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titan
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Re: phpBB 3

Fri Feb 01, 2008 3:52 pm

Kevin wrote:
Flying Fox wrote:
titan wrote:
Thanks for the enlightening answer. What does the color coding mean?

Go to the board index page, and the scroll to the bottom. Look for the line that says "Legend: ...". ;)

I also put it in my FAQ.

I feel so sheepish now. I've seen that legend before, but I never put two and two together. I've read the FAQ before, but that was a really long time ago. Thanks guys.
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lordT
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Re: phpBB 3

Fri Feb 01, 2008 4:12 pm

Cyril wrote:
Also, I redesigned the entire site using CSS. I don't think you need to clue me in on the advantages of stylesheets. ;)
Heh.. Sorry. I didn't mean to one up you. Its just that the polls look incomplete and broken which is in contrast to the other parts of the site. Again, I am not nit picking for nitpicking sake.

Kevin wrote:
And what makes you think phpBB is as flexible as the Zen Garden?
If they were willing to let a feature go just so their code validates correctly, I am assuming their markup should be cleanly structured as well. I confess, I haven't looked at the markup that thoroughly but it seems correctly done to me.
 
FireGryphon
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Re: phpBB 3

Fri Feb 01, 2008 10:00 pm

Not sure if this is due to the forum upgrade, but one of my threads does not show up on the front page regardless of how many replies it gets: http://www.techreport.com/forums/viewto ... 37&t=56792

Why is that?
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Captain Ned
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Re: phpBB 3

Fri Feb 01, 2008 10:28 pm

From what I've read the Hot Threads box only shows newly-created threads, not newly-posted-to.
What we have today is way too much pluribus and not enough unum.
 
FireGryphon
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Re: phpBB 3

Fri Feb 01, 2008 10:47 pm

PerfectCr wrote:
FireGryphon wrote:
Not sure if this is due to the forum upgrade, but one of my threads does not show up on the front page regardless of how many replies it gets: http://www.techreport.com/forums/viewto ... 37&t=56792

Why is that?

Your threads have been banned from the front page, it's a Phpbb conspiracy against FG! :o :lol:


I knew it! I knew it! Quick, I've got to find a Google Cache of TR with the old version of phpBB!
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Hoser
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Re: phpBB 3

Sat Feb 02, 2008 12:40 pm

One thing I don't like is that the new forums don't reset the cookies when I leave and then come back. I don't read every thread that has new postings so there's a lot of unread ones. I have to manually mark all forums read or when I come back they are still marked as unread. The old version would just reset itself once I logged out and only post unread topics since my last visit.
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SuperSpy
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Re: phpBB 3

Sat Feb 02, 2008 12:47 pm

Hoser wrote:
One thing I don't like is that the new forums don't reset the cookies when I leave and then come back. I don't read every thread that has new postings so there's a lot of unread ones. I have to manually mark all forums read or when I come back they are still marked as unread. The old version would just reset itself once I logged out and only post unread topics since my last visit.

TBH that's one of my favorite changes. Too many times have I accidentally closed the wrong browser window and had to re-login to TR only to see an "empty" forum.
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lordT
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Re: phpBB 3

Sat Feb 02, 2008 12:55 pm

Hoser wrote:
One thing I don't like is that the new forums don't reset the cookies when I leave and then come back. I don't read every thread that has new postings so there's a lot of unread ones. I have to manually mark all forums read or when I come back they are still marked as unread. The old version would just reset itself once I logged out and only post unread topics since my last visit.
Agreed. And in my case, the older threads still show up but with a "read post" icon next to them. I'll post a screenshot if I am not making myself clear.
 
sroylance
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Re: phpBB 3

Sat Feb 02, 2008 2:05 pm

Captain Ned wrote:
From what I've read the Hot Threads box only shows newly-created threads, not newly-posted-to.

That wasn't the intention, but AFAICT that was the result. I was sorting threads by the wrong field. I've changed it to sort by when a thread was posted to, it should be working more like the old one now.
 
UberGerbil
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Re: phpBB 3

Sat Feb 02, 2008 2:31 pm

sroylance wrote:
Captain Ned wrote:
From what I've read the Hot Threads box only shows newly-created threads, not newly-posted-to.

That wasn't the intention, but AFAICT that was the result. I was sorting threads by the wrong field. I've changed it to sort by when a thread was posted to, it should be working more like the old one now.
I figured it was something like that; I just wasn't sure if it was intentional or not.
 
Jive
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Re: phpBB 3

Sat Feb 02, 2008 4:20 pm

I am unable to post anything on the news stories on the front page, whenever i post, it tells me i have incorrect username/password, but yet it works fine here on these forums... :cry:
Sixty percent of the time, it works every time.
 
FireGryphon
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Re: phpBB 3

Sat Feb 02, 2008 4:48 pm

Your username is case sensitive on the front page.
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Usacomp2k3
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Re: phpBB 3

Sat Feb 02, 2008 5:45 pm

Hoser wrote:
One thing I don't like is that the new forums don't reset the cookies when I leave and then come back. I don't read every thread that has new postings so there's a lot of unread ones. I have to manually mark all forums read or when I come back they are still marked as unread. The old version would just reset itself once I logged out and only post unread topics since my last visit.

Do you manually log out? That should reset that feature. I don't think it's a cookie aspect.
 
Hoser
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Re: phpBB 3

Sat Feb 02, 2008 10:25 pm

Usacomp2k3 wrote:
Do you manually log out? That should reset that feature. I don't think it's a cookie aspect.


Yup. I have manually logged out every time I have ever left the forums.
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UberGerbil
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Re: phpBB 3

Sun Feb 03, 2008 12:45 am

Well there's your problem.

"Doc, it hurts when I do this!"
"Then stop doing that!"
 
Usacomp2k3
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Re: phpBB 3

Mon Feb 04, 2008 12:14 am

UberGerbil wrote:
Well there's your problem.

"Doc, it hurts when I do this!"
"Then stop doing that!"

What? I always sign out as well.
 
Hoser
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Re: phpBB 3

Mon Feb 04, 2008 6:53 pm

I didn't get it either. :-?
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Usacomp2k3
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Re: phpBB 3

Tue Feb 05, 2008 4:11 pm

I'm experiencing the same thing here, I just noticed. I'm at work. I signed in at 2, browsed for a little bit, then signed out and closed FF (2.0.0.11). I come back from doing a job, open FF back up, login, and behold the previous list of 'new posts' was still there. It had been updated with the real 'new posts' but the ones that were new when I logged in at 2, were still on the list, even though they weren't marked as new.

EDIT: I tried clearing the cookies/cache and it seems to be working now.
Last edited by Usacomp2k3 on Tue Feb 05, 2008 4:23 pm, edited 1 time in total.
 
Usacomp2k3
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Re: phpBB 3

Tue Feb 05, 2008 4:12 pm

Is there any way to limit friends/foes to R&P?
 
Nitrodist
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Re: phpBB 3

Tue Feb 05, 2008 5:02 pm

Usacomp2k3 wrote:
Is there any way to limit friends/foes to R&P?


Haha.
Image
 
Kevin
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Re: phpBB 3

Tue Feb 05, 2008 6:30 pm

No, it's a global feature.
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Usacomp2k3
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Re: phpBB 3

Wed Feb 06, 2008 1:04 pm

Here's an example of what I consider wasted space:
Image

I tried to highlight (using the nifty spray-paint tool in mspaint) the blank space that is wasting my real estate.
Image

Here's kinda what I'm thinking:
Image

That's an 18% savings of vertical space.
 
Kevin
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Re: phpBB 3

Wed Feb 06, 2008 1:20 pm

I don't think that can be solved by a theme. You'd need to modify the phpBB 3 source.
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Usacomp2k3
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Re: phpBB 3

Wed Feb 06, 2008 1:23 pm

Kevin wrote:
I don't think that can be solved by a theme. You'd need to modify the phpBB 3 source.
Do you see what I mean about there being alot of empty, unused space though? I guess that was more the idea that I was trying to convey than a specific change or implementation.
 
Kevin
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Re: phpBB 3

Wed Feb 06, 2008 1:40 pm

Sure, there's unused space. I don't think anyone has said otherwise. In fact, the suggestion you propose was mentioned earlier in the thread. And your "Here's kinda what I'm thinking" sure seemed like you were looking for a change to me. ;)
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Usacomp2k3
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Re: phpBB 3

Wed Feb 06, 2008 1:44 pm

Kevin wrote:
Sure, there's unused space. I don't think anyone has said otherwise. In fact, the suggestion you propose was mentioned earlier in the thread. And your "Here's kinda what I'm thinking" sure seemed like you were looking for a change to me. ;)

Well I'm loooking for a change in the long-term sense of the usage. I guess what I meant was that I wasn't specifically putting for the moving of stuff around and the changing of the padding. I was doing a before/after hypothetical situation to show that doing some changes (not necessarily the one's I showed) would have a definite improvement.
 
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Re: phpBB 3

Wed Feb 06, 2008 2:14 pm

Adding display:inline to the css of ".postbody h3" and "p.author" brings the "posted by" link onto the same line as the subject.
...
 
Damage
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Re: phpBB 3

Wed Feb 06, 2008 6:31 pm

Usacomp2k3 wrote:
Kevin wrote:
Sure, there's unused space. I don't think anyone has said otherwise. In fact, the suggestion you propose was mentioned earlier in the thread. And your "Here's kinda what I'm thinking" sure seemed like you were looking for a change to me. ;)

Well I'm loooking for a change in the long-term sense of the usage. I guess what I meant was that I wasn't specifically putting for the moving of stuff around and the changing of the padding. I was doing a before/after hypothetical situation to show that doing some changes (not necessarily the one's I showed) would have a definite improvement.

I think there are some visual presentation problems with the phpBB 3 layout, although I disagree about their nature and severity. My take is that phpBB 3.0 as implemented here has a problem not so much with excessive use of vertical space per se, but with inconsistent use of vertical whitespace. Most forums, including our phpBB 2 layout, have a certain amount of visual consistency, and I think that's probably what's bugging some folks about the new layout. The variance can make reading more difficult. The inconsistencies include:

-Short (one or two line) posts cause vertical spacing anomalies

-A dynamically sized "post by" profile area that's too small side-to-side can cause icons to flow to a second line at some very common browser widths. Kevin's posts were doing this for me since he has lots of icons.

-Some user sigs are strangely tall.

-The quotation facility inserts way too much vertical space after the quotation by default.

These things make following the flow of a thread quickly more difficult than it should be.

As a result, I've just asked Cyril to make some changes to our layout. Those include a slightly wider "profile" area to prevent the icon wrapping issue and less spacing below quotations by default. You may have to hit ctrl-F5 in your browser to reload the stylesheet and see the changes. One side-effect of the quotation change, Cyril tells me, will be too little whitespace after quotations in older posts. We may just have to live with that, but the frequency of those popping up will fade with time. I think the end result of these changes will be better visual consistency with regard to vertical space, along with some degree of improved efficiency, as well. If I'm right, usability--the key thing--should be improved.

We'll roll these changes into the blue look before it goes live.
Scott Wasson - "Damage"
 
Usacomp2k3
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Re: phpBB 3

Wed Feb 06, 2008 6:33 pm

Awesome. Thank you very much for addressing it Scott. I appreciate your down-to-earthness and for addressing specific issues. I know you have bigger things to worry about than this, so thanks. (and thanks for those doing the work on the backend).
 
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Re: phpBB 3

Wed Feb 06, 2008 6:42 pm

Damage wrote:

We'll roll these changes into the blue look before it goes live.


Very excited about this. I haven't had any issues with the new set-up, except the beige background keeps me thinking I'm posting somewhere else. Eagerly looking forward to TR blue.
No matter how bad the new homepage sucks or how bungled the new management is...

To all the original writers/contributors and volunteers, please know that I have nothing but the deepest love for you and the work you've done.

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