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It's hard to know what to suggest. I don't know this community well enough yet to know what's been tried and not worked (or not liked), or what is even possible. :-\
One thing I did notice at the site I was exploring is that there are some really cool forum skins that people have made. Are there any others available here besides the default?
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There are not - or rather, the two other options looked identical when I tried them a long time ago. IIRC. I heard that in vB4, the themes interface was so frustrating it was prone to turning good men into sociopaths, and I expect no better from SMF. More themes would be an awesome option, wouldn't it?
It's a Shop item? I would SO only charge 10-25 EC for a theme change.
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I'm not sure if it's a shop item. But people could pay or trade for it in some way, couldn't they?
Here's one that jumped out at me:
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Could you link me to some specific themes? Packaged to download and install - and ease me into the learning curve...
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What kinds do you like? Any particular color themes? Light, dark, medium? There are a lot to choose from, and my choices might not match yours (I won't waste your time with the LCARS theme - this isn't a Star Trek forum).
Also keep in mind that although I've done Invision skinning, I'm not sure how SMF works.
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I want a selection, including LCARS - it's not for me; I like the light blues just fine. I do want to cater to member happiness, and this is a way to.
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Okay. :) This could take awhile.
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I'm not exactly sure what information you need, so I'll post links to the pages where I found them. There are download links on these pages. Here are some to start:
TechHead (http://custom.simplemachines.org/themes/index.php?lemma=12)
Enterprise (http://custom.simplemachines.org/themes/index.php?lemma=43)
Arcane Magic (http://custom.simplemachines.org/themes/index.php?lemma=59)
Pitchblack (http://custom.simplemachines.org/themes/index.php?lemma=61)
RPG Gamer (http://custom.simplemachines.org/themes/index.php?lemma=94)
Saphire (http://custom.simplemachines.org/themes/index.php?lemma=102)
Alienation (http://custom.simplemachines.org/themes/index.php?lemma=114)
Serene Forest (http://custom.simplemachines.org/themes/index.php?lemma=124)
Metallic Abyss (http://custom.simplemachines.org/themes/index.php?lemma=128)
ice Stars (http://custom.simplemachines.org/themes/index.php?lemma=170)
Mesh (http://custom.simplemachines.org/themes/index.php?lemma=218)
Teo'nun Laneti v1 (http://custom.simplemachines.org/themes/index.php?lemma=291)
Halloween (http://custom.simplemachines.org/themes/index.php?lemma=303)
Astronomy (http://custom.simplemachines.org/themes/index.php?lemma=353)
XD-Zeda (http://custom.simplemachines.org/themes/index.php?lemma=385)
Fire (http://custom.simplemachines.org/themes/index.php?lemma=689)
Spectacular (http://custom.simplemachines.org/themes/index.php?lemma=1300)
Sus (http://custom.simplemachines.org/themes/index.php?lemma=1932)
Mevlana (http://custom.simplemachines.org/themes/index.php?lemma=1950)
Bitti (http://custom.simplemachines.org/themes/index.php?lemma=1962)
LCARS (http://custom.simplemachines.org/themes/index.php?lemma=1974)
Gul (http://custom.simplemachines.org/themes/index.php?lemma=1979)
The Killing (http://custom.simplemachines.org/themes/index.php?lemma=2005)
Crystal Theme (http://custom.simplemachines.org/themes/index.php?lemma=2034)
Pulse (http://custom.simplemachines.org/themes/index.php?lemma=2343)
Cadence (http://custom.simplemachines.org/themes/index.php?lemma=2385)
Catalysm (http://custom.simplemachines.org/themes/index.php?lemma=2430)
Minecraft Theme (http://custom.simplemachines.org/themes/index.php?lemma=2464)
Black Ops (http://custom.simplemachines.org/themes/index.php?lemma=2617)
There are a lot more to look at; the above are what I culled from the Fantasy & Futuristic category. I tried to get a good mix of clean & elegant, some fantasy RPG, a couple of Star Trek ones (love the Enterprise theme), some future-tech ones, a couple of "cheerful colors" ones, and since most of the people here are guys, I tried to steer clear of pink. ;)
Now I'm off to look at some other categories.
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A girly one would be fine - I assume I'll be able to put up the standard pull-down theme selection menu somewhere on the page, and why not? We want ladies to be comfortable here.
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Well, I don't know how many other women there are here, or what they like. My own favorites of the above selection are Astronomy, Enterprise, RPG Gamer, and Serene Forest. I love earth colors and muted tones. Elegant, clean black/silver/grey ones are nice, too.
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I've downloaded the .zip for the Enterprise theme to teach myself what to do with - cross your fingers...
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Okay, the forum claims to have installed the Enterprise theme directly from the .zip (? didn't think that would work ?) and I have stripped this DL of all powers for testing purposes - let's see if I can find where the theme control is...
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Valka, you gotta try this one - go to your profile>Look and Layout(left sidebar)>change theme is at the end of the first line.
Now to test something else before my "The Man" account signs off...
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Found it - and it's GORGEOUS! :D
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:D
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Now to do some serious installin', if things work the way I think they do...
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I've been looking through the miscellaneous category, and found a few more - a very nice blue one and a couple of others that are rather cool (anyone here into fishing?). :)
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Link me - I've just installed several more...
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RPG Gamer seems broke - disabling that one...
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StormFront (http://custom.simplemachines.org/themes/index.php?lemma=1819)
Blue Eyes (http://custom.simplemachines.org/themes/index.php?lemma=2231)
Gone Fishin (http://custom.simplemachines.org/themes/index.php?lemma=2454)
HabboLand (http://custom.simplemachines.org/themes/index.php?lemma=2668)
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All downloaded. Still working through your first list.
I'm going to need to put up an announcement that themes are available w/cursory instructions...
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I've found some nice holiday ones, so that's the next category I'll work through.
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Now to install everything I've got - I think I'll go ahead and set Uno to Halloween and surprise him...
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If you can find one, a Poke'mon theme for Kilkakon...
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And, if I can make a humble request... a Communist themed one for your friendly neighbourhood red scum?
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:danc: Good idea!
Mylochka has expressed interest in making themes, so we might be able to make something eventually if there's nothing like that out there...
Valka, I might should split this theme stuff into its own thread, yes?
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Mhm... or even better yet:
Custom Faction Themes. We could have my custom faction pack, I'd willingly give motif's and other stuff to help compliment it, maybe even pictures of leaders. There could be ones for other people's factions as well, I'd love to see Dio's "Alternate Original faction" themes and Sigma's factions especially.
Characters from my AAR too maybe for my own themes...
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I'll see what I can find, guys. :)
I've noticed some of the elements seem to be missing from the Enterprise skin (links instead of icons or buttons) and there's a font color that needs to be changed because it isn't showing up.
And yes, it's fine to split this into a new thread. We're not exactly talking about the Shop anymore, since this is a separate part of the forum.
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Right. I'll get that.
I see that pretty much 100% of these themes are going to need customizing - every icon, badge, avatar and everything else graphical I've done for the forum was based in an assumption that it was going to display on a light shade of blue - and some things don't load at all in some themes. And my username is nigh-invisible in the who's online list at the bottom of the root directory in the Halloween theme. I'm learning my way through this stuff, and it would take days to get everything if I already knew how and nothing popped up to distract me; two conditions that are not and will not be the case.
I'll try to get it straightened out...
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Does anyone remember the old SMAC theme at Apolyton? I used that and really miss it. The light blue items were black, and the dark blue ones were orange. Come to think of it, maybe that wasn't the best colour composition in the world, but you know, SMAC.
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Mylochka wants to make SMAC & SMAX themes. -Of COURSE we thought of that. Something's probably in the works.
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I've got a lot of Doctor Who stuff that could be used to make a Whovian skin. Mind you, it's old-school Pertwee-Baker-Davison era...
Are there any SMF skinning guides available? Do they allow people to make test boards?
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We had a test board for a while to work out something else that hasn't turned into a thing yet, so it is possible, but I think not needed here; you can work on a theme and test as part of the setup we have. I'm sure there are some sort of guides out there - good idea.
I've got a lot of Doctor Who stuff that could be used to make a Whovian skin. Mind you, it's old-school Pertwee-Baker-Davison era...
The good stuff.
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I included Davison because the TARDIS interiors hadn't changed much during his time (with the exception of adding the bedroom sets for the Companions).
But yeah... the Hat Stand met its demise during the Davison years... :'(
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Something a little hard to put a finger on went away with John Nathan Turner and getting a half-decent special effects budget...
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This is the overall background we use at my Doctor Who forum. I've got other colors available, as well.
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Neat.
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Here's the list of holiday themes I found:
Most are Christmas and Halloween. I found a few others, too.
Boo! (http://custom.simplemachines.org/themes/index.php?lemma=1087)
Christmas '07 (http://custom.simplemachines.org/themes/index.php?lemma=420)
Computer Stuff Christmas (http://custom.simplemachines.org/themes/index.php?lemma=1210)
Happy New Year (http://custom.simplemachines.org/themes/index.php?lemma=2525)
Christmas2006 (http://custom.simplemachines.org/themes/index.php?lemma=185)
Christmas (http://custom.simplemachines.org/themes/index.php?lemma=178)
Halloween (http://custom.simplemachines.org/themes/index.php?lemma=2275)
Halloween Adk (http://custom.simplemachines.org/themes/index.php?lemma=2477)
Halloween I (http://custom.simplemachines.org/themes/index.php?lemma=1039)
Love Theme (http://custom.simplemachines.org/themes/index.php?lemma=559)
Ostara (http://custom.simplemachines.org/themes/index.php?lemma=2352)
SnowQueen (http://custom.simplemachines.org/themes/index.php?lemma=1327)
Thanksgiving (http://custom.simplemachines.org/themes/index.php?lemma=2298)
Web (http://custom.simplemachines.org/themes/index.php?lemma=140)
X-mas Scene (http://custom.simplemachines.org/themes/index.php?lemma=144)
Christmas Carol (http://custom.simplemachines.org/themes/index.php?lemma=2520)
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All installed...
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More coming... it's a shame when some of the cool-looking ones turn out to have corrupt code, or something.
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Yep.
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From the Novelty & Fun category:
Candy (http://custom.simplemachines.org/themes/index.php?lemma=263)
Galatasaray (http://custom.simplemachines.org/themes/index.php?lemma=1549)
Harry Potter (http://custom.simplemachines.org/themes/index.php?lemma=136)
imPulse2 (http://custom.simplemachines.org/themes/index.php?lemma=2060)
Mibabyboom (http://custom.simplemachines.org/themes/index.php?lemma=668)
Music (http://custom.simplemachines.org/themes/index.php?lemma=2437)
Mayan (http://custom.simplemachines.org/themes/index.php?lemma=1493)
Leaf it off (http://custom.simplemachines.org/themes/index.php?lemma=650)
Plum (http://custom.simplemachines.org/themes/index.php?lemma=529)
Poker (http://custom.simplemachines.org/themes/index.php?lemma=437)
Simple Orange (http://custom.simplemachines.org/themes/index.php?lemma=1685)
Sponge Bob (http://custom.simplemachines.org/themes/index.php?lemma=1717)
Pokemon (http://custom.simplemachines.org/themes/index.php?lemma=2547)
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I think we can stop now before I drop from exaustion. Going to bed - will install tomorrow.
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there should be some compatibility issues with the plug-ins we have installed on the board.. so, until everything is tested and is working fine for all our users, this is WIP!
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WIP?
Oh - Work In Progress. Right.
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Everything that's been submitted (and works at all) has been installed, BTW...
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Maybe people could try the different skins (as in use them for a little bit, not just in preview mode) and let you know if there are any problems?
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AbsoLUTEly.
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I switched to 'Alienation', only to find out that quoted text has the same background as the regular one, which makes it harder to read. So I tried 'Enterprise' and it appears that hyperlinked texts are invisible when quoted. It's a small thing, but you don't want to use Ctrl+A just to be able to read your forum.
If I may suggest something, more s-f and hard s-f themes can prove quite popular among us SMAC folk. ;) I can try them out for sure.
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There is a lot of everything, so I expect we're covered.
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I haven't even gone through half of what's available. And learning about what works with these and what doesn't will give some good ideas to anyone here who wants to do some original skins.
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Agreed - I've given Mylochka access to the themes stuff, and suggested that looking into fixing up the Enterprise theme would be a good start towards learning how to make a SMAC(X) theme...
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I switched to 'Alienation'
I miss Alien Nation, by the way; that was a really smart show with a 'human' touch.
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I believe I've fixed the left sidebar items to show in all the themes...
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It's on the right for Enterprise, and part of it is invisible.
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I meant right. :doh
I'm getting some of it faint in Enterprise, but nothing invisible, in IE and Chrome. Firefox doesn't really like SMF, which isn't a revelation anymore. I wish I knew what to do about it...
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Well, I'm not giving up Firefox. I can highlight the font to read it, and it appears that the fields are collapsible, so I can just collapse it when I don't need it.
All it needs is a font color tweak.
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I guess I could do that. I bet I can only use the [counts] 15 colors we've got available for posts, but I'll have a look.
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Shouldn't the hexadecimal colors be available?
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Checking as soon as I can slip back into Enterprise...
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This is going to have to wait until sisko comes back from vacation in a week - I can't even find/access the text for any of the blocks except the random SMACX quotes. I'm in over my head on that.
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It's a learning experience. :)
(and I for one really appreciate the effort you're making!)
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I have to learn this stuff - but it's not the end that I've traditionally held up in the division of labor with sisko. I frankly wouldn't be that interested if he wasn't in a RL time-bind since they blocked the site at work for him.
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So far I've tried Alienation, Enterprise, Pulse and Cadence and all of them have some issues. Usually fonts are too dark or quotes look too similar to normal texts. And some of them don't display well in Firefox. So I guess back to the original one for now.
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We can't use Bitti. Most of the links to things like profile, help, etc. are invisible, and I found the way to my profile by accident.
The navigation bar is on the bottom of the screen, and it's just a nightmare.
Sorry. :(
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Hit the back button on your browser when you're trapped in a theme...
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Okay, I was poking around the server to find where things are, and I had an inspiration - I found out that a display icon I wanted to add went in a subfolder of the Default theme, and I tried copying all that stuff into the same folder for the Enterprise theme. Some of the display problems should be fixed, like obviously, the RSS Feed icon displays beside the name of each board in the root directory, instead of a file missing icon, now.
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I'm in the process of copying all the same stuff to all the other themes - it seemed to fix everything I'd spotted not working in Enterprise, but I count 59 themes, and it takes about a minute apiece...
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Okay, done.
Next, I go through all the smilies in the popup form that need cleaning up to not have light pixel outlines looking terrible in the dark background themes - none of which are my work; MY smilies, I am proud to have noticed, are more tightly-done...
This isn't going to all happen tonight.
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BTW, any reactions to the new usergroup icons? Nobody but Jarl has said anything...
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I don't know what mine is supposed to represent, but I'm afraid of it...
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It's a lady Talent in SMACX; her hair is pulled back and she's wearing a headset.
I'll try the female worker, then. Hold on...
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How's that? Better?
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Okay, I've finished cleaning up the smilies (except for two I've messed up, and I still need to make the lettering visible on the ;llap). Enjoy.
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Okay, those are more or less fixed - I really need to find a fresh copy of :bike: and start over, and :writer: could use some fixing, too, but everything else looks pretty good.
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I have the original :writer: that was made by Fool. The one you're using here was modified by one of the posters on a Russian smiley forum.
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Okay.
Do you like the current Chic Geek Lady (http://alphacentauri2.info/Themes/default/images/workerf.png) icon better?
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It's less scary.
Honestly, it's been years since I read the novels, and I don't remember most of the characters/faction leaders.
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Less scary. Huh. Well, let's try something else, then. Hold on, as I have to make it first...
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How's that?
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;b;
That's a nice one. :)
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I had a little look at the themes, and only Valka is using Enterprise, and someone Killing Time. Everyone else in default theme. It's been almost two years, and it's a lot of hugely-memory-hogging junk on the server not seeing use.
I need somebody(s) to have a look at all the themes and tell me what's workable and what's just. too. crappy in practice even if you like that sort of look. I'm never going to find time to learn how to alter themes to work - though missing icons, like I see some usergroups postbits missing in Killing Time, what I'm in now, should be easy to fix.
We've just got way too many themes installed - need to get rid of crap ones to make finding the good ones not such a chore. Let's try to get it down to ten to choose from . Have an eye towards a variety of light-dark and colors.
Help a has-finite-time d00d out here, willya?
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I'd volunteer testing some themes this weekend.
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Didn't even know they were here, and how to access them. :dunno:
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Thank you Eadee.
Your profile>Look and Layout(left sidebar)> Current Theme:>(change)
It was one of the rotating News items atop the Root directory for a very long time until sisko fiddled to showcase BE news last year. I believe I included instructions there...
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Okay - I seem to have fixed the usergroup icons for The Killing theme - at least the ones I've noticed/icons made since September 2013.
One problem with this many doggon themes is that some stuff doesn't work automatically unless I upload images separately - other things work automatically.
NOTE: If only Eadee goes through the themes, I'm going to take his word for it...
(If you get trapped in a theme with no -or invisble- button to change back out, use the Back button on your browser to go back where you could change back, and do so.)
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Attn: Uno and Valka - I figured out how to make the Shop images display on other themes, BTW. :danc: It's not even a big pain, just a little slow; I downloaded the entire folders in question and uploaded them into the /images folder in each theme, creating the filepath that was missing.
More available on request should anyone use other themes - Eadee's going to go through the themes this weekend and choose 10 to keep, and I strongly recommend others doing the same before I start deleting useless themes.
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I testet the first 10 Themes today, here are the results:
Colorcode:
Working and obvious differences to default theme.
Working but no significant difference to default theme.
Bugged or completely broken
Core Theme: Bright and comfortable to read. Very similar to the default theme. (maybe unneccessary)
Enterprise: Dark theme but also easy to read and not depressing dark.
Techhead: Blue, medium brightness. "Home"-screen does not fit the theme, also there's no link to the forum, so you're kinda stuck (can find a way through: own profile - show own posts - click on thread name).
Arcane Magic: same as Techhead, but with some brownish color. Search Button is only a frame with no wrtiting on it. Links in Profile-Section (like change of Theme) are almost impossible to see or even read.
Pitch Black: Profile Menu broken, unable to navigate it (Unable to load the 'edit_options' template.) "Home" doesn't fit the theme. no link to forum. No Shop button, some others missing as well.
Saphire: has Sound-effects, missing buttons. non fitting "home" with no link to forum.
Alienation: missing buttons. non fitting "home" with no link to forum.
MetallicAbyss: nope...
IceStars: Winter Theme, looks nice, but impossible to navigate.
Mesh: "Home" doesn't fit the theme. no link to forum. No Shop button, some others missing as well.
This far 80% of the theme's are not in a working condition.
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Missing button icons I can fix; missing buttons I cannot. Does me possibly uploading the icons change any of those recommendations? I think missing icons always show up as obvious little boxes...
People, I'd REALLY like to make the delete decisions off more than one person reporting back... :) ;nod
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well, in the "Arcane Magic" I saw the search-button but no icon for it. In all other cases I was unable to identify even the slightest indication of those missing buttons, no boxes at all.
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Those outline/missing boxes should make it easy to spot.
We can go less than 10 if there aren't 10 that work adequately - I was really unimpressed with functionality when I installed and tried several. Plans to get help fixing up (and making a SMACX theme) ended not amounting to anything.
One thing I want to achieve here, you know, is to get the number of themes I have to upload new images -like Shop items and new thread buttons- to over and over and over separately, manageable...
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One thing I want to achieve here, you know, is to get the number of themes I have to upload new images -like Shop items and new thread buttons- to over and over and over separately, manageable...
comprehensible
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I use the Enterprise theme because it's relaxing - brighter themes hurt my eyes. But I don't like going as far as basic black because that can also have problems with readability or when some kinds of images are posted.
The only issue I have with Enterprise is that the pinned thread titles aren't readable without highlighting them so the words show up.
Is there any way to make a theme similar to the default, but just with different colors? I used to do that with Invision forums.
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I'm sure there is, but I don't know how. You could PM Metaliturtle and try to talk him into learning, since he's expressed interest in .php coding.
Same theme in different color schemes is a great idea, mind; if Eadee reports as many as I suspect as unworkable, it would be a good idea for filling in the holes in the spectrum.
I've noticed the invisible stuff in Enterprise -right sidebar stuff's pretty bad, too- I'll go have a look in the Admin themes interface and see if I can find an easy fix...
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Working and obvious differences to default theme.
Working but no significant difference to default theme.
Bugged or completely broken
-----------------------------------------
Halloween: red black and white. Shop and some other Buttons missing. Search button exists but is empty. "Home" doesn't fit the style and lacks a Link to the Forum.
StormFront v1: Wtf? okay, its violett and blue, didn't expect this. If you like the coloers you might enjoy it. Navigation is with fancy animated and moving icons but it lacks shop-button. "Home" looks even more messed up than in most Themes, doesn't fit the Theme BUT has a link to the forum.
Blue Eyes: Light Blue theme with black writing. It seems to have all buttons, even Shop.The Header Image says Bryan Deakin.com. To my suprise it looks usable AND different to the default.
Gone Fishin: Wooden planks and a lake in the background. Light blue. Seems to be working, though some Graphics seem to be a bit displaced.
Mevlana: Some Buttons missing, others are there but Images are missing. Beige with dark red background. Problems with "home" as in so many themes.
Sus: Same as Mevlana, just without dark red and completely beige.
Spectacular: Header says "popularFX" All Buttons seem to exist. but "Home" doesn't fit the theme (it has a link to the forum though). Light theme with blue and green accents.
Fire: Missing Buttons usual "Home"-Problem. Very dark brown colors with black writing, almost impossible to read.
XD-Zeda: Well, missing buttons, "home"-problem as usual. Besides that its a Black Theme with White writing, easy to read and scifi-like.
Astronomy: Seems to be working fine. Violett-blue theme but less aggressive than Stormfront v1. Even "home"-page works fine.
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Is that everything?
I'm busy with Shop stuff, ATM, but reckon I'd better take a cursory look at everything myself before I purge -- I can probably fix the header and many graphics issues with files uploaded to the right places...
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Is that everything?
Nope, just 10 Themes. 40 more to go.
However can't test more themes because now I'm like: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sagg08DrO5U (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sagg08DrO5U)
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Moar!
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Moar!
I'll do it, but chances are good I'll need a "Gandalf Sax guy"-Smiley afterwards.
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Deal. -The sooner the survey is complete, the greater my enthusiasm.
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Teo'nun Laneti v1: Dark Theme with red accents. Some buttons missing (like shop for example). replies do not appear correctly, (its more like a reply in the OP, then a reply in a reply and so on). "home" problem as usual.
Bitti: Brownish colors. BUttons missing, others miss icons. "home" problem as usual
LCARS: Federation themed. Nearly impossible to read posts. Buttons missing.
GUL: Light Theme. Don't know how to describe the look properly, but buttons are missing anyways.
The Killing: dark blue (or maybe dark cyan) theme. Seems to be working fine
Crystal: Grey theme, easy to read, buttons missing. "Home"-Problem
Pulse: Dark theme similar colors to the Killing. but Front page completely broken. Buttons missing and stuff.
Cadence-MultiColor: Darky Cyan theme, Buttons are there comfortable to read. Icons and images a little bit displaced (probably a problem of screen-resolution). Sadly "Home" is broken completely. Comes in Variants Red and Purple as well.
Catalysm: WoW-Theme, dark theme with light Scrolls as background for posts. Looks good, seems to be working.
Minecraft: bright theme with minecraft-graphics here and there. Works fine.
Black Ops: Dark Theme. Easy to read. Works fine.
I'll stop describing themes that are bugged anyways to speed things up.
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Details/reasoning are useful...
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Yeah, but its some kinda pointless to describe the colors of a theme if its broken anyways. I'll still describe the problems the theme has. But don't go into aestetics unless it works fine
Boo!: Mission Buttons, missing icons.
Christmas07: Mission Buttons, missing icons.
Computer Stuff: Mission Buttons, missing icons.
Christmas06: Mission Buttons, missing icons.
Happy new Year: Bright Theme with Orange and Blue. Works fine.
Christmas Theme: Mission Buttons, missing icons.
Adk Halloween: Dark theme, Oranga Accents, easy to read. Works fine.
Halloween I: it works, but navigation misses Icons and Quotes hurt the eyes.
Love Theme: Mission Buttons, missing icons.
Ostara: Light Blue, cloudy Theme. works, but quotes just don't fit the theme.
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Snow Queen: Missing Buttons, Icons.
Thanksgiving: Warmly colored Theme, some brownish yellow (man Its hard to know colors outside of a 16color scheme). Works fine
Web: Missing Buttons, Icons. Unreadable passages.
X-mas Scene: Profile doesnt work. Missing Buttons, Icons.
Christmas Carol: WInter-themed. with light blue and snowflakes. Icons and images displaced badly, but it works.
SMF Pokemon: Pokemon theme, it really hurts the eyes with Green and red in contrast. Some Icons are missing, but the buttons exist. Its easy to read, but the background-colors kill me.
Sponge Bob: light Green Theme. "home" doesn't fit the theme but it has all links and is in a working condition. But it also has the "post in a post"-bug described earlier.
Simple Orange: Missing Buttons, Icons.
Poker: Missing Buttons, Icons.
Plum: Missing Buttons, Icons.
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Leaf it of: Missing Buttons, Icons.
Mayals: working, but every second post is almost impossible to read because its box is transparent and the theme uses a background with symbols on it. Light Brownish theme. "home" doesn't fit the theme but has all required links. Has two other variants that change the symbols in the background.
Music: Bright theme with dark Background. Works fine and is easy to read.
Mibabyboom: Missing Buttons, Icons.
Impulse2: bright theme with greenish accents. works fine, but "home" misses some Icons for the buttons.
Harry Potter: Profile-section broken. Missing Buttons, Icons.
GS-Theme: Missing Buttons, Icons.
Candy: Missing Buttons, Icons.
Sapphire: Missing Buttons, Icons.
-
Those were the last themes.
Here a list of all working themes:
* Core Theme: Bright and comfortable to read. Very similar to the default theme. (maybe unneccessary)
* Enterprise: Dark theme but also easy to read and not depressing dark.
* Blue Eyes: Light Blue theme with black writing. It seems to have all buttons, even Shop.The Header Image says Bryan Deakin.com. To my suprise it looks usable AND different to the default.
* Gone Fishin: Wooden planks and a lake in the background. Light blue. Seems to be working, though some Graphics seem to be a bit displaced.
* Astronomy: Seems to be working fine. Violett-blue theme but less aggressive than Stormfront v1. Even "home"-page works fine.
* The Killing: dark blue (or maybe dark cyan) theme. Seems to be working fine
* Catalysm: WoW-Theme, dark theme with light Scrolls as background for posts. Looks good, seems to be working.
* Minecraft: bright theme with minecraft-graphics here and there. Works fine.
* Black Ops: Dark Theme. Easy to read. Works fine.
* Happy new Year: Bright Theme with Orange and Blue. Works fine.
* Adk Halloween: Dark theme, Oranga Accents, easy to read. Works fine.
* Halloween I: it works, but navigation misses Icons and Quotes hurt the eyes.
* Ostara: Light Blue, cloudy Theme. works, but quotes just don't fit the theme.
* Thanksgiving: Warmly colored Theme, some brownish yellow (man Its hard to know colors outside of a 16color scheme). Works fine
* Christmas Carol: WInter-themed. with light blue and snowflakes. Icons and images displaced badly, but it works.
* SMF Pokemon: Pokemon theme, it really hurts the eyes with Green and red in contrast. Some Icons are missing, but the buttons exist. Its easy to read, but the background-colors kill me.
* Mayals: working, but every second post is almost impossible to read because its box is transparent and the theme uses a background with symbols on it. Light Brownish theme. "home" doesn't fit the theme but has all required links. Has two other variants that change the symbols in the background.
* Music: Bright theme with dark Background. Works fine and is easy to read.
A total of 18 working themes.
-
Again, I should be able to fix missing icons easily, if tediously - does missing buttons mean not there at all, as opposed to missing button icons?
-
if I write missin buttons, there are really no buttons to find. If I write Buttons are there but miss icons, then it is this way.
-
Ah. Thanks.
We should probably be pretty picky with an eye towards cutting down on the final 18. It looks bad for Mayals - and if that's the Mayan one, Uno wanted to use it back when I installed a million, but didn't think it was workable. ;no
-
Allright, any guideline what is preferable to keep and what less?
-
I going to have a look for myself and make executive decisions, based on whatever input I've gotten and my own impressions - just looking at each one is quite a big job, as you know.
The Shop stuff seems to be winding down, so maybe I can start today - we'll see.
-
I'm having the kind of problem I WANT to have, that people are posting enough, interesting enough, that I didn't get a lot of work done yesterday outside engaging in conversation. -Which IS the work of AC2, in my capacity as host.
The two Shop issues I'd like to figure out how to fix, I can't find the files I need to alter on the server and need to appeal to the tech guys for guidance - I really ought to switch over to editing the Beginner's Getting-Started Strategy Guide next, but I'd rather begin tackling having a look at the themes first. We'll see how fast I can get to that...
-
Hmmm. This is just a test post in Core Theme.
-
Front Page button works and page shows, Reply page loads fine, all buttons seem to work -no pulldowns at the top of the page, though. Since this is just for my own investigation, I'll use a simple +/- = pass/fail grading, skipping Curve since that's the default.
+ Core Theme
-
+
Enterprise (http://alphacentauri2.info/index.php?action=theme;sa=pick;u=3643;th=3;d2ea5c1e221=c39f6ff7b37531ce48cec69a95979f63)3 people are using this theme.[size=0pt]·[/size][/color][Use this theme][/size][size=0pt][/color]·[/size][/color][Preview theme][/size]
-Just trying to see if I can get the WYSIWYG thing to work, posting. Guess not, for this...
-
-TechHead
WAY too many page-top buttons missing, like to the ROOT, fer chrissakes -had to paste the url for the root directory in from the BUncle account to report while in this theme- if I had more savy 'bout altering stuff like that, it might be different, but death is the sentence. Not going to investigate any further in future obvious problems of the sort.
-
-Arcane Magic
-PitchBlack
-Sapphire
-Alienation
(Now, everything seems to have a Front Page button working, and I COULD simply add a Root hyperlink and label to the "Alpha Centauri and Beyond" banner at the top, but since I'm looking to take out the trash [and betcha these all miss a lot more buttons than that with such a fundamental design oversight], forget it. Too bad, too - I LOVED the AlieNation TV show.)
-Metallic Abyss
-ice Stars
-Mesh
(I could add a left sidebar with all the missing buttons for that matter, but on half these turkeys you couldn't even read them w/o highlighting. BTW, Valka - I DID look into that w/ Enterprise and I'm lost. Just highlight, or switch to Killing Time; sorry.)
-Halloween
(A little hideous, but this one I'd be tempted to implement the workarounds [there's a link to a patches poll thread already in place in the sidebar, and thus, to the Root, which I used to get here] I've thought of and keep, because at least seems legible, if only I didn't need to shave it down to 10 themes or less to make various img uploads not a two-hour job any time I change anything. At all. Posting an update at this point just to test the Reply buttons, which are [mostly] present in the QUICK Reply box, if not the Reply Page you have to press an unlabeled button to get to... I had to switch to default and do an edit to do the resizing.)
-
Members strongly encouraged to have a look for themselves and comment - your pleas could possibly rescue something I've put on the Death List with a "-"prefix.
I'll put off deleting until late tonight, so DO have a look, but DO NOT DELAY about doing it, please...
-
-StormFront v1
+Blue Eyes
(Even the pull-downs work on the page-top buttons [better than Core and Enterprise, there] and the theme shows on the Front Page [if with the SMACX news column too narrow]! Have to investigate the possible keepers more thoroughly, since I believe Eadee found much more than 10, so reporting now to check the Reply stuff. Eh - the page width is borked, which makes this a maybe. Pity, when it was doing so well.)
-
+GoneFishin
(Best pass of testing yet - Front Page looks great, buttons, pull-downs, everything but Icons I can/will upload to the theme showing right. It even has the thread lable icons [taken from the default upload, I reckon] showing. -Definite keeper, and in fact, this one is SO Rusty Edge that I'm gonna surprise him with it as soon as I've done that uploading.)
-
-Mevlana
-Sus
+Spectacular
(None of the pull-downs work, so not A+. Everything else I spot works fine.)
-
My opinion: I haven't had time to check them all, but am satisfied with the ones that have been found to work. I might try others from time to time but suspect I'll likely stay with Enterprise.
The things that don't work with this one are 'workaroundable' by highlighting the text I can't see.
-
;nod
-
-Fire
-XD-Zeda
+Astronomy
(Full marks, if only the Shop items inventory & € showed in the postbit - which COULD recommend it to some. Good-looking. Keeper.)
-
-Teo'nun Laneti v1
-Bitti
-LCARS
-Gul
+The Killing
(Absolutely everything seems to work in this one, and work well - I just checked some things I hadn't been looking for in previous use. Since only dark themes are currently in use, this is the one I'm using for this DL, to easily check things in a dark theme. Not the absolute prettiest -some very pretty themes are marked for death over Moby Dick issues- but very legible and the best-functioning I've found so far beside the default and Gone Fishin'.)
-
-Crsytal
-Pulse
+Cadence-MultiColor
(No pull-downs. Not really legible enough. Front Page completely broke. Everything else works, but weak endorsement. Probably first one up against the wall when I get it down to 18 or so and need to cull more.)
-
-Catalysm
(This was looking like a true winner, albeit garish and a W.O.W. logo up top, and then I came to report, and Blue Eyes page width problem + nearly invisible post text. ;q; NEXT.)
+minecraft
(Full marks except the 'Lurkers' line is pretty invisible in front of a bush - but MEMBERS don't need to be able to see that, do they? -Also good news for Blue Eyes - I found an option to set forum width; will fiddle and report back.)
-
Nope - that option doesn't seem to appear in the settings for Blue Eyes - I may be able to fix the sticky and sidebar legibility in Enterprise, though.
-
I use the Enterprise theme because it's relaxing - brighter themes hurt my eyes. But I don't like going as far as basic black because that can also have problems with readability or when some kinds of images are posted.
The only issue I have with Enterprise is that the pinned thread titles aren't readable without highlighting them so the words show up.
Is there any way to make a theme similar to the default, but just with different colors? I used to do that with Invision forums.
Stickies: FIXED. :D :danc: :danc: :danc: :danc: :danc: :danc: :danc: :danc: :D
(I had to refresh the page at the subforum level to see the changes) :D :D :danc: :D :D
That last question? Pick anything off the broken turkey theme to-die list where you like the color scheme - I found how to make it do the default style w/ the theme's colors while I was trying to fix width in Blue Eyes. I will turn it into your own personal theme. ;b;
-
Huh. It works in Blue Eyes but just turns it into a less light bluer version of the default - no joy on Pitch Black; but I'll try some more dark themes for you...
-
Not too satisfactory in Sapphire, but feel free to try any of these yourself.
-
Wait. I should just alter colors in Blue Eyes the way I did in Enterprise, but more stuff - this doesn't work on the truly broken themes. Hold on.
-
I also like autumn colors - tans, mid/dark gold, reds, greens (think of autumn scenes with all the different leaf colors).
Anything with too much white is hard on my eyes, though (I know, sounds odd to those who have the opposite problem). On CFC I use the Dark Blue theme.
-
;clenchedteeth
...I'll leave Blue Eyes to experiment on another day; I've worked up a cute blue color scheme, but when I save it, it won't display like that...
Had to spend too long piecing this together from screenshots to show. Click the attachment to enlarge...
-
+Black Ops
(Full Marks. Valka, you should check this one out.)
-
-Boo!
-Christmas07
-ComputerStuff
-Christmas2006
+Happy New Year
(Too much orange borders, but everything works fine.)
-
-Christmas Theme
+Adk Hallowen
(A winner if you can stand the orange.)
-
+Halloween I
(Kinda similar to the last, but weaker layout, background too dark for black text, and no pull-downs - life expectancy not great.)
-
-Love_Theme
+Ostara
(Darker blue than the default. Keeper)
-
-SnowQueen
+Thanksgiving
(Relatively subdued autumnal colors, Valka. Keeper.)
-
-Web
-X-mas Scene
+Christmas Carol
(Bit of an odd-layout turkey with the page-top buttons in sidebars, but pull-downs work and colorful alternative to others so far, and perhaps unfairly might stay. Would need some border size adjustment, if I can figure that out, though.)
-
+SMF Pokemon
(Day-glow loud keeper, and just knocked Christmas Carol out.)
-
-Sponge Bob
-simpleorange
-Poker
-Plum
-Leaf it off
-MayaIs
+Music
(Full marks.)
-
-mibabyboom
+impulse2
(Some sloppy layout, but attractive autumnal colors that could use some darkening to make Valka theme.)
-
-Harry Potter
-GS-Themes
-Candy
-Sapphire
(A different Sapphire)
That's the lot.
-Tomorrow I go through and combine my winners' list with Eadee's for some compare/contrast and culling. Everyone is encouraged to check out our recommended, w/ and eye on functionality, and also diversity of colors.
And so to bed.
-
The fishing one doesn't work for me. Random bits of the board just disappear (literally; all I see is the background), my items that were gifted to me appear as text, not images, and I had problems getting into my profile to change the theme back to Enterprise.
-
I have to upload the Shop icons to each theme separately; if the descriptions appear, as in that one, it'll actually work.
Note to self: I've only checked everything in Chrome, not IE, not Firefox.
-
While I did only check in FF.
-
Well good; I haven't figured out how to login in FF.
I'm in Gone Fishin now, and there are a couple layout issues, but nothing major and pretty much the same as in Chrome. Serviceable. -I should verify all the keepers in IE.
-
Full Master theme review list - I'll do a follow-up with only what someone has declared a winner.
I testet the first 10 Themes today, here are the results:
Colorcode:
Working and obvious differences to default theme.
Working but no significant difference to default theme.
Bugged or completely broken
Core Theme: Bright and comfortable to read. Very similar to the default theme. (maybe unneccessary)
Enterprise: Dark theme but also easy to read and not depressing dark.
Techhead: Blue, medium brightness. "Home"-screen does not fit the theme, also there's no link to the forum, so you're kinda stuck (can find a way through: own profile - show own posts - click on thread name).
Arcane Magic: same as Techhead, but with some brownish color. Search Button is only a frame with no wrtiting on it. Links in Profile-Section (like change of Theme) are almost impossible to see or even read.
Pitch Black: Profile Menu broken, unable to navigate it (Unable to load the 'edit_options' template.) "Home" doesn't fit the theme. no link to forum. No Shop button, some others missing as well.
Saphire: has Sound-effects, missing buttons. non fitting "home" with no link to forum.
Alienation: missing buttons. non fitting "home" with no link to forum.
MetallicAbyss: nope...
IceStars: Winter Theme, looks nice, but impossible to navigate.
Mesh: "Home" doesn't fit the theme. no link to forum. No Shop button, some others missing as well.
This far 80% of the theme's are not in a working condition.
Working and obvious differences to default theme.
Working but no significant difference to default theme.
Bugged or completely broken
-----------------------------------------
Halloween: red black and white. Shop and some other Buttons missing. Search button exists but is empty. "Home" doesn't fit the style and lacks a Link to the Forum.
StormFront v1: Wtf? okay, its violett and blue, didn't expect this. If you like the coloers you might enjoy it. Navigation is with fancy animated and moving icons but it lacks shop-button. "Home" looks even more messed up than in most Themes, doesn't fit the Theme BUT has a link to the forum.
Blue Eyes: Light Blue theme with black writing. It seems to have all buttons, even Shop.The Header Image says Bryan Deakin.com. To my suprise it looks usable AND different to the default.
Gone Fishin: Wooden planks and a lake in the background. Light blue. Seems to be working, though some Graphics seem to be a bit displaced.
Mevlana: Some Buttons missing, others are there but Images are missing. Beige with dark red background. Problems with "home" as in so many themes.
Sus: Same as Mevlana, just without dark red and completely beige.
Spectacular: Header says "popularFX" All Buttons seem to exist. but "Home" doesn't fit the theme (it has a link to the forum though). Light theme with blue and green accents.
Fire: Missing Buttons usual "Home"-Problem. Very dark brown colors with black writing, almost impossible to read.
XD-Zeda: Well, missing buttons, "home"-problem as usual. Besides that its a Black Theme with White writing, easy to read and scifi-like.
Astronomy: Seems to be working fine. Violett-blue theme but less aggressive than Stormfront v1. Even "home"-page works fine.
Teo'nun Laneti v1: Dark Theme with red accents. Some buttons missing (like shop for example). replies do not appear correctly, (its more like a reply in the OP, then a reply in a reply and so on). "home" problem as usual.
Bitti: Brownish colors. BUttons missing, others miss icons. "home" problem as usual
LCARS: Federation themed. Nearly impossible to read posts. Buttons missing.
GUL: Light Theme. Don't know how to describe the look properly, but buttons are missing anyways.
The Killing: dark blue (or maybe dark cyan) theme. Seems to be working fine
Crystal: Grey theme, easy to read, buttons missing. "Home"-Problem
Pulse: Dark theme similar colors to the Killing. but Front page completely broken. Buttons missing and stuff.
Cadence-MultiColor: Darky Cyan theme, Buttons are there comfortable to read. Icons and images a little bit displaced (probably a problem of screen-resolution). Sadly "Home" is broken completely. Comes in Variants Red and Purple as well.
Catalysm: WoW-Theme, dark theme with light Scrolls as background for posts. Looks good, seems to be working.
Minecraft: bright theme with minecraft-graphics here and there. Works fine.
Black Ops: Dark Theme. Easy to read. Works fine.
I'll stop describing themes that are bugged anyways to speed things up.
Yeah, but its some kinda pointless to describe the colors of a theme if its broken anyways. I'll still describe the problems the theme has. But don't go into aestetics unless it works fine
Boo!: Mission Buttons, missing icons.
Christmas07: Mission Buttons, missing icons.
Computer Stuff: Mission Buttons, missing icons.
Christmas06: Mission Buttons, missing icons.
Happy new Year: Bright Theme with Orange and Blue. Works fine.
Christmas Theme: Mission Buttons, missing icons.
Adk Halloween: Dark theme, Oranga Accents, easy to read. Works fine.
Halloween I: it works, but navigation misses Icons and Quotes hurt the eyes.
Love Theme: Mission Buttons, missing icons.
Ostara: Light Blue, cloudy Theme. works, but quotes just don't fit the theme.
Snow Queen: Missing Buttons, Icons.
Thanksgiving: Warmly colored Theme, some brownish yellow (man Its hard to know colors outside of a 16color scheme). Works fine
Web: Missing Buttons, Icons. Unreadable passages.
X-mas Scene: Profile doesnt work. Missing Buttons, Icons.
Christmas Carol: WInter-themed. with light blue and snowflakes. Icons and images displaced badly, but it works.
SMF Pokemon: Pokemon theme, it really hurts the eyes with Green and red in contrast. Some Icons are missing, but the buttons exist. Its easy to read, but the background-colors kill me.
Sponge Bob: light Green Theme. "home" doesn't fit the theme but it has all links and is in a working condition. But it also has the "post in a post"-bug described earlier.
Simple Orange: Missing Buttons, Icons.
Poker: Missing Buttons, Icons.
Plum: Missing Buttons, Icons.
Leaf it of: Missing Buttons, Icons.
Mayals: working, but every second post is almost impossible to read because its box is transparent and the theme uses a background with symbols on it. Light Brownish theme. "home" doesn't fit the theme but has all required links. Has two other variants that change the symbols in the background.
Music: Bright theme with dark Background. Works fine and is easy to read.
Mibabyboom: Missing Buttons, Icons.
Impulse2: bright theme with greenish accents. works fine, but "home" misses some Icons for the buttons.
Harry Potter: Profile-section broken. Missing Buttons, Icons.
GS-Theme: Missing Buttons, Icons.
Candy: Missing Buttons, Icons.
Sapphire: Missing Buttons, Icons.
Those were the last themes.
Here a list of all working themes:
* Core Theme: Bright and comfortable to read. Very similar to the default theme. (maybe unneccessary)
* Enterprise: Dark theme but also easy to read and not depressing dark.
* Blue Eyes: Light Blue theme with black writing. It seems to have all buttons, even Shop.The Header Image says Bryan Deakin.com. To my suprise it looks usable AND different to the default.
* Gone Fishin: Wooden planks and a lake in the background. Light blue. Seems to be working, though some Graphics seem to be a bit displaced.
* Astronomy: Seems to be working fine. Violett-blue theme but less aggressive than Stormfront v1. Even "home"-page works fine.
* The Killing: dark blue (or maybe dark cyan) theme. Seems to be working fine
* Catalysm: WoW-Theme, dark theme with light Scrolls as background for posts. Looks good, seems to be working.
* Minecraft: bright theme with minecraft-graphics here and there. Works fine.
* Black Ops: Dark Theme. Easy to read. Works fine.
* Happy new Year: Bright Theme with Orange and Blue. Works fine.
* Adk Halloween: Dark theme, Oranga Accents, easy to read. Works fine.
* Halloween I: it works, but navigation misses Icons and Quotes hurt the eyes.
* Ostara: Light Blue, cloudy Theme. works, but quotes just don't fit the theme.
* Thanksgiving: Warmly colored Theme, some brownish yellow (man Its hard to know colors outside of a 16color scheme). Works fine
* Christmas Carol: WInter-themed. with light blue and snowflakes. Icons and images displaced badly, but it works.
* SMF Pokemon: Pokemon theme, it really hurts the eyes with Green and red in contrast. Some Icons are missing, but the buttons exist. Its easy to read, but the background-colors kill me.
* Mayals: working, but every second post is almost impossible to read because its box is transparent and the theme uses a background with symbols on it. Light Brownish theme. "home" doesn't fit the theme but has all required links. Has two other variants that change the symbols in the background.
* Music: Bright theme with dark Background. Works fine and is easy to read.
A total of 18 working themes.
Front Page button works and page shows, Reply page loads fine, all buttons seem to work -no pulldowns at the top of the page, though. Since this is just for my own investigation, I'll use a simple +/- = pass/fail grading, skipping Curve since that's the default.
+ Core Theme
+
Enterprise (http://alphacentauri2.info/index.php?action=theme;sa=pick;u=3643;th=3;d2ea5c1e221=c39f6ff7b37531ce48cec69a95979f63)3 people are using this theme.[size=0pt]·[/size][/color][Use this theme][/size][size=0pt][/color]·[/size][/color][Preview theme][/size]
-Just trying to see if I can get the WYSIWYG thing to work, posting. Guess not, for this...
-StormFront v1
+Blue Eyes
(Even the pull-downs work on the page-top buttons [better than Core and Enterprise, there] and the theme shows on the Front Page [if with the SMACX news column too narrow]! Have to investigate the possible keepers more thoroughly, since I believe Eadee found much more than 10, so reporting now to check the Reply stuff. Eh - the page width is borked, which makes this a maybe. Pity, when it was doing so well.)
+GoneFishin
(Best pass of testing yet - Front Page looks great, buttons, pull-downs, everything but Icons I can/will upload to the theme showing right. It even has the thread lable icons [taken from the default upload, I reckon] showing. -Definite keeper, and in fact, this one is SO Rusty Edge that I'm gonna surprise him with it as soon as I've done that uploading.)
-Fire
-XD-Zeda
+Astronomy
(Full marks, if only the Shop items inventory & € showed in the postbit - which COULD recommend it to some. Good-looking. Keeper.)
-Teo'nun Laneti v1
-Bitti
-LCARS
-Gul
+The Killing
(Absolutely everything seems to work in this one, and work well - I just checked some things I hadn't been looking for in previous use. Since only dark themes are currently in use, this is the one I'm using for this DL, to easily check things in a dark theme. Not the absolute prettiest -some very pretty themes are marked for death over Moby Dick issues- but very legible and the best-functioning I've found so far beside the default and Gone Fishin'.)
-Crsytal
-Pulse
+Cadence-MultiColor
(No pull-downs. Not really legible enough. Front Page completely broke. Everything else works, but weak endorsement. Probably first one up against the wall when I get it down to 18 or so and need to cull more.)
-Catalysm
(This was looking like a true winner, albeit garish and a W.O.W. logo up top, and then I came to report, and Blue Eyes page width problem + nearly invisible post text. ;q; NEXT.)
+minecraft
(Full marks except the 'Lurkers' line is pretty invisible in front of a bush - but MEMBERS don't need to be able to see that, do they? -Also good news for Blue Eyes - I found an option to set forum width; will fiddle and report back.)
+Black Ops
(Full Marks. Valka, you should check this one out.)
-Boo!
-Christmas07
-ComputerStuff
-Christmas2006
+Happy New Year
(Too much orange borders, but everything works fine.)
-Christmas Theme
+Adk Hallowen
(A winner if you can stand the orange.)
+Halloween I
(Kinda similar to the last, but weaker layout, background too dark for black text, and no pull-downs - life expectancy not great.)
-Love_Theme
+Ostara
(Darker blue than the default. Keeper)
-SnowQueen
+Thanksgiving
(Relatively subdued autumnal colors, Valka. Keeper.)
-Web
-X-mas Scene
+Christmas Carol
(Bit of an odd-layout turkey with the page-top buttons in sidebars, but pull-downs work and colorful alternative to others so far, and perhaps unfairly might stay. Would need some border size adjustment, if I can figure that out, though.)
+SMF Pokemon
(Day-glow loud keeper, and just knocked Christmas Carol out.)
-Sponge Bob
-simpleorange
-Poker
-Plum
-Leaf it off
-MayaIs
+Music
(Full marks.)
-mibabyboom
+impulse2
(Some sloppy layout, but attractive autumnal colors that could use some darkening to make Valka theme.)
-Harry Potter
-GS-Themes
-Candy
-Sapphire
(A different Sapphire)
That's the lot.
-Tomorrow I go through and combine my winners' list with Eadee's for some compare/contrast and culling. Everyone is encouraged to check out our recommended, w/ and eye on functionality, and also diversity of colors.
And so to bed.
The fishing one doesn't work for me. Random bits of the board just disappear (literally; all I see is the background), my items that were gifted to me appear as text, not images, and I had problems getting into my profile to change the theme back to Enterprise.
-
Eadee's Master list of his winners, combined with mine -bad news for the theme if we disagree, I think. Members are urged to have a look at these before I get trigger-happy.
* Core Theme: Bright and comfortable to read. Very similar to the default theme. (maybe unneccessary)
+ Core Theme (Could be. I'm going to need to make some hard choices, so doesn't look great for this one.)
* Enterprise: Dark theme but also easy to read and not depressing dark.
+Enterprise (Fond of this one, and two members use it. Definite keep.)
* Blue Eyes: Light Blue theme with black writing. It seems to have all buttons, even Shop.The Header Image says Bryan Deakin.com. To my suprise it looks usable AND different to the default.
+Blue Eyes (Even the pull-downs work on the page-top buttons [better than Core and Enterprise, there] and the theme shows on the Front Page [if with the SMACX news column too narrow]! Have to investigate the possible keepers more thoroughly, since I believe Eadee found much more than 10, so reporting now to check the Reply stuff. Eh - the page width is borked, which makes this a maybe. Pity, when it was doing so well. -I've been fiddling with this one, and am going to keep [Name changed to Dark Blue Eyes] to work on.)
* Gone Fishin: Wooden planks and a lake in the background. Light blue. Seems to be working, though some Graphics seem to be a bit displaced.
+GoneFishin (Best pass of testing yet - Front Page looks great, buttons, pull-downs, everything but Icons I can/will upload to the theme showing right. It even has the thread lable icons [taken from the default upload, I reckon] showing. -Definite keeper, and in fact, this one is SO Rusty Edge that I'm gonna surprise him with it as soon as I've done that uploading.)The fishing one doesn't work for me. Random bits of the board just disappear (literally; all I see is the background), my items that were gifted to me appear as text, not images, and I had problems getting into my profile to change the theme back to Enterprise.
* Astronomy: Seems to be working fine. Violett-blue theme but less aggressive than Stormfront v1. Even "home"-page works fine.
+Astronomy (Full marks, if only the Shop items inventory & € showed in the postbit - which COULD recommend it to some. Good-looking. Keeper.)
* The Killing: dark blue (or maybe dark cyan) theme. Seems to be working fine
+The Killing (Absolutely everything seems to work in this one, and work well - I just checked some things I hadn't been looking for in previous use. Since only dark themes are currently in use, this is the one I'm using for this DL, to easily check things in a dark theme. Not the absolute prettiest -some very pretty themes are marked for death over Moby Dick issues- but very legible and the best-functioning I've found so far beside the default and Gone Fishin'.)
Cadence-MultiColor: Darky Cyan theme, Buttons are there comfortable to read. Icons and images a little bit displaced (probably a problem of screen-resolution). Sadly "Home" is broken completely. Comes in Variants Red and Purple as well.
+Cadence-Multicolor (No pull-downs. Not really legible enough. Front Page completely broke. Everything else works, but weak endorsement. Probably first one up against the wall when I get it down to 18 or so and need to cull more. Eadee's thumbs-down removes all doubt.)
* Catalysm: WoW-Theme, dark theme with light Scrolls as background for posts. Looks good, seems to be working.
-Catalysm (This was looking like a true winner, albeit garish and a W.O.W. logo up top, and then I came to report, and Blue Eyes page width problem + nearly invisible post text. ;q; NEXT.)
* Minecraft: bright theme with minecraft-graphics here and there. Works fine.
+minecraft (Full marks except the 'Lurkers' line is pretty invisible in front of a bush - but MEMBERS don't need to be able to see that, do they?)
* Black Ops: Dark Theme. Easy to read. Works fine.
+Black Ops (Full Marks. Valka, you should check this one out.)
* Happy new Year: Bright Theme with Orange and Blue. Works fine.
+Happy New Year (Too much orange borders, but everything works fine.)
* Adk Halloween: Dark theme, Oranga Accents, easy to read. Works fine.
+Adk Hallowen (A winner if you can stand the orange.)
* Halloween I: it works, but navigation misses Icons and Quotes hurt the eyes.
+Halloween I (Kinda similar to the last, but weaker layout, background too dark for black text, and no pull-downs - life expectancy not great.)
* Ostara: Light Blue, cloudy Theme. works, but quotes just don't fit the theme.
+Ostara (Darker blue than the default. Keeper)
* Thanksgiving: Warmly colored Theme, some brownish yellow (man Its hard to know colors outside of a 16color scheme). Works fine
+Thanksgiving (Relatively subdued autumnal colors, Valka. Keeper.)
* Christmas Carol: WInter-themed. with light blue and snowflakes. Icons and images displaced badly, but it works.
-Christmas Carol (Bit of an odd-layout turkey with the page-top buttons in sidebars, but pull-downs work and colorful alternative to others so far, and perhaps unfairly might stay. Would need some border size adjustment, if I can figure that out, though.)
* SMF Pokemon: Pokemon theme, it really hurts the eyes with Green and red in contrast. Some Icons are missing, but the buttons exist. Its easy to read, but the background-colors kill me.
+SMF Pokémon (Day-glow loud keeper, and just knocked Christmas Carol out, having the same basic colors.)
* Mayals: working, but every second post is almost impossible to read because its box is transparent and the theme uses a background with symbols on it. Light Brownish theme. "home" doesn't fit the theme but has all required links. Has two other variants that change the symbols in the background.
-MayaIs (Every second post IS almost impossible to read. ;q;)
* Music: Bright theme with dark Background. Works fine and is easy to read.
+Music (Full marks.)
Impulse2: bright theme with greenish accents. works fine, but "home" misses some Icons for the buttons.
+impulse2 (Some sloppy layout, but attractive autumnal colors that could use some darkening to make Valka theme.)
I count 15 we agree on, but also agreed that Core is probably superfluous, which makes it 14. Too many blue themes, too many autumn, is what I'm thinking in term of cutting a further 4 or more soon. More member input might be seriously helpful.
I reckon I'll go ahead and cull everything that hasn't made the cut already, not least for user convenience in checking out the ones on this list...
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I use Enterprise, like Astronomy, tried Gone Fishin' (and had problems). I'll try the others later today, if that's okay.
I confess: I chose the autumn colors and astronomy/star-types because those appeal to me. There were so many more themes available, but it would have taken weeks to properly go through all of them.
I tried to choose themes that seemed more masculine, since there are very few women here (that I know of) and in my experience, guys don't tend to go much for pinks and purples. ;)
A very long time ago on the first forum I ever co-admin'd, we had an "apple green" theme that was quite cheerful.
We even had a "My Little Pony" theme, but I'm not seriously suggesting that here! (might over at CFC, just to see the apoplectic posts that would follow... :P )
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...Pokémon is never going to be exactly popular with this crowd, by the nature of the thing. I would definitely consider a girly pink Restoration/Regency, or Barbie, or whatever, sort of theme, if you can find one that works...
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Something doll-themed?
Restoration/Regency... that's a lot of goofy wigs and lace, right? (shudder)
How hard is it to test themes before installing them? If this were an Invision forum, I'd just make a test forum and try things out to see how they look (would obviously leave all the codes governing function alone and just be concerned with colors, background images, etc.).
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Lady and Gentlemen: There's been a heartless slaughter, and we are down to 20 themes that work, now - plus Mayals, which doesn't (but IF I can figure out how to make color changes I make show, I can probably fix that).
I still have the .zips, so nothing I just did actually has to be permanent.
Does anyone care to express an opinion of the Blue Eyes mod pic I attached yesterday? I might give up on that -in which case, byebye Blue Eyes- and try a straight color mod of the default.
We can try a few things, whatever strikes your fancy, Val - I'll be ruthless about functionality, though, and quick to delete. Myolchka would LOVE a lot of goofy wigs and lace in subdued colors. Girly-tastes stuff, is all. We wants us more cool girlz...
I haven't the foggiest about a way to test other than install and look.
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Well, since it's unlikely that the SMF has a Regency-era skin already done, how can we make one? I can search out appropriate images and wallpapers that can be adapted for backgrounds. Then would it just be a matter of substituting colors and images in place of what's in the default theme?
Hmm. I just found an old forum I'd started to develop before I got outvoted by the others on the Fighting Fantasy group on Yahoo (they have a nice green-themed forum now).
I didn't get it remotely finished, but you can have a look at what's been done so far - I decided on wood and stone, to give an atmosphere of being in a castle (since many of those gamebooks take place in castles!).
http://z15.invisionfree.com/FFA_testboard1/index.php? (http://z15.invisionfree.com/FFA_testboard1/index.php?)
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Nice. Brickwork and stuff, but no fancy in the post displays to mess with legibility.
The themes interface is just a nightmare, and I'm having trouble just modding colors. Nowhere near ready for lace borders or anything. Mylochka has expressed serious interest in the past, and she could do Regency like no one else if she could figure out how - but I don't think it's likely to happen, frankly. We'd like to make a SMACX theme, of course, but there's one heck of a learning curve to conquer first. I'm going to poke at Mayals and see if I can at least fix the alternating backgrounds before anything else...
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Hm? Whatya need?
I'm not emotionally tied to The Killing. Can't remember what I didn't like about Enterprise. Any of the Halloween ones are atrocious IMO. Kill them quick.
I just read about Thanksgiving and will likely try it out.
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Cadence was awful
Thanksgiving's not up my alley.
Halloween anything is horrible.
Enterprise is nice looking by and large as a dark theme, I just don't particularly care for the header (which I just noticed is customizeable) putting in it's own pics instead of the AC2 graphic.
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hEt would probably LOVE astronomy. But again the header replaced with a big Astronomy logo that's kinda confusing.
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I'm not wild about that part, either.
-I'll look into changing that for most of the ones we keep - if there's a logo, I ought to be able to change the link to ours.
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Cataclysm and Black ops would be great dark themes other than the butt ugly permanent advertisements in the header/background image as well.
Back to the Killing for now.
I'm not a huge fan of the red for the links, but otherwise it's still the most functional of the dark themes.
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I REALLY like Black ops other than the stupid CoD icons and background pic.
If that background could be switched to a plain black, and just the default icons, it would be the one I used.
The header pic is there but in the wrong place as well. Don't know if that can be fixed. I could play with the CSS if that's what it's using, had to do similar for my website...
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I believe these are the two that need altering - be my guest.
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I can't save/upload right now.
Pretty sure I can delete the background pic, no problem. (this is Black Ops?)
The header is there, just getting covered by the top menu. I can MAYBE move the menu down, but it would be trial and error to get the right location, and since it's a fixed position, that would look ugly on some browsers/mobile. Options MIGHT let you move the header down without fiddling.
I'd need to look find the file name for the offending icons. And honestly, it would be easier to just copy them from the default and paste them into the appropriate folder, making sure to name them the same as the existing ones.
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Nice. Brickwork and stuff, but no fancy in the post displays to mess with legibility.
I didn't get that far. ;)
I'm not sure what I intended to do for that part of it. Some of the title bars aren't readable enough so the font color needs to be changed to something that's not so dark against the darker woodgrain. As for the blue, I intended to change that to something else - it just doesn't "feel right" to me as it is.
On another note, I do have some Classic Doctor Who stuff in my graphics folders in Photobucket - roundels, for instance (even pink ones... :D ).
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Ah - I did wonder about the thematic appropriateness of the blue.
I can't save/upload right now.
Pretty sure I can delete the background pic, no problem. (this is Black Ops?)
The header is there, just getting covered by the top menu. I can MAYBE move the menu down, but it would be trial and error to get the right location, and since it's a fixed position, that would look ugly on some browsers/mobile. Options MIGHT let you move the header down without fiddling.
I'd need to look find the file name for the offending icons. And honestly, it would be easier to just copy them from the default and paste them into the appropriate folder, making sure to name them the same as the existing ones.
Right.
Those are for Black Ops.
Go back to Killing Time (rechristened The Chilling) and hit refresh if you don't see the difference. :danc: I believe you said the red was a bit much. -I still haven't tracked down the orange headers, and some other tweaking may well be needed, but I certainly like this better.
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The changes in Dark Blue Eyes needed a cache refresh to show - if I can figure out the page width (that's only there when browsing inside a thread - works fine in the modify post and Reply pages, for instance, and in my profile and the forum view) problem, it's a winner, I think.
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Go back to Killing Time (rechristened The Chilling) and hit refresh if you don't see the difference. :danc: I believe you said the red was a bit much. -I still haven't tracked down the orange headers, and some other tweaking may well be needed, but I certainly like this better.
Yes, it's very pleasant now.
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WooHOO! :danc: :danc: :danc: :danc: :danc: :danc: :danc: :danc: :danc:
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Okay. The banner is fixed in Astrology. THAT took a while to track down.
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* Halloween I: it works, but navigation misses Icons and Quotes hurt the eyes.
+Halloween I (Kinda similar to the last, but weaker layout, background too dark for black text, and no pull-downs - life expectancy not great.)
This means the theme was on life support. Hopefully it will pass in peace :(.
The current list has many themes for fall and a few for winter. The present options are extremely lacking in the summer and spring themes department. Besides default, I found the Thanksgiving theme the most appealing option.
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I'm working on something...
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I'm currently trying out Dark Blue Eyes.
My "Chic Geek Lady" cameo is gone. There's just an asterisk there now. :-\
The only other issue is that while the blue background is a nice shade of ultramarine, it just seems... flat. Might there be a way to substitute a different background image that has much the same color, but isn't solid?
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I probably can fix the background - a screeny pointing which part you want how would help. I just uploaded the cameo.
...None of them are caught up on icon/images, necessarily -unless they got them from the default, which some do- so don't worry about that - I'll upload missing images to the ones we keep.
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Joy joy!
Check out Core...
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See the areas where I scribbled a bit of red? Those are the areas that seem flat because they're solid blue. If there could be some kind of patterned blue background or a subtle image in a palette similar to that shade of blue, it would make the actual areas where the posts and the posters' sidebars are really pop out.
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That would involve substituting an image in place of a color. I'm not nearly ready for that, yet. I could probably find that color and make it either darker of bluer, depending on which you think would make the posts pop more...
You could probably do a color select and try hues for yourself, if your graphics program will do that (otherwise just select the side as a box one at a time)...
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Dunno how it is with SMF, but with IF, instead of a color code, substitute in the link to an image. That's how I got the wood grain and brick backgrounds on the FF forum. In the normal default CSS, they're just colors.
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Do the changes suit?
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They're certainly cheerful, but they still don't fit, either colorwise or what I meant by trying to avoid "flatness."
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I LOVE the Astronomy theme! :D
Only issues: my cameo is missing, gifts are missing (rock, flower, etc.), and the default SMF markers are still there - do you have plans to replace those?
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Sure. I think everyone agrees that Astronomy is a real winner.
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Done.
I figured out yesterday that I had to have a clean copy of the /image folder from the default so I could be sure I got everything for all the others that don't automatically use the default images.
I don't even begin to know what to do about a Shop integration issue like item display - unless checking the Shop settings while in this theme will fix, which I doubt. The Shop images where already uploaded to Astronomy yesterday.
Today, I need to put on all the themes I'm pretty sure we're gonna keep, and look for theme logos displacing AC2's (lotta fun tracking down where it's hidden) and things not displaying inside threads. -Also figure out why the orange bars in adk Hallowen didn't change colors when I changed the shades. I'm gonna have to ask for tech help with the inside-thread view width in Blue Eyes - and how to set a blued version of the Astronomy background as background...
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I'm currently using The Chilling... very nice color palette. It puts me in mind of jewel-toned peacocks.
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:D I always liked that one anyway, and it's nicer with the reds replaced and a new attitude.
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Refresh on Astronomy - another logo change, and this one's a better fit.
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I wish layout was tweakable with the tools and knowledge I have at hand, 'cause I'd like to set the news display in the middle and signicantly shorten the space the top hogs, but I fixed the logo issue in Gone Fishin, uploaded some missing images, and have thrown Rusty in...
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:D :danc: :D :danc: :D :danc: :D :danc: :D :danc: :D :danc: :D :danc: :D :danc: :D :danc: :D
Rusty's lovin' on Gone Fishin.
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While I was browsing through themes looking to fix banners, I saw Cadence-MultiColor was definitely too broke. It's barely legible, the change color option didn't seem to work, it has deal-breaking layout problems on the profile and admin pages, too, and I have driven a stake through its heart now. It was going to be absolutely no one's favorite.
And then there were 20.
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The Minecraft theme is all ship-shape now. It had a great start, but the busy background atop the page made legibility issues tricky. A custom slogan is fixed, and the logo is taken care of.
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Black Ops is almost done - I think I'll look at toning down the orange after supper...
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I am satisfied with Black Ops now. ;b;
ACtually - I deleted those background pics that Uno didn't like - but why don't I, instead, REPLACE them and do a little more color fiddling, and there's our SMACX theme. This I can do, and we've already got TWO dark themes besides Black Ops...
?
Yeah! I'm gonna do it. :danc:
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sounds good ;b;
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The Minecraft theme is all ship-shape now. It had a great start, but the busy background atop the page made legibility issues tricky. A custom slogan is fixed, and the logo is taken care of.
Sorry, but I find this one problematic. I can't see the navigation links (aqua-on-green is nearly invisible).
I like the two main shades of brown/beige, but this one is definitely not my cup of tea and I have no desire to ever use it.
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I can probably fix that...
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Yeah, I think it just needs a font color change. I can read it once I've moused over it, but the problem is that it's hard to see what's there to be moused over in the first place.
Currently trying Black Ops. The only way I made it to this thread was by the link to it in the "last post" field. There are no functioning links to get to the sub-forums.
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Happy New Year does not appeal at all. Well, except for the shade of orange on the bottom. That's nice.
But my avatar at the top is obscured by the navigation bar, and everything is basically "widescreen."
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Okay, regarding Halloween I:
I love the colors. Visually, this theme is beautiful.
However, the navigation is a mess, and some of the links are nearly invisible (could be fixed by tweaking the font color)
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...Well, it probably won't work for Valka, but We. Have. A. SMACX. Theme...
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8)
Gotta give it a try.
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The "Insert Spoiler"-Button misses an Icon in the SMACX-Theme. The "Aeva-Media" does as well, but I don't use it anyways.
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I'm now using Ostara. Love the blue, the clouds - it's very relaxing.
However... What I'm looking at as I type are the smileys superimposed over the bottom two rows of buttons (underneath the row where it says "Insert Spoiler" etc.).
I don't know if this is a Firefox thing, or if it's this way for everyone.
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Added to my to-do list.
I need to figure our how to login in Firefox.
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Draz had a go at Dark Blue Eyes last night, and it looks pretty super after we both did some color tweaking for legibility.
He missed the inside-thread page width issue, but have a look.
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Ladies and Gentlemen, Happy New Year is no more - I proudly give you Autumn (http://alphacentauri2.info/index.php?action=theme;sa=pick;u=3643;th=42;ef02a703d=ed0fe4c7d305e89f617a46060d9cb807).
(Bad new for the Halloween themes, mind you.)
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I've had another run at Ostara - all the buttons are uploaded, and for SMACX as well.
Valka, could you do a quick check of all the themes in which you've had the problems you reported today, and see if you can duplicate? I haven't the foggiest what's causing them or how to attack.
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It'll take awhile, but yes.
I see that the smileys are now in their proper places in Ostara. ;b;
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Oh good - I had wondered if there was a connection, because the hovertext was displaying in your screenie.
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FYI, Google/Gmail is down, so I'm not getting email notifications of replies here.
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Am I supposed to be able to change to a different theme?
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Yes.
Your profile>Look and layout (left sidebar)>(change) at the end of the top line.
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Ok, thanks. I think I'll try out the SMAX one and see how it works for me once I get used to it.
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This will be my last post using Ostara before I try out another one. The shop icons are not present; everything is written out in words, and my cameo isn't there either.
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Check again: I just corrected that.
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Okay, it's all there. ;b;
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Is anyone married to Halloween I, Thanksgiving, Christmas Carol, SMF Pokémon, Music, impulse2, or Adk Hallowen? Nobody's wearing any of them ATM, and if I spike those, I've got exactly 10 in addition to the default...
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I haven't tried those yet, so I'd appreciate your giving me a chance to see what they're like, please.
I'm trying out SMACX at the moment, and there are significant issues with Firefox. Chunks of the page keep disappearing and reappearing. Also, long thread titles get cut off.
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Firefox is of teh Devil.
I'll wait. -But I think I've got 10 nailed, if the thread view width can be fixed in Dark Blue Eyes can be fixed. I believe I've gotten all the images uploaded for those 10...
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well, I use SMAX on Firefox (Win7) :o
is it maybe a special build of firefox that causes problems? Or maybe a combination of OS+Firefox?
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I'm using Firefox's latest version and Windows 8.1.
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I've been after Mylochka to come check out the new themes anyway - she's Firefox and W8.1, so we'll see.
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Here's some problems I found with one of the themes. I'm using the latest version of Firefox on a Windows 8.1 machine.
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Those are all Impulse 2? I should have figured you'd like that one - all fixable issues.
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...And, if fact, I've fixed two of them. Tracking down the menu messup on the Front Page can wait for tomorrow.
Also, I've made a change to SMACX...
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Sorry, long night of commenting on CBC boards; some cow of a transit driver in Vancouver refused to help a 100-year-old woman get her walker on the bus and took off, leaving her stranded on the side of the road.
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Currently trying Autumn. The icons are where they should be and the posting window is clean.
I'm not seeing significant technical issues other than my profile picture at the top has to be vertically scrolled - it won't all fit.
Aesthetically... well, it's clean, but not how I would interpret "autumn." The grey parts are too much like many other themes.
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Now using Thanksgiving - this one is really nice!
The only weird thing is how all the text in the posts comes out underlined, like it's a link. I keep trying to click it, thinking it's a link, but it isn't.
Oh, and my cameo is missing.
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Now on to A Christmas Carol...
As they say in lolspeak: Do Not Want. ;q;
It's too wide, too busy, too jarring, the vertical menu on the side is driving me crazy after less than 3 minutes, and I can't think why I ever suggested this one.
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Now trying SMF Pokemon... Holy crap, this one is bright! :o
I'd use it when I need a dose of bright colors as a pick-me-up, but it's too neon-bright for me to use as an everyday theme. Overall, it's fine.
Usual issue: No cameo or shop items beyond the bare text.
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Now trying Music... cameo's missing, so are shop items (not even any text).
150x150 avatars are too far to the left - enough to notice, but not enough to be annoying.
It's otherwise okay, but not really my cup of tea.
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Feedback. Very useful.
Some keep/kill/fix recommendations would help, too.
I'm beginning to think I'll have to spike Blue Eyes - doesn't really bring anything new to the table.
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Patience, I'm getting there... ;)
Feel free to get rid of Christmas Carol, if nobody else wants it. I really don't like it for a lot of reasons.
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I done kilt off Christmas Carol, then.
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It's dead, Jim. ;b;
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And then there were 17.
...I'll want your input about what colors to change in Autum. Post backgrounds, right? A pain to track down, but doable...
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And then there were 17.
...I'll want your input about what colors to change in Autum. Post backgrounds, right? A pain to track down, but doable...
:whistle: Another one bites the dust . . .
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Another One Bites The Dust (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eqyUAtzS_6M#)
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Okay, the now-current one is ImPulse2, and honestly it doesn't do anything for me. The background is a nice design, but the posting area is so large that the background isn't really visible. I like the color combination of the different greens and mint white.
If this is one that other people like, I won't ask for its removal. I don't hate it... it's just "meh."
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I think it's a bit meh, too, but Mylochka likes it, and I'm working on it now...
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ADK Halloween... This one seems incomplete; some of the buttons aren't there. I'm not wild about the pumpkin header and flames background, but the orange and black design around everyone's username/shop items, etc. is very attractive.
This is a theme that could be quite nice if it were tweaked some. The buttons need work, and maybe the forum banner could be centered so the pumpkin isn't so there.
EDIT: What happened to the Mayals theme? I never got a chance to try it.
As for going back over the ones I had issues with, I'm going to have to ask your patience for a bit. I have some RL stuff that needs doing, so I'm going offline for awhile - be back in a few hours.
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I kilt the Mayals - you couldn't read every other post, and I don't even know where to look to fix that...
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I found an option to turn off the special scripts that were messing up the page-top menus in impulse2 yesterday, but that made the menu go away on the Front Page completely. I opted not to do that and spent considerable time today scratching around trying to find a way to fix that attempt-at-sidebar that was messing up the Front Page.
Well, I finally concluded that who needs anything but an obvious link to the forum there? -And so I turned off the problem crap and put a hyperlink on the banner image and added an 8pt. line that said "Enter AC2 Forums" underneath - and would have left it like that if it hadn't insisted on opening in a new tab. I didn't love that the link was grey and not underlined as a link, either, so I was looking to at least recolor THAT when I accidentally changed the background around the banner green, and found out the menu was there in white.
So that's where we stand. impulse2 is fixed.
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I need to double-check everything in IE - I notice the lovely color alteration I did tonight to Autumn shows as white in IE, for some reason. Y'all check for me in Firefox, please.
All of these grow upon being clicked. You probably ought to hit refresh to make sure you see the latest versions. ;nod
Curve:
(http://alphacentauri2.info/Themes/default/images/thumbnail.gif)
Green Core:
(http://alphacentauri2.info/Themes/core/images/thumbnail.gif)
Enterprise:
(http://alphacentauri2.info/Themes/enterprise_smf20final/images/thumbnail.gif)
Dark Blue Eyes:
(http://alphacentauri2.info/Themes/blueeyes/images/thumbnail.png)
Gone Fishin':
(http://alphacentauri2.info/Themes/GoneFishin/images/thumbnail.gif)
Astronmy:
(http://alphacentauri2.info/Themes/astronomy_22/images/thumbnail.gif)
The Chilling:
(http://alphacentauri2.info/Themes/The_Killing_SMF2/images/thumbnail.gif)
SMAX
(http://alphacentauri2.info/Themes/minecraft_theme_ok/images/thumbnail.gif)
SMAC:
(http://alphacentauri2.info/Themes/Black_Ops_2/images/thumbnail.gif)
Autumn:
(http://alphacentauri2.info/Themes/happy-new-year/images/theme/thumbnail.png)
Ostara:
(http://alphacentauri2.info/Themes/ostara1/images/thumbnail.gif)
Impulse:
(http://alphacentauri2.info/Themes/impulse2_smf20final/images/thumbnail.gif)
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Thanks for the overview BU. Looks like we have a nice collection of themes to choose from. I think everybody should be able to find a theme in colors he/she likes now.
;b;
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I just realised that EC (and items) do not show in posts when using the SMAX theme. I don't know if this is a browser issue since I'm using my mobile device at the moment. I'll have another look as soon as I'm at my PC.
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I'm back, and will now take one more cycle through them.
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I'm not going to comment on the default theme since I expect it must be working fine. According to the little note beside it, 11,603 people are currently using it, so they must be happy with it.
The same number of people are using SMF Default Theme - Curve. This leads me to wonder if the numbers of users means all the SMF forums currently active, since I know we don't have 11,603 members here.
Green Core: Nice and clean, except the shop items are missing. They're in my inventory but not visible in the sidebar with my avatar, etc.
Enterprise: The one I normally use; thanks for fixing the invisible link issue in the pinned topics! ;b;
Dark Blue Eyes: Much nicer now! ;b; The problems I see now are that the text in peoples' signatures is nearly invisible, especially in the darker blue areas. The font color for the sigs should be changed to basic black. Other invisibility issues (also with font) are where it says "Valka (http://alphacentauri2.info/index.php?action=profile;u=11368), BUncle (http://alphacentauri2.info/index.php?action=profile;u=2210) and 0 Guests are viewing this topic.". The colored fonts are somewhat visible but the "and 0 Guests..." part just fades out against the blue background. I think this could benefit from a font color change to either white or off-white; greys just fade out and aren't readable. It's the same issue for the page number. I can easily see the numbers of the pages I'm not on, but the page number I am on isn't really visible.
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Okay - I've done some fixing up on Astronomy. Check it out, or hit refresh to see the updated thumbnail.
I'm probably going to cast Dark Blue Eyes into the outer darkness in favor of impulse2. The problems with the userhandles visibility isn't fixable - those are the same in all themes, and I'd have to change the background color.
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It's not them so much as the font color for the page numbers, etc. There should be a way to fix that.
I honestly do like it better than ImPulse2.
Some weird stuff is going on with Gone Fishin'. Parts of the reply window are appearing and disappearing. I'm going to reboot and see if that helps.
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I'll totally run down and tweak little issues like the font color for the page numbers, etc., in themes I end up keeping. It's hours of work to track down, sometimes, and I don't want to waste effort.
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Okay this Gone Fishin' theme, while nice to look at, just isn't functioning for me. Parts of it keep vanishing and coming back, and it's unusable. I have no idea why.
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Likewise.
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I've done some upgrades to SMACX today - it needs eyeballs enjoying it and the improvements.
...I've, maybe, run out of tweaks and improvements I know how to do that I want to until such time as the final list is finalized. That Beginners' Guide has had the editing neglected for too long...
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Could there be a version of the SMACX theme where the faction symbols on the left side are replaced by the leader heads instead?
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There could be, be there's a number of problems with that.
- The right margin is exactly 27 pixels wide - some of those leaders' smile version wouldn't fit.
- It would take hours and hours to do.
- It would take up a theme slot when I'm trying to cut down to 10.
- It would be yet another theme I had to upload images to and maintain.
- I REALLY want us to be the first place on the innerwebs with a SMACX-W10 compatibility patch.
...How bad do you want this?... ;)
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It turns out that what happens if you get rid of a theme from within that theme is that you're kicked into the default.
I had a look at the Halloween themes, and Halloween I was clown college. Text was running of the right side of the page, the menu setup is ridiculous, and Adk Hallowen has it all over it, with all problems I'm aware of, I can fix.
-So goodbye to Halloween I. And then there were 16.
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There could be, be there's a number of problems with that.
- The right margin is exactly 27 pixels wide - some of those leaders' smile version wouldn't fit.
- It would take hours and hours to do.
- It would take up a theme slot when I'm trying to cut down to 10.
- It would be yet another theme I had to upload images to and maintain.
- I REALLY want us to be the first place on the innerwebs with a SMACX-W10 compatibility patch.
...How bad do you want this?... ;)
Not that badly.
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I'd be interested in knowing why you asked - top too busy for your tastes?
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I'd be interested in knowing why you asked - top too busy for your tastes?
Actually, mainly because I don't want to have the Believers' symbol on the side of my screen like that, and the leaderheads seemed like a good substitute. But if you're trying to cut down, I'll just use Astronomy instead.
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...Actually, a random sampling indicated that the smilie size heads would fit, so if a tiny head superimposed over the symbols would do, It wouldn't be much trouble at all, and Miriam would totally cover the cross. -Which doesn't fix the hogging-a-whole-slot problem.
Mind you, I'm pretty tickled with the improvements I did to Astronomy this morning...
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The Astronomy theme is really nice! :D
I have only two comments: The icons for read/unread aren't that clear. I finally figured out that they're observatory telescopes... right?
The shop items aren't showing up in peoples' sidebars.
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The Chilling has developed a problem. The navigation links have mashed up to the point where I can't post in the Community. I can't even get here.
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Just wanted to say that otherwise, I like The Chilling. But that navigation issue renders it unusable.
On to Minecraft. Honestly, this one isn't my cup of tea (though the brown in the background is a very nice color). And the navigation is difficult due to the font colors being washed out against the background:
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SMACX: Same problem as Gone Fishin'. Random bits vanish, including in the window where I'm typing right now.
Also, the shop items are missing.
Not usable yet, as far as I'm concerned.
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No usability issues for Autumn other than the date/timestamp at the top being basically invisible (green font on a background of mostly green/brownish-grey leaves). Fortunately I already know what day this is and the posts are timestamped anyway, so this isn't anything I'm going to fret about.
The colors remind me of an autumn sunset with the pinks and purples. It's nice, and I'd use it. ;b;
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...I went to a lot of trouble to get the menu down to one line in all the themes to reduce top-of-the-page space hogging. How zoomed in are you? At 100%, text size medium settings, everything should be one line.
I'll look at putting a better observatory silhouette on Astronomy, and do some fiddling with the menu colors in Minecraft. I think I know how the problem in the Chilling got in, and can surely track that down.
At this time, I cannot do anything about the postbit items in themes where they don't display.
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...I went to a lot of trouble to get the menu down to one line in all the themes to reduce top-of-the-page space hogging. How zoomed in are you? At 100%, text size medium settings, everything should be one line.
I'll look at putting a better observatory silhouette on Astronomy, and do some fiddling with the menu colors in Minecraft. I think I know how the problem in the Chilling got in, and can surely track that down.
At this time, I cannot do anything about the postbit items in themes where they don't display.
I have things magnified on my screen for most sites because otherwise I just can't read anything - my vision is that bad.
Ostara looks okay, not having any problems as of this posting. The dark olive green quote section looks a little strange, but as long as the font contrasts enough, it'll do.
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I'll have a go at tracking down the dark olive green quote section - that sounds wrong for that theme.
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Valka, The Chilling is fixed. -The second line is a bit crowded, because that setting takes up top-space even if it's not needed, but everything should be separated enough at any faintly feasible size.
(I also FINALLY found the color on the pull-down fonts and made consistent, so Step Three: Profit!)
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Got the quote background in Ostara easily. (Spent more time fiddling with the color of the quote text.)
...Should I look at adding a teeny bit more yellow and green, to be evocative of spring and summer?...
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Got the quote background in Ostara easily. (Spent more time fiddling with the color of the quote text.)
...Should I look at adding a teeny bit more yellow and green, to be evocative of spring and summer?...
I'll take a look after I've finished this current run-through.
Currently using Thanksgiving. Seems fine, colors are really nice, only problem is that the text in the posts comes out underlined. There's probably a little bit of code in this part of the CSS to do with the font that mentions underlining that shouldn't be there.
It's a problem because the entire post is underlined and looks like a link, but it really isn't.
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Would you like it better than Autumn if I fixed the obvious things and figured out that underline problem?
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I changed the new post/no new post icons in Ostara.
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I've done a bit of fix-up on minecraft. As before, legibility against that background is tricky, but the menu should stand out a teeny bit more. -Individual theme-appropriate post icons are never a bad way to go, and not a lot of trouble...
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...Maybe I should ditch minecraft in favor of making separate SMAC and SMAX themes - instead of mixing green and blue, make one blue and the other green, with the leaderheads/logos appropriate to each...
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Though I like minecraft I'd never use a minecraft-theme in a non-minecraft-forum.
I see two categories that'll come up often:
Either one doesn't like minecraft and therefore won't use the theme.
Or one likes Minecraft very much, then he/she will probably be on some minecraft boards as well and might confuse our Forum with one of those and therefore won't use that theme.
I think everything in between is so sparse that it doesn't justify the lack of a second SMAC/X-theme :)
So, my vote would be for separate SMAC / SMAX theme instead of Minecraft.
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...I think that would totally be the way to go, not least to please Yitzi - which is something of considerable value. What I really need to do is figure out how to duplicate the SMACX theme directly, and then start altering them separately. -Another benefit would be that I can make the top and sides of the background less crowded, which ought to look better. I'm sure I can jigger the logo to one side or the other to make room...
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Okay, working out the bugs still, but I've mostly replaced minecraft with SMACX.
Customizing is gonna take a while...
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...I think that would totally be the way to go, not least to please Yitzi - which is something of considerable value. What I really need to do is figure out how to duplicate the SMACX theme directly, and then start altering them separately. -Another benefit would be that I can make the top and sides of the background less crowded, which ought to look better. I'm sure I can jigger the logo to one side or the other to make room...
The other possibility would be to have the basic theme/skin with just colors and background, and then have additions such as the presence/locations of poll, blurb, and SMAC/X sidebar(s) be settable independently.
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The best possibilities involve me doing stuff I know how to do...
I really hope you like green, 'cause that's the best shot I got for you, and it ain't gonna be a trivial amount of work.
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Would you like it better than Autumn if I fixed the obvious things and figured out that underline problem?
Yes. I'm willing to lose Autumn if Thanksgiving can be fixed.
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Siiigh. Okay, nothing's going to happen super-fast, because I took hours on the SMAC theme background, so many I'm not going to get the SMAX one done before my bedtime pills put me down in the next hour - and I haven't even BEGUN to touch the font colors on the respective efforts...
But what the heck; I'll do the uploading now on Thanksgiving.
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Take your time. I've got more to check out.
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[shrugs] I just as well take care of this before I pass out tonight.
The new SMAC background is up, BTW.
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Pokemon is growing on me. The only problem is that none of the Shop items show up, either in the sidebar or inventory.
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ADK Halloween - nice to look at, problem with the navigation at the top. I tried to get to the Council Room and ended up in Downloads.
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Pokémon, I'm considering converting to a Christmas/winter theme...
There's no need to keep telling me a theme doesn't even try to display the Shop junk in postbits. I do not know how to fix.
Is Thanksgiving got all the image upload-related things fixed?
Going to bed now.
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Yitzi, I notice that the margins in the SMAX theme are gone, so I'm throwing you in there. Commencing work on the slightly different background now.
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Pokémon, I'm considering converting to a Christmas/winter theme...
There's no need to keep telling me a theme doesn't even try to display the Shop junk in postbits. I do not know how to fix.
Is Thanksgiving got all the image upload-related things fixed?
Going to bed now.
How much tweaking were you thinking of with Pokemon?
The shop items are where they should be with Thanksgiving. The only issue I have with this is the underlining of everything - the posts, the sigs...
If you want to ditch the Music theme, I won't object. It's not my cup of tea, and I don't think I'd use it.
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We'll see when I get to it, but mainly replace the pokeballs with Santa and winter stuff.
I hope it's nothing more than searching for "underline" in Thanksgiving's index.css, but I'll find it somehow.
Music is nice, but we're not exactly short on dark themes, and nothing about it stands out. [Takes up ax...]
The customized background and footer images are up for SMAC and SMAX, as are site logos. Now to work on logo placement and page width in the root for SMAX...
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Hmm... maybe some nice snowflakes? There's a lot of nice clipart here (https://www.google.ca/search?newwindow=1&hl=en&site=imghp&tbm=isch&source=hp&biw=1067&bih=493&q=snowflake+clipart&oq=snowflake+&gs_l=img.1.1.0l10.1997.5469.0.10365.10.9.0.0.0.0.545.1340.3-1j1j1.3.0....0...1ac.1.64.img..7.3.1340.cKki4KEYnhc), and the black and white ones can be colored pretty much any way you'd want, to fit the theme. I'd suggest white and lacy, myself.
Here (https://www.google.ca/search?newwindow=1&hl=en&biw=1067&bih=493&site=imghp&tbm=isch&sa=1&q=snowflake+backgrounds&oq=snowflake+backgrounds&gs_l=img.3..0l3j0i30l4j0i5i30l3.138647.140918.0.143193.11.9.0.0.0.0.638.1782.3-2j1j1.4.0....0...1c.1.64.img..7.4.1781.tJPmmljF4pA) are a lot of lovely snowflake backgrounds, too.
BTW, the underlining doesn't make it clear where the real links are in this post. The words "here" lead to Google Image Search pages.
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Still in Thanksgiving, I take it...
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Pour out a 40 for Dark Blue Eyes and Music, y'all! They done been done in, proper.
...And then there were 14...
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Yes, I'm still using Thanksgiving.
Which others do you still want me to look at? I've been cycling back and forth now to the point where I'm a bit confused... :-\
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ATM, I'm working on SMAX.
I've nothing inn particular in mind for examination until I feel caught up. - But I'm always up for keep/kill recommendations - I only need fix suggestions for the keepers...
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Are any others in line for deletion?
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Looking over the list before I answer, Autumn.
I think I'll fix up SMF Pokemon and Adk Hallowen, but am considering removing them except in season...
We don't really need Enterprise AND The Chilling, -we've got both AC themes for dark, too- and the latter works better and the former isn't all that Star Trek to begin with...
Thanksgiving would be on that list instead of Autumn if it wasn't for your druthers - only them as votes get a vote.
Everything left isn't going to get deleted off the server -also most of the last few cut- so easily reinstalled.
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You want to get rid of Enterprise, when we've got lots of active Star Trek discussion? :-\
Well, can we at least keep Astronomy? I really like that one.
I'll go back and re-evaluate Autumn, then.
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Thoughts, not decisions. -I really would like to get them down to 10 in addition to the default, as I set out to do before I started learning to mod them.
...If I can find out how to make the menu pull-downs work, it'd increase my enthusiasm for several themes - I suppose I could make Enterprise an lot more Star Treky; it's just a matter of going through a certain folder and doing stuff to the background images...
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Until such time as I figure out the forum-side page width issue for SMAX having no margins, I declare SMAC and SMAX finished. Done. Ready to roll.
What's next?
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(http://alphacentauri2.info/Themes/smac/images/thumbnail.gif)
(http://alphacentauri2.info/Themes/smax/images/thumbnail.gif)
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Good job!
;b;
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One other thing I noticed about Thanksgiving that I didn't even think to check on the others: The "Go Up" and Go Down" navigation aids are gone. That could be inconvenient for the people who prefer to use these links (I do sometimes when I want to get to the top or bottom of the page right away).
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Oh - I took that out in the default the other day - I thought it was a useless feature that no one used. I'll put it back.
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Okay, it took a few minutes to find the option, but the Go up-down is back.
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I'll go back and re-evaluate Autumn, then.
?
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;b;
Why the ? You asked me to do that, since it may come down to a choice between Autumn and Thanksgiving. I haven't managed to get to it yet.
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Okay. That's what I was asking.
I checked Thanksgiving and didn't see the underlines, so tried it in IE, and there it is. Shows in Firefox and IE, but not Chrome. I need to work on it in this account, clearly.
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...I took out every instance of "underline" in the .css before noon, which may have messed the look of some things up, but didn't get the problem in IE. I'm stumped...
Been deleting crap themes off the server all day; it's surprising how long that takes.
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Would it be possible for me to look at the CSS? I've never done SMF stylesheets before, but I've done lots of Invision ones. The only places where there should be underlining is with links.
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Hold one - I just began a delete, so it'll be five-ten minutes before I can download the file and post.
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Here.
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I've saved the image folders from a Christmas theme and a winter one, BTW.
Almost done deleting, so I can go to bed.
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Here.
I'm being asked what I want to use to open it... ???
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I wouldn't know. Notepad will probably do.
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That worked. :)
I'm used to just working within the ACP, so this isn't anything I did before.
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Be careful of the format when you save, and it should be okay.
-Actually, it'll be better to give me code to copy/paste and where to do it, so it doesn't undo the tweaks to the layout I've made since last night.
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That's assuming I find what I'm looking for. This is venturing into new territory.
I'm still using Thanksgiving, btw. Are there any others you'd like me to look at?
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Dunno. What am I allowed to kill?
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ADK Halloween. I love the colors, the flame design of the sidebar where we have our avatars, etc. is gorgeous, but the navigation menu is so squashed together that I can't get half the places I want to go. I keep ending up in Downloads or Calendar, and I don't ever have any reason to go there.
So for me, it's lovely, but unusable. If you need to eliminate another one, ADK Halloween gets my vote for elimination.
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Hmm.
(http://alphacentauri2.info/Themes/thanksgiving/images/thumbnail.png)
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The color palette of the Ostara theme is enjoyable.The forum navigational buttons operate as they should. The default text size is smaller and transparent areas appear on the far right of each column for drop down options.
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(http://alphacentauri2.info/Themes/smax/images/thumbnail.gif)
:danc: :danc: :danc: :danc: :danc: :danc: :danc: :danc: :danc: :danc: :danc: :danc: :danc:
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(http://alphacentauri2.info/Themes/minecraft_theme_ok/images/thumbnail.gif)
:danc: :danc: :danc: :danc: :danc: :danc: :danc: :danc: :danc: :danc: :danc: :danc: :danc:
;b; The theme appears great at the surface. I will have to try the theme itself to check for any major issues
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Oh, do. Do.
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A fews areas immediately struck me as odd. The first area that appears unusual is the large box at the bottom of each page that has a different non-transparent background than the rest of each page. The gray background behind the quote, underline, bold, hyperlink, and other non smiley posting button also contrasts rather sharply with the rest of the theme. The third thing that stood out odd as to me was the position of the Profile pictures and background while scrolling through threads.
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I dunno, man - I worry that it's too green already. Like, it maybe needs a touch more other colors.
I won't be completely satisfied with this one until I've tracked down all the spacing of elements on the root directory, that's for sure. -But figuring out which thing refers to what part takes forever, the way spacing is entered varies, and I've definitely spent too much time lately hunched forward reading the eight-point type the code displays in; I need me some computer reading glasses, 'cause if I change the zoom or text display, it messes up how the changes display.
If I can't track down the right sidebar spacing pretty quickly this morning, I'm moving on to tarting up Adk Hallowen...
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Please elaborate on your "hmmm" comment a few posts up (and image of Thanksgiving). I'm currently using ADK Halloween, and having to use the forum jump at the bottom right to get around since the top is too squashed to let me move between the Community and Council Room.
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I'm planning to work on it today.
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Okay. :)
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I'm not finished yet, but I've done a lot to Halloween, including fixing the spelling and making the breadcrumbs usable.
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(http://alphacentauri2.info/Themes/adk_Hallowen/images/thumbnail.gif)
;nod
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More stars. ;nod
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Beg pardon?
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I wish there was a way to edit pages in a proper page editor program and paste the relevant code back in. That would solve the heck outta a lot of layout problems...
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(http://alphacentauri2.info/Themes/ostara1/images/thumbnail.gif)
?
I'm pretty happy about this one - I'm always trying to minimize wasted space at the top w/o unduly hurting functionality or aesthetic appeal. That's pretty tight -took long enough to fiddle it that way- but tight.
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Ostara looks fixed. ;b;
And Halloween looks good, too - it's a relief to be able to get where I want to go. :)
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I'm learning a lot as I go, and will end up having to cycle through the others to tweak more when I'm done. -This includes the default theme, Curve.
These are finally to my satisfaction until such time as I figure out where to fiddle with padding to get rid of most of the spacing between threads at the subforum level. You may need to refresh to see the changes from the last versions, for the 'thumbs' below and the themes themselves.
(http://alphacentauri2.info/Themes/smac/images/thumbnail.gif)
(http://alphacentauri2.info/Themes/smax/images/thumbnail.gif)
-That latter saw me, just today, finally kill my white whale (besides the eternal battle against wasted page-top space). The big gap in the root between the index and the right sidebar.
:D :danc: :danc: :D
I guess trying to do something less Pokémon with Pokémon is next... Wait; I'm taking a run at the top of Curve first. Fingers crossed...
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BTW - I still haven't found where to change the menu wording, but I have found the plugin for some of the pulldowns and I can change them, so now BE/RT instead of Civ: Beyond Earth and SMACX instead of Alpha Centauri. -That'll reduce the rolling over to a second line problem...
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HA! Valka, I ain't no hypocrite --- the top of Curve is tight now.
It'll take me half tomorrow getting used to the base look of my life here altering, but that freed enough topspace to reveal two threads at the top of Command Nexus when I'm on patrol looking for new posts. I gotta look back at Halloween again; I know where to change the spacing on the breadcrumbs now, which I wasn't satisfied with.
Pokémon tomorrow; bed now.
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Oh - and here's what I found mid-day when I checked which themes are being used:
Default Curve - 11603 people are using this theme.
Green Core - 1 person is using this theme.
GoneFishin - 1 person is using this theme.
The Chilling - 1 person is using this theme.
SMAX - 2 people are using this theme.
SMAC - 7 people are using this theme
Adk Halloween - 1 person is using this theme.
Lazy Summer (impulse2) - 1 person is using this theme.
(No one home)
Enterprise
Astronomy
Autumn
Ostara
Thanksgiving
SMF Pokémon
We've picked up a SMAC user since, I believe, and Valka seems to have moved to Ostara for now. I didn't count me in any of this, 'cause I'm in which theme to work on it.
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That looks like the whole work on the themes does already pay off. I mean 14 people found a theme they like better than the default. Before this it was... about two?
However I have to say I really like the SMAC theme, it just feels right to use it. I highly appreciate all the work you put into those themes.
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Yeah; there were two people in Enterprise, and someone had taken up wearing The Killing at some point fairly recently.
---
I spent far too long this morning trying to take out the extra space above and below the navigation/breadcrumbs line atop the Halloween theme. I made a little headway in making the line itself a bit shorter, but the space above and below appears to be something specific to special stuff done to that line for this theme to put a box around it --- Hey! Idea to try!
---
Ugh. Pokémon is just too much of a pokémess; I just killed it. I'm going to find something else to use as a base for a winter theme.
Since Autumn was a failure, I'll try it, I think.
And then there were 13.
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I actually liked the Pokemon theme! :(
I've been looking around to see if there is a tutorial on making skins; something turned up in a Google search but I haven't tried anything yet. Does SMF allow people to make test forums to try these things out?
You shouldn't take any of my current themes as indicating that it's my favorite; the only real way to see how well they work is to actually use them for awhile, so that's what I've been doing. Enterprise is what I'm most used to, but I've been using a lot of others since this project has been going on.
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I don't know much about what SMF does and doesn't allow - but it's some open-source sort of thing and I expect they'd actually encourage you to try.
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...The new Winter theme is fighting me, but well underway...
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Right now, I'm doing the tedious, but simple, part of altering all the theme component art to fit the new scheme - there's not a lot that needs doing to the colors, and the (frustrating) top-space formatting I'll further attend to when I've gotten the rest shipshape.
The sticking point on this one is not knowing how to get rid of the redundant stuff that's collapsible on most themes - User greeting, News and Search. They hog a lot of top-space, and I won't be satisfied until I can either make them collapsible again, or get rid of them entirely.
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...I may have found a way to get rid of those things (the index.php, not the index.css, maybe), but my morning innerwebs browse -the extremely truncated version I do these days while I'm so busy with forum stuff- is only halfway through, so not right away.
I did get the art file element altering done, so it's coming together...
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.php files are VERY unforgiving about format, BTW, which I knew going in.
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WELL - fun backing out of THAT try...
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...I'm considering changing the default theme tomorrow night at midnight to SMAC for 24 hours.
Blame Draz if you don't like it...
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I've finally made the breakthrough I needed on the Winter theme, if only I can get the root forum frame margins back. I think the rest is just tedious tweaking. ;nod
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I think the SMAC theme is almost ready for prime-time.
Just needs the fixes I mentioned elsewhere, as far as I'm concerned.
As for the work on removing top-bar items, let me know how things go and I'll see what I can do to help. You might want to read this: http://wiki.simplemachines.org/smf/How_to_create_a_smf_theme (http://wiki.simplemachines.org/smf/How_to_create_a_smf_theme) especially the section on template php files (which is possibly where you need to be editing).
If you find yourself getting stuck on some particularly tricky CSS, feel free to drop me a line and I'll try to explain how to fix it or just fix it myself and describe what I did if you're interested.
@Valka,
Themes in SMF are some CSS files (just one main one) and a collection of templates written in PHP. The SMF wiki goes into more detail (http://wiki.simplemachines.org/smf/How_to_create_a_smf_theme). CSS can be a pain to work with, but firefox and chrome both have good tools built in to help you understand what changes you need to make. The main index.css file is a monster that's some 3600 lines long, which is probably way bigger than necessary, but it is commented quite well (in the Curve theme, anyway), and should be easy enough to work with.
The templates will be reasonably easy to work with, but most of the themes don't use custom templates anyway.
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I fixed it in index.template.php, actually, by replacing some code with the relevant portions from the default, but that introduced a problem I've yet to lick that it no longer reads the side margins set early in the .css. I'm hoping that'll prove to be redundant settings, as a number of lines seem to be, and find where to change that works now. I've got Winter pretty much licked except for those margins.
Now, if you wanted to fix the SMAC theme vertical thread spacing on the subforum display level before you go to bed -and tell me what and where you did it tomorrow- I'd be grateful.
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If it's quicker, just point me at the right spot, and I'll take care of the fiddling with the spacing values...
The more I do myself, the more I learn - but I want to do this default stunt tonight, and best have that fixed first. I've REALLY not felt satisfied with that, and it looks even worse since I made the background filter more transparent.
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The main problem is with some dividers that the template puts in. The simplest way to remove them is to add "display: none;" to the appropriate section (line 955, index.css).
I'll do so as soon as I can work out which theme folder the smac faction is in on the server (it would be a lot easier if it was just called SMAC, y'know.
-
Change it, then - I was afraid it would bork something, like all the filepaths. I'm trying hard not to Miriam the server again. You're looking for "Black_Ops_2".
(SMAX is in "minecraft_theme_ok".)
-
Done. Do you want me to move the themes to more sensible directories, too?
-
Sure. I'm confident I can find my way, afterwards.
-
Done. SMAC theme now in smac directory, SMAX theme in smax directory. Sorry for the brief downtime, had a weird bug when I tried to symlink to make it a seamless transition.
-
Nice work.
The following folders in /Themes, BTW, are only still there because there was at least one thing I couldn't change the permissions to delete:
bitti
Cadence_MultiColor1-1
Catalysm_2
fire_09
gul
LCARS-1
mevlana
spectacular
sus
TeonunLaneti_v1
Themes/XD-Zeda
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I assume it's good for the server to cut down on useless junk taking up storage space, and it would make ongoing periodic tasks like uploading a new Shop image a little easier to not have to scroll past those useless folders looking for the working themes I'll have to keep updated...
-
I'll move them all to a junk folder in my user directory. Won't really have any effect on server performance, but they do get in the way a bit for us humans.
I changed the background image for the buttons in the edit panel to be a bit more transparent, but it's still not great. If you could edit smac/images/bbc/bbc_bg.gif and bbc_hoverbg.gif to have partially transparent borders they would look a lot better. divider.gif could probably do with a change, too.
-
Will do. Gimme a few minutes...
-
Also, the top menu is fixed at the top of the viewport with a transparent background. Seems to me like one of those things needs to go: it should either not be fixed (appears at top of real page but doesn't follow your scrolling) or it should have a opaque or translucent background.
To modify the css for this section, look for the rules for div#top_menu at line 54 in index.css.
Edit: just deleted those folders. And I set the top menu to be positioned normally for now (doesn't follow you around the page).
I'm off for tonight. Have fun
-
Okay, if you want transparent edges on those buttons, I'll have to save them as .pngs -.gifs don't do transparencies- and you can track down all the instances and change .gif to .png.
First, I'll trim the light pixels off the corners and darken the borders and overwrite the .gifs in place.
-
Didn't realise gif only supported binary transparency and not partials.
Changed default/GenericControls.template.php to look for pngs instead (it's using one I made at the moment for bbc_bg.png and nothing for bbc_hoverbg.png).
I'm really off for the night now.
-
Okay; I darkened divider.gif 20% and blued it. See if that suits you better.
Looking at SMAC now, and it looks good. Feel free to fiddle and tweak to your heart's content while you're waiting for me to wake up in the morning. SMAX needs all the same changes done -I just overwrote all the Minecraft files with the Black Ops SMACX mods to make it, and changed the colors and some details on the background- and it wouldn't hurt if they were a little more different from each other...
-
Ooh; those buttons look pretty nice, now.
The vertical spacing in the root forum could still use some tightening - I'm all for getting as much on the top of the page as possible while still functional and attractive, AND the spaces between subforums look pretty crappy where a 3 pixel high slice of the Unity is showing though. I probably won't get to those colors tonight, so feel free. I mostly just paste the color code into the GIMP color menu, hue-shift to blueish and past back the new value, depending on the background contrast and what I think is and isn't ugly.
-Coding I got no great expertise at --- layout and design is another matter; some actual formal training, even.
-
The buttons do look good :) The corners are still a bit too light on bbc_bg.png, but they're much better. bbc_hoverbg.png is fine.
I introduced a bug with that last change by requiring the png icons for all themes, rather than just SMAC. I've now gone back and fixed that (I realised I made the mistake just after I got into bed, but couldn't be bothered to come back out and fix :)).
I've removed some vertical whitespace on the root forum by removing the large top-padding on the subforum icons, hiding the dividers and removing 4px of top and bottom padding on every table cell.
I can make the transparent border disappear by adding "table.table_list{border-collapse:collapse}" to the css, but I don't think it looks as good. Try it out in chrome's developer mode and see what you think.
I still think that the thread view itself has too much vertical white space. Do you agree or do you like it how it is?
-
I think the tab over each post should almost touch the post above it.
-
In fact, ideally we get rid of the tabs, move the text into the line with the quote button, and make the posts just touch above and below.
There's something to be said for actually using a new theme seriously -you notice stuff you wouldn't just casually looking around. I see that I need to darken the 'no new posts' icon for easy of distinguishing, for instance.
-
The pages are just the teeniest bit wide in IE. It's maybe just 10 empty pixels and it's not the width of the background, but it makes a scrollbar show at the bottom of the page, taking up space...
Also, the users online in the last 24 hours list isn't showing with the Who's online stuff at the bottom of the root. I think only admins could see that, but I do track that info...
-
A few issues that I noticed.
1. The heading that basically welcomes guests and says to login or register is garbled.
2. The directory for the forums lists "community" twice.
-
Only in this section with Council Room, Chiron News Network and Recreation Commons, and that's in all themes. -And I'd change the one that goes to the root index to "Forum" if I could find where the menu names are stored.
-
...This theme doesn't display Shop inventory -not uncommon, and Valka considers that a serious matter in any theme- or member EC in the postbit. Both are unacceptable in a default theme, and I haven't the foggiest about where to even begin to look into for fixing...
-
-Also, this thread: http://alphacentauri2.info/index.php?topic=13309.0 (http://alphacentauri2.info/index.php?topic=13309.0)
Uno raises the point that it's stupid that the first entry in the breadcrumbs/navigation line, "Alpha Centauri 2 Forum »", takes you to the Front Page, not the root. I've been bothered by the same inconvenient thing; we have a Home button on the Menu, and that should be enough for what little regulars want to look at the news.
-Still wishing I could get at the Menu wording, too. It doesn't appear to be in any of the places you suggested I look, Draz...
-
Scanning for the word "Community", seems like PortaMx might be setting it as the name. Try the PortaMx control panel?
www/Themes/default/languages/PortaMx/PortaMx.english.php
12:$txt['forum'] = 'Community';
As for the wide pages, I dunno what that's about. It's happening in firefox too. The width is set properly and firefox is drawing the elements at the proper size, it's just drawing an extra 10-20px on the right edge with nothing there.
Doesn't happen on chrome.
As for things happening differently to the default theme, that's a matter of all the templates in the theme directory. We should delete all the templates in the directory that aren't strictly necessary. Test deleting them, at least some of them do something.
Changing the spacing on the little tabs is easy enough, just inspect the element in chrome and then edit the appropriate css on the server. (Change the padding).
Removing the tabs will take slightly more work.
-
Do whatever you feel up to doing with confidence - delete away.
My point wasn't about things going differently in the default - it's that some lacks are acceptable, if marginally, in any given theme, but not the one the greatest portion of the regulars will be using. If you could find a bit of code to make the Shop stuff display in postbits, and tell me where it should go, I'll be thrilled to do the drudgework in all the active themes.
Let me know what you plan to do yourself, and what you expect me to do. I found that inspect element trick on my own, but I'm not familiar enough with the language(s) yet to find anything a fraction as easily as you clearly do...
-
...Still poking through the PortaMx settings, but I'm happy to report that I figured out how to get rid of the right sidebar on the Front Page, where it was hogging precious width space with two news columns...
:danc:
-
I just fixed the ugly colors for the stickies...
-
I reduced the size of the tabs quite a lot. Can't be bothered to try and get it to display in-line with the other stuff right now.
I'm finding the whole website to be extremely slow to respond at the moment, though. Images especially are taking several seconds to load, more importantly, the html is taking on the order of a second to load and one of the css files is taking 22 seconds(!) to load.
SMF is nice for being very easy for non-experts to set up, but I really don't like how it's architected.
Incidentally, the number one most annoying thing for me is not having a fast way to access my subscriptions or recently viewed threads: I often return to threads I have posted in, but before others have replied in order to add another post of my own or just to re-read.
Number two most annoying is the page load times.
If I can find a link to view my subscriptions I'll probably add that to the template.
-
Looks better. ;b;
That server reliability is one reason why I wanted to already be moved...
Your right sidebar has all that - I assume you don't want to clog up your email. -If I assume wrong, check here: http://alphacentauri2.info/index.php?action=profile;area=notification;u=11336 (http://alphacentauri2.info/index.php?action=profile;area=notification;u=11336)
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How do things look this morning, Draz? I'm thinking leave SMAC the default for another five hours to make up for the downage. Are you working on the Wiki today or wanna tweak the theme? If we can get the Shop stuff to display in postbits, I think we may be done...
-
-Oh. And users online in the last 24 hours. I need that.
-
Sorry again about downtime. It's still not great. Server is very not happy with memory restrictions on it and it's hard to make any changes without introducing more downtime.
At the moment, I'm receiving time out errors when I try to post something. I've just tried to fix those now. Let me know if things improve for you (if you're receiving those error messages)
I've spun up a DO box and hope to get a straight port of the site working there, then I can do development work there and port it back and also increase likelihood that we'll actually migrate.
I'll try to fix the wiki configuration a bit just now, then I'll go back to the DigitalOcean stuff.
-
...The latter may be more urgent...
-
Latter as in DO more important or wiki? Or timeouts?
-
The internet connection where I am is a bit unreliable, so it's hard for me to tell if the server is much more unresponsive than usual. What's your perception?
-
I'm on a just-adequate wireless connection myself, and my machine is balky when it's balky -not always to do with the webs- especially for the first hour after it boots in the morning, so my perception isn't worth everything either. I had my browser lock up completely about 30 minutes ago and had to reboot IE, but that appeared to be something going on in the Yahoo! email tab...
It seems about normal to me so far this morning.
-
Latter as in DO more important or wiki? Or timeouts?
I haven't the foggiest how much traffic the Wiki drives or who-all cares about it. In the long run, migrating and straightening out our basic tech issues tends to be far more important.
Work on what you want to work on first, I guess.
-
and had to reboot IE
Oh dear....am I reading that right? Someone on my "Heros of the Internet" list is using IE?
Now I must hear your objections to or other reasons for not using Firefox.
Vidsek - who's secret reason for being a Firefox fan is that it's an alternate name for the
Red Panda, which is actually in the raccoon/coati/ringtail family, and so related
to the Mustelidae (weasle/marten/otter) family, which makes him feel like it's
named for a cousin of his. It has nothing to do with the faster speed, greater
security, greater customability, better looks, open source/freeness, or other
practical advantages.
-
I'm done with all browser snob conversations years ago.
But consider; as Teh Man here, I have to stay in the default theme, with the swear filter on, in the most commonly-used browser, so I can see what the greatest majority of members and lurkers see.
P.S. Firefox is the Devil. Pretty much all mystery display problems we have reported are from FF users. Reed Richards should sue.
-
No intention to be (or appear) snobbish here. Just curious, and your reasons are cogent. Your attention to detail has raised you several notches in that "Heros" list :D
-
Hmm. The Issue a Warning button mods/admins see has light border pixels that look crappy in SMAC. I cleaned up all the smilies for that a long time ago, but need to find all the post icons with that problem for the sake of users in dark themes...
-Not sure what to do about this one disappearing into dark backgrounds: ;realdog -It'll look crappy in light themes if I take out the edge shading.
-
Slightly more on-topic for this thread, I've been trying out various of the themes to see which have no readability, icon, or placement flaws (for my W7-64 in "Classic Windows" mode theme + Firefox).
Unfortunately, I've neglected to document my findings due to time priorities and general lameness, but most have been functional. I prefer ones with dark backgrounds and text boxes which don't glare out my ancient and blurry optics.
When I have time, I'll re-read this thread to see which issues you are concerned about and try to keep notes.
Next on my upgrade list for becoming a cyborg of the 21st Century: new lenses in my eyes.
.....although cloned but perfect biological eyeballs would be an acceptable alternative.
-
...I'm waiting for them to implement stem cell replacement teeth, myself. -And I want some of them new eyes, too...
Try going back to when Eadee started going through the themes, looking for comments on the themes that are left. Also Valka. That might jog your memory. I do know which ones don't display EC and Shop Items in the postbit, and am powerless to fix.
Reminders about anything I said I could manage, but don't seem to have yet, would be fine, too. A little organizing of a list of outstanding issues -and ones as yet unreported- would be very helpful.
-
Server is still incredibly slow for me. Possibly just my connection. I've fixed the wiki, though it's also quite slow.
I'd appreciate reports from people on better connections: does the site load quickly? Can you post new replies/edit the wiki without getting timeout errors?
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Switched default back to Curve for now. With a few tweaks I've mentioned -Shop display and Users Online in the last 24- SMAC's ready, I'm satisfied. We may do another use-in-practice-and-tweak day soon, according to what Draz wants.
-But Curve has been my home for years now, and it's good to be back.
Four people, one of them Geo, had switched back to Curve already. SMAX picked up two more users since yesterday morning. Green Core has picked up a user, and I dunno who the second person in Lazy Summer is.
-
Ooh! Ooh! OOH! Theme idea: The DOGHOUSE. Functional, but not especially pleasant-looking. I put you in there when I deem it
needed right appropriate/funny.
Geo will probably log on to see it a lot.
...If the dogs pictured are Boston Terriers, Mylochka will take up permanent residence on her own...
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Ooh! Ooh! OOH! Theme idea: The DOGHOUSE. Functional, but not especially pleasant-looking. I put you in there when I deem it needed right appropriate/funny.
Geo will probably log on to see it a lot.
...If the dogs pictured are Boston Terriers, Mylochka will take up permanent residence on her own...
I could make a potentially inappropriate comment about the implied interests of Mylochka from your post, but I will refrain from posting said comment in the interest of diplomactic relations. In other words, my lips remain sealed :-X.
-
Kilkakon is having an odd problem with the AC themes on the monster 1920x1080 monitor at work. Attached is a screenie.
I see exactly what the problem is -1345 pixel background to fit a proper screen- but completely stumped about what can be done about it.
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I'd hardly call 1920x1080 monster. My normal desktop screen 2560x1440 and at work I have a 4K panel. I've only not noticed this problem because I'm using my ancient laptop.
I think that the best, simple thing to do to handle large displays is to set a maximum width for the whole page, centre it and optionally have some pretty things at the sides in the background for people with big displays.
Doing this properly requires a little skill with CSS, but it can be done more simply by attaching something like this to the body element:
body
{
max-width: 1200px; /* Or 60em or whatever */
margin-left: auto;
margin-right: auto;
}
Then the simplest way to improve affairs is to just have the bg image fade out somehow. A better way would be to have another one or two background elements that people on small screens aren't going to see. How to do that is beyond the scope of this guide and I'm going to bed anyway.
/offtopic
Personally, I think that the caching changes I've made have had a really big effect. It's been the difference between this site being usable and not over this rubbish connection.
I'm interested to know if it's as noticeable for people on better connections. I'm sure it will be very noticeable on mobile browsers.
-
I'm getting good fast loads this evening.
I can think up and make a couple of matching side panels, no problem. Let me sleep on it, and I'll probably know what I want to do in the morning. -Put all the fades on them if we want something besides more starscape for a background.
-
-Actually, I'm trying to get Kil to take care of the art chore himself. I did tell him no Pokémon.
Really, I did.
-
I'm at the stage where I'm cycling back through previously-altered themes, working a little on stuff I've learned to do in the interim, mostly tightening up the top spacing better. That matters for maximal functionality.
There's room to take out around the menu in Lazy Summer, I think I'll have a look at replacing the optional balloons from Happy New year that I turned into Winter with Christmas images, and I don't know what to do about Gone Fishin, which can't tighten up very much and leave the sunset showing up top - but the menu is in buttons that make the top layout a sloppy mess. I think I'll have to get rid of those buttons. It's mostly only a keeper because Rusty likes it.
I don't know that we need Halloween and Thanksgiving, both -I'd like to have a theme for each season of the year, and either would serve for Autumn, but they bring very different things to the table for looks and environment to browse in- and other than that, I don't really see where any of the rest come off redundant.
Anyone have any thoughts about that? The ones that people are actually using have precedence, of course, and the two Alpha Centauri themes are doing very well.
-
Glad that page loads are fast for you, too. They're good here, now that I've sorted the local connection. Much better than they've been for a while.
Regarding the other themes, I don't know what to do artistically or design wise. I do think it would be a better idea from a technical point of view to get one theme working well from a performance and UX point of view and then vary it with CSS and possibly UI images only. I believe that this will be easier to maintain and produce better results in the long term.
It is quite possible to produce very different appearances using only CSS, see CSS Zen Garden (http://www.csszengarden.com/):
http://www.csszengarden.com/215/ (http://www.csszengarden.com/215/)
http://www.csszengarden.com/221/ (http://www.csszengarden.com/221/)
It would be nice to start from scratch with very simple templates and themes, but it's too much work for the moment for me to do and requires someone who knows what they're doing.
A good compromise would be to make a copy of the default SMF2 theme (Curve) or, better, to install an attractive and modern theme like Redsy or Fastline (available to demo here: http://demo.smftricks.com/ (http://demo.smftricks.com/) login as demo user if you like user: demo, pass: demo).
The downside with these modern themes is that some of our more retro smileys and webdesign don't fit as well. They also don't look good with PortaMX (one of pour addons), but PMX is, in my humble opinion, something we should get rid of anyway*.
The upside is much improved html/template.php and css defaults (so easier to modify and make new/variant themes), responsive design (looks good on big screens, smartphones, etc), better performance, and replaces some of the stuff we currently have coming through from clunky addons.
* Digression on the topic of PortaMx (pmx):
PMX is the kind of addon that makes this forum hard to manage. PMX does a lot of things in a lot of different areas: it generates handles the sidebar on the right, the front page and some other custom pages. This is a problem because: 1) it's trying to do too much stuff, so management settings are split conceptually between SMF and PMX, 2) it's just not very good.
What PortaMX does can and should be done better by different tools. The custom pages would mostly be better on the wiki or as separate, static pages and the front page should either be a custom job in PHP or be from an SMF portal type thing (like portaMX). The little sidebars should be handled by the SMF themes and, where necessary, by less intrusive mods.
-
...An admin interface where I could FIND what I'm looking for would be a very, very, good thing. I suppose you could try stripping out the PortaMx from your test mirror site and replace what functions you can would be the best way to get sisko's interest/approval...
Redsy does not impress, but I suppose I can fix up that space-hog layout easily enough - it's the custom crap added to themes that gives me fits.
-
The idea is that it should be fairly easy to modify to our purposes because it produces much simpler html and its css isn't crazy.
I haven't looked into it properly yet, to confirm that it is all sensible, but on a first pass Redsy seems like a decent base.
We can revisit this when I finish moving across the extensions to the test server, I guess.
-
...I do have most of the ones installed tweaked up to my satisfaction, or close, which I've been working on for weeks, so I'm not enthusiastic about the idea of throwing all that out at THIS late date. -Also, I got into this in the first place to cut the theme clutter down to ten that work, and I'm already going to be thwarted in that, so I take a rather dim view of adding any unless you wizard up something that will update at least all the new ones at once when I have to upload new -oh, thread icons or Shop Items- so something to keep in mind. It's currently about a 20 minute job to add a new Shop icon and have it show in all themes...
-
I appreciate that you've been doing a lot on the themes. If they are as you'd like and you don't think you need to make any big changes to it, then there's not a big reason to go this other route.
I've been suggesting this other approach as a way to reduce the maintenance burden of e.g. getting shop icons to appear in more themes and the development burden of customising the themes. The design ideas, but not the particular css could be transferred to this new system, but some changes will probably require more css understanding than you'll care to acquire
OTOH, it's work for me and that time is probably best spent on other things if you're happy with how it is now.
-
I guess I am. I'm more interested in good tech performance - managing 13 or so themes will not break me.
-
SOMEbody put some serious work in on Lazy Summer today:
(http://alphacentauri2.info/Themes/Lazy%20Summer/images/thumbnail.gif)
And Buncle did Grin and say: "Take heart, my pathetic innerwebs nerdz minions; for Mighty Draz, He of the Virgin Slaves and the Power Most Max, has smiled upon your whining and Made Things Right. For Lo, the pagetop menu is most assuredly short now and the breadcrumbs that do lead you home hath not any of that Community » Community » crap no mo'."
Selah amen.
-
I freed all the slaves years ago in a fit of republicanism, regrettably.
Happy to help and glad you've got another theme looking OK for you.
-
They were still virgins. ;nod
-
Of course! I was still very young at the time.
Edit: Anyway, I'd rather not revisit my juvenile past. It's bad enough that I haven't gone back and deleted that thread.
-
Holy CRAP, man; you fixed the menu in Gone Fishin to one line with your menu shortening. ;b; ;b;
-
;b;
-
...This theme doesn't display Shop inventory -not uncommon, and Valka considers that a serious matter in any theme- or member EC in the postbit. Both are unacceptable in a default theme, and I haven't the foggiest about where to even begin to look into for fixing...
Hey, when people give me stuff, I like to be able to look at it. :D
-
I definitely want to get the Shop stuff displaying in all the themes. I can live without seeing everyone's Inventory, but I've used the fake forum money as a personal activity motivator since the beginning. Just as well run the table. It certainly raises the profile and usefullness of a bunch of silly goodies I put a lot of time into creating, and raises entertainment value of those forum goodies, which is what they are for
Also, no theme that doesn't show "Users Logged In Last 24 Hours" is a real candidate for default - I track that information. I need to.
-Alas, these things are nothing I'm likely to ever raise my tech mojo to the level of figuring out/fixing by myself.
-
Shop items are inserted by Display.template.php. I've made them display in SMAC by simply removing the SMAC theme's custom Display.template.php file. I recommend you try that as a first port of call for each theme you want to try and fix.
This may have caused other errors. If you see any in this or any other theme a partial change would be to simply copy this section:
// Any custom fields for standard placement?
if (!empty($message['member']['custom_fields']))
{
foreach ($message['member']['custom_fields'] as $custom)
if (empty($custom['placement']) && !empty($custom['value']))
echo '
<li>', $custom['title'], ': ', $custom['value'], '</li>';
}
into the section that starts with something like this line:
<ul class="reset smalltext" id="msg_', $message['id'], '_extra_info">';
For reference, check Themes/core/Display.template.php for a correct implementation.
I find this stuff by inspecting the element that's missing (in this case the shop images), then searching the Themes directory for a likely string.
In this case, I found the code like so:
drazharln@alphacentauri2 in www
› ack _extra_info --php Themes
Themes/astronomy_22/Display.template.php
231: <ul class="reset smalltext" id="msg_', $message['id'], '_extra_info">';
820: \'msg_', $msgid, '_extra_info\',
Themes/astronomy_22/PersonalMessage.template.php
203: <ul class="reset smalltext" id="msg_', $message['id'], '_extra_info">';
Themes/core/Help.template.php
782: <ul id="msg_1_extra_info" class="reset smalltext">
Themes/core/Display.template.php
231: <ul class="reset smalltext" id="msg_', $message['id'], '_extra_info">';
843: \'msg_', $msgid, '_extra_info\',
Themes/core/PersonalMessage.template.php
203: <ul class="reset smalltext" id="msg_', $message['id'], '_extra_info">';
Themes/Redsy/Display.template.php
264: <ul class="reset smalltext" id="msg_', $message['id'], '_extra_info">';
859: \'msg_', $msgid, '_extra_info\',
Themes/Redsy/PersonalMessage.template.php
214: <ul class="reset smalltext" id="msg_', $message['id'], '_extra_info">';
Themes/default/Display.template.php
254: <ul class="reset smalltext" id="msg_', $message['id'], '_extra_info">';
940: \'msg_', $msgid, '_extra_info\',
Themes/default/PersonalMessage.template.php
196: <ul class="reset smalltext" id="msg_', $message['id'], '_extra_info">';
Themes/default/Aeva.template.php
457: <td valign="top" class="windowbg2"', $amSettings['show_extra_info'] == 1 ? ' rowspan="2"' : '', '>
551: if ($amSettings['show_extra_info'] == 1)
555: <div class="titlebg" style="margin: 0 -4px 2px -4px; padding: 7px 0 5px 8px"><h3>', $txt['aeva_extra_info'], '</h3></div>';
566: <div class="title_bar"><h3 class="titlebg ae_header" style="margin-bottom: 8px">' . $txt['aeva_extra_info'] . '</h3></div>' : '', '
Themes/default/languages/Aeva.french.php
206:$txt['aeva_extra_info'] = 'M�tadonn�es Exif';
516:$txt['aeva_admin_settings_show_extra_info'] = 'Montrer les donn�es Exif';
Themes/default/languages/Aeva.english.php
216:$txt['aeva_extra_info'] = 'Exif Metadata';
526:$txt['aeva_admin_settings_show_extra_info'] = 'Show Exif data';
Themes/default/languages/Aeva.french-utf8.php
206:$txt['aeva_extra_info'] = 'Métadonnées Exif';
516:$txt['aeva_admin_settings_show_extra_info'] = 'Montrer les données Exif';
Themes/smac/Display.template.php
264: <ul class="reset smalltext" id="msg_', $message['id'], '_extra_info">';
860: \'msg_', $msgid, '_extra_info\',
Themes/smac/PersonalMessage.template.php
227: <ul class="reset smalltext" id="msg_', $message['id'], '_extra_info">';
Themes/enterprise_smf20final/Display.template.php
254: <ul class="reset smalltext" id="msg_', $message['id'], '_extra_info">';
940: \'msg_', $msgid, '_extra_info\',
Themes/Music_2_0/Display.template.php
243: <ul class="reset smalltext" id="msg_', $message['id'], '_extra_info">
861: \'msg_', $msgid, '_extra_info\',
Themes/smax/Display.template.php
264: <ul class="reset smalltext" id="msg_', $message['id'], '_extra_info">';
860: \'msg_', $msgid, '_extra_info\',
Themes/smax/PersonalMessage.template.php
227: <ul class="reset smalltext" id="msg_', $message['id'], '_extra_info">';
From that, I just looked in the Themes/core/Display.template.php for that section and found something likely. You could try something similar for the Users logged in bit. Search on element ids or classes, not full text.
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...I'll need time to process this... Nice work on the Shop display in SMAC. Now I need to try the move Display.template.php trick elsewhere.
Everybody hit refresh, and have a look at THIS:
(http://alphacentauri2.info/Themes/Winter/images/theme/thumbnail.png)
I figured out a clever background art workaround for the code junk that was balking me. I am satisfied with Winter.
P.S. :danc: :danc: :danc: :danc: :danc: :danc: :danc: :danc: :danc: :danc:
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When moving the Display.template.php, try just moving it to Display.template.php.disabled
That should stop SMF using it but keep it around for us to easily refer to and possibly regress to if necessary. I've moved the old smac theme Display.blah file back into the directory using that naming scheme, in case we need it.
Congratulations on the winter theme :)
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A few comments:
1. I do not like "Redsy." At all.
2. I'm currently back to Enterprise, and the text in the Code-tagged posts above is invisible unless I mouse over it.
3. Not sure what's up with the Summer theme, when I'm trying to reply, the smileys and other parts of it keep marching right over the right-hand border (the vertical green strip, which I assume the smileys are not supposed to extend past).
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I moved Display.template.php for Green Core into its .css folder - and later moved it back. It borked up too many things, like posts were sorta nesting. Core is too heavily modded to do much more than the color change I already did, too many features don't work, and I'm thinking we don't need it.
The Enterprise problem sounds like a text color one I can track down.
I'll have a look at Summer - I wouldn't be a bit surprised if I didn't create that glitch.
I sorta want to cycle through the rest tweaking first, but of course I plan to eventually see what I can make of Redsy.
Any reason not to do Core, anyone?
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Not sure what you mean by that - are you asking if we want to keep Core, modify it, or delete it? ???
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...It's taking up a slot, and its only value is that that I snuck in Green1's avatar. Other than that, it's both bland and defective. I want to cast it into the outer (green) darkness, beyond the Wall of the world...
I was just in Redsy, and --- round avatars whether you want them or not in MY forum? It's less likely than you think. There's a whole laudry list of problems, no pagetop menu being a deal-breaker alone.
The only thing going for it is Draz liking it, and I DO mean only - or it would never have made the cut after my first look. Toss that loser out there to keep Green Core company, and we're down to 12.
-And I still think we should choose between Halloween and Thanksgiving, which would make 11.
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Hmmm. I'm in Lazy Summer in both IE and Chrome right now, and there's a problem I see in IE but not Chrome -probably two problems. Draz' code boxes bork up the post display width and on the Reply page, it appears the Post Reply line right under the breadcrumbs is pushing the left sidebar off the page on the right, and all the previous posts are displaying wide - probably both the code box problem.
I haven't the foggiest how to tackle browser inconsistencies...
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I don't mind losing Green Core and Redsy.
Has the underlining problem been fixed in Thanksgiving?
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Not by me - I'm stumped.
Gonna go defenestrate Green Core now...
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You're talking about the "Core" theme. Please only delete the "Green core" theme and not the "Core" pseudo theme. The "Core" theme is special and part of how SMF works.
The value of Redsy is that the html produced is very simple and clean and the css that styles it is also more easily modifiable. It's not there to be a great theme on its own and indeed has some serious problems. If you really don't want it there, I don't mind it being removed, but a slightly altered version of it would be a suitable base for making all these themes (or maybe an altered version of something with the same positive qualities but less different like Fastline (http://demo.smftricks.com/index.php?topic=17.msg18#new). Needs more opacity, obviously).
As for the code boxes displaying too wide, do you mean the general problem on all themes? This would be easy to fix if our themes didn't do layout through html tables. As it is, this is proving hard to fix satisfactorily (evein in Redsy, which doesn't use tables - PortaMx helpfully inserts some tables).
In modern times, we fix browser inconsistencies partly by using normalisation css files, simpler html and css, and partly via a kind of witchrcaft. Most web designers stopped pandering to IE versions less than 8 or maybe 10 a while ago, though. You could try including normalize.css (google it) in the broken theme (can use an @include directive in index.css).
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I haven't deleted anything since I purged all the broken junk themes from the server.
Green Core is Core with green backgrounds altered in in the first place, and I've only turned it off as an available theme. I think I'll do the same to Redsy today - but add the current missing images first, in case you want to bring it back and work on it in the future. It's all easily undone, w/o even needing to reload anything.
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I found the css that was making the page display with an unneeded horizontal scrollbar and I've fixed it.
(It was the width: 98% attribute on the #main_menu class. I found it by inspecting the page and then deleting elements until I found it)
I've restricted the size of code elements and embedded images in the smac theme. It's not a great fix, because of the tables (tables make controlling the size of html elements really quite difficult). Please test on IE.
Code to restrict size of image:
.bbc_img
{
...
max-width: 65vw;
height: auto;
}
Code to restrict width of code elements:
code.bbc_code
{
...
max-width: 65vw;
}
The two problems with this approach are that:
1) the vw (percentage of viewport width) unit is not well supported in older versions of IE
2) this is a bad hack that doesn't respect the space of other elements (i.e. the portaMX side bar) or the width of the central content column.
The first thing isn't so bad, browsers that don't understand the vw unit will just ignore it and be no worse off. The second thing is pretty terrible and might be so bad as to not use this technique (it may make the elements look worse on some screen resolutions).
Try it out and see what you think.
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Please stand by while your request is being processed. We appreciate your business.
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Wait; are you talking about SMAC? The extra on the right is certainly gone. -Now to make sure you weren't talking about Lazy Summer...
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Must not have been Lazy Summer - there's still extra on the right on the Reply page, and since I rolled it over to a new page last post, it ain't the code box. -But that must have been what borked the post view width on the last page, 'cause it's gone now.
All I'm getting on the Reply page, BTW, is the right sidebar pushed off and a scrollbar at the bottom. The box is the right width, the smiles and buttons are where they should be, and the only real problem is the Topic Summary of previous posts is wide. That may be the code box, too. -Hold on while I check a thread without one.
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Uno's Random thread had not display problems in post view or Reply. Must be the code box.
-I can't even try to reproduce Valka's problem, since my Firefox won't log in...
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Draz, what have you been up to? The page width is right since my last post. Wait - no, when I go to modify my last post and the 8:11 post w/ the huge code box is still displaying, still Miraimed. It's the code box width problem, all right.
Now to go turn back into Billy Batson...
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The changes were only for SMAC.
Try ctrl+f5 on the broken page. If it's still broken, attach a screenshot.
If it's broken enough that we should revert, I've detailed my changes in the earlier posts, so it should be fairly easy for you to do so if I'm not online.
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Top of the previous page, and modify page for the post immediately following the code box post, to reproduce the Reply width problem - same page as Reply, I think.
No joy with [Crtl]F5.
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Uno's Random thread had not display problems in post view or Reply. Must be the code box.
-I can't even try to reproduce Valka's problem, since my Firefox won't log in...
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Draz, what have you been up to? The page width is right since my last post. Wait - no, when I go to modify my last post and the 8:11 post w/ the huge code box is still displaying, still Miraimed. It's the code box width problem, all right.
Now to go turn back into Billy Batson...
It is unfortunate that BUncle cannot always become ;bu;. As a result, ;bu;->BUncle.
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[supershrug] I gotta be in whatever's the default theme as my default, so I can see what the most people are seeing.
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I didn't do anything to any of the other themes. Try porting my changes across if you're happy with the effect in SMAC.
If this effect is new try undoing whatever last changes you've done.
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I suspect the code box problem was there all along - it doesn't come up constantly.
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Draz, I placed a copy of all the theme.zips I had on the external drive I keep my SMACX stuff in that themes we've kept are based on in the folders for each theme, and deleted the lot, freeing up a lot of memory for me. I didn't do that with minecraft, 'cause SMAX was a dupe of proto-SMAC theme based on Black Ops overwriting Minecraft, but I could fish it back out of the Recycle Bin if you think there's any point.
-Incidentally, I'm running out of space on the old external drive, while the much-larger onboard is only about a quarter full after approaching five years now - I'd get a lot better performance if I copied everything to C: and disconnected the external and stored it as an archive, wouldn't I? The virus scanner would gum up the works less while it runs daily, at least, yes?
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Question for everyone: It would be a pain cramming everything from both into the background again, and I see no good way to accommodate Yitzi not wanting to look at the Believers logo, but I honestly liked the combined AC/AX theme I started with, with blue AND green, a little better for looking at.
Would we be better off with a combined SMACX theme than keeping up two? What say you?
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Removed the tabs at the top of each post from the SMAC theme when I noticed they were broken anyway. Also hid the .botslice span.
Main waste of vertical space is all the junk around the profile image. Can you think of a way of reordering it to use a less ridiculous amount of space?
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Answering your questions: data transfers off external drives are much slower, so yeah, better to copy the files onto your internal disk.
Re Question for everyone, I dunno. Haven't seen your combined theme. Could just make a variant of the theme without the logo for Yitzi it only appears once in the background. What does he dislike about it anyway?
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You're talking about the SMAC theme?
Hmm. All that comes to mind right away is that
Posts: 31078
€734
View Inventory
Send /Gift
Would save two lines if it was arranged
Posts: 31078 €734
View Inventory Send /Gift
;nod
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That is probably all that can be done without hiding things. It is a bit annoying that the profile column for users with custom items, etc, use almost the entire vertical space on my screen, even for one line posts.
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...That's something I've wrestled with on the Shop Item display all along. People have expressed interest in having Items display -Uno is actually frustrated that the display is limited to four items, but it was for exactly the reason you cite that I limited it- trying to at least keep it down to one line. I wish I could at least make everything smaller, but it's already not a lot of pixels to work with and have the result come out looking like anything. I don't know, man; there's a tangible benefit to these flashy bells and whistles like Shop, themes and games, but there's trade-offs, too. That's why I say juggling a lot when I'm talking about running the place...
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As for combining the SMAC and SMACX for a green and blue theme: I like the idea, or at least having two colors in one or both. Another visually interesting possibility would be keeping one green and one blue, but each having two tones of it's color. I have no idea how easy or hard that would be, but it's what I do with my retro "classic windows" custom theme on my rig. (Naturally, I use two shades of the lime/chartruse/new grass green part of the spectrum, 'cause that's what I likes ;lol)
I'm trying the SMAX one atm, and find it works well and is readable with only one glitch:
on the forum pages, between the top line of HOME | FORUM | etc and the strip with my avatar and the search box, all the stuff is shifted waay to the right and mostly clear off the screen.
I'm looking at it in Firefox, and haven't tried a different browser. It's not a problem for me, but I figured you might like to know just to raise your stress level. You do like stress, don't you? Um, hmm, I thought so.
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See if you get that in SMAC, which has a lot of improvements we've yet to apply to SMAX.
...I'm thinking I should do a concept illo made from a screenshot with half the colors changed...
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All is good in SMAC, right where it ought to be.
This switching themes frequently has turned out to be fun. Love the variety :)
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All is good in SMAC, right where it ought to be.
This switching themes frequently has turned out to be fun. Love the variety :)
Maybe there should be a "random" theme, which changes randomly once per day.
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...THAT is a fantastic idea if Draz knows how to engineer it without a lot of trouble...
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Ah. Turns out I saved a 'thumbnail' from before I split the themes...
I think it has infinitely more visual appeal with not all shades of one color.
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And now, the worst smilie ever:
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Not to mention the largest. Try dropping that into a post a CFC to promote the forum! ;lol
(mind you, a lot of people would be jealous because we've got such a wide variety of forum skins here)
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They should be jealous...
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...In fact, following on that I did a little thing over a week ago with the page-top design of CFC's Classic theme. I've been hesitant to post this there, 'cause I see no likelihood of it ever being acted on, and I am trying not to come off so critical all the time.
See previous attachment for the actual layout that robs me of a second or two of my finite lifetime scrolling extra on every. single. page I browse there.
I moved the two top menu lines together -every control on the Camp's pagetop could use lowering to be closer to the content- moved the breadcrumbs box as low as I could, eliminated the superfluous line telling me were I was, since the breadcrumbs tell me that, eliminated an uncollapsible notice added since I took the whale screeny -and the rest was entirely just reducing the outlandish amount of padding between and within the various lines to a still-generous (more than I would be if it were my place) 5 pixels.
It's a conservative redesign that looks like the old page, only more user-friendly and I can see the entire first post before I even scroll down.
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...And for good OCD-tendencies measure, I did the same up a level with the Site forum itself, which is even worse. See the first two attachments illustrating having to scroll down a half page just to see the top of the first sticky. (Your mileage may vary according to the resolution and shape of your monitor, but all of these are actual proportions, scaled-down for display convenience.)
There's four different lines telling me where I am redundantly. I did the same things as in the previous of a thread view, and the last attachment is that, with half. a. page. space saved - at least you could see the first sticky before you started scrolling, this way...
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So that's what the banner ad looks like.
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Also? That's a lovely logo ;b; -but it doesn't fit the space.
I'm not going to blow a few hours redesigning their logo -strongly tempted as I am- but put the two lines side-by-side and reduce the cute shadowed barbarian guy to about 1/3 the height. That saves (the OCD tendencies force me to load a screeny and actually measure) from 420x118 to 810x83 (it only needed 43 pixels height, but the Google search bar thing hogs x83 and the little guy does look a lot better that big.
Crap. I ended up doing a redesign except for fixing the shadow. Gotta watch those darn OCD tendancies.
Anyway, I measure a 65 pixel height savings, about an inch, from that change alone - and I daresay it actually looks better on the page laid out the way. The black bar at the bottom of the attachment represents that.
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Draz - is there a more efficient way to make a copy of Curve to alter -w/o all the extra default folder stuff in there- than just copying everything to a new folder?
I've had a cute idea...
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You can save some actions by using the administration themes panel thing to make a copy. Then it'll be registered with SMF and copied.
I'm using this from my phone, and forgot you'd removed redsy: it's quite annoying to browse the forum without a responsive theme. Just checked on demo.smftricks and fastline isn't responsive, either. Might have to just edit redsy to be more acceptable to you lot and put it back.
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Okay - if it's phone-friendly, it's good for something.
I actually tried that Admin copy thing weeks ago - it claimed to have done it, but I've not the foggiest where the files are.
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Might as well just manually copy, then.
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Okay, I've put Redsy back for you, and just figured out how to make that copy thing work.
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Also? That's a lovely logo ;b; -but it doesn't fit the space.
I don't disagree with you. And I think you've done a great job with figuring this stuff out.
Thing is, the skin I use over there is Dark Blue and the logo looks totally different.
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Too bad...
Draz, I'm running into permissions restrictions on /Themes/Copy/images. It's a problem.
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Fixed.
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Sir. [bows]
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...Day four of busy nit-picking on a project no one but me will think is funny...
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Oh, cheer up! We'll at least think it's funny that you're doing it ;lol
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;lol
That's an interesting way of putting it.
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Carry on intrepid codemonkey! The GUI's of this site and the game itself are are the foundation that all else rests on - let's make them solid rock!
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Correction: people are our foundation. The rest is bait and tools.
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You're totally correct. I was taking a much narrower view of the mechanics alone.
/bows to the Uncle's greater wisdom
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:D I have to think about this stuff a lot.
-And I haven't paid enough attention to the tech/bells and whistles in the past. This is a growth experience for me - and good for the community, since I'm Johnny-on-the-spot. The look of things certainly matters to users, and the BaW improvements have certainly attracted a lot of positive member reaction.
The default SMF look we sport isn't exactly low-rent or anything, but it's SO bland...
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...If I knew where in the stylesheets to find the padding between the windowbg elements on the index page to adjust, I'd be a happy man...
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...In the home stretch on this one, maybe. Only one thing left I really want to fix before I unveil...
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...I can't believe I hadn't been in the SMAX theme since Draz changed the folder name on the server. Why didn't anyone tell me the logo's been AWOL for over a week?
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...I've thought of something clever...
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Remember the old Firaxis AC site that we rescued?
I've always been fond of that look, as anyone familiar with my custom factions page may have guessed.
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...I can't believe I hadn't been in the SMAX theme since Draz changed the folder name on the server. Why didn't anyone tell me the logo's been AWOL for over a week?
Would that be related to my post Aug 21?:
I'm trying the SMAX one atm, and find it works well and is readable with only one glitch:
on the forum pages, between the top line of HOME | FORUM | etc and the strip with my avatar and the search box, all the stuff is shifted waay to the right and mostly clear off the screen.
I'm looking at it in Firefox, and haven't tried a different browser. It's not a problem for me, but I figured you might like to know just to raise your stress level. You do like stress, don't you? Um, hmm, I thought so.
I'm still using the SMAC one atm, any others I should try and admire now?
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Let's see if I can't get this new thing ready in the next hour or so, first...
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It's ready. Have a look at the SMAX theme...
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I do believe at first glance it's a lovely as the SMAC one. Yet green :D
Ok. Now. How do I get SMAC and SMAX to strobe back and forth every few seconds?
Your idea of a two color green and blue theme still has merit. More "eye catching", but not too gaudy, and might give some options to differentiate sectors of the site, or items on each page by color.
Naturally, I'd love to be the one picking the colors, since I love doing that and you're already overworked, but I doubt I have the knowledge or time to be any real help. Sorry...
I'm just guessing here, but I suspect it might also be reasonably usable by red-green colorblind folks (they can't see red, but can see both blue and green). That would have to be confirmed by someone who actually is, of course). There are icons and such with yellow, orange, and red color scattered all through the site, so a true RG blind friendly theme would be another project. [The optional color pallet in SMAC reminded me of this, as well as a RG blind friend of mine.]
For the fairly rare blue-green colorblind folks out there....I'm pretty much clueless. And would love to not be....
Overall: We've got a pretty decent looking site here, and with all the buttons and links working should be a friendly and pleasant home for SMACers, and a draw for new folks too.
Now to get the in-game GUI just as nice, eh?
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Okay, this is what I've been working on:
(http://alphacentauri2.info/Themes/FakeCFC/images/thumbnail.gif)
...I think having a fake CFC Modern theme is funny. -So I named it FakeCFC...
I'd be happier if I could track down the spacing between the windowbg elements in the root index and get it looking like the subforum-level displays, but I'm pretty doggon happy. It may not be art, being deliberately derivative, but there's some craftsmanship there. It's actually tighter at the top than the default, despite the logo being half again taller. That's Santiago holding an energy sword in place of the Viking.
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Also, I made a thumb for Redsy this morning:
(http://alphacentauri2.info/Themes/Redsy/images/thumbnail.gif)
Redsy still needs a lot of work - and it's mostly stuff way over my tech paygrade, and no one's paying me.
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I'm going nuts on the SMAX.
I've renamed it Firaxis Old School and am doing the whole thing in gold, white and black - there's a possibility of a little blue and maroon because of the Firaxis logo.
SMAC is to go back to being SMACX, and I'll swap in about half green when I get to that.
...Incidentally, I'm working on a redesign of the look of the Front Page based on FOS - but I don't know how to do some of what I want to, or if it's doable. But a little art project's a project, anyway...
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SMAC is to go back to being SMACX, and I'll swap in about half green when I get to that.
BOOOOO!!! :mad:
If so, I'll go back to default.
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First comment on the themes project and, after weeks of constant hard work, it's a complaint. :P No refunds, man.
I really thought it looked better with a blue and green mix. The split themes are sorta oppressively monotonous to my eye, seriously. Have you seen it like that?
Fortunately I kept a 'thumbnail' of that stage...
(http://alphacentauri2.info/index.php?action=dlattach;topic=4304.0;attach=16471;image)
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The separate blue is less monotonous than the green, but I'm still looking forward to a mix of the two colors.
I assume it's possible to retain the current ones while still adding your new modified versions for community trial and comments, thus avoiding angering Lords? (Peons shouldn't be a concern, as they cannot do anger. They're only allowed 'surly' and 'disgruntled')
In the 'thumbnail' you show in your last post, the shade of blue used for forum catagory titles (eg. The Theory of Everything, Modding, etc.) seems a bit too dark and slightly hard to see against the background. I like the brighter shade used in the top banner for "By SMACers, For SMACers" , it stands out clearly.
Until I get some cataract surgery done (hopefully soon), good contrast, better visibility is a huge help in actually seeing the text well enough to read it.
Disclaimer: I am a fan of bright, mostly primary and secondary colors and detest pastels and drab shades. Not everyone is of course, but that's why you're giving folks choices.
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[shrugs] Shades not exactly alike is more subtle and appealing that all the exact same eye-hurtingly bright hue, in my book. However, of course I'll make sure that one comes out brighter for you this time. Too, keep in mind that those lose a non-trivial degree of sharpness in the reduction from 1345 pixels width to 800 for display and filesize reasons. It stood out more on the page with the crisp edges. My quibble about that shade is that it's a touch too purpley.
Incidentally, I've set the Front Page to default to the Firaxis Old School theme - our preservation of the official pages got us linked on Wikipedia, and I think it's gonna look way cool when I'm done with it, besides. But the Front Page uses a texture block from menu_gfx.png (that's used in some tabs, so I'd hate to just make it black) as background, which looks sorta bland and horrid at the same time.
(http://alphacentauri2.info/MGalleryItem.php?id=960)
Also, the header image (which I just worked into the theme as the logo) is nowhere to be found, which destroys the whole aesthetic/nostalgia point. This is the crap everyone, including the lurkers, sees right now, and it's important that it impress.
Basically, I'd like to make the Front Page look like this:
(http://alphacentauri2.info/MGalleryItem.php?id=959)
-Much more presentable, I daresay. -Or, at the very least, conforming to my vision.
I'm consulting Draz about whether this is technically feasible...
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[shrugs] Shades not exactly alike is more subtle and appealing that all the exact same eye-hurtingly bright hue, in my book. However, of course I'll make sure that one comes out brighter for you this time. Too, keep in mind that those lose a non-trivial degree of sharpness in the reduction from 1345 pixels width to 800 for display and filesize reasons. It stood out more on the page with the crisp edges. My quibble about that shade is that it's a touch too purpley.
Incidentally, I've set the Front Page to default to the Firaxis Old School theme - our preservation of the official pages got us linked on Wikipedia, and I think it's gonna look way cool when I'm done with it, besides. But the Front Page uses a texture block from menu_gfx.png (that's used in some tabs, so I'd hate to just make it black) as background, which looks sorta bland and horrid at the same time.
(http://alphacentauri2.info/MGalleryItem.php?id=960)
Also, the header image (which I just worked into the theme as the logo) is nowhere to be found, which destroys the whole aesthetic/nostalgia point. This is the crap everyone, including the lurkers, sees right now, and it's important that it impress.
Basically, I'd like to make the Front Page look like this:
(http://alphacentauri2.info/MGalleryItem.php?id=959)
-Much more presentable, I daresay. -Or, at the very least, conforming to my vision.
I'm consulting Draz about whether this is technically feasible...
We must all conform to BUncle's vision of this forum :P. ;no
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Fake CFC ;b;
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:D
I was beginning to wonder if anyone would ever care. I only spent six days straight of constant obsessive work figuring it out.
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Today is the first time I noticed. I haven't been keeping up here lately.
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I only made it available about 25 hours ago, and only announced it this morning...
And now, I redid the shadow to fit, and added the attached to AC leaders in the avatar goallery...
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Fake CFC is quite fun :)
;b;
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:D
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Question for the peanut gallery: in the Firaxis theme, do I leave the Alien Crossfire box cover new-posts/no-new-postsf icons alone, or shall I replace them with the Firaxis red spiral image?
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I set the background on the SMAC theme to be contained within the viewport (i.e. background is stretched on high resolution displayed and shrunk on low resolution displays).
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-Just more black will do on Firaxis having the same problem. -Would that be as simple as adding #000 in front of the bg_body url in the .css?
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Avalon-
(http://alphacentauri2.info/index.php?action=dlattach;topic=4304.0;attach=16471;image)
-your reaction to this, please? It IS more blue than green. -Or is your beef with Cha Dawn and suckage?
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I don't like green.
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So any green is too much green? You may have a pleasant surprise if you put on the Firaxis theme and refresh, if you've looked at it before. The thumbnail is a TEENY bit out of date, you see.
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-I'm looking to please Everybody, so feedback is important...
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Could easily just keep the current SMAC theme for those that like it and add a new SMACX theme.
As for your query, BUncle, I don't quite understand what you're asking. If you want the area not covered by the background image to be black, you can do so with #000, as you say, or you can just add a background-color: black; directive.
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I'm thinking about the Kilkakon large monitor problem. I'd need to throw in a center command on the background, wouldn't I?
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Depends what you want to do with the background.
If you want a background image stretched to cover the whole screen, set background-size: cover;
If you want an unscaled background image with a black background for larger screens, try
background-position: top center;
background-image: url(blah);
background-color: black;
background-repeat: no-repeat;
If you don't want the background to scroll with the page, you need to use background-attachment: fixed; as well.
For now, SMAC and the front-template are set to cover (changed 5 min ago, refresh to see).
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Stretch as in scale up or STRETCH (wide)?
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I fixed the drab background on the current Front Page, BTW.
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Scales up while maintaining aspect ratio. See mozilla developer's network entry on background-size.
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Lady and Gentlemen, I give you
Firaxis:
(http://alphacentauri2.info/MGalleryItem.php?id=965)
;nod
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And to my surprise, I like it! Even if it's not blue and green...
Clear, readable, and once I got used to the amberish color, attractive.
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:danc:
We aims to please.
-I reckon I like it myself better than SMAC/SMACX/SMAX. It's pretty 90s with the white-on-black, but clear and attractive.
I probably need to brighten up the background image on SMAC...
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Try clicking the little arrow in the top right. We need to shift that element right-wards.
Also, theme displays a bit weirdly on wide screens (the arrow and the "Old school SMACing" text disappear, maybe other stuff.
In general, though, pretty cool :)
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Checking now... All I noticed while I was working on the theme is that the collapsed stuff ruins the pagetop layout and look, uncollapsed.
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...I think it's acceptable as-is, but I'm moving the pointer a little, and going to put some outside margins back on the greetings and news. Stay tuned...
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I've tweaked the slogan, upshrink image, greetings and news. They're positioned better now, and if I understand what you were pointing out, putting some margins back on the collapser has enlarged the click window considerably.
-I have to use negative top margin values to get those up top where I need them so they don't push the whole rest of the page down, and so they may still do something weird on larger monitors - but they shouldn't vanish off the sides, at least. Please advise...
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This is Gone Fishin, pretty close to out-of-the-box, near the beginning of this project:
(http://alphacentauri2.info/MGalleryItem.php?id=966)
It's a misleading image, 'cause I cheated and moved BE up over an inch in GIMP to get a category in the thumbnail to look good for the display on the choose a theme page.
(One dead giveaway that a theme is not going to save you a lot of scrolling down is when I have to clip some of the logo off the top in the thumbnail.)
It's a pig, out of the box. A real top-space hog ;no -Enterprise is bad that way, too.- and I didn't have the foggiest where to find the special main menu in the .css a month ago, and no idea how to unstack of the news and greeting crap to take up less top.
Well, I've worked out a lot in the meanwhile, and today's revisiting was gratifying. (The stuff I needed was tacked on at the very bottom of the code, Draz.)
Another big limit I was up against was needing to leave in enough of the sunset and lake. Rusty Edge loves this theme - and we all love Rusty. The illustration makes it look like the slot revealing the shore and sunset just fell in the same place - and let me assure you that there was a lot more to it than that.
And now, I can proudly present, Gone Fishin on a day they were really bitin':
(http://alphacentauri2.info/MGalleryItem.php?id=968)
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Lady and Gentlemen, I give you
Firaxis:
(http://alphacentauri2.info/MGalleryItem.php?id=965)
;nod
Love it :)
Though there are some holes in this style at the resolution I use (Yellow bars and to the left of the avatar on the top of the screen).
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...I have to think about this for a while. I'm not sure if anything can be done about the bars - that's an oversight in the code I didn't make, though I could probably patch in a gold background color that wouldn't look good, but better, in the gaps, if I knew where to find the line in the code.
The other one is a function of I didn't design it with the greetings and news always uncollapsed in mind, and the stuff I tweaked last night. Refresh and see if the slogan and upshrink pointer turn up in the vicinity of the top right corner; collapse the extra, and the gap goes away.
...I can always draw a white stripe through the logos to the left, but that's an inelegant solution...
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Sadly nothing did appear that I could collapse.
But even with those gaps, I like the theme anyways. 8)
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I Just thought of a clever art dodge that's more likely to bork other things, but worth a try. I can see exactly what happened with the bars at your width and know which file that's in. Hold on a few minutes while I boot some programs...
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Okay; hit refresh again. It borked up other stuff as I feared, but I may be on to something I can adjust to make work...
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...And for a short-term solution to the other problem, I think if you zoom in about 50% -I find I can replicate your problem by zooming out- the collapse pointer (and old school slogan) will appear, and you can make those useless elements at the top go away...
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Okay, I'm making progress; if I can find where to go to make the board categories center, I can move the twist in the bar to their left, maybe. I have to figure out where to put it to show for Other Games and onward, too, or figure out why they're different than Sid Meier’s Civilization: Beyond Earth and Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri & Alien Crossfire. Probably just the length of the category names.
This has to work in the usual resolution before anything else, of course.
Wait. No, the twists are moved by how much I extended the width of the file. Hold; I think I've got it.
...I'm going to have to do all the same fixes to the equivalent (but blue) file for SMAC once I get this arranged...
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I highly appreciate the effort you put into this !
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No sweat. A pedant craves perfection, and that's me lately. Did the zooming work?
Okay, I think I've figured out how the program find what it wants in the graphic elements file. -It just counts from the edges. I'm gonna widen the file about 25% more for good measure to accommodate really ridiculously high resolutions...
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No sweat. A pedant craves perfection, and that's me lately. Did the zooming work?
Zooming once fixes the gaps in the top Bars. However to get rid of the bars at "other games" and "community" I have to zoom in three times because those gaps are bigger.
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Fear not, my kraut friend. Attached is an as-is screeny of the index zoomed to 50% in Chrome, a resolution that astronauts don't have good enough vision to read the posts at, so as far as I need to go. Hit refresh and enjoy. ([Ctl]F5 if you see no change.)
That part's fixed. We'll prob'ly need Draz for the collapse pointer problem.
...Now I gotta do the same to SMAC, but this time, I know what I'm doing, and it'll take just minutes...
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...And for a short-term solution to the other problem, I think if you zoom in about 50% -I find I can replicate your problem by zooming out- the collapse pointer (and old school slogan) will appear, and you can make those useless elements at the top go away...
-The search page accessible from the menu is far less lame a search function and the greetings links are redundant to stuff at the top of your right sidebar... ;nod
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Go to the Front Page and refresh, y'all, no matter what theme you're in. I've figured out something semi-clever.
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Fear not, my kraut friend. Attached is an as-is screeny of the index zoomed to 50% in Chrome, a resolution that astronauts don't have good enough vision to read the posts at, so as far as I need to go. Hit refresh and enjoy. ([Ctl]F5 if you see no change.)
!!!
Awesome!
If you ever make it to the Oktoberfest here in Munich, I owe you a beer. Some TRUE beer ;)
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Any luck with collapsing the superfluous stuff?
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Any luck with collapsing the superfluous stuff?
finally, yes.
I had to zoom in even 2 more times, then the button for collapsing it appeared.
;b;
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I'm still moving those elements around, trying to fix that...
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Okay; I've nailed down the vanishing slogan/collapse pointer problem. The header image is 99 pixels high so the white lines can match up, and the index is cheated upwards into the black (transparent, actually, under/inside the line) with a negative top margin. Those two elements, which keep the index from creeping upwards at top margin values of zero or greater (when they only go up to the bottom of the .99 pixel space, also have negative values entered to move them up over the logo header where they traditionally go. When zoomed out sufficiently (or the monitor is wide enough to do the equivalent) -in Chrome on my screen, in their current position of right-margin,
(http://alphacentauri2.info/index.php?action=dlattach;topic=4304.0;attach=16501;image)
that's 75%- they slide out from under that 99 pixel space and fly off into infinite negative top-space. (Actually, hovering out of sight about -9em over the screen.)
This's at 0 top margin, so they stop butted against the top of the screen zoomed at 75%.
(http://alphacentauri2.info/index.php?action=dlattach;topic=4304.0;attach=16502;image)
-SO; first, I'm going to try leaving them atop the root directory body under the line, and find that negative top value for the index, which I'll increase by 33 to compensate for the gap the pointer not going negative inflicts.
If that don't work, putting the header onto the background art might do it, but it'll take some jiggering and cleverness I haven't clevered up yet to keep the curve in the line and keep the top as tight as I insist on, which'll require a bit of skull-sweat...
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Hmm. The -33 moved the index up fine and dandy, but the slogan & pointer didn't move with them.
Still on it...
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This has been herding cats, and I'm not done, but I have to zoom all the way out to 50%, where astronauts won't go for long, to get it to disappear.
Now to re-arrange one last thing to balance out to color distribution change that caused, and I can get back to hunting down whitey...
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Whitey is looking tough to disable w/o disabling a lot of stuff - and I don't even have a good scent on that much...
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The current lineup and standings.
Forum or Board Default
(http://alphacentauri2.info/Themes/default/images/thumbnail.gif)
This is the default theme, which means your theme will change along with the administrators' settings and the board you are viewing.
11607 people are using this theme.
SMF Default Theme - Curve
(http://alphacentauri2.info/Themes/default/images/thumbnail.gif)
The default theme from Simple Machines.
Author: The Simple Machines Team
11607 people are using this theme.
Enterprise
(http://alphacentauri2.info/Themes/enterprise_smf20final/images/thumbnail.gif)
1 person is using this theme.
GoneFishin
(http://alphacentauri2.info/Themes/GoneFishin/images/thumbnail.gif)
Fishing Theme.
Gone Fishin by PixelMansion.
1 person is using this theme.
Astronomy
(http://alphacentauri2.info/Themes/astronomy_22/images/thumbnail.gif)
A mixture of purple and indigo colours that gives your forum an astronomic ambience.
Author: Aäron van Geffen.
0 people are using this theme.
The Chilling
(http://alphacentauri2.info/Themes/The%20Chilling/images/thumbnail.gif)
1 person is using this theme.
Firaxis AC Website Old School
(http://alphacentauri2.info/Themes/Firaxis/images/theme/thumbnail.gif)
Inspired by the Firaxis Alpha Centauri webpages (that we rescued and host a mirror of, now that the original has been retired) and offered with nostalgia & pride.
Author: BU (& Firaxis Games).
7 people are using this theme.
SMAC
(http://alphacentauri2.info/Themes/smac/images/thumbnail.gif)
4 people are using this theme.
Winter
(http://alphacentauri2.info/Themes/Winter/images/theme/thumbnail.png)
A stark but beautiful theme celebrating winter.
Author: BU.
1 person is using this theme.
Ostara
(http://alphacentauri2.info/Themes/ostara1/images/thumbnail.gif)
0 people are using this theme.
Thanksgiving
(http://alphacentauri2.info/Themes/thanksgiving/images/thumbnail.png)
Thanksgiving Theme by SMFHacks.com - SMF Mods
0 people are using this theme.
Lazy Summer
(http://alphacentauri2.info/Themes/Lazy%20Summer/images/thumbnail.gif)
1 person is using this theme.
Halloween
(http://alphacentauri2.info/Themes/adk_Hallowen/images/thumbnail.gif)
Hallowen theme based on the default theme of Smf 2.0 Gold enjoy it !!!!!
Designed by enik
0 people are using this theme.
Redsy
(http://alphacentauri2.info/Themes/Redsy/images/thumbnail.gif)
Theme from SMFTricks.
Author: Daniiel
0 people are using this theme.
FakeCFC
(http://alphacentauri2.info/Themes/FakeCFC/images/theme/thumbnail.png)
Because we thought it would be funny.
Author: BU (& whomever made CFC Modern).
2 people are using this theme.
Well, you can see what's seeing use and what's not. Some of the numbers will probably change profoundly as people find the themes, which is thousands of people. These themes haven't been at a reasonable number and all working for very long, and most pay no attention to chatter in Council Room...
Firaxis seems to be well-received; it was doing half the business of SMAC before.
Enterprise is a dog that would be long-gone to 'a farm in the countryside where it can run and play' by now if Valka wasn't sitting in her rocking chair on the front porch with her trusty phaser rifle in her lap. Between no logo, no menu pull-downs -thus no way to access things like Downloads- and not having anything to do with Star Trek whatsoever but the name, it needs either a major overhaul to fix all three issues -maybe I can do that, depending on how baroque the mods to the .css are and whether I can find what I need to change- or retirement with extreme sanction.
I wish I could fix the underlining in Thanksgiving in Firefox, as I sense I'd have permission to put away Halloween if I did that; but browser-specific problems are a complete mystery to me.
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Man; the jigsaw image atop Enterprise is TALL. Like Thunderfall designed it, only imaginative. This is going to be an interesting job...
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(http://alphacentauri2.info/MGalleryItem.php?id=969)
So, if the Enterprise theme is a dog, it's now had a bath and, after some grooming, turns out to be a purebred show winner. ^This^ just didn't have a lot going for it.
The background is a jigsaw, with corners and repeating middles, eight sections in all. That put limits on what I could do, and took a while to figure out and get all the replacements to line up just so. The physical dimensions of those files also determine the margins of the pages - literally; I'd have saved hours -half the day- of searching for margin settings in the .css if I'd known that going in.
It also keeps some files in unique places, and lack the main_block and menu_gfx files all other themes I've worked on use. I think I'm going ton have to make a menus_gfx.png for the last thing I hope to do.
I found and installed the files for two missing post formatting buttons, and I tracked down invisible link color and corrected.
I figured an easy way to dump the superfluous toppspace-hogging crap, though I had no luck -and wasted hours trying- to bring back the collapse pointer so I could just close them.
But now, here it is, (and I put a number of people known to me to be fans); I present Enterprise:
(http://alphacentauri2.info/MGalleryItem.php?id=970)
:proud:
It's got all the displays and functions working that I want in a keeper theme - except the menu pull-downs. I've concluded that I'll have to strip out the modded menu to get them back; I think I can get the standard menu to use a patched-together image made for what the mod uses as a background, and make it work right and look almost identical.
-Or break the theme real bad and have to reload the .css it came with from the zip, and loose all the settings I changed today... [shrugs] Without risk, there would be none of the themes I've fixed up. Risk is our business.
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...I think stripping out the menu mod is gonna work -but there's a lot of search-and-fiddle left to do to make the original code work again and get the drop-downs back. A bonus is that I think I can ST up the menu buttons more, once I get things basically working...
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This is a LOT of very nit-picking work.
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The problem's in index.tamplate.php - the pull-down stuff is gone, and I don't know how to put it back. The whole thing's been restructured, and the syntax is touchy enough when working with something still ordered like the default.
I'm gonna try to put back the menu mod and work with that - I've made a cute modification to the buttons, and I'll apply same to the main menu.
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There's still some tweaking left to do on the button proportions, but Enterprise is basically done - until such time as I get some help on the dropdown menus. (Or figure out what the mirrortab stuff does - I can probably TOS that up, if I knew what it showed.)
Hit refresh and check out the menu upgrades:
(http://alphacentauri2.info/Themes/enterprise/images/theme/thumbnail.png)
Man, I took a little break from Starfleet to add descriptions to themes that had none -since I wrote blurbs for everything (but Redsy, which I suddenly realize I forgot) yesterday for a promotional themes picture album on AC2's Facebook page- and Thanksgiving just REALLY fought me. It took me a half hour of tweaking that .php before I realized I'd used an apostrophe in my text. [shakes head] P-[censored]H-P syntax...
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Everything has SOME sort of description now.
Now for a little lunch, and then back to fiddling with those buttons in Enterprise...
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I got onto trying to do something bright and Sulu's-control-panel with buttons like logout in the right sidebar, and post and preview - and it turns out that in Enterprise, that's linked to the background color of the text entry box you type in, which I want pretty light and bland - I don't know about you- so, no-go.
An attempt to end-run that having the buttons cover the background with .gif button images? Only fit one size -which I expect I could have figured out a fix- and covered the background in the text box with a rectangular pattern, the button image. Even worse.
So I had to settle for a bright border trick. It's not Sulu firing the phasers, but still pretty cute.
-And I think I know how to work something like those in elsewhere...
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...Should I make the line enclosing the body of the forum ST red-orange, or would that be too much of a good thing?...
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Draz, Inspect Element is not being sufficiently helpful in telling me what's pushing the post view about 10 pixels too far right and making a scrollbar appear...
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It's the Facebook comment bar at the bottom in BE, I think - no such problem in a couple of forums that don't have it.
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Okay, I think I see what the buttons I'm working on need - but tomorrow; my bed's singing to me.
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Thing is, I had to add a row to my custom-created menu_gfx.png to do what I had in mind, and that threw a few other things off that had to be corrected - then a lot of tweaking the numbers determining what point was sampled in the file, tweaking the art and re-uploading, saving the code changes and navigating into a subforum to have a look after hitting refresh to see the changes --- a LOT of trial and error. As always, my understanding of how things fit together -a family talent, good grasp of that- and what does what has grown.
There are things that just cannot be done under the current arrangement of code, with doing much to the .php files that merely will not BREAK the theme completely -as in, not load at all- is way over my head. -So, not everything about the buttons is the way I'd rather, but what I can do within the limitations of the setup is finally done - I think.
In the attachment, note the set of new subforum and post-view buttons inserted towards the bottom. That's pretty Trekked up, if you ask me.
-If the menu pull-downs were restored, this would now be right up there with Firaxis and SMAC as my favorites...
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Insert the traditional frivovlous, unhelpful, dancing-something option here (please don't vote this one)
Couldn't resist :-[
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Now that you've gotten it out of your system, you can change your vote.
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Now that you've gotten it out of your system, you can change your vote.
But... I NEVER change my mind.
Okay, changed my mind about never changing it. ;cute
By the way. Its September now, pls appoint a new newb of the month.
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Has it only been a month?
Avalon - why no vote?
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Okay... now I have to play ;yang; to get rid of that inefficiency -.-
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Is trade in inefficient Germans lucrative?
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Avalon - why no vote?
Didn't know there was a poll. I put one in, though I thought it was obvious I want only blue, no green.
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It's the only poll I ever started; humor me.
Have you had a look around in Firaxis?
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...And Enterprise is worth a look now, evil Spock...
I wrapped on Enterprise around noon, and I've been taking another pass at the last four things I wasn't satisfied with in Fake CFC - the spacing/red borders around the panels in the root index, the new post and reply buttons, posts needed a red border, and the text in Child Boards was butted up against the line, needing a little padding.
Done. All tracked down and fixed.
It's been what, about a month I've been doing nothing but working on themes? Folks, I spend all my time on it, and I want to discuss it. Humor me and comment, please.
SO very lonely...
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Firaxis: not bad. Enterprise: possible alternate. I like the old school Enterprise and seeing the whole ship.
FWIW, I appreciate the work you're putting in, even if I don't always like the results.
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Can't please everyone - but I certainly am trying...
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Odd. ???
I went into Astronomy to tighten up the top a little more with my improved skillz, and uncollapsable greetings and news fields had appeared. I don't remember anything like that before, and the last edit I'd done was a month ago to the day. I had to get rid of the interlopers, of course, but that's easy, now, once I found where they are in the .css.
-Astronomy looks like a minor color-change of the default with a background added, but the stylesheet has been profoundly re-arranged, so not so easy as it could have been. Still haven't gotten to what I went in to do...
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...That was going pretty well until I realized something I'd done had caused most of the pull-downs to cut off only about a line down; nobody's getting into Downloads like THAT. I finally realized the position: absolute; line I'd added (to prevent that disappearing at higher resolution when there's a negative top margin - but it turns out the line's wide enough that there was no need) was causing it for some reason. Now, it's just a matter of fiddling with the placement of the breadcrumbs, and I'm done.
-I have snazzed up the active menu menu button a teeny bit -Astronomy could use a smidgen more pop- and made the text in general a bit larger; with all the smallish purple text against a purple background, this theme was clearly made by a youngster with sharper eyes than I.
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(http://alphacentauri2.info/MGalleryItem.php?id=971)
So month ago I'd left it like this.
This was a good theme, not screaming for fixes once I'd replaced the original "ASTRONOMY" logo with OUR logo - but there was a smidge of room for tightening topspace left, and the whole thing was --- uniform. Bland. Just relentlessly pastel purple everywhere. Everybody liked it, but no one STAYED long.
I sorta got carried away while I was in there fiddling around anyway. I ended up turning down the margin padding in the elements of the boxes making up each subforum listing --- and I replaced the purple starscape background with one just as purple, but less pastel, and looking more like night, appropriately. It's really still a light theme with dark borders, but the contrast bores my weak eyes less.
The new thumbnail below doesn't really capture the look properly - the background's lighter and more nebula action as you scroll down; it's really rather striking.
What it does capture is how much more forum is showing at the top, which increases as you scroll down...
(http://alphacentauri2.info/MGalleryItem.php?id=972)
I posted yesterday's updated Enterprise collage shot to an album on AC2's Facebook page (https://www.facebook.com/AlphaCentauri2Forum) this morning; I threw in a #StarTrek tag at the end, and it's doing astonishingly better in views and clicks than the rest of the album combined, mostly up since Wednesday.
So, if you're on Facebook please, PLEASE go have a look at the album and so a little 'like'ing; dare I say some commenting and pic Sharing? Lurkers can't see these nifty themes, so we need to spread the word actively.
(https://scontent-iad3-1.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-xlf1/v/t1.0-9/11998818_882977465103647_2167995323994073746_n.png?oh=d36749fffb624d4e181e6c01227d788d&oe=5668DFB4)
You know any SMACer not on here, but on the Book? Old-school Trekkers? Geeks just into that sort of thing? Let them know. A few seconds liking, commenting, sharing here and there can make an awesome difference in growing our community.
Like the page while you're there, too. Same deal.
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Halloween before:
(http://alphacentauri2.info/MGalleryItem.php?id=974)
After:
(http://alphacentauri2.info/MGalleryItem.php?id=975)
It's always a lot of fun tracking down where in the stylesheet any particular theme has hidden things like the menu and the linktree so I can move around. ;sarc The improvement in topspace really shows in the right sidebar.
This one had the breadcrumbs in a border box generated somewhere other than index.css that I can't find, so I couldn't move it or get rid of it, which introduced a tiny flaw in the background you can make out in the thumbnail, but hope won't stand out for users. Tough for my pedantic soul to let it go at that, but diminishing returns to spend half a day hunting down something so minor.
The very top is a great empty field of black so I decided to swap in the wide version of the logo - which demanded that I center it, which the .css code wouldn't do, so I had to in the art, and which sorta forced me to center the menu under it, which is another thing the stylesheet won't just do - so hours burned on just those.
The bit I like about this pass at the theme best is the customization of the logo. I've done some really cute little thematic adjustments to go with, for example, Winter and Enterprise, and I'm a bit put out that no one has let on that they noticed...
Lean in and look real close; I didn't just turn the planet orange, but the effect I spent so much time on is subtle by design.
I need to update the thumbnail for Curve to reflect changes I made weeks ago, then I'm taking a break to finally watch Star Trek: Renegades after a week, which I anticipate hating even more than most.
Don't forget to vote in the poll at the top of the thread.
-
...Check out the bottom of the right sidebar. I had an idea yesterday, and The Emissary really came through overnight...
-
Now I don't know what caused me to break off work on the Chilling -- Oh. It was something to do with the pic for Firaxis AC Old School not displaying when I woke up to find that notorious Pa Wraith (he's someone's daddy) sisko had embellished the Temple of the AC Prophets with that handy Theme Select box on the right. While I was in there taking a screeny for the updated illo, I thought I'd take a minute to apply the 'position: absolute' line trick to the slogan and pointer.
Typically, the slogan loved it and fell right into line, but the collapse/expand pointer vanished. Took a while to figure out, 'cause for some reason, positioning it doesn't work the same. -Any way, it looks exactly the same as after my last pass, but now they don't vanish at any size - in fact, I have to zoom out to 33% before they move out of position at all.
-And while I was in there, I tracked down and adjusted a few other minor issues. You probably won't notice the difference, but definite improvements.
---
Now back to The Chilling - I was almost through last night, before needing to go to bed so rudely interrupted.
-
...The thing about this work is, you often can't change something without affecting something else you didn't intend. Also, the type the .css code displays in is about two sizes too small, like some Grinch's heart font. So everything takes five times longer, minimum...
But finally in the home stretch on The Chilling. I keep finding stuff in need of attention that I didn't go in there to do, but all to the good if it gets fixed. Here's the changes I did yesterday before bed:
- Fiddled the board title backgrounds to improve the legibility of the titles.
- Those links are green now, which is still a little faint against the quote background, but no longer nearly invisible and looks great everywhere else.
- Re-arranged some index subforum display blocks a little to save vertical space.
- Upped all the smaller font sizes slightly - they struck me as pushing too small for good legibility.
-Jiggering the breadcrumbs and menu top spacing still to go...
-
Green - I saw that you changed themes yourself, so I laid off the sample tour. -But give Fake CFC and the others you haven't been in a cursory look and let me know what you think of everything. The new select box on the right is very convenient.
Have I gotten carried away with the topspace efficiency to the point of too-cramped? I worry.
-
(The Chilling continued)
Realized the Unread Posts thing sitting on the left before the catagories titles was not good, as they sorta ran together and it just didn't belong in front of the title. Fixed. Let me know what that borked - it had been changed for a reason, presumably.
Had to do something to those title colors - still a little dim against the background.
Finally got to tightening up the menu and breadcrumbs top spacing a bit more. Had to adjust the background art to the new configuration. Narrowed to box to fit better, while I was at it. Indented the menu a bit. Had to adjust a width setting to compensate for that making the page run wide/empty space to the right and a bottom scrollbar appearing.
-Each thing mentioned took at least five times longer, really.
Found where to alter the theme credit at the bottom of pages to say 'based on'.
Updated the thumbnail - the one in place was actually outdated before this pass.
(http://alphacentauri2.info/MGalleryItem.php?id=978)
Finally done. All this was relatively a pretty minor effort, taking under a day while I was also busy on the boards.
(http://alphacentauri2.info/MGalleryItem.php?id=979)
Don't forget to express your druthers about SMAC/SMACX theme in the poll.
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Hey! I just realized that now that lurkers and the logged-out can access the themes, stupid Firefox is finally useful! Booting now, to have a look at Thanksgiving...
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Ooh, yuck. Confirmed.
Still no idea what to do about it, but now I can see for myself if I have any ideas...
(Firefox is still of the devil.)
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(http://alphacentauri2.info/MGalleryItem.php?id=963)
(http://alphacentauri2.info/MGalleryItem.php?id=980)
Since nobody will do me the courtesy of discussing for three days in a row, no report on all the imnprovements you'll never figure out I did.
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Bear in mind, BU, a lot of folks may be pulling up your site with smartphones with crap 3G/4G service. Particularly at break on work.
Lots of themes tend to make sites load like crap on these devices. Embedded stuff and java makes it worse.Your front page would destroy a low end android with chrome.
That, and while themes are nice, content is the draw of forums. Most site admins I know may only have 2-3 themes only for aesthetics.
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We're looking to replace that Front Page. I've actually created the beginning of a .html template - with the same basic look, but only a background, logo and a button that goes to the forum. If I had the foggiest about where to even begin with getting the news on there, it would be done and up two weeks ago.
All a forum Front Page needs is visual identification/branding, a portal to the index and that news display. Oughtta load better, being a great deal less function calls from all over creation to assemble the page, and I skipped a lot of that with one-piece background art.
[shrugs] I got into this thing with themes to conduct a purge - and I didn't count, but something on the order of 50 got shown the door, so I think this project is way over in the plus column on that, even if I didn't get it down to ten and we picked up three more along the way.
I never took any interest in the forum bells-and-whistles before June. That was sisko's thing; people were mine, and we both do content when he's active. But a great huge pile of useless Shop Items I made generated a fair bit of interest, and I think there's going to be a lot of profit from all this flashy non-content crap in the long run. That I've stepped up my tech game -and understanding of where controls are and how the software works- a couple of levels is going to prove a HUGE bonus.
As for content - after weeks of increasingly feeling like a mole man leaning in squinting at .css code, editing the Beginners' Getting-Started Strategy Guide for Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri / Alien Crossfire (http://alphacentauri2.info/SMACX%20Beginners'%20Guide/Beginners'%20Getting-Started%20Strategy%20Guide%20for%20Sid%20Meier's%20Alpha%20Centauri-Alien%20Crossfire.html) into shape is going to seem relaxing and easy, I expect. It's waited too long.
Something odd's happened to that Front Page template since I posted a test (Draz?), so going to take another pass at that, then work on the guide. Nothing in need of urgent attention left in the themes that isn't out of my tech league, anyway.
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Concerning replies, at least on my part, I've been reading your progress reports every day and mostly been awestruck at your perseverance and the quality of the results. My apologies for not making the time to say so....
I have some idea of what hacking code with minimal formal training involves (decent smarts and a whole lotta time) and you've done a dang fine job of it.
Two huge improvements: the site is better looking/more easily usable/less bloated, and.....you made a couple themes that *I* like ;lol
With time, your work, and future insights I know it'll get even better.
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Thanks for saying so, Vid. Have you voted in the poll?
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Voted? There is an especially hideous part of Hell reserved for Voters (you ENCOURAGED the bstards?!!!!!!!).
Um, yes, I did. Wanna guess which way?
Vidsek, who seriously hopes that poll choices aren't really "voting".........
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You must have voted a day or so ago, then. SMACX.
BU, who sees all, tells some. Keeps people's secrets when he has to.
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Both my parents worked for "The Company". Fortunately for you, even they would have found humor in your sig on that last post. You'd still be on a list....
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In have a first cousin once removed who was an 'analyst'. (I don't believe him, 'cause he's CRAZY fit for a dude that old, way too buff for a desk jockey from a family that doesn't run to athletic.)
(Also both parents just born detectives from whom it was never possible to ever! keep a secret long. And now I find myself doing the same thing to people.)
(People really freak out sometimes when you sherlock them real good.)
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Bear in mind, BU, a lot of folks may be pulling up your site with smartphones with crap 3G/4G service. Particularly at break on work.
Lots of themes tend to make sites load like crap on these devices. Embedded stuff and java makes it worse.Your front page would destroy a low end android with chrome.
I recently improved performance on mobile for the forum by enabling client side caching of assets. The number of themes should not affect performance on mobile unless the user chooses to switch between themes often.
AFAIK, the site doesn't have any embedded Java, though it does try to use flash on the front page (which is a mess, we know). Even if it did have Java, pretty much every browser has it disabled by default anyway.
Something odd's happened to that Front Page template since I posted a test (Draz?), so going to take another pass at that, then work on the guide. Nothing in need of urgent attention left in the themes that isn't out of my tech league, anyway.
The original template I put up is unchanged. I haven't modified your one. For the front page template, it's probably easiest if I finish it up according to the last mockup and we work from there. The template I did before is about half the way finished anyway and these "html editors" you use produce the most awful output.
...The thing about this work is, you often can't change something without affecting something else you didn't intend. Also, the type the .css code displays in is about two sizes too small, like some Grinch's heart font. So everything takes five times longer, minimum...
There's no inherent reason why .css code should display small. You can change the fontsize in whatever editor you're using. If it's the browser inspector window that's a problem, that can probably be fixed too, but I won't look into it unless it is the problem.
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Oh, I'd rather see that kind of effort go into overhauling the display of the results up top - it's too narrow, something weird's been going on with displaying crap form themes other than the one I'm working one, and WYSIWYG editors that aren't, really, are just crap and burn my butt. -But the strain on my weak eyes from the code display is mostly done, I'll probably never need to spend this kind of extended time on themes again, so no big need in either case.
I just wrote something about what I've done with the front page template in the Staff Room, but disregard. Yeah; I've shown you my basic design, so take it from there and we get a competent job ready for service in THIS lifetime. The top background and button art is in the Junk folder.
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Oh, I'd rather see that kind of effort go into overhauling the display of the results up top - it's too narrow, something weird's been going on with displaying crap form themes other than the one I'm working one
Wut?
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The window that shows the theme and the changes in it as you change code/values - it's too-often false WYSIWYG, and too narrow, those two shortcomings sometimes and sometimes not related. The &^%$#@! thing ought to at least always have a bottom scroll and just show part of the true width at a time and let you scroll right when you need to.
Or if you mean the something weird's going on part, lately, all the themes I'm working in show the top and read/unread buttons from the Firaxis theme in that inadequate window, because I haven't had enough crap in my way while I toiled and toiled. It wasn't doing it until roughly around the SMAC default Sunday -and that was the theme-top showing for weeks- but it's been doing it since.
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I don't see that bug with an incorrect header bar or odd read/unread buttons.
Try ctrl+f5, maybe. Send a screenshot if that doesn't fix it.
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Oh, first thing I tried. I think the Chrome account is still in Thanksgiving - let me boot it, up and get you that screeny.
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I scrolled down and got the read/unread icons showing and pasted in to get it in one shot. The rest is as I found it as I enter the .css edit page.
The wrong top goes away -usually, mostly- if I take the view down into a subforum. It's still gone when I go back up a level - except those read/unread icons.
-I suspect it's related to times I've changed theme folder names and typoed or forgot the master filepath line on the Current Theme page. I've also done it on purpose a few times to get at fields a mod has taken off that page, like the slogan line - that's how I got one in Winter, but the only time that's actually worked/displayed.
Anyway, both Firaxis and the previous invader, SMAC, have had their folder names changed...
Roughly Sunday while I was working on the top for Thanksgiving, I set the height for the logo too low, and the logos in the default stopped displaying for approximately the same time the value was too low in Thanksgiving. That freaks me out, 'cause I wonder if it means themes are somehow contaminating each other...
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I meant to mention the I usually see the menu for FOS, too, in the display. It doesn't even bork up consistently...
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Can't reproduce, but oh God! Everything is underlined in thanksgiving on firefox for some reason!
Edit: I'm not going to try and fix the underlining. It's bizarre and digging into this mess will just annoy me. The theme works well for other people, apparently, so. Leaving.
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No, no. Valka has been reporting it all along, and deeply cares - she might would use if that was fixed.
Were you trying to reproduce the logo cross-contamination with the default by setting the height for it too low in Thanksgiving a few hours ago, by chance? I did get the logos not loading a refresh cycle or two this morning shortly after you'd been by, and wondered about just that at the time...
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I haven't fiddled with anything on the server. Nor do I get (or perhaps just don't notice) these errors.
If something doesn't load it's possible that it's just because of the load on the server. I reduced it a bit with the caching, but I might not have matched all of the previous tweaking, or more modern apache could just not work so well on very low end machines.
I do get "Your session timed out while posting. Please try to re-submit your message." a lot, though.
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Nothing on the server I'm talking about - normal stylesheet editing.
Posts not wanting to go through on the first try is sporadic - usually, it either has gone up anyway when I try again, or the text isn't lost when I back up and try again and it goes right up, usually. It used to happen much more, we upgraded the server package, and that helped a lot. Being as I live here, I have to assume I get it more, whatever the malfunction, and have trouble assessing how much is too much for everyone else, especially when there's no reports.
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I should put it out there, for at least those vigilant enough to check a new post in this thread, that at midnight, the beginning of the 23rd, the first day of Autumn, I'm going to make Halloween the default theme for 24 hours. It would be Thanksgiving instead, if it wasn't for the Firefox underline problem.
You have been fairly warned...
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So roughly in celebration of my birthday. Thankee for the honor, but I won't promise to be spooky in return. I will be undead, simply because I'm alive.....
Vidsek (looking askance at the bearded cyberangel in the room...)
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:D Creepy avatar, huh? Really a lot creepier than the Halloween theme, I figure.
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Woo. I didn't stay on till midnight and forgot to change the default at the last minute.
Happy Autumn, Y'all, and happy rough birthday, Vid.
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...I'm really missing the Users Active in the Last 24 hours today. Looks like there's some buttons I need to upload, but that's it for problems with this theme besides the little orange box at the top and bottom I couldn't move or get rid of...
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Uploading fixed the missing buttons - I was surprised I hadn't spotted that and fixed already. There is definitely a benefit there to using a theme all day in the regular user way - I simply don't always think to check everything when I'm working on a theme.
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Okay - interesting day, all Halloween; but it feels like coming home to go back to bland ol' Curve. I'm used to it.
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The poll on making the SMAC theme SMACX ended up a 3-3 tie, so path of least resistance and a happy Lord Avalon wins.
My DL is currently in the Enterprise theme, and I can't shake the feeling that it's really too dark and blandly-colored for that old Star Trek aesthetic. I'm going to try out a version with the thin line boxing everything bridge-rail red-orange; it's a matter of a quick change to six .jpgs and uploading, easily undone if Valka doesn't like...
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I've just caught up in this thread, and re the Thanksgiving theme: Yes, I would use it more if the underlining was fixed.
Please don't tell me to use IE; I will not use that unless there are literally no other options.
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Did I do that?
I have remarked a million times over that there are mystery problems that only happen in Firefox and our tech guys never nail down - because that is the case. I do not get these reports from users of Chrome and IE. I'll skim further back, now to see if I ever actually told anyone to stop using the Great Satan...
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It was a pre-emptive request to the person with whom you were posting at the time (last year).
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I hate dealing with browser snobs, too...
Also - Firefox problems. They're very frustrating...
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Val; I do believe the pep of the red-orange rails adds to the Star Trek of the theme without being too bright as I feared when I first considered it last summer. What do you think? Keeper?
I vote keeper.
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You mean along the side? They're not very bright on my monitor, so I don't have a problem.
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The box around the outside...
I think I'd have to go twice as wide with the line to make it bright - the pics are .jpg, and blur a little.
-Do you mean like it better than the previous grey line, or tolerate it?
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Okay, now I'm confused. Which images do you mean?
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Hit [Ctrl]F5 - I bet you're looking at a cached version, to need to ask.
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I've got RL going on now, will be back later tonight.
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[blinks]
It's been like this for six months:
(http://alphacentauri2.info/Themes/enterprise/images/theme/thumbnail.png)
Now it should look like the attached:
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That looks fine. It's not too bright, which is good.
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I did worry about that, or I would have done it a long time ago.
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I just noticed that it overlaps the UFP starfield on the bottom left of this page.
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It always did. Now it's just orange-red. I was modifying bits already in place in the original, remember, and it was that or make the UFP insignia a lot smaller...
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Celebrating the first day of Spring...
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It's foggy outside, there's frost on the roofs of the rowhouses across the parking lot, and there are several piles of dirty snow down below.
We haven't had a decent snowfall in over a month.
Spring, go away. We've barely had winter this year.
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Shut yo' mouth; winter sucks.
(The default theme is Ostara today...)
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Back to normal - it was nice to spend the day in a strange theme and find it functional and pleasant.
The only thing I changed was making the all posts read icon in the root directory fainter - it also needs some sort of highlight for links in posts, but if I knew how to do that, I would have over the summer...
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Just sayin'.....
Fake CFC looks like crap, and the boxes around the text are just downright annoying.
Now SMF default. Ahhhhhh....... now that's what I could live with. :)
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"Looks like crap" is not productive criticism. ;q;
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Oh okay, soryy I'll elaborate.
It looks like [poop].
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Constructive criticism includes reasons, not just bathroom words.
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;lol
It's okay, Valka. Me and Dale are old frenemies, and I don't mind him hating on the CFC ripoff theme - a look not everyone likes at CFC to begin with- I dumped him in back in August when he left in a huff, comparing me to them 'cause I moderated a blasphemy. We ain't mad -this time, now- we're just rude to each other. -And since I came in expecting him to be mad about being dumped in it, I'm actually relieved.
Dale, I don't like that ugly red box around posts, either. It's a limitation on what I could get the theme to do. I do like the CFC look of the index levels -Solver said just this morning that it looks better than the real CFC- and it all started just to prove to myself the CFC Modern look works without all the &^%$#@! wasted top space they have.
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And Dale - we're cool, but act like Valka's a lady you respect, okay?
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My point on what constructive criticism is stands, no matter if we're discussing skins or short stories.
I will accept that you're okay with this here, but it's not something I will accept in the writing forum.
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You are right, I'm not usually so mellow about criticism of my art, and I will back you to the hilt in your domain.
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Valka, I apologise if I offended you. Obviously that was not the intent. As BU pointed out we have a certain relationship. We like to poke each other. I poked him ages ago, he poked me in return by puttingme in the fake cfc theme. I poked him back about it which you saw above.
Constructively:
The fake cfc theme aside from being a poor rip off, contains elements which are very poor choices for a web theme. Examples include the red boxes around the text, specially boxes in boxes when quoting. The menu layout at the top doesn't align or look aesthetically correct in the current layout.
It simply looks crap to the eye.
25 years of Civ forums and I refuse to pull punches anymore.
----------------------------
BU, you say we're not mad, but you know all too well we are.
Just not angry. ;)
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Ah. I stand corrected, sir. As a matter of fact, I'm straight-up manic this week, so an especially apt call.
...I'm going to bestir myself to have a look at Fake CFC in Chrome and Firefox, though - I never noticed any alignment problem with the menu. Any exotic browser/browser settings, Dale, or non-default text sizes? I can't really do anything about the boxes besides make them invisible, but I want the menu stuff right...
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This.
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Versus.
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Oooh. Collapse that top-space wasting extra crap at the top. I didn't think anyone in their right mind (ah - suddenly I see the problem ;)) would leave that ugly junk up there. Don't know a way to have it collapsed by default, it being strange SMF thing. The "Non-Google search bar ->" is actually the collapse button, which does open the crap back up if it had been collapsed like I didn't consider it wouldn't be, including a search bar.
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Oh, and I just figured out what the menu centering problem you see is. There's no way to just center the stupid thing in the themes interface and I did it manually with where I centered the menu - and didn't consider that I see Admin and Moderator buttons everyone else doesn't.
I may break down and spend the annoying time it'll take to fix that in 14 themes, with AC2 up in another browser so I can check signed out quickly, down the road, but not tonight, with my apologies.
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And Dale? Does it surprise you to learn that the themes interface is a frustrating nightmare in yet another forum software? Now I miss Hot Dog; God, it was ugly.
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And Dale? Does it surprise you to learn that the themes interface is a frustrating nightmare in yet another forum software? Now I miss Hot Dog; God, it was ugly.
No it doesn't surprise me. But it does disappoint me.
Maybe I've just gotten too used to SharePoint, Blend and Visual Studio, and forgotten what it was like.
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(http://alphacentauri2.info/BU Junk/AC2LogoSpaceCiv6.png)
-So, I find myself thinking about a Civ6 theme. I can make it default in the 6 folder for all the lurkers and anyone in the default theme...
Anybody got any ideas about what that would look like beyond the obvious Atlas background?
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I mostly like it... but why is each word in a different font?
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(http://alphacentauri2.info/BU Junk/AC2LogoSpaceCiv6.png)
-So, I find myself thinking about a Civ6 theme. I can make it default in the 6 folder for all the lurkers and anyone in the default theme...
Anybody got any ideas about what that would look like beyond the obvious Atlas background?
I mostly like it... but why is each word in a different font?
You'd have to ask to designer of the original Alpha Centauri logo that.
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If you are doing it just for the Civ6 area, can you change the background from a star scape to a worldscape (a la civ screen shot).
I wouldn't do it for the whole site, as it is an AC site and that implies space, but for the civ section that is planet bound.... just brainstorming.
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I've got an idea to try along those lines...
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Nothing wrong with starscapes. After all, isn't Earth part of the universe itself? And while I've never tried any Civ higher than III, isn't space travel one of the techs people still try for?
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Here's something I was toying with -and rejected- already, GK.
It's going to need a lot more work, but I'm messing with it now...
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(Embiggens a little)
(http://alphacentauri2.info/MGalleryItem.php?id=1185)
One more thing to try... This is gonna take a while...
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Here's what I finally went with:
(http://alphacentauri2.info/MGalleryItem.php?id=1189)
I just updated most of the thumbnails - you may have to go to the theme select screen from Look and Layout in your profile and refresh to get the up-to-date versions to show, and to show in the right sidebar select dealy.
One of these days, I'm going to have to see if I can do anything with Redsy - it says Alpha Centauri 2 three times in the top left corner of the index. -None of those and a small logo image would surely be more phone-friendly...
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FYI, civ 6 forum no longer has buttons to "post"
I do like the new colors/skins though.
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Try refreshing first, then please don't tell me you're in Firefox - in both Chrome and IE, I see the Post button under Quick Reply, I see the Reply button above that, I see the New Topic button at the subforum level.
If refreshing doesn't fix whatever you're seeing, post me a screenshot of what you do...
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(http://i68.tinypic.com/4t92wx.jpg)
This is what I am seeing
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You've tried scrolling right at the bottom?
-I wonder what's making it display so wide for you...
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Okay - I think it was just that one thread because of the FB video link. Fixed now - see if you can't find the buttons now.
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While you were doing that, I restarted the comp. One or the other worked.
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It was the really long link full of Facebook garbage - I got the wide page in Firefox.
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OK. Using Chrome, FYI.
Safari sucks, and the old IE was even worse. New IE I hear good things about, but haven't really used it.
Firefox was good a while ago, but stopped being supported and now is akin to using AOL Dial Up.
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Firefox is of teh devil, and is always the usual suspect with browser-specific problems for us.
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...I'm working on how to do something with the postbit and I think I'll be ready for input today, especially about colors of the indexes and post fields, something I've yet to decide.
Remember, if you're following the progress of the theme, refresh often to see the background art changes...
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Remember -and worry- tomorrow is solstice, the first day of summer...
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Winter.
There's more to this world than just america. ::)
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Awww. You dirty little godless furinners are SO cute! ;nod
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Winter.
There's more to this world than just america. ::)
There's also more to the northern hemisphere than just the US.
For me, it's the summer solstice tomorrow. In theory. Right now it's chilly here, and I need to go put on something with longer sleeves.
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Awww. You dirty little godless furinners are SO cute! ;nod
You do realise I'm CoE and the kids go to Catholic school right?
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-Better, I realize that you typed that hanging upside-down, which is aDORable!
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Well.
-All day without a single complaint about the solstice default. Didn't make a lot of tweaks to it using it all day, which is satifying. Changing it back and going to bed now...
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While it was on I got all sorts of spam notifications emails about new posts in threads I have previously posted in.... about 30 odd emails total I think.
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I doubt that had anything to do with themes - there was a brief problem with email notifications that just got fixed.
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Cool. I just noticed both at the same time, so figured there might be correlation
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-You can turn off notifications selectively from your profile - look for Notifications in the left sidebar. -Good idea to at least leave the PM notifications on, but that's in a different place anyway. You can also turn off the autosubscribe when you post in a thread thing.
I don't use the things for threads or boards, myself - but that's because I live here, and not going to miss anything. Ditto for PMs.
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...A lot of love goes into the few logos I customize to go with individual themes. I just want to mention that the latest customization of the logo in the Enterprise theme a few days ago took quite a few hours to do, and looks fantastic, very Star Trek IMAO, and I'm a little put out no one's said anything...
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Sorry, haven't seen it. I just use vanilla less someone says check this out.
When the vicodin gets out of the system tomorrow remind me and I will check it out. :D Til then, most things will just be kinda fuzzy mentally for me.
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Previewed it. Looks nice, although without a before reference I really cannot say how it changed.
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What the theme started with last summer when I remade it, the first try at the new-logo version, and the latest for comparison:
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Definate improvement.
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I'm trying the Civ 6 skin, and for the most part I really like it. A couple of things are hard to read (could be resolved with a darker font) and my Spud doesn't show up as well in my sig... but the navigation at the top of the forum is much better than it is when I use Enterprise. In fact, I found some stuff this afternoon that I hadn't realized was even there.
Well done, BUncle! ;b;
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Okay - are we talking breadcrumbs could be darker or lines in the postbit or what? I got a similar report from Birdjaguar this morning, and I take those Moby Dick issues seriously; I was trying to go as dark as I thought would still show a touch of green in all the shades of brown, but legibility has to come first.
-It's just, I fiddled with it for so long that I have no judgment about what's dark enough - I have to squint so much of the time anyway.
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I'll try to post a screenshot of what I mean, and perhaps you could ask Birdjaguar to do the same at CFC. I think we might be having the same issue, but I can't be sure.
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What is all that white space doing at the top of the forum?
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Just sitting there, I guess.
Hmm. I switched to 6 to check, and am seeing no aberration. Commencing FF boot to check; please stand by...
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...I cannot account for this. Lurking in FF, theme set to 6, the only white I see on the whole root page is a box in the signin and a little margin around the Wiki link pic, both right sidebar and not the top of the root...
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Have you tried a hard refresh to make sure it isn't a bad page load in your cache for the nonce?
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I gotta say that I only now realized I was still in the 6 theme instead of my customary (forum or board default), so inoffensive and comfortable I find the 6 theme - normally, no trouble remembering to change right back to what the vast majority sees when I check other themes, so I do believe I've got something good in the 6 theme...
..Val, would it be cool for me to move this exchange into the 6 thread in RC or the 6 theme thread in 6? I want people to see that Building a Community Facebook promotion post, and nobody checks Site much except something new topped...
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The white.
It burns us!
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>:)
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Well, I'm pleased that I only found two things in need of tweaking, running the Winter theme as default on this first day of winter. Putting it back before I go to bed...
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-I only realized just now I missed inflicting Ostara on everyone today for the first day of Spring. I only found out it was solstice on the afternoon news and didn't think. So I'm going to go change the default now, and run it till 10:30 tomorrow night.
It's always interesting, if a little hurtful, to track which regulars roll with it, and who switches out of the default...
---
Syn, I came in here to address you; I saw in your profile that you were in the default theme, not set to default, so I figure you've been using the right sidebar thing and checked some stuff out. Feedback? The snap impressions of a n00b who's been on CFC forever and is wrestling with themes a little at IALS ought to have serious value. Whaddya tried? Whadidya think?
I'm always eager to talk shop - I live over the shop. Endless places here in Site to chat and ask questions and/or discuss...
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I liked Redsy the most but its forum display was a little too 'fat' for my tastes. I switched back to the default since it's the most innocuous of them all. :)
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What is this fluffy bunny colors that has overtaken my Evul Laptop Command Center of Doooom™?
What manner of villainy has the power of the Hat imposed?
(looks nice)
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This here ain't one of the ones I had to tweek the hardest. ISTR a few days burned adjusting this and that, mostly minimizing pagetop space, a little color-fiddling -I think I added all the gold, because this was meant as sky theme, not springtime- and I think I made the leaf read/unread icons for the root.
I don't know how anyone can like Redsy - I can't get to a single doggon bossman control there, don't have anyway to set to another theme from it - and can't even get at the admin panel to mod the POS so it works, minimally. You kids and your phones get off my yard!
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Well, the lack of color and underline for links in Ostara sorta blows, and I'd deem the black of the quote backgrounds and sketchy legibility worse - but it's truly a lovely theme to spend the day in, and no other problems I've found.
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-Say, would anyone care to stump for a regular change of default to any other theme? Anything but Redsy might be doable -retaining my veto, but I'll listen about any other- and would we be happy in SMAC or Firaxis, the most thematically appropriate, or are they both too trapped-in-the-90s?
-Like, Curve here, the traditional default most of us are in, has been my home for over six years, and like any good webs nerd, I don't much care for change - but I expect if I was a lurker, first sight of this near-generic SMF look would not impress favorably...
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Can I haz feedback?
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I'm indifferent. I'm cruising with Curve regardless of what the default ends up being, in all likelihood.
Is Curve the SMF default? It's a pretty good default if so. I didn't get an impression of "this is the basic SMF theme" when I first visited AC2.
Obvious caveat that I tend to avoid SMF sites in general, so I wouldn't be intimately aware of the basics anyways.
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This is actually useful and exactly the more important aspect of what I was asking- a nets veteran didn't get that 'lame site' stank off the look.
This is the SMF default as of 2010 - sorta. I've modded it to minimize top space -we're the anti-CFC that way- for maximum browsing efficiency and ease of use. A flashy banner logo is probably carrying all the water a tight layout isn't, for first impression. I no longer remember nearly all the differences from the original look...
I worry it looks generic and like we're half-butt precisely because I love it just the way it is after so many years my comfy home, and know I've no perspective...
Now, I fuzzily and vaguely recall when I first bothered to take a peek at sisko's little side-project forum in 2010 - and there was a faint Lame ping for me, absent changes I've put in since - mostly I saw he empty of it...
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It has struck me that there's probably an easy workaround for the one thing holding me back about making more themes at will - having to upload the image files for new Shop items four. teen. times. every time I make a new one.
-I bet I can find the same code in the .css or .php for each pointing at their own subfolder --- and substitute the address for the default's Shop image folder, and delete the individual folders.
I haven't done any nosing into this yet -which is probably gonna burn off a day- but anybody got any theme requests?
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Draz tells me this is doable, by me.
-But posting to note that I just borked the CivII theme doing a slight upgrade to something - it should be put right by early tomorrow, fear not.
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Fixed.
I hereby wish to formally announce that Wonderful British Wunderkind, my pal DrazharLn, has fulfilled my original design intent by putting bottoms on the borders of the postbits in the Civ2 and 6 themes. It was a bit too far over my tech head... If you like either theme, you should let him know that you like him that much more.
Now to try to get around to that Shop item thing today. Busy busy busy, even if a lot of the reading that wouldn't look like work if you knew actually is...
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I've gotten all but three themes lined up as I mentioned three posts ago, with Draz' advice and help. -And I'm SO close to solving the three remaining I can taste it. -This is also better for the server, lightening the memory load by over 4.5MB previously wasted - over 7MB, counting the unused/unactivated themes I deleted this morning, and some junk we don't need yesterday.
;excite;
If you're one of the two folks in Redsy, that's why the postbits are temporarily huge and over the posts...
A new theme takes, at minimum, three days, more like at least a week, of my time being really obsessive - but the roadblock that's been holding me back for years about getting inspired is very nearly gone...
;excite; ;cheerlead ;excite;
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Oh - also? I made an animated .gif logo for the Star Trek theme, Enterprise, and I've been remiss in announcing so for about two years.
Check out Enterprise - the logo rocks SO hard for fans of the real thing...
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I've fixed Firaxis and Redsy w/ the added benefit for the users in them that the Shop items users own now show in the postbits like all the others.
It'll take somewhere between a day and a week of my finite time, but the best fix I see for Astronomy is to copy the look onto a clone of the Default theme, Curve, and replace. Astronomy looks like a bog-standard knockoff w/ simple change in colors and icons, but under the hood? It's based on a much older default or otherwise differently set up, and a brute force solution to replace all that is what I've got to offer. Will report later, no doubt.
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Incidentally? I didn't delete Thanksgiving with the other turned off themes, having a vague plan to do the same as I propose to do Astronomy now - I suppose if THAT doesn't take forever or balk me too much, I'll probably maybe roll over to doing the same with Thanksgiving - which isn't great for Halloween's life expectancy, it not even being Uno's favorite and no longer being needed for a Fall equinox theme, Thanksgiving being a better fit for that...
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Apologies to Astronomy users - I needed to go ahead and replace before I was quite finished dotting all the Ts. -Should be finished quite soon.- The messed-up pagetop menu junk should go away if you hard refresh ([cntrl]f5). I wasn't going for a perfect/exact duplicate, and I hope this satisfies. Let me know if you spot any problems tomorrow or later; I'm still working on it right now.
---
I've not announced here that I made a CivII theme, as such, in 2021 - check it out.
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Thanksgiving is back - no sign of the underline problem in MSEdge, Chrome or Firefox. That's considerable work avoided.
Enjoy.
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BTW? If you've not noticed -and even if you have- all the pagetop AC2 logos except in Gone Fishin now, when clicked on, take you the forum main/root index, not the Front Page.
Also, the problem with codeboxes breaking width at thread level should be fixed in all themes...
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Congratulations :)
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:D
Ooh! Make that ALL the theme's logos click through to the root.
-Just figured it out in Gone Fishin...
---
Astronomy is more or less done...
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Thankee, Manic Uncle!
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Shucks, t'ain't nuthin' but doing my job.
I posted in error yesterday - I didn't realize the hyperlink didn't work in Halloween, and wasn't thinking of -logoless- Redsy.
However, Redsy has a logo now -a real small one, it being a phone theme- and both hyperlink to the root forum now. I'm proud of working that out today, and for that matter, finally figuring out how to get at the guts of Redsy to mod...
--
Any theme requests/suggestions?
No idea is out of order to post, though I reserve the right to decline burning three days to a week on it - but DO suggest away...
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...I should mention that Enterprise doesn't have a logo as such. I had to patch in a logo as top left corner background art, and I doubt it's even theoretically feasible to hyperlink a background image...
-I just made and installed an even better animated "logo" last night, mind you.
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Check it out.
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Some upgrades and something new...
(https://alphacentauri2.info/Themes/CivII/images/thumbnail.gif)
(https://alphacentauri2.info/Themes/CivIIDark/images/thumbnail.gif)
-You may need to [crtl]f5 to see the new thumbnail for the former...
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I need your opinion; pick one...
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The first one.
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Your reasoning?
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The positioning of the Pyramid (and globe on top of it).
Its not right in the middle of the open space like the third possible choice.
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I was thinking of the icon as it shows in the game - top left corner. Anything along those lines?
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Its so small it looks a bit ragged. Not enough pixels to smooth things out.
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...I'm thinking of an Alpha Centauri light theme. Map-based, w/ bits of the game interface, now that I've got those bits handy...
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...As a matter of fact...
(https://alphacentauri2.info/Themes/Alpha%20Centauri/images/thumbnail.gif)
-I'll be refreshing over ten times a day for two weeks before I can see all the changes since this morning -there were shenanigans around the beginning of the year with the [ctrl]f5 hard refresh no longer hard refreshing- but if you don't see the thumbnail for the default, I think you'll see all the latest as of now, going in for the first time --- then you'll be in the same boat as me, as I tinker and tweak.
-But I DO need other eyes reporting problems I can't see for a week or two...
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I think I am finally done.
-To the extent these things are more finished than I haven't had the next idea for a tweak...
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And we're two brand new themes later - TypeRetro and 420AD.
-I note that I haven't gotten a great deal of feedback in my theme work since the beginning of the year - which is too bad, as they've benefitted greatly from my increased experience, and I think they're all pretty solid - not least, Alpha Centauri.
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Clever boy. Without even trying, you shamed me into checking out your work ;). And I discovered I've forgotten how to chose a theme and then make it stick so I can get a good look at it. Can't even remember which one I'm currently using, sheesh.
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Either bottom right column, Select your theme - or your profile>Look and Layout>Choose theme.
You're currently in Firaxis, it appears.
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Ahh, figured it out: bottom right->select from the drop-down->*then click again on the window*. Generally like dark themes as they give less glare with my funky old glasses' lenses.
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Feedback - MOAR!
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Note that Old World/Mohawk Games, CivII, Civ 6, and Planet Tales all now default to appropriate themes. -I think it's kinda cool to go into a sub and be in new surroundings. Tell your friends.
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So the Fall Equinox is coming up on the 23rd this year - I'm thinking that instead of making the default theme Halloween or Thanksgiving for the day, I'll make it Alpha Centauri.
It's some of my best work ever, and nobody's using it...
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Re-experiencing Alpha-C right now - and you are right: it is a good one.
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I just wanted to observe here that the newest theme, Alpha Centauri, never had a good chance to catch on, what with our downage problems --- it's excellent; check it out, please.
Templates: 1:
Printpage (default).
Sub templates: 4:
init,
print_above,
main,
print_below.
Language files: 4:
index+Modifications.english (default),
TopicRating/.english (default),
PortaMx/PortaMx.english (default),
OharaYTEmbed.english (default).
Style sheets: 0:
.
Files included: 31 - 840KB. (
show./index.php, ./Settings.php, ./Sources/QueryString.php, ./Sources/Subs.php, ./Sources/Errors.php, ./Sources/Load.php, ./Sources/Security.php, ./Sources/Subs-Db-mysql.php, ./Sources/PortaMx/PortaMxLoader.php, ./Sources/PortaMx/PortaMx.php, ./Sources/PortaMx/PortaMxIntegrate.php, ./Sources/PortaMx/SubsCache.php, ./Sources/PortaMx/LoadData.php, ./Sources/PortaMx/SubsCompat.php, ./Sources/Subs-UsersOnlineToday.php, ./Sources/shop2/ShopHooks.php, ./Sources/Subs-BBCodeWithStyle.php, ./Sources/Subs-FancyPosts.php, ./Sources/Subs-TeamPage.php, ./Sources/Subs-TopicRating.php, ./Sources/OharaYTEmbed.php, ./Themes/default/languages/index.english.php, ./Themes/default/languages/Modifications.english.php, ./Themes/default/languages/TopicRating/.english.php, ./Themes/default/languages/PortaMx/PortaMx.english.php, ./Sources/PortaMx/Class/System/PortaMx_BlocksClass.php, ./SSI.php, ./Sources/Printpage.php, ./Themes/default/Printpage.template.php, ./Sources/Aeva-Embed.php, ./Themes/default/languages/OharaYTEmbed.english.php)
Queries used: 14.
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