2009-06-15: Forum Upgraded

[infoxicated]

The forum has been upgraded to vBulletin 3.8.3

Don't expect any major upgrades - it's just a small increment in the version number and consisted of bug & security fixes.

As ever, let me know if anything appears to have gone wrong due to the upgrade.

[Darkdrium777]

I don't know if I've said this before:
Can this be fixed or is it inherent to VBulletin?

http://g.imagehost.org/t/0713/BannerOverlap.jpg (http://g.imagehost.org/view/0713/BannerOverlap)

[mdhay]

BTW, I love the upgrade message. Nice work.:lol

Nice, I'm on that pic!

[infoxicated]

I don't know if I've said this before:
Can this be fixed or is it inherent to VBulletin?
That... that does my head in, actually. Anyone ever notice that the floating banner works on the PSP browser but not on the PS3? I find **** like that annoying.

It can be fixed, though. What browser are you using there?

//this update didn't break the templates, so I might as well break them myself this time.

[Darkdrium777]

Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; fr; rv:1.9.0.11) Gecko/2009060215 Firefox/3.0.11

[infoxicated]

Oooh. That's interesting. It happens on Chrome, too. :dizzy

Only if you have enough friends to make it scroll, though.

If you we're Gollum you wouldn't have this problem.

^ an example of bad tech support.

[Darkdrium777]

It does that with the tabs on Visitor page too.

[mdhay]

That... that does my head in, actually. Anyone ever notice that the floating banner works on the PSP browser but not on the PS3? I find **** like that annoying.

Now that you mention it, it does. Wonder why....

[infoxicated]

I looked. Can't fix it.

Seems to be a problem with list items when it comes to floats & stacks. The navigation tabs and the friends lists are all list items. Even if I set their z-index to 10 and the z-index of the floating banner to 100 it still layers the list elements above the floating banner.

The vBulletin style manager is quite the spaghetti junction of styles and inheritance and I'm not awake enough or motivated enough to figure out all of the cascades to see what's modifying the z-index of list items.

//end explanation

//begin rant

It would go away if I took out the floating banner, but it's the principle of the matter... it should work and it should have worked ten years ago, because floats and stacks aren't exactly cutting edge stuff.

I remember we had a similar problem years ago when I used an image map in the banner and it worked in everything but IE6, as IE6 had a bug that stopped it rendering an image map in a floated layer. Reasonably clever people kept posting "if you split the image in two and put anchor tags around each image you'll get the same result" as if I didn't already know how to work around it. Pretty much all web development is based on working around stuff that should work in a straightforward way, but doesn't. I kept that image map banner up for ages, too - on principle, until I decided that it was unfair that IE6 users couldn't click on the banner.

//end rant

Maybe I'll look at that again tomorrow... but I'll probably drop the floaty banner with the next version of the site, and it's been around so long that another wee while isn't going to drive anyone mad. Probably. Standard mental health disclaimers apply.

[Sausehuhn]

As I don't know where to post it, I'll post it here. Rob - you made my day! :D

[infoxicated]

I'm glad, Max. ;)

[Darkdrium777]

ROFL

Yeah, what's up with the database issues all the time? :(

[infoxicated]

It's hardly all the time. Just every few days something is hitting the server hard, taking up all the database connections and causing the database server to die.

It's probably some brute strength attack - we've had to block a couple of IP's at server level due to that a while back, so maybe there's a new one we have to see about blocking, too.

[Darkdrium777]

Haxorger is still trying to take down the site? :lol

Probably just too many people online, no?

[infoxicated]

What causes the database to crash is far from normal use. The site has coped with far higher traffic conditions than it is experiencing right now, so these are isolated events aimed at either denial of service or attempting to access the forum admin.

I need to pour through the logs to find out, but right now I don't have the time. Thanks for posting, though.

[Darkdrium777]

Eh, I don't understand why someone would want to hack a fan site. :|
As long as you say it's under control and that we won't get threads about you and your mother in every section of the forum again :p

Good luck with what's going on with you.

[infoxicated]

Thanks!

It's not luck I need right now - just a winning lottery ticket.

Oh... wait... :redface:

[Lance]

...Pretty much all web development is based on working around stuff that should work in a straightforward way, but doesn't. ...

:D So very true.


-----------

BTW, The forum seemed to automatically log me out three times in ten minutes when I logged in to check stuff from mod alerts. Probably nothing, but possibly should be noted if it happens to others.

edit: The damned thing just logged me out again.

[Sausehuhn]

Rob, there's one thing about the floating banner I would like you to fix if you find the time sometime:
The transparent area underneath the shadow is relatively big. Is it possible to make it around the half shorter? Almost always when I want to click links that are right under the banner I cannot click them because of the invisible part of graphic that is above it.

And don't get my wrong; I don't want to make demands. I'm probably the only one having the problem anyway ;)

[infoxicated]

Ooh.

It was that size by accident from when the banner was bigger.

Should be fixed, now. :) //new smiley alert!

[Darkdrium777]

I see KIGO read this thread.

Noticed the "Digg", "Stumbleupon" etc stuff at the bottom of threads, do you think it's necessary?

[infoxicated]

KIGO has to get the **** over the existence of Microsoft Windows.

And you have to ask yourself whether that question was necessary.

[Darkdrium777]

Well, it's been added since this update, no? I personally don't see it as very useful, that's why I am asking if you want to keep it or not.

Anyways...

[infoxicated]

Ah, right. It was added by me, not the update - it's just an option you can turn on.

If it helps the site get more traffic then that's a good thing. If the site gets more traffic, the adverts get seen more and then, one day, it might make enough money to be self supporting.

Should that not be the case I'll disable it again.

[Darkdrium777]

I see you are making a new skin. :)
Black invasion!

[infoxicated]

Just messing around before bed time, actually.

The things I do for kicks. ;)

[Darkdrium777]

Will this continue? It looks pretty sweet.

[infoxicated]

Will I continue to mess around?

Most probably. :)

[Sausehuhn]

eheheh.
If you need someone who creates some icon-replacements, just put your hand up ;)

[infoxicated]

Erm... I dunno.

I'm not convinced, myself. Probably needs more work than the short time I've spent on it tonight.

Think I'll sleep on it and revert it if it's too jarring in the morning. It sorta reminds me of when I moved the yellow W3PA board over to WipEoutZone colours and it took weeks to get used to. Or when we moved from phpBB to vBulletin - that was really quite a sudden change and it took a good while to get comfortable with it.

[Darkdrium777]

Well, blue/black doesn't go together, yes.
Perhaps you can make two skins? One blue, one black.
And others, like cyan, pink, white (so we don't see anything at all)... Ok maybe not that last part.

[djKyoto]

Should make the BG black, white text with Red bars.

Fury Style. :D

[Sausehuhn]

I raise my hand for a theme update so it fits the mainsite.

Black bars with the blue font for the forum bars and white or yellow type for the other bars; the cut-corner-graphic aligned to the right for the forum bars.
Forums not in the link-color but in the one used for headlines on the mainsite. The forum details in the color used for the date (bright blue).
Other text elements: plain black. Backgrounds white, borders light gray.
Buttons in black and yellow for highlights (such as "new post" in yellow compared to "no new posts" in white); simple 2D pixelgraphics should do the job and fit to the style.

Yep. That's it ;)

[KIGO1987]

I thought the replacement LCD the HP guys put into yesterday was another dude. Only got mono colour. But this was a forum upgrade, thank ****.

[Lance]

Ooh.

It was that size by accident from when the banner was bigger.

Should be fixed, now. :) //new smiley alert!

Cool. I've always had the same problem as Max. Currently it only blocks one line so that I can't put a cursor on it.

[AG-wolf]

Good sweet christ the new color scheme burns my eyes.

edit: lol there's a caps filter

[Hemicrania]

I love this new scheme m8. It fits the header. :hyper

[djKyoto]

I don't. It's too strong on my eyes. The bars just stand out too much.

[eLhabib]

+1
while I like black, this definitely hurts the eye - too much contrast. How about a heavy yellow instead?

[stinkleroy]

Yeah I'm not too keen on the black either ;)

[BulletWraith]

I love it, it feels a bit like my current theme for Vista everything thing is just Black, White, Grey no colours

Kill the Blue, make it dark grey
muh ha haaa


zer:donutshen

[Sausehuhn]

Tadaaa here you go: Forum Concept (http://cybershot.cy.funpic.de/kram/sonstige_bilder/WipEoutZone/stuff/ForumUpdate.jpg).

I've chosen a dark gray instead of pure Black, that's simply more easy on the eyes.

[infoxicated]

Nice work, Max. :+

I'm going to be overhauling the whole site in the near future, though, so I'll hold off on totally skinning the forum until then.

[Hemicrania]

blue text on black background? hmm, not my choice.(readability decreases) But thats only my opinion. And I think the current theme is very nice.(from a graphic designer point of view)

I think its fine the way it is m8, al you need to do is change the blue folder icons to a grey B/W theme and your done here.

[kanar]

I don't know if it's the right place to discuss about that, but I just noticed -& enjoyed a lot to use- the tag edition. But as some users already pointed that out, I fear this stuff can quickly degenerate into negative/not funny/insulting tags. Was just wondering what was your thoughts about that Rob, not more. Found that really good myself.

[infoxicated]

I thought it was a useful addition, which is why it's unfortunate that some people are being pathetic with some of the tags they are entering. If that continues I'll just disable it, because we've lived without it all this time and I see no sense in having something that people are (mistakenly) abusing because they think the tags are added anonymously.

(Truth is, the user id is logged alongside each tag. So I can see from the database just who is being an idiot.)

[Darkdrium777]

They can be quite useful to spot content popular at a glance using tag search.
Of course it helps to tag appropriately.

Example (http://www.wipeoutzone.com/forum/tags.php?tag=avalon) :)
And another (http://www.wipeoutzone.com/forum/tags.php?tag=piloting)
Third'd (http://www.wipeoutzone.com/forum/tags.php?tag=forum)

If more people could follow, as we can only add two tags each, and tag search looks for the exact tag you enter in the box so if you enter a composite of two tags it won't find anything, we could add every single derivative of keywords to threads and it would make finding stuff much easier. :)

[F.E.I.S.A.R]

The forum was just upgraded,is it? I do not know whether it is just me,or is the colour for the theme of the forum changed from blue to black/dark gray ?

[Hemicrania]

Yup and its brilliant!!! :hyper

[ACE-FLO]

Damn straight it is!!! Matches my monitor and everything mate! makes my web browser look noncy in comparison lol

(mental note: can web browsers be modified to fit in with a theme? check this out!) er... sorry, got lost there... Oh, yes! The Avatar vote - when is it? Today? I think Rob said Friday, just not if it was this Friday or another one... (meek)

[Lance]

The browser can be modified a lot. If it's the Opera browser.

Failing that, one could use WindowBlinds if the operating system is Windows.

[ACE-FLO]

thanks Lance - I'll look into it!

[KIGO1987]

My tags are fine.


If it helps the site get more traffic then that's a good thing. If the site gets more traffic, the adverts get seen more and then, one day, it might make enough money to be self supporting.

Plus they are a benefit to the forum here. ^^^^

Quick searching threads with various tags that various users have added are good for all.

If there is a problem with one, im sure a PM advising about it would solve it.

Dont think any of my tags are offensive, just cheaky. All in good faith. Majority seem to be fine with it.

As Rob said before on this thread more traffic this site gets more adverts gets viewed.

[kanar]

mmm just a quick post for nothing but whatever, Rob your site is DOPE. And the mods are great too. Long life to WZ. Pilots from all over the world. And yeah, if you have time one of these days maybe it could be great to have the subscription part in different languages, I know pilots like Darius or my french mates too, who had difficulties. Just a note. Anyway, again, and more than ever, this site rocks. Thanks. (if you need help I can do the french one, one of these days lol)

[infoxicated]

Yeah, go for it. :+

The text needs sorting out all over, with the record table rules in particular needing clarifiying, but I'm way too busy with other stuff to dedicate the time to it right now.

[KIGO1987]

Rob's internal response to adding the French language addition option on these forums,

"They should learn ****ing English if they want to post here, not wasting my time adding the bloody French language and syntax here, bloody Baguette Munching frogs "

:lol

This is a funny place at times i gotta say:)

Gotta Love Moa, and
Gotta Love Robs sayings "willy nilly waving",
Gotta Love WZ.

[infoxicated]

Far from it - I had to oversee the localisation of all the text on WipEout-Game.com and that was a nightmare, because it was a rush job it wasn't done particularly accurately and many things didn't translate well.

So I'd love to have the rules and guidelines translated into lots of languages - it would help stop people getting themselves into trouble purely due to lack of understanding. :)

[Lance]

That's a big ten four, Good Buddy. :D

[Darkdrium777]

I feel anything related to PlayStation is translated badly. They've gotten better over the years but sometimes there's absolutely no description at all for items you can buy on the store on the French side, but there is one on the English side... And if/when it's translated, sometimes there are hilarious mistakes. :/
At least for Quebec. Don't know about France's PSN Store...
If you need help, hit me up. ;)

[Sausehuhn]

Isn't it possible to load language packages you could easily install on the server? I don't know about costs here, though…

But in the end: I've no problem with English being the only language of the forum. It's an English forum after all :)

[Velocitar64]

I'm loving the new colour scheme. Maybe it calls for a new background and stuff? I could give it a shot if you like. I know how to style themes on vBulletin.

[stinkleroy]

I still don't like the black...seems to have brought a dark mood over the forum too ;)

[Darkdrium777]

Oh come on... :| That's not even remotely funny.
Three words: get over it.

Thanks for reminding me of this episode stinkleroy, and thanks for pissing me off again. :-
I especially need that with what's happening in the family right now.

You know what Rob, I'm asking for a ban so that way I don't have to read this kind of fail for the rest of the week.

[eLhabib]

Well you can still read when you're banned, just can't respond.
Apart from that, I thought it was quite funny :)

[KIGO1987]

I still don't like the black...seems to have brought a dark mood over the forum too ;)

It does bring a new persona to these forums, could actually be the reason for all these sudden cranky posts and faceoffs on these forums.

Looks kinda sik though:)

[infoxicated]

Oh come on... :| That's not even remotely funny.
Three words: get over it.

Thanks for reminding me of this episode stinkleroy, and thanks for pissing me off again. :-
I especially need that with what's happening in the family right now.

You know what Rob, I'm asking for a ban so that way I don't have to read this kind of fail for the rest of the week.
Considering you've used pretty much every escuse to rake it up again yourself, I think you're completely over reacting.

Can't ban you for being a drama queen, I'm afraid - maybe you should take a break from the internet as a whole if your personal life is in so much turmoil that you can't move on enough to have a sense of humour about it.

[Darkdrium777]

Can't ban you for being a drama queen, I'm afraid - maybe you should take a break from the internet as a whole if your personal life is in so much turmoil that you can't move on enough to have a sense of humour about it.Thank you for being an insensitive twat. Talk to me about your private life in PM to expect some kind of apologetic response, and I give one because I understand it's hard. But when I'm having stuff happening of course it doesn't matter so go ahead and just treat me like dirt. You know what? **** YOU. You have absolutely NO ****ING IDEA what happened, and you feel you have the right to even talk about it in such a condescending matter? WHAT THE **** IS WRONG MAN?! Did I talk to you like that when you explained what was happening? NO! I said I was sorry to hear about it! But no, for you it's just OK, right? No standard of decency at all, absolute zero.

It's not funny that people keep reminiscing about bad things that happen, no matter what you say it isn't. What have I been trying to do here, is to get people to stop thinking about it. But of course I am a "drama queen", in doing so, right? I've been bringing this back up all the time, right? Would you look at my posts before you say stupid stuff like that? LOOK. Where, apart from in two posts IN RESPONSE to OTHER PEOPLE bringing it back up, DO I MENTION THE INCIDENT AGAIN? NOWHERE. ABSOLUTE ****ING ZERO. And what do I say in these two posts? GET THE **** OVER IT AND STOP TALKING/HINTING ABOUT IT. But I've been bringing it back up, yeah right.

[infoxicated]

Knowing Cat's posts and personality, I think it's pretty clear that she was making a light hearted joke, but you jump in there with both feet and act as if she's making a personal attack on you, you, you, you, you. 'Cos it's all about you.

Except in this case it most likely wasn't about you. Maybe it was about Al & Ace-Flo falling out? Or me and the other guy... (he's in the KGB, I've been sworn to secrecy)? Or people having a go at KIGO for suggesting new moderators? Or maybe it was just a reference to all the downcast stuff that's been happening recently.

So... when you think about it... maybe it wasn't about you, you, you, you, you at all. Maybe you're just being paranoid and over reacting.

The last four months of my life have been total hell, causing me to end up diagnosed with anxiety & depression, get signed off sick by my doctor, end up losing my job, racking up £5000 in legal fees in the process, and I have no idea how I'm going to afford to pay the mortgage for the house I can't sell in Liverpool or the rent for the house I have up here and, to be honest, it's a bit ****ing stressful knowing that I'm on the brink of financial ruin. But hey, it's not the fault of anyone on here and, aside from the odd moment, I'm managing to keep my sense of humour.

So, what I'm suggesting is, if you're hypersensitive at the moment due to things outside of this site that are causing you to lose control and and lash out at people... perhaps you should take a break. Otherwise you're going to end up posting something that you'll look back at in six months time and think "oops."

[eLhabib]

D777, you know what's the best way to stop a topic from being brought back?

Ignore it.

[stinkleroy]

Except in this case it most likely wasn't about you. Maybe it was about Al & Ace-Flo falling out? Or me and the other guy... (he's in the KGB, I've been sworn to secrecy)? Or people having a go at KIGO for suggesting new moderators? Or maybe it was just a reference to all the downcast stuff that's been happening recently.



Correct...a lighthearted attempt to suggest that the forums new colour scheme may be responsible for the general bad vibe around here the past few weeks. Not a personal attack or dig at anyone. You misconstrue my words Dark.

I get that you don't like me for whatever reason, and I'm cool with that. I don't expect everybody to like me. But please don't insinuate that I am guilty of something like this, I thought you would have learned a little about me from the last time you wrongly accused me of something.

That said, I hope whatever problems your'e having at the moment get better for you.

[MrSmadSmartAlex]

I noticed in some post that infoxicated said the black was to better match the banner at the top. So how about certain parts of the text or buttons in the same yellow from the banner?:)

[infoxicated]

DD777 did some and so did Hemicrania, although I haven't had time to try them out yet.

[blackwiggle]

I thought I should live with the new colour scheme and see how I adjusted to it before I made a comment.

To be honest, I prefer the previous way we had it.

It just seems a little oppressive the way it is ATM.

In my humble opinion :cold

[infoxicated]

Noted, blackwiggle. :)

I'm not sold on it entirely, myself, and since I might change up the base colours of the site when I give it a refresh I don't think we'll go the whole hog with painting it black.

[Rapier Racer]

I assume a choice of skins for the forums isn't an option available within the forum software? I could have sworn I've seen that somewhere before.

I don't have any problems with the current scheme, I like black.

[infoxicated]

Yeah, we could have a bunch for folk to choose from, I guess, but then it just becomes harder to maintain after a while - they're always adding a new icon or a button for something.

I'll see if I can split the current black style theme from the default one and then folk can have the choice of the two.

[Darkdrium777]

So, what I'm suggesting is, if you're hypersensitive at the moment due to things outside of this site that are causing you to lose control and and lash out at people... perhaps you should take a break. Otherwise you're going to end up posting something that you'll look back at in six months time and think "oops."All right.

[Lance]

In some aspects the current colour scheme is a bit too high contrast, but simultaneously the shaded text areas are so lightly shaded compared to the non-shaded ones that there is hardly a difference. Overall, I find the previous scheme to be more clearly organised and more easily readable.

[KIGO1987]

Could always go for a pure white Wipeout theme here at the zone, maybe that'll cheer things up. Ive noticed alot that this black theme has brought some of the worst out of people here, or is it that you guys are having a very hot summer up there im not sure. Future changes of good intention are welcomed

[Lance]

Hmmm.. if we make it entirely white, including the text of course, for a week, then we could take a vacation and pay attention to "real" life for a bit.

[Velocitar64]

I noticed in some post that infoxicated said the black was to better match the banner at the top. So how about certain parts of the text or buttons in the same yellow from the banner?:)

Yeah that can be easilly done.

I think new icons for new posts should be added, too.

http://www.wipeoutzone.com/forum/images/statusicon/forum_new.gif etc are really outdated. If I were to make others, would you consider them Fox?

EDIT: Examples:

New posts: http://i39.tinypic.com/28vd4q8.png
No new posts: http://i42.tinypic.com/14wjuv.png

These are pretty sloppy, they're just an example. I can do better.

EDIT: These versions are way smoother and work much nicer:

New posts: http://i41.tinypic.com/976w6g.png
No new posts: http://i42.tinypic.com/2hx1rvp.png

EDIT 2: The previous ones had something wrong with them as soon as I converted them. These ones are better and the colouring is better.

New posts: http://i41.tinypic.com/10xzryb.png
No new posts: http://i43.tinypic.com/333l5x4.png

The advantages of these are that they give the site an individual touch and they are black and gold, matching the banner at the top.

Here is what it would look like: http://i44.tinypic.com/pm0xf.png

[P52Smith]

One other thing I have noticed is that the new upgrade allows users to see who is posting reputation comments about them in the recent reputation area in the top level of the User CP