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Eric Coleman
Gladiator
USA
811 Posts |
 Posted - Apr 29 2005 : 2:01:19 PM
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I plan on switching forums soon. All the current messages in this forum will be converted to the new forum. During the switch I'll need to write some code to allow people to register accounts. The original registration process (before this forum) was to allow people to keep their name when posting news and leaving comments for the news. After noticing people registering for vbgamer and never posting any news I put this forum online to give people something to do. It's not very effective, people are still regsitering for an account here at vbgamer and never using it. I have no idea why people do this. It is strange, becuase lots of people register and never ever come back to the site.
Well, I will be doing some pruning of the database once I make the final switch. Accounts that are not being used will be deleted. There are 800 members for the forum, and around half of those will probably be deleted. If someone can give me a good reason to not delete them then please let me know.
I've made some interesting changes to the forum code (not the snitz code but the custom stuff that I wrote). You can now load message topics dynamically. This uses some modern javascript to work, so you'll need at least IE 5 or greater (I think), Firefox or Opera 8. This is usefull for anyone that's using a dial-up internet connection. When reading a topic you can click on the subject to load the response dynamically. Only the message body is retrieved from the server, so this cuts down on bandwidth quite considerably.
I've only tested this locally, so I'm not sure how well it will work for everyone. If you can, let me know how well it works for you and if you think it's faster than loading a new page. There is a bug in Opera 8 that can load data twice, but I haven't noticed it my testing. If it happens to you please let me know.
To enable the dynamic loading go to the configure page, the forum options are at the bottom.
Also, I'm always looking for ideas and suggestions on how to make the forum easier to use. I may not add the feature, but I'll definatly think about it.
Thanks!
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Almar
Moderator
Netherlands
192 Posts |
Posted - Apr 29 2005 : 3:41:02 PM
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When is soon?:P
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Krisc
Knave
69 Posts |
Posted - Apr 29 2005 : 11:31:45 PM
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| Please don't delete me... :( I know I am a chsarper now, but I still hang out and I am thinking about getting back into vb.net, ;) I wish to see this new forum! Can we get a pre-release beta test or something? ^_~! |
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Eric Coleman
Gladiator
USA
811 Posts |
Posted - Apr 30 2005 : 12:47:46 AM
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Almar: Soon is within a month or two.
Krisc: Please reread my post. Only users that haven't made any posts at all will be deleted. If you look at the members list you'll see lots of people with 0 posts that haven't visited the website since they originally signed up. If you want to see the forum, then just click the Forum link at the top of this page. There are links to a test forum, the old vbgc forum, and a forum for a game i'm working on. |
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Krisc
Knave
69 Posts |
Posted - Apr 30 2005 : 04:15:45 AM
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| Yeah, I guess I was kind of being sarcastic...I really need to start telling people when I am doing that...sorry. |
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Eric Coleman
Gladiator
USA
811 Posts |
Posted - Apr 30 2005 : 11:02:20 AM
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there are a couple of topics in this post, but first
Here a link to the new "profile" page I've been working on
http://www.vbgamer.com/profile.asp?id=1169
Compare that with the profile page from the current forum
http://www.vbgamer.com/msgboard/pop_profile.asp?mode=display&id=1169
As you can see, the new profile page is integrated better with the website, which I think is important. Aside from the forum posts, some of the general profile information is different. I removed Age, Gender, Marital Status, Occupation, Signature, Hobbies, Latest News, Favorite Quote and Cool Links. Hobbies and Age might be of use, but the other stuff isn't very usefull for a programming website. Opinions and suggestions on this are needed. I removed the "Signature" stuff because the new forum doesn't support it. I'm not sure why a signature is needed considering each post has the author's name next to it. It should be obvious who wrote the message. Another reason is to keep clutter to a minimum and I think the profile page could be considered a better version of a signature. Suggestions?
Considering how the new forum is created, I don't think a list of recent posts will be displayed on the profile page. Each forum is in a seperate database, so gathering post information from multiple forums would be really slow as the number of forums grow. I think I'll leave this sort of thing to a specialized search page for the forums instead of being displayed on a user's profile page.
Another thing I'd like feedback on is "avatars." I added them to the new forum a couple of days ago and it looked really ugly. The images broke the layout of the page so I removed them. I couldn't really make it look decent, but if someone can, then I'd like to see your efforts. However, I do want avatars displayed in other sections of the website, in the profile as shown above, and in articles, tutorials, reviews, etc. It's similar to how traditional news papers and magazines display small pictures of the author next to his or her articles. I would prefer that people use actual pictures of themselves instead of anything else. I think having a picture to associate with someone's name can help to make this website seem more like a community of friends. Is this a good or bad idea? And one more thing about the avatars, is the one in my profile above too small or large? The image in the demo profile about is 64x64 in size. Should it be larger, smaller, or is it ok? |
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Krisc
Knave
69 Posts |
Posted - Apr 30 2005 : 2:52:34 PM
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I prefer 120x120 actually but ideally I think 90x90 should be the lowest allowed.
I agree with your other points and the profile page is looking really good. I would offer to help with the avatar problem however I have my own problems and I haven't dabbled in ASP in quite some time. :(
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Almar
Moderator
Netherlands
192 Posts |
Posted - Apr 30 2005 : 3:19:15 PM
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| Looks great :) |
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VBBR
Moderator
Brazil
617 Posts |
Posted - Apr 30 2005 : 6:42:52 PM
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I vote for 64x64 or 96x96.
Oh and I hope you don't really mind avatars not being real photos because mine will be something more...say... interesting  |
Whatever. Who knows... |
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2dcoder
Knave
83 Posts |
Posted - May 01 2005 : 07:43:37 AM
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| Curious, why are you guys reinventing the wheel when there are so many robust, stable forum packages available? |
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Eric Coleman
Gladiator
USA
811 Posts |
Posted - May 01 2005 : 08:37:49 AM
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quote:
Originally posted by 2dcoder
Curious, why are you guys reinventing the wheel when there are so many robust, stable forum packages available?
That's a good question. There are no forums that are expandable with unlimited numbers of forums without slowing down their performance. I created my own and I don't see any reason why there needs to be two different types of forums on this website, so I'm going to replace the old with the new. I would have done it by now, but I need to create a redirection page for the current forum to the new forum. |
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Eric Coleman
Gladiator
USA
811 Posts |
Posted - May 01 2005 : 08:39:27 AM
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In terms of avatar size, we have
120x120
64x64
96x96
more votes and suggestions welcome. Also, more suggestions and comments for some of my other questions would be nice. :) |
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