TWF Reloaded!
Finally, we've upgraded the forums! I don't have to tell you this, because it is quite obvious! Here is a summary of what's new:
Upgraded to vBulletin 3.5
- Inline thread editing using AJAX (try editing your post!)
- Expandable message posting forms (look for the little up and down arrows in the toolbar)
- Super-Quick Reply using AJAX - you now don't even have to reload a page to keep posting! Reply via quick-reply, submit, and your post will show up instantly!
- Username suggestion for PM recipients and search by user via AJAX
- Various new attachment stuff - some files now open in new windows, generate thumbnails, etc, there's a bbcode tag for placing attachments inline with messages
- Ability to preview signature edits
- Skin chooser in footer
TWF Interface and Design improvements
- New sidebar with private messaging, sponsors, and partners. For those on smaller screens a no sidebar option will be created soon.
- Revised top navbar including New Posts and Todays Topics. No more going back to the home page all the time!
- All new forum buttons and graphics
- Improved forum titles, descriptions, and organization.
- New control panel navigation with CSS-based drop-downs (well, there's some js for Internet Explorer). Let me know if this menu doesn't work for you.
- Partially CSS templates! We have modified a lot of the vBulletin code to take out nested tables and apply semantic mark-up in places. The part that holds the actual posts with the user info and buttons is all CSS now. Try turning on the tables if you have a web developer toolbar installed. Then switch to the "TWF Old" skin and do the same.
And I'm sure there is more that I forgot to mention! If you notice any problems or errors please post them here. I'm sure the CSS is not perfect .
JeevesBond posted this at 00:21 — 15th May 2006.
He has: 3,956 posts
Joined: Jun 2002
Phew, am I glad that's done! It only took a *little* over the estimated 3 hours downtime, and - hopefully - I didn't break anything this time.
There are a few small glitches, mainly just padding or margin issues.
Well, tell us what you think! A lot of work (mostly Megan's) has gone into this, the templates have been hacked to make them as standards compliant as possible. Unfortunately our ads package stops everything from validating, very annoying! But we'll see if we can't hack that sometime too.
Aside from Megan's hacking, vB 3.5 has some nice little features, especially the AJAX stuff! Hopefully you'll find things a little better laid out, and don't worry Busy, a sidebar-less layout is on the way!
Well, hope you like the changes, any feedback is welcome!
a Padded Cell our articles site!
kazimmerman posted this at 00:24 — 15th May 2006.
He has: 698 posts
Joined: Jul 2005
It looks great! I must have stopped in at just the right time because I never came in at downtime.
EDIT:
Trying out the edit thing, and I love it!
Kurtis
JeevesBond posted this at 00:41 — 15th May 2006.
He has: 3,956 posts
Joined: Jun 2002
I'm thinking that maybe the Quick reply box should be centred, and the grey padding reduced?
It's a tad weird-looking at my resolution
EDIT:
Glad to hear you like the changes Andrew!
I've been having great fun on our test install changing whole conversations with the edit feature. Half way through a discussion about PHP Mark Hensler bursts out with: "B*STARDS! You'll never take me alive!" Hehehehe, the possibilities are endless.
a Padded Cell our articles site!
Mark Hensler posted this at 02:56 — 16th May 2006.
He has: 4,048 posts
Joined: Aug 2000
What was that?! I heard my name.
Looking good! And someone's gonna have to email me when the other skin is released.
Mark Hensler
If there is no answer on Google, then there is no question.
Renegade posted this at 01:05 — 15th May 2006.
He has: 3,022 posts
Joined: Oct 2002
Yip, the new design looks pretty good (even though I've seen it already
). It actually looks kind of different now that it has gone live 
BTW, yes, this quick reply would look better with it being in the centre
demonhale posted this at 02:24 — 15th May 2006.
He has: 3,278 posts
Joined: May 2005
looks good, although I feel a little disoriented at the moment... I wish I was able to help in your transition... well anyways, I see one error today, the ads page, the paypal button overlaps the table column in the middle I think its the advertise page...
Abhishek Reddy posted this at 04:15 — 15th May 2006.
He has: 3,348 posts
Joined: Jul 2001
Hey, great work! I like it.
Roo posted this at 04:35 — 15th May 2006.
She has: 840 posts
Joined: Apr 1999
[="Franklin Gothic Medium"]Nice! I like it![/]
Abhishek Reddy posted this at 04:51 — 15th May 2006.
He has: 3,348 posts
Joined: Jul 2001
The floating menus for "Thread Tools", "Search this Thread" and "From this page" don't work quite right in Opera 8.52 and Konqueror 3.5.1 on Linux; 1024x768.
In Opera, the menus are positioned too far to the right.
In Konqueror the last menu is layered below the Partners image in the sidebar, but otherwise positioned correctly.
Edit: The "Search Members" menu on the Members List page is positioned at the top left in Konqueror only. Opera and Firefox are OK.
They are still functional though.
02bunced posted this at 06:34 — 15th May 2006.
He has: 412 posts
Joined: May 2005
Lovely design. Much better than the last one.
Just one comment - can we have arial as the font for the quick reply box rather than the current one (monotype?)
Well done
demonhale posted this at 06:48 — 15th May 2006.
He has: 3,278 posts
Joined: May 2005
Hey can a logout button be added on the links above...?
Also when you type a quick reply before the loading is finished, the whole thing you type will disappear...
timjpriebe posted this at 12:05 — 15th May 2006.
He has: 2,667 posts
Joined: Dec 2004
Excellent work, Megan and Jeeves!
But where did the "Mark all threads as read" option go? I use that all the time.
Megan posted this at 12:34 — 15th May 2006.
She has: 11,421 posts
Joined: Jun 1999
Mark forums read is still on the front page at the bottom, next to forum leaders. For individual forums. You can also access it from the forum tools drop down in each individual forum.
To do:
I don't know if we can do anything about that quick reply loading problem. That's probably a vBulletin thing.
Thanks for your feedback!
Megan
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Megan posted this at 13:12 — 15th May 2006.
She has: 11,421 posts
Joined: Jun 1999
I changed the width of the message area to a percentage instead of fixed. What do you think? Would you prefer it fixed and centered? If it's fixed it has to be narrower to accommodate 800 x 600 (which is still messed up in IE, I notice)
Megan
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KeithMcL posted this at 13:16 — 15th May 2006.
He has: 176 posts
Joined: Oct 1999
Great job folks. Looks well!
JeevesBond posted this at 15:16 — 15th May 2006.
He has: 3,956 posts
Joined: Jun 2002
As it's a textarea field I don't think it can be changed
Am now happy with the Quick Reply box, don't know if you were planning on changing it any more Megan?
a Padded Cell our articles site!
Megan posted this at 15:29 — 15th May 2006.
She has: 11,421 posts
Joined: Jun 1999
As long as it's not too wide for anyone...
02bunced posted this at 15:34 — 15th May 2006.
He has: 412 posts
Joined: May 2005
You can change the font of a text area:
textarea, .bginput
{
font: .85em;
font-family: arial;
}
in your main stylesheet
demonhale posted this at 16:35 — 15th May 2006.
He has: 3,278 posts
Joined: May 2005
havent fixed the paypal button on the advertise page yet i checked again... im using 1024x768 FF browser...
Megan posted this at 17:11 — 15th May 2006.
She has: 11,421 posts
Joined: Jun 1999
Sorry, forgot to add that to the "to do" list.
Renegade posted this at 19:48 — 15th May 2006.
He has: 3,022 posts
Joined: Oct 2002
I think the quick reply box being a percentage width is a lot better than fixed.
Thanks
rtroxel posted this at 23:28 — 15th May 2006.
He has: 286 posts
Joined: Mar 2003
Good work, Megan!
bluecircle posted this at 00:08 — 16th May 2006.
He has: 42 posts
Joined: Apr 2006
very nice!
oh my god wow!
ck_gr8 posted this at 00:22 — 16th May 2006.
He has: 24 posts
Joined: Nov 2005
Looks fantastic
p/s: tried the editing function. Cool!
Renegade posted this at 02:59 — 16th May 2006.
He has: 3,022 posts
Joined: Oct 2002
Mark Hensler! Hey Welcome back!
Mark Hensler posted this at 03:11 — 16th May 2006.
He has: 4,048 posts
Joined: Aug 2000
Hey, look... I'm alive!
gastongr posted this at 04:52 — 16th May 2006.
He has: 24 posts
Joined: Nov 2003
Looks great.
Why not instead of coding an other template without the sidebar, make it collapsible, i mean the whole column.
I have done it in my forum and works great
Check http://www.vbulletin.com/docs/html/main/templates_collapsing_elements for the vB reference.
The new graphics look really nice, simple and nice.
The navbar in the header is not continueded in the sidebar, that doesn't look nice.
I my opinion it would be better like this.
http://www.webmastershelp.com/twf.jpg
Also see that in the pic the red parts of the sidebar (where the titles of each section are) are 100% wide, that makes the sidebar look more integrated in my opinion.
Great work Megan.
Megan posted this at 12:42 — 16th May 2006.
She has: 11,421 posts
Joined: Jun 1999
If I'm understanding you right, we had to do that too
Because then, if you collapsed it, you wouldn't see the advertising. Good for you, bad for the people who are paying us to put their ads there. Same with any partnership relationships we end up doing. Not a bad idea otherwise
I'll see what I can do about those sidebar headers. Would mean re-arranging the padding on those elements..
Megan
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Jack Michaelson posted this at 09:46 — 16th May 2006.
He has: 1,733 posts
Joined: Dec 1999
ooooh! Like it!
robfenn posted this at 09:54 — 16th May 2006.
He has: 471 posts
Joined: Jun 2005
Very nice peeps.
Tokunbo Eleyowo posted this at 10:57 — 16th May 2006.
He has: 15 posts
Joined: Nov 2005
Its good to be back when new thing is happening to the forum. The design is good and has user friendly interfaces.
Toks
madkad posted this at 11:31 — 16th May 2006.
They have: 23 posts
Joined: Dec 2005
When I upgraded my site be sure to check the permission notice you might be ok, I had to change the username value
JeevesBond posted this at 12:48 — 16th May 2006.
He has: 3,956 posts
Joined: Jun 2002
Yes, you're correct madkad, spotted that one shortly after doing the upgrade, didn't see it on the test install!
Welcome back Mark! Wonder if you would have come back if we'd mentioned cheese.
a Padded Cell our articles site!
gastongr posted this at 13:35 — 16th May 2006.
He has: 24 posts
Joined: Nov 2003
Good.
I have been thinking about it, making a new template also means you'll need to update both of them to add a partner, or change something.
Adding a userprofile and then making an if statement is also a good idea to avoid that.
The formating buttons (quote, font face, font size, insert image, etc) in quickreply form don't work for me.
I'm using firefox.
EDIT:
In the user cp the titles for each column of the table that displays suscribed threads are wrong. instead of Views says Replies, instead of posts says Last Post etc.
I love how you have organised the navigation if the usercp
Megan posted this at 14:14 — 16th May 2006.
She has: 11,421 posts
Joined: Jun 1999
Thanks again for your feedback. To make a new template we'd just do a child template of the current one, so the stylesheet and two templates would change, everything would be the same. We could actually put the partners in a phrase instead - that might be a better arrangement there.
The formatting buttons are fine for me in Opera but I'll check FF.
Thanks for reporting that about the subscriptions - i had to fix that in a few others too but missed it in the subscriptions.
I'm glad you like the CP nav! I always hated the old one, and it was causing problems in 800 x 600 with the new sidebar so it had to go
Megan
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heebiejeebieclu posted this at 07:37 — 17th May 2006.
They have: 527 posts
Joined: Aug 2004
It's about time! Well done, guys!
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