to get to them later. - If they don’t happen to show up in future results, I may not remember about them.

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Post by John Gilmour » Mon Oct 13, 2003 3:01 pm

I suppose a few HTML skills would allow me to make a page that could show the video clips ina good layout.

The thought I had for the small (under 3mb) clips is that they can be sent as an attachment in email- and even a dial up could sent a short clip.
One good turn deserves another
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search machine

Post by Chris Eggers » Mon Oct 13, 2003 4:08 pm

I always prefered to use the search function. I always just searched for the newest posts every day. It does not seem to work.

The rest looks very nice, just have to get used to it.

chris

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Post by Wesley Tucker » Mon Oct 13, 2003 7:41 pm

Ok,

Time to bitch and moan. Or maybe just find out that I'm the only one who's having difficulty with a particular problem?

I opened up the topic "Various Course Diagrams For Public Consumption" in the GATES forum to reread what we discussed last month. I was also pondering a couple of course ideas for laying out and posting and I didn't want to repeat myself. So that means reviewing the old stuff.

Unfortunately for me, I couldn't look at some of the material. When I opened the topic, some of the JPEGs I posted went all to heck and misbehaved terribly. For some reason the art work doesn't stay within the bounds of a particular reply and "overlaps" different topics and makes the whole thing a jumbled mess. I refreshed the screen, reloaded the page and restarted my computer. I emptied my web cache, said three Hail Mary's and danced an Irish Jig at the foot of my computing altar. All to no avail.

Has anyone else experienced this problem? Again, I'm assuming there's some setting in the database that is changed from the previous version. With a little luck, all Jani has to do is click a button and VOILA!' problem solved.

Oh, if Jani or Adam would like to see what I'm talking about, I'll be glad to take a screen shot of this problem and forward it to them. No need, though, trying to post it to the Forum if it's just going to misbehave too!

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Post by Jani Soderhall » Mon Oct 13, 2003 8:04 pm

Wesley Tucker wrote: When I opened the topic, some of the JPEGs I posted went all to heck and misbehaved terribly. For some reason the art work doesn't stay within the bounds of a particular reply and "overlaps" different topics and makes the whole thing a jumbled mess.
Wesley,

I just looked at the same topic and it looks fine to me. Would this be a Mac / PC incompatibility? I don't think this forum is particularly "PC" though.

Can you check the posts of the second page of that topic and see if it's still messed up?

/Jani
Last edited by Jani Soderhall on Mon Oct 13, 2003 8:22 pm, edited 1 time in total.

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Style of quotes

Post by Jani Soderhall » Mon Oct 13, 2003 8:21 pm

Nobody has commented upon the style of the quotes, but that is one of the nicest design features of the new layout (IMHO).

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Re: Style of quotes

Post by Michael Stride » Mon Oct 13, 2003 11:59 pm

Jani Soderhall wrote:Nobody has commented upon the style of the quotes, but that is one of the nicest design features of the new layout (IMHO).
Michael Stride wrote: I'm a nobody and I think they look good. (IMHO).

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Post by Adam Trahan » Tue Oct 14, 2003 2:55 am

Wesley, I have the same problem when I use Netscape. The images overlap the content. Netscape is losing the race and I'm a big Netscape/Apple enthusiast. Go get the darkside (IE) and all is well...

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Post by Wesley Tucker » Tue Oct 14, 2003 3:00 am

Adam,

I use AOL 5.0, which happens to use IE as a browser. So that ain't it.

Glad to hear, though, you got the same issues. Now, confab with Jani, talk to someone who's in authority, do a meeting, take lunch, get something hammered out and fix this mutha'! :-P

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Post by Wes Eastridge » Tue Oct 14, 2003 3:32 am

adam trahan wrote:...Go get the darkside (IE) and all is well...
<b>NO, DON’T DO IT!</b>
No need for the bloody signiture! You can use either Mozilla 1.2.1 or the miniature powerhouse of a browser with a four-letter name (email me if you can’t guess what it is).

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Using HTML tags

Post by Glenn S » Tue Oct 14, 2003 3:59 am

It seems that you cant use html tags.

I'm gunna try here and see what other people see:

<a href=http://www.slalomskateboarder.com/Slalo ... erAnim.gif> Slalom.gif</a>

Did you turn on the feature that lets people use html tags in their posts?

From the FAQ: "Can I use HTML?
That depends on whether the administrator allows you to; they have complete control over it. If you are allowed to use it, you will probably find only certain tags work. This is a safety feature to prevent people from abusing the board by using tags which may destroy the layout or cause other problems. If HTML is enabled you can disable it on a per post basis from the posting form."[/url]

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Post by Adam Trahan » Tue Oct 14, 2003 4:22 am

I'm an old Apple enthusiast but at werk, it's PC land. There is merit in having Office where everyone has the same programs to use.

At home, it's all Apples.

Can you just post the URL here for us Apple people who aren't in the know?

AOL? I'de say that is part of the problem Wesley, I can't fix it and I don't think Jani can either...

Best to you all.

adam

Guest

Post by Guest » Tue Oct 14, 2003 4:44 am

I'm a hardcore mac nerd. I'm a graphic designer with 8+ years professional design experience in screen based media (web, CD-ROM, kiosk, etc).

IE is the defacto standard on the web. Good site builders and web designers design for IE, period! 4 years ago netscape had a hope and back then it was split...however 80% of the web browsing public is windoze based and running IE 5.5+, mostly 6.0+. Mozilla/netscape/opera/etc are all cute and everything and yes they all support "the spec" but no one uses "the spec" anymore (really). We have all gotten used to building around IE's flaws. Netscape/Mozilla/Opera/etc are such a small user base that unless you have the site reports to back it up (Jani do you have reports of what browsers are hitting this site? All that good stuff) you support IE first and foremost...if it works in netscape/etc goodie...if not..no biggie.

Trust me I've heard it all...but I remember the days when building a sit eyou ahd to support at a minimum 2 browsers with 4+ versions each over 2 platforms. Now IE runs well everywhere.

Apple's Safari is pretty sweet though. BUt most mac users know enough to work around the odd ball things that happen on Macs + the web. it is ALOT better than it used to be though. IE went along way to doing that. I am sad Microsoft canned IE for the Mac. Good thing Safari IS a good browser...there is no reaosn someone should ever be forced to use netscape/mozilla.

Wesley...the IE in AOL is sorta kinda the same as real IE but it does render things slightly different. Of the top of my head I don't remember what specifically but there were some pretty major things. Does AOL allow you to just dial in and NOT use their software? Just connecting to your AOL account using "remote access" and then being able to run non- aol IE? If so that is the way to go and then use the AOL features via AOL.com.

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Re: Using HTML tags

Post by Jani Soderhall » Tue Oct 14, 2003 10:12 pm

Glenn S wrote:It seems that you cant use html tags.

<a href=http://www.slalomskateboarder.com/Slalo ... erAnim.gif> Slalom.gif</a>

Did you turn on the feature that lets people use html tags in their posts?
I didn't yet research the topic of "disable HTML" but it appears that the setting exists to avoid malicious HTML posts to ruin the forum or more likely to run things it's not supposed to do.

Each post has this setting and all converted posts were set to "Disable HTML". All new posts are apparently open by default, unless the users sets it off. I'm a bit surprised becase the default database value for this field is True, which means it should be disabled, only upgraded posts were apparently affected by the default setting.

After Wes complained about the distorted display on some of his posts I set the value of Disable HTML on his posts to False, but it didn't seem to solve anything - or he just hasn't looked yet, nor responded.

I guess I should research this topic more when I have the time...

/Jani

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Post by Wesley Tucker » Tue Oct 14, 2003 10:54 pm

Jani, (and all those concerned,)

IT IS a problem in HTML, but it beats me exactly how to fix it. I went again to my "Various Courses" topic and went to EDIT. Originally, my posts with the IMG URL looked like this:

**********************************************************

"Another one for today. This is a little bit more of a "traditional" Giant Slalom. There's still a curve, but it's more wide open, got some big switch-back offsets and a neat little wiggle stinger at the end:

[^img^]http://members.aol.com/ogservice/TrueGSCourseLayout.jpg[^/img^]

Again, I think this one takes a good hill with some traction. I think my next little ditty that I do I'll call "Super Giant Slalom For All Those Folks Who Bought Avila Wheels." That one might be a zinger."

**********************************************************

However, today I did some editing and now the post looks like this:

**********************************************************

"Another one for today. This is a little bit more of a "traditional" Giant Slalom. There's still a curve, but it's more wide open, got some big switch-back offsets and a neat little wiggle stinger at the end:





... many, many blank lines here ...





[^img^]http://members.aol.com/ogservice/TrueGSCourseLayout.jpg[^/img^]

Again, I think this one takes a good hill with some traction. I think my next little ditty that I do I'll call "Super Giant Slalom For All Those Folks Who Bought Avila Wheels." That one might be a zinger."

**********************************************************

(I added those little pointy things "^" so my post would show codes and not the image.)

By manually adding a bunch of LINE RETURNS, there is now a "space" for the artwork to load and it looks fine on my machine. I guess the next question now is if on everybody else's it there a huge space scrolling down the page before you see the image?

Again, I can't figure out exactly what the problem is with inserting a graphic file, but for some reason the new database display doesn't want to provide the requisite "window" for a graphic to be displayed. Instead it considers the graphic as just a text element and lays it over top of other text.

Is this enough of a clue for the Web Warlocks to deduce the problem? Again, it might be just me, but Trahan says he has the same problem which again leads me to believe some default it different. Anyway care to hazard a guess?

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Post by Jani Soderhall » Tue Oct 14, 2003 11:15 pm

Wesley Tucker wrote:Jani, (and all those concerned,)

IT IS a problem in HTML, but it beats me exactly how to fix it. I went again to my "Various Courses" topic and went to EDIT....

By manually adding a bunch of LINE RETURNS, there is now a "space" for the artwork to load and it looks fine on my machine. I guess the next question now is if on everybody else's it there a huge space scrolling down the page before you see the image?
Wes,

I went back and had a look at two posts you edited in the gates forum and they now display plenty of blank lines before showing the image. Which seems correct to me. Adding blank spaces seems like a way to fool your browser into something "he" wasn't able to figure out. Sorry but this doesn't seem to be the solution.

I'll let you know should I found out something.

Jani

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Post by Glenn S » Wed Oct 15, 2003 5:38 pm

Jani,
Missing in this new forum version is a posters email, website, and profile information at the bottom of their posts. Is there a reason for this?
Thanks.

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Post by Jani Soderhall » Wed Oct 15, 2003 7:39 pm

Glenn S wrote:Jani,
Missing in this new forum version is a posters email, website, and profile information at the bottom of their posts. Is there a reason for this?
Thanks.
I took them out. As the group is quite small at this time I thought this information was just making the pages heavier and the icons for those functions created quite a lot of clutter. If we had a link to the profile information for each person that would probably be enough. I see the use of those buttons in other forums where you can't keep track of the users and you want to know more about them, but here I have a preference for easier reading and less strain on the eyes.

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Post by Glenn S » Wed Oct 15, 2003 9:48 pm

Thanks Jani, that is fair enough. I just thought that for those with skate related websites that post it might be good and people that don't know certain people could see that people that sell skate products post and could be let to their site. and I thought that it took no more space really because it was in the same area at a quote or edit.

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[www] link of posters

Post by Jani Soderhall » Wed Oct 15, 2003 10:31 pm

Glenn, you're right. I never thought about this aspect. I got rid of them thinking they were ways to get in touch with them. I'll probably put the www link back again.

Sure no space is wasted, but you should have seen it with all the MSN, ICQ, YIM and what-so-ever icons there... It loaded the pages heavily and looked more important than the posts.

Thank's!

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Post by Glenn S » Wed Oct 15, 2003 11:57 pm

Jani,
My personal feeling is that you should put back in profile and maybe www.

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Re: [www] link of posters

Post by Leonardo Ojeda » Thu Oct 16, 2003 2:04 am

Jani Soderhall wrote:Glenn, you're right. I never thought about this aspect. I got rid of them thinking they were ways to get in touch with them. I'll probably put the www link back again.
I see your point Jani, but also it would be great that either the avatar or a single button that links directly to the profile of the rider, cause soem of us, likes to interact outside the forum to keep them as informative as possible and keep the "chatting-posts" like the other site has, also person to person chat will allow the riders to exchange their ideas in real time, withlout having to wait to see if he reads the forum or something else.

Hope u understand what I said ;-)

Leo
"I`ll see you at the end of the hill"

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Post by Jani Soderhall » Thu Oct 16, 2003 8:23 pm

Glenn, Leo,

No question that I agree. A link to the profile but also the www link will be back in the next edit.


In the mean time (as a test) I took away the animated GIF which indicates that a thread is "hot" ie has many answers. Is there anyone that:

a) needs the feature? (we already have the number of posts).
b) thinks that it should be an animated GIF rather than a static image?

/Jani

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Post by Wes Eastridge » Thu Oct 16, 2003 11:11 pm

Jani Soderhall wrote: In the mean time (as a test) I took away the animated GIF which indicates that a thread is "hot" ie has many answers. Is there anyone that:
a) needs the feature? (we already have the number of posts).
b) thinks that it should be an animated GIF rather than a static image?
/Jani
Make them static. Animated GIFs are terribly annoying to anyone that cannot set their browser to not play them (such as on public internet terminals). The number of posts should be enough to let the viewer know whether the topic is “hot” or not.

I would put at least the following three things at the bottom: Quote, Edit, and Profile. The member’s www homepage can be accessable in the Profile. For more emphasis on personal contact, the “Profile” Gif could be changed to “Contact/Profile”. Perhaps you could make each persons name be a link to their profile as well. The "Edit" feature was helpful and I personally feel that it should be available again.

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Does color matter ?

Post by Joachim Leonhardt » Fri Oct 17, 2003 1:03 am

Nice to have an update. More features, more functions.

Much more work to reach them !

--- but can we have the good 'old' design, too ?

Sure --- color matters.


Hoping that this is not - a mission impossible task.

________________
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What You See is What You Get - What You Get Drives You Crazy

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colour matters

Post by Michael Stride » Fri Oct 17, 2003 10:32 am

Sure colour matters. Take a look at www.middle-age-shred.com and you'll see a similar forum with 'life'.
However each person has a different view on colour. An example would be the graphics on the news programmes, in Germany (forgive me if i'm wrong) used to be predominantly blue, I would put on an extra layer of clothing on to watch it.
This forum comes acrross (to me) as cold and unwelcoming. But to another it may come over a 'serious' and professional. Its difficult I know.

I'd like to see two imporovements.

1) I'd like this box to be at the bottom of a 'page' so that I can scroll through the posts i'm replying to. There is no need to change fonts (except make it a tad larger)

2) I see no need for the boxes above or below this area. They can all be put on a posting guidlines page.

One last thing, the MOST popular area for topics is always going to be 'random'. that needs to be the first lot of post to appear. otherwise the most important/relavant/and intersting stuff is given the same importance as the 'GRS Outer Mongolia' forum, updated once a year.

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Post by Jani Soderhall » Fri Oct 17, 2003 1:50 pm

WesE wrote:Perhaps you could make each persons name be a link to their profile as well.
Will do. That's what I planned.
WesE wrote:The "Edit" feature was helpful and I personally feel that it should be available again.
It's there. I never took it away. The Edit and Quote buttons are useful.


Advice: When quoting someone, could you please shorten their comments so we only get to re-read the part you're responding to? It's not always easy to make them as short as the ones in here, but awfully long posts create awfully long quotes. Thank's.

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