Newspost Integration

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Weirdonian
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Re: Newspost Integration

Post by Weirdonian »

Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain!

:mrgreen:
jmc
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Re: Newspost Integration

Post by jmc »

Imp-Chan wrote:The avatar on the right thing throws me off as well, it's part of this board style and will be different once we put up the new skins.
Yay! Another forum to learn to navigate!

Anyway, I kinda like the avatar and stuff on the right. That way, the stuff that varies is on the left, and I can use a narrower window, widening it when I actually want to read some of the stuff on the right. One of the annoying things about so many sites is that they have a bunch of boilerplate stuff on the left (often mostly blank) that wastes screen space. When we finally get 9000-pixel-wide screens, it may not matter so much, but with laptop screens barely passing 1000 pixels, it's hard to get two windows on the screen at once. So you have overlapping windows and constand extra clicks to bring the one you want (which is mostly boilerplate) to the front.

So here's one vote for keeping it this way.

Now to get over the annoyance of being forced to use a 3-char id. And figure out how to get a pretty-picture avatar with this forum ...
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Viking-Sensei
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Re: Newspost Integration

Post by Viking-Sensei »

The new design of the forums is going to be set with an absolute value of something around 950 pixels width, which means that it'll be considerate to everyone... laptop and low res people won't have to scroll left-right to see things, and high-res users won't get entire paragraphs stretched out to a single line of text due to the lack of a line break.
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BandMan2K
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Post by BandMan2K »

So...I think I'm starting to understand things here a bit. I take it then that titles under the usernames are gonna be the same as they are @ Kyhms (namely you have to put in a set amount of posts before you can create a custom title) or is it also gonna go to those that pay for the priviledge or sign up for something like the Heretical Monks for working in the Wiki?

I know my normal sig images from the ol' Cult of Perversions would pretty much be considered too risque for this area...and honestly it feels wierd around here. It's almost like me coming out of the slums and entering some nice house on Central Park West: I'm not worthy to defile this place with my presence.

Does anyone else seem to get that feeling, especially after reading the rules and regulations about "keep it work safe, no porn links, no flaming" and things of that nature? I understand why those are there but I'm so used to Kyhm's that it feels just...you know, wierd.
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Re: Newspost Integration

Post by BloodHenge »

At least we can still curse like fucking sailors.
Mord
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Re: Newspost Integration

Post by Mord »

Viking-Sensei wrote:The new design of the forums is going to be set with an absolute value of something around 950 pixels width, which means that it'll be considerate to everyone... laptop and low res people won't have to scroll left-right to see things, and high-res users won't get entire paragraphs stretched out to a single line of text due to the lack of a line break.
It seems somewhat odd to go with a fixed width for a forum board. Though that probably has something to do with the fact that most forums I go to don't use them.

There is also your choice of a width of 950 pixels. While this works fine for people using a resolution of 1024x768, it doesn't work out so well for people still using 800x600 . I don't know about ES but I know that several sites I go to still report that 10-20% of their visitors are using 800x600 even if it is declining as time goes by.

Then there are also the people that don't maximize their browsers, which wouldn't appear on the statistics. So it could be that you have visitors using resolutions equal to or greater then 1024 but still have their browsers at a width of 800-900 pixels.

Why not consider using a fluid design that has both a maximum and minimal allowed width. That way you can ensure that nothing gets too crowed but will also allow you to ensure that users of larger resolutions don't get stuck with only a single line of text per paragraph.
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Viking-Sensei
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Re: Newspost Integration

Post by Viking-Sensei »

This is one of those reasons that we're still using the default skin. Impy and I have been mulling over this very issue for some time. I'm personally for a percentage-based instead of an absolute, however I can see reasons for doing both. I'm trying to work out some mix of the two, but teh internets is hard, and phpBB3 is unfamiliar territory.

Warning : AVM Rant Ahead - Proceed With Caution
Spoiler: show
Now, my honest not-on-the-clock-as-a-mod-here and as-a-webmaster-in-my-own-house opinion about those using 800x600 in this day in age? Fuck'em. I suppose that just because some little old lady in Bootfarq, Iowa is still using IE 3.5 on her Windows 3.1 we shouldn't use Java or Flash either? Perhaps we should all throttle back to 56k, just because 'teh internets ain't fare' to people who have to use dial up. Oh, I saw a hilarious video on smokesignaltube.com today... only took me 16 hours of decrypting binary dots and dashes to recompile a three second clip... it was a man getting kicked in the nuts.

Sorry, getting a little off track here. I know that the money generated by the comic and donations is what keeps Poe and Impy alive, and that protecting the reader fanbase from harm and/or inconvenience is highly important. I guess I'm just spoiled because over at Vikingspace I don't have to care if people like it or not. Vikingspace operates at a loss of about $100 a year (not counting my time and effort), so I think I've earned the right to be a bastard when dealing with my own.

Still, the old principle applies... you can please some of the people all of the time and all of the people some of the time, but people who use antiquated tech and demand people conform to their needs should be prevented from breeding.
So as you can see, it's still an issue we're working our way through.
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Weirdonian
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Re: Newspost Integration

Post by Weirdonian »

I have to agree with Drakken (and not just because I'm co-admin with him over at the Vikingspace Forums). I don't think higher resolutions would turn-off most of the people Errant Story and it's greater community wants to attract and is currently attracting. If you cater too much to the few low-res people out there for fear of losing future users, you risk losing current users. In the end, it does all go back to "you can't please everyone", you can only try to please as many of your current fans as possible. As for future fans and members, I think things will work out just fine.
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Imp-Chan
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Re: Newspost Integration

Post by Imp-Chan »

There'll be custom titles after I figure out how to put them in. Right now, I have to do it manually for each person, unless they're a part of a group where I can assign a "rank" to that whole group (like the Heretic Monks).

This place is rather clean and shiny on the surface, but by no means should that discourage you. All the fun and grit is still there, it's just more subtle now, less blatantly in your face than Kyhm's. Go play the Three Things game, I suspect you'll find it refreshing.

^-^'
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Re: Newspost Integration

Post by Imp-Chan »

I'd prefer to design the new skins to be variable width, btw. The new comic site might be fixed width by necessity, but the forum doesn't have to be, and I'd prefer that it be more adaptable all around. We'll be leaving this skin, or something like it but with a colors shift, available for all those who decide they like the right-hand avatars.

^-^'
Because scary little devil girls have to stick together.
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