What is it? It's a total makeover for UBB Threads. In the past this has been a template only mod, but this time I had to add some script changes to Threads so it's now a full blown hack. Instructions are included in the zip file, and you can see a demo here. Test Forum 1 is open for guest posting if you want to check out the new posting templates -I used the same layout for the reply, edit, and the private message templates. Keep in mind that my dev site may change a little as I add tweaks that are site specific to www.dalantech.com -but what you see on the dev site will be pretty close to what this hack can do.

With Facelift you get the Pop Up Graemlin Panel and an extended quick reply box. Special thanks to Just Dave, Josh Pet, Astaran, Scroungr, and everyone else who had a hand in developing the Graemlin panel since it was first introduced.

Sorry it took so long after the release of 6.5 to get this hack out to you: It is a pretty extensive hack and with a day job, a wife and three kids, plus my own site to run I sometimes have to borrow free time

If you need professional assistance installing this hack contact Josh Pet or one of the other people listed in the developers for hire section of this site. I'm gonna use what little time I have to script more hacks

Hope you like it

Note: My templates look their best if you are using a resolution of 1024x768 or higher and your users do not select an insanely huge text entry box in their preferences. If you run into problems because users are setting too many columns or rows then let me know and I'll script a set of post entry pages that use a fixed size like the quick reply template.

Edit 15 Oct 04: Added article templates that match the look of Facelift. If you install the article template hack and Facelift then use the article templates included with Facelift.

Edit 16 Oct 04: Changed a custom class the I use on my site, navbar, with tdheader in myhome.tmpl.

Edit 16 Oct 04 #2:Fixed a form error in sendmessage.tmpl and mess_reply.tmpl

Edit: 19 Oct 04: quickreply.tmpl format change to make it match the layout of the posting pages, and to make it scale to higher resolutions than 1024x768 without the Graemlins ending up on the far side of your monitor

Edit 02 November 04: Inspired by Allen Ayres I created UBB Code buttons for the posting templates and updated the facelift_ubbcode.tmpl file to use them. I eliminated the "underline" UBB code because one of them had to go (odd numbers of buttons don't look good) and the users on my site rarely ever use the underline code.

Edit 04 November 04: Added a "More Graemlins" button that matches the style of the instant UBB code buttons. Updated the instructions for editing the ubbt.inc.php file so that it uses the new button.

Edit 05 November 04: Due to my "leet" java script skills the question mark in the color selector bar was broken -no errors, it just wouldn't work. Mad props to Ian Spence for finding my mistake! I've updated the facelift_fontcolor.tmpl file, and I've modified the instructions for editing the ubbt.inc.php file. Instead of requiring the instant_markup.php language file three times, for the three different functions, I changede the facelift functions to only require the instant_markup.php file once. If the instant_markup.php has already been called by the script that uses the function then the function shouldn't cause the language file to be reread... New zip file attached.

Well done - thanks for all your hard work

Just passing on something that I did for my own site

you use the class "navbar" in myhome.tmpl
It seems that not a default class. I replaced it with navigation for testing. Any instructions for the navbar class ?

Good catch! I used navbar because I wanted to add a background grafic. Please replace navbar with tdheader. I'll update the zip file as soon as I finish this post.

I like this facelift. Excellent work!

I have lots of hacks in my UBB so I add some facelifts step by step. First the easy ones, then showflat, showthread and postlist.
Now I do no modifications to the scripts, just to the stylesheet. I wait for UBB6.5.1 and then I finish this.

At this point, without the new input mask, it looks good. I have to find out how to hack in my photo insert hack (for PhotoPost) in the new posting template. If I found out or if I need help I will be back.

Attached to this post is the template that I created with text explanations of "what goes where" for the post input pages (editpost.tmpl, mess_handler.tmpl, mess_reply.tmpl, newpost.tmpl, newreply.tmpl, sendmessage.tmpl, and sendprivate.tmpl). The template is just the text input area with the graemlins, ubbcode, font colors, etc -it's not a complete template. But it should give you a baseline for setting up additional post input pages.

I see a different layout in Opera and IE/Firefox. In Opera 7 the closing border is double high as in IE/Firefox. With a little help from Krow we use this in the stylesheet:

/* Rule for all Browsers */
.tdheaderb {
background: #224988;
height: 10px;
}

/* Windows IE ignores the following */
html>body .tdheaderb {
height: 5px;
}

this works for me and display in all browser the same border.

I hate writing non-standard CSS to fix display problems with browsers that do not render standard scripting correctly -you can use that fix but I won't. Let it be broke and force the folks that script Opera to correct their browser...

yes please

and let IE and Mozilla make up and stop using different things like butterfly text and blinking only for IE...

I try to keep my scripting strict XML, and there are three advantages to doing so:

• If a browser renders the script correctly then my site looks like I intended it to...
• If someone emails me and says that my site looks odd I can email them back and say it's their browser, and not my scripting...
• When someone does get around to fixing a bug in their browser I don't have to change my script...

My advice to everyone is to stick to the standards: It's the only way we're going to force the people who write the browsers to fix their code...

[]Dalantech said:
I try to keep my scripting strict XML, and there are three advantages to doing so:

• If a browser renders the script correctly then my site looks like I intended it to...
• If someone emails me and says that my site looks odd I can email them back and say it's their browser, and not my scripting...
• When someone does get around to fixing a bug in their browser I don't have to change my script...

My advice to everyone is to stick to the standards: It's the only way we're going to force the people who write the browsers to fix their code... [/]

Sorry for flaming again but the W3C Markup Validation Service has found 843 errors in your XHTML.

Off course you can do whatever you like on your site. Everyone is free not to look at it, but I like to see the visitors of my sites as clients. And I want to present them a site as good as possible. They don't care much if their browser implements the standards correctly. If my site doesn't display correctly, they may just consider going to some other site that does. Well, and I can't even blame them, since I do the same.

I never said my site was perfect, and I'll correct quite a few of those errors. However there is a big difference between a mistake and deliberately scripting incorrectly to solve "low end" browser issues. How does your scripting hold up to the same validation that you put mine through?...

I like the new showflat layout but my user complain about the separation of the postings. So what to do? I start a try to merge the old UBBt layout with this facelift.

I use the modification for the navbars and extra information. I include a back to top button (image is included in zip and must be copy to the ubb image directory). This is a compromise and accepted by my users. Maybe someone like it.

Thanks to Dalantech for the for the ideas

The scripting is not wrong in the way that does not validate. It is crystal clear css by the book. Validates perfectly.

As I stated earlier, I just got started with ubbthreads so there are no great sites, I can present. However I am working on a blogging frontend over at Zarzals dragon-clan which (at the moment) validates.
http://validator.w3.org/check?uri=http%3...utomatically%29

I also worked on the plone cms http://plone.org which should validate perfectly. (Although this ain't my work, but there is a lot to learn from their css-gurus)

The problem I see with ubbthreads is that it is really hard work to get it to render clean code. The templates are chosen in a way that validation is only possible when they are run and filled with data. Then, seeing the error in the resulting code you have to find the corresponding template, fix it and get on to the next error.

Well, this is stuff I do in my free time, but having seen how things could be makes it kind of frustrating to hack stuff on ubb which clearly has it strengths in other areas.

[]krow said:
The scripting is not wrong in the way that does not validate. It is crystal clear css by the book. Validates perfectly. [/]

I'm about to let this discussion drop, since this thread is about Facelift. If you want to continue after this point then please start a new thread in the Design matters forum.

Now this: html> is not standard CSS scripting my friend...

Threads has never validated well, and I see that you have compaired my site, which is fully integrated into Threads, to a couple of sites that you have had the luxury of scripting from the ground up -nice, like comparing apples and oranges...

[] The problem I see with ubbthreads is that it is really hard work to get it to render clean code. The templates are chosen in a way that validation is only possible when they are run and filled with data. Then, seeing the error in the resulting code you have to find the corresponding template, fix it and get on to the next error. [/]

That's the only thing you've said that I agree with...

Attached is the showflat.tmpl file without spacing between posts

Nice work!

Thanks Josh!

Just a bump since I've made several modifications -check the "edits" at the bottom of the first post for a list of changes.

I wanna use these on my site when I get back in town

[]AllenAyres said:
I wanna use these on my site when I get back in town [/]

That's the best compliment I've had in a long time!!!

I just modified the the facelift_ubbcode.tmpl file and uploaded a new zip.

I'll post a link once I have them up and running

I fixed an error in the facelift_fontcolor.tmpl file that broke the java script for using the question marl to chose a color. Mad props to Ian Spence for finding the error!!

I also modified the instructions for editing the ubbt.inc.php script for the Facelift custom functions to clean up my php scripting. The zip file attached to the first post has been updated.

Cool, Ian has helped me a lot with scripts I've worked on at ubbdev too

He found the problem in no time!

OK, updated my church's site

http://www.cccbmt.org/forum/ubbthreads.php - not too bad

A couple buglets in the ubbt_unregistered_nav:

<td align="left" class="tdheader" valign="middle">

needs to be changed to:

<td align="left" class="menubar" valign="middle">

and toward the bottom:

<td class="tdheaderb">

needs to be:

<td class="tdheaderb" colspan="2">

It looks like you modified the ubb_unregistered.tmpl file so that you have only two table rows instead of the three that I scripted -and with those changes you would have to change the class of the first table cell to menubar and you'd have to make the last table cell span two columns...

I walked the scripts that I have for those two files and they both work fine without any changes. The concept is to have the user name, logout / login text, and PM notice on the top table cell / row with tdheader as the class. The middle table cell / row contains the forum menu with the menu bar class, and the last table cell / row contains the tdheaderb class and it's the same color as tdheader. Three rows, one cell per row.

To get the full effect of the design try making the background color of tdheaderb the same as tdheader. Or better yet: make a gradient for both using the same color...

really? I thought I uploaded all the files from the zip

The menu you are running is different than the one I have in Facelift

I am a bit confused on the last little item in your instructions.

[]Upload the graemlinpanel.php and all modified scripts to your threads directory. [/]

The confusion is this.

What graemlinpanel.php?

Maybe it's just me and I am not realizing what you mean.

But there is no graemlinpanel.php file in the zip.

This is why I am confused.

Any help would be appreciated.

Btw, I love this thing.

It makes the forums look great!

Keep up the awsome work you are doing for the community.

Thanks,
ChefAce

P.S. It works like a dream and looks great.
The only problem I have so far is what I described above.
Also the Show More Graemlins pop-up isn't working.

(it could be because I do this stuff in the weeee hours of the morning..lol)

You can locate my site here http://test.sboserver.com/forum

Sorry about that -I'll update the zip file soon.

In the mean time download the pop up graemlin hack and upload the graemlinpanel.php file to your threads directory.

You da man!!

Thanks big dog.

And like I said before, keep up the great work.

Thanks again,
ChefAce

Last question.

[] Warning: main(includes/hack.inc.php): failed to open stream: No such file or directory in /home/sboserve/public_html/test/forum/graemlinpanel.php on line 21

Fatal error: main(): Failed opening required 'includes/hack.inc.php' (include_path='.:/usr/local/lib/php') in /home/sboserve/public_html/test/forum/graemlinpanel.php on line 21
[/]

I have no hack.inc.php file.

Any suggestions?

I have encountered that one as well. It must be a small mistake in the uploaded files. Change the hack.inc.php to main.inc.php and it will work.

Did a search on the topic and found what I needed.
(should have done that before posting
Thanks for the reply though.

Works like a dream and looks great too.

Thanks again,
ChefAce

I did all steps through, but when I call the board I get parse error:



how to correct that?

could someone please be so kind and help me resolve the above? I would be very grateful, this issue sitting on my desk for so many days.....

Go back to the copy of ubbt.inc.php that you backed up and try the instructions for that file again -just remember to save an unedited copy of ubbt.inc.php just in case something goes wrong. You may have not copied all of the changes from the instruction...

Does this facelift work with the latest IIP ?? I assume it does but thought I would ask before diving in.

Thanks for your help!

J -

The IIP mod is not related to Facelift -so they should be compatible.