The Buzz is back up?

Glens,

I am not a server admin - I simply update the software. I have FTP access only, and the breadth of my work is done in the Control Panel for the forums. I can only do so much with these forums, and working with this hastily written software (with next to zero support from the authors) is honestly not a pleasant experience. However, these are your forums as much as mine, so I have considered your post.

I enabled zlib compression. The reason for not turning it on as of the last update was because the load on the already loaded down server jumped up a few points. If
it does so again, I'll switch it off again.

NTP stuff: I only have FTP access, and am unsure why this would help. The server clock is in EST time, and is (as far as I can tell) just about spot on - there is a 23 second difference between the server time and my local clock. However, being that I can't run anything from command line, I can't help you here.

CSS stuff is being rewritten and will be revamped. There were and are several changes taking place, and the code is one huge mess. This will be remedied soon, just be glad it 'sort of' works right now, hah.

HTML: HTML will remain turned off, as it does in fact represent a security threat. The majority of users don't need HTML to make their posts bold or bright red. UBB Code works fine for this.

Cookies are working correctly. The upgrade turned on Session IDs and turned off cookies. I have reversed this, and all should be well logging in.

Also, the upgrade added like 45,356,876 graemlins, and also put them all on the reply page at once. I will remove them, and in their place add a link that will make a window pop-up with the graemlins on it.

---
Other misc. things I've done:

Attachments open in a new window.
The number of unread posts is readded in red on the main page.

---

To do: Light bulbs on the main page will be replaced with the bare tree/leafy tree, like before.
CSS rewriting
Reimplementing the ads

---

Any other issues?
 
[ QUOTE ]
Glens,

I am not a server admin ... have FTP access only ... work is done in the Control Panel ... next to zero support from the authors ... I have considered your post.

[/ QUOTE ]
Understood, and thanks!

[ QUOTE ]
I enabled zlib compression. The reason for not turning it on as of the last update was because the load on the already loaded down server jumped up a few points. If
it does so again, I'll switch it off again.

[/ QUOTE ]
Of course, this time of day isn't a fair sampling for the site traffic, but I can say that even if the load has jumped to 4 as a result of (the relatively lightweight) zlib compression, it would seem from my end that I was talking to a quad Xeon instead of a 386SX-25 in terms of snappy performance in page delivery. This is the way it should be and is such a pleasure to use now. (anybody else see the difference? chime in!)

[ QUOTE ]
NTP stuff: I ... am unsure why this would help. The server clock is in EST time, and is (as far as I can tell) just about spot on - there is a 23 second difference between the server time and my local clock.

[/ QUOTE ]
(correction: I believe it's EDT as I had to set it to -1 hours in my preferences; I'm on EST here in Indiana)
It's not uncommon for there to be as much as a ten minute discrepancy between server time and world time.

Site admin w/o server admin is a royal pain, ain't it? (feels a lot like using Windows, hahaha!)

[ QUOTE ]
CSS stuff is being rewritten and will be revamped ... is one huge mess ... will be remedied soon

[/ QUOTE ]
Understood. The only thing I'm seeing at the moment in terms of CSS that still /needs/ remedy is the font declaration for the PRE element. See this post for an example of what goes wrong when a proportional font is used for that.

[ QUOTE ]
HTML: HTML will remain turned off, as it does in fact represent a security threat. The majority of users don't need HTML to make their posts bold or bright red. UBB Code works fine for this.

[/ QUOTE ]
I contend that with few filters in place, there is no danger in its use. And I'm not talking about the need to insert formatted links or embedded images. Instead, we (well, at least I) are prevented from using truly helpful things such as the ° or × character entities within our posts, and must instead cut and paste them from somewhere else, or use * or x instead (yuck). An even better example would be the ability to use [ to enable showing a fellow user exactly what to key in when using UBB code, to prevent having the example being interpreted itself.

The thing I hate most about having my HTML hands tied, however, is not being able to use " " to separate my sentences with two blank spaces.

If you could enable just the character entities subset of HTML it would suit me fine; though I find it much easier to use <i></i> (for example) than the square-braced UBB code equivalents.

[ QUOTE ]
Cookies are working correctly. The upgrade turned on Session IDs and turned off cookies. I have reversed this, and all should be well logging in.

[/ QUOTE ]
The aspect of this software as compared to, say, vBulletin, that I really like is that the state of new/viewed messages is (has historically been) accurately kept on the server. I can log in from anywhere and get a true view of what's new to me and what isn't, independent of just time since I last logged in, with UBB. It's a royal pain in the neck with the likes of vBulletin where you can't just pop in for a moment and read one new message without blasting away all indication of newness in one fell swoop. I certainly hope that hasn't changed with this new version here!

[ QUOTE ]
Also, the upgrade added like 45,356,876 graemlins, and also put them all on the reply page at once. I will remove them, and in their place add a link that will make a window pop-up with the graemlins on it.

[/ QUOTE ]
2^25.4345 graemlins is a lot of mouths to feed! A slew of them just showed up in this newreply.php (if you've already jailed them they found a way to escape) :(

Thanks for the continuing efforts. I know exactly how frustrating it is to have your hands tied so severely by having to go through a menued interface to do otherwise simple things.

[ QUOTE ]
---
Other misc. things I've done:

Attachments open in a new window.
The number of unread posts is readded in red on the main page.

---

To do: Light bulbs on the main page will be replaced with the bare tree/leafy tree, like before.
CSS rewriting
Reimplementing the ads

---

[/ QUOTE ]
Noted and appreciated.

[ QUOTE ]
Any other issues?

[/ QUOTE ]
I, for one, will now wait a short while to give you a chance before "complaining" further.

How about dropping us all a note here when you feel you've finished, and then check back in after a week or so. Maybe if there is anything further it will have been all identified by then and you can address it at that time in one session.

Glen
 
[ QUOTE ]
Back and we are members now :-)

Tell us Mark, when are you a member, newbie, enthusiast, stranger?
Wolter

[/ QUOTE ]
I have no clue? /forum/images/graemlins/thk.gif

Maybe we should develop a new list of names and #'s of posts required to become one? What do you guys think?
 
I agree. You can make my job easier by deciding who gets certain User Titles at what Post Count. For example:

0 Posts: Unknown
<15 Posts: Newbie
<50 Posts: Low Member
<100 Posts: Medium Member
<500 Posts: Member
<1000 Posts: Has No Life
<10,000 Posts: Has Even Less Life Than The Guy Before

I can input custom post numbers, as well as the title for example, so go crazy and make some suggestions!

-Colin
 
when I do a search for posts in the last 24 hrs, quite often it gives me the message "this search can't be done, try again in a few minutes" or something to that effect. It never did it before but now it happens about 30% of the time.

Dave /forum/images/graemlins/iconcan.gif
 
Hi Colin,

Don't you think that 80x80 is really sufficient for "avatar" image display?

Don't forget to fix the font declaration for the PRE element while you're in the works.

Regarding javascript-only links, the "Quick Reply" link in each post is one such example. Don't you think it would make much more sense to have the link be generated by javascript itself so that those who do not have it enabled wouldn't be tempted by an ineffective offer?

Glen
 
[ QUOTE ]
Hi Colin,

Don't you think that 80x80 is really sufficient for "avatar" image display?

[/ QUOTE ]

Hail no, that's too small.

At least 150 by 300.

Who Yah!
 
Here's my avatar from my board.

183761435942a4d1b5c7b6d.jpg


Ain't I hand-some?
 
[ QUOTE ]
Hi Colin,

Don't you think that 80x80 is really sufficient for "avatar" image display?

Don't forget to fix the font declaration for the PRE element while you're in the works.

Regarding javascript-only links, the "Quick Reply" link in each post is one such example. Don't you think it would make much more sense to have the link be generated by javascript itself so that those who do not have it enabled wouldn't be tempted by an ineffective offer?

Glen

[/ QUOTE ]

-CSS updates are about as close to done as I can do. I'm done with it.

-Avatars can now be a max of 125px wide and 250px high. Enjoy :)

-Quick Reply now uses an OnClick event rather than an Href location.

-Graemlins are fixed, and should speed up loading quite a bit.

Thanks for all your patience!

-Colin

---------------------------------------

To Do list:

-Bring back the ads, since they are important.
 
One other "todo" is the favicon.ico is currently a lit lightbulb.

Everything looks good, Colin. Nice job (except on the large avatars IMO; nearly half the U.S. is still limited to dialup).

I know it's not your fault the software authors don't have the sense to use document.write() to create the very links which use only javascript. What the hell are people thinking sometimes, anyway?

BTW, how's the server load holding up with the zlib switched in? Sure is working nicely on my end, let me tell you!

Glen
 
Glens:

Here is the code as it now is to click Quick Reply:

<font class="small">Code:</font><hr /><pre>
&lt;td class="navigation" nowrap="nowrap" $quickdisplay&gt;
&lt;a href="javascript:void(0)" onClick="javascript:quickReply($i);"&gt;
&lt;img src="{$config['images']}/reply.gif" border="0" alt="{$ubbt_lang['QUICK_REPLY']}" width="21" height="14" $imagestyle /&gt;
{$ubbt_lang['QUICK_REPLY']}
&lt;/a&gt;
&amp;nbsp;
&lt;/td&gt;</pre><hr />

I've tried the following, as well as playing with the escaping:

<font class="small">Code:</font><hr /><pre>
&lt;script language="Javascript"&gt;
&lt;!--
document.write('
&lt;td class="navigation" nowrap="nowrap" $quickdisplay&gt;
&lt;a href="javascript:void(0)" onClick="javascript:quickReply($i);"&gt;
&lt;img src="{$config[\"images\"]}/reply.gif" border="0" alt="{$ubbt_lang[\"QUICK_REPLY\"]}" width="21" height="14" $imagestyle /&gt;
{$ubbt_lang[\"QUICK_REPLY\"]}
&lt;/a&gt;
&amp;nbsp;
&lt;/td&gt;');
--&gt;
&lt;/script&gt;
</pre><hr />

But when I do that, it simply doesn't load the PHP page. Please advise.

-----------------------------------------------------------------

Server load is higher than normal but still within range. The search seems to be taking the biggest beating, but that's to be expected. If the search doesn't work, just try again.
 
I just checked and I was close with "remember"; it's "rememberme"...

One other thing about the avatars re:dialup users is that it does little good to limit the dimensions of the image displayed without a corresponding limit on the image itself, unless one's solely concerned with layout. Without a real correspondence between the two factors, it makes the dialup experience even worse than it has to be.

Rest assured I'd still be on the soapbox about this even if I had broadband available. It's an ethical thing for me.

Glen
 
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