Please give us your thoughts on SketchUcation?

[Gaieus]

Yes and the same with Firefox (and as far as I remember, newer IE's as well).
I have been getting used to using tabs more and more for the same browsing session (starting from a particular website and following links from there).

I use new windows only when I browse some completely different thing also. This way I can keep related tabs in the same window always.

[thomthom]

Sites shouldn't control if links opened in new windows. Leave it to the user. People will have different preferences and the browser provide control to the user to decide this on their own. Don't start overriding that and forcing a behaviour on the user.

[Gaieus]

This was actually the reason we did not implement any thing like this when it first came up some 4-5 years ago.

[opal]

I'd like a "view my suscribed topics" button somewhere

It's in User Control Panel.

You CAN make a "favorite" in your browser's links bar, or a desktop shortcut:
http://forums.sketchucation.com/ucp.php?i=main&mode=subscribed

or for "bookmarked" topics:
http://forums.sketchucation.com/ucp.php?i=main&mode=bookmarks

(... but a button would be nice, for Sure!)

TY.. it's now bookmarked. I had not found it there before, and I looked. Today's look.. the dunce cap.
One thing that I really like is that when I use my browser zoom controls, the page expands downward and does not require me to do the side to side scroll shuffle to read. I wish all sites did this.

[Gaieus]

One thing that I really like is that when I use my browser zoom controls, the page expands downward and does not require me to do the side to side scroll shuffle to read. I wish all sites did this.

What side-to-side scroll? Do the forums need side scrolling for you? (What screen resolutions are you using?)

[Rich O Brien]

I think Opal means that the forums fluid width setting is a good thing and that all sites should have it.

[Gaieus]

Ah, I see. It also has serious limitations and drawbacks however.

[Dan Rathbun]

I think Opal means that the forums fluid width setting is a good thing ....

Oh that reminds me... I really hate how SCF wastes 10% (at least) of my browser window width.

Suggestion.. user settable margins !!!!!!!!!!!

And.. user settable content width. I do not care what some other guru THINKS I should prefer, for my sentence lengths (ie, text column widths.,) I prefer that they not be a fixed width, and let me adjust the window width of my browser to suit myself.

[pbacot]

Speaking of widths and scrolling etc. Why is it images display differently? Sometimes an image (that appears to fit on the screen) has scroll bars, and clicking expands it, sometimes clicking on the image opens another page, sometimes a magnification glass is shown. Some images seem to be constrained to the window while others run off the side (doesn't the max. image size determine this?)

I dislike the oversize images that require viewing in a separate application to see properly, but I guess that is achieved by the poster somehow. Zooming for detail should be an option, not the first presentation.

Perhaps the Gallery (if not all) pages could be optimized to showing as full width images as fit in a browser. Minimum margins etc. Guidelines or defaults should give optimal viewing for some of these great images.

eg. Tadema's masterpieces are always nicely displayed. Width could be better maximized perhaps. Studio Azul's are always too huge.(I love seeing both posters' works.)

Just meanderings about ideal presentation, not complaining.

[Gaieus]

The reason is that some people attach the images and these display normally while others insert images from external sites with the [img] tags and those are inserted here as big as they are in real pixel width (i.e. no thumbnail is generated).

This is why I made this [XXL-img] bbCode but of course, no-one reads and no-one uses it.
This is actually just a WIP thing and probably soon the normal [img] tag will be simply replaced by this. See example below. First with my new [XXL-img] code - as you can see, it fits on the page nicely (and you can click to see the full size image)

Code: Select all

[xxl-img]http://www.vadallatok.hu/hatterkepek/tajkepek/tajkep003.jpg[/xxl-img]

Then with the "traditional" code - of course, breaks out of the forums.

Code: Select all

[img]http://www.vadallatok.hu/hatterkepek/tajkepek/tajkep003.jpg[/img]

As for the scroll bars: yes, they are stupid. They are caused by a hack in the style sheet to keep text width narrower (that Dan does not like either) so we should soon get rid of them.

The third (IMO most annoying) thing is that sometimes people insert thumbnail images from external sites and these images then open on that site (not at all full size or anything but squeezed into a webpage).

We could of course disable embedding all external images but I guess the membership would stone me to death.

[Dan Rathbun]

They are caused by a hack in the style sheet to keep text width narrower (that Dan does not like either) so we should soon get rid of them.

YEa.. but if the world was exactly the way I wanted it... then I would not have anything to bitch about.

[Gaieus]

The problem is that the forum software does not wrap paragraphs into the <p> tags but adds two line breaks (<br>) on top of all, without the closing / symbol (although the doctype is xhtml) so it is hard to control the text content separately from the images and all the other stuff.

[Jeff Hammond]

maybe a better/easier/faster way to embed videos?
it'd be nice if we could just copy/paste the embed code and that's that. (which would also allow for the reader to click the video in order to go to the host site etc)
Vimeo support too?

I guess the forum software would have to allow this to happen and since I know next to nothing about it, I'm not even sure if this is possible.

[Jeff Hammond]

Speaking of widths and scrolling etc. Why is it images display differently? Sometimes an image (that appears to fit on the screen) has scroll bars, and clicking expands it, sometimes clicking on the image opens another page, sometimes a magnification glass is shown. Some images seem to be constrained to the window while others run off the side (doesn't the max. image size determine this?)
.
.

I've noticed that attached images will have vertical scroll bars if the image is less than 6-700px wide.
personally, I always attach 1000px wide images (which are scaled down in the post with no scroll bars) then leave a note in the comment to click the pic for a larger view if desired.

[dale]

maybe a better/easier/faster way to embed videos?
it'd be nice if we could just copy/paste the embed code and that's that.

absolutely +1

[thomthom]

maybe a better/easier/faster way to embed videos?
it'd be nice if we could just copy/paste the embed code and that's that.

absolutely +1

Better yet, post the YouTube URL and have the embed automatically setup. Got a Wordpress plugin that does that. YouTube, and other sites, has an API where it will return the correct embedding HTML.

[Gaieus]

I have been trying to experiment with this for a while now. So far, no success. But I do not give up. I have already solved how the "simple" [img] should return a clickable thumbnail (not thumbnail really but a resized version of the original).

[thomthom]

How about this? http://www.phpbb.com/community/viewtopi ... #p12271215

[thomthom]

Or this: http://www.phpbb.com/community/viewtopi ... 4&t=546007

[Gaieus]

I was experimenting with something similar to this second version (creating a new bbcode) but with the new, iframe way of embedding (some functions of YT, like going full-screen or the new 3D movies only work this way) and in a way that users do not need to get the embed code but just the link.

Now maybe this only did not work for security reasons (phpBB, by default, does not "like" iframe embedding).

The first plugin looks nice and I have already seen it but best would be to use as few plugins as possible as with every new update, something may get broken.

This also seems to be a cool plugin:
http://www.phpbb.com/customise/db/mod/r ... e_resizer/
only that it does not work (at least with the new php version we tested with) and also I could (I mean did) achieve the same result by simply writing a bbcode for it.

[thomthom]

I noticed when I embed a YouTube video with the Flash tag, I cannot make it open the video in YouTube if I want. Nothing happens - as oppose to what happens with embeds on other sites.

[Gaieus]

That's because they now use iframes and most of the functions with the old object embed do not work any more. So if I want to do it "perfectly", I need to use the iframe but for some reason, it does not work on phpBB.

And (for obvious security reasons) I do not want to globally allow iframe embedding.

[andybot]

I noticed when I embed a YouTube video with the Flash tag, I cannot make it open the video in YouTube if I want. Nothing happens - as oppose to what happens with embeds on other sites.

My $.02 - Keeping away from relying on flash would be nice if possible. For one, I use Ubuntu for my day-to-day web browsing, and half the time, things that are flash embedded will not show up for me. HTML5 works just fine. Every few video embeds on this site don't work, and I'm guessing it's because of flash. If it's something I actually want to see, I can browse over here on my windows workstation, but as flash is a security weakpoint, I avoid it if I can.

[raineysky]

vBulletin has the nicest forum software to me. It is visually appealing and seems capable of doing the things people have been asking for.

[Dan Rathbun]

Resuggesting my previous suggestion, that sticky posts and announcements, have a different back ground shade that the normal posts, so they stand out.

... As for recolouring the background - maybe (if it's some fairly easy rewrite in the css).

I gave you the simple CSS in this post ~ 7 months ago!
Re: Sticky Posts

[Rodrigonotor]

maybe a better/easier/faster way to embed videos?
it'd be nice if we could just copy/paste the embed code and that's that.

absolutely +1

Hi, maybe improve the bbcodes whit this:

http://www.phpbb.com/customise/db/mod/a ... ode_box_3/

this mod come whit the bbcodes included for youtube, flash and other very useful snippets.

Here a capture from my forum reply

27-03-2012 07-10-02 p.m..jpg

regards

[Gaieus]

Really, thanks guys for caring so much...

My $.02 - Keeping away from relying on flash would be nice if possible. For one, I use Ubuntu for my day-to-day web browsing, and half the time, things that are flash embedded will not show up for me. HTML5 works just fine. Every few video embeds on this site don't work, and I'm guessing it's because of flash. If it's something I actually want to see, I can browse over here on my windows workstation, but as flash is a security weakpoint, I avoid it if I can.

We cannot go for html5 until it is fully implemented by all major browsers used on these forums. I know flash is becoming outdated in many applications but currently that's what's available for phpBB.

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vBulletin has the nicest forum software to me. It is visually appealing and seems capable of doing the things people have been asking for.

We've tried vBulletin about half a year ago. Unfortunately almost all unicode characters (both usernames and topics/posts) were screwed when we transferred the content of the forums. As we could not find a solution other than dropping hundreds (or thousands) of members and tens of thousands of posts, we decided not to take that route.

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...I gave you the simple CSS in this post ~ 7 months ago!
Re: Sticky Posts

Dan, I cannot remember why I did not answer that post back then, sorry. As said above, this may be implemented...

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...Hi, maybe improve the bbcodes whit this:
http://www.phpbb.com/customise/db/mod/a ... ode_box_3/
this mod come whit the bbcodes included for youtube, flash and other very useful snippets...

Hi Edgar and thanks for the tip (we may try). I see there's an option that embedded imges (with the [img] tag) also get resized which is a good thing when someone does not have an XXL screen but people keep embedding incredibly large images.
I do not know how that would work but we have tried this one and it did not (for some unknown reason): http://www.phpbb.com/customise/db/mod/r ... e_resizer/

[brookefox]

You've had your caring responses, haven't you?

How about could we change our usernames, say from something hard-to-spell and inscrutable, like 'Gaieus', to something easier to spell and inscrutable, like 'Csaba'?

[brookefox]

Or, say, from brookefox to Brooke Fox.

[Gaieus]

You cannot change your username but I can change it for you if you'd like. However the current registration settings do not allow spaces in usernames.