Exilian
Site Questions & Governance: The Citadel Quarter => Questions and Suggestions - The High Court => Topic started by: Jubal on October 20, 2008, 05:32:27 PM
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For discussing;
http://exilian.co.uk/ (http://exilian.co.uk/)
Marcus, did ya get the email I sent ya?
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Add a link to the Wiki into the navbar perhaps?
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Good idea, I'll contact Marcus next time he's on MSN.
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Just so you know the website link at the top of the page gives a 404. As do all of them but the wiki one.
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I can read them all fine, anyone else having problems?
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All fine for me.
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Hmm its working for me now as well :blink: .
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In case anyone is a bit behind, the location of Exilian is now http://exilian.net/ (http://exilian.net/)
I'm going to use this thread for updates as to what's going on with the websites. A lot of them will be tiny, barely worth a post, but will only appear if they affect the site from the perspective of the user.
So first update:
Added CSS3 feature for rounded corners. If you use Firefox 3 or Safari 3 or higher, you should see it. If you're wondering why I bothered, I reckon the effect is quite nice and the amount of code that needed to be added was tiny:
-moz-border-radius: 10px;
-webkit-border-radius: 10px;
Guess which is which.
If anyone's wondering, for browsers that don't support this feature, nothing will screw up, you'll just get the normal square corners.
Updated ETW page with release date, and System requirements.
Just completed a mass cleanup of various pages throughout the site; some may have slightly different layouts, but otherwise ok. Pages now look nicer and have useless and unneeded code stripped out.
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If anyone notices anything missing or out of date, or just plain wrong, post in this thread and I shall endeavour to fix it.
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Two notable updates and some small fixes:
Added a feature which highlights the current page you're on in the navigation bar. Most websites have this feature and ours shouldn't be any different. Tell me what you think of the colour and/or anything else about the navigation in general.
Added page transitions feature to the site, only viewable in IE, but with FF and Safari getting the rounded corners, it balances out. If you're wondering what they are, just view the site in IE and find out. ;)
Sorted out some CSS glitches on the site so it should now look almost the same in all browsers besides specialised features.
Any comments, please post here. :)
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Done various other tweaks including:
Site now has same favicon as forum (icon in URL bar)
Cleaned up contact form
Other tweaks that are minimal but noticeable.
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There is now a links page with links to fellow fan/mod sites at http://exilian.net/links.php (http://exilian.net/links.php)
There is now a news box in the forum next to the banner, this will have a summary of the new in the announcement forum.
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I think that the letters in news box are too big and way more highlighted than ones in banner
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That's a good point, y'know.
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Well I don't really think so ... It is hurting my eyes :P
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Na, I meant your post was a good point in that I hadn't really realised how much it overshadows the banner. I agree with you.
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Problem is, anything in that section is turned into a link by the forum, yet there isn't really anywhere else decent to put it.
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What about portal, under the latest posts box?
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Can we not just make the text smaller? And possibly the box backing and text a shade darker.
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Enabled the portal:
http://s9.zetaboards.com/exilian/site/ (http://s9.zetaboards.com/exilian/site/)
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Actually, that does look better. I edited the portal to show news instead of boozer posts btw.
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Enabled the portal:
Yup, thats looks much better... Thanks
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I think that we should make something to count total time logged in ...
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It's cool to have a news box but don't you think that it should be updated from time to time ? The latest news are more than 2 months old....
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True. I just never get round to it.
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As usual, if anyone have suggestions for the main website (which is my main department on Exilian these days), then suggest away, and I shall consider them. Suggestions should be to do with the functions of the site, rather than content. Ask Jubal about that one.
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To make the portal more prominent, should I have it replace the forum link on Exilian or should I add an alternate link?
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Made the portal default on the forum link from the main site.
And if you're using the site, don't be worried if new links appear as you hover over the Mount&Blade link. I'm making a dropdown menu for the navigation bar and using Mount&Blade as the guinea pig.
EDIT: scrapped the dropdowns for now as I can't get them to work properly in IE. If the whole world would convert to a standards compliant browser (not IE by a long shot) then I would be happy. :)
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IE users will now see rounded corners on the main border on the site. This will work for IE 7 and greater, I have not tried to support IE 6 as it is now hopelessly out of date by today's standards.
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IE 6 as it is now hopelessly out of date by today's standards.
Oi I still have IE 6 :P . Don't use it though... Its just that IE is so bad I never bothered to upgrade.
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There is something terribly wrong with Member Local Time... I have set my time on GMT+1 and it says that my local time is 02:58 PM ...But it isn't ... It's 15:56
It's one hour late ... Maybe the clock isn't adding that +1 h in my local time
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why have none of the options at the very bottom of the page ever been clickable?
oh yeah, its behind on my time too
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CG: on the site or the forum?
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CG: on the site or the forum?
well it seems to change between every page
like right now while typing this post i cant click the time or the theme change drop down box,
nor could i click them, the track post, and email buttons when i was reading the forum
its very confusing though because i swear i was able to click the time and theme box at least one time :-/
but on the main page i have never been able to click the mark all topics/forums as read, or the time, or the theme box
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It's time to update the news box
http://s9.zetaboards.com/exilian?topic=7100990/2/#new (http://s9.zetaboards.com/exilian?topic=7100990/2/#new)
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I'm going to make a forum discussion thread, which will deal with all forum issues, as this one was originally meant for the main website, not the forums.
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Updated news section with news about The Horde Lands being released.
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I have added a little bit of code that checks if the user is using IE, and if so, shows an image link to download Firefox. Call this amoral or whatever, but I would prefer not have to cater for a browser incompatible with nearly all new web technologies out there. Exilian itself has various IE specific tweaks and hacks in order to get features working for IE. When IE supports things like CSS properly, I will remove the Firefox link. :)
This does not mean the site won't work with IE, but it will give IE users a poke in the right direction. :P
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Ok, I have a plan for a new navigation system an layout for the site.
Instead of our current two column system, I am contemplating a single columns system with the navbar above the content. Unless I can find a use for the right hand column (currently navigation) I will get rid of it. This is an attempt to make the main website look a little more professional and make the navigation system more useful.
Here is the new navigation bar so far: http://exilian.co.uk/newnav/navigation.html (http://exilian.co.uk/newnav/navigation.html)
It has been designed to fit into a 1014 width, the width of the main content section of the site. It has drop down menus that link to various locations, such as mods, the gallery, the forums and various subforums.
This is just one part of a site redesign, and I would appreciate feedback on any part of the website that is to do with layout, colour, functionality etc. Content will come later.
I want feedback, please give it to me.
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It looks nice from my point of view...
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It looks nice from my point of view...
ditto
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Ok, I'll start implementing it in the next few days. :)
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I have a test page up with the new design, check it out and please give me feedback: http://exilian.co.uk/home.php (http://exilian.co.uk/home.php)
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It looks nice but you will now need to change the main part ...
First of all ... Exilian description should be on the top and news should be smaller...
Additionally you could add something to fill the space ...
I'll show you what I mean tomorrow
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So, put description on top and news beneath? Getting rid of the left column provides more space for the main content including images.
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Here's what I meant
(http://www.imagesforme.com/upload/d9556f4d.jpg)
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I like the idea of that, I could give it a go tonight, and probably have it ready for preview tomorrow. :)
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Had a load of spam comments posted to the Gallery, but they have now been deleted. Will be looking for a better spam filtering system as soon as I get home.
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Had a load of spam comments posted to the Gallery, but they have now been deleted. Will be looking for a better spam filtering system as soon as I get home.
I was wondering why I received 30 emails about gallery comments :cyclops:
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All updates about the site now appear on my tech blog. Click on the link in my sig to go there.
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Since no one reads my blog, I'll post it here:
I have created an archive page for all news articles. It is currently still in beta and a little rough around the edges, but please tell me what you think so I can improve it. I hope to have it automated at some stage so I don't have to manually update it everytime I make a new news article.
http://www.exilian.co.uk/archive.php (http://www.exilian.co.uk/archive.php)
Tab system made using the wonderful tabber! (http://www.barelyfitz.com/projects/tabber/)
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Site keeps being slow, I expect speeds of over 9000!!!!!!!1!eleven
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I've not noticed any slowness, and I'm across the pond from where the server is.
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Well you haven't been around as much as the rest of us. :P
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I see there is space at the bottom of TWC's homepage (http://www.twcenter.net/) for another link to a webpage. I think our forum activity is better than at least some of the others they have listed there, so maybe if we get our main page up and running we should ask them to put our link in.
(http://ranger.gamebanana.com/img/ico/sprays/4f29c6c03ffe2.png)
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Yes, that would be an excellent idea. :)
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Do it CG :) . It does indeed sound like a good idea.
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I'm... not sure how. :P
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PM their big boss man maybe?
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Yeah I guess, whoever that is. It would be better for Jubal to compose the message though; his linguistic skills far exceed my own. :P
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Jubal: http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showthread.php?621271-Adding-Exilian-to-the-main-page
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A links box, currently empty, has been added to the main page. I also took the liberty of adding something to our homepage to explain who the hell we are, as that was notably missing. :P
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Maybe above the chat box we could have a few ground rules. such as:
#1 - Most importantly, keep it civil and don't be rude. It's easy to misinterpret others on the internet. Relax, be nice, and you'll find everyone else is too.
#2 - Please avoid spamming. This includes one word answers, continual irrelevant and general nonsensical talk. Read and think carefully before you post.
#3 - Double or triple posting should be avoided. You may reply your own post after 24 hours have passed. If not, then use the EDIT button to update it.
#4 - Constructive criticism is a must. But please be thoughtful of others and understand that people aren't trying to constantly demotivate you.
#5 - No Racist, sexist, homophobic or religious talk. I need say no more.
#6 - Don't post OR link to anything pornographic, disgusting, gory, or illegal (including illegal file sharing). Keep it to yourself.
This is just an example from another site I frequent.
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People see the ToS when they join up, I think that's probably enough. We don't have many real major rule breaches to deal with so I think it's better to keep the atmosphere relaxed and not shove rules in people's faces.
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A links box, currently empty, has been added to the main page. I also took the liberty of adding something to our homepage to explain who the hell we are, as that was notably missing. :P
Is it going to be filled with something soon? ;)
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Depends how quickly the guys at Total Internal Server Error Center get back to me. :P
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Not very quickly it seems. :(
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Not very quickly it seems. :(
Indeed. :(
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I'll pester more soon :/
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Cripes, I didn't realize photobucket had blocked out all of my photos... >:(
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Than don't use photobucket. :)
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Hopefully it will reset on the 18th and go back to normal, as long as Jubal doesn't re-release WHTW. :P
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I hope he does. :P
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Ah! Just checked TWC for the first time in a while and I see a link to E on the main page!!!!!!!!!!! :o :o :o :o
But I don't see one on our main page to TWC. This is a problem.
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Fixed, it will be less ugly when I'm less busy :) .
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The main Russian TW site uses this image for their TWC link:
(http://www.totalwars.ru/images/banners/twc.jpg)
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Looks good now. :)
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Indeed. Diplomatic success win!
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So I have finally gotten around to doing some work on the site! I even set up a to-do list thing to motivate me into doing things.
I figured it would be good to have a place for people to tell me things that they would like doing, and this seems like the right place for that. So fire away and I'll add them to my list and try and get them done in a reasonable time frame :P .
PS. Sorting out the menu bar is already there, I'm doing it now! Also there already are a couple of things I've had in my head to do for a while.
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Yeah Saw! :)
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I'm not sure we need the dropdowns - the mods & games dropdown will be a pain to update with new projects if we keep it, and I like having the buttons now in the forum dropdown across the top - I can't use dropdown menus so easily when using Exilian on a phone or tablet so having those where they used to be would be better IMO.
Also can we get an academy link like on the front-end site?
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I'm not sure we need the dropdowns - the mods & games dropdown will be a pain to update with new projects if we keep it, and I like having the buttons now in the forum dropdown across the top - I can't use dropdown menus so easily when using Exilian on a phone or tablet so having those where they used to be would be better IMO.
I'll do that. It frustrates me that the links end up overflowing into multiple lines on my phone, but I had forgotten the even bigger frustration of the drop-downs :) .
Also can we get an academy link like on the front-end site?
Heh, I forgot about that and the youtube link (do we still want the youtube link there?).
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Yes we do. :)
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Done the above stuff, also fixed the "new post" icon on the latest post list on the main site. Any more comments on the navbar?
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On all the front end website pages, I get a funny white dotted line under the main logo and just above the navbar. It disappears when I roll over it. Can we get rid of that? (I'm using Chrome)
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Try doing a force refresh to clear your browser's caching of the CSS. I made that image a link to match the one on the forum which meant that line appeared until I messed with the CSS a bit.
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Ah, good, sorted - thankyou! :)
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What about a link to Forgefyre up there?
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Probably doesn't want to be on the top bar, but it should be linked from the arts page probably.
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I see. Makes sense.
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Something odd I've spotted in the last day or two - if I go to the website front page, it has two lines of text at the top, both saying the same thing, evidently an error message:
Notice: Undefined index: host in /home/content/o/l/d/oldmarcus/html/forum/Sources/Load.php on line 2648
Bold here matches what's displayed. This happens whether I navigate to the site URL directly, or follow the link from the menu on forum pages. It happens with Firefox version 34.0.5 (I think that's current) and IE version 9.
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Seems to be to do with cookies and session tracking on the forum, looking at the code in question. I get different error messages (and more of 'em) if I log out.
SOTK, thoughts?
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I was playing around with some settings earlier, I've changed them back now, sorry :) .
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No worries - I'm glad it was so easily fixed.
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I've had a suggestion that the "welcome to Exilian" text on the homepage would look better left-aligned as it's got too much spacing in the justification from all the long words. Could we try that and see if it looks better?
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I'm pretty sure the consensus is that left aligned always looks better than full justification.
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Meanwhile, I think it might be time to pack the Christmas banner away for another year.
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Mhm, agreed. Christmas is over enough to take it down... although I do like the look of it. :)
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Ta-da :)
Meanwhile, was anyone going to make a Cyril & Methodius Day and an Exilian Day version?
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Hmm, you mean a "HAPPY BIRTHDAY EXILIAN" version. :D
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With confetti and party hat wearing letters? ;)
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Yus:)
I think I still like the idea of doing Cyril & Methodius with stacks of books, inkwells, and parchment (we could just put the title into Cyrillic, but I feel since we seem to use it as a reading/books thing some bookstacks would look better, the Cyrillic title would just confuse most people).
And for Exilian Day, confetti and party hats and cakes and stuff are definitely what's needed :)
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Maybe we could have the Exilian on a large Parchment. With some stacks of books covering some of the writing in the foreground.
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That could work. :)
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I've had a suggestion that the "welcome to Exilian" text on the homepage would look better left-aligned as it's got too much spacing in the justification from all the long words. Could we try that and see if it looks better?
Sure thing, I'll do it tomorrow :) .
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I finally remembered to do this, I think it looks better now.
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The word "friendliest" is split over 2 lines for some reason...
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The word "friendliest" is split over 2 lines for some reason...
There's a space between the 'i' and the 'e'; it renders on one line (but with a gap) on my desktop. I think the file that needs modifying is template.php - if you're feeling brave you could let me do the edit.
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Yeah, template.php is the one, the text is in the function that builds the sidebar. I was thinking that it would maybe make more sense to have a post somewhere which contains the welcome message, and get the message from there. I can do that tonight if people think it makes sense.
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I was thinking that it would maybe make more sense to have a post somewhere which contains the welcome message, and get the message from there. I can do that tonight if people think it makes sense.
It makes sense to me - it means we can alter the welcome message without having to go delving into the files, and it saves you from having to do maintenance on it in future. if there are any other similar pieces of text, I suggest you do the same with them. We just need to ensure that nothing will go wrong if there's a spambot posting, for example, but that's probably as simple as locking the relevant thread.
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I've done that now, just edit this post (http://exilian.co.uk/forum/index.php?topic=3702.msg90964) to change the welcome message in future.
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I've done that now, just edit this post (http://exilian.co.uk/forum/index.php?topic=3702.msg90964) to change the welcome message in future.
It looks good to me - many thanks!
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So I'm pretty crappy at editing the banner, but nobody else got round to it, so I did my best in minimal time :s
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Ah, F5 is my friend, as ever. Many thanks for doing it; my image-editing skills are non-existent.
Is there any way to force browsers to update their cached images when we change the banner?
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Looks like we can probably trick it into reloading the cache when the image changes, I'll have a mess around with it tomorrow.
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It changed by itself on my tablet.
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Shall I take the C&M day banner down now?
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Aye.
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I think so. Furl it up and keep it ready for next year.
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Done :)
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Is this an embedded https youtube link?
EDIT: Not yet it isn't. It will be soon though :) .
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Ooh, are we actually fixing forum bugs? Excellent! :)
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Slowly but surely!
Are there many others you are aware of?
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Not that I can think of off the top of my head... though if you're having a patch of adding forum functionality, there are a couple of mods that would be nice that don't seem to currently exist! Those might be rather large projects though.
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That would depend on what they are :) .
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Could we get people's topic creation count showing on profile fields? The board has the data, since it uses them in the stats window, but I can't find them for individuals.
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What would be the point? -
Jubal: 6 billion
Everyone else: one or two
:P
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I'd imagine that will be pretty simple, I'll see what I can do this weekend sometime. I should get round to fixing the https youtube links then too.
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If people can see the number they may be inclined to increase it, for one thing. For another, just easier to collect data on who creates topics and why and what that correlates to and suchlike. And data mean better targeting of what we're doing.
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I know, I joke. ;D
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So, I discovered that this is already there! Click "Show stats" on a profile page and its in the list of stats. I can try to put it in the summary page if you'd like?
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That would be good :)
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I finally made the library page (http://exilian.co.uk/library.php) load it's content from the forum.
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Yay :}
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I discovered there were remnant Google Analytics tracking codes on the Index and Articles pages that never got stripped out. Those have now been removed.
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The articles tab finally and after many months has a vaguely workable navigation system :) Please check it out and see what you think.
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Looks nice,
For some reason I expected recent and first (back in time) navigation to go on the left. Might just be me.
Is there any way to have a "contents" or similar page?
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Mm. Now you mention it I'm not sure what I'd expect. Maybe I should check what similar websites do?
As for contents, that is probably doable, or alternatively we could stop just having full articles per page and have a show/hide thing for each so you get the title and first few lines on a ten article page or something. Not sure what's ideal there.
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Have to agree with Tusk; left is back, right is forward.
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OK - duly reversed :) Thankyou for the feedback!
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I did some tweaks to the front page, thoughts welcome - the CSS is a bit janky (and you might need to manually reload it by refreshing https://exilian.co.uk/style.css to get the extent of the changes.
I got rid of the weird hanging bracket on the left, which seemed to be from a call to load jquery in that I think was superfluous since we seemed to have two calls to load the same file, one written with some odd outdated javascript (which I commented out in the fil and I haven't noticed anything breaking as a result).
Also, I made the menu buttons bigger and moved them to the centre and put horizontal rules around them. The idea is that this makes it easier for people to notice the existence of the articles section & forum. I'm wondering about adding a "join us" button to the site menus too which just points to registration for the forum...
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It looks to be working OK for me. There was a moment's slight disorientation when the menu buttons weren't exactly where I expected them, but I will no doubt become accustomed to the new look quite quickly.
I'm not sure that a "Join us" button on the front page is beneficial - it relates only to the forum, which potential new members won't see until they click on the link, and the forum pages themselves each have a login/register section.
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Good good. I ended up with a bit of pale blue space above the top horizontal rule that I put round the menu, which wasn't intended but I don't know how to fix it. And yes, it looked odd to me too when I did it but we've definitely had discussions in the past that concluded that it really wasn't obvious enough that the forum etc is where people should be being channelled to, so hopefully it is an improvement.
Re the Join button: that's mostly true, with the caveat being the mailing list, which I manually fill with emails scraped from forum accounts - and our other stuff like the pubs is mainly advertised said mailing list. But I take the point.
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Re the Join button: that's mostly true, with the caveat being the mailing list, which I manually fill with emails scraped from forum accounts - and our other stuff like the pubs is mainly advertised said mailing list. But I take the point.
Would it be worthwhile (and possible?) to have a "Subscribe to our mailing list" button? Granted there would then have to be some sort of reconciliation process between directly submitted e-mail addresses and those from forum accounts to ensure people weren't getting duplicate e-mails - but could the list system itself handle this?
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It may be worth thinking about: Mailchimp should be able to reconcile email addresses. I'd probably want to find some new way of segmenting the list to account for non-forum-members as a group, so I could e.g. send them emails asking them to join the forum, and didn't send them any emails explicitly for forum members, but that should be possible. Worth looking into sometime: we can discuss it tomorrow.
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Website security certificate updated: this is now a manual four times a year job :/
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Are you able to use Lets encrypt? Can do automated renewal with certbot https://certbot.eff.org/ (https://certbot.eff.org/)
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No, that's the problem - when our hosts switched to their new cpanel system they removed their Let's Encrypt support. I'm using the ZeroSSL free package.
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ZeroSSL updated again - will next need to be done in late February, this certificate expires on March 1st.
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We had some downtime this morning because a) I didn't get the renewal done on time and b) it turns out ZeroSSL will only do free renewals three times, so I found a third-party site that runs a service to generate certificates from Let's Encrypt's certbot, and so now we have a Let's Encrypt certificate for the next ninety days. Sigh. Should all be running fine now anyway.
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Advance warning that we might have downtime again this week for the same reason as last time: we really need to get this SSL tech problem onto a longer term solution :(
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My site auto renews fine using lets encrypt.
Are there issues getting it to work for exilian?
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Yeah, the issue is that Tsohost does not give access to Let's Encrypt on whatever plan it is we have.
I've purchased a certificate that will do 1yr for the time being, which cost about ten euros. But we should move host. If we're willing to commit to a new host for a while (like, pay three or four years up front as a bundle deal, which we do have the budget for), some of the introductory offers could save us a considerable amount of cash too.
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Hm ok, so it's a case of finding some new hosting.
Wonder how much it would cost to host on AWS along with my site! Maybe I should come up with a quote ;D
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We should get back to this soon - I think Hostinger was the best option I found so far but we should do more checks.
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Are the omnishambles at reddit, YouTube, or twitter affecting Exilian's outreach at all?
Since Piped and Nitter don't work right now I am trying life without YouTube or Twitter.
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Are the omnishambles at reddit, YouTube, or twitter affecting Exilian's outreach at all?
Since Piped and Nitter don't work right now I am trying life without YouTube or Twitter.
What's going on at YouTube? I haven't noticed issues there...
But generally no, our reach on old social media is near zero anyway, so if anything we get a very small benefit from the chaos by more people moving e.g. to Mastodon. I wish we could scoop up more of the better kind of redditors but I just don't know how to reach those people.
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YouTube has blocked Piped, which is my preferred alternative front end, and is trying to block adblockers. I have heard that they blocked youtube-dl (the command-line tool to, well, download youtube videos) but I have not tried it in the past few days.
I know one of the mods at r/askHistorians. This person was also active on twitter so maybe they are seeing why I kept at arms length from big corporate social media services. I expect that they are looking for another place to host their community but that would have to be a dedicated site or service.