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infoxicated
15th June 2009, 08:29 PM
The forum has been upgraded to vBulletin 3.8.3

Don't expect any major upgrades - it's just a small increment in the version number and consisted of bug & security fixes.

As ever, let me know if anything appears to have gone wrong due to the upgrade.

Darkdrium777
15th June 2009, 08:32 PM
I don't know if I've said this before:
Can this be fixed or is it inherent to VBulletin?

http://g.imagehost.org/t/0713/BannerOverlap.jpg (http://g.imagehost.org/view/0713/BannerOverlap)

mdhay
15th June 2009, 08:34 PM
BTW, I love the upgrade message. Nice work.:lol

Nice, I'm on that pic!

infoxicated
15th June 2009, 08:39 PM
I don't know if I've said this before:
Can this be fixed or is it inherent to VBulletin?
That... that does my head in, actually. Anyone ever notice that the floating banner works on the PSP browser but not on the PS3? I find **** like that annoying.

It can be fixed, though. What browser are you using there?

//this update didn't break the templates, so I might as well break them myself this time.

Darkdrium777
15th June 2009, 08:44 PM
Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; fr; rv:1.9.0.11) Gecko/2009060215 Firefox/3.0.11

infoxicated
15th June 2009, 08:51 PM
Oooh. That's interesting. It happens on Chrome, too. :dizzy

Only if you have enough friends to make it scroll, though.

If you we're Gollum you wouldn't have this problem.

^ an example of bad tech support.

Darkdrium777
15th June 2009, 08:53 PM
It does that with the tabs on Visitor page too.

mdhay
15th June 2009, 09:11 PM
That... that does my head in, actually. Anyone ever notice that the floating banner works on the PSP browser but not on the PS3? I find **** like that annoying.

Now that you mention it, it does. Wonder why....

infoxicated
15th June 2009, 09:29 PM
I looked. Can't fix it.

Seems to be a problem with list items when it comes to floats & stacks. The navigation tabs and the friends lists are all list items. Even if I set their z-index to 10 and the z-index of the floating banner to 100 it still layers the list elements above the floating banner.

The vBulletin style manager is quite the spaghetti junction of styles and inheritance and I'm not awake enough or motivated enough to figure out all of the cascades to see what's modifying the z-index of list items.

//end explanation

//begin rant

It would go away if I took out the floating banner, but it's the principle of the matter... it should work and it should have worked ten years ago, because floats and stacks aren't exactly cutting edge stuff.

I remember we had a similar problem years ago when I used an image map in the banner and it worked in everything but IE6, as IE6 had a bug that stopped it rendering an image map in a floated layer. Reasonably clever people kept posting "if you split the image in two and put anchor tags around each image you'll get the same result" as if I didn't already know how to work around it. Pretty much all web development is based on working around stuff that should work in a straightforward way, but doesn't. I kept that image map banner up for ages, too - on principle, until I decided that it was unfair that IE6 users couldn't click on the banner.

//end rant

Maybe I'll look at that again tomorrow... but I'll probably drop the floaty banner with the next version of the site, and it's been around so long that another wee while isn't going to drive anyone mad. Probably. Standard mental health disclaimers apply.

Sausehuhn
16th June 2009, 01:22 PM
As I don't know where to post it, I'll post it here. Rob - you made my day! :D

infoxicated
16th June 2009, 01:25 PM
I'm glad, Max. ;)

Darkdrium777
16th June 2009, 02:54 PM
ROFL

Yeah, what's up with the database issues all the time? :(

infoxicated
16th June 2009, 03:28 PM
It's hardly all the time. Just every few days something is hitting the server hard, taking up all the database connections and causing the database server to die.

It's probably some brute strength attack - we've had to block a couple of IP's at server level due to that a while back, so maybe there's a new one we have to see about blocking, too.

Darkdrium777
16th June 2009, 03:43 PM
Haxorger is still trying to take down the site? :lol

Probably just too many people online, no?

infoxicated
16th June 2009, 04:08 PM
What causes the database to crash is far from normal use. The site has coped with far higher traffic conditions than it is experiencing right now, so these are isolated events aimed at either denial of service or attempting to access the forum admin.

I need to pour through the logs to find out, but right now I don't have the time. Thanks for posting, though.

Darkdrium777
16th June 2009, 04:29 PM
Eh, I don't understand why someone would want to hack a fan site. :|
As long as you say it's under control and that we won't get threads about you and your mother in every section of the forum again :p

Good luck with what's going on with you.

infoxicated
16th June 2009, 04:35 PM
Thanks!

It's not luck I need right now - just a winning lottery ticket.

Oh... wait... :redface:

Lance
16th June 2009, 08:28 PM
...Pretty much all web development is based on working around stuff that should work in a straightforward way, but doesn't. ...

:D So very true.


-----------

BTW, The forum seemed to automatically log me out three times in ten minutes when I logged in to check stuff from mod alerts. Probably nothing, but possibly should be noted if it happens to others.

edit: The damned thing just logged me out again.

Sausehuhn
17th June 2009, 02:47 PM
Rob, there's one thing about the floating banner I would like you to fix if you find the time sometime:
The transparent area underneath the shadow is relatively big. Is it possible to make it around the half shorter? Almost always when I want to click links that are right under the banner I cannot click them because of the invisible part of graphic that is above it.

And don't get my wrong; I don't want to make demands. I'm probably the only one having the problem anyway ;)

infoxicated
17th June 2009, 02:57 PM
Ooh.

It was that size by accident from when the banner was bigger.

Should be fixed, now. :) //new smiley alert!

Darkdrium777
17th June 2009, 03:43 PM
I see KIGO read this thread.

Noticed the "Digg", "Stumbleupon" etc stuff at the bottom of threads, do you think it's necessary?

infoxicated
17th June 2009, 04:15 PM
KIGO has to get the **** over the existence of Microsoft Windows.

And you have to ask yourself whether that question was necessary.

Darkdrium777
17th June 2009, 04:26 PM
Well, it's been added since this update, no? I personally don't see it as very useful, that's why I am asking if you want to keep it or not.

Anyways...

infoxicated
17th June 2009, 06:06 PM
Ah, right. It was added by me, not the update - it's just an option you can turn on.

If it helps the site get more traffic then that's a good thing. If the site gets more traffic, the adverts get seen more and then, one day, it might make enough money to be self supporting.

Should that not be the case I'll disable it again.

Darkdrium777
17th June 2009, 09:16 PM
I see you are making a new skin. :)
Black invasion!

infoxicated
17th June 2009, 09:24 PM
Just messing around before bed time, actually.

The things I do for kicks. ;)

Darkdrium777
17th June 2009, 09:25 PM
Will this continue? It looks pretty sweet.

infoxicated
17th June 2009, 09:30 PM
Will I continue to mess around?

Most probably. :)

Sausehuhn
17th June 2009, 09:31 PM
eheheh.
If you need someone who creates some icon-replacements, just put your hand up ;)

infoxicated
17th June 2009, 10:34 PM
Erm... I dunno.

I'm not convinced, myself. Probably needs more work than the short time I've spent on it tonight.

Think I'll sleep on it and revert it if it's too jarring in the morning. It sorta reminds me of when I moved the yellow W3PA board over to WipEoutZone colours and it took weeks to get used to. Or when we moved from phpBB to vBulletin - that was really quite a sudden change and it took a good while to get comfortable with it.

Darkdrium777
17th June 2009, 10:43 PM
Well, blue/black doesn't go together, yes.
Perhaps you can make two skins? One blue, one black.
And others, like cyan, pink, white (so we don't see anything at all)... Ok maybe not that last part.

djKyoto
17th June 2009, 11:21 PM
Should make the BG black, white text with Red bars.

Fury Style. :D

Sausehuhn
17th June 2009, 11:40 PM
I raise my hand for a theme update so it fits the mainsite.

Black bars with the blue font for the forum bars and white or yellow type for the other bars; the cut-corner-graphic aligned to the right for the forum bars.
Forums not in the link-color but in the one used for headlines on the mainsite. The forum details in the color used for the date (bright blue).
Other text elements: plain black. Backgrounds white, borders light gray.
Buttons in black and yellow for highlights (such as "new post" in yellow compared to "no new posts" in white); simple 2D pixelgraphics should do the job and fit to the style.

Yep. That's it ;)

KIGO1987
18th June 2009, 01:50 AM
I thought the replacement LCD the HP guys put into yesterday was another dude. Only got mono colour. But this was a forum upgrade, thank ****.

Lance
18th June 2009, 03:14 AM
Ooh.

It was that size by accident from when the banner was bigger.

Should be fixed, now. :) //new smiley alert!

Cool. I've always had the same problem as Max. Currently it only blocks one line so that I can't put a cursor on it.

AG-wolf
18th June 2009, 03:49 AM
Good sweet christ the new color scheme burns my eyes.

edit: lol there's a caps filter

Hemicrania
18th June 2009, 06:53 AM
I love this new scheme m8. It fits the header. :hyper

djKyoto
18th June 2009, 07:19 AM
I don't. It's too strong on my eyes. The bars just stand out too much.

eLhabib
18th June 2009, 07:40 AM
+1
while I like black, this definitely hurts the eye - too much contrast. How about a heavy yellow instead?

stinkleroy
18th June 2009, 08:41 AM
Yeah I'm not too keen on the black either ;)

BulletWraith
18th June 2009, 09:17 AM
I love it, it feels a bit like my current theme for Vista everything thing is just Black, White, Grey no colours

Kill the Blue, make it dark grey
muh ha haaa


zer:donutshen

Sausehuhn
18th June 2009, 12:42 PM
Tadaaa here you go: Forum Concept (http://cybershot.cy.funpic.de/kram/sonstige_bilder/WipEoutZone/stuff/ForumUpdate.jpg).

I've chosen a dark gray instead of pure Black, that's simply more easy on the eyes.

infoxicated
18th June 2009, 12:47 PM
Nice work, Max. :+

I'm going to be overhauling the whole site in the near future, though, so I'll hold off on totally skinning the forum until then.

Hemicrania
18th June 2009, 01:20 PM
blue text on black background? hmm, not my choice.(readability decreases) But thats only my opinion. And I think the current theme is very nice.(from a graphic designer point of view)

I think its fine the way it is m8, al you need to do is change the blue folder icons to a grey B/W theme and your done here.

kanar
18th June 2009, 04:07 PM
I don't know if it's the right place to discuss about that, but I just noticed -& enjoyed a lot to use- the tag edition. But as some users already pointed that out, I fear this stuff can quickly degenerate into negative/not funny/insulting tags. Was just wondering what was your thoughts about that Rob, not more. Found that really good myself.

infoxicated
18th June 2009, 04:57 PM
I thought it was a useful addition, which is why it's unfortunate that some people are being pathetic with some of the tags they are entering. If that continues I'll just disable it, because we've lived without it all this time and I see no sense in having something that people are (mistakenly) abusing because they think the tags are added anonymously.

(Truth is, the user id is logged alongside each tag. So I can see from the database just who is being an idiot.)

Darkdrium777
18th June 2009, 05:07 PM
They can be quite useful to spot content popular at a glance using tag search.
Of course it helps to tag appropriately.

Example (http://www.wipeoutzone.com/forum/tags.php?tag=avalon) :)
And another (http://www.wipeoutzone.com/forum/tags.php?tag=piloting)
Third'd (http://www.wipeoutzone.com/forum/tags.php?tag=forum)

If more people could follow, as we can only add two tags each, and tag search looks for the exact tag you enter in the box so if you enter a composite of two tags it won't find anything, we could add every single derivative of keywords to threads and it would make finding stuff much easier. :)

F.E.I.S.A.R
19th June 2009, 05:26 AM
The forum was just upgraded,is it? I do not know whether it is just me,or is the colour for the theme of the forum changed from blue to black/dark gray ?

Hemicrania
19th June 2009, 02:27 PM
Yup and its brilliant!!! :hyper

ACE-FLO
19th June 2009, 04:19 PM
Damn straight it is!!! Matches my monitor and everything mate! makes my web browser look noncy in comparison lol

(mental note: can web browsers be modified to fit in with a theme? check this out!) er... sorry, got lost there... Oh, yes! The Avatar vote - when is it? Today? I think Rob said Friday, just not if it was this Friday or another one... (meek)

Lance
19th June 2009, 04:48 PM
The browser can be modified a lot. If it's the Opera browser.

Failing that, one could use WindowBlinds if the operating system is Windows.

ACE-FLO
19th June 2009, 05:55 PM
thanks Lance - I'll look into it!

KIGO1987
20th June 2009, 05:16 AM
My tags are fine.


If it helps the site get more traffic then that's a good thing. If the site gets more traffic, the adverts get seen more and then, one day, it might make enough money to be self supporting.

Plus they are a benefit to the forum here. ^^^^

Quick searching threads with various tags that various users have added are good for all.

If there is a problem with one, im sure a PM advising about it would solve it.

Dont think any of my tags are offensive, just cheaky. All in good faith. Majority seem to be fine with it.

As Rob said before on this thread more traffic this site gets more adverts gets viewed.

kanar
26th June 2009, 10:11 AM
mmm just a quick post for nothing but whatever, Rob your site is DOPE. And the mods are great too. Long life to WZ. Pilots from all over the world. And yeah, if you have time one of these days maybe it could be great to have the subscription part in different languages, I know pilots like Darius or my french mates too, who had difficulties. Just a note. Anyway, again, and more than ever, this site rocks. Thanks. (if you need help I can do the french one, one of these days lol)

infoxicated
26th June 2009, 11:23 AM
Yeah, go for it. :+

The text needs sorting out all over, with the record table rules in particular needing clarifiying, but I'm way too busy with other stuff to dedicate the time to it right now.

KIGO1987
27th June 2009, 11:04 AM
Rob's internal response to adding the French language addition option on these forums,

"They should learn ****ing English if they want to post here, not wasting my time adding the bloody French language and syntax here, bloody Baguette Munching frogs "

:lol

This is a funny place at times i gotta say:)

Gotta Love Moa, and
Gotta Love Robs sayings "willy nilly waving",
Gotta Love WZ.

infoxicated
27th June 2009, 11:25 AM
Far from it - I had to oversee the localisation of all the text on WipEout-Game.com and that was a nightmare, because it was a rush job it wasn't done particularly accurately and many things didn't translate well.

So I'd love to have the rules and guidelines translated into lots of languages - it would help stop people getting themselves into trouble purely due to lack of understanding. :)

Lance
27th June 2009, 02:48 PM
That's a big ten four, Good Buddy. :D

Darkdrium777
27th June 2009, 03:25 PM
I feel anything related to PlayStation is translated badly. They've gotten better over the years but sometimes there's absolutely no description at all for items you can buy on the store on the French side, but there is one on the English side... And if/when it's translated, sometimes there are hilarious mistakes. :/
At least for Quebec. Don't know about France's PSN Store...
If you need help, hit me up. ;)

Sausehuhn
27th June 2009, 03:25 PM
Isn't it possible to load language packages you could easily install on the server? I don't know about costs here, though…

But in the end: I've no problem with English being the only language of the forum. It's an English forum after all :)

Velocitar64
28th June 2009, 05:37 PM
I'm loving the new colour scheme. Maybe it calls for a new background and stuff? I could give it a shot if you like. I know how to style themes on vBulletin.

stinkleroy
28th June 2009, 09:37 PM
I still don't like the black...seems to have brought a dark mood over the forum too ;)

Darkdrium777
28th June 2009, 11:19 PM
Oh come on... :| That's not even remotely funny.
Three words: get over it.

Thanks for reminding me of this episode stinkleroy, and thanks for pissing me off again. :-
I especially need that with what's happening in the family right now.

You know what Rob, I'm asking for a ban so that way I don't have to read this kind of fail for the rest of the week.

eLhabib
29th June 2009, 12:39 AM
Well you can still read when you're banned, just can't respond.
Apart from that, I thought it was quite funny :)

KIGO1987
29th June 2009, 02:43 AM
I still don't like the black...seems to have brought a dark mood over the forum too ;)

It does bring a new persona to these forums, could actually be the reason for all these sudden cranky posts and faceoffs on these forums.

Looks kinda sik though:)

infoxicated
29th June 2009, 08:36 AM
Oh come on... :| That's not even remotely funny.
Three words: get over it.

Thanks for reminding me of this episode stinkleroy, and thanks for pissing me off again. :-
I especially need that with what's happening in the family right now.

You know what Rob, I'm asking for a ban so that way I don't have to read this kind of fail for the rest of the week.
Considering you've used pretty much every escuse to rake it up again yourself, I think you're completely over reacting.

Can't ban you for being a drama queen, I'm afraid - maybe you should take a break from the internet as a whole if your personal life is in so much turmoil that you can't move on enough to have a sense of humour about it.

Darkdrium777
29th June 2009, 09:26 AM
Can't ban you for being a drama queen, I'm afraid - maybe you should take a break from the internet as a whole if your personal life is in so much turmoil that you can't move on enough to have a sense of humour about it.Thank you for being an insensitive twat. Talk to me about your private life in PM to expect some kind of apologetic response, and I give one because I understand it's hard. But when I'm having stuff happening of course it doesn't matter so go ahead and just treat me like dirt. You know what? **** YOU. You have absolutely NO ****ING IDEA what happened, and you feel you have the right to even talk about it in such a condescending matter? WHAT THE **** IS WRONG MAN?! Did I talk to you like that when you explained what was happening? NO! I said I was sorry to hear about it! But no, for you it's just OK, right? No standard of decency at all, absolute zero.

It's not funny that people keep reminiscing about bad things that happen, no matter what you say it isn't. What have I been trying to do here, is to get people to stop thinking about it. But of course I am a "drama queen", in doing so, right? I've been bringing this back up all the time, right? Would you look at my posts before you say stupid stuff like that? LOOK. Where, apart from in two posts IN RESPONSE to OTHER PEOPLE bringing it back up, DO I MENTION THE INCIDENT AGAIN? NOWHERE. ABSOLUTE ****ING ZERO. And what do I say in these two posts? GET THE **** OVER IT AND STOP TALKING/HINTING ABOUT IT. But I've been bringing it back up, yeah right.

infoxicated
29th June 2009, 09:50 AM
Knowing Cat's posts and personality, I think it's pretty clear that she was making a light hearted joke, but you jump in there with both feet and act as if she's making a personal attack on you, you, you, you, you. 'Cos it's all about you.

Except in this case it most likely wasn't about you. Maybe it was about Al & Ace-Flo falling out? Or me and the other guy... (he's in the KGB, I've been sworn to secrecy)? Or people having a go at KIGO for suggesting new moderators? Or maybe it was just a reference to all the downcast stuff that's been happening recently.

So... when you think about it... maybe it wasn't about you, you, you, you, you at all. Maybe you're just being paranoid and over reacting.

The last four months of my life have been total hell, causing me to end up diagnosed with anxiety & depression, get signed off sick by my doctor, end up losing my job, racking up £5000 in legal fees in the process, and I have no idea how I'm going to afford to pay the mortgage for the house I can't sell in Liverpool or the rent for the house I have up here and, to be honest, it's a bit ****ing stressful knowing that I'm on the brink of financial ruin. But hey, it's not the fault of anyone on here and, aside from the odd moment, I'm managing to keep my sense of humour.

So, what I'm suggesting is, if you're hypersensitive at the moment due to things outside of this site that are causing you to lose control and and lash out at people... perhaps you should take a break. Otherwise you're going to end up posting something that you'll look back at in six months time and think "oops."

eLhabib
29th June 2009, 11:00 AM
D777, you know what's the best way to stop a topic from being brought back?

Ignore it.

stinkleroy
29th June 2009, 11:39 AM
Except in this case it most likely wasn't about you. Maybe it was about Al & Ace-Flo falling out? Or me and the other guy... (he's in the KGB, I've been sworn to secrecy)? Or people having a go at KIGO for suggesting new moderators? Or maybe it was just a reference to all the downcast stuff that's been happening recently.



Correct...a lighthearted attempt to suggest that the forums new colour scheme may be responsible for the general bad vibe around here the past few weeks. Not a personal attack or dig at anyone. You misconstrue my words Dark.

I get that you don't like me for whatever reason, and I'm cool with that. I don't expect everybody to like me. But please don't insinuate that I am guilty of something like this, I thought you would have learned a little about me from the last time you wrongly accused me of something.

That said, I hope whatever problems your'e having at the moment get better for you.

MrSmadSmartAlex
29th June 2009, 12:09 PM
I noticed in some post that infoxicated said the black was to better match the banner at the top. So how about certain parts of the text or buttons in the same yellow from the banner?:)

infoxicated
29th June 2009, 12:31 PM
DD777 did some and so did Hemicrania, although I haven't had time to try them out yet.

blackwiggle
29th June 2009, 02:22 PM
I thought I should live with the new colour scheme and see how I adjusted to it before I made a comment.

To be honest, I prefer the previous way we had it.

It just seems a little oppressive the way it is ATM.

In my humble opinion :cold

infoxicated
29th June 2009, 03:21 PM
Noted, blackwiggle. :)

I'm not sold on it entirely, myself, and since I might change up the base colours of the site when I give it a refresh I don't think we'll go the whole hog with painting it black.

Rapier Racer
29th June 2009, 03:23 PM
I assume a choice of skins for the forums isn't an option available within the forum software? I could have sworn I've seen that somewhere before.

I don't have any problems with the current scheme, I like black.

infoxicated
29th June 2009, 03:30 PM
Yeah, we could have a bunch for folk to choose from, I guess, but then it just becomes harder to maintain after a while - they're always adding a new icon or a button for something.

I'll see if I can split the current black style theme from the default one and then folk can have the choice of the two.

Darkdrium777
29th June 2009, 04:02 PM
So, what I'm suggesting is, if you're hypersensitive at the moment due to things outside of this site that are causing you to lose control and and lash out at people... perhaps you should take a break. Otherwise you're going to end up posting something that you'll look back at in six months time and think "oops."All right.

Lance
29th June 2009, 05:37 PM
In some aspects the current colour scheme is a bit too high contrast, but simultaneously the shaded text areas are so lightly shaded compared to the non-shaded ones that there is hardly a difference. Overall, I find the previous scheme to be more clearly organised and more easily readable.

KIGO1987
29th June 2009, 06:00 PM
Could always go for a pure white Wipeout theme here at the zone, maybe that'll cheer things up. Ive noticed alot that this black theme has brought some of the worst out of people here, or is it that you guys are having a very hot summer up there im not sure. Future changes of good intention are welcomed

Lance
29th June 2009, 06:05 PM
Hmmm.. if we make it entirely white, including the text of course, for a week, then we could take a vacation and pay attention to "real" life for a bit.

Velocitar64
29th June 2009, 07:33 PM
I noticed in some post that infoxicated said the black was to better match the banner at the top. So how about certain parts of the text or buttons in the same yellow from the banner?:)

Yeah that can be easilly done.

I think new icons for new posts should be added, too.

http://www.wipeoutzone.com/forum/images/statusicon/forum_new.gif etc are really outdated. If I were to make others, would you consider them Fox?

EDIT: Examples:

New posts: http://i39.tinypic.com/28vd4q8.png
No new posts: http://i42.tinypic.com/14wjuv.png

These are pretty sloppy, they're just an example. I can do better.

EDIT: These versions are way smoother and work much nicer:

New posts: http://i41.tinypic.com/976w6g.png
No new posts: http://i42.tinypic.com/2hx1rvp.png

EDIT 2: The previous ones had something wrong with them as soon as I converted them. These ones are better and the colouring is better.

New posts: http://i41.tinypic.com/10xzryb.png
No new posts: http://i43.tinypic.com/333l5x4.png

The advantages of these are that they give the site an individual touch and they are black and gold, matching the banner at the top.

Here is what it would look like: http://i44.tinypic.com/pm0xf.png

P52Smith
1st July 2009, 09:04 AM
One other thing I have noticed is that the new upgrade allows users to see who is posting reputation comments about them in the recent reputation area in the top level of the User CP