UBB.Dev
Posted By: Dalantech Kick the tires on Facelift - 09/30/2004 7:57 PM
I'm currently working on Facelift for Threads 6.5 on my dev site -if you want to get involved in its development then register and post feedback
Posted By: Charles Capps Re: Kick the tires on Facelift - 09/30/2004 10:28 PM
I'm seeing some weird effects in the header, including broken image placeholders in IE6 (despite images loading) and a far, far too-wide horizontal bar pushing everything else out of the way in Firefox 1.0PR.

Looks pretty good otherwise. I like the separate tables for each post.
Posted By: DrChaos Re: Kick the tires on Facelift - 09/30/2004 11:12 PM
How did you seperate the main page without it getting all whacked like 6.4? I remember something that they said to do to add it but it made the forums wacked to the left and right....
Posted By: AllenAyres Re: Kick the tires on Facelift - 10/01/2004 5:15 AM
Should the 'post' link on the forum page need to disappear to those not able to post? (those not logged in like I am)
Posted By: AllenAyres Re: Kick the tires on Facelift - 10/01/2004 5:15 AM
btw, looks good
Posted By: Dalantech Re: Kick the tires on Facelift - 10/02/2004 11:05 AM
[]Charles Capps said:
I'm seeing some weird effects in the header, including broken image placeholders in IE6 (despite images loading) and a far, far too-wide horizontal bar pushing everything else out of the way in Firefox 1.0PR.

Looks pretty good otherwise. I like the separate tables for each post. [/]

I've got both IE 6 and Firefox and I'm not seeing either of the problems you reported. The only error I see is the alignment in the background between the body and the logo with Firefox (FF starts the background 1 pixel off from IE grrr...... ).

Is anyone else seeing the same errors that Charles is reporting? I'll walk the script in my templates just in case...

Edit: I didn't find any html errors.
Posted By: Dalantech Re: Kick the tires on Facelift - 10/02/2004 11:09 AM
[]DrChaos said:
How did you seperate the main page without it getting all whacked like 6.4? I remember something that they said to do to add it but it made the forums wacked to the left and right.... [/]

I had my main page seprated in 6.4 as well (www.dalantech.com -if I haven't upgraded to 6.5 by the time you see this post).

I moved $tbopen and &tbclose to put them inside the loops -the only difficult one is the placement of $tbclose. When I publish Facelift just load my ubbthreads.tmpl file and the original into a program like Beyond Compare to see how it's done
Posted By: Dalantech Re: Kick the tires on Facelift - 10/02/2004 11:12 AM
[]AllenAyres said:
Should the 'post' link on the forum page need to disappear to those not able to post? (those not logged in like I am) [/]

I've been working on the "posting" templates (post, reply, and edit) so I haven't realy had a chance to look the post link over -but it's on my "to do" list
Posted By: Zackary Re: Kick the tires on Facelift - 10/02/2004 5:34 PM
IE 6, I see what Charles sees.

Here's link to a screen cap I took.

Clicky
Posted By: Dalantech Re: Kick the tires on Facelift - 10/02/2004 9:25 PM
The image is where it's suppose to be. I deleted the .htaccess file -let me know what you see now please.
Posted By: Dalantech Re: Kick the tires on Facelift - 10/02/2004 9:33 PM
Update: I opened up Test forum 1 for guest posting so you don't have to register to check out the post, reply, and edit pages
Posted By: Zackary Re: Kick the tires on Facelift - 10/03/2004 4:34 AM
I still see the x's in IE6.

Here's what I see in Mozilla Clicky
Posted By: Dalantech Re: Kick the tires on Facelift - 10/03/2004 8:43 AM
Thanks for the update: I've asked the members of my site to check it out as well. I don't see either error, so I'm a little confused...
Posted By: Dalantech Re: Kick the tires on Facelift - 10/03/2004 4:11 PM
[]Zackary said:
IE 6, I see what Charles sees.

Here's link to a screen cap I took.

Clicky [/]

Fixed -bad url for the image (dalantech instead of etherger).
Posted By: Zackary Re: Kick the tires on Facelift - 10/03/2004 9:33 PM
Looks good in both IE6 and Mozilla.
Posted By: Dalantech Re: Kick the tires on Facelift - 10/04/2004 8:02 AM
I figured that both problems were caused by the bad URL -it's just that the two browsers displayed it differently
Posted By: Charles Capps Re: Kick the tires on Facelift - 10/04/2004 7:54 PM
Much better looking now.
Posted By: AllenAyres Re: Kick the tires on Facelift - 10/05/2004 5:11 AM
does look pretty sweet
Posted By: Dalantech Re: Kick the tires on Facelift - 10/05/2004 8:42 AM
Thanks

I've upgraded my main site to 6.5 and I'm tweaking the templates there. It will be a few more days before I have Facelift ready -too much real life gettin' in the way of my scriptin' lately

Edit: I've updated the dev site with the files that I've been tweaking on my production board. New posting templates!
Posted By: Zarzal Re: Kick the tires on Facelift - 10/06/2004 11:20 PM
The posting template is the one where I look into it myself. It would be nice to have all markup/color/greamlins on empty space near the posting box oin the same high so you not need to scroll down while writing.

The problem to this Idea is the variable, userselectable, width of the posting box. If the box larger then default it will destroy the layout.

How sounds the idea to put a line with the UBB code funktion on top of the posting box ? This is most time used und so you can use it without scrolling.
Posted By: Dalantech Re: Kick the tires on Facelift - 10/07/2004 8:00 AM
That would be great except for one little problem: there is one template that generates the font colors, instant UBB code, and Graemlins. If they were seperate I could move them anywhere, but all three are on a single template and are a single variable in the pages that use them.

I could break them out, but I'd have to change the function that creates the group and add two more -and in the past I've made Facelift a template only mod. I may not get away with it this time since I've already had to hack the addpost and modify post scripts for the post icon pull down...
Posted By: Dalantech Re: Kick the tires on Facelift - 10/08/2004 1:42 PM
[]AllenAyres said:
Should the 'post' link on the forum page need to disappear to those not able to post? (those not logged in like I am) [/]

Done, plus the previous and next dead hyperlinks are now gone -and it seemed easier to do in this version of Threads than the last...
Posted By: Dalantech Re: Kick the tires on Facelift - 10/09/2004 9:56 PM
New posting templates

Edit: I'm working on splitting up the $instant_ubbcode variable (ubb code, font colors, and graemlins) so the page may look a little odd until I get it finished.
Posted By: Dalantech Re: Kick the tires on Facelift - 10/10/2004 3:54 PM
[]Zarzal said:
The posting template is the one where I look into it myself. It would be nice to have all markup/color/greamlins on empty space near the posting box oin the same high so you not need to scroll down while writing.

The problem to this Idea is the variable, userselectable, width of the posting box. If the box larger then default it will destroy the layout.

How sounds the idea to put a line with the UBB code funktion on top of the posting box ? This is most time used und so you can use it without scrolling. [/]

Done, but the graemlins had to go to the right of the post box. I placed the font colors along the right, and the instant ubb code at the bottom of the post box on my posting pages -I also modified all of the private message posting screens as well.
Posted By: J.C. Re: Kick the tires on Facelift - 10/10/2004 8:29 PM
Now move all the extra bits into quick reply and do away with the posting page LOL
Posted By: Dalantech Re: Kick the tires on Facelift - 10/10/2004 9:24 PM
I don't like quick reply: I have it enabled on my dev site just so I can edit it for the people who do use it.

I don't like it because it screws up the reply tracking. If you take a look at a post on my site you can clearly see who a reply is from. For example:

[In response to Fortch post #68748]

The post number is a hyperlink to Fortch's post. Quick reply tags the last poster as the one you are replying to, but if that isn't the person the reply is intended for the reply tracking is hosed...

Edit: I just noticed the java script in the showflat.tmpl file is tere specificly to keep post tracking in order -so I've enabled it on my main site
Posted By: J.C. Re: Kick the tires on Facelift - 10/10/2004 9:56 PM
Then add the code to it to make it work as the other does.
Posted By: Dalantech Re: Kick the tires on Facelift - 10/10/2004 10:19 PM
Facelift for Threads 6.5 version 2...
Posted By: Dalantech Re: Kick the tires on Facelift - 10/10/2004 10:50 PM
[]J.C. said:
Now move all the extra bits into quick reply and do away with the posting page LOL [/]

Hmmm... not easily done, but doable. I may make a stab at it after Facelift is released -I need to get it out the door so I can move on to other things...
Posted By: Dalantech Re: Kick the tires on Facelift - 10/11/2004 8:41 PM
[]J.C. said:
Now move all the extra bits into quick reply and do away with the posting page LOL [/]

I'm getting closer...
Posted By: Dalantech Re: Kick the tires on Facelift - 10/12/2004 7:57 PM
[]Dalantech said:
Edit: I've updated the dev site with the files that I've been tweaking on my production board. New posting templates! [/]

Updated again...
Posted By: J.C. Re: Kick the tires on Facelift - 10/13/2004 1:09 AM
Kewl, makes more sense than having both...
Posted By: Zarzal Re: Kick the tires on Facelift - 10/13/2004 9:57 AM
The new posting screen ROXX Very nice work. I still waiting for release.
Posted By: Dalantech Re: Kick the tires on Facelift - 10/13/2004 10:06 AM
I got the idea for the layout from the quick reply box -once I split the graemlins, font color, and instan ubb code into three different variables it was easy to modify the layout
Posted By: Zarzal Re: Kick the tires on Facelift - 10/13/2004 11:50 PM
I hope I find a way (if released) to put in the hacks for for 'more graemlins' and 'insert my photos'. It's a challenge for me
Posted By: Dalantech Re: Kick the tires on Facelift - 10/14/2004 7:47 AM
With permission, I'm gonna include the templates / instructions for the Graemlin panel with Facelift. I don't use the "insert my photos", but if you need help with it just let me know and I'll see what I can do (it won't be a standard part of Facelift).

I'm going to try to get Facelift out the door this weekend -but keep in mind it's an actuall hack this time and not just a template replacement...
Posted By: krow Re: Kick the tires on Facelift - 10/14/2004 6:16 PM
Hiya,

I'm quite new to this UBB stuff so maybe this has been told a lot of times before, is off topic or complete bullshit. In this case, take my apologies in advance. ;-)

When hacking the css/templates I wondered why there is absolutely no use if the so wonderful 'id' attribute all xhtml tags have. This makes it almost completely impossible to do any css-skinning beyond basic stuff like colors, borders and fonts.

It would be nice to have a unique ID for the different tables so they can be rendered at different locations, be replaced by images, made invisible, ...

IMHO all calls to 'tbopen' should include (an optional) id.

As a second step you should consider bloating the number of style classes used and make use of style class derivation. So the 'stylist' has the posibility to style the 'reply' button different from the 'continue' button an so on.
Posted By: Dalantech Re: Kick the tires on Facelift - 10/14/2004 7:35 PM
I understand what you are saying, but IMHO it's overkill. I actually remove quite a few classes from the stock Threads templates because there isn't any sense in using the same class three layers deep in a template -the first declaration of it is all that's needed (inheritance will take care of the rest).

As for making the buttons different: Uniformaty is an asset of a well designed web site -the only time I've see radicle color designs is on "ranbow bright" web sites and I have no intention of scripting for them

Look at my site, www.dalantech.com , and see what I've done just by simply adding wrapper graphics to the tbopen and tbclose templates and adding a gradient to tdheader...
Posted By: krow Re: Kick the tires on Facelift - 10/14/2004 7:48 PM
Well looking below my current "Quick-Reply-Window" there are 4 Buttons, each having a different icon (Previous, Index, Next, Threaded). They DO differ in the icon. IMO, this icon should not be an img-tag as it is now but be a background-image in the css. As a matter of fact img-tags should only be used where the image is part of the content and not of the presentation (smilies, images from gallery, ...)

I agree there are a lot of redundant classes in the current templates which can be replaced by subadressing (is it called that) in the CSS. (Or better, there is a lot of html code which could be replaced by slick styling, I believe) But there are a lot of places where more classes could clean up the code and make the pages smaller, more efficent and faster loading. Replacing all the img tags by a class in the surrounding a is the most obvious way.
Posted By: Dalantech Re: Kick the tires on Facelift - 10/14/2004 9:04 PM
The problem with using background images is that they can be hidden if there is a problem with scaling the page or the browser you're using doesn't support all the CSS properties you've asigned to the class that controls the images...

You also can't asign an html hyperlink to a background image -so how are you going to make the icons active links? By creating a transperent forground image to go over each one? Why bother...

[] But there are a lot of places where more classes could clean up the code and make the pages smaller, more efficent and faster loading. [/]

I couldn't have said it better...
Posted By: krow Re: Kick the tires on Facelift - 10/14/2004 9:38 PM
[]Dalantech said:
The problem with using background images is that they can be hidden if there is a problem with scaling the page or the browser you're using doesn't support all the CSS properties you've asigned to the class that controls the images...
[/]

Agreed. I wouldn't call that a problem but a good thing. But I guess this would lead to a religous war... ;-)

[]
You also can't asign an html hyperlink to a background image -so how are you going to make the icons active links? By creating a transperent forground image to go over each one? Why bother...
[/]

I can't reproduce this. On which browser doesn't this work? Quickly hacking this: http://krow.de/background_link.html works like a charm on my current IE and Mozilla. Or am I missing your point?
Posted By: Dalantech Re: Kick the tires on Facelift - 10/15/2004 7:33 AM
You've got text over a background image. Remove the text and see what happens...
Posted By: krow Re: Kick the tires on Facelift - 10/15/2004 11:17 AM
Agreed, that's a special feature of IE. However the Buttons I can see here, all do have text on them, so what's the point? And for those that don't, you can always put a nonbraking space as a text on them...
© UBB.Developers