Our ReVolt Pub

Posted: **19 Feb 2012, 06:31**

After several years without upkeeping, the forum design was in need of some attention.

For example the old CSS needed some clean-up, so I took the opportunity to bring a few improvements (eg. colored hyperlinks) and tweaks some parts. You'll mostly notice that the black bars are now gone... Some will likely miss them, I do miss them a bit myself, but it's probably just a matter of time to get used to the changes (anyway the old design is saved in case it appears that this new one will no do).
Some parts probably still need to be improved. A few other modifications are also likely to be seen eventually...

Don't hesitate to point out any inconsistencies you may notice. Thanks.

Posted: **19 Feb 2012, 16:12**

Can a moderator do a skin change on a forum?
But it's indeed something that had to happen. Good work to whoever did it.

Posted: **19 Feb 2012, 16:27**

miromiro @ Feb 19 2012, 04:12 PM wrote:Can a moderator do a skin change on a forum?
But it's indeed something that had to happen. Good work to whoever did it.

jig is in fact an admin..

Posted: **19 Feb 2012, 18:03**

Ahh right. Then my request to become moderator can still be taken into consideration.

Posted: **19 Feb 2012, 19:59**

It's nice to see a few changes to the forum!

Posted: **21 Feb 2012, 07:09**

I've created a new logo for our beloved ORP forum.

The new skin as been improved as well, and I have fixed most of the issues I've noticed so far. I've only tested under Firefox so I hope it's ok with other browsers.

Please let me know if you notice any remaining glitch...

Posted: **21 Feb 2012, 11:31**

And it's a good logo <smiles>
All in all, I'm glad to see a lighter tone to the forum skin.
Thanks.

Posted: **21 Feb 2012, 11:46**

The new logo is nice, especially the graceful fade to black in wide pages. And I see you've done a much better work on the borders than what I originally suggested.

jig wrote:Please let me know if you notice any remaining glitch...

IE.

Well, like we already discussed regarding your website, IE's stupid "document compatibility" feature chooses to render this forum, and all other forum boards too for that sake, in IE5 mode. From the screenshots below, you can see how IE purposefully renders the page the way it would be in IE5 (which is ironically a 1999 browser). o_O

*

I'm not sure why the glitch is only noticeable now, and whether any of the recent changes have triggered it. But fortunately, it can be fixed by adding 2 lines in the Board Wrappers section in your Admin CP - in the Document Type and Meta Tags section respectively. Check the picture below:

Posted: **21 Feb 2012, 20:34**

Good work for the new logo, I like it a lot!

Everything works fine on Opera Navigator!

Posted: **22 Feb 2012, 01:17**

Can only give positive feedback on the new skin, Jigebren. You've done a nice job, it is just as pleasing for the eyes as the old one. I guess my initial preference towards the classic skin was only because of I hadn't really got used to the new. ^^

Posted: **22 Feb 2012, 04:25**

I like it!
Especially the fact the Banner actually has something to do with the game other than the name.

thanks mate!

Posted: **22 Feb 2012, 04:34**

Thanks gals and guys.

@Huki, thanks for the helpful info about IE. I've blindly added the declarations you suggested. Let me know if it's still not enough.
I could also temporarily restore parts of the old skin to try to find out which exact modification triggers the glitch, but as I don't have IE (and no plan to install it) it won't be very easy (I can't do it alone...).

EDIT: Hmm, in fact I've not definitely added the declarations yet... I simply tried to clean-up some useless code before, just to be sure. If the glitch is still here now, we'll try with the declarations then...
EDIT2: Declarations finally re-applied.

Posted: **22 Feb 2012, 09:37**

Looks great Jig! Glad to see you a bit more active TM&M! Keep up the good work fellows.

Posted: **22 Feb 2012, 23:26**

jigebren @ Feb 22 2012, 04:34 AM wrote:@Huki, thanks for the helpful info about IE. I've blindly added the declarations you suggested. Let me know if it's still not enough.

That's enough, it's working now.

It's probably not needed to spend more time trying to find the issue source (there's no reason to try support a legacy rendering engine). But feel free to let me know if you have any modifications in mind, I could quickly test by switching back to the Quirks mode.

Posted: **23 Feb 2012, 05:58**

@Huki: Yep, if I understand correctly, we're now forcing IE to render with the latest engine, and it works properly in that case, so I won't look any further...
Anyway I have the feeling that what's triggered the glitch was the main < table > clean-up in the Body's html code (as everything is now set only in the CSS).

PS: Just for info, I'm currently reinstalling windows from scratch (I had to do it for years...). Now I've just setup Firefox again so I was able to check the forum, but it'll probably take me a few days before I reinstall and can use again all the tools needed to work on either the ORP skin, v1.2, or the Blender Addon... But this fresh install will undoubtedly help me working more efficiently then.

Posted: **26 Feb 2012, 09:27**

I've been busy for a while trying to understand why InvisionFree can be uploaded with GIF or JPEG but not PNG files when using Firefox (or Opera, while it works with IE...). Well, for info, and to make it short, it seems to be because Firefox send the proper image/png MIME type while IE use the outdated image/x-png, which is unfortunately the only one Invision accepts. I tried several ways to force FF to send image/x-png when uploading PNG but it seems to be impossible, or at least beyond my talent level.

So for no I have no choice but using this IE piece of s**t if I want to upload PNG images (and I do want to).

Hmm, and well, I think you've noticed there's brand new forum icons...

Posted: **26 Feb 2012, 15:52**

I quite like the look of the forums now and I can only say thank you so much for putting all the effort into this.

I have one suggestion: Could you consider giving .tablefill another color? It still seems to be using the old ORP color - but perhaps it's just my eyes.

Posted: **26 Feb 2012, 16:47**

Oh I like the icons

Posted: **26 Feb 2012, 21:32**

The new icons match well!

Posted: **27 Feb 2012, 01:30**

A well needed skin change, far better than the old one. Thank you for your effort, Jig.

Posted: **27 Feb 2012, 01:56**

I like how... while it looks good, it isn't pretentious, it's just as laid back as the last one.

Posted: **27 Feb 2012, 02:51**

Hey Adam where have you been? I've not seen you in a long while.

Posted: **28 Feb 2012, 02:28**

Ok, I think I'm done with most modifications now.

I've updated all icons I planned to redraw, re-uploaded a slightly better quality logo and checked/cleaned the CSS and a few board settings...
I've also added a new favicon (PNG - should probably not work in a crappy browser I will refrain from naming).
And you're right, Urne, .tablefill could look better... It's done now.

Don't hesitate to report any remaining glitch. Thanks.

EDIT: A little update to make the Portal look more consistent with the rest of the forum. I'm also using a different trick for the main page frame. It should look weird in IE prior to 7 when a post is larger than expected, but I hope nobody will dare to complain about it.

Posted: **28 Feb 2012, 03:48**

He hey, nice favicon there!

Posted: **29 Feb 2012, 23:18**

Really, really like it!

as founder / owner / Admin of the Pub, I would hereby express my gratefulness towards the energy and work jigebren has put into polishing the old wooden floors and the brass bar since he became fellow Admin couple of weeks back. Look at that beautiful logo and all!

Cheers!

And thanks again!

Posted: **01 Mar 2012, 08:22**

Awesome job jig! This place has been surprisingly improved on for the good of the community. I'm very happy and pleased for that.

Cheers!

Posted: **05 Mar 2012, 20:44**

Really nice changes jig!

There is just one thing I stumbled upon however:

Was that on purpose

EDIT: Gone now. Nevermind.

Posted: **06 Mar 2012, 06:59**

Yes, that's because I can't update both the CSS and the HTML at the same time, and for convenience I'm sometime trying modifications directly on the board, but it can take several attempts to reach the expected result...

Now the new icon is properly located in the top left corner. It's just a shortcut to quickly go back to the board home, at anytime. I think it can be useful as noticed that after reading a topic I use to go up to the top of the page just to be able to see the navigation bar (eg. Our ReVolt Pub->Our ReVolt Pub->News->Skin Changes). I know there's a drop-down menu at the bottom of the page but I don't find it that convenient.

Posted: **07 Mar 2012, 11:01**

The new skin is really pleasing to the eyes and that logo looks excellent.
Btw, there used to be a limit to what a visitor or guest can see. Now i guess it is removed. Wouldn't it be better to put this limit? If a guest could see everything on the board, then why he/she would join?

Posted: **07 Mar 2012, 13:33**

Pranav wrote: Wouldn't it be better to put this limit? If a guest could see everything on the board, then why he/she would join?

Personally I don't like the idea of pushing someone to join just so that they can see the whole board. If people isn't going to post and reply to topics anyway, I really don't see a point in having them to register unless I was a commercial company intending to data mine user information and sell them to third parties.

Well, that's just my opinion of course.

Posted: **07 Mar 2012, 17:57**

Agreed with Urnemanden.
Let them read, think, try things out, and when they finally have something to say, _then_ make them register. This way most junk remains not said, because junksayers are usually too lazy to register. And if someone wants to say something badly enough to register, then it's usually worth listening to. And information (tutorials) remains available to all like it should be.

Just my 2 cents. <tosses those up, catches one, fails the other

>

Posted: **12 Mar 2012, 23:48**

Sorry for the bump.
Is it possible to resize the images posted in the threads automatically it exceeds a certain size. I mean if somebody posts an image of 800 x 800, could it be automatically resized to like 500 x 500? On an another invision free forum i have seen this facility, i thought if it could be possible here also because most of the users do not make thumbnails for the images. Just a suggestion, its upto you though.

Posted: **13 Mar 2012, 01:40**

I would rather this not happen. I would much prefer it if we simply asked people to resize the -occassionally- too large image.

You guys are too focused on rules. How about instead you set a good example and help others...in a positive fashion...to follow it?

Posted: **13 Mar 2012, 02:55**

Agreed with Mythic on this, particularly because what we have now gives us the freedom to post non-reduced images when it's intentionally needed.

I take the ocassion to ask if we can add some new tags such as [youtube] or [xIMG] that work on Revolt Live already. Those improvements would be quite useful to make the forum prettier I think.

Posted: **13 Mar 2012, 02:59**

Re-sizing the image on the go would mean a more common use of larger image than right now + another javascript to check the image size and re-size it using a some filter. That could potentially lower the speed of which these forums load. So I am of the same opinion as MythicMonkey and Phantom that I would rather not see such a feature introduced because of the above. Besides, if the image is very big, the forum will still look messy until the image is fully downloaded.

Posted: **13 Mar 2012, 03:02**

A suggestion is not a bump. No need to apologize.

I agree something could be done for big images. But resizement is not the way IMO. Why? Because if an user posts a big image and see that it's automatically resized, he'll think that it's ok and he'll look no further. But it's not the proper way, because the page still need to load the full big image to display it, and it can introduce unnecessary slowdown.
We could think that showing an example is enough as MythicMonkey suggested. But what if the example is no followed? (and I'm sure it will not always be followed)

So I rather though about adding Scrollbar. That way, it won't look as if there no issue with big image, and the user who post it will likely find a way to work around this. And the workaround is: using thumbnails...

Posted: **13 Mar 2012, 03:42**

aah, that's a really good idea jigebren. How are you going to proceed on that? By adding a max-width entry for img's in the CSS?

Posted: **13 Mar 2012, 05:15**

Yep, that's how I plan to do it, simply using the CSS.

About [xIMG] BBCode, I think it's used to resize the image on the fly, isn't it? In fact it's the same issue than with Pranav's suggestion, the image still has to be downloaded full-size when displaying the page, it's just a waste of bandwidth. It is not really worth adding support for it IMO.

And so far I don't have really felt the need for adding a [youtube] BBCode. I guess the only way to do it in InvisionFree is by adding extra JavaScript code, right? I don't know, is it really an essential feature?

Posted: **13 Mar 2012, 06:51**

Well, i see that no one is in the support of my suggestion. That's ok but i like the idea of adding a Scrollbar.

Posted: **19 Apr 2012, 05:27**

In order to procrastinate a bit the work on v1.2 or the Blender addon I've started to update a few stuff in the forum...

So I've finally limited the image size, but as I quickly noticed at the time of the previous posts it's not possible to add scrollbars as I was planning, simply because user images are not enclosed in specific <div> on invisionfree Forum.
So I had to go with on the fly resizing, which has the downside of wasting bandwidth (since a big image is loaded to be displayed at a smaller size), but at least it now forbids the display of image larger than 640px.

EDIT:
BTW I've also limited the signature height to 64px... It's more than enough to put any signature, or even banner so I don't think nobody should actually find it too restrictive. And here I can add auto-scrollbars...

Posted: **19 Apr 2012, 21:32**

Those are some nice changes jig. I quickly checked one thread that was previously annoying and it's looking ok now. But note that the page width is still allowed to vary while the signature scrollbar position is fixed (it fits correctly in the page linked above, but not in here for example). That's the only problem I can find so far.

And there is probably no need to worry about bandwidth, as it's always up to the uploader to manage file size (we are only dealing with how things are displayed here).

Posted: **19 Apr 2012, 23:23**

The signature width is also limited, that's why the scrollbar doesn't fit anymore on wide posts. But I could fix it by simply using the same max width for the image and the signature, so it should look ok now. Thanks for pointing this out, Huki.

And yep, wasting bandwith is indeed not really our concern... in fact I should have said "has the downside of increasing the page load time". I meant that a topic including several big resized images can take some time to be fully displayed (when images are not in the cache) so it's still less efficient for the users than true thumbnails.

EDIT:
Also updated the Home icon (at the top left of the screen), as well as a bigger icon for the "Goto last unread" button, and a few other minor modifications. Well, I'm not sure to be 100% happy with the new icons... they do the job though, and I didn't want to spend too much time on this.

I was also thinking about using the .ico format for the favicon, but after checking it seems that ALL browsers BUT Internet Explorer support .png or any other formats. Well, I don't feel like introducing a regression only for this stupid IE...

Posted: **06 Jul 2013, 22:55**

Two little modifs:

Added scrollbar so that long Code can be pasted without increasing the post length in such a way the scroll wheel starts to hurt... Check this post for an example.

Also increased the max image height, to allow bigger images in cases like like the Mad-Race Championship topic.
Currently, the max image size is (max-width: 640px, max-height: 800px). An image using a greater width or a greater height will be sized down.

Posted: **07 Jul 2013, 04:35**

Great changes.

I also have to congratulate you for your changes in the Code buttons menu, the addition of the YouTube button and the support of https links in videos and images.

I made a suggestion to RV Live about this, and i'd like to paste it here as well so maybe you'd like to implement it in the future. Only the last 2 are relevant for this forum.

I suggest improving the way the tags buttons are displayed in the BBCode Buttons menu when posting.

The buttons we have now in RV Live don't work very well, let's be honest. If you want to add a picture at the middle of your post and you press the IMG button, it just opens the img tag at the very end of the post instead of where you placed the cursor.
Also the img and youtube tags don't support HTTPS links.
And a YouTube button is missing in the Code buttons menu.

Look how jigebren updated the Codes menu at ORP. Very smoothly. YouTube button present, support for https, etc..

And you can even make it better:

1) - by displaying little icons instead of the standard grey buttons. Something like these:

The idea is to offer only those widely used, to give an easier use of them in particular for new users that are not familiarized with the tags buttons. Bold, Italics, Underlined, Image, YouTube, Quote and Link buttons are displayed here respectively just as an example pic. I know code, offtopic and strikethrough are missing but those are less used.

2) - by being able to select the text in any part of your current post message and pressing Ctrl+B or pressing the button in the menu, the selected text should become Bold. Same with Ctrl+I for Italics or Ctrl+U for underlinded. This is to make the text managment smarter and faster.

Posted: **08 Jul 2013, 07:16**

Thanks Phantom.

>> the support of https links in videos and images
Hmm, I appreciate but I didn't do anything special about this.

I just wonder what you mean exactly...

1) About adding icons to buttons, I made a quick test with the YouTube button, and since it increases the button height it looked rather ugly compared to other buttons. And it's not really worth updating all buttons design just for this, since this is only eye-candy after all...

2) Already works. Just note that for example on FireFox the shortcuts use Alt+Shift instead of Alt only as suggested by the tooltips. So for Italic, it's Alt+Shift+I for example.
Anyway I read that using accesskeys was not recommended (because of accessibility issues). I just let the default accesskeys as they are because editing or removing them would require to add extra javascript hacks.

Posted: **08 Jul 2013, 12:41**

In other forums when you type a link with https:// instead of http:// it doesnt recognise it and displays an annoying error. ORP was the only one supporting it, also in Images and Videos tags.

Thanks for the key shortcut. It works flawlessly.

Posted: **12 Jul 2013, 22:31**

Just to report a few points:

1) Polls with lengthy options don't appear correctly when viewed as a guest. Comparison below:

As a member:

| As a guest:

2) The forum name and Log In/Out text under the home button start at the extreme left edge. I'd have expected it to be aligned under the home button, i.e., moved some 2 characters to the right. Don't know what you think.

3) Upon using the new Log Out option from a post, you're directed back to the home page. Would it be possible to leave you at the currently reading topic?

Posted: **12 Jul 2013, 23:58**

Thanks for the report Huki.

1) For me it's bad even when I'm logged in. I've seen that already but I won't have time time fix it before I leave.

2) You noticed it?

Yep, in fact it's still unfinished. I let it since it's usable already, but I plan to eventually add icons instead of plain text. Once again, not before next week...

3) I'm not sure it's possible. Though it's a bit hacky, the current code should behave exactly like the Log Out link inh the user bar at the top of the page. Invisionfree provides almost not option for such actions, and I don't even know if there a documentation anywhere for the code they use (you know the: ?act=Login&CODE=03 stuff).

Posted: **23 Jan 2015, 01:42**

I've just updated the board CSS to fix font size issue in posts that contain quotes. It was not as straightforward as it should have been, so it could have unintended side effects. Let me know if you notice any...

Posted: **02 Feb 2015, 05:23**

I've finally finished an idea I had in mind for quite a few days...
To quickly have an overlook of the recent activity on the forum, I have added a "Latest Discussions" section on the home page. This will display the last 10 answers that have been posted on the board. The goal is to give a better exposure to all recent discussions without necessarily having to look inside each sub-section in case several posts have been updated in the same category.

I'm still not sure it's actually worth being added, so let me know whether you find it useful or not, and if you notice any issue with it (except that it appears during Post Preview :/ ).

Our ReVolt Pub

Board Update