Updated look

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Jordan

Jordan

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As you can see, I've made some changes of the appearance of the forums.  What do you think so far?  I hope you like it...it's just a preview of things to come.

Also, clear your Temporary Internet Files (Tools, Internet Options, Delete Files...) to make sure you see some of the new images and things.
 
Hi there!

I'll add gtplanet.net to my list of sites (both at uwaterloo.ca and geocities.com) soon (I like to keep them and a copy on my home machine synchronized, which can add delay to such seemingly simple things.  :D )

Of course, I checked this site out before adding a link.  :)

Looks very nice, although the forums are a little slow right  now.  :)

Hey, could you add automotive logo Avatars like Kenji  had for his new prototype?  :D


(Edited by SportWagon at 5:25 pm on May 23, 2001)
 
Hey, SportWagon.  I agree the forums are a little slow right now, but we're in the process of making a big move from our old site on MSN, http://communities.msn.com/GranTurismo2.  Our forum there has 480 members and 6,387 messages.  

Actually, this new forum has only been up for seven days, and already has over 100 messages.  Considering I haven't really promoted it on the rest of the website, I think that's pretty good.  There's a new version of the Ikonboard software coming next month, which will allow you to easily add custom avatars of your choice.  However, I think that's a completely awesome idea, so I'm going to begin hacking my avatars immediately.  :D
 
I've been messing around with the avatars, but it looks like the images have to be GIF files.  I'm sure there's a way to make it use JPEGs as well...

I'll keep you updated on how it goes.
 
Get rid of all the blinking blinking!!!

I'd make some of this blink, but you have HTML off!!!  :)

Your entire page of links blinks in Netscape.  I think that must be a mistake.  Perhaps you did not notice in IE?
 
Thanks, soulpanic.  Check out the new avatars!  Much thanks goes to Simon from the Ikonboard support forums for helping me hack this.
 
Jordan, I must say again and again, your the man.  Im finally getting used to these forums, but again my only complaint is the lack of HTML.  
Ive noticed some of the forums are getting away from HTML and/or are turning them off.  
But still, gotta luv the new forums man.  
Soulpanic, great to hear from you man.  Ill have plenty of time to challenge your Autumn challenge.  Later.
newsig42101qtrscrn.jpg
 
Where have you seen HTML allowed?  I'd love to enable it here, but the risk is just way too high.  :(
 
Html is used on the J-body.org site and the Network 54 forums..
Old School Cavs was Html but went to EzBoard forums which has html turned off.
When you venture as many forums as I do, it gets confusing sometime as to which format to use as each forum has differences.  
newsig42101qtrscrn.jpg
 
Yeah, I've seen ezBoard used a lot of places, but I've also heard lots of complaints from other webmasters about it.  And, of course, EzBoard smothers your forum with ads, and I don't like that at all.  Ikonboard is by far the very best I have ever seen, and has just as many or more features than the $1,000+ Ultimate Bulliten Board (UBB) software!
 
Quote: from Jordan on 4:00 pm on May 24, 2001[br]What are you talking about?
Click to expand...
In various places you have things like <a style=color: #0000FF; text-decoration: blink>

Get rid of the silly text-decoration: blink

Only Netscape supports it, and it is very annoying.

This is, e.g. on your top-level https://www.gtplanet.net/

Also on that page you should explicitly set the bgcolor=white; you are using the user's default, and, while that often is white, if it isn't it looks really messy.   (Years ago Netscape nearly always defaulted backgrounds to grey for some peculiar reason, and so I keep that default to catch potentially ugly-looking pages of our own).
 
Still no Sooby avatar.  :(

It's too bad boards don't allow HTML with severe validity checking.  (I.e. allowing only an approved set of containers, and detecting and correcting imbalances of the crucial ones of those).

(Edited by SportWagon at 9:29 am on May 28, 2001)
 
Netscape only uses blink?  Maybe so, but it seems to be very effective in Internet Explorer.  I'm sorry if it annoys you, but I've always liked it, so it's going to stay.

Good point about older verisons of Netscape; that's something I've overlooked.  (If only FP would let me change all the colors of every page at once...  :mad:).  I'll add a Subaru avatar later tonight.
 
Which version of IE does something with blink?

Does it cause the entire line to blink all the time?  Or does it just affect what happens when selected or something?

<blink> was like a joke in Netscape--often cited as an attribute you should use sparingly if at all.  Based on that I'd be surprised if IE implemented it the same way.  (versions I have ignore it totally, AFAICT)

A problem with having a lot of blinking links is that as you  move to select them, you temporarily think they have gone away.  It also makes it difficult to read the entire list at  once; you have to wait for the refreshs to update your picture of what it says.

(Edited by SportWagon at 12:06 pm on May 29, 2001)
 
I'm using the latest version, IE 5.5.  What happens is that when you mouse over (just move the cursor over a link), the link will become underlined and the color will change.  As soon as you move off the text that is hyperlinked, it will return to normal.

Here's some examples...

The hyperlink as it normally looks:
mouseover_no.gif


Here's the hyperlink when you pass the cursor over it:
mouseover_yes.gif


Is that what it does for you?
 
Oh no.

In Netscape all the links are blinking on and off all the time.  (blink! blink! blink! blink!--I can't show you)  Red never shows.  I did see your white/red change when I tried it in IE, though.

<a style=color: #FFFFFF; text-decoration: blink href=multimedia.htm dynamicanimation=fpAnimformatRolloverFP1 fprolloverstyle=color: #FF0000; text-decoration: underline onmouseover=rollIn(this) onmouseout=rollOut(this) language=Javascript1.2 target=_top>Multimedia</a></font></b>

Are you sure you need that text-decoration: blink to get the effect you want in IE?

Hee! Hee!  Right now I'm *glad* HTML is off!
 
Ouch, I'd say that does get very annoying, very fast.  What about the blink effects on the forums here?  Do they still do that?
 
On the EZBoard forums you have the opportunity to contribute to the communities and the ads will be gone.  Its only seven dollars and works on all EZBoard message board.  According to EZBoard this keeps the money flowing so they dont have to charge the webmasters or ppl a fee for using EZBoard.  BTW, Its good for one year.
smile6.gif
 
 
I haven't noticed much annoying blinking in the forums per se.

But there is a lot on the https://www.gtplanet.net/ main page.

I would recommend downloading Netscape 4.7X and firing it up  occasionally to check for such incompatibilities.

Most people right now are avoiding Netscape 6 because it is very slow, but theoretically you should try it too.  :(  But  4.7X still seems readily available at www.netscape.com (Browser Central).

http://home.netscape.com/browsers/4/index.html?cp=briinf

Not sure what happened to Netscape 5.  :D
 
I'm glad you like it so far, but it's not complete yet...
 
The Subaru avatar worked for a while, then broke, and is still broken AFAICT.

10 posts is too few for a page.  Somewhere between 20 and 40, would be better, but ideally pages would have variable numbers of posts (ie. fewer posts when they are long; a size limit as well as a number of posts limit), but I suspect the board intrinsically disallows that last thing, since going to a new page seems to be done by specifying a start post of (page-1)*10.
 
The Subaru avatar works fine for me.  Try it again, but let me know if you still have trouble with it.
 
OK, I've changed it to 20 posts.  I also tried to create the same effect without using blink, but FrontPage wouldn't do it any other way.
 
http://gtplanet.net/ikonboard/avatars/Subaru%20Impreza%20WRX.gif  gives me the parameter is incorrect.  (The message parser cannot handle blanks in URLs and doesn't seem to like it if I insert my own url tags, either.

You should reduce your mucking around with opening new windows with different sizes and avoid using fixed names for those.  I t makes it difficult to create a post and browse around for info at the same time.  This probably is partly related to the fact I am trying to work out of the recent posts window though.  But as far as I'm concerned I'd be happier if that was just a link which opened in the same window as its parent.  Problem is if I'm doing a post in that window, and then go try and see new posts again, it wipes out the post I was creating.  Or something like that.  This is in Netscape again.

The blink things sounds to me like deliberate sabotage on the part  of Microsoft.

Right now https://www.gtplanet.net/cgi-bin/ikonboard/ikonboard.cgi shows me nothing useful in Netscape.  That's why I came in via the new posts link.  (I typed that in once already, but it got lost...)

I'll compare in IE if I get a chance.



(Edited by SportWagon at 8:37 am on June 4, 2001)


(Edited by SportWagon at 8:40 am on June 4, 2001)
 
Take the blanks out of the URL for the Subaru avatar.

Somewhere along the line the browser and/or the board software is getting confused about how to encode them.

The above one works, because I said %20, but really a blank I put in a URL should get encoded before transmission.  This is very weird.  But for me in Netscape (ignore where URL tags get stuck in the following):

http://gtplanet.net/ikonboard/avatars/Subaru%20Impreza%20WRX.gif    works as a URL  but
http://gtplanet.net/ikonboard/avatars/Subaru Impreza WRX.gif   does not.

It could be fussiness on the part of your web server.

I also verified what happens when I try to browse while posting.  Any new posts window brings the thread page up in the same window, over-writing my post.  I was able to notice this correctly this time and find the right history and back up and retrieve this (then) partial post, but still, it's awkward to do.  Be careful when directing output  to other windows.  Think about possible unexpected cases and make sure you don't hide something the user wants.  Windows are only useful if you can reliably have lots of them.  :)
 
Of course, both things work in IE (since Front Page is designed with IE in mind, perhaps).

But if you avoid the use of spaces in avatars it will dodge whatever strange thing is happening there.

And it  ought to be possible to make the main forum page useful in Netscape again.

Nice touch that when I'm posting here, most recent posts are first.  (Once I get used to it... :) )

I'll try to see if the new post problem happens in IE too...


(Edited by SportWagon at 9:14 am on June 4, 2001)
 
IE 5.5 on a PC and the message headers look really dumb.  The posted at shows up wrapped one-word-per-line as a column at the right hand side of the header.

Not here as I post, but in the real thread listing for this thread (page 2).
 

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