Questions about the new DG.n

[Troy Spiral (13)]

as of right now,after i viewed it once already, the folder icon for this topic is now dim (as expected). >clicks add reply

[Troy Spiral (13)]

It did move to the top, but the folder is greyed out, as if there are no "new" posts (actually the indicator is for "unread posts" not nessisarily "new") Im not sure thats a fair test though, as theoreitcally its assumed that you've read your own posts. I'll test this out more later.

[JaneDead]

i have noticed that things look different when set on the "orignal" skin as compared to the "dgn" one. and i don't even mean colorwise. i mean feature wise.

[Ginevra]

I'm finding that every time I log in, ALL folders, even the trash folder, is highlighted. I actually have to go into the folder before it considers the item "read" even though there are *absolutely* no new posts. I'm still seeing highlighted folders at the top, then dim ones, then more highlited ones that have new posts. It's as if the order they were originally posted is the order that they're "stucK" in rather than moving them to the top.

[JaneDead]

hmm that is weird. in the ipb default skin i am seeing things as they should be. i will start using the other one to see if i start seeing anything not normal.

[Ginevra]

I can do screenshots, also, if I'm not being clear enough.

[Fierce Critter]

I can do jello shots, so I won't be clear at all...

(Sorry - feeling silly this a.m....)

[gothicmom]

Theres also, on the opposite side of the post titles (opposite from the page number boxes)  another box icon, which automaticly moves you to the first unread post.

I fell like such a DUH!!! I have no clue what this is....I keep looking and I don't know what this is.....

[Troy Spiral (13)]

I've now seen the above mentioned "post updates/unread indicators not working properly ". Although i havent been able to make any distinction between the default skin and the DGN Standard one. I think it has something to do with improperly named graphical elements. But im not sure as yet. Also the few things that i've tried dont >always

Ill put this fairly high on my list but it will still be awhile, couple of other things will come before this some of which might be time intensive.

[Daniel]

It seems there are only two "Skin" options. This means other skins could be made. Can we get a "work safe" skin? Or rather, at the bottom of the pages is this "lo fi" option, but that is nonfunctional. I mean, it works, and it is great, but I can't post, etc, with it. A skin that stripped down would be dope. Plus, I do hate white text on black background.

[Troy Spiral (13)]

Daniel, more skins are probably comming , but it takes ages to make them and tweak them out so they work properly. The "normal" one DGN Standard (black background purple accents) is STILL not setup 100% and has glitches here and there, and i've been working on it and people have been testing it for 2+ weeks.

New skins will come eventually but with my 35+ item to-do list its probably going to be a bit.

More specificly , are you just not wanting to use the "standard" one because you dont like black blackground / white text or is it becasue of bandwidth or some such? Did you have the same problem with DGN EZ Board or is it something specifically with this new one (Invsion) ?

[gothicmom]

When will the old dgn board be non-existant?

[Daniel]

More specificly , are you just not wanting to use the "standard" one because you dont like black blackground / white text or is it becasue of bandwidth or some such?  Did you have the same problem with DGN EZ Board or is it something specifically with this new one (Invsion) ?

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Well, my complaints with the layout are this:

1) Black background and white text is hard to read anyway

2) Prefer something far more conservative for when I am at work. People's avatar pictures are fine, but getting rid of the highly saturated colors (like the purple) and banners would be ideal. The "Lo fi" option would be perfect if I could post replies with it.

I've always hated EZBoard's lack of options. Other than availableness of EZBoard, I can't think of much I actually liked about it. But, I figure, if we have the capability here of making it easier for work browsing, I'm all for it.

What is involved in skin making? I could help do it if it is just a matter of editing CSS and HTML.

[Troy Spiral (13)]

What is involved in skin making? I could help do it if it is just a matter of editing CSS and HTML.

The short answer is , yes its just HTML and CSS (and some php). But in practice its a major pain in the ass. Becasue there is a whole set of standard locations/peramiters/structures that Invision expects to be in certain spots, and there is rarely a clear way to know what/where these (litterally) 1000s of different , potential fuck ups are located. They dont follow the standard laws of CSS and HTML as we understand it, becasue they interact with the board back-end code in unexpected ways, your not just dealing with a "web page" there is the whole board-backend to contend with. You can chance what seems to be just a CSS setting someplace, and 15 minutes later someone is PMing you asking why their profile uploads dont work anymore. Edit something in location X and it screws up something in location Z29 , which seemingly is totally unrelated.

Invision is very customizable, but the tradeoff is the rediculous number of hours worth of work even minor changes can trigger. The draw of ezboard , is on the admin side, its slap-your-head simple. I spent more time on the admin side of Invision in the first 3 days than i spent on EZ board in 3 years. On top of that skins are a low priority the look of DGN is pretty much "done" for now i've got at least 20 hours worth of work on fixing other glitches before i revisit skins again.

You dont really "make skins" so much as you devlop them slowly over time with much testing. This current one is still not glitch free and i've been at it for ages. You'd think it was as simple as just giving the look a "facelift" and leaving the backend of the board alone but its not as easy as that unfortunately. Also there are plenty of downloadable skins , but having tried several of them, they make a mishmash of the board and you end up having to spend XXX number of hours iorning out all the little glitches that a downloadable cookie cutter skin causes.

Its not as simple as i'd like it to be, otherwise this would be a moot point and i'd have banged out XYZ number of skins already, or just used some of the downloadable ones.

If you want to read about custom skin making you can check out Invisionize. You'll see skins on there and it seems like "oh well we just download one of these and where all set right?? WRONG." they dont plug-in nearly as neatly as it would seem. 99% of IPB boards take advantage of customzation, and once you get away from the plain-vanilla IPB, the skins dont plug-in in any perticularly simple way. The skins have to be custom made for your perticular setup or they just flat out look like crap and cause all sorts of problems. It would be hard even if you wanted to to make a skin, say on your own system and then expect it to "plug in" to DGN without tons custom changes. Which , would be a waste of time as if we wanted to do that we could just download some of the 100s of downloadable skins and spend XXX hours getting them to look right. Access to root admin stuff required in many cases rather than just "the skin".

[Troy Spiral (13)]

When will the old dgn board be non-existant?

Thats a lot deeper question than you might think.

Basicly i didnt expect this sort of "flood" of people from the old board. This was supposed to be only a limited-release thing as i dont want to "launch" DGN fully until its "done". And thats a lot of work still to be done on that.

Once some key things are finished including the majority of my pre-launch to do list then ill switch the DNS settings over to this board so that DetroitGothic.Net , .org and .com send people here instead of to ezboard, at that point DGN Invision (this board) will be "the official board".

When? Hard to say. Id like to say "in a week or so" but that wouldnt be acurate. Ive got to finish the majority of the below list before i feel comfortable doing that. (note this list is constantly changing and probably out of date by the time you read it)

Snapshot (not current) DGN to-do list

- DGN Gallery uploads non functional

- Read/Unread post anomilies

- Gallery buttons are F-ed

- "mark as new" individual posts

- Transfer rules & FAQ + related posts

- Welcome announcement(?)

- Suggest users move old posts / calendar items

- Same for mods

- Think about images / size limits

- Do something about the personal photo option

- Keep file uploads enabled ? all forums?

- Setup DGN radio before going live (?)

- Setup custom "posts per day" average stat? (doesnt exist as standard) (?)

- Make sure DGN "standard" posts are in place

- Mod powers / users transfered

- Mod re-buy in to Mod Guidelines

- Keep report feature?

- Setup nav bar similar to current DGN (?)

- Enable Smileys / Sigs text is black on black currently in fast reply

- DGN graphic/colors

- Transfer DNS settings

- Cookies working?

- Email accounts for users?

- Donations?

- Donation Benefits (if any?)

- Auto Subscribe to topics?

- Look Into "forum digests"

- Final "are we done?" question post to mods before launch.

- Shoot the guy that created the skin editor for IPB

- Setup groups (?)

- DGN Yahoo listed in index

- Test subscriptions system (& setup paypal buisness account)

- Posticon / Emoticons finalized

- "Important Topics" subsection , keep it?

- My assistant text is black on black

- calendar color scheme looks like crap

- think about getting rid of the "group" line.

- fix haloed emoticons, add standard smiley

- Wtf no "PM or Inbox" link on main page?

- Navigation Bar ? Detroitgothic.net>Something>Something>blah

- Is it possible to have more than one section in the Gallery?

- Polish DGN Mission Statement

- Focus on DGN MS and education / ideals of said.

- Moderator Test Forum

- Extensive FAQs

- Email DGN EZ userbase

- Focused promotion push

- Move "quality" polls to relevant forums idea

- Transfer poplular ez board smiles

- Announce on key boards/lists

- Alternate skin (white background) (black background / red accents)

- Reformat DGN FAQ

- Title/Pip/Post count related system

- Why is COPPA still sending me validation requests?

- Why arent /quotes working occasionally?

- Keep "Options" button auto-expanded by default

- Add "date founded" line somwhere

- DGN "shop" ?

- Extensive promotional resources

- Link to banners

- Edit "moderating team" listing

Things are constantly popping up that add to this list and things on it morph into other work, which further slows down the process.

[Daniel]

Becasue there is a whole set of standard locations/peramiters/structures that Invision expects to be in certain spots, and there is rarely a clear way to know what/where these (litterally) 1000s of different , potential fuck ups are located.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Well, I've done skins for about six different PHP boards, and they are all like this. If you need help with them, let me know.

[Fierce Critter]

Daniel - MASTER of SKINS!!!

[Fierce Critter]

Is there a way to allow us to edit the titles of our own posts, just as we can edit the posts themselves?

You could do that on EZBDGN by editing your first post in the thread. But that doesn't seem to be an option here on IPBDGN.

An example of why this would be a good thing is I have a discussion of laptop repair going on in the computers forum wherein I started off sucking, then rocked, then sucked all over again. Rather than start 3 different threads, it'd be nice to be able to update the situation within a single thread itself. Especially since I ended up needing advice or suggestions in the end.