Forum maintainance

[TerryG]

Sorry it's taken so long

For those that use them, our styles (or at least the modern version of them) and smilies are now back.
So is the logo.
Attachments, SPAM filtering and some other more trivial bits still to go.

[tractorman]

Well done in getting things working properly. A I right in thinking things are a little clearer and "brighter" with the new site? I know the logo is a little "fuzzy" at the moment, but things too look better somehow.

I think Rich must have been really bored yesterday - it's been taking ages to get on the internet for the last day or so!

However, in all fairness, I suspect it's something to do with the floods (probably the Yorkshire ones as the Carlisle ones didn't affect it) as my connection is as fast as normal but I'm with PlusNet and their "problems page" has all sorts of "technical" excuses from Openreach!

That will work against PN though - our exchange is now taking orders for superfast fibre broadband and I don't want to spend an extra 50% per month on something that isn't working properly (I'm paying £22 pcm at the moment for phone and internet!)

[rich.]

I think Rich must have been really bored yesterday

not quite, i was trying to prepare some estimates for work i doubt i will get... & it was peeing down.. im keeping a bottle of rosé is in the fridge for you terry to thank you for all your efforts

[JPB]

Terry, one small thing I've spotted, which does make the forum somewhat less easy to read, is that avatars are now on the right. Are alternative themes going to be added to address this behaviour please? (No rush though, you probably need a good long kip before you fry your eyeballs with all of this staring at a screen )!

Editified: OK, scrub that! I'm the one needing eye rest. I found Subsilver2 in the new CP and all is now well with the world, Japanese readers will no doubt be pleased that it's now possible to have their avatars over there on the right (wrong) side..


Sweet:

[plasticpenguin]

It's been hit 'n' miss with me. Sometimes it has blocked me and other times it's fine - had also a few 'error' pages come up.

[TerryG]

subsilver2 is not a standard style in this version of phpbb!
Fortunately, it is available in their directory. It's surprising that 3.1 has been out for quite a while but there are only a dozen or so styles for it.
I have installed "black" as I know some people have difficulty seeing the blue on grey so prefer the white on black look.

Still waiting on our attachments and I have the poor looking logo to properly address, otherwise I think we're good to go

pp: we have been having HUGE difficulties with our previous forum host for a while. After some "shouty" emails, we are now on our own server (actually, one of 123reg's servers) so can control our own block lists, styles, smilys, etc.
ie now if there is a problem we can fix it ourselves rather than having to wait on someone else to do it.

Going forward, any issues you have if you post / email one of the admin team, we will get it resolved ASAP.

[gazza82]

subsilver2 is not a standard style in this version of phpbb!
Fortunately, it is available in their directory.

It's on the drop-down menu: Black, New Forum, prosilver and subsilver2 .. logo looks ok with subsilver2 too!

[JPB]

Ooh! I like this new black theme. Very comfortable to view and superb on the telly, where white text on black provides absolute contrast as none of the background itself need be active. But even after all these years, it is SS2 that works best here, IMHO, since the "active topics" and similar view options are hidden in the newer themes, where they open in a new tab when the three lines at the top left are clicked but aren't present at the top of the page otherwise. The magazine's masthead looks just as crisp when viewed in SS2, ISTR that it wasn't available in the other themes in any case, pre-migration, but whichever way you look at it, the banner area of this forum looks better than many others for the simple reason that it takes nothing from the content. That last point is perhaps less significant in Safari where the number of posts per page is dictated not by forum settings but by how much scrolling the reader's mouse hand can take as the pages just keep coming!
Imagine it: Internet-related activity that can cause cramp in one hand! Who'd have thought..

subsilver2 is not a standard style in this version of phpbb!
Fortunately, it is available in their directory.

It's on the drop-down menu: Black, New Forum, prosilver and subsilver2 .. logo looks ok with subsilver2 too!

I assumed that Terry simply meant that he'd had to install it from the directory, which could explain how it was there when I was using it to view the board earlier..

[TerryG]

Exactly that John.
Installing styles is quick and simple to do, it was just surprising that the 2nd most used style they have wasn't included as standard.
I agree the black theme looks good on a TV but we had a couple of users on the old high contrast theme which is very similar and as it's not available for this version yet, I have substituted black.
I've been using subsilver2 for too long to swap to something else, I'd never remember where all the buttons had gone

The logo should look crisper as I have grabbed a new copy. Previously we had a silver logo on a blue background which no matter what I do with it looks rubbish.
the correct colours look OK but you can see where the master has a white background so the edges of the letters have some white bleed rather than blending in to the blue.
You don't notice it on the grey.
As soon as I can grab a better copy of the logo, i'll upload it.

[JPB]

I've noticed that the forum signs me out between visits now, just as I recall it doing a few years ago when some members commented about it. It's no bad thing from a security POV and only represents two extra mouse actions when we have a password safe, but I thought I'd mention this in case Rich assumes that he broke it.