HB site update - Page 5

[HB]

...though probably you'll prefer using just one layout instead of two, for graphical and easy updating reasons (which I believe also right thing to do with a forum as huge as this)

I seriously considered subsilver2, but that would negate part of the performance advantage of prosilver and make integration with the rest of the site's current and future content more difficult. I was skeptical of the claims that phpBB V3 is faster than V2 after reading reports to the contrary, though the developers said the benefit comes primarily to sites with higher traffic. It's too early to say for certain, but the evidence from the last few days confirms their claim: The forums are noticeably faster.

Joey (multigl), DaveW (OlywaDave), and I will continue to tweak the appearance based on member feedback. I could have delayed the conversion longer, but figured that making it live would garner more comments than asking for members to look at a test site.

[kahvedelisi]

Actually in this case template changes won't effect the speed that much (I'm talking about prosilver and subsilver changes here, not about a template full of images, tables, scripts heavily etc) You'll still be using phpbb 3 coding, only with a template change.

When you compare subsilver with prosilver codes side by side you'll see the amount of images both templates using are same (speaking about file size and number of files used). The difference is while prosilver using divs, subsilver use tables (plus divs). But in the end both are reading from css files. Actually it is possible to create a template exclusively made of divs and still looking like subsilver but no one would deal (at least for now..if I go crazy enough I may try sometime though :p )

Here's another suggestion, if you consider going with subsilver but have doubts about it, you can do some tests by activating subsilver2 but not making it default template. If you set system to use 1 template we won't see it but only you will see it as an admin and (if you have created groups, such as "moderators") you can let them see/use/change subsilver2 from their profiles and report back to you about speed & other issues. To see what I mean; from admin panel go to styles, click on subsilver2 details, activate it (don't make it default) click on preview it will open in a new window, browse with it for a while.

Regards

[TimEggers]

Not to be a pest but has the suggestion of a higher contrast between subsequent posts been tabled?

[HB]

If you save a page to your local computer (Save Page As...) with the "Web Page, Complete" option, it will include the stylesheet hb3.css in the saved directory (e.g., if you save it as mypage.html, all the graphics and CSS will be in mypage_files). The RGB entries you want to twiddle are below:

.bg1 { background-color: #f7f7f7;}
.bg2 { background-color: #f2f2f2; }
.bg3 { background-color: #ebebeb; }

When you have a set you like, let me know.

[Abe Carmeli]

What's with the scrolling image?

carl-javahead-jones-and-his-chopped-espresso-machine-t6324.html

[HB]

The maximum image width is 800 pixels, but the forum format can only accommodate ~700 pixels with the new template without scrolling. Clicking the image shows it without the scroll bars, but clips the right.

Technical details: The old forum implementation did not resize overly large images and used JavaScript to open a new window when clicked; that approach would not allow the image's width/height attribute to be specified in advance, which meant "cascading size changes" as the page loaded. This effect was especially noticeable in photo-intensive threads as the photos were loaded into your browser. The current approach has the width/height attributes specified in the returned pages for all images, including those uploaded by members, which eliminates the cascading size changes to the page. I can look into whether the JavaScript trick can be made compatible with the predetermined width/height.

In a nutshell, the scrollbar approach you see today has no need for JavaScript and eliminates page redraw "flutter" for threads containing large images.

[Abe Carmeli]

Probably not worth the effort to reactivate the Javascript. Flickr already automatically re-formats pictures to 800x600. Perhaps just put a note about it on the "how to" post.

[Abe Carmeli]

Offsite images are not permitted: http://farm3.static.flickr.com/23...8_5d5a2c7d13_o.jpg. Please select the 'Upload image' tab below.

I got that error when trying to upload a picture to a post. I used the standard syntax [img]url[/img]

[HB]

Offsite images in forum posts explains why.

[DavidMLewis]

Not sure what the cause might be. If you set your browser to block all cookies from HB, do you see a "sid" parameter appear on all forum links?

http://www.home-barista.com/forums/?sid=559273e7c3b9520ade89d385fe62f3bb

This is normally stored as a cookie (hbforums_sid), but is appended to the link if no cookie is found. If you block cookies from the site and see this parameter unchanged in returned pages, it indicates your session is recognized. The main drawback of disabling cookies is that your session is no longer retrievable once you close the forum browser, but at least eliminates cookie handling as the cause.

Hi Dan,

Very odd. For one thing, even if I set Safari to never accept cookies, I see three H-B cookies set: hbforums_sid, hbforums_u, and hbforums_k. The other thing is that the sid keeps changing. And the third oddity is that even if I have it set to accept cookies only from sites to which I navigate, which is the default, when I get logged out the syntax you show above, with the sid in the URL, appears in my address bar.

Best,
David

[HB]

The three cookies are fine, but the hbforums_sid is the only one that matters for logouts. If you're getting multiple SIDs, then your IP address is changing. Some ISPs dynamically allocate a pool of IP addresses to a large community, i.e., one IP address could be "reused" by 50 people within the span of a few minutes (AOL is well known for this proxy approach). Forums that use IP addresses to recognize return visitors have troubles with such ISPs; when it checks your returned session ID and it doesn't match the recorded IP address, it creates a new session (otherwise someone could potentially "spoof" your ID if you happen to send the full URL with SID to them in a chat, e-mail, etc.).

To test this theory, I've reduced the precision of the check to a larger block of IP addresses, which should encompass your ISP's full allocation. The drawback of this reduction is one of your fellow ISP subscribers could spoof your login, if they managed to acquire a valid session ID (yes, a remote chance but not zero).

[DavidMLewis]

The three cookies are fine, but the hbforums_sid is the only one that matters for logouts. If you're getting multiple SIDs, then your IP address is changing. Some ISPs dynamically allocate a pool of IP addresses to a large community, i.e., one IP address could be "reused" by 50 people within the span of a few minutes (AOL is well known for this proxy approach). Forums that use IP addresses to recognize return visitors have troubles with such ISPs; when it checks your returned session ID and it doesn't match the recorded IP address, it creates a new session (otherwise someone could potentially "spoof" your ID if you happen to send the full URL with SID to them in a chat, e-mail, etc.).

To test this theory, I've reduced the precision of the check to a larger block of IP addresses, which should encompass your ISP's full allocation. The drawback of this reduction is one of your fellow ISP subscribers could spoof your login, if they managed to acquire a valid session ID (yes, a remote chance but not zero).

No difference. I should have mentioned that this behavior does not happen if I use Camino (Mac-specific browser with the Gecko rendering engine), and it doesn't happen with Safari and other forum sites. The former removes an ISP issue.

Best,
David

[chelya]

Dan,

Is it possible to adjust RSS to show new topics only rather then generating messages for each updated topic?
People post a lot - this generates a ton of rss activity rendering it pretty much useless.

A better approach to monitoring activity:
- watch new topics via rss
- subscribe for email updates on the topics of interest

Thanks!

[HB]

The current RSS is based on beta code that is not yet baked. In the final version, it won't update so frequently (e.g., a few times a day), so the effects of new post activity on previous topics won't be as dramatic. Another idea is to have two RSS update time critera: One for new topics (e.g., immediately published) and one for updates to older topics (e.g., maximum of once every n hours). That would produce the effect for the RSS feed you seek.

[chelya]

Got it. Actually I don't mind reading on the old topics that were revisited. After all - new is well forgotten old.
As long as the delay is longer. Something like at least a week.

Kudos on the upgrade!

[HB]

Waiting a week before reflecting a change in the RSS feed would be too long; I was thinking more like 4-8 hours, otherwise it would be useless for those using it for daily updates. Anyway, those are details we can explore once I get it running again. At present the settings are all the defaults.

PS: It may also be your feedreader. Some do a better job of recognizing "near duplicates" than others and only showing the very last one (I use Google Reader and Firefox live bookmarks).

[chelya]

I use google reader as well.

[jesawdy]

It may be due to the crummy display on the laptop that I am using this evening, but I'm having a hard time picking out the hyperlinked text in a recent post of mine (link). Is it just me?

Otherwise, I'm loving the updated look. Kudos Dan! What a lot of work.

[HB]

Thanks Jeff, I need to tweak the link color, but for now I added dotted underline to help it stand out more. You'll need to purge your browser's cache to see the change.

[jesawdy]

... for now I added dotted underline to help it stand out more. You'll need to purge your browser's cache to see the change.

Ah, much better already. Thank you.