UBB.Developers Forums General Discussion Suggestions and Feedback Re: A couple of changes

It all depends on exactly what the external ss will allow us to do... any other details?

Muhammad Chishti
Creative dIRECTOR
[:white]http://www.imcuniverse.com

Well at the suggestion of Xixe I will be adding class attributes to the different html elements in the different pages. So, by changing the sytle sheet you will be able to control font/table color, sizes, styles from the style sheet. Like for example, the color of fonts on the page background currently presents a problem. Instead of going in and adding font tags to all of these areas I'll add a class to control the color. Or by adding a class to the table that contains the individual posts you would be able to, for example, make the first line of the post all capitals, or somewhat larger, etc, etc.

The main reason for taking this on is because I cannot currently support templates properly and people are begging for more control of the layout and this would add quite a bit to it.

See this thread and this thread for the originating discussions.

Go for it. I'm all in favor of the designer having complete control over font faces and sizes and never did subscribe to the sacred dictate that the user should be able to muck about with a carefully planned and exected layout.

[]http://www.amdragon.com/images/eileensig.gif[/]

For a VERY ugly example of what this will allow you to control you can take a look at the devel site as I am starting to add some things in there and just changing the styles to things that will stand out so I know it is working. Haven't added alot, but you'll be able to get the idea. All of the styles have been changed by just using the style sheet, not editing the code itself.

*WARNING* I claim no responsibility if the color combinations cause you to faint[]/w3timages/icons/wink.gif[/].

I use very small fonts on our site, and many of our members are disabled, have lost vision because of a auto-immune disorder called Iritis which limits there ability to see fine print, so f you make everybodies font and size the same those that can read will be too big, and if it is set to what it is by dewfault, they will not be able to read it.

We get over 6 gigs of bandwidth monthly just for the forum, and their ability to read the posts comfortably is very VERY important. Please reconsider, or consider this option, which is not hard AT ALL!

Have multiple CSS files. Maybe forum_sm.css, forum_md.css, and forum_lg.css, and a drop down selection box in the display preferences for the user will allow them to select a larger or smaller font size, but I would imagine you would need to add even more css's for fonts, but the size is what really is important to our users, over 600 of them, all looking for help, support, and many with visual imparities who need the ability to adjust their font size.

Feel free to email me at [][email protected][/] as I know how to hack it in with a little help from others. This is a very simple hack, but has to be done to the entire set of cgi files.

BTW: I have the entire css style sheet set in the w3t.pm file anyway, but the $FontFace and $FontSize are left in place to use the w3theme.pm settings.

Tony Browneller
http://www.kickas.org

Tony, thanks for this reminder. I hadn't considered it from that angle but now I understand the need for it, I agree.

[]http://www.amdragon.com/images/eileensig.gif[/]

What are the chances that we will be able to define the name and path of the style sheet called?

That way we can simply call an existing site-wide style sheet after adding the w3t styles into it.

-Roger

Good point. What way would you prefer. Would you prefer to have a drop down list that includes various style's that you create and stick in a folder like stylesheets? Or would you prefer everything stay in the w3t.pm file and just do it the way it is currently. The first would provide the most flexibility because you could create various style sheets, maybe with different colors and sizes to make reading easier but I'm open to either way.

That would be the best solution. Al we would have to do is list them sequentially in the w3tthemes.pm file, and the forum would simply show the available list of style sheets available. Maybe even a address, and a brief description could be coded. If you wish i can hack it in for you, and we can see if it is able to be merged in with your code base. I will try to alter one file at a time, maybe the wwwthreads.pl file, and then we can see how easy it would be to add the code to the other files. Feel free to email me at [][email protected][/] if you wish to have my help with this one. I have enough experince in CGI to perform this kind of coding, and would love to help out.

Tony Browneller
http://www.kickas.org

That sounds great. Can't wait.

[]http://www.amdragon.com/images/eileensig.gif[/]

changing hover colors that work in mozilla would be nice :)

Thanks for the offer on the help. The only problem is that I will be working on a different codebase than what is available. Working on integrating some of the hacks in with these changes so it only has to be done once.

Would CSS allow us to play with alternating table background colors? I know that many of you feel that is copying other bulletin boards, but comon... it's just smart to be able to distinguish threads easily.

Well, at least I'm hoping.

Ok, I have this done on the devel site. You list the name of the style sheets along with a description in the theme file and then these are selectable by the user in their display preferences. I have 2 style sheets available on the devel forum so you can see how it works. (Remember: pay no attention to the colors[]/w3timages/icons/laugh.gif[/]).

Excellent!
Will it be possible for Administrators to designate different stylesheets for different Forums?

[]http://www.amdragon.com/images/eileensig.gif[/]

Good direction - please move towards CSS and away from a seperate configuration file. This makes the site manageable from one place, and allows more powerful control. Hobbit - your point about supporting users with vision problems is relevant, but not solved by keeping the style information in the threads config. Rather specify flexible sizes in the stylesheet for the whole site (ie,do not specify pt or px sizes), and allow your users to change their font sizes in their browsers. This is the method they will use for most other sites anyway.