A new look

[ATJ]

That is very strange, because they were there this morning/earlier in the week.

I know this because I had cause to check on a couple.

Let me see wtf is happening.

And ... I think that even mine has gone!

It appears to be only this thread, as they are there in other threads. Maybe a forum setting or something like that.

[ATJ]

I should add that the board has remembered me since Sunday night. I have not had to login again since then.

[gstark]

[Andrew, if you read that second thread, what's actually needed is totally unclear, and there's some interesting discussion about how the writers of the forum software have tried to adhere to standards, which means excluding the (obsolete) "_blank" parameter.

Gary,

I have done some more investigation. It appears that "_blank" is not obsolete.

Here it is in HTML 4.0: http://htmlhelp.com/reference/html40/va ... rametarget
and in HTML 4.01: http://www.w3.org/TR/html4/types.html#idx-target_frame

Looking at the working draft of HTML 5: http://www.w3.org/html/wg/html5/ , it appears that "_blank" is still a valid "browsing context".

It appears the argument comes down to opposing views of web developers. Some believe they are helping their viewers by opening a new window (by default) when a link to an off site reference is given to preserve the current context. The other camp want to leave it entirely up to the user and let them do whatever they want. While I can appreciate letting users do what they want, at least for me, I expect that clicking on an external link (whether in a forum or on other sites) will open a new window and I hate it when it doesn't.

Andrew,

Thanx for that. Most interesting.

...

On the vanishing signatures: do y'all have a checkbox below the posting area tat says "Attach a signature" ? It seems to be related to this forum.section, which suggests it's a permissions issue.

[ATJ]

On the vanishing signatures: do y'all have a checkbox below the posting area tat says "Attach a signature" ? It seems to be related to this forum.section, which suggests it's a permissions issue.

I have one now - I don't remember seeing it in this forum before (but that could just be my mad cow ). It is there and ticked by default.

Oh look, they are back.

[rflower]

I have just used the ordering bit. Very Snazzy and smoooth. I like it a lot.

[phillipb]

Well, the recognition bit is getting worse for me. Not only it doesn't recognize me now but before, I had the username and password filled in, all I had to do was click the sign in button. Now both fields a blank.

[moz]

Sorry to whinge, but the various skins all grump me in various ways. I would like black text on a white background, with the "show new posts" list done like the white on black themes - showing poster, title and forum. Just like the old skin, in fact. But that's not an option. The default skin is awful in that respect, all in information is there it's just jumbled up in one cell so I have to pick through each one to work out the details. That makes skimming the new posts very slow and tedious, but using the white-on-black themes gives me a headache.

Is it possible to add new themes? Well, more specifically, if I dig up a new theme will you add it? Or if you've modified how themes work can you email me the current set so I can make a hybrid that works for me? Please

[gstark]

Well, the recognition bit is getting worse for me. Not only it doesn't recognize me now but before, I had the username and password filled in, all I had to do was click the sign in button. Now both fields a blank.

Phillip,

That sounds like a local issue of some sort.

[gstark]

Sorry to whinge, but the various skins all grump me in various ways. I would like black text on a white background,

I'd like to retire to Monterosso Al Mare ...

with the "show new posts" list done like the white on black themes - showing poster, title and forum. Just like the old skin, in fact.

Which was based upon a blue colour scheme .... ???

But that's not an option. The default skin is awful in that respect, all in information is there it's just jumbled up in one cell

Er, no.

Totally wrong, Moz.

Look at the lower section of the portal page, any skin. Three columns. Subject, Latest Poster, Original Poster. One logical row per topic.

All four skins use the same query code - that's how phpbb3 works. The query loads some variables, and the html section - individual for each skin - renders the variables to the screen.

so I have to pick through each one to work out the details. That makes skimming the new posts very slow and tedious, but using the white-on-black themes gives me a headache.

Which is why we have two themes with a white background. But neither of them render the way you're describing them.

Is it possible to add new themes? Well, more specifically, if I dig up a new theme will you add it? Or if you've modified how themes work can you email me the current set so I can make a hybrid that works for me? Please

The latter won't work, because the themes need to be loaded onto the server. We're certainly happy to look at new themes, but we do need to do some tweaking because of the portal, and the bargains, and a few other bits. We're certainly happy for you to PM us with details of the theme you have in mind, and we will certainly look at it ...

[radar]

Could you tell me what happens if you use the dslrusers.com domain ?

Works this time

I'll keep using the .com to see if I stay logged in.

Cheers,

André

[gstark]

Could you tell me what happens if you use the dslrusers.com domain ?

Works this time

I'll keep using the .com to see if I stay logged in.

Thanx, Andre.

I suspect that this version is not as forgiving as the old one when it comes to the cross-domain boundaries that we need to cross. If that's the solution to the login/cookie issues, then I'm not going to be too concerned.

[gstark]

I have just used the ordering bit. Very Snazzy and smoooth. I like it a lot.

Thanx, Russell. As you can imagine, there's a fair bit of work under the hood to get that all working, but I think it's far better than what we had before, which worked very well despite itself.

[moz]

Totally wrong, Moz. Look at the lower section of the portal page, any skin. Three columns. Subject, Latest Poster, Original Poster. One logical row per topic.

The portal page is also missing the "forum" column that I find quite useful. Click "View new posts" to see the page I'm talking about.

Which is why we have two themes with a white background. But neither of them render the way you're describing them.

Sorry, my mistake, DARK BLUE or light GREY text on a white background. The default skin has something like this in each cell of the main list,
Learning the hard way
by petermmc on Mon Jan 14, 2008 9:45 pm in General Discussion"

The other skins all say
Learning the hard way
in General Discussion | petermmc ( "|" indicates a new cell)

What I would prefer is that the "General Discussion" part be in a cell of its own as it used to be. It's easier to read across the page than alternate lines have different meanings, and it's worse when there's variable irrelevant text prefixed to some lines. I use the forum/board details to mentally filter the list - there's not a lot of value to me in a thread in Nikon called "70-200/2.8" but if it's in Canon I'll probably have a look.

The light grey on white skin is better than the default in the information displayed, but I find it irritating to read because of the low contrast. The default skin is better for contrast but has less readable information.

We're certainly happy for you to PM us with details of the theme you have in mind, and we will certainly look at it ...

I will start looking at themes then. But the core change is moving the forum information to a new column. Much as the "author" information moves from its own column in the white-background theme to the left hand cell in the default theme (and the default theme doesn't display the forum name at all). So what I'd like is:

thread title | forum | author | last post

in dark text on a light background. I suspect this would be a tiny change to the existing theme.

[gstark]

Totally wrong, Moz. Look at the lower section of the portal page, any skin. Three columns. Subject, Latest Poster, Original Poster. One logical row per topic.

The portal page is also missing the "forum" column that I find quite useful. Click "View new posts" to see the page I'm talking about.

Ok, thanx for the clarification.

I think that adding the forum - either as a column, or within an existing column - to the portal page is fairly easy.

Do others want this, and if so, as a separate column, or within one of the existing ones?

Which is why we have two themes with a white background. But neither of them render the way you're describing them.

Sorry, my mistake, DARK BLUE or light GREY text on a white background. The default skin has something like this in each cell of the main list,
Learning the hard way
by petermmc on Mon Jan 14, 2008 9:45 pm in General Discussion"

The other skins all say
Learning the hard way
in General Discussion | petermmc ( "|" indicates a new cell)

What I would prefer is that the "General Discussion" part be in a cell of its own as it used to be. It's easier to read across the page than alternate lines have different meanings, and it's worse when there's variable irrelevant text prefixed to some lines.

Ok, this is in the standard board stuff, rather than the portal. That makes it more difficult, but to what degree, I don't know. I need to investigate this for you.

I use the forum/board details to mentally filter the list - there's not a lot of value to me in a thread in Nikon called "70-200/2.8" but if it's in Canon I'll probably have a look.

Yep; I understand, and it makes sense.

The light grey on white skin is better than the default in the information displayed, but I find it irritating to read because of the low contrast. The default skin is better for contrast but has less readable information.

The information should be the same, or very close to the same. The skins use exactly the same data source, but the data is rendered through a different template set. I can see that perhaps some data might be ignored within a template scenario, but that would most likely be on the basis of a columnar data set, rather than anything else.

We're certainly happy for you to PM us with details of the theme you have in mind, and we will certainly look at it ...

I will start looking at themes then. But the core change is moving the forum information to a new column. Much as the "author" information moves from its own column in the white-background theme to the left hand cell in the default theme (and the default theme doesn't display the forum name at all). So what I'd like is:

thread title | forum | author | last post

in dark text on a light background. I suspect this would be a tiny change to the existing theme.

Depends upon how the theme is rendered. I'll certainly have a look at this and see what I can come up with.

Thanx for the feedback; I appreciate it.

[blacknstormy]

phillipb wrote:
Well, the recognition bit is getting worse for me. Not only it doesn't recognize me now but before, I had the username and password filled in, all I had to do was click the sign in button. Now both fields a blank.

same here

but at least this time I remembered my damn password  LOL

[moz]

the core change is moving the forum information to a new column. Much as the "author" information moves from its own column in the white-background theme to the left hand cell in the default theme (and the default theme doesn't display the forum name at all). So what I'd like is:
thread title | forum | author | last post

I'll certainly have a look at this and see what I can come up with.

Hopefully what the themes are doing is going "{variable} {variable}</td><td>{variable..." and you can just whack an extra TD or two in. Bits moving around between themes is what makes me hope it will be fairly simple. (ooh, and it even escapes the "<" properly!)

Thanx for the feedback; I appreciate it.

thanks for being so responsive on this stuff.

[gstark]

Hopefully what the themes are doing is going "{variable} {variable}</td><td>{variable..." and you can just whack an extra TD or two in. Bits moving around between themes is what makes me hope it will be fairly simple. (ooh, and it even escapes the "<" properly!)

That's what I'm hoping, although I did see some very strange errors in the portal template when trying to get the "Glass" themes up. Mismatched div and table tags were the cause of a couple of very late nights.

Thanx for the feedback; I appreciate it.

thanks for being so responsive on this stuff.

It's what we're here for. Bugger photography!

[tasadam]

Yeah, wierd. When I post a reply to a topic or edit an earlier post, after submitting, it won't display the avatar pics - just get the red X. If I then navigate away from and back to the page, avatars appear okay. Any ideas?

[gstark]

Yeah, wierd. When I post a reply to a topic or edit an earlier post, after submitting, it won't display the avatar pics - just get the red X. If I then navigate away from and back to the page, avatars appear okay. Any ideas?

Not a clue.

I suspect that I'm going to have to look at the disappearing avatars on one of my PCs, rather than from the Mac, and the diff tool on the mac is about as good as ... IE.

Seriously, I suspect I'm going to have to look at the rendered source of the html for a with-avatar Vs a without avatar set of versions for the rendered pages, and see if I can see anything of note at that level.

[sirhc55]

Could you tell me what happens if you use the dslrusers.com domain ?

Works this time

I'll keep using the .com to see if I stay logged in.

Cheers,

André

I can confirm that all is well now with the .com - my login remains

[Geoff]

Could you tell me what happens if you use the dslrusers.com domain ?

Works this time

I'll keep using the .com to see if I stay logged in.

Cheers,

André

I can confirm that all is well now with the .com - my login remains

Same for me with the .com - great stuff

[gstark]

I can confirm that all is well now with the .com - my login remains

Please keep me appraised of this situation.

It indicates an issue in the way that the cookies are initiated from within the software. While using the .com domain is certainly one solution, it's not one that I like; I'd prefer for y'all to use whatever domain you want - even the older D70 ones.

But if we can identify the issue in this way, we can, perhaps, create (or find) a solution.

Thanx for the feedback

[xerubus]

Cookies are working for me now also. I am loving the black Nikon theme; good stuff.

[W00DY]

I can confirm that all is well now with the .com - my login remains

Please keep me appraised of this situation.

It indicates an issue in the way that the cookies are initiated from within the software. While using the .com domain is certainly one solution, it's not one that I like; I'd prefer for y'all to use whatever domain you want - even the older D70 ones.

But if we can identify the issue in this way, we can, perhaps, create (or find) a solution.

Thanx for the feedback

Yep, .com works for me... I feel loved again

[gstark]

Hopefully what the themes are doing is going "{variable} {variable}</td><td>{variable..." and you can just whack an extra TD or two in. Bits moving around between themes is what makes me hope it will be fairly simple. (ooh, and it even escapes the "<" properly!)

Not quite so simple, and in fact I need to do some digging for the prosilver style. I's doing some stuff in the css that i need to check on to get the column widths working.

But I've done it now for the other three, and for all four styles on the portal as well.

Enjoy, and thanx for bringing the issue up.

[moz]

But I've done it now for the other three, and for all four styles on the portal as well.

Oooh, exciting. Thanks for that, it's much improved IMO. And so quickly too!

[phillipb]

Yep, .com works for me too.

[Big V]

Well .com worked me too

[Mr Darcy]

Can you please give me more information regarding the bookmarks issue that you're seeing? What I'm hearing you say is that you're using FF in Windows, Nikon Glass Theme; you open the bookmarks treeview (to the left of, but within, your browser viewport) and that will narrow the remainder of the viewport for browsing. Within that modified viewport, you're getting a too wide view of the main forum.

Not quite. I tend to use bookmarks a lot, so it is on all the time. If I come here & FF happens to be on the secondary monitor, (it usually is. It is a premium CRT. The primary is a Notebook LCD) the main pane scrolls off to the right. If I close and re-open the bookmarks pane, the whole thing resizes correctly. It appears that the code is reading the size of the window on entry, rather than the size of the pane, as the main pane's virtual size is about the size of the entire FF window.

I haven't actually tried it on the LCD screen yet.

[gstark]

Please post your comments, and any issues that you see, in this thread.

From http://www.dslrusers.com/index.php
In the members only section, there seems to be a problem with text formatting... A couple of examples -

Sadly, this isn't a problem, it's a feature!

For security purposes, pure html is no longer supported in phpbb. The code examples you provided are all straight html ...

We're just going to have to deal with this until I can find a workaround, but it's not going to be a high priority for me.

[gstark]

Thanx for that. Most interesting.

Links done.

[Dargan]

Just logged on to my favourite site and its all NEEEEW!!

Congratulations to all involved and to you of course Gary. It looks terrific I can even use Smilies with ease. I can see I will have to change my avatar it is quite outdated in such natty surroundings.

[Big Red]

a nice little thing the new style does is stop for you to review your reply if someone else replies while you are writing

[DanielA]

I've noticed that Google seems to be indexing the site now.
I think this is a good thing, but I thought this was blocked before, for bandwidth reasons?

Daniel

[Louie]

The site remembers me now, yay

Am finding something that may have been mentioned in a previous page or possibly in some of that jargon above that I don't understand ( )

I'm currently using the Nikon glass theme and if I click on a link that someone has posted to another thread it goes to that thread using the default theme. If I then want to comment on that thread it asks me to log in first. Has it always been like this and I never noticed? Is a bit annoying as I have to go back out again and track the long way to get to that thread. Does anyone else have this problem or has worked out a way around it?

Thanks,
Elena

[Mr Darcy]

Am finding something that may have been mentioned in a previous page or possibly in some of that jargon above that I don't understand ( )

I'm currently using the Nikon glass theme and if I click on a link that someone has posted to another thread it goes to that thread using the default theme. If I then want to comment on that thread it asks me to log in first. Has it always been like this and I never noticed? Is a bit annoying as I have to go back out again and track the long way to get to that thread. Does anyone else have this problem or has worked out a way around it?

This is happening to me too. I didn't mention it as seemed to be tied up in the more general Alzheimer problems. Oddly enough it didn't happen when I replied to this post. Or maybe its just been fixed. As has been mentioned before, the problem apears to be related to the .com site rather than the .net.

Have you tried to log in when asked, and checked "remember me". I did that earlier today on the com site, so that may be why it's working for me now.

[Louie]

Have you tried to log in when asked, and checked "remember me". I did that earlier today on the com site, so that may be why it's working for me now.

Just tried that then (a few times!) but it didn't work for me. Am glad it is now working for you though, maybe if I keep trying I will have some success!

Thanks

[zafra52]

Ooooooopppps!! I didn't realise there were two sites a .com and a .net Does it make a difference which do you use?

[gstark]

Ooooooopppps!! I didn't realise there were two sites a .com and a .net Does it make a difference which do you use?

There's actually four sites.

For now, the new forum software doesn't seem to gracefully handle the cross-domain boundary conditions that we will encounter, so it's probably best if everyone tries to use the dslrusers.com domain.

Elena, I suspect that's the issue that you're seeing as well.

Cheers.

[dawesy]

I have noticed lately that the fix applied for links appears to be, well, incomplete. A change was made to make links open in a new window as the old site worked, which seemed successful. Lately I have noticed however that this is not working for all links. A good example would be this post. The first URL posted by michael_ opens in the same window, the next link by Oz_beachside opens in a new window. I don't know if this happens for everyone, perhaps if someone could test and confirm, but it does complicate things.

Perhaps the two formats of the URL tag are handled separately, or if you type a link with no tags it is converted to a link by a different piece of code that the tags, which doesn't have the format change applied to it yet.

[Alpha_7]

I get the same problem as Dawesy above ^^^^
(If it was consistent either way it would be great).

[gstark]

I get the same problem as Dawesy above ^^^^
(If it was consistent either way it would be great).

Without looking at the post Dawsey is referring to, I'd say that there is a difference in the way the posts have been made. The code I fixed was where the post uses the bbcode [ url ] tags. That code is working fine.

Where members just post a url directly, without using the bbcode tags, then those are not affected, and the fix referred to earlier includes no reference to rectify this, so ... it's not been done.

But the simple answer is to use the bbcode tags in your postings, and it will all work just fine.

[dawesy]

Using tags: http://www.dslrusers.com/viewtopic.php?f=18&t=30516

Not using tags: viewtopic.php?f=18&t=30516

EDIT: Diagnosis confirmed!

[Louie]

Using tags: http://www.dslrusers.com/viewtopic.php?f=18&t=30516

Not using tags: viewtopic.php?f=18&t=30516

EDIT: Diagnosis confirmed!

Yep, same here. First link opens a new window, second link went straight there.
And as an update from my previous link issue, both links kept my logon this time which makes me very happy

[gstark]

EDIT: Diagnosis confirmed!

I thought it might be; thanx.

And as an update from my previous link issue, both links kept my logon this time which makes me very happy

Ok, I've done nothing, which suggests to me that my thoughts are correct, and the actual cause lies within each specific link: if a link takes you across a domain boundary ( dslrusers.com -> dslrusers.net ) then this problem may happen, but if the link stays within the one domain ( dslrusers.com -> dslrusers.com ) then you should be fine.

[who]

Another small thing - it appears that the sticky's don't come through to the portal page - ie the new updates page in the Bargains page

Not sure why, as the normal topics do?


And also - is there anyone other than me who would like a lean mean portal page without fluff for reading from a mobile phone? I like browsing the text parts fo the forum off my Nokia N95.

However, it gets a bit painful scrolling past the announcement, pic of the week, etc to get to the box at the bottom with the recent posts that I like.

I reckon the link would have to be hidden (at least somewhat) to avoid a rash of stupidity from people who don't see the public announcements though.

But if it's not wanted by others, I'll keep doing what I do now.

Cheers

[gstark]

Ian,

As a suggestion, grab the "New Posts" link from the portal page, and see perhaps whether that addresses both of the issues you ask about in the one swell foop.

[who]

Gary

This is working well. Simple.....

Thanks, Ian

[zafra52]

Does anybody know why some images get cut off on the right hand side?
It is a mystery to me, but my screen resolution is 1024 X 768 pixels and some of the images are only 800 pixels wide, yet they get cut off on the right hand side. It is quite annoying!
I cannot increase the monitor resolution because with my video card and monitor is as far as it can go and I cannot scroll to the right because there is not a horizontal scroll bar to do it with. The funny thing is that at work wit a different computer and monitor and still at the same resolution I can see the complete images.

[Six]

Maybe I'm blind, but I can't see where to change the theme in the user CP.

I don't like the default one

Jack