Turning point for Linuxvillage and it's forum?

[kjdixo]

Hi

Do you have any idea why the word "Bienvenue" is clearly smaller than the other words on the line? I seem unable to see anything which could explain it.

It was the same size as the other text on that line, until your css font-size changes were added, that is what caused the word "Bienvenue" to be a different size.
I had previously made sure that everything on that line was the same size (except for the bold strong guest name)  . . . getting it all the same size safely was tricky due to the countless css classes where every change in the css needs to be thoroughly checked to make sure it has not caused an adverse effect somewhere else (like in the 'logged in' interface).
It makes me want to write my own bulletin board forum code with simpler layout and easier to modify styles, that are more local and less global. Then any changes I do will only affect the elements I am looking at. It is true that there are developer tools that can "Copy unique selector" and help to untangle what is going on. My approach would be to not have such a complicated tangle in the first place.
We have done well to get it looking like it is now.

It seems the green looks bigger (color vibration). What about you do reverse? . . . .
Wouldn't it look better? (I know, I'm probably knitpicking… :p )

I am not sure which is better, I think I liked it with the login and register links as green because that gives them more emphasis and importance . . . . from a functional point of view.
From an aesthetic point of view it might look better how it is now, but that is a matter of taste.
ps. it is good to knitpick.

[melodie]

Hello,

I understand that it makes you feel to create a full theme from the ground up. :-(

Ok, let's be in the details. I am doing 2 screenshots, 1 to show you my point about reversing the colors, and one with a different size font for the "user_info clearfix" sentence. What I notice besides the color vibration, is that there is too much yellow next to the other. And the fonts are still too big being 100%. 90 or 95% is better.

The next two pics show that. If the colors will be reversed, it could be less hard on the sight while still providing emphasis. I would like you to try it. But, I noticed while testing, that when not logged in, the ".user_info" line have the two first words which suddenly aren't on the same horizontal line than the rest of the sentence.

While when logged in, it does not happen.

Also : when logged out, the whole sentence is aligned left, while when logged in the whole sentence that replaces it is centered, which I find being much better.

http://meets.free.fr/images/forum-test-yellow-and-green.png
http://meets.free.fr/images/forum-test-yellow-and-green-logged-in-95percent.png

And one detail we talked about several days ago, to not be forgotten : when users are logged out, I would like them to be able to see if there are new messages. While I'm at it, I don't understand how the green + of the message bubbles work : is it supposed to show "new message" or to show "no new message" ? It's unclear to me. How do we know which is what? Is there a tootip for it?

I look forward to your new improvements, related to these details and others you mentioned.

[kjdixo]

I understand that it makes you feel to create a full theme from the ground up. :-(

No [:-( . . .  what makes you think that?], I am quite happy and don't care either way.
I think you misunderstood the purpose of my previous post.
It was not to complain or to say that I was fed up or anything like that.
I was just answering some of your questions that I had over-looked and missed due to concentrating on other parts of the thread. Plus I was making it clear and obvious (for the record) how certain errors crept in.
When small changes in one place affect the layout in other places it is not always as easy as it looks.
I am not a web designer and I do this for a hobby (I am self taught for 10+ years) because it is fun, that is all.
I also want your Linux Forum to be a success because I am also a Linux user and believe that more people should adopt Linux for their OSs.
Now to the code:
1. I have swapped orange and green again. Actually it is dark orange, is that better?
2. I changed the font size to 90% as you indicated.
3. Are you saying you want the orange/green font-size the same when logged-in as when logged-out?
4. I don't understand the term 'colour vibration'. Yellow? Are you saying the orange is too 'yellowy'?
5. The line is fractured and cannot be made into a perfectly horizontal single line.

I noticed while testing, that when not logged in, the ".user_info" line have the two first words which suddenly aren't on the same horizontal line than the rest of the sentence.

Yes I agree, I noticed that too and I spent quite a while trying to fix it, but 1px +/- changes make it too high or too low. The two lines cannot be made to line up by adjusting the top/bottom margin offsets. I think it is something to do with the font magnification percentages.
So I suggest that I 'brute force' change the HTML somewhere so that the 2 sentences are on a straight line.
Now that I have already made small changes to the theme HTML a few more changes won't hurt.
6. Logged-out users seeing the new topic and new post status.

when users are logged out, I would like them to be able to see if there are new messages

I have not found out how to do that yet.
Does the SMF default theme  . . . your existing forum have that feature?
I will have to search around on the internet to see if someone has an answer.
I checked the code and it seems to not be implemented.
So I think it will be another PHP hack and not just simply css.
7. Centering the logged-out welcome text.

when logged out, the whole sentence is aligned left, while when logged in the whole sentence that replaces it is centered, which I find being much better.

Yes that should be easy and it is good that you mentioned it whilst talking about #5 {above).
The 2 modifications can be done together I think.

I look forward to your new improvements

Sorry the comments came first.
It helps me to think about the task by creating a listed reply.
Also you can correct me on anything that you think I mis-understood.
Thanks

[kjdixo]

Hey,
How does that look?


The original HTML specifies 2 lines with each line in between <center> tags.
So it is easy to do and solves both problems #5 and #7.



The vertical position might need slight adjustment.
The breadcrumbs are a little bit close but not too bad.
And the empty area / gap height at the top has not changed and is the same logged-in and logged-out,



Is the difference in font-size between logged-in and logged-out ok.
Should they be the same size?

[kjdixo]

I have now done the PHP hack to correct the HTML.
The 'welcome guest' and 'login/register prompt message' are all on one line.
The HTML and css validates correctly.
I think the modification is 'rock solid' and won't cause any problems.
It is documented in my comments contained within smf/Themes/tabs-fun/index.template.php



The tabs-fun theme style.css has a few more changes.
I am sure it will need a few more tweaks before this project is finished.



Let me know what you think.
Thanks Melodie

[melodie]

Hello,

It looks like it will soon be perfect!

Here: http://forum.linuxvillage.org/index.php/topic,732.msg4206.html#msg4206

I asked about swapping the orange/yellow for the green and vice versa. The orange color as it it on the test forum is perfect. I just suggested that if the colors are swapped it will be better, because there is already a full line of orange with the tabs which are just above.

I notice you fixed the look of the login box. Great! I was sure you had noticed, this is why I hadn't mentioned.

I am happy to know that you do this theme hacking for pleasure, and I hope you will have lots of pleasure using it and being around at least once a while after it will be installed!

For the matter of messages seen as new when logged in or not, logged in, maybe it's somewhere in the administration. I will check. If it's not there, I'll seek too.

[kjdixo]

Thank you.
I will do more tomorrow.
There are a few minor layout issues that have suddenly appeared on some of the logged-in pages.
They should be easy to fix (tomorrow).
I found a few articles, but not much, about the recent post status for the logged-out index page.
I think it might be necessary to copy some code from another theme.

https://www.namepros.com/threads/smf-help-recent-active-topics-on-main-page-can-it-be-done.379235
http://www.simplemachines.org/community/index.php?topic=91822.0
http://wiki.simplemachines.org/smf/SMF2.0:Themes_and_Layout
http://www.simplemachines.org/community/index.php?topic=401535.msg2809033#msg2809033

I will continue looking and experimenting until it is fixed.

[melodie]

Thank you very much. Do you use IRC? I am logged on the #smf chan on freenode, where I asked the question. I had only one answer so far and not very encouraging. I don't know if the answer is the right one, or if we can try to find a more encouraging one.

<Oldiesmann> SMF doesn't track whether there are new posts for guests or not
<Oldiesmann> So there's no way to do that really

[kjdixo]

Sorry, I don't use IRC and the answer you were given by Oldiesmann says that it is not implemented, which is what I suspected.
However, if something is not possible with the current forum code, then perhaps modification of the code somewhere might provide that function. I will look at it tomorrow.

2. I forgot that you can't see my PHP code, so here is the modification I did to fix the welcome/login text.
smf/Themes/tabs-fun/index.template.php

Code: [Sélectionner]

Line 464
//--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
echo ''; // this once echoed the line commented out below.
// echo '<center>', $txt['hello_guest'], ' <strong>', $txt['guest'], '</strong></center>'; this line has closing tags so can be completely removed
// kjdixo modification 2015-11-25-1930 moved the line above to inside of <form></form> tags on line 530
//--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Line 517
//---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
// kjdixo modification 2015-11-25-1930
    //  line 530 align="center" removed from <div>, now need to add </center> after </div>
    // moved welcome inside form
    // Made sure <center><div ... ><form ...> closed with </form></div></center>
    // Validated new HTML
//---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------   


else

{

echo '<center><div ', empty($options['collapse_header']) ? '' : ' style="display: none;"', '>

<script language="JavaScript" type="text/javascript" src="', $settings['default_theme_url'], '/scripts/sha1.js"></script>

<form action="', $scripturl, '?action=login2" method="post" accept-charset="', $context['character_set'], '" ', empty($context['disable_login_hashing']) ? ' onsubmit="hashLoginPassword(this, \'' . $context['session_id'] . '\');"' : '', '>

', $txt['hello_guest'], ' ', $txt['guest'], '

' , $txt['login_or_register'], '<br />

<input type="text" name="user" size="10" />

<input type="password" name="passwrd" size="10" />

<select name="cookielength">

<option value="60">', $txt['one_hour'], '</option>

<option value="1440">', $txt['one_day'], '</option>

<option value="10080">', $txt['one_week'], '</option>

<option value="43200">', $txt['one_month'], '</option>

<option value="-1" selected="selected">', $txt['forever'], '</option>

</select>

<input type="submit" value="', $txt['login'], '" /><br />

', $txt['quick_login_dec'];



if (!empty($modSettings['enableOpenID']))

echo'

<br />

<input type="text" name="openid_url" id="openid_url" size="25" class="openid_login" />';



echo '

<input type="hidden" name="hash_passwrd" value="" />

</form></div></center>';

}

this line was taken from outside of the form and is now inside the form (now displays as one line):
', $txt['hello_guest'], ' ', $txt['guest'], '

[melodie]

Hello,

I am now about to create the new presentation for Bento Openbox (there is a new version out since a pair of days). So the new skin here and the new presentation could happen almost at the same time.

[kjdixo]

I was very busy today (and tired).
I will do some more as soon as possible.
Sorry for the delay.

[melodie]

I was very busy today (and tired).
I will do some more as soon as possible.
Sorry for the delay.

Well same here. I haven't worked on the presentation project. Well, I'll wait for you and the forum will too, don't worry!

Take care!

[kjdixo]

Due to other priorities and lack of time, I am fixing problems with the forum layout one at a time.
There are still a few little problems, but nothing major.
1. Orange drop-down tabs when hovered - the width is incorrect and I need to make it the same width as the text.



2.  The menu toggle button was white on a light background which was nearly invisible.

I tried to make it into a css green arrow, but the arrow has a flattened point so that needs correcting.


Here you can see the green arrow above the language setting menu.

But there is a problem with the layout when the menu is toggled.
The left side panel forces the menu downwards.

I have tried a few methods and was able to fix it, but there were other consequences and I want to find the correct 'rock solid' fix.
I want to fix these problems and a few others soon, but I am travelling all Monday and Tuesday.
Today I am busy getting ready to travel.
I might find some spare time later today.
Wednesday I will be ready to look at this again and then Wednesday onwards I will have lots of spare time for 3 weeks. So I can hopefully finish this on Wednesday or Thursday.

[melodie]

Hi,

Thanks for your news.

I will be travelling too, on thursday and friday. I will be able to read the news from the forum, and participate, but nothing more.

[kjdixo]

Sorry that I have not posted anything for the last week.
I fixed all the problems a week ago . . . except for the icon NEW POST status for guests, when not logged in.
There seem to be modifications available to try and I tried some, but they did not work for me.
http://custom.simplemachines.org/mods/index.php?mod=3380
I also read
http://www.simplemachines.org/community/index.php?topic=16281.0
I read somewhere in a forum post, by one of the SMF developers (kindred'), that because a guest is not logged in and is anonymous  then that means there is no information available to measure whether the guest is seeing 'new' posts or 'old' posts.
We could maybe grab the data from the '24-48-72 hour plugin' and use that to change the icons. But itt might be a difficult project (or maybe easy). That data also is only available when logged in. If I can make the 24-48-72 hour plugin work when 'not logged in' as a guest then I think that would be a good start, to try to have '4-state' icons. No posts, 24 hr old, 48 hour old and 72 hour old.
What do you think?