OK, this is something that I've been working on and attempting ever since back in the 6.0 beta test. It never worked. Then a few days ago Tech-Ni-Kal and I got together determined to make it work. And finally, after months of dreaming and planning and a couple days of hacking, Tech and myself are proud to present for your viewing pleasure, YourStyle™!!! (The name's not final, but it's the best we could come up with at midnight...)

What this does, is allows your users to select from any available UBB™ Style Templates and pick the one they like best, and always view the site in that skin. Some more detailed information about this is available n the post on the demo board...

To use the demo board, log in with one of the four usernames listed below. Each username has one of the four demo Styles associated with it. Log in with any or all of them to see the different styles. Please note that for legal reasons, this is ONLY a test board. We have locked the profiles and disabled registration and posting. So for now, all you can do is look, enjoy, and drool. One small bug we've found and are working on a fix for, is that when you log out and then log back in as another username, the main forums page defaults to the first template. Simply hit Refresh/Reload in your browser, or go into a forum, or basically click any link to fix this and view the site in the Style associated with that user.

So without any further adieu, here is our demo board for you to enjoy:

http://www.stonecrick.com/testbb/cgi/ultimatebb.cgi

Login / Password:
Test One / test
Test Two / test
Test Three / test
Test Four / test

On behalf of Tech and myself, I hope you like it!

---Skorpion

I have had to pleasure to work on this hack with Skorpion so far and it has been loads of fun! We have troubleshooted alot of things that have gotten us pretty far but we are having a great time and this hack is going to be great when it is all ready.

Make sure to read the post about YourStyle™ Info at the demo board. You will learn more about this hack. I would talk some more but it is 1 am and Aol is giving me hell so...

[ July 19, 2001 12:58 AM: Message edited by: Tech-Ni-Kal ]

OMG! this is soo F*CKING SWEET! woops sorry for the words but it is awsome! great job guys! when you plan to release the hack?

Yeah, it's a really good idea. I've also made it in my board (there you can also change it in My Profile and register page/register page kid)

We plan to release an early version of it sometime soon after 6.1 gets released. Right now, the hack is very basic and underdeveloped, and there is a lot of room for user error to screw up the board. Besides the legal issues, that is the main reason why we disabled so much stuff on the test board... There's just too much room to screw things up right now. And of course there's the not-cache-friendly thing, which we're gonna try to work on.

There are several other nifty features that we want to implement into the hack eventually (and that we won't tell you about quite yet), but for right now we're just concentrating on finalizing the main portion of the hack and waiting for 6.1.

---Skorpion

BTW, please do NOT email us thousands of emails asking for the code and saying I promise not to show anyone just me. I promise you it will not happen. We will release it when it is ready. Until then Skorp and I will be working on it. We will not release it earlier because you need it.

Just wanted to clarify a few things.

Pretty cool, I was just wondering how this effected your server resources. Or does it not even effect it at all?

So far, it doesn't look like it affected them at all. But I am not sure.

Nice work guys... should prove to be very popular

We hope so!

Tech-Ni-Kal and Scorpion, great job. This is something I've been looking for, for quite some time. I'll be in contact with you in the coming months.

Travis: I don't have access to Tech's server logs, so I can't really say anything. But I *believe* the resources aren't affected any differently than what happens when you just turn the cache off. No matter which style is selected, no cache just means that the UBB has to build each page every time it's called, so afaik the only difference is which style it gets built with each time. Though this is another reason we're not gonna release it till 6.1: Since 6.1 is (supposedly) going to have better I/O support, we hope turning the cache off won't be quite as big a deal on large boards as it is/was with 6.0.

Allen: Thanks. Like Tech said, we hope it will be popular.

Splitfyre: Glad to be of service.

---Skorpion

I would tell you about my server logs but they are so big it would take me at least three hours to download on my 56k. Sorry.

LK has made one that looks realy good

No offense, but what does that have to do with ours?

Very cool guys... if I can't figure out my netscape issues.. this may be JUST what I need.. I could select a netscape/internet explorer style

Looking forward to this... may solve my dilemnas hehehe...

Can't wait for 6.1.. I'll be rehacking my board from scratch.. as crazy as that sounds, i'm looking forward to it

[ July 20, 2001 11:38 AM: Message edited by: Javier97Z28 ]

You do know this has to do with Style Templates, not regular templates. With this hack your user can select which Style Template they want to use. Skorp and I discussed about doing something with using different templates. I think we might work together and release it but I am not sure.

I may be wrong and you might know but the way I read it you think it has to do with templates. But I also didn't get much sleep last night sooo.

Can I join the YourStyle™ crew? Maybe I can help a little

[ July 20, 2001 12:11 PM: Message edited by: LK ]

I will pm Skorp and see what he wants to do.

I am sure we could use your help because we couldn't figure out how to fix the login/logof thing and you look like you fixed it. Plus, you have gotten farther but it is all up to Skorp.

Thanks

No problem. Do you have AIM?

I do now

lkubb

Javier: That is another great idea on ways to use this, something I hadn't even thought of. NIce!

Tech: Yeah, he's talking about Style Templates... His Header doesn't work right in Netscape, so he will just use a different Header for each template and let users pick which browser they have...

LK: Um, fine by me. We're on Tech's server, so I'll have him PM you with some more info about that...

---Skorpion

Skorp-> yeah the idea works out great! Glad I could add another benefit for it's use hehehe...

Tech-> I think skorpion grabbed what I was trying to say. See, by setting up a different style template for netscape users, I can avoid the problem I'm having with site integration and netscape.. a different template for netscape users that maybe doesn't surround the whole forum as a table... I think you've seen my forum so you probably know what I'm saying

we'll have a bit of help for the cross-browser issues within a week or so...

Sorry, I told you I was tired.

Tech-> it's cool...

Allen what cross browser issues? Mine are just design problmes

Just wanted to say it looks like it is going to be a great mod

Any word on how much it will beef up the cache size (if you were to use it of course)?

I was going to try to do this before but some projects @ work has brought my spare time down considerably. My approach was a bit different though (and will probably be made easier with the release of 6.1). Without a doubt cache friendly (and usable even on non ubb site pages!)

Change the style sheets as opposed to ubb styles.

Based my idea on this script
http://www.sfu.ca/~ajdelore/cssfile/

Anyway, since you guys are still developing this, I wanted to bore you with my thoughts, ideas and well wishes on the project!

just another approach to consider.

[ July 20, 2001 02:20 PM: Message edited by: freakscene ]

Your CSS-changing idea is good, and would work very well for large sites that want to allow this level of user-customization but don't want to forego the cache. However, all that does is let you change the colors and fonts and stuff (unless there's something there that I'm not aware of). By changing the actual UBB Style Templates, we can allow the users to change everything from colors to graphics to nav menus to just about anything else that can be customized.

As for the cache thing: At this time, it actually reduces the cache, cuz it doesn't use it at all. Good for your hard-drive space, bad for your processor. However, in order to make a cache-friendly version, someone (maybe LK? i don't remember...) suggested that we actually use different caches for each style. In that case, the cache size would be affected by how many styles you offer - if you offer two choices, the cache size doubles; four choices, it quadruples, and so on.

---Skorpion

Not me

The images and things would definatly be a no go with the css option. forgot about those DOH! Forgot all about those!!!!

You can control table/cell colors with css though. Would be a pain defining all the classes in the templates to give it to amount of control I would like though. Also you would have to keep in mind that the page colors will be changing when designing graphics.

Maybe you guys could kick out a light version using the css idea for bigger sites that use the cache. I would estimate it to take you guys around 5-10 minutes

Anyway, keep up the great work and I'm looking foward to it!

[ July 20, 2001 02:58 PM: Message edited by: freakscene ]

I was going to suggest that your CSS version would make a good Light Edition, but I figured you'd want to develop it yourself. If you think it's alright for us to do it, we'd (I'd, anyway, I can't speak for Tech and LK) be more than happy to give it a shot.

---Skorpion

[ July 20, 2001 03:08 PM: Message edited by: Skorpion ]

AFAIK, CSSs are also cached

Of course it is alright! Definatly looking foward to that too!

I only Wish I had the time to do it. I'm about 99% done with another mod I have been working on for waaay too long - Super UBB image control (allows you to have mouseovers + flash buttons as options for any clickable image in the ubb)

Can't wait for 6.1!!!!!! Bet the page loadtime is 1/2 with the unmentionalble enhancements I am thinking they have added.

Are you sure? You do not link directly to the style sheets when you code it this way, you link to a script that sets the style sheet based on a value set in the users cookie when they made a selection.

local cache maybe but I doubt it would store other values (color, font size or whatever) in the UBB cache since the style sheet is translated when it is called by the browser as opposed to being processed on the server.

[ July 20, 2001 03:19 PM: Message edited by: freakscene ]

I wouldn't mine doing that for a light edition.

I'm pretty tired, if it's
[ July 20, 2001 03:21 PM: Message edited by: LK ]

Skorpy, I advise you to wait until 6.1.0 is out before releasing this hack.

Why?

&ServeFromCache() and &LoadTemplate()

If this thing works anywhere near the way I think it does, you can *EASILY* modify those two routines... not only will it be cache friendly, but it will be MUCH easier to code....

Charles, we have decided to wait till 6.1.0 to release this hack because of how close is it to being released and since 6.1 is going to be different. We just posted a small board to show everybody what it will look like.

Alright, you just made my day a whole lot better, CC!!! With your reply about the cache in Chit Chat, and the way we have this working now, you scared me into thinking this hack wasn't gonna work at all... But I feel much better now.

We'd already planned on waiting till 6.1, but since you mentioned those two subroutines, it looks like we might be able to release it sooner after the 6.1 release than we'd hoped...

[Sorry if this ends up being a double-post... I think Tech and I posted at the exact same time, and my reply didn't look like it got counted the first time... freaky]

---Skorpion

Well, we still have to figure out the CP routines and stuff since we want to add our own stuff to the CP and maybe create our own just for this hack.

[ July 20, 2001 08:57 PM: Message edited by: Tech-Ni-Kal ]

BTW, we fixed the bug for when you login/logout. You don't need to refresh anymore just so everyone knows.

cool, good job. keep going in that very good direction.

Oh we will.

I question it would be nice if you do for administrators (site owners) too. e.g. 2 different design websites abc.com and xyz.com sharing a single board but with their respective look and feel.

The user can never tell that they are actually the same board.

I don't understand...