"Heads UP" - Forum change ?? [Resolved]

[NoteMe]

For those of you that read the posts here in Feedback, here is a "heads up" just for you


We are planning to upgrade the forum within the next 30 days. This will be an upgrade to vBulletin 3.0.

This will include a number of really cool enhancements. This includes the return of personal ratings to CodeGuru (in the form of reputations), the ability to use thread mode instead of the linear mode now used in the forums (you actually get to choose between threaded, linear, or a hybrid), better menuing, additional features for condensing sections you don't read, and much more.

Look for more information on this over the coming days!

Brad!

So are WE going to upgrade too?

[dsheller]

Hey note when the forum upgrades I'll give you five thank you's in return for your first born child.

[Electroman]

For those that are confussed over where note found this its: http://www.codeguru.com/forum/showth...hreadid=299163

[NoteMe]

Originally posted by dsheller
Hey note when the forum upgrades I'll give you five thank you's in return for your first born child.

Not sure if that is good or bad?? But do you want to upgrade this site?

[mendhak]

I still prefer this format to the "new" one in vBull3.

I sure hope that we can still have this same look and feel in vBull3.

Who's going to confirm this for me?

[Electroman]

All the vB 3 sites I have seen so far seem to have got rid of the two columns design where the left side is for the avatar & stuff and gone for the all in one column aproach. I sure hope VBF keeps the two columns .

I don't like the idea of the negative rating though , I'll just have to over use it on NoteMe .


Should be interesting to see how much the design of the site chnages though .

[mendhak]

Brad, are we going to keep the two column format? (Hint: yes!)

Originally posted by Electroman


Should be interesting to see how much the design of the site chnages though .

Yeah, and the initial protests against it until user acceptance. Damnit... we're acting like our own customers now

[NoteMe]

I like the design as it is now too. But it sounds great with all the new feautures. I realy realy can't get used to the weird v3 style sheet...

[brad jones]

There were specific issues and requirements that forced CodeGuru to upgrade to the new forum software. It and a couple of other sites are currently being migrated to v3.0.

We do not have plans currently to upgrade other sites and will most likely not plan additional ones (such as this one), until after we see how these first sites operate. We want to make sure performance and functionality doesn't suffer before doing a wide spread roll out.

Brad!

[NoteMe]

OK...thanks for the answer.

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[mendhak]

That's a good plan. Let codeguru deal with the problem, then we'll go for a change

[mike2]

Ummm...
Where can i see the new style...?

[Electroman]

Posted by mike2
Ummm...
Where can i see the new style...?

Codeguru, but you'll have to wait till they upgrade.

Saying that I dought this site will be the same as Codeguru when we upgrade too but it will be similar.

[NoteMe]

Or you could go to chitchatforums.com They have used it a while now...

[Electroman]

Posted by NoteMe
Or you could go to chitchatforums.com They have used it a while now...

Yea but they will be using a totally different style than the one JP will use, I can't see VBF or Codeguru using that color scheme .

[NoteMe]

But the boxes are still scred up...like having the avatar and stuff over the posts...thats just messy...

[manavo11]

Can't we have a style that looks like the one we have now?

[NoteMe]

Probably...or something like the PS2 style for phpBB, thats a nice style. But I guess no one here is going to make anything else then the standard styles..

[Electroman]

Posted by NoteMe
But the boxes are still scred up...like having the avatar and stuff over the posts...thats just messy...

Posted by manavo11
Can't we have a style that looks like the one we have now?

Yea its easy to make a style that would have the stuff like Avatar and name on the side compared to above. Its just a case of where JP have choosen to keep this style or go with the new way vB have created as standard .

[NoteMe]

Yeah. I hope they keep the avatar on the side. But what does it actualy take to make a new style to phpBB. Just make a Styleshieet, and make some pictures, and then make sure you use all the DIVs, Sans and so on used by the site? Or is it anyting else?

[Electroman]

Posted by NoteMe
Yeah. I hope they keep the avatar on the side. But what does it actualy take to make a new style to phpBB. Just make a Styleshieet, and make some pictures, and then make sure you use all the DIVs, Sans and so on used by the site? Or is it anyting else?

To create a style all you need to do is create template files for all the different templates the forum software expects. For example you have a "overall_header" & "overall_footer" which are basically used at the top and bottom of every page. Other then you will have a "forum_body" which will be the bit between for the main index page, this happens for most pages but you only create one for each situation then its reused. By that I mean you would create one "forum_view" which would be the same one used for both the Classic VB, Games Section, Chit chat section, ect... .
There are rather a lot of these different things because most the time each situation will also have its own headers and footers and maybe a couple of different bodys that are used depending the situation. Not to mention you also need to make templates for the not so often viewed stuff like admin pages, error pages and even the forum FAQ.

In these templates you use things like:

<img src="{topicrow.TOPIC_FOLDER_IMG}" width=.....

And this makes it replace the text in the {} with the appropriate image.

Also things like the rows that are used for displaying the different sections are reused but using HTML comments (specific names which the template parser will look for), an example of this for displaying the sections is below:

  <!-- BEGIN topicrow -->
  <tr>
    <td class="row1" align="center" valign="middle" width="20"><img src="{topicrow.TOPIC_FOLDER_IMG}" width="19" height="18" alt="{topicrow.L_TOPIC_FOLDER_ALT}" title="{topicrow.L_TOPIC_FOLDER_ALT}" /></td>
    <td class="row1" width="100%" onMouseOver="this.style.backgroundColor='E1E1E1'; this.style.cursor='hand';" onMouseOut=this.style.backgroundColor="EFEFEF" onclick="window.location.href='{topicrow.U_VIEW_TOPIC}'"><span class="topictitle">{topicrow.NEWEST_POST_IMG}{topicrow.TOPIC_TYPE}<a href="{topicrow.U_VIEW_TOPIC}" class="topictitle">{topicrow.TOPIC_TITLE}</a></span><span class="gensmall"><br />
  	{topicrow.GOTO_PAGE}</span></td>
    <td class="row2" align="center" valign="middle"><span class="postdetails">{topicrow.REPLIES}</span></td>
    <td class="row3" align="center" valign="middle"><span class="name">{topicrow.TOPIC_AUTHOR}</span></td>
    <td class="row2" align="center" valign="middle"><span class="postdetails">{topicrow.VIEWS}</span></td>
    <td class="row3Right" align="center" valign="middle" nowrap="nowrap"><span class="postdetails">{topicrow.LAST_POST_TIME}<br />{topicrow.LAST_POST_AUTHOR} {topicrow.LAST_POST_IMG}</span></td>
  </tr>
  <!-- END topicrow -->
  <!-- BEGIN switch_no_topics -->
  <tr>
    <td class="row1" colspan="6" height="30" align="center" valign="middle"><span class="gen">{L_NO_TOPICS}</span></td>
  </tr>
  <!-- END switch_no_topics -->

Thats just a snipet from a "viewforum_body" template file.

Well I don't know if you'd count this as going off topic but if you want me to explain any more just ask me on MSN Note .

[NoteMe]

I will. Thanks for the answer. It sounds like a big job. But it would be fun to try to make an alternative style for this forum. But I am not so good at drawing.....Maybe I will try some day anyway. Thanks.


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