1 Topic by Jérémie (edited by Jérémie 2008-01-30 02:09)

  • From: France
  • Registered: 2004-11-06
  • Posts: 695

Topic: First round, small things

Ok, I'll do a first pass on the beta, testing from scratch. I was going to open a thread per item, but it might be too much for simple things.

Note: PHP 5.2.5, MySQL 5.0.44, Apache 1.3.x, FF 2.0.0.11 Win32

Install part 1: for English impaired, it would be nice to have at install a language selection (if the appropriate lang packs are uploaded).

Install part 1: ?More information regarding support for particular versions of each database can be found in the FAQ?, "FAQ" should be a link to the FAQ.

Install part 1: Line 125, Column 18 in HTML: reference to non-existent ID "fld6".

Install part 1: ?Administrator's username: Enter the username of the forum administrator. Usernames can be between 2 and 25 characters long.? Should precise that any unicode utf-8 character is ok.

Install part 1: ?Administrator's password: Enter then re-enter the forum administrator's password. Passwords must be at least 4 characters long and are case sensitive.? same as above, and should specify the maximum length. A warning about security (choosing unique, random, difficult, password) might be useful for beginners.

Install part 1: base url : for some reason, on my setup, the auto detect always add the trailing slash (always has since the early commits of 1.3). Why not do a simple check to see if there is a trailing slash, and if so strip it?

install part 1: maybe the install should say something about database collate? It doesn't seem to set it up itself, so a reminder to the webmaster to set it correctly would be nice.

Profile / avatar: the Upload file field is ?(Required)? yes, but the first impression is that it's the avatar that's required by itself.

Footer: there's always a [ Generated in 0.025 seconds, 8 queries executed ]-like string in the footer. I didn't find any setting to turn it off. Is it specific to the beta, or do you intend to have it on all boards?

Powered by: the ?Powered by PunBB? on the top right of the page, is that really, really, necessary? It should be easy to edit out, but why put it in? And it's even the first content in the source... hmm

XML feed: on forum view and on thread view, the ?Atom Feed RSS feed? string is a bit prominent. Don't get me wrong it's a very useful tool, but let's face it, most people don't know what this is, and don't want to know. Why not two small, discreet, icons (since you already use an image)?

Forum title: in <div id="pun-title">, isn't a link to the forum home. I think most people would expect it to be.

Clean URL, folder based scheme: like (not same as, but close) before the rewrite was done in PHP, multiple sub folder doesn't work for me. /admin/options/registration/ doesn't work, while /admin/censoring/ does. If someone can confirm it works fine on a vanilla Apache 1.3, then it's my host setup (I'm not using my own box for this test).

Admin, feature: ?User has posted ? option could be checked by default, couldn't it? It's nice to have, and if someone has high load he will look by himself for things to tune, more likely than the other way around.

All external window (such a BBcode help, and so on) open in a new tab and not in a popup. Strange, while for example the Textpattern admin ones do. I'll get you the code tomorrow, since I was the one asking for this in the first place wink

Jeu de rôle en ligne sur table virtuelle ⁂ Shadowrun France ⁂ Chez Blacky

Jérémie's Website

2 Reply by Paul (edited by Paul 2008-01-30 03:05)

  • Paul
  • Senior Member
  • Offline
  • From: Wales, UK.
  • Registered: 2003-08-13
  • Posts: 3,089

Re: First round, small things

I agree with you (sort of) as far as the feed icons are concerned. On my test rig I had already changed it. The word "Feed" has gone, the font-size has gone down to 0.8em and the links are closed up. That however is about as neat as it gets. Using icons actually took more space because the icons had to be the type which specifed the kind of feed. There is also something to be said for text links wherever possible. I will probably commit that with the next round of updates.

The footer debug information is enabled by uncommenting line 27 in essentials.php. Its probably just been left on for the beta or by accident. Its actually always been there though it was in common.php.

As for the board title being a link, I have no feelings about it either way.

Profile/avatar. Its not worth writing different markup and css for the required indicator for one field. Personally I would be quite happy to remove the required indicator from that field alltogether.

  • From: France
  • Registered: 2004-11-06
  • Posts: 695

Re: First round, small things

Jérémie wrote:

All external window (such a BBcode help, and so on) open in a new tab and not in a popup. Strange, while for example the Textpattern admin ones do. I'll get you the code tomorrow, since I was the one asking for this in the first place wink

Ok, one practical example, this is the code used in TXP:

On the link: 

onclick="popWin(this.href, 400, 400); return false;"

And the js function: 

function popWin(url, width, height, options)
{
    var w = (width) ? width : 400;
    var h = (height) ? height : 400;

    var t = (screen.height) ? (screen.height - h) / 2 : 0;
    var l =     (screen.width) ? (screen.width - w) / 2 : 0;

    var opt = (options) ? options : 'toolbar = no, location = no, directories = no, '+
        'status = yes, menubar = no, scrollbars = yes, copyhistory = no, resizable = yes';

    var popped = window.open(url, 'popupwindow',
        'top = '+t+', left = '+l+', width = '+w+', height = '+h+',' + opt);

    popped.focus();
}
Jeu de rôle en ligne sur table virtuelle ⁂ Shadowrun France ⁂ Chez Blacky

Jérémie's Website

4 Reply by liquidat0r (edited by liquidat0r 2008-01-30 14:53)

  • From: London, England
  • Registered: 2006-09-18
  • Posts: 150

Re: First round, small things

Jérémie wrote:

Powered by: the ?Powered by PunBB? on the top right of the page, is that really, really, necessary? It should be easy to edit out, but why put it in? And it's even the first content in the source... hmm

I have nothing against it being there. However: It disappears on the admin interface, I guess for consistency it should be on both or neither. And if not for consistency, then it's pretty annoying that the text appears/disappears when navigation from admin to main forum.

[img]http://liquidat0r.com/logo.png[/img]

liquidat0r's Website

  • From: 127.0.0.1
  • Registered: 2001-11-02
  • Posts: 9,167

Re: First round, small things

Debug mode was left enabled on purpose for the beta.

Jérémie wrote:

Install part 1: ?More information regarding support for particular versions of each database can be found in the FAQ?, "FAQ" should be a link to the FAQ.

Will be updated as soon as we get the new documentation up.

Jérémie wrote:

Install part 1: Line 125, Column 18 in HTML: reference to non-existent ID "fld6".

Fixed.

Jérémie wrote:

Install part 1: ?Administrator's username: Enter the username of the forum administrator. Usernames can be between 2 and 25 characters long.? Should precise that any unicode utf-8 character is ok.

I think that will only confuse people. In any case, they can always change the username later.

Jérémie wrote:

Install part 1: ?Administrator's password: Enter then re-enter the forum administrator's password. Passwords must be at least 4 characters long and are case sensitive.? same as above, and should specify the maximum length. A warning about security (choosing unique, random, difficult, password) might be useful for beginners.

There's no size limit to passwords.

Jérémie wrote:

Install part 1: base url : for some reason, on my setup, the auto detect always add the trailing slash (always has since the early commits of 1.3). Why not do a simple check to see if there is a trailing slash, and if so strip it?

Fixed.

Jérémie wrote:

install part 1: maybe the install should say something about database collate? It doesn't seem to set it up itself, so a reminder to the webmaster to set it correctly would be nice.

I considered what to do with collation and decided to not "get involved". The UTF-8 stuff is complex enough as it is for the end user.

"Programming is like sex: one mistake and you have to support it for the rest of your life."

Rickard's Website

  • Registered: 2006-12-26
  • Posts: 97

Re: First round, small things

There should be a size limit for passwords. What if I give you a 5MB password that your server will have to download and hash every time I login?

aaaahhh run away
  • From: 127.0.0.1
  • Registered: 2001-11-02
  • Posts: 9,167

Re: First round, small things

The only way to prevent that would be to impose a size limit on the server side and by that time, you've already uploaded the 5MB password and most of the damage is done. The hash of a 5MB string should be very quick. The bandwidth on the other hand, that's a bigger problem.

"Programming is like sex: one mistake and you have to support it for the rest of your life."

Rickard's Website

8 Reply by Taimar (edited by Taimar 2008-01-31 23:34)

  • Registered: 2008-01-31
  • Posts: 19

Re: First round, small things

Jérémie wrote:

Forum title: in <div id="pun-title">, isn't a link to the forum home. I think most people would expect it to be.

Yes, the title should definitely be a link to Index.

Semantically correct solution would be:

<div id="pun-title">
    <p><strong><a href="./">PunBB</a></strong></p>
</div>

... or better (should we use DIVs everywhere?):

<p id="pun-title"><strong><a href="./">Title</a></strong></p>