| Post 741 | New | Posted August 3rd, 2005 |
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| Icey the pirate. arrr 
| Cerbera wrote: I see the update caption for Elxx's post, but not for my own. Does it only get shown under certain circumstances? Yes. Updates are only noted after the post is more than ten minutes old. So if you just correct a typo or somehting minor like that quickly, the change wont be recorded. Cerbera wrote: Go ahead and scrap all my themes. Done. ------------------  |
| Post 742 | New | Posted August 9th, 2005 |
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| Cerbera Ben 'Cerbera' Millard 
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| Post 743 | New | Posted August 9th, 2005 |
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| Will Shovel Headed Kill Machine 
| Looks OK to me. ------------------ -My site got deleted-    |
| Post 744 | New | Posted August 9th, 2005 |
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| Cerbera Ben 'Cerbera' Millard
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| Post 745 | New | Posted August 22nd, 2005 |
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| Cerbera Ben 'Cerbera' Millard
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| Post 746 | New | Posted August 24th, 2005 |
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| Icey the pirate. arrr
| Err... If something is broken the usual response is to fix it, not remove it. Where would we be if every idea got thrown away if it had a problem with it? There's no anti-flame filter so I don't know what you're talking about there. There's three filter type things: 1. A spam filter, which looks for URLs of sites that are used for spamming. You can see that here: blacklist.txt. It's very easy to say it doesn't work, but how do you know that? 2. A double post filter. I can't think of a reason why anyone would want to post the exact same message twice, so I don't see how that could be anything but useful. 3. A caps filter, which checks the amount of capital letters to avoid having posts all in capital letters. It's been relaxed since I started it and it doesn't take effect on small messages. These things don't create more work for me because I don't need to maintain them, so I don't know where you got that idea from either. *shrug* Perhaps instead of suggesting it's removal, you could suggest some ways to improve the system to make it more effective against spam and less annoying for members. Preferably before you use the private message system to get angry at me, throw insults at me and swear at me. Oh, too late. I can't see any incentive to help you on this when you're going to take that attitude and display an unwillingness to discuss the situation. However, since you say it's affecting other members like Delfi I will see what improvements I can make when I have time. Feel free to make some suggestions if you calm down. ------------------ |
| Post 747 | New | Posted August 24th, 2005 |
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| MC Tougey T HAPPY HUSTLIN' 
| Ignore him Icey, he's just starting on you. ------------------ EVERY DAY A GANGSTA DAY  SHOUT OUTS TO: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 |
| Post 748 | New | Posted August 26th, 2005 |
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| Icey the pirate. arrr
| Alrighty, I've made some adjustments that should solve the problems. IceyBoard 1.6.1 * Tabs are now converted to four spaces. * Excessive capital letters checking only affects members registered within the last week. * You can now use any kind of capitalisation on code and list tags. Code: <? echo 'Hello World!'; ?>
NNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNN NNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNN NNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNN NNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNN NNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNN NNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNN NNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNN NNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNN NNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNN NNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNN NNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNN NNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNN NNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNN NNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNN NNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNN NNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNN NNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNN NNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNN NNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNN ------------------ |
| Post 749 | New | Posted August 26th, 2005 |
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| Will Shovel Headed Kill Machine
| Woo for Capitals! ------------------ -My site got deleted- |
| Post 750 | New | Posted August 26th, 2005 |
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| Elxxy <3 you 
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| Post 751 | New | Posted August 27th, 2005. Updated August 27th, 2005 |
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| Cerbera Ben 'Cerbera' Millard
| Sorry about ranting at you; everything just seemed to be going wrong that day and having my modding topic blocked was the last straw!  The changes are very welcome. I thought that tabs were a normal piece of whitespace which would be preserved? Perhaps you might consider changing the CODE tags so that instead of using <div class="codebox"> they used <pre class="codebox"> to preserve and display all the whitespace and newlines? By using CSS overflows they can scroll if content gets too long, like on my site. I've had to use a simple CSS hack and give them a definite width so that IE doesn't screw up, you might want to just give it the standard CSS and screw IE. Code: blockquote, pre { That's the CSS from my site, so you can see a simple implementation of it. BTW, what is the SOURCE tag used for? PHP?width: auto; margin: 2px 0 2px 0; padding: 1em; background: #edc; border: 1px solid #000 } blockquote.alt { background: #fff; } pre { width: 97%; height: 100%; font: monospace; overflow: scroll } /* Standards-compliant overflow */ html>body pre { width: auto; height: auto; overflow: auto } I really am sorry about ranting at you via PM like that...was just having "One Of Those Days." (EDIT) Some of the IceyCode generates slightly dubious XHTML, such as the size using <font size="size"> and the caption to block formatting like CODE using <b> for their caption. Code: <font size="5"> That's the best I can come up with for replacing the depreciated <font> tags. Replacing <b> with <strong> and <i> with <em> should work pretty well...not sure what you would do about underline, though. Perhaps just a styled <span> again?<span style="font-size:5;"> Would you consider shortening the FIXED tag to just FIX please?  It creates <span style="font-family:monospace"> which is good but might be better using the <code> element? I guess the other tags just havn't been reworked to the structural equivalents yet.If you wanted to show off, you could make consecutive formatting like [ size=5 ][ u ] convert into consecutive style instead of consecutive elements, like <span style="font-size:5;text-decoration:underline;"> perhaps? ------------------ (Grand Theft Auto Handling Editor | GTA Tutorials) |
| Post 752 | New | Posted August 27th, 2005 |
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| Icey the pirate. arrr
| At the moment I'm working on things other than IceyBoard. So unless something needs to be changed or fixed, I'm unlikely to do it. You're welcome to make suggestions, but please keep them to things that will actually benefit members and wont slow down the board. Just to clarify: I'm not in a great mood with you at the moment. I'm not one of those people that instantly forgives someone just because they said sorry. I don't believe in abusing emotions like that. We should all take responsibility for our actions and take any consequences or there would be no point in doing anything. Cerbera wrote: I thought that tabs were a normal piece of whitespace which would be preserved? Aye, but the code which removes all the new lines, tabs and stuff from pages to make them smaller was removing it. I could use some code that only removes those characters between tags, but that would take longer to process than a simple string replace. It's very unlikely that people would use tabs in messages, so I opted for the least processor intensive method. Cerbera wrote: Perhaps you might consider changing the CODE tags so that instead of using <div class="codebox"> they used <pre class="codebox"> to preserve and display all the whitespace and newlines? By using CSS overflows they can scroll if content gets too long, like on my site. I tried using code boxes on my site ages ago, they worked exactly as intended in Firefox, Netscape, Opera and so on. Getting them to work correctly in IE was such a nightmare that I gave up. Cerbera wrote: I've had to use a simple CSS hack and give them a definite width so that IE doesn't screw up, you might want to just give it the standard CSS and screw IE. My stylesheets are currently hack free. I want to keep them that way. I would love to serve up nicely formatted code boxes, but I also don't want all the IE people moaning at me again. So I lose either way. Cerbera wrote: BTW, what is the SOURCE tag used for? PHP? Aye, it's an experimental tag for syntax highlighting code. Mainly PHP but it attempts to work with other languages as well. Like this: Formatted Code: <?Formatted Code: #include <stdio.h>It's not perfect and it's not properly tested so I don't recommend using it. I don't want any bug reports or suggestions about it. Cerbera wrote: such as the size using <font size="size"> It only uses font tags if you use numbers. However, I've changed it to use spans with font-size with measurements in em's. Cerbera wrote: Replacing <b> with <strong> and <i> with <em> should work pretty well...not sure what you would do about underline, though. Perhaps just a styled <span> again? The IceyBoard message code already does. The page code may not sometimes, but <B> is valid and uses less bandwidth than <STRONG> so unless you can give me a decent reason to change it I have no plans to. Cerbera wrote: Would you consider shortening the FIXED tag to just FIX please? Err... why? Cerbera wrote: It creates <span style="font-family:monospace"> which is good but might be better using the <code> element? It's not code. It's just meant to show text using a fixed width (monospace) font. It does what it's intended to do... what's the problem? Cerbera wrote: If you wanted to show off, you could make consecutive formatting like [ size=5 ][ u ] convert into consecutive style instead of consecutive elements, like <span style="font-size:5;text-decoration:underline;"> perhaps? That would require rewriting all the board-code-to-xhtml-code, would take longer to process and doesn't offer any visible advantages. I'd prefer to spend any time on features that really benefit users. ------------------ |
| Post 753 | New | Posted August 31st, 2005. Updated August 31st, 2005 |
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| Cerbera Ben 'Cerbera' Millard
| icey wrote: At the moment I'm working on things other than IceyBoard. So unless something needs to be changed or fixed, I'm unlikely to do it. You're welcome to make suggestions, but please keep them to things that will actually benefit members and wont slow down the board. Optimising the post code would speed up the board. Removing the troublesome parts of the anti-capitals code will make the board faster to use because people won't have to go back and add lowercase spam. Combining consecutive formatting elements will produce smaller markup sizes. I don't tend to make suggestions which would slow things down and/or make them harder to use. Harder to code? Yes, but not normally harder for users to actually use.icey wrote: Just to clarify: I'm not in a great mood with you at the moment. I'm not one of those people that instantly forgives someone just because they said sorry. I don't believe in abusing emotions like that. We should all take responsibility for our actions and take any consequences or there would be no point in doing anything. Point taken.icey wrote: Cerbera wrote: Yeah, tabs are rare but GTA data files often contain them and some people occassionally post the data on the boards. Doesn't happen often but I think it's important enough to be catered for because this is a GTA forum with several modding areas. The current method of converting all tabs into four spaces causes extra filesize to be added in between some parts of the board code, such as betweeen the post creation data and the <td> tag.I thought that tabs were a normal piece of whitespace which would be preserved? Aye, but the code which removes all the new lines, tabs and stuff from pages to make them smaller was removing it. I could use some code that only removes those characters between tags, but that would take longer to process than a simple string replace. It's very unlikely that people would use tabs in messages, so I opted for the least processor intensive method.Would the time spent by the server processing tabs in more detail combine with the time gained from sending a smaller file become less than that spent by the current method for processing and sending? I expect the server processes data much faster than users receive that data, so a more complex process creating slimmer pages may actually reduce up the time from clicking a link to the page being downloaded and rendering completed? icey wrote: Cerbera wrote: Without hacks it wouldn't be possible. I understand some of their pitfalls, such as being a mis-use of technology, having unpredictable future compatibility and exotic device compatibility...probably other stuff too. On the other hand, the parent>child hack is fairly reliable at finding IE and it probably would not need to be changed to make exceptions for exotic devices with the same bug because nobody comes here with those devices.Perhaps you might consider changing the CODE tags so that instead of using <div class="codebox"> they used <pre class="codebox"> to preserve and display all the whitespace and newlines? By using CSS overflows they can scroll if content gets too long, like on my site. I tried using code boxes on my site ages ago, they worked exactly as intended in Firefox, Netscape, Opera and so on. Getting them to work correctly in IE was such a nightmare that I gave up.Cerbera wrote: I've had to use a simple CSS hack and give them a definite width so that IE doesn't screw up, you might want to just give it the standard CSS and screw IE. My stylesheets are currently hack free. I want to keep them that way.I would love to serve up nicely formatted code boxes, but I also don't want all the IE people moaning at me again. So I lose either way. It's not really something which can be called either way, imho, so whatever you choose will be as good as the other choice. icey wrote: Cerbera wrote: I think the numbers are meant to correspond somehow with small and x-large and the other word sizes? In the GTASA Handling Overhaul topic, the [ size=5 ] used to create a comfortable large font but now it's rather huge. I'm not sure if the way the numbers translate to word sizes has a formal standard or not...such as the size using <font size="size"> It only uses font tags if you use numbers. However, I've changed it to use spans with font-size with measurements in em's.icey wrote: Cerbera wrote: The <b> element is depeciated, so it is not a safe bet for (very) future compatibility. It lacks semantic meaning for non-visual user agents such as Google. That's two half-decent reason, which shouild add up to one good reason? Maybe?Replacing <b> with <strong> and <i> with <em> should work pretty well...not sure what you would do about underline, though. Perhaps just a styled <span> again? The IceyBoard message code already does. The page code may not sometimes, but <B> is valid and uses less bandwidth than <STRONG> so unless you can give me a decent reason to change it I have no plans to.icey wrote: Cerbera wrote: Less typing for me! Would you consider shortening the FIXED tag to just FIX please? Err... why? (Pushing my luck?)icey wrote: Cerbera wrote: I thought that since the [ b ] tag converts to <strong> in the board's XHTML, the names of IceyBoard tags were just human-friendly versions of the actual markup tags? As such, I thought that [ fixed ] was a human-friendly version of [ inline-code ] or something like that. The other reason is that I thought you might have called it that to avoid a naming conflict with the block elment created by the [ code ] tag, which is a standard piece of generic board code.It creates <span style="font-family:monospace"> which is good but might be better using the <code> element? It's not code. It's just meant to show text using a fixed width (monospace) font. It does what it's intended to do... what's the problem?On these boards, the use of inline monospace fonts via the [ fixed ] tag instead of the visual formatting [ font=monospace ] tag are likely to be bits of code or data, for which the <code> tag would be semantically appropriate and produce XHTML which was more efficient? icey wrote: Cerbera wrote: It would produce slimmer code which would transfer faster even though it required more CPU cycles. I'm not sure how the numbers would actually fall but it might be worth looking into, same as the tab handling?If you wanted to show off, you could make consecutive formatting like [ size=5 ][ u ] convert into consecutive style instead of consecutive elements, like <span style="font-size:5;text-decoration:underline;"> perhaps? That would require rewriting all the board-code-to-xhtml-code, would take longer to process and doesn't offer any visible advantages. I'd prefer to spend any time on features that really benefit users.The reason I spend so long scouring every aspect of IceyBoard I can find is because I want to help you make it an outstanding piece of software. I really value your friendship and I admire your skill at coding. I consider myself lucky to have met you, so I genuinly want to help you any way I can. Being a nit-picking bastard is about the best I can manage.  ------------------ (Grand Theft Auto Handling Editor | GTA Tutorials) |
| Post 754 | New | Posted August 31st, 2005 |
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| Icey the pirate. arrr
| Getting things perfectly XHTML compliant is not something I care about at the moment. I just care that the pages validate and that there's no java/flash/excess cookies/adverts/etc. Spending ages writing code to join tags together is pointless and would create more problems that it solved, if it solves any at all. The only time you need to point out anything to do with the page code is when a page doesn't validate. I only have a finite amount of time to spend working on projects, big or small. So I can't do everything, which means I have to work out what is more useful to do. For example, is it more useful that I spend ages writing code that joins tags in IceyBoard, even though no one will care or even notice it and it has some potential disadvantages or should I spend less time writing something like a PHP script which parses IRC logs, assigns a colour to each person chatting and then colours in each line where that person spoke to make it easier to read? You should also note that in the time it's taken me to write this post I probably could have written that. Here's a reasonable list of criteria that suggested features should fit into: * They should make an obvious improvement to the board * They should benefit as many users as possible * They should be worth the time spent writing them * They should require minimal maintanence (preferably none) and they should last a long time * They shouldn't slow down the board, restrict anything or make the board harder to use Here's a couple of examples from my to-do list: Post Exporting * This is a new usable feature that isn't just a speed improvement or page code change. * Post exporting can be done by all users and guests. * Post exporting can be written reasonably quickly because I could use a modified version of the PM export code. So it wont take long to write. * There would be no reason to remove it and it wouldn't require maintanence except to fix any bugs. * Post exporting would make the board easier to use, be beneficial to dialup users and allow users to backup their posts. The code only runs when people select the feature, so it doesn't run all the time. It also doesn't make the board harder to use. It passes all five criteria and sounds like a very useful feature, so it goes on as a high priority suggestion. Split PM Layout * This makes a visual and useful change to the board. * The PM system can be used by all members, so it would potentially benefit everyone. * The time taken to write the code would probably be worth it. Although I encourage people to use e-mail for long conversations. It's far superior. * It wouldn't require maintanence and there would be no reason to remove it. * Splitting the messages up can be done faster than you can notice. Page sizes may alter slightly due to the layout changes, but it'll makes viewing easier, so the split second lost downloading extra markup is easily gained in accessibility. So again it passes all five criteria but it isn't quite as beneficial so it goes on as a medium priority suggestion. Hopefully I'm making sense here. The majority of items on my to-do are invisible changes, because real things get done and less obvious things don't. Before you make a suggestion see if it matches those criteria and you'll see if it's really worthwhile. There's not really any point in you suggesting things that you think will speed up the board. For two reasons: I already run speed checks to see what runs slowly and then I improve it, that's why the main page has gone from loading in over eight seconds down to less than half a second over the past year or so. Topic pages have gone from something ridicolous like 16 seconds down to less than a second. Because the code is closed (urgh, bad icey! i should have made it completely open source straight away but I didn't know about that back then) I'm the only person that can really know if something takes a long time to process. You don't even know how PHP works so you can't even make a reasonable guess. I don't mean that in a disrespectful or insulting way, it's your choice that you haven't learned it. Cerbera wrote: Removing the troublesome parts of the anti-capitals code will make the board faster to use because people won't have to go back and add lowercase spam. It only affects members who have registered in the last week, so 99% of members don't even have the capital letters check. It's just there so that people who post all in capitals on their first message get the idea that we don't want that. A better way of making that suggestion would be: "Icey, when people post mission code using the code tags their messages contain nearly all capital letters even though it's a valid use of capital letters and they mean no harm. Perhaps anything inside code tags should be ignored on the check?" Then I would add it to my list. That doesn't mean it would get done any time soon, but at least it's been recorded and you wouldn't need to mention it again. Cerbera wrote: Combining consecutive formatting elements will produce smaller markup sizes. That's never going to happen. If I run out of potential features so badly that I have to spend my time writing things like that, I would just work on something else instead. Like I said previously, it makes no visual change, it would require rewriting a lot of code, it would probably generate a few bugs, it would be harder to maintain, it would take longer to process and it doesn't really achieve anything. My advice is not to mention it again. Cerbera wrote: The current method of converting all tabs into four spaces causes extra filesize to be added in between some parts of the board code That's just space in the template, it's not related to the new tabs code. I've removed it though. Cerbera wrote: Would the time spent by the server processing tabs in more detail combine with the time gained from sending a smaller file become less than that spent by the current method for processing and sending? I expect the server processes data much faster than users receive that data, so a more complex process creating slimmer pages may actually reduce up the time from clicking a link to the page being downloaded and rendering completed? It's just an incredibly basic string replace line that changes any tab character found into four spaces. It probably takes less than 0.001 seconds to run per post. Cerbera wrote: Without hacks it wouldn't be possible. Then it wont go in. Simple as that. Cerbera wrote: I think the numbers are meant to correspond somehow with small and x-large and the other word sizes? In the GTASA Handling Overhaul topic, the [ size=5 ] used to create a comfortable large font but now it's rather huge. I'm not sure if the way the numbers translate to word sizes has a formal standard or not... I tried various measurements but nothing seemed to translate to match. Browsers display them at different sizes anyway. I've removed the numbers from the font size suggestion prompt. Hopefully that will encourage people to use the words and not the depreciated numbers. You can always edit your post to make the font size smaller. If I find out the measurement that corresponds with <font size="n"> I'll change it. Cerbera wrote: The <b> element is depeciated, so it is not a safe bet for (very) future compatibility. The pages with <b> tags validate. If it's good enough for the W3C it's good enough for me. When <b> tags are depreciated enough that the pages don't validate (which I doubt will happen for years) I shall change it. Future compliancy for the distant future isn't a major concern, I'm not planning on dying any time soon and I don't distribute this board so making small changes like that can be done easily when it needs to be done. Cerbera wrote: It lacks semantic meaning for non-visual user agents such as Google. I don't follow this point. Are you saying that because I use <b> tags Google wont think the part of the text is important when looking at the page? I would say using <b> or <strong> tags is the perfect way to tell the GoogleBot that text is important. Along with headings and other stuff. Like I say though, I don't understand what you're getting at so please explain in more detail if it's worth mentioning. Cerbera wrote: Less typing for me! Not a good enough reason. Please don't mention it again unless you have a valid reason, it just wastes time for both of us. All the letters we've typed to discuss this pointless point have easily gone way over the letters you could potentially have saved. Cerbera wrote: On these boards, the use of inline monospace fonts via the [ fixed ] tag instead of the visual formatting [ font=monospace ] tag are likely to be bits of code or data, for which the <code> tag would be semantically appropriate and produce XHTML which was more efficient? Not necessarily. The original reason for having the fixed tags was to display ascii art, which is fixed but not code. So it's perfectly valid for that purpose. Check out this exciting death from my last game of Dungeon Crawl: ....# #.# ....# #.# #.### #.# #[.############.### .........##.......# .........##.......###### .........##.........[.... .........##.............. .........##.....@........ ##.#####........g........ #.# ##....#..)........ #..# #....#.......... ..## #....#..>..).... .# #....####.##### . #....# .# #....# .# +....# .# That's me (@) being killed by a hobgoblin (g). It's also an example of using fixed spaced text that isn't code. Cerbera wrote: The reason I spend so long scouring every aspect of IceyBoard I can find is because I want to help you make it an outstanding piece of software. I'm pleased that you want to offer advice and help me, I just want the support to be useful to me and not a waste of time for you. I'd prefer that you spend your time on your projects though. Like I've been waiting patiently for you to finish working on TextStudio so I can use it to manage all my IceyBoard scripts. You stopped working on it for a while, which made me so frustrated I was going to suggest you make your programs open source and development versions public so I could fix the bugs and release my own derivative! Cerbera wrote: I really value your friendship If I were you I wouldn't be friends with me. ------------------ |
| Post 755 | New | Posted September 1st, 2005 |
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| Cerbera Ben 'Cerbera' Millard
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| Post 756 | New | Posted September 9th, 2005 |
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| Elxxy <3 you
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| Post 757 | New | Posted September 15th, 2005 |
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| Cerbera Ben 'Cerbera' Millard
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| Post 758 | New | Posted September 16th, 2005 |
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| Icey the pirate. arrr
| Thanks for the messages Elxxy and Cerbera. Sorry for my delay in replying. Elxxy wrote: I have been using my PSP to check the forums, and they look pretty damn good. Heh, that's pretty cool :) Is it possible to upload a quick screenshot? Cerbera wrote: If you are serious about using TextStudio then I'll concentrate on it more. Aye, although the lack of syntax highlighting means it doesn't have everything I want. It's not open source either, which is a shame since it's written in VB and therefore I could easily modify it. I know you said you're happy for people to modify and release your applications, but there's a big difference between you casually saying that and having an actual license. Cerbera wrote: changing the way the list formatting works I don't really want to change how lists work. I'm happy with the current method because it uses the same types as the HTML code, I don't want to invent a whole new set and force people to remember and link up two different sets of words. Some are easy to remember, like circle, square, disc. The main types are displayed in a message box displays when entering a list, so I don't think it's a problem. The more obscure ones would only be used if people knew about them already. If people aren't sure how the lists work, they would just use the automatic lists which explains what to do and creates the list for them. I prefer to not have the symbols on the lines, it's tidier that way and makes it a lot easier to copy a list from somewhere else to the page. If people want to use [ * ] they can, it gets converted into a disc. Cerbera wrote: look up the correct words for list-style-type in CSS documentation There's no need to do that. They're displayed in the message codes help page and when the user clicks to make a new list. Cerbera wrote: the Create PM page doesn't validate Fixed. There was an extra ending div tag that caused all the other errors. Cerbera wrote: If you havn't got it already, there is a rather good (imho) HTML Validator extension for Firefox I use the web developer toolbar, which has a load of validators. The HTML Validator validates while browsing, which wouldn't be great for my dodgy dialup connection and would be more annoying than useful. It's also a waste of W3C's bandwidth. ------------------ |
| Post 759 | New | Posted September 17th, 2005 |
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| Cerbera Ben 'Cerbera' Millard
| I doesn't send the page to W3C, it installs the validation code onto your computer as the extension. It runs locally, so it would be ideal for your 56K because you wouldn't have to upload or download anything to get it validated. Well, apart from the CSS and any scripts the page... As for the list types, using "list=A" or "list=1" and so on is how the dominant forums do it, it's more intuitive and it's what the user would expect. Also, those are the types used by the long-established HTML [b]<ol type="type"> attribute which people may have used for a Geocities site or in their blog. For folks unlike us that don't know CSS, they'd probably never think of adding a type attribute of value "disc" for thier bullet list to work because they'd be used to that being the default type when they don't define one. Many users probably aren't aware that lists can have different types, and the "decimal" type for numbers isn't exactly intuitive. I think they would be more used to typing list code by hand than selecting it from a drop-down list, because on normal forum systems it doesn't require this slightly fiddly type attribute. Code: Unordered bulleted list with newlines for items: Using a syntax people are already familiar combined with the option of using IceyBoards simpler aspects seems like a much bettter system than either alone, imho. Requiring users to memorise a different syntax when coming here or having to go through a series of input boxes or hunting through the "Help" section to find the formats seems a bit unfair to me. The common format with bullet tags allows new lines to be included in list items, which can be useful. If no bullet tags are present, it could construct the items in your simpler way.
Item Item Item [/items] Ordered list with bullets for items [list=1] • Item 1 Still item 1 • Item 2 • Item 3 [/items]
IceyBoard's simple item system. Standard types in a more intuitive format. A defaut bullet list if they can't remember the correct attribute values. The option of using bullet items to match the common syntax BBCode and allow multiple lines in items. [/items] A flexible, hybrid system which would benefit post authors and readers, and hopefully wouldn't be too much work for you.  (It seems that bullet tags get turned into bullets even in code samples. The decimal list won't work...presumably the contents of the code sample are interfeering with the post? Maybe I just messed up the decimal list code (it's been know to happen, lol) but the invalid contents of the code box above shouldn't influence the rest of the post?) What sort of a license do you think would most suit TextStudio? Basically, I don't mind people using my code for their own stuff, releasing derivatives and so on as long as they link back to the original code and allow other people to make derivatives of their derivatives. And that they can't sell it. Well, maybe let them sell it... it's not like anyone would buy it from me. It's pretty close to a public release but I'm thinking about using single, ticked listboxes instead of the pairs of lists that you switch items between with command buttons. There'd be buttons for "Tick All" and "Untick All" and the label at the top would have a "Selected: 10" part. It would be easier to code with because I'd only have to maintain the file names complete file paths of one list on each form and would be faster to operate with since lists won't be being rebuilt each time an item is selected. ------------------ (Grand Theft Auto Handling Editor | GTA Tutorials) |
| Post 760 | New | Posted September 17th, 2005 |
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| Icey the pirate. arrr
| Like I've said previously, I'm not concentrating on IceyBoard at the moment. I'm working on other projects, so I'm only going to do things that are worthwhile doing. I don't want to get into a boring cycle of you making the same suggestion multiple times until I get so annoyed I just implement it anyway. It's a waste of time for both of us. Cerbera wrote: I doesn't send the page to W3C, it installs the validation code onto your computer That sounds very useful then. I shall check it out. Cerbera wrote: As for the list types, using "list=A" or "list=1" and so on is how the dominant forums do it, it's more intuitive and it's what the user would expect. I don't see how using '1' is any more sensible/intuitive than using 'decimal'. The way I see it the type of list is being defined, so using 'decimal' makes more sense than using '1'. Why should it be 1 anyway? Why not 0 or 7 or 'one'? Why not 'number'? If someone uses 'I' do they want roman numerals or do they want uppercase letters? There's so many different things that the only sensible option I can see is to use the exact same wording that it'll get converted into, because it cuts down on variations and it'll never need to change. If I did change it to A or 1 or whatever people would have to learn the new way of doing it. If both methods were kept it would take longer to process the code, require more maintanence and would lead to more confusion and annoyance because there's more to remember. The current method is very quick to run as well, because it's already pretty much converted. There's no need to convert '1' to 'decimal', it's already the correct type. I don't care if that's how most board systems work, we have different board systems to provide variety, they shouldn't all work the same way and people shouldn't expect them to work the same way. When you get into someone else's car you expect some things to work the same as yours, but it's a different car so you expect some things to be different. It's the same with everything. Like I said before, the list is available from the menu and it's available on the help page. Lists aren't even used that much. If your arguement for making these changes is that it's too complicated, adding a whole bunch of new stuff and changing the system would only make it worse. This is not a suggestion that meets my list of requirement, so it certainly didn't need a second post all about it. Cerbera wrote: What sort of a license do you think would most suit TextStudio? Basically, I don't mind people using my code for their own stuff, releasing derivatives and so on as long as they link back to the original code and allow other people to make derivatives of their derivatives. And that they can't sell it. Well, maybe let them sell it... it's not like anyone would buy it from me. Take a look at the GNU General Public License. There's also an easily readable summary of the GPL. I think that should satisfy you. Cerbera wrote: I'm thinking about using single, ticked listboxes instead of the pairs of lists You could have a multi-select list like selecting files in Explorer or cells in Excel. Where you can use combinations of control+alt to select different parts/items and so on. Not great for the average user, but they could select files individually. I doubt your application is being written for people without that knowledge though. A few months ago my mom told me she checked her e-mail after not checking it for several months. She had received over 500 spam e-mails. Then she said she was getting annoyed clicking each e-mail, hitting delete, clicking yes to delete the e-mail then going to the trash to delete each individual e-mail again. Apparently she's gone through about half the e-mails doing that. I nearly burst out laughing, but managed to keep my composure  I explained how she could select multiple e-mails and delete them all at once. She was amazed!I'm sure there was a good reason for me telling you that story... ------------------ |