New Forum Features

As promised, I'm going to start adding new features and will keep a running log here as they're added. If there's anything you hate, just speak up.

Change User Name: In the Control Center, under the Edit My Profile option, you can now change your user (login) name. I've done this manually for a few people in the past, but now you can just do it yourself. If you change your user name, please log out and back in before posting.

Link To First New Post: From the flat message list view, the "# new" at the end of the subject is now a link that will take you to the first new message in the thread.

Readable Dates: The date is now formatted to be more readable. For example, the day can now be "Today" or "Yesterday" and the year will be omitted for posts from the current year.

Avatars: You now have the ability to add avatars. Click Avatar Options in the Control Center and follow directions. The maximum size is 80x80 pixels. If you upload an image larger than that, it will not show up in your avatar selection list. You can also disable showing avatars if you prefer not to see them.

Editor Tools: In the message posting form you will now find a row of tools to help with text formatting, in addition to complete clickable access to all the smileys (and yes, it will insert at the cursor now).

I really like the "Link to first New Post" in the flat view. That's a great feature. Before, scrolling through 78 posts to find post #79 that I hadn't read was a pain. This works really well.

can we get avatars on posts and not just profiles? maybe that's not such a good idea.

Did I say anything about avatars yet?

Would it be possible to have smilies inserted at the cursor instead of at the end of the message? I often go back through a message and enter smilies after entering the all of the words.

USCHO used to do it the way that it is done here, but recently this was cahgned.

CowbellGuy
Avatars: You now have the ability to add avatars. Click Avatar Options in the Control Center and follow directions. The maximum size is 80x80 pixels. If you upload an image larger than that, it will not show up in your avatar selection list. You can also disable showing avatars if you prefer not to see them.

I don't actually *have* an "Avatar Options" button in my Control Center.

Josh '99

CowbellGuy
Avatars: You now have the ability to add avatars. Click Avatar Options in the Control Center and follow directions. The maximum size is 80x80 pixels. If you upload an image larger than that, it will not show up in your avatar selection list. You can also disable showing avatars if you prefer not to see them.

I don't actually *have* an "Avatar Options" button in my Control Center.

Ditto

Agreed. Even if several other featuers broke in the upgrade, that "new posts" button in flat view would have made the upgrade a net positive.

Since everything has either continued working or been improved, I'd have to say that this upgrade is a major success at this point. Great job, Age!

(Note, I would like a darker background behind the text, but that's a minor quibble - overall this color scheme is nicer than the old one, and if it really bothered me I'm sure there's a browser setting I could change somewhere).

I'm also not feeling the avatar love here, Age.

EDIT: Never mind, it's working now.

Sorry, just fixed it.

It keeps getting better! Love the editor tools. Although, the smiley drop down is a bit...busy? I liked the standard smilies being visible, and then having the more specialized ones a click away.

Anyway...fantastic work.

Yeah, it is a bit busy, but I sort of prefer this because it only loads the smileys when the menu is clicked, as opposed to every time a message page is loaded. If it's really unbearable, I could add the line of smileys back.

CowbellGuy
Yeah, it is a bit busy, but I sort of prefer this because it only loads the smileys when the menu is clicked, as opposed to every time a message page is loaded. If it's really unbearable, I could add the line of smileys back.

Nah, that's a good point. Besides, if I don't know what to type to get a standard smiley by now, I'll just yank the cable modem now.

is there a good way to shrink an image down to the appropriate size for an avatar on a mac?

Jacob '06
is there a good way to shrink an image down to the appropriate size for an avatar on a mac?

If you got a system with Graphic Converter bundled that's relatively painless and should get the job done (note it's not the best graphics software out there, but it works). You might be able to save in different resolutions using Grab, but I've never tried it.

iPhoto might do it, too. I know you can do a fair amount of basic image editing to clean up your photos, so I imagine you can pull it off that way.

Bring up the gimp!

I would have bet my house on that reply from you.

That's what I did. But then, you know my Linux partisanship well.

Kyle

You bet your house on that reply from JTW? Bold move, Kyle. :p

(Incidentally, gimp is definitely an option under OS X, but it requires X11. I avoid X11 as much as possible, so I didn't even consider that.)

Tom Lento
(Incidentally, gimp is definitely an option under OS X, but it requires X11. I avoid X11 as much as possible, so I didn't even consider that.)

See, that's what I was thinking. Any piece of free software could in principle be compiled on OS/X, provided the right libraries etc were available. Although I didn't know about the X11 issue. Does that also cause problems for, say, tkcvs?

CowbellGuy
As promised, I'm going to start adding new features and will keep a running log here as they're added. If there's anything you hate, just speak up.

Change User Name: In the Control Center, under the Edit My Profile option, you can now change your user (login) name. I've done this manually for a few people in the past, but now you can just do it yourself. If you change your user name, please log out and back in before posting.

Thanks for allowing me to have a sex-change operation.

On this one individual post - anybody besides me seeing an enormous amount of blank space at the top of the page before the message itself appears?

Which post? Flat or threaded? What browser? What OS? Got a screenshot? I can't find a problem.

[elf.elynah.com]
Threaded, IE 6.0, Windows XP

I can report from home whether it also appears this way on Firefox.

Thanks. I checked it on my copy of IE for Windows and I'm not having any display issues here. Anyone else? Could you send me a screenshot?

Oh wait. I think I know what the problem is. If your window is too narrow (so that the main section is narrower than the input form at the bottom of the page, the main contents will shift below the menubar in IE. It's an IE issue (one among many). Not much I can do about it. I could possibly make the posting section a bit narrower. I'd suggest just using Firefox if you can. Hopefully IE7 will take care of some of the bugs.

How could that be the problem when it only happens when viewing one post?

My window is plenty wide.

How does one take a screenshot in Windows?

Beeeej
How does one take a screenshot in Windows?

PrintScreen will capture the entire screen for you to paste into your image editing application of choice. Alt+PrintScreen will only capture the current window.

Will

Beeeej
How does one take a screenshot in Windows?

PrintScreen will capture the entire screen for you to paste into your image editing application of choice. Alt+PrintScreen will only capture the current window.

Huh, that's useful. You learn something new every day!

Age:
I'm in Arizona, and the RMU game is over, but the ELF clock is ticking down to a 7pm MST start time instead of an 7pm EDT start time. So, out here, it appears that the game is starting in 27 minutes. LGR!!

Ben Rocky 04
Age:
I'm in Arizona, and the RMU game is over, but the ELF clock is ticking down to a 7pm MST start time instead of an 7pm EDT start time. So, out here, it appears that the game is starting in 27 minutes. LGR!!

I get the feeling that the count-down is picking up the time on my computer, rather than the time set in the control panel. I get the same thing with Central (computer), even though my eLF setting is Eastern.

mountain standard time............. SUCKS
mountain standard time..............SUCKS
mountain standard time..............SUCKS

LETS GO (back) EAST

*applause*

Yeah, it's javascript so it's all client side and I'm not sure it can tell what your time zone is. I'm working on a way to feed it the inital time form the server side.

Why not use the user-defined timezone, and just have the javascript add or subtract its number using that?

If you're talking about the one set in the forum, that's server-side.

Ben Rocky 04
Age:
I'm in Arizona, and the RMU game is over, but the ELF clock is ticking down to a 7pm MST start time instead of an 7pm EDT start time. So, out here, it appears that the game is starting in 27 minutes. LGR!!

Try being on Central European Time and having the countdown think the games start about 6 hours earlier than they do.

Normally each post in a thread has a little triangle bullet (carat.gif) to the left of its subject line when you're looking at the threaded view. What does it mean when a post has two little triangle bullets? E.g., [elf.elynah.com]

Beeeej
Normally each post in a thread has a little triangle bullet (carat.gif) to the left of its subject line when you're looking at the threaded view. What does it mean when a post has two little triangle bullets? E.g., [elf.elynah.com]

It means there are more than 9 levels of intendation, so some are suppressed in the visual display.

What he said.

...except that from what I can tell from looking at that thread, no levels are suppressed on visual display. What am I missing?

Your link led to Trotsky's reply to Section A Banshee's post. They're at the same indentation on threaded view, but Trotsky's has the extra triangle next to it, indicating that it's another level being compressed to save space.

Does that make sense?

No, because what I'm seeing is that Trotsky's post is already intented further than Section A Banshee's post. The first of the two triangles to the left of Trotsky's subject line is lined up vertically with the one triangle to the left of S.A.B.'s subject line, but that's the only way in which they're indented the "same" amount - the subject line itself is indented further.

You're apparently seeing it as it's intended to be displayed. I'm seeing it in a way that means the double-triangle makes no sense.

CowbellGuy
If you're talking about the one set in the forum, that's server-side.

I'm talking about the one set in "Forum Settings" in my Control Panel page. I don't see why you can't have the server, when it's making the page, pass that to the javascript.

Something like: Modify doCountdown() to have it be doCountdown(timezone), then var currentDate = new Date() + timezone * 60; (or whatever similar code). Then, in the php script, have it write not "doCountdown()" but "doCountdown($gmtOffset)".

Better yet, use the getTimezoneOffset() method of Date Specifically, I think if you change setEventDate to:

---

function setEventDate(year, month, day, hour, minute, second) {
this.eventDate = new Date(year, month - 1, day, hour, minute, second);
// This time was specified in GMT. Convert it to local time.
this.eventDate.setTime( this.eventDate.getTime() - this.eventDate.getTimezoneOffset() * 1000 * 60);
return;
}

---

you should be able to just specify the game times in GMT in your .inc file and then be pretty much set. Or, something close to that.

Btw, looking at the code, I'm not sure if you need

var timeLeft = new Date();

I think subtracting two dates just gives you a number, and javascript isn't very type strong, so this line just needlessly gets the Date and never uses it -- just replaces it with a number in the next line.

Never mind...

This problem may seem quite old by now, but I've been noticing it for a while and just found this discussion. I've run into it on multiple threads, and wondered why the page did not load before I remember to scroll down to the first post. It is evident in this thread as well (hopefully I won't have problems attaching the pics as evidence). And it happens when I check my forum settings in the control panel.

It seems the problem occurs when someone creates a post that stretches the main area further than the normal amount. Usually this is when someone adds a pic that is wider than the normal main area. In this thread's case it occurred when ftyuv added the preformatted text.

Well, the alternative is to have the contents of the too-wide post cover up the menubar, which probably isn't ideal either.

CowbellGuy
Well, the alternative is to have the contents of the too-wide post cover up the menubar, which probably isn't ideal either.

Or to have the menubar on the left.

So, this morning I opened up eLF, and was automagically logged in as usual. I was a little surprised to see 108 new posts in the Hockey forum, but I thought perhaps there'd been a Thursday night game that some people followed.

Then I opened the Hockey forum, and saw "99 new" next to the "Cornell-Hahvahd - where to watch" thread title. Strange, I thought to myself - it's only got 100 posts, and I made several of them myself.

Sure enough, I opened that thread, and other than the first message in the thread, all messages were marked "new," including my own. I probably won't have trouble finding which ones are actually new based on their timestamps, and then I can "mark thread read," so this particular glitch will be over with. But I'd say it's certainly a glitch, wouldn't you?

I think it's because the "where to watch" thread was merged with the "where to watch- socal" thread.

Beeeej
So, this morning I opened up eLF, and was automagically logged in as usual. I was a little surprised to see 108 new posts in the Hockey forum, but I thought perhaps there'd been a Thursday night game that some people followed.

Then I opened the Hockey forum, and saw "99 new" next to the "Cornell-Hahvahd - where to watch" thread title. Strange, I thought to myself - it's only got 100 posts, and I made several of them myself.

Sure enough, I opened that thread, and other than the first message in the thread, all messages were marked "new," including my own. I probably won't have trouble finding which ones are actually new based on their timestamps, and then I can "mark thread read," so this particular glitch will be over with. But I'd say it's certainly a glitch, wouldn't you?

I was wondering how Howie got his So-Cal viewing party post to the top of that thread (and the threads merged- there was a separate So-Cal one last night). Maybe the moderators were in the mood to streamline threads .

Ah. Well, then, combining threads is obviously not a consequence-free proposition. Now that we know that, in the future can we just ask the poster to repost his message in the proper thread, then delete his extraneous thread, instead of also inconveniencing the rest of us?

That merge obviously didn't go as planned. The big thread got added to the small thread, rather than the other intended way. And as you seem to have discovered, the thread loses its read-messages status, so I'll be more judicious about it in the future.

CowbellGuy
That merge obviously didn't go as planned. The big thread got added to the small thread, rather than the other intended way. And as you seem to have discovered, the thread loses its read-messages status, so I'll be more judicious about it in the future.

I figured that is what happened but you still haven't apologized to Beeeej for the considerable inconvenience you put him through.

I'll buy him a cheap American beer at dinner.

Woohoo!

Every time that I have gotten on the forum today, i have gotten the New Private Messages button at the top of my page. I've only had new private mesages twice. Has this been happening to anyone else?

redheadfanatic
Every time that I have gotten on the forum today, i have gotten the New Private Messages button at the top of my page. I've only had new private mesages twice. Has this been happening to anyone else?

Yeah, when I've been getting PMs, they've been coming in groups of 2 or 3 identical PMs. I don't know if this is because the sender is pressing the button multiple times, or there's a glitch in the system.

It used to be that my messages got a time stamp that reflected the Eastern time zone, even though they come from the Central time zone. Now it's Mountain Daylight Time. Or maybe Central Standard Time.

Do you have your time zone and DST set correctly in your control center?

Time zone, yes; DST, no. Now it's right. Thanks. I need to change the DST each season (if I care)?

Not everyone follows the same DST rules so unfortunately yes.