Members' Site

[MerryVIP]

Well, I moved the thread here.

So, here is how I see it atm:

Honeybee
Co-ordinator
MerryVIP
Site design (and maybe updating)
da_silvy
Code and contents organising

Also notable:
csammis - Free, adless webspace


So, is there any more people coming in to the project? And what you want to do?

Questions related to my bit of work:
- Color theme? I suggest we atleast have a white background.
- Fonts...I think Arial, Tahoma or Verdana would be nice. Any suggestions for fonts in title pictures?
- What kind of title/logo?
- Peaceful look (in which I'm good at) or something different?
- Use frames? I think we should. Easier to update if adding new areas

Questions generally for everyone who joins in:
- Name of the site
- Contents
- Team postlist? Who makes it? We need it?
- What other services we use? Get statistics? (I know one very great service)


In case we have problems getting space from csammis, I suggest www.spaceports.com. It's a reliable server, though must have a banner in each page (or atleast one on the screen).


Contents
- Code optimizations (how to make code as fast as possible)
- Common help for each VB control and common controls (such as RichTextBox and WinSock)
- API
- HowTo (quite much a FAQ styled, step-by-step help for very beginners)
- Source and downloads


Okay, this became quite a long post, hope we manage to make up something from this! I atleast ask everyone who are already joined in to the project to post his ideas and suggestions here.

[HeSaidJoe]

http://www.brinkster.com/

up to 30 M with no banners..ASP available.
Only downside is that you have to use their file manager to upload so it is slower than an ftp hosting...but if you have a few people and it seems you do, you just share the passwords and upload from different directions.

Good luck with your site.

[MerryVIP]

Better be FTP. I hate browser uploads. Especially with many files...I remember the time I had CrossWinds account and I couldn't somewhy use FTP...File by file...And I had hundreds of files...I stopped using CrossWinds because it is real slow from Finland. Even with FTP.

[honeybee]

I do not wish to favour brinkster or other services like domaindlx, my friends doing ASP say these sites are prone to hacking. The ASP support might just turn into a bane.

Also many of these sites ban even Zip, RAR etc. files. I went mad reading the terms of agreement at one of these services.

I shall initiate a dialogue with csammis about the webhosting part.

The only thing I want to say about the contents you have suggested, MerryVIP is that we should keep the FAQ part for the forums themselves. They need it bad and it will also be a gesture of goodwill towards the forums.

I think Winsock is a good control to start exploring first. We can cover it in depth and move on to other controls later. Of course while we do the Winsock control, we can keep gathering material about the other controls.

.

[MerryVIP]

Yeah, I started to think that too after I posted the thread (the FAQ thing). Mostly we could have stuff not found anywhere else plus things that are asked usually in these forums. RichTextBox and WinSock are these kind of controls. I have a little thought here for site hierarchy...

Listing of all pages by category
  Code optimizating
    - Move command
    - ...etc.
  Common API
    - GetWindowsPath
    - ...other APIs
  Controls
    - Command button
    - Label
    - ListBox
    - TextBox
    - ...etc
  Custom Controls (OCX)
    - WinSock
      connecting (how to make WinSock control to try a connection)
      connected (getting reply from the server, connection is made)
      data receiving (receiving data from a server)
      data sending (sending data to a server)
      disconnecting (sending disconnection information and disconnection)
      errors (possible errors, can cause disconnection for example)
  Downloads
    - GNU projects
    - Ready programs (with sourcecode)
    - Sample code
    - Sample programs

Okay, that didn't appear as well as I wanted but I think it tells the idea

Then, of course, there are links, frontpage and we tell about VB Forums and VB World. The download side needs maybe more discussion...Ideas?

Btw, as an idea, I can write somekind of article about developing a program with Windows look standards. I have seen many programs which just look ugly, are quite unlogical and use things in a "wrong way". Say what you think.

As in code side, I think we can mainly stick in VB 6 compatible, though I can provide VB 4 compatible code.

[honeybee]

I have sent an email to csammis an hour or so back. Let's see what he has to say.

The site design is good for starters, we can always improve upon it later. The only thing is the ready code and downloads. Our site must have these parts unique, too. We can't put the usual Winsock examples found on other sites on our site, too. Maybe code which will help a particular functionality of the control.

At present let's restrict the downloads to sourcecode and compiled programs of the ideas we shall discuss.

.

[da_silvy]

hypermart.net isn't too bad either...

I may not be able to do much work, for a while, (about 3-4 weeks) as i have exams soon but after that I am as free as could be...

[MerryVIP]

We could have classes in downloads too...Joacim made a cool common dialog class. You can see the thread here:
http://www.vbforums.com/showthread.p...threadid=77191

I can start creating a site design in Thursday, I have a day off then. I'm writing a fantasy story to a competition and I must get it ready today or tomorrow. Hope I win, first price is nice and second isn't bad either

[da_silvy]

what site design honeybee?

"the site design is good for starters"??

[MerryVIP]

Oh yeah, about the time...I'm not much online after week or a two. I want to save in phonebill, I have been way too much online last few months (at home too). Maybe I try to get in this place where I'm now to summer work...

[da_silvy]

okay

we can all look out for useful code on vb-world forums, then give some credit to the submitters

[MerryVIP]

http://www.vbforums.com/showthread.p...threadid=77208

Thread dedicated for design. You two have been there already
Blue...

[MerryVIP]

Oh yeah, what will be name of the site? Just "VB-Forums Members' Site"?

[honeybee]

Why not just call it Our Site ?

Take another poll for the name of the site, too. Or I shall do it this time.

And though you say that you will not be online much, stay in touch either through the forums or by emails.

By the way, we don't have a complete list of members interested with email addresses and homepages.

Here:

honeybee (email: [email protected] homepage: http://honeybee.freehosting.net)

Add yours so I can make a list of all.

.

[MerryVIP]

Merry (e-mail: [email protected] homepage: http://merrysoft.cjb.net)

Heh, guess I add this thread to bookmarks

[honeybee]

Another section we can add is Members' Homepages.

Here we can list out the best of the members' homepages in terms of the quality of the VB content in them.

da_silvy, I was referring to the proposed site design by MerryVIP.

.

[honeybee]

MerryVIP, I have heard from csammis, and I have cc:ed my last reply to his email to you, too.

Since the forums are going to be unstable in the coming few days, it may be better to keep in touch by email.

.

[csammis]

csammis (email: [email protected] homepage: Mulunkey! Software)

[honeybee]

Thanks for the reply, Christopher.

Even without ASP support, there won't be much missed, since most of our site will be static, not like the VB Forums. PERL Scripts checking is OK, as you have to ensure the safety of your system first.

We shall decide now as to who has to do the uploading.

.

[honeybee]

VB Depot ??

Looks a little idiotic, but fit for our purpose.

There have not been many helpful suggestions from the other thread, http://forums.vb-world.net/showthrea...hreadid=77221, and this is the best I could find from the responses.

Or plain VB-World Members Site, but that would be confusing.

.

[csammis]

Okay, I'm getting things set up either tomorrow or the next day.

For now, it'll be vb.mulunkey.com. It doesn't point to anything yet, though.

[scoutt]

I'd like to help if I could. help MerryVIP with site design or uploading or anything, just put me to work boss.

[MerryVIP]

Okay, I think you can mail FTP connection info to me...Cursed webmail doesn't work properly atm. So send info to [email protected] and I send a test version up on Thursday. I try to make the updating of pages as easy as possible, though I must ask to write the pages straight in HTML.

I did a Google search for VB Depot, nearest matches were a small forum with the same name and a site named VB5 Depot. So I think we can use the name without any problems.


More about the design:

1. Fonts:
- normal text and smaller headers: verdana
- big header <H1>: tofu
- site title font: tofu


2. Colors:
- white and lightgrey bg
- blue links
- darkblue headers and bold text
- big header is black though
- small text blue/darkblue (or somewhere in the middle
- black text


3. Techniques:
- HTML 4 compatible code
- CSS (using some IE 5 and NS 6 tricks, not causing problems with older browsers)
- JavaScript (in case I make menu as images, NS 3>, IE 4> and Opera 5 compatible)

- maybe CGI additions? Someone else can take charge with these things
- PHP...not sure. I haven't done internet programming. I know PHP has something to do with databases. Someone else can help me with this if we will use it


I hope I make up my best design this far

[honeybee]

Scoutt, welcome on board. Although there is no one called a Work Boss, since I am supposed to co-ordinate everything, let me greet you and welcome you.

What are your skills which can help us in this endeavour ?

MerryVIP, you can take charge of uploading pages to the webserver. Also we shall finalize VBDepot or vbdepot as our site name, till someone else comes up with a better-looking name. In any case, the new name should be really good and catchy, else we shall end up changing our site name too many times. Also, now we can afford to play around a bit, but once we make the site available to others, we cannot change its name.

csammis, will there be any domain registration? I guess not, as we shall have a subdomain under www.mulunkey.com which must have been registered by you. You can go ahead with www.vbdepot.mulunkey.com as our sub-domain and email the ftp access permissions to MerryVIP.

.

[csammis]

There won't be any domain registration. For anyone familiar with web server configuration, www.vbdepot.mulunkey.com will be a "virtual host", which means that if our IP changes it'll be a while before your site becomes available again (for that matter, it'll be a while before www.mulunkey.com becomes available again).

Anyway, I'll have it set up by the end of the day, and MerryVIP, I'll email you FTP user/pass. IMPORTANT: When you upload pages, if it's a PHP file, use the ".php" extension, not ".php4" or whatever, and as a preference for HTML, use ".htm" instead of ".html". You can use either/both, though.

[csammis]

Until I get the server configured, www.vbdepot.mulunkey.com points to "sevarg.net", which is the old homepage of my web engineer

[scoutt]

well I have done a couple of webpages.

first one - http://www.geocities.com/scoutt_42

second one - http://www.motorcycleridersassoc.org

I have played around with php, cgi, javascript. granted I am not fluent in those languages but can manipulate it to do what I want. I basically can do anything if I set my mind to it and play with it long enough. I am not that good at vb (yet) I am in the process of learning it. I do have full ver. of photoshop and paintshop plus a couple other graphics programs. Although my talent is not graphics, I can help in that dept. if needed be. you think of anything else I can probably give it my best shot.

[honeybee]

Scoutt, you can hone your skills in PHP to make some database management system, as we shall need to store the code snippets in the database. Also there will be mailing lists and other stuff to take care of, especially since the mail server at our site will not be much dependable.

.

[scoutt]

cool I will look into that. on the mailing list, do you want a page where the user can select an email by radio button and have a textbox to write something then send it to that persons email or you have something else in mind.

my email [email protected]

[MerryVIP]

As I haven't yet received the e-mail with FTP information, I uploaded the current site design to http://koti.mbnet.fi/merry/vbdepot/

I think I did quite a good job

[honeybee]

About the site name:

vbdepot, or vbden ?

I prefer the later.


Scoutt, the mailing list I have in mind is similar to the ones maintained at most other sites, where you receive periodical updates etc. But our list should be able to record the area of interest of the user along with the email address, and any update on our site in that area should be intimated to this user.

Something like this:

User1 Email Address [email protected] Interested In: ActiveX Controls

Next time we update any articles or code in the ActiveX controls section, the User1 should receive an email about this update.

In short, it should really be useful, instead of spamming or free offers.

One most important aspect, the database to be used. Should we decide on it now, or later when we have decided on the technology to be used?

At present, we have the choice of HTML with Client side scripting using Java or HTML with Server-side scripting using PHP. The advantage in using PHP is it's almost free, and has built-in database support, especially for MySQL, which in turn is free, too. So we can use PHP with MySQL to provide a good database-driven website.

The code snippets have to be stored in the database, either in Memo fields, or if they are files, their locations need to be tracked.

Also we have to keep a record of people who visit our site, the mailing lists, and people who contribute to the site by submitting code and/or articles.

Any ideas on this part? I am good at database design, so if we can gather the details that need to be recorded, I can work towards this aspect.

Also I am starting excursions into the PHP through websites, so if we go for PHP, we shall have some people at least knowing how to code HTML pages in PHP.

And I shall email a copy of my Code Database program to all members sometime in a couple of days, so you can start piling up a code library of sorts. It was meant to be given to Honeybee's Club members, but what the heck! This is another club by itself!

.

[scoutt]

very nice job MerryVIP. I am impressed, better than wha tI could have done. I am looking into the email manager and I found this which might suit our needs.

http://www.technobreeze.net/php/emaillist/

as far as the database goes I think if we go with PHP we need the MySQL. very easy to configure and setup and play around with. it could also hold up to 2 gig of information, give or take a few.

Honeybee, thanks for the database. I am also making my own so I can learn vb.

let me know if this will do as far as the mailing list. sorry it took me so long to get it but I had unexpected duties to perform.

take a look at the mailing list and see if it woll work.

[honeybee]

Scoutt, that looks like the stuff for us. Can you download it and start testing it? You can enter our email address in it for a start.

MerryVIP, the site design looks good, and the most important thing is it should have a guestbook/feedback page. At present I think the link is not working.

Most imp: Change Code Optimalisation to Code Optimization.

When the site is full of content, the right-side pain may obstruct a complete view of the content. Can we reduce the font by a point there?

The colour scheme is nice, and you can even add some background colour to the right-side pane. At present, only if there is some content, there is some colour. I think you have taken cues from the Forums there. But a generic background colour would be nice.

Another suggestion is to combine our email and homepage links under a separate section on 'Contact' or 'Founder Members' or something like that. You can keep the 'Thanks to csammis' visible, but hide our own email addresses and links under a separate heading. (At present, let it be there, so the left-side doesn't look empty.)

And since you are using a smaller font on the left, why not reduce the width of the left-hand pane/frame?

Overall, it looks superb.

.

[scoutt]

Merry I don't know if it is just my computer or what but when I load the site in IE, on the right all I see is 'site design:' and not your name, I see everythihng else it's just that your name is cut off. But it loads in NS just fine.

Feedback page: if you want to wip up a html form page I have a php script that will send any form to whomever, there are some variables you would have to put in.
Variables:
the email the form is sent to, the name has to be: 'to'
if you want required fields, eg. name, email. put * in front of the Name.

all the name fields have to be lower case.
eg.
<INPUT TYPE=TEXT NAME="*name" size=30 >

then have a hidden field

<INPUT TYPE="hidden" NAME="Form" VALUE="Feedback">

that way the person receiving the mail knows what it is. those are the neccesary fields. you can have all you want and it will find them.

Ok I need the php line for the server. something to this nature

#!/usr/local/php4/bin/php.

this needs to be in the scripts that require them. I do have a working model, I am trying to get the colors to match the main page. I might have to insert the path to the css if I can't. And then change the code to work with that.


it has an administration part too, I have not worked in the colors for that, that would be up to whomever, but once the adminstrator gets scripts up then they have to send an email to who has subscribed. well it is pretty easy once it is setup. all the signup is for you to put your name in the database and then once registered you can pick what catagories you want updated info on, pretty slick.

I would also need the DB name, user name, password, host. and if you want me to upload it I need the ftp stuff too or I can just send it to Merry, no biggie.

whew, that all

[scoutt]

The email List Manager is ready to go when ever you are, and I get the parameters for the php tha tI need.
Looking into the storing code now.

[honeybee]

Scoutt, I shall email csammis about the PHP and the list to be uploaded on the server. You can send the material to MerryVIP at present, so he can upload it on the site www.mulunkey.com

If you can do the feedback form in PHP, that's great, because then we can have something like our forums, a customized Email form which will email the contents to everyone of us.

Can you try something like that? When any visitor posts a feedback, it is emailed to all of us ?

MerryVIP, have you received the FTP info yet? If so, try to upload the pages onto our site.

.

[csammis]

Okay, it's up!

scoutt, you may have the wrong idea about PHP...it's nothing at all like CGI scripts, there is no shebang line. It's code embedded in an HTML file that gets parsed by the server.

The address HAS NOT RESOLVED; I'm emailing the FTP info to MerryVIP. The address will resolve once the server restarts (it's on a system that restarts when the traffic is zero, so it'll probably be okay late tomorrow morning)

Have fun!

[scoutt]

csammis The reason I was asking is because the php scripts I use on my webpage have to have it, in the files that are not being required or included, in order for it to work or I get a 500 internal server error. But, if you don't need to have it on your server that is great.

I do need the DB name, host, user, password, so I can send it to MerryVIP and then all he has to do is load it and configure it to make the tables and categories. That is if MerryVIP can't do it. If so, I will send it

Honeybee the email form I think is only one email address at a time (I think) I will check it out, but that is a good idea.

I think I might have a script that will work for the code, but it is giving me troubles running atm. I think I am just missing something simple,

[MerryVIP]

I think I get a CGI feedback form, found out that I had downloaded one months ago and then forgotten it. I think I know now how to set it up, I test it with my other site.

scoutt, I think I can edit PHP files. Will see it then. I'm quite good in understanding code, whatever the language is. I see if the CSS file can be included.

I have done the changes to the look now. I inserted a small bgpic, you can rate it when you see it (it is 2x2 pixels in side ). Menubar is now 160 pixels in width. And last, I changed the titlepics to have VB-Den in them. So, atm the site name is that.

If we store most things into a database, I think we need structure of somekind. So, here is somekind of idea:

Main areas:
api
code
common
custom
homepage
nonvb

Then you can use a ready subarea or make a new one, and everyone can control (=move, edit and delete) entries in the subareas. Each area are quite much the same except for homepage, because it is just an alphabetical list of members' homepages.

Subareas could have:
title
idname

And last, what each "thread" can have: (except for homepage)
title
text
code
usage
help (automatically includes "The following is copyright by Microsoft Corporation" before the text)


Also, there should be a separate News update page.


NOTE: the program honeybee sent to me isn't working with me, so I'm not sure if he already planned all this.


I hope I made this clear...Other pages can be updated manually and by me. As a tip for scoutt, you can look into the pages source to see how I have contructed them.

I think I leave the guestbook away afterall, we could make a one of our own.

[MerryVIP]

Download the CSS file: http://koti.mbnet.fi/merry/vbdepot/index.css