2,651 Reply by Paul

(4 replies, posted in PunBB 1.2 modifications, plugins and integrations)

I hope somebody has a go at this. Wordpress is a nice script and being php/mysql/gpl would be an ideal companion to PunBB. The question is whether to rewrite PunBB to work as a Wordpress addon or rewrite Wordpress to work with PunBB. I suspect "PunBB for Wordpress" would be the best option.

Go to forum: PunBB 1.2 modifications, plugins and integrations

2,652 Reply by Paul

(93 replies, posted in PunBB 1.2 discussion)

I would also point out the total resolution is not particularly meaningful. My monitor displays at 1024x768  but I don't maximise the browser because I have other windows open so I only view at a width of about 850px. My guideline when designing is that the site should hold together at 640x480 with a browser maximised and look best at 800x600 with a browser maximised.

As for the tableless design. I agree with Rickard. The index page and viewforum pages are a correct use of tables. They are direct tranlations of tables produced by a data query to the screen. Viewtopic probably is not and things like the footer and header boxes certainly are not. Where things begin to get really freaky is when it comes to forms. You could argue for example that the user options input form is a table whereas the search form is not.

EDIT
Viewtopic could certainly be made tabeless especially if it moved to an over and under layout like vB3 rather than side by side. The downside is that the over and under layout is less user friendly because the narrative is broken into chunks.

EDIT2
A very rough and ready test for proper use of a table. If it requires column headers to be intelligible then its a table, if it doesn't, it's not.

Go to forum: PunBB 1.2 discussion

2,653 Reply by Paul

(93 replies, posted in PunBB 1.2 discussion)

Rickard wrote:

I wonder whatever happened to Louis. I haven't heard from him in a long time.

Probably, like me, he has been mugged by the real world.

Go to forum: PunBB 1.2 discussion

2,654 Reply by Paul

(93 replies, posted in PunBB 1.2 discussion)

Species9408: Nice try. Trouble is it falls apart on all browsers at less then about 920px wide. Some people are still viewing at 800x600 and there may be the occassional oddball viewing at 640x480. Browser compatability is a real pain in the ****. Don't forget, as well as Linux browsers you also have to worry about IE5(Win) and IE5(Mac).

Go to forum: PunBB 1.2 discussion

2,655 Reply by Paul

(2 replies, posted in Feature requests)

vBulletin may not be the leanest product but it is using mysql. I think the problem with WebBBs is that it is flatfile which I understand means it is very server intensive. I think Phorum is threaded and that uses mysql.

Go to forum: Feature requests

2,656 Reply by Paul

(19 replies, posted in Programming)

Rickard wrote:

Eclipse is cool, but it's more of a code editor than a WYWIWYG tool.

Eclipse also runs on Windows so you could try it out before deciding if it's worth trying to install it on Linux. Otherwise you seem to have hit the well known "very pretty but I can't get a damn thing done" Linux bug.

Go to forum: Programming

2,657 Reply by Paul

(8 replies, posted in PunBB 1.2 troubleshooting)

Cailean wrote:

I get the editing the .tpl file but how do you get it aligned to the right on the same line as the nav-bar?
As it is now I have a link right-aligned on the line between the nav and the status line using <p>.

Here is the way it is done on this site

<table class="punmain" cellspacing="1" cellpadding="4">
    <tr class="punhead">
        <td class="punhead">
            <span class="puntitle"><pun_title></span><br>
            <pun_desc>
        </td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
        <td class="puncon1">
            <table class="punplain" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0">
                <tr>
                    <td>
                        <pun_navlinks><br><br>
                        <pun_status>
                    </td>
                    <td class="puntopright">
                        <a href="http://punbb.org/">Go back to PunBB.org</a>
                    </td>
                </tr>
            </table>
        </td>
    </tr>
</table>

If in doubt use "view source".

Go to forum: PunBB 1.2 troubleshooting

2,658 Topic by Paul

(4 replies, posted in PunBB 1.2 discussion)

Just stumbled across this site. Note the demo forum and the copyright. At least they appear to be setting it up for free.

http://www.forenhost24.de/

Go to forum: PunBB 1.2 discussion

2,659 Reply by Paul

(14 replies, posted in PunBB 1.2 troubleshooting)

No, Checked is right. It's past tense as in "I have checked that you checked that he checked that I had checked the check box".

Go to forum: PunBB 1.2 troubleshooting

2,660 Reply by Paul

(2 replies, posted in General discussion)

Yeh, it is useful. I've got three versions of IE on my machine together with Mozilla, Firefox, NS and Opera but thats the only way to check IE(Mac).

Here is another free service for checking the latest version of Safari
http://www.danvine.com/icapture/

Go to forum: General discussion

2,661 Reply by Paul

(14 replies, posted in PunBB 1.2 troubleshooting)

Archive
File
Store

10 last archived reports
10 last filed reports
10 last stored reports

Go to forum: PunBB 1.2 troubleshooting

2,662 Reply by Paul

(6 replies, posted in General discussion)

One of the pitfalls of designing anything these days is to assume that because it works in IE the markup or css is right. Sometimes the truth is that something only looks right in IE because IE is rendering the markup and css incorrectly.

Go to forum: General discussion

2,663 Reply by Paul

(6 replies, posted in General discussion)

Not just firefox. I just looked at the Dutcholsontwins site using Moz 1.5 and the bullets are missing alltogether. Opera looks the same as IE.

Go to forum: General discussion

2,664 Reply by Paul

(17 replies, posted in PunBB 1.2 troubleshooting)

Jansson, you missed the point. In some circumstances it is not about freedom, it is about protection. In other cases the choice will be between providing a useful facility i.e. a bbs with restrictions or not providing it all.

Go to forum: PunBB 1.2 troubleshooting

2,665 Reply by Paul

(17 replies, posted in PunBB 1.2 troubleshooting)

jochem wrote:

that way, i don't see the advantage of a forum anymore...those who post messages you don't want to be posted should simply be banned.
i myself would never participate on a forum where posts have to be validated first.. that's waaaaaaaay to annoying. But that's just my opinion wink

1. A business wants to use a forum for customer and potential customer questions. Because these are one off posts it is open to guests. You would have to vet posts in order to avoid the "your company is crap" type of contribution.

2. A school wants to set up a bbs on its intranet. They might well want posts approved by teachers and/or trusted student moderators before the posts get onto the board.

3. A local community wants to set up a board which is going to be used by children. It would be essential that everything that happens can be controlled and monitered by adults though in that case you would want rather tighter controls than post approval is going to give you on its own.

Go to forum: PunBB 1.2 troubleshooting

2,666 Reply by Paul

(5 replies, posted in PunBB 1.2 discussion)

CodeDuck wrote:

Just a quick question, how come punBB does not use the C in CSS? Having a master SS with all the styles and the themed stylesheets modifying only whats needed would make adjusting the font size for all themes easier (and more aesthetically pleasing to the programmer).

As a general way of doing things that makes sense. I would guess that the reason PunBB only uses one stylesheet at the moment is because it is fairly short and simple and there is very little in it that could be considered structural. If PunBB moves towards greater utilization of CSS particularly for layout/positioning then two stylesheets would be ideal.

Go to forum: PunBB 1.2 discussion

2,667 Reply by Paul

(14 replies, posted in PunBB 1.2 discussion)

I look forward to seeing the results of your non-implementation smile

Go to forum: PunBB 1.2 discussion

2,668 Reply by Paul

(14 replies, posted in PunBB 1.2 discussion)

It's the width setting on the main cell. IE does not honour "width" as fixed width but treats it as minimum width i.e. it allows containers to expand beyond the width setting to accomodate the content. On the other pages the text is split up into short lines using <br>. On the description page there are long lines of text which cause the containing element to expand as far as it can before wrapping. Other browsers treat width as being fixed width. The easiest fix is to break the text up into lines which will fit comfortably in a 450px container (if thats the width setting).

Go to forum: PunBB 1.2 discussion

2,669 Reply by Paul

(14 replies, posted in PunBB 1.2 bug reports)

Got it. I emailed you back smile

Go to forum: PunBB 1.2 bug reports

2,670 Reply by Paul

(14 replies, posted in PunBB 1.2 bug reports)

It is valid. Multiple classes are part of the specification. Infact the "class" attribute is defined as containing a space separated list. As for browser support, everything except NS4 and Omniweb and maybe ancient versions of Opera and IE. It certainly works with the following

IE5+ (Win)
IE5 (Mac)
Safari
Opera 5+
Mozilla 1+
NS5+
Firefox/bird
All current Linux browsers.

Basically, in any browser where this is not supported such as NS4 then PunBB is going to break anyway.

[EDIT]
The order of precedence in which the classes are applied are the order the appear in the style sheet not the order they are written in the tag.

Go to forum: PunBB 1.2 bug reports

2,671 Reply by Paul

(2 replies, posted in PunBB 1.2 troubleshooting)

Mr. Cheese could we keep this all in one topic, its getting confusing. If you could go back to the "Installing PunBB" topic you recently started and answer my question about which webserver you installed then we can go from there and keep everything in the one topic.

Go to forum: PunBB 1.2 troubleshooting

2,672 Reply by Paul

(3 replies, posted in PunBB 1.2 troubleshooting)

You mentioned in your earlier post that you had installed php and mysql. You didn't mention what webserver you had installed. Have you installed Apache or IIS? What happens when you open your browser and just type http://localhost

Go to forum: PunBB 1.2 troubleshooting

2,673 Reply by Paul

(6 replies, posted in PunBB 1.2 discussion)

If you don't mind excluding guests from viewing the forum the simplest solution of all might be to password protect the whole part of your site with PunBB in it. That way you don't have to alter PunBB at all.

As for being paranoid, not at all. Using a bbs sysem as a private bulletin board for a group of friends or co-workers etc is a perfectly reasonable way to use it. In some cases, for example where you know children are going to be joining, then it would be essential to have an adult admin to restrict who can do what.

Go to forum: PunBB 1.2 discussion

2,674 Reply by Paul

(8 replies, posted in PunBB 1.2 show off)

Is there a prize if we can spot whats changed?

Go to forum: PunBB 1.2 show off

2,675 Reply by Paul

(6 replies, posted in PunBB 1.2 discussion)

I was going to suggest the second method as that seems the normal way of doing it. Another way would be to password protect the registration form and email people the password.

Go to forum: PunBB 1.2 discussion