Forum Changes (New opening forum screen) - Page 3

Digital Lungfish · 02-12-2003, 03:36 PM

The fish icons for read, unread, participant and so on.

I think the battery back up in my brain needs to be replaced because I have absolutely no idea what you're trying to say Jav. Either that or you're actually not making any sense.

Please clarify.

Tiny Turtle · 02-12-2003, 03:43 PM

Michael, if you're a C&H fan I bet you like Watterson's sound of a fishing-reel (is that the word to use?): GZZZZZZZZZZZ

It's a definate Yea. Needs some sort of legend to explain what the lightbulb means and so, but it's a definate keeper.

/Tiny Lightbulb

Jav400 · 02-12-2003, 04:07 PM

DL,

Look at the beginning lines of each thread when you get to a forum, before you click on any thread to read it. There are now fish representations at the first of each line to show you if it is a new thread, a new one that you have a post in already, an old thread, or an old one that you have posted in before. The explanation for each fish is located at the bottom of the same page.

PS.

Tiny,

Yeah, Calvin & Hobbs is probably my all time favorite cartoon. Up in the morning, a quick breakfast of Chocolate Frosted Sugar Bombs, and it's off for the day.

James · 02-12-2003, 04:23 PM

The fish icons for read, unread, participant and so on.

Michael, I really like this feature, thank for implementing it. Now I can more easily to check out the thread that I'm interest in quicker.
Am I notice the Poll thread icon correctly?
I always get confiesed about the Poll threads, wether there's a new reply or only new vote, coz in past, both situation would brings up the Poll thread, and I have to remember the # of replies b4 to distinguish between new reply or new vote.

feldon34 · 02-12-2003, 06:23 PM

Vish asked:

Is this forum designed completely by you? Or you have got a open source and customized it yourself?

This is vBulletin, the best (in my opinion) forum software on Earth. It's also very inexpensive and is all modular PHP + MySQL which is "editable source". You may not release edited versions of the code, but you are welcome and encouraged to make any modifications you wish and describe how to do those modifications at www.vbulletin.org. Some of the best hacks/add-ons to be found there are written BY vBulletin developers!

Although vBulletin is very customizable, you can install it and be up and running with a default board in 45 minutes. Then you start changing graphics, then layout, then eventually you might want to start doing alterations that require going in and changing PHP.

What I am doing here is nothing new. In the case of vBulletin, to improve it, you just have to throw some creative ideas and several hours of free time at the problem.

In a nutshell, the role of the PHP here is to prepare the information for display. Then the templates/HTML (which are external to the PHP files) format that information.

The benefit to this is that in going from, say, version vBulletin 2.0.3 to version 2.2.9 (a massive upgrade) you replace all your old PHP files on the server with the new files and run the upgrade scripts successively. This allows you to stay current with the latest without being prevented from personalizing the board.

Now, if you do end up wanting to do some more advanced modifications, this is where you would start altering the PHP files. The HTML and templates can't display anything that the PHP has not generated. So if you want to display some new information, you have to add some PHP somewhere to generate/fetch that information first!

At first I was leery of altering the PHP because every upgrade, from 2.2.1 to 2.2.2, 2.2.3, 2.2.4, 2.2.5, etc., you are supposed to download fresh copies of the PHP files. Then you need to go through them and make your alterations again and again. But now that I have gotten proficient at PHP, I keep a journal of every change to the PHP files (fortunately, this can be done in big chunks and you can just search-and-replace in most cases).

Despite the ~17 total PHP alterations (a quick, possibly inaccurate count), I was able to upgrade from 2.2.7 to 2.2.9 in about 2 hours. Considering these updates come monthly or less infrequently, it's not a big deal to me.

Some boards do have massive amounts of PHP modifications. In those cases, vBulletin does provide a changelog which you can look through and rather than scrap the PHP files, you can make the same bug fixes to them that the vBulletin developers have.

There are also programs like BeyondCompare which take 2 versions of the same file and annotate the differences in color.

I don't want to scare anyone away. Again, you can be up and running in vB in about 45 minutes and get some personality added to the board in less than 2 hours.

Tiny Turtle · 02-12-2003, 07:04 PM

Originally posted by Jav400
. . . Up in the morning, a quick breakfast of Chocolate Frosted Sugar Bombs, and it's off for the day.

– Actually they're kinda bland until you scoop some sugar on 'em...

Calvin's called "Kalle" in Sweden, you know.

/Tiny Calle

MegaHertz · 02-12-2003, 07:10 PM

Jav400,

I never noticed until you mentioned them, that said I do like them.

Jav400 · 02-13-2003, 11:46 AM

Tonight ( if everything works out as planned ) I will be adding some more smilie's to choose from. I am looking for some animation smilie's, nothing lewd of course, and not large one's that would overpower everything. I don't want 453 smilie's for people to have to choose from, but a few more addition's would be nice. If anyone has any that they think would be a good or useful addition, please send me a PM and I'll take a look at them.

feldon34 · 02-13-2003, 03:40 PM

Sorry to beat you to the punch but I went thru and updated some smilies and added more. I also added another hack to the board that lets me manually order the smilies in columns however we want.

So that's pretty much done.

Now that we have the forum close to where I want it, they just came out with version 2.3.0 of vBulletin! *sigh* I'll give you an elapsed time on how long it takes to update.

And don't be surprised to see a long-overdue update to the forum banner/header.

feldon34 · 02-13-2003, 07:08 PM

Upgrade to 2.3.0 complete.

Jav400 · 02-13-2003, 08:04 PM

Well thats what I get for being slow tonight.

patscarr · 02-14-2003, 01:16 PM

This is one of my favorites

feldon34 · 02-14-2003, 02:00 PM

That would be tough to add because the 3 column system is hard-coded.

If others want to use the smilie that Pat just posted, you can just type:

{img}https://www.feldoncentral.com/forums...=&postid=21424{/img}
(replace the { and } with [ and ])

like so:

drfish · 02-14-2003, 02:18 PM

A little too flashy for me, distracting instead of cute... Kind of like most of these although some of them are pretty neat.

patscarr · 02-14-2003, 07:30 PM

Those are great drfish! Thanks!

feldon34 · 02-14-2003, 09:10 PM

Pick a few from there and post em here and we can talk about it. We just went from 15 to 27. I think maybe ~36 is good round number?

fishbowl · 02-15-2003, 01:54 AM

Morgan, how about this one?

/Tiny Alcoholic ?

feldon34 · 02-15-2003, 03:32 AM

Added that one yesterday. Interesting avatar.

cjmaddy · 02-15-2003, 05:21 AM

I like this one, I got it from one of Patrick's posts ....

How about a 'Thumbs down' ?

ps. The clock's gone mad again Morgan, +15 mins at the moment!

55MHz · 02-15-2003, 05:35 AM

How about this one

those who have pc problems can use it

02-12-2003, 03:36 PM	#41
Digital Lungfish Obey the toad! Join Date: Jan 2001 Location: San Diego, California Posts: 2,557	The fish icons for read, unread, participant and so on. I think the battery back up in my brain needs to be replaced because I have absolutely no idea what you're trying to say Jav. Either that or you're actually not making any sense. Please clarify. Steve www.tron-sector.com - www.badcartridge.com - www.classicgaming.com - www.dinofish.com Today is the tomorrow you were worried about yesterday...

02-12-2003, 03:43 PM	#42
Tiny Turtle is pleased Join Date: Mar 2001 Location: Stockholm, Sweden Posts: 7,365	Michael, if you're a C&H fan I bet you like Watterson's sound of a fishing-reel (is that the word to use?): GZZZZZZZZZZZ It's a definate Yea. Needs some sort of legend to explain what the lightbulb means and so, but it's a definate keeper. /Tiny Lightbulb Thanks to Morgan, Tiny Snapshots is up and running again with "Tiny Järvafält" as the latest addition – Go have a look and tell me what you think. "We knew the world would not be the same. A few people laughed, a few people cried, most people were silent. I remembered the line from the Hindu scripture, the Bhagavad-Gita. Vishnu is trying to persuade the Prince that he should do his duty and to impress him takes on his multi-armed form and says, 'Now, I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds.' I suppose we all thought that, one way or another." /Robert Oppenheimer on witnessing the first thermonuclear detonation in history.

02-12-2003, 04:07 PM	#43
Jav400 Administrator Join Date: Dec 2000 Location: Tennessee Posts: 9,725	DL, Look at the beginning lines of each thread when you get to a forum, before you click on any thread to read it. There are now fish representations at the first of each line to show you if it is a new thread, a new one that you have a post in already, an old thread, or an old one that you have posted in before. The explanation for each fish is located at the bottom of the same page. PS. Tiny, Yeah, Calvin & Hobbs is probably my all time favorite cartoon. Up in the morning, a quick breakfast of Chocolate Frosted Sugar Bombs, and it's off for the day. Michael Administrator of Inside:SereneScreen Aquarium Forum, Chatroom, Fan Site & *Gallery* DVD Collection

02-12-2003, 04:23 PM	#44
James Principal Engineer as SDET Join Date: Feb 2002 Location: Was in Auckland, New Zealand, Now in Taipei, Taiwan Posts: 1,406	The fish icons for read, unread, participant and so on. Michael, I really like this feature, thank for implementing it. Now I can more easily to check out the thread that I'm interest in quicker. Am I notice the Poll thread icon correctly? I always get confiesed about the Poll threads, wether there's a new reply or only new vote, coz in past, both situation would brings up the Poll thread, and I have to remember the # of replies b4 to distinguish between new reply or new vote. James C Chen Principal Engineer as SDET, Connected Services HTC Corporation 88 Section 3. Zhongxing Road Xindian District, New Taipei City 231, Taiwan www.htc.com

02-12-2003, 06:23 PM	#45
feldon34 Forum Administrator Join Date: Dec 2000 Location: Rock Hill, SC Posts: 10,938	Vish asked: Is this forum designed completely by you? Or you have got a open source and customized it yourself? This is vBulletin, the best (in my opinion) forum software on Earth. It's also very inexpensive and is all modular PHP + MySQL which is "editable source". You may not release edited versions of the code, but you are welcome and encouraged to make any modifications you wish and describe how to do those modifications at www.vbulletin.org. Some of the best hacks/add-ons to be found there are written BY vBulletin developers! Although vBulletin is very customizable, you can install it and be up and running with a default board in 45 minutes. Then you start changing graphics, then layout, then eventually you might want to start doing alterations that require going in and changing PHP. What I am doing here is nothing new. In the case of vBulletin, to improve it, you just have to throw some creative ideas and several hours of free time at the problem. In a nutshell, the role of the PHP here is to prepare the information for display. Then the templates/HTML (which are external to the PHP files) format that information. The benefit to this is that in going from, say, version vBulletin 2.0.3 to version 2.2.9 (a massive upgrade) you replace all your old PHP files on the server with the new files and run the upgrade scripts successively. This allows you to stay current with the latest without being prevented from personalizing the board. Now, if you do end up wanting to do some more advanced modifications, this is where you would start altering the PHP files. The HTML and templates can't display anything that the PHP has not generated. So if you want to display some new information, you have to add some PHP somewhere to generate/fetch that information first! At first I was leery of altering the PHP because every upgrade, from 2.2.1 to 2.2.2, 2.2.3, 2.2.4, 2.2.5, etc., you are supposed to download fresh copies of the PHP files. Then you need to go through them and make your alterations again and again. But now that I have gotten proficient at PHP, I keep a journal of every change to the PHP files (fortunately, this can be done in big chunks and you can just search-and-replace in most cases). Despite the ~17 total PHP alterations (a quick, possibly inaccurate count), I was able to upgrade from 2.2.7 to 2.2.9 in about 2 hours. Considering these updates come monthly or less infrequently, it's not a big deal to me. Some boards do have massive amounts of PHP modifications. In those cases, vBulletin does provide a changelog which you can look through and rather than scrap the PHP files, you can make the same bug fixes to them that the vBulletin developers have. There are also programs like BeyondCompare which take 2 versions of the same file and annotate the differences in color. I don't want to scare anyone away. Again, you can be up and running in vB in about 45 minutes and get some personality added to the board in less than 2 hours. "Journalism is printing what someone else does not want printed. Everything else is public relations." - George Orwell "If voting changed anything, they'd make it illegal." - Emma Goldman Last edited by feldon34; 02-18-2003 at 12:28 PM.

02-12-2003, 07:04 PM	#46
Tiny Turtle is pleased Join Date: Mar 2001 Location: Stockholm, Sweden Posts: 7,365	Originally posted by Jav400 . . . Up in the morning, a quick breakfast of Chocolate Frosted Sugar Bombs, and it's off for the day. – Actually they're kinda bland until you scoop some sugar on 'em... Calvin's called "Kalle" in Sweden, you know. /Tiny Calle

02-12-2003, 07:10 PM	#47
MegaHertz Registered Join Date: Nov 2001 Posts: 73	Jav400, I never noticed until you mentioned them, that said I do like them. Hello...Welcome to the Police 9-1-1 Hotline..." If you are obsessive-compulsive, press 1 repeatedly. If you are codependant, ask someone to press 2. If you are a multiple personality, press 3, 4, 5, and 6. If you are paranoid, we know who you are and we are tracing this call. If you are schizophrenic, a little voice will tell you what to do. If you are depressed, it doesn't matter which # you push it will be wrong anyway.

02-13-2003, 11:46 AM	#48
Jav400 Administrator Join Date: Dec 2000 Location: Tennessee Posts: 9,725	Tonight ( if everything works out as planned ) I will be adding some more smilie's to choose from. I am looking for some animation smilie's, nothing lewd of course, and not large one's that would overpower everything. I don't want 453 smilie's for people to have to choose from, but a few more addition's would be nice. If anyone has any that they think would be a good or useful addition, please send me a PM and I'll take a look at them. Michael Administrator of Inside:SereneScreen Aquarium Forum, Chatroom, Fan Site & *Gallery* DVD Collection

02-13-2003, 03:40 PM	#49
feldon34 Forum Administrator Join Date: Dec 2000 Location: Rock Hill, SC Posts: 10,938	Sorry to beat you to the punch but I went thru and updated some smilies and added more. I also added another hack to the board that lets me manually order the smilies in columns however we want. So that's pretty much done. Now that we have the forum close to where I want it, they just came out with version 2.3.0 of vBulletin! sigh I'll give you an elapsed time on how long it takes to update. And don't be surprised to see a long-overdue update to the forum banner/header. "Journalism is printing what someone else does not want printed. Everything else is public relations." - George Orwell "If voting changed anything, they'd make it illegal." - Emma Goldman

02-13-2003, 07:08 PM	#50
feldon34 Forum Administrator Join Date: Dec 2000 Location: Rock Hill, SC Posts: 10,938	Upgrade to 2.3.0 complete. "Journalism is printing what someone else does not want printed. Everything else is public relations." - George Orwell "If voting changed anything, they'd make it illegal." - Emma Goldman

02-13-2003, 08:04 PM	#51
Jav400 Administrator Join Date: Dec 2000 Location: Tennessee Posts: 9,725	Well thats what I get for being slow tonight. Michael Administrator of Inside:SereneScreen Aquarium Forum, Chatroom, Fan Site & *Gallery* DVD Collection

02-14-2003, 02:00 PM	#53
feldon34 Forum Administrator Join Date: Dec 2000 Location: Rock Hill, SC Posts: 10,938	That would be tough to add because the 3 column system is hard-coded. If others want to use the smilie that Pat just posted, you can just type: {img}https://www.feldoncentral.com/forums...=&postid=21424{/img} (replace the { and } with [ and ]) like so: "Journalism is printing what someone else does not want printed. Everything else is public relations." - George Orwell "If voting changed anything, they'd make it illegal." - Emma Goldman

02-14-2003, 02:18 PM	#54
drfish the Doc Join Date: Feb 2002 Location: Zeeland, MI Posts: 5,352	A little too flashy for me, distracting instead of cute... Kind of like most of these although some of them are pretty neat. I don't watch commercials.

02-14-2003, 07:30 PM	#55
patscarr Pet Shark Join Date: Nov 2001 Location: Back in Buffalo Posts: 5,454	Those are great drfish! Thanks! Patrick

02-14-2003, 09:10 PM	#56
feldon34 Forum Administrator Join Date: Dec 2000 Location: Rock Hill, SC Posts: 10,938	Pick a few from there and post em here and we can talk about it. We just went from 15 to 27. I think maybe ~36 is good round number? "Journalism is printing what someone else does not want printed. Everything else is public relations." - George Orwell "If voting changed anything, they'd make it illegal." - Emma Goldman

02-15-2003, 03:32 AM	#58
feldon34 Forum Administrator Join Date: Dec 2000 Location: Rock Hill, SC Posts: 10,938	Added that one yesterday. Interesting avatar. "Journalism is printing what someone else does not want printed. Everything else is public relations." - George Orwell "If voting changed anything, they'd make it illegal." - Emma Goldman

02-15-2003, 05:21 AM	#59
cjmaddy Registered Join Date: Nov 2001 Location: Lancashire, UK Posts: 7,854	I like this one, I got it from one of Patrick's posts .... How about a 'Thumbs down' ? ps. The clock's gone mad again Morgan, +15 mins at the moment!

02-15-2003, 05:35 AM	#60
55MHz Registered Join Date: Dec 2002 Location: CA Posts: 29	How about this one those who have pc problems can use it - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -your ad could be here- - - - - - - - - - - - - - -