StarDestroyer.Net BBS

I just updated the board software to the latest version. Please let me know if there are any problems or weird behaviours.

Note: I switched from my old Quick Reply mod to the new built-in Quick Reply system. It looks a bit different, but it has the advantage of not being a software modification, so I don't have to worry about maintaining it. The old one hadn't been updated in four years. The only other visible changes should be slightly larger and better site logo graphics on subsilver and prosilver.

I thought it looked different. I thought I'd managed to switch styles again.

The text seems slightly smaller, but that's not a bad thing.

Also the logo for prosilver and subsilver is pretty sweet. Any chance of seeing that on MF or BlackSoul?

Has the loss of stability over the past several months been related to software version, or is there some other cause at work?

I'm not sure I like the board now showing if someone is on-line or not under their username. Give me a few weeks and I'll be able to ignore it.

White Haven wrote:Has the loss of stability over the past several months been related to software version, or is there some other cause at work?

I doubt it was the software version, although the new one is supposed to have some performance improvements. However, my Cisco/Linksys router has been deteriorating: a problem which (as I've subsequently discovered) is actually commonly reported with this model as it ages. Cisco's response is to just tell everyone to reset their router to factory defaults and reboot it. This gets it up and running again, but they seem to ignore the fact that not everyone considers it acceptable to have to reboot and reconfigure their router on a regular basis just to keep it working, especially when the period between lockups seems to keep getting shorter and shorter.

Having quick reply already open is convenient. Though, there's no preview button anymore.

I guess the online status indicator is good if you're debating someone- you know whether to expect a quick reply or not.

Darth Tedious wrote:Having quick reply already open is convenient. Though, there's no preview button anymore.

I guess the online status indicator is good if you're debating someone- you know whether to expect a quick reply or not.

You can still get Preview if you click Full Editor.

True, true.

What's with the two report buttons? Is one for reporting a post and the other for reporting the individual, or what?

EDIT: Heh, just noticed there's also two quote buttons. Crazy.

2ND EDIT: And the second edit button...

Apparently there are some differences between visual styles. Subsilver has had the online/offline status for a while now, and still only has one report button.

Darth Tedious wrote: I guess the online status indicator is good if you're debating someone- you know whether to expect a quick reply or not.

Unless that person has it set to hide his online status, like I do.

Darth Tedious wrote:True, true.

What's with the two report buttons? Is one for reporting a post and the other for reporting the individual, or what?

EDIT: Heh, just noticed there's also two quote buttons. Crazy.

2ND EDIT: And the second edit button...

I think that's just for convenience's sake, like the navigation controls within a thread. It would after all be kind of tedious to manually scroll up through several yards of hotlinked, hi-res just to find the "report" button. (And yes, I know there are keyboard shortcuts for that sort of thing, but you'd be surprised how many people don't.)

Here's a screenshot of the double buttons:

I don't know if it's WAD or a bug, though since it only shows up on MF and BlackSoul (which, IIRC, Mike "hacked" into phpbb3) rather than the "official" prosilver or subsilver, I'd be leaning toward it being unintentional.

So if we want to get rid of one of those rows, which row would we want to get rid of? The one at the top or the one at the bottom?

PS. I just replaced my old Cisco RVS4000 with a NetGear ProSafe firewall/router. It's not as nice as some of the higher-end suggestions in the G&C forum, but it's relatively inexpensive and NetGear has gotten some decent reliability ratings lately. Hopefully these lockups become less frequent; the RVS4000 is known to have a random lockup problem (something I wish I knew before I bought it).

Darth Wong wrote:So if we want to get rid of one of those rows, which row would we want to get rid of? The one at the top or the one at the bottom?

I would say get rid of the bottom. Because if your post isn't that long (or you have no sig) it apparently brings that bottom row up (or at least, the line the Report button is on, which is apparently in the sig field rather than its own box) and looks like crap.

I'll edit in a screenshot in a second.

EDIT:

(uploaded better image)

So the Edit and Quote buttons are no big deal, but the Report (and, for mods, the Post Details and Delete buttons) are affected.

RogueIce wrote:

Darth Wong wrote:So if we want to get rid of one of those rows, which row would we want to get rid of? The one at the top or the one at the bottom?

I would say get rid of the bottom. Because if your post isn't that long (or you have no sig) it apparently brings that bottom row up (or at least, the line the Report button is on, which is apparently in the sig field rather than its own box) and looks like crap.

I agree, drop the lower one. The upper one is also in line with the time/date of the post, so having the top one remain is simply more convenient. Frankly, I would put everything at the top if possible: edit, profile, etc.

I'll be the odd one out and say we should keep the bottom ones. It matches subSilver, and I think it's better when layouts are the same between themes. If I switch themes, I'd rather not have to hunt around for things. I can see moving the report button to the right of the quote button or something, though, even on subSilver.

Could just keep all the butons there. It means no-one has to look for them, regardless of where they're used to them being. I just thought it was funny that we ended up with doubles.
As Zaune said, it's probably more convenient than scrolling through six foot long posts.

When you quote someone, though, don't you normally do it after reading their post? You'd then have to scroll back up to the top of that six-foot-long post to hit the quote button.

Not if we have buttons at the top and bottom...

Personally the only button I ever use is the top quote button, so I say kill the bottom buttons.

Unfortunately, consensus on the "top row vs bottom row" decision seems to be lacking, so I'm going to hold off on changing that for now. But I did add the on-line/off-line button to MillenniumFalcon.

Is it possible to put the report/details/delete buttons next to the quote and edit buttons on the bottom (as they are on the top) for MF and BS? That would at least solve the whole 'tied to vertical length of post' thing which makes it look kinda ugly.

Adding the online-off line button to Falcon has had the effect of making small posts bigger which is kind of annoying.

If the decision is made to keep both sets of buttons, perhaps you might switch the lower set so that it mirrors the top. Right now we have Quote followed by Edit on the top and the opposite order at the bottom.

And not to nitpick, but the buttons in each pair are offset from each other by several pixels. That can be seen in RogueIce's screen-grab and on my end as well. I don't recall seeing that before the change.