Boldly going where no hawkdawg.com has gone before

[Gumboots]

Exactly. I'm thinking nobody in the right mind will want any of the others, so I might save myself some work and knock them on the head so I don't have to consider them when writing custom code.

The button menu extension is good for basic functionality, but can easily be made more flexible and more compatible with the range of styles here. All it needs is ripping out the hard-coded variables for colour, maybe throw in a class or two for easier targetting, and then do the colours via CSS additions to an existing file. That way it's easy to adjust it to fit any presentation.

Can make it more responsive while I'm at it. The same basic code can be pasted everywhere and just given slight tweaks to suit. But I don't want to have to make it fit gruesome variants that nobody will use, so hiding those seems like a clever idea.

[Hawk]

Just remember that whatever changes you make to the default code stuff will be overwritten when/if you update the software again.
I don't remember exactly how to do it, but there's a way you can make your own edits by making a copy of styles in the ACP and doing it there, or something like that.

That's why the header didn't carry over to the new forum software/styles; because I made changes to the code itself.

[Gumboots]

Yup. Not a problem. I can do all sorts of tricks if I really have to. Main thing is to keep a backup of any edited files, along with enough notes so I know what I'm looking at when I dig it up after six months or whatever.

Actually, come to think of it, how on earth do you comment phpBB files if they're using that weird syntax? There must be a way to do it (but I bet if I ask they'll say "Don't edit core files" and "You need an extension to do that".)

[Hawk]

Which files are you asking about?

Of course, for html it's like this:

Code: Select all

<!-- comment -->

And for the css, it's

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/*  comment  */

But then, you already know that.

Then there's the js file, which is:

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// comment

and for cfg it's

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# comment

I think that about covers all the file types used in phpbb.

BTW! Here's a link about editing styles. - https://www.phpbb.com/styles/installing/

[Gumboots]

I mean the HTML files. They're using HTML comment syntax to include their PHP conditionals, so I was wondering how they do actual comments. But I've been taking a look and it appears they still use HTML comment syntax. For example:

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<!-- IF U_CANONICAL -->
	<link rel="canonical" href="{U_CANONICAL}">
<!-- ENDIF -->

<!--
	phpBB style name: we_universal
	Based on style:   prosilver (this is the default phpBB3 style)
	Original author:  Tom Beddard ( http://www.subBlue.com/ )
	Modified by:      nextgen ( http://xeronix.org/ )
	Modified by:      v12mike ( v12mike@ingenious.co.nz )
-->

The first is a PHP inclusion, and the second is (as far as I can tell) an actual comment. So it may just depend on if phpBB recognises an actual IF or variable after the comment opening tag. Or, it may depend on actual comments breaking to a new line after the opening tag. Not sure at the moment, but will find out.

PS: Preview is working for me, on Aero Black.

[Hawk]

I see what you mean. Weird! I guess the way they write html and php, the html reads the php syntax in an html comment tag.
I don't know.

PS: Preview is working for me, on Aero Black.

Yea, it's working fine for me now. It didn't work for a couple minutes, but then started working again.

[Gumboots]

Maybe it wants a rest on Sunday.

Edit: Just noticed I'm getting white pages on PM's too. It may be because I'm taking a backup of the attachments directory and have temporarily bumped disc usage over the limit. Limit is 5.86 gig, and with the backup tarball there it's been bumped to 6 gig.

Will have it downloaded and deleted in about 20 minutes, so will check all functionality then.

[Hawk]

Maybe things will settle down after all is said and done. Something to keep an eye on though.

BTW! I did edit my previous post while you were posting, so you may have missed what I added.

[Hawk]

I just checked and I'm getting white pages on PM's too.

[Hawk]

I'm getting a white page on MCP too.

[Hawk]

ACP works fine but when I click on the FAQ link I get this message:

Failed to write cache file "./cache/production/twig/05/05179fe919880f3f26e32289d6aed67038c7213cee96cef4524ce75134584726.php".

[Hawk]

The links for The Team and Members also gives a white page.

[Hawk]

OK! Everything seems to be working fine now. No more white pages anywhere and the FAQ page shows fine.

[Gumboots]

Yep. I finished downloading the tarball and deleted it. It was just the automatic server management grumbling because I'd stolen too much disc space.

I've let the head honcho know what the story was. I'll grab another gig of storage for the first year, just to give more headroom for exceptional circumstances. Can review it after that and see if it's still necessary. I can probably figure out cunning workarounds, to enable partial backups that will stay within the lower limit.

[Hawk]

I see you use PaleMoon. I used to use it but found another variation of Firefox called Waterfox. So far I like it better.

[RulerofRails]

My default browser at the moment is also Waterfox.

PS. Quick reply is easy for comments like this. :)

[Gumboots]

Yes it's a handy thing. Only catch is that Hawk's smiley codes aren't the usual web defaults, so that'll trip you up all the time. :D

I might make some new ones that use the usual defaults. That way old posts won't break but new ones might be easier.

[Hawk]

You can change the codes to whatever you want in the ACP>Posting>Smilies.

I like Waterfox better than PaleMoon, and definitely better than Firefox. In my opinion, Firefox has dropped to something a bit less than enjoyable.

[Gumboots]

Yes I was having a look at that interface. I was thinking that if I define some extra ones (which don't have to be shown on the posting form) then people can just use the normal codes:

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:)
:D
;)
:P
etc

And they can be assigned to duplicates of the images that are currently called by:

Code: Select all

:-)
:-D
;-)
:-P
etc

That will keep all existing smiley content the same, but will correct up any cases where people meant to use a common smiley, but didn't use this site's particular codes for them.

I had a look a round the Waterfox site. I still prefer Pale Moon's interface. Waterfox is more like the later FF versions, which are too close to the Chrome GUI for my liking.

But I agree that Firefox itself isn't what it used to be. The other day I had to change some coding because it blew to pieces in Firefox, despite being stable with Webkit and Goanna. It also blew to pieces in IE. That didn't bother me, but I figured I had to fix it for Firefox, and that required using code that would work in IE. Go figure.

[Hawk]

What I like about Waterfox is the ability to use more Firefox add-ons than PaleMoon allows.
I've tried numerous browsers, Chromium and Gecko based, and I don't think Waterfox is anything like a Chromium based browser. I personally don't like Chromium based browsers, although I do use Opera.

I know you folks will find this a bit extreme but I actually use 3 different browsers. I use Firefox for You Tube [only] (and man, is it slow these days). I use Opera for all financial related stuff (bank, PayPal, eBay, etc), and Waterfox for everything else.
Kind of keeps all the spying crap to related stuff.
Weird, HUH?