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About Me
I've got a lot of opinions about ways to improve the services Zathyus Networks has to offer. I've also got some general advice for board owners and theme designers that might end up being useful some day. For now, these thoughts are kept here where curious minds can find them if they look.Readers Online
0 Members, 0 GuestsFeb 27
Details Every Theme Designer Should Know
Over the years I've compiled a list of tweaks I made to skins and hopefully made it into something that is useful for anyone designing themes. This will help you catch all the little details that are needed to make sure your themes turn out as complete and attractive as possible. If you have any questions or notice any omissions/mistakes, feel free to leave a comment and I'll address it.
See the last spoiler, Sample CSS and Codes, for examples to go along with the suggestions contained herein.
Obvious StuffSpoiler: click to toggle
- Cross-Browser Compatibility - Test the theme in all browsers. IE (with and without compatability view), Firefox, Chrome, Safari, Opera, and mobile phones.
- Polls - Start a poll topic with at least 2 polls in it - one you've voted in and one you haven't. Check the way these appear in the topic and if imported to the portal.
- Links
- General board links look better without an underline. To make them still obvious, they should be a different color that changes on hover.
- Links in posts (and PMs, post previews, etc) should have underlines to distinguish them from the rest of the text.
- It's not a good idea to have links change font weight / boldness on hover. It changes their size and makes spacing potentially awkward or jumpy as you read it.
- Text - Make sure text in forum descriptions, links, and posts are made of a color that contrasts the background color! This is necessary to make sure your text is readable, you don't want text that matches the background color too closely or it'll look faded and hard to read.
- Blogs, duh! Enable a blog, make at least 21 posts so that you can see the "Newer Entries" and "Older Entries" links at the bottom. Make those links big and obvious. Make a bunch of comments in at least 1 blog post. Use the Sample BBCode Post in the CSS and Codes section below to test BBCode in both the blog entry and the blog comments sections.
- Admin CP Login Page
- Calendar - Today's date should get a special border. Links and text in the calendar main view are hard-coded with colors you're forced to choose from a list when making the event, so be sure to style link and text specifically and use an !important on the style to overwrite the hard-code.
- Portal
- FAQ
- Edited By... - It's nice to give this a 1px dashed or dotted border to help it stand out.
- Background Images and Colors - Be sure to change background colors from the ZB default for pieces of the theme were you add background images. You need both! Also be wary of how those sections look when they stretch. For example, I've seen a number of themes with attractive background images in the td.c_forum sections, but if the forum description gets longer than the background image and whatever space you have that extends beyond the height of the image doesn't look good anymore. Make your images repeatable or have them blend into a good background color.
- Fluid themes, which adjust widths based on the size of the browser window, are the best practice. There is a place for fixed width themes as well, but go fluid if you can.
- If you're feeling really fancy, convert your themes to both platforms: ZetaBoards and InvisionFree!
- Page-Unique CSS
- Graphics
- Blank Post Buttons (PSD preferable)
- Blank Team Icon (PSD preferable)
- Emoticons, preferably for use with the Cheshire Emoticon System.
- Topic Keys
- Forum Markers
- Etc
- PM Valid Sender Username Check Colors - Easy to miss.
- td.username_ok {
background:#6F6;
color:#000;
}
input.username_ok {
outline:2px solid #080;
}
td.username_no {
background:#E89FFF;
color:#000;
}
input.username_no {
outline:2px solid red;
}
#username_response {
font-weight:700;
}
Obscure StuffSpoiler: click to toggle
- All BBCode - When skinning for BBCode, think of all the areas that BBCode is used and displayed: posts, post previews, reply page, quotes, sigs, forum rules, board rules, registration rules, PMs, blogs, search results, feeds, portal, calendar events. See "Sample BBCode Test Post" code in the "Sample CSS and Codes" section below for a sample post.
- BBCode in Quotes and Spoilers - If you styled the quote and spoiler boxes to have a background color different from your post background color, you may need to adjust the appearance of other types of BBCode that appear inside those tags. This is particularly applicable to links, hr tags, and tables. Check the font color too. Code blocks may have overflow/text-wrapping/scrolling issues in quotes or spoilers, so examine those cases.
- BBCode in Sigs - See "Sample Test Signature" code in the "Sample CSS and Codes" section below for a sample sig.
- Multi-Level Lists - For unordered lists (the plain [list] tag), you can use your own images for the bullets to add a little extra flavor to your theme. Each level of depth into the list can have its own different image, as far down as you want to define and provide images for it. The deepest level you define will be the style all other levels deeper than that will have as well. In the Sample CSS and Codes spoiler at the bottom you can find the "CSS for BBCode Multi-Level Lists (5 Deep)" section with some examples. Make a post/blog entry with the "Sample BBCode Test Post" code also provided below to test it out.
- Tables - BBCode tables can have a main header (thead th) and a sub-header (tbody th) above the rows of data cells (tbody td). Styling the headers with their own background images is highly recommended. The cells may need border and color adjustments depending on your theme's post colors and styles. The 3 areas are identified for theming to your preferences in the CSS and Codes section.
- HTML - The context colors are hard-coded and don't match many skins. An overwriting of default colors is sometimes necessary to make it visible or readable.
- Website Maker
- Custom Pages - Theme it and consider creating a basic template in HTML that can be copied and pasted into each page as a good framework for adding content - the pages are kind of plain by default. Be careful with the HTML you use for the templates, it will have to be flexible enough to look good in all different themes on the board. Keep it basic, use divs for everything so that they don't show up in other themes that aren't made to go with your template.
- Links added to submenu. If you have a lot of Custom Pages showing or some of their page titles have long text, these links will start to wrap and possibly break your theme. Try and make the submenu section fluid.
- Search Results - Run a search and look at how the results are spaced and styled. This section is in need of love.
- Hidden Posts/Topics - If a member is put on mod queue, when they post it doesn't get sent out right away. Only staff members are able to see queued posts, which they need to approve, and until then they are highlighted by being a different, bright color. I make mine hot pink so that there's no way I'll miss them.
- .hidden td, .hidden dl {background:#E89FFF !important; color:#000}
.hidden a, .c_cat-replies small, .c_cat-replies small {color:red; font-weight:bold}- #foot_links - Help make those tracking options visible!
- Global Announcements - #announcements_list, #announcements_head. This entire section needs some love to make it noticeable, it's very plain and relatively small. Styling this very differently from the other sections of the forum view makes it stand out better. This is another opportunity to get creative and make your theme more varied. I like to make it like a super-header for the topic listing and remove any margin space between the the announcements section and forum listing section, make the header font size bigger and centered, etc.
- Pagination - The links in forums and topics that tell you what page you're on and how many pages there are total. The different types of styles allow you to distinguish between the current (active) page and inactive pages. The options should change noticeably on hover so that you know it's clickable. It helps to separate them out with their own border, background color, and text color.
- Inbox - Alternating rows can have different background colors. Further still, unread messages can have a different background color.
- Banners - Please, please, PLEASE distribute copies of the banner image created with the theme in a format that allows people to edit the text to match their site's name instead of the theme name. For example, if you use Photoshop you should share a PSD of the banner that has the main image flattened into one layer, and one a text layer on top of that for the site's name -- complete with all styles and effects and colors applied in the stock version. Or make the banner so that any text put into the banner section of the ACP will appear there, already well-styled. The stock banner does a lot to sell the theme's look, and when people can't use it in their own boards because it's not editable, it really takes away from the theme.
- Find All Posts By Member - By default, the display of this page wastes a lot of horizontal space and creates excessive scrolling. To make this easier to browse, make the following changes to your CSS. Some additional color adjustments may be needed when you're done. If you need help, shoot me a message!
- Locate the following pieces of existing CSS. Delete the parts in red, add the parts in green.
- #files_upload input, .pm .row1 a, .pm .row2 a, #ucp_gallery button img, #findposts td a {
display: block;
}- When you find this one, move it to the very end of your CSS.
#findposts .c_mark {
font-size:200%;
font-weight:700;
vertical-align:top;
clear:left;
border-right:1px solid !important
}- Add this to the bottom of your CSS just before the #findposts .c_mark section that you moved.
- /** Find All Posts By Member Section ***/
#findposts tbody {
border:1px solid;
}
#findposts th.c_sep {
clear:both;
}
#findposts tr.row1,#findposts tr.row2 {
display:inline-block;
border:none;
}
#findposts tr.row1 td,#findposts tr.row2 td {
width:auto;
display:inline-block;
border:none;
padding:0px 10px;
}- Portal Status Updates Block - This data feed's default layout is a single row per status with two columns. The first column is for the name of the status-poster on the left, and the status itself is in the second column, on the right. When this feed is displayed like this on the left or right side of the portal it severely cramps the content of both cells and can cause it to wrap in unpleasant ways. This will change the way these sections are displayed so that they have plenty of room to breathe.
- #portal_l #status_updates td,#portal_r #status_updates td {
display:block;
border-top:0px;
}
#portal_l #status_updates .c_desc,#portal_r #status_updates .c_desc {
text-align:left;
width:auto;
border-top:1px;
}
Default Theme Bugs to CorrectSpoiler: click to toggle
- Code BBCode width/wrapping. Add the following declarations to your code{} style.
- overflow:auto;
white-space:pre;
max-height:10em- Chrome signature overflow problem. If you browse the internet using Google Chrome, you'll notice sig content overflowing its container and spilling over the parts of the topic below it. Place this code in ACP -> Board Themes -> Board Template -> Javascripts to fix it.
- <style type="text/CSS">
/* Fix Chrome brower signature placement problem */
td.c_sig,td.c_nosig {
height: .5%;
}
</style>- Avatar/user info column width - I believe there was a problem with avatar alignments if a member had either a member title or a group icon, but I'm not quite sure what the issue was anymore. It was either fixed in ZetaBoards or I fixed manually with CSS and I can't remember what the solution was... post a comment if know what this was and can remind me, or if you're seeing something weird happening to this piece of your board and we'll figure it out.
- BBCode lists in blog comments unintentionally get the "li.odd" class applied to them when it's intended to only apply to every other comment block. When you theme your blog comments li.odd, define the style more specifically so that it doesn't affect child lists.
- Cell overflow in column layouts. Pages like the Portal and Blog Entries have columns of information to the left and/or right of the main content. In these scenarios, if the main content column is a different length from the side columns (which is almost always) and has a BBCode tag like [hr] or [table] in it, it's going to get stretched in weird ways. You can stop this by hiding the overflow by putting the following declaration at the bottom of your CSS, which captures the parts of ZB boards most susceptible to the issue:
#blog_main,div.portal_content {
overflow:hidden;
}
Test Board Needs - Every good test board needs to display certain features. Here are a few tips to display them.Spoiler: click to toggle
- Notice Boxes - Put sample notices boxes in the board template of your test board so you remember to theme these. Copies are in the CSS and Codes section at the end of this document. The error boxes should have some red or other color in them to make them distinct from the pain info boxes. Remember to theme the text and link colors.
- PM Toast - Put a sample PM Toast in the board template of your test board. Copies are in the CSS and Codes section at the end of this document. This section is a great opportunity to get creative. I really enjoy the themes that make this more than just a box of info by adding some good graphics. A great example is the Incendio theme that makes it an envelope being held by an owl.
- Shoutbox - Enable the shoutbox on the board home and in the portal and make it visible to guests. Editing the .odd color for the main page doesn't affect the portal page, so be sure to capture both.
- Forum Rules - Turn on "show full rules" and give the rules section of a forum a title and some content. Try posting the BBCode Test Post in it.
- A test topic with sample BBCode should be added.
- Post a pinned topic, a closed topic, an open topic, a poll (multiple polls in one topic), a hot topic, a global announcement, a topic with more than one page, and fill a forum with more than one page worth of topics.
- Have a regular forum, subforums, sub-subforums, a redirect forum, and a read-only forum. Enable the trash forum and one of each type of special data feed forum.
- Include a test sig on your main account that tests BBCode etc.
- Guests should have a forum to post in.
- New registrations should be allowed so people can see members-only sections like the PM inbox.
- A test custom page with plain text in it.
- A test blog post visible to guests should be shown. Include BBCode in the blog post. Add several blog comments to it.
- Import topics from a forum into the portal. Show a poll in the portal. Add custom portal blocks. Add all the different types of data feeds and content block types.
Release Considerations - To allow users of your theme the most flexibility, these are the following things that should be allowed to be customized in your skin. Also includes miscellaneous advice for posting your theme release.Spoiler: click to toggle
- Text color.
- Font size.
- Font family.
- Link colors (hover too).
- Link styles (underline etc).
- BBCode styles. Tables, quotes, and spoilers are pretty powerful tools that can be used in some very creative ways, which may require customizing BBCode appearances to serve the purposes of individual boards.
- Custom page theming. .site_wrapper should have a basic background, text color, and border, but be open to total change because of how flexible the HTML is for Custom Pages.
- Room should always be allowed for the user to change the way the theme affects custom pieces of the board.
- I like to add CSS on my boards that limits the max size of images in posts and sigs, for example.
- I also use http://www.cbox.ws/ shout boxes on my boards and prefer to have 2 copies of every theme - 1 with the CBox in its theme layout and 1 without any CBox at all in case they don't want the distraction or the CBox is dysfunctioning or too taxing on resources. Therefore, I need to be allowed to change the layout some.
- Keep all your themes on one test board. Link to the theme on that test board using the setskin link.
- The setskin link looks like this: http://z#.zetaboards.com/index/?setskin=#######
The #'s are replaced with a specific number that identifies the individual theme you're going for.
You can find that number in your ACP by hovering over the "View Full Theme Preview" link and grabbing the ID number shown after &theme=
Example: http://z#.zetaboards.com/tasks/?task=12&theme=1200114
Becomes: http://z#.zetaboards.com/index/?setskin=1200114Sample CSS and Codes
- Code: CSS for BBCode Multi-Level Lists (5 Deep)
/*** BBCode Lists Level 1 ***/
.c_post ul,#c_post-preview ul,.search_results_post ul,#forum_rules ul,.meta_box ul,.c_sig ul,#bbcode_examples ul,#blog_main ul,#reg_rules_intro ul,#topic_review ul,#board_feed ul {
list-style-image:url(http://z3.ifrm.com/0/161/0/p319821/tri.gif); /*** Replace with an image URL of your choosing. ***/
margin-left:10px;
}
/*** BBCode Lists Level 2 ***/
.c_post ul ul,#c_post-preview ul ul,.search_results_post ul ul,#forum_rules ul ul,.meta_box ul ul,.c_sig ul ul,#bbcode_examples ul ul,#blog_main ul ul,#reg_rules_intro ul ul,#topic_review ul ul,#board_feed ul ul {
list-style-image:url(http://z3.ifrm.com/0/161/0/p320286/arrow_right.gif); /*** Replace with an image URL of your choosing. ***/
}
/*** BBCode Lists Level 3 ***/
.c_post ul ul ul,#c_post-preview ul ul ul,.search_results_post ul ul ul,#forum_rules ul ul ul,.meta_box ul ul ul,.c_sig ul ul ul,#bbcode_examples ul ul ul,#blog_main ul ul ul,#reg_rules_intro ul ul ul,#topic_review ul ul ul,#board_feed ul ul ul {
list-style-image:url(http://z3.ifrm.com/0/161/0/p326349/menu_icon.gif); /*** Replace with an image URL of your choosing. ***/
}
/*** BBCode Lists Level 4 ***/
.c_post ul ul ul ul,#c_post-preview ul ul ul ul,.search_results_post ul ul ul ul,#forum_rules ul ul ul ul,.meta_box ul ul ul ul,.c_sig ul ul ul ul,#bbcode_examples ul ul ul ul,#blog_main ul ul ul ul,#reg_rules_intro ul ul ul ul,#topic_review ul ul ul ul,#board_feed ul ul ul ul {
list-style-image:url(http://z3.ifrm.com/0/161/0/p326350/pip.gif); /*** Replace with an image URL of your choosing. ***/
}
/*** BBCode Lists Level 5 ***/
.c_post ul ul ul ul ul,#c_post-preview ul ul ul ul ul,.search_results_post ul ul ul ul ul,#forum_rules ul ul ul ul ul,.meta_box ul ul ul ul ul,.c_sig ul ul ul ul ul,#bbcode_examples ul ul ul ul ul,#blog_main ul ul ul ul ul,#reg_rules_intro ul ul ul ul ul,#topic_review ul ul ul ul ul,#board_feed ul ul ul ul ul {
list-style-image:url(http://z3.ifrm.com/0/161/0/p326354/upload.gif); /*** Replace with an image URL of your choosing. ***/
}
/*** If you want to add another level beyond 5, copy the last level and add another "ul" into all the declarations on that line. Continue the pattern for additional levels if you have enough images. For fewer levels, delete the extra ones you don't need. ***/
- Code: CSS for BBCode Tables
/*** BBCode Table Header TH ***/
.topic thead th,.posting thead th,.meta_box thead th,.search_results_post thead th,#forum_rules thead th,#c_post-preview thead th,.c_sig thead th,#conversation thead th,#blog_main thead th,#reg_rules_intro thead th,#topic_review tbody thead th {
background:url(http://z3.ifrm.com/0/161/0/p319823/linksbar_bg.gif) repeat-x; /*** Change this URL to your own theme header image. ***/
height:53px; /*** Change height of this to match height of your header image. May require adjustments. ***/
padding:3px 5px; /*** Adjust or remove this as necessary for your background image to display in full. ***/
}
/*** BBCode Table Body TH ***/
.topic tbody th,.posting tbody th,.meta_box tbody th,.search_results_post tbody th,#forum_rules tbody th,#c_post-preview tbody th,.c_sig tbody th,#conversation tbody th,#blog_main tbody th,#reg_rules_intro tbody th,#topic_review tbody th {
background:url(http://z3.ifrm.com/0/161/0/p322576/bbtable_th_bot.jpg) repeat-x bottom; /*** Change this URL to your own theme sub-header image. ***/
padding:10px 0px; /*** Adjust or remove this as necessary for your background image to display in full. ***/
}
/*** BBCode Table Body TD ***/
.topic tbody td,.posting tbody td,.meta_box tbody td,.search_results_post tbody td,#forum_rules tbody td,#c_post-preview tbody td,.c_sig tbody td,#conversation tbody td,#blog_main tbody td,#reg_rules_intro tbody td,#topic_review tbody td {
background:#000; /*** Change color to work with your theme. ***/
padding:3px;
}
/*** BBCode Table Font Color. Only necessary if your blog colors don't match with your topic post colors. ***/
.blog_entry table {
color:#E5C71B; /*** Change color to match your theme's post text color. ***/
}
- Code: Sample PM Toast (Above the Copyright)
<div id="pmtoast">
<a href="/msg/" id="pmlink">
<big>New Sample Message Title</big>
<small>From:</small> <strong>Someone With A Long Username</strong><br />
<small>Subject:</small> <strong>The Subject Is Kind Of Long</strong><br />
<small>Sent:</small> <strong>One minute ago</strong>
</a>
<a id="pmclose" href="#">Close</a>
</div>
- Code: Sample Notices (Above the Board)
<dl class="notice info">
<dt>Notice Info</dt>
<dd>These are sample notice bars.</dd>
</dl>
<dl class="notice error">
<dt>Test - A Long Notice Error [Ignore]</dt>
<dd>The password you entered is not correct. Please note that all passwords are case sensitive. This means ABCD is not the same as AbcD.</dd>
</dl>
<dl class="notice">
<dt>The Longest Notice Message</dt>
<dd>Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit, sed diam nonummy nibh euismod tincidunt ut laoreet dolore magna aliquam erat volutpat. Ut wisi enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exerci tation ullamcorper suscipit lobortis.</dd>
</dl>
- Code: Sample BBCode Test Post
[b]A bold sentence[/b]
[i]Italics[/i]
[u]underline[/u]
I want one [s]million[/s] billion dollars
[sub]sub[/sub]marine
x[sup]2[/sup]
[big]big[/big] [big][big]bigger[/big][/big]
[color=green]Green text[/color]
[bgcolor=lightgreen]A background for text[/bgcolor]
[border=red,1,solid]bordered[/border] [border=blue,3,solid]bordered[/border] [border=green,1,dotted]bordered[/border]
[center]centered[/center]
[right]right aligned[/right]
[quote]Blast off!
[hr]
It's party time![/quote]
[url=http://if.invisionfree.com]ZetaBoards Support[/url]
[img]http://z3.ifrm.com/static/avatars/107.png[/img]
[email]user@example.com[/email]
[flash=250,210]http://www.youtube.com/v/z7SeHqxOVYc[/flash]
[me] can speak in 3rd person
A line that[hr]divides
You may want to hide something from accidental viewing:
[spoiler]or the secret may be spoiled[/spoiler]
[size=1]Size 1.[/size]
[size=2]Size 2. "Default"[/size]
[size=4]Size 4.[/size]
[size=5]Size 5.[/size]
[size=7]Size 7.[/size]
v There's members-only text here. v
[member]Members-only text.[/member]
^ There's members-only text here. ^
v There's staff-only text here. v
[staff]Staff-Only text.[/staff]
^ There's staff-only text here. ^
This has a footnote.[note]Sort of.[/note]
[table=2,Table BBCode Test,1]Sub-Title 1[c][url=http://if.invisionfree.com]ZetaBoards Support[/url][c]Cell 1.[c][url=http://if.invisionfree.com]ZetaBoards Support[/url][c]Row 2.
This.
Row.
Is.
Tall.[c]Row 2, Cell 2
[table=2]Sub-Table[c]Sub-Table[c]Sub-Table[c]Sub-Table[/table][/table]
[quote][table=2,Table BBCode Test,1]Sub-Title 1[c][url=http://if.invisionfree.com]ZetaBoards Support[/url][c]Cell 1.[c][url=http://if.invisionfree.com]ZetaBoards Support[/url][c]Row 2.
This.
Row.
Is.
Tall.[c]Row 2, Cell 2
[table=2]Sub-Table[c]Sub-Table[c]Sub-Table[c]Sub-Table[/table][/table][/quote]
[list][*]1st level[*]1st level
[list][*]2nd level[*]2nd level
[list][*]3rd level[*]3rd level
[list][*]4th level[*]4th level
[list][*]5th level[*]5th level
[list][*]Unspecified Level[*]Unspecified level[/list]
[*]Continued[*]Continued[/list]
[*]Continued[*]Continued[/list]
[*]Continued[*]Continued[/list]
[*]Continued[*]Continued[/list]
[*]Continued[*]Continued[/list]
[list=1][*]Item 1
[*]Item 2
[list][*]Item a
[*]Item b[/list][/list]
[list=I][*]Item I
[*]Item II
[list=i][*]Item i
[*]Item ii[/list][/list]
[list=A][*]Item A
[*]Item B
[list=a][*]Item a
[*]Item b[/list][/list]
[html]<html>
<head>
<title>ZetaBoards Support</title>
</head>
<body>
<p class="intro">Welcome</p>
<body>
</html>[/html]
[code]/*** BBCode Lists Level 1 ***/
.c_post ul,#c_post-preview ul,.search_results_post ul,#forum_rules ul,.meta_box ul,.c_sig ul,#bbcode_examples ul,#blog_main ul,#reg_rules_intro ul,#topic_review ul,#board_feed ul {
list-style-image:url(http://z3.ifrm.com/0/161/0/p319821/tri.gif); /*** Replace with an image URL of your choosing. ***/
margin-left:10px;
}
/*** BBCode Lists Level 2 ***/
.c_post ul ul,#c_post-preview ul ul,.search_results_post ul ul,#forum_rules ul ul,.meta_box ul ul,.c_sig ul ul,#bbcode_examples ul ul,#blog_main ul ul,#reg_rules_intro ul ul,#topic_review ul ul,#board_feed ul ul {
list-style-image:url(http://z3.ifrm.com/0/161/0/p320286/arrow_right.gif); /*** Replace with an image URL of your choosing. ***/
}[/code]
[quote][code]/*** BBCode Lists Level 1 ***/
.c_post ul,#c_post-preview ul,.search_results_post ul,#forum_rules ul,.meta_box ul,.c_sig ul,#bbcode_examples ul,#blog_main ul,#reg_rules_intro ul,#topic_review ul,#board_feed ul {
list-style-image:url(http://z3.ifrm.com/0/161/0/p319821/tri.gif); /*** Replace with an image URL of your choosing. ***/
margin-left:10px;
}
/*** BBCode Lists Level 2 ***/
.c_post ul ul,#c_post-preview ul ul,.search_results_post ul ul,#forum_rules ul ul,.meta_box ul ul,.c_sig ul ul,#bbcode_examples ul ul,#blog_main ul ul,#reg_rules_intro ul ul,#topic_review ul ul,#board_feed ul ul {
list-style-image:url(http://z3.ifrm.com/0/161/0/p320286/arrow_right.gif); /*** Replace with an image URL of your choosing. ***/
}[/code][/quote]
- Code: Sample Test Signature
[url=http://support.zathyus.com]ZetaBoards Support[/url]
A line that[hr]divides
You may want to hide something from accidental viewing. In this test case, you should look at what's in each of these spoilers and make sure it looks good in your theme!
[spoiler]Like this horrendously long sig table test.
[table=4,Table BBCode Test,1]Column 1 TH[c]Column 2 TH[c]Column 3 TH[c]Column 4 TH
[c]Cell 1 (TD)[c][url=http://support.zathyus.com]ZetaBoards Support[/url][c]blank[c]test
[c]This.
Row.
Is.
Really.
Really.
Tall.
[c][table=2]Sub-Table[c]Sub-Table[c]Sub-Table[c]Sub-Table[/table]
[c][table=2,Table with thead th]Sub-Table[c]Sub-Table[c]Sub-Table[c]Sub-Table[/table]
[c][table=2,Table with thead and tbody th,1]Sub-Table[c]Sub-Table[c]Sub-Table[c]Sub-Table[/table]
[c]You can have a row without enough columns. That's ok![c]Pay attention to the background/borders of the missing cell area. ---->
[/table]
[quote][table=4,Table BBCode in Quote Test,1]Column 1 TH[c]Column 2 TH[c]Column 3 TH[c]Column 4 TH
[c]Cell 1 (TD)[c][url=http://support.zathyus.com]ZetaBoards Support[/url][c]blank[c]test
[c]This.
Row.
Is.
Really.
Really.
Tall.
[c][table=2]Sub-Table[c]Sub-Table[c]Sub-Table[c]Sub-Table[/table]
[c][table=2,Table with thead th]Sub-Table[c]Sub-Table[c]Sub-Table[c]Sub-Table[/table]
[c][table=2,Table with thead and tbody th,1]Sub-Table[c]Sub-Table[c]Sub-Table[c]Sub-Table[/table]
[c]You can have a row without enough columns. That's ok![c]Pay attention to the background/borders of the missing cell area. ---->
[/table][/quote]
[/spoiler]
[spoiler][quote][quote]Party time[/quote]
[url=http://support.zathyus.com]ZetaBoards Support[/url]
A line that[hr]divides
You may want to hide something from accidental viewing:
[spoiler]or the secret may be spoiled[/spoiler][/quote]
Posted in Tutorials & Documentation on Feb 27 2013, 05:16 PM · 2 comments
Feb 27
ZB Hidden Features
This is my personal list of hidden pages and features of ZB that not everyone may know about. I really wish some of these were made more prominent, they're so useful! Please share the ones you know about too by commenting on this blog post.
Hidden Pages - The following links are listed as a generic formula to match them to your own board, but clicking them will take you to that page on this board.
- Board Feed - http://#.zetaboards.com/YourBoard/stats/feed/
- Status Updates Feed - http://#.zetaboards.com/YourBoard/stats/status_updates/
- Blog Feed - http://#.zetaboards.com/YourBoard/stats/blogroll/
- AutoTool Key - http://#.zetaboards.com/YourBoard/stats/toolbox/ (Only visible to mods and admins.)
- BBCode Key - http://#.zetaboards.com/YourBoard/keys/?c=1
- Emote Key - http://#.zetaboards.com/YourBoard/keys/
- Board Information - http://#.zetaboards.com/YourBoard/?info
- Ad-Free Theme Preview - http://#.zetaboards.com/YourBoard/?pic=1 (Only works if you are logged in as an admin [currently defunct?]. Allows you to view the board index as it appears without ads, solely for the purpose of taking screen shots of themes.)
Miscellaneous
- Hidden BBCode - Can you think of more than the ones I have listed?
- Tables used to be hidden, but they now have a special editor button all their own that shows up when posting. It doesn't show up in the BBCode key, nor in the ACP BBCode controls.
- [member] - Not in BBCode key, but is in ACP BBCode controls and posts (if enabled).
- [staff] - Not in BBCode key, but is in ACP BBCode controls and posts (if enabled).
- [class] - Not in BBCode key, but is in ACP BBCode controls and posts (if enabled).
- [note] - Not in BBCode key, but is in ACP BBCode controls and posts (if enabled).
- You can restore a post immediately after accidentally deleting it. 0_0 Here's a sample URL from my test board, if you want to inspect the link address format.
- Hidden Themes - Turns out this isn't a built-in feature and is just something implemented on this board. I'll cover it anyway though.
(Thanks to Helena for sharing the secret!) You start by adding and enabling a theme in your ACP. Then you use a javascript to hide it from the drop down list, which makes it only accessible if you dig up the setskin link to that theme.
- Code: Script Goes Above Copyright
<!--<script type="text/javascript">
$('#setskin option[value=SETSKIN NUMBER HERE]').remove();
</script>-->
Posted in Tutorials & Documentation on Feb 27 2013, 04:39 PM · No comments
Feb 27
Get the Word Out
So you've got yourself a board and you're looking to spread the word and get advice on how to be successful. You're already off to a great start just by taking the initiative to look for info like this!
Every forum needs members in order to keep it going. If you want to keep it fresh, you also need a steady stream of new members, which requires advertising. Here are some of the ways I have found most effective for drawing in new members. They have been tried and true for me since 2004, they should work for you too!
- Word of Mouth: Start telling people you've made a board and you would like for them to come check it out. You have to talk before people will listen. Go to every forum of which you are a member and put a button and link to your board in your signature if they allow it. Every time you post, people will see the button and may get curious! Remember not to over-do it though, that can have the opposite effect of what you want. PM advertising on other forums is always a big no-no, so keep your board's reputation clean by using official methods of spreading the word.
- Directories: If you have an InvisionFree or Zetaboards forum, make use of their directory system in your Admin Control Panel, it works! This is a very effective type of advertising that puts your name out there where people are specifically looking for your content. Directory forums also exist. These are more interactive and can really draw people in.
- RPG-Directory - A really great resource for RPG forums.
- Networking Boards / Webrings: There are several other types of websites that provide free advertising services for you. Networking communities, like most boards, tend to be involved in helping you so take full advantage of any reviewing or tips they offer. A similar type of website exists, called a Webring. It allows you to list your website on their advertising bar so long as you put the bar on your board too, but they are not typically personally involved in any other way. It's kind of like the bare-essentials version of networking.
- Planet Nexus - The best networking board for InvisionFree and ZetaBoards forums. Includes extra board features and a webring.
- Advertising Boards: There are also communities driven toward letting you post your ad for other people to find. It has been my experience that putting your name out there is never a bad thing, but it may be easy to find your ad lost among many others at an advertising-only board if it's not organized into a directory. If an advertising board is strictly geared toward letting you advertise and doesn't have its own community or a member base that is also looking to join advertised boards, this is going to be a very short-term solution.
- Topsites / Top 100 Voting: There are a lot of these out there, most often based off of genre - so if you are an RPG board you will want to find an RPG Topsites. Try googling for options, using your genre as a keyword. Registering at a topsites puts your board in a list of other websites, and it ranks you either by how often your members vote for it, or by keeping track of how many people visit your board. It keeps track of visitors by having you install a little image in your wrappers, which is very unobtrusive, and it usually displays your rank so that your members can see how well you're doing. This also gets your members involved in forum promotion, so remind them to vote for you!
- Google Indexing: Every admin needs Google on their side! If your board has Google ads, it is being continuously indexed by the Google search engine - which means it's doing a lot of work for you. Even when you don't have ads, Google should still be crawling your board so that potential members can find your content. Make sure that most of your board is visible to guests so that Google can anonymously collect as much as possible.
- Alexa Traffic Ranking: Alexa is the leading traffic ranking website on the internet. It keeps track of how many people visit your board and how active it is, and ranks it against every other website in the world. This requires a little more involvement on your part. I highly recommend installing the Alexa Toolbar - this is how Alexa collects usage statistics for websites. Who better to report activity for your board than you, the person who should be the most active? Once you install it and get it running, all you have to do is let it sit there and collect data. Your usage alone will greatly boost your ranking, and if you encourage your members to use it too you should be golden.
- Check your domain's current traffic ranking by going to:
http://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/YOURDOMAINNAME.COM
I hope these tips work as well for you as they have for me. Feel free to share other methods of "spreading the word" that you have found successful.
Posted in Tutorials & Documentation on Feb 27 2013, 04:28 PM · No comments
Feb 27
ZetaBugs (ZB Pros & Cons)
I made this gigantic list of bugs, quirks, and features I'd like to see incorporated when I was first investigating switching from IF to ZB. This is my public record of those concerns. I also have a supplemental blog post that shows which of these issues have been resolved. There are a lot of these concerns that I haven't gone back to see if they've been resolved or not over the years, so they may be stale. If they are, just leave a comment and let me know!
Bugs - Things that don't work like they should, miscellaneous quirks. Ones in red or orange are serious issues.Spoiler: click to toggle
- When you warn someone by clicking the warn bar next to a post, it quotes that post. Which is fine, but it spaces out all the BBCode and stuff in a very sloppy way.
- Admins can't remove people from joinable groups unless they are the leader of that group.
- Sometimes when you first hit the preview button the preview box will show up but it's empty. Hitting it again will fix it.
- Regular members can see when I'm viewing the staff-only Trash Can via the online list. They can't, however, see when I'm viewing the topics that are in the trash.
- Registration page -> TOS -> 1 Accepting the Terms of Service -> link to the TOU links to to http://zetaboards.com/index.php?p=tou instead of http://www.zetaboards.com/tou/ .
- The portal has a lot of issues:
- I have the portal's recent topics and poll blocks both set to the right side. I have the poll made to be on top and the recent topics on bottom. But instead the poll block doesn't show at all.
- I switched the recent topics block to the lower main section with low priority and it disappeared.
- Still doesn't re-appear if moved to upper main or footer. Works fine on the left side.
- Portal poll disappears if set to footer.
- When the poll and board stats are both on the right side, with poll on top and stats on bottom or medium, the stats still show up on top. Ditto for poll vs. online list.
- When the online users and board stats are both in the upper main, lower main, or footer, no matter what your settings, the online users will appear on top.
- For some reason I can't adjust the c_mark width. It's width is set to 1%, so any image inside should stretch it to fit just right. There's no padding and the width isn't hard-coded, so why won't it change?
- Changing the posts per topic page number doesn't do anything.
- Sometimes a person's avatar is centered, and other times it's left-aligned. I haven't figured out why yet. It's not that a single person's changes, it's that some people are left-aligned and some are centered. I must inspect member titles and icons to see if they are factors.
- The default category for the avatar gallery is called "Basic Avatar Gallery." When you choose to put avatars in there, they don't show up anywhere in the gallery.
- ACP -> Board Customization -> Preferences -> Posting Prefs -> Maximum images per post. The slider has a maximum value of 100. I want more than 100 as an option and would prefer I be allowed to enter whatever number I want. I've got tons of icons in my shops that might very well have more than 100 items in each post.
- Topic Auto Moderation Tool option "Require this post to be edited before posting. If this option is enabled, this AMT can only be applied to 1 topic at a time." doesn't do anything. (Confirmed bug.)
- ACP -> Users & Groups -> IP Address Manager -> Enter all or part of a username: If you enter only part of a username and not the whole thing, you get: "Error: The member you have selected can not be found. Error Code: 62078:161"
- Password reset link on failed login doesn't work.
- [staff] BBCode doesn't work in sigs.
- Non-root admins can edit the profiles (and change passwords) of root admins. The only exception is member #1.
- If blogs allow guests to post comments, other guests are able to delete their comments.
- Special Data Feeds - Shoutbox: Once a forum of this data type is created, its settings can't be edited. No name change, no permissions changes, nothing - it can only be deleted. When I added one as a sub-forum to a top-level forum, its name showed in the sub-forum listing on the outside of the forum, but the forum didn't show up on the inside. When I clicked the link to the forum, I got a permission denied error. I recreated this twice making sure each time to select the appropriate permissions for my group but it didn't help. The permissions I selected were general members and staff, no guests.
- Portal Member Status Update Field - When creating this portal block, there's a "Content" textarea for you to fill in. The actual portal feature doesn't use or display that content though. Get rid of the textarea. [This is the same for the ShoutBox block.]
- Portal Shoutbox Block - The same problem as above with the Member Status Updates. The theme for the portal version of the shoutbox doesn't match the theme for the version on the board index.
- Portal Calendar Events Block - Doesn't show up anywhere when enabled.
- Signatures started breaking in Chrome. The content doesn't stretch the cell area, it spells out onto the adjacent cells. For now, it can be fixed by adding the following code in ACP -> Themes -> Board Template -> Javascripts
- <style type="text/CSS">
/* Fix Chrome brower signature placement problem */
td.c_sig,td.c_nosig {
height: .5%;
}
</style>- Portal Shoutbox Special Feed Block - If you enable this special feed in the portal, the ShoutBox will become visible to guests even if you have guest permissions turned off in ACP -> Board Customization -> Shoutbox -> Shoutbox Permissions. Probably the same for all different permission masks that don't normally have access.
If you report a post and then approve it, reporting it again later will still send it to the RCP but the post itself doesn't get the "hidden" tag applied and get flagged for review while viewing the topic itself. When testing this, I then reported a different post by the same member in the same topic, and that post was successfully reported but also NOT styled with the hidden tag. THEN, I reported a new post in that topic by a DIFFERENT member and it went to the RCP but didn't get the hidden tag applied to the post itself.
holy rusted metal, Batman!.
^ Ok, which one of ya'll put that batman bit in here? Lmao. Your attention is for naught, I'm just dumb and forgot the "hidden" tag gets applied for members who are on mod-queue, not reported posts...- Links to events in the calendar are hard-coded with style="color=#000" for some godforsaken reason. If you're a guest, some events still show up in the calendar as text that is also hard-coded like this with a span tag. You can fix these with an !important style but still... knock it off.
Here's the style I used to customize my colors without changing the calendar header link colors.
- .calendar tbody a {color:#989898 !important}
.calendar tbody a:hover {color:#3582E7 !important}- Sometime when you switch themes the URL of the page you were viewing breaks when it reloads. I was viewing the blog, and also the portal I think, when I changed themes. All the child directory /'s became %2F's instead.
- Group Reply Banning Options Overwritten By Permission Masks - In ACP -> Groups you have the following Y/N option: Post in own topics. Regardless of what you select here, a member in this group's ability to reply to their own topics is determined by their Permission Masks instead. It should NOT be this way. I have a group for retired accounts that I want to be able to view the board but not post at all, so I set these options to No. I happened to also make their own permission mask for that group that had no abilities so I thought this option was working. However, these accounts that are still able to view the board were able to get into Joinable Groups. Joinable Groups are required to have a permission mask assigned to them, so if they get into any of the joinable groups, especially the Open To All types, they gain those regular member masks and that overwrites the group settings. This nullfies the point of them even existing - do they even work at all? I bet they don't. If someone has a banned group that has this option disabled but still has the ability to view the board, they're in for a nasty surprise when that banned member gets into an Open To All Joinable Group with normal member permissions.
The Post new topics and Post in others' topics options DO override permission masks.- Along the same lines as the above issue. I have my validating group set to only be able to see 1 forum, wherein they can start topics and reply to their own topics there if they need help completing the validation process, but that's it. They are still able to access the Joinable Groups sections though and get in on additional members-only permissions without having to validate, making the validation process somewhat moot. It shouldn't be like this.
- Both of these last 2 issues could be partially resolved if you also include a Y/N Group setting that says "can join Joinable Groups?"
- If you create this group option to solve this problem, what happens when someone is already in a Joinable Group and then gets moved into a member group that has the Joinable ability disabled? Does it actively remove their joinable group status? Suppress the permissions? What if they're the leader of the group?
- FAQ Search TR Colspan - On the FAQ page, the TR containing the lists of links has 2 data cells - one for "Profile & Account" and the other for "Advanced Features." The TR after that has 1 TD that only contains the FAQ search feature, but it's set to have a colspan of 3. This isn't immediately noticeable because tables, by default, have a table-layout:auto setting that adjusts everything to look nice. I changed table#faq to have a table-layout:fixed style and that split everything out to make this error obvious. I had to revert back to the auto layout because it looked so bad with the empty space from the fake extra column created by the colspan=3 declaration.
- I added a repeating event to the calendar and it doesn't show up. I made sure to click permissions for all groups and verified the date, still to no avail. If you managed to keep a link to the event after viewing it upon successful creation, you'll still be able to find the event that way.
- The event date(s) should show while viewing the event itself, as well as the timeframe in which it repeats. (Right now you can see that it repeats, but not if it's daily/weekly/monthly/yearly.)
- Using AutoTools to move a topic from a source forum with data in its "Custom Topic Option" settings to a destination forum that also has data in its "Custom Topic Option" settings creates a database error, presumably due to some mismatching between category selections.
- Alternately, topics can be successfully moved manually. However, there are still issues with the category selections between forums. The category selected in the source forum can change even if the destination forum has identical categories. Has yet to be tested on forums with totally different category names.
TheEnigma's Bugs
- You can request a name change to the name that you are currently using.
- In custom profile fields, when you create a textbox (i.e. in HTML, a textarea), you get a slider to choose the max length (5-200). When you go to edit this profile field, it changes to a text box that you can type the maximum length into (max of 50,000 characters, min of 0).
- Borders around many sections of the board do not appear, or only partially appear in Firefox.
- Messages sent to yourself go straight into the Archive folder. If you decide to track this message for whatever reason (you may have it set to automatically track all messages), the message appears as being sent by Guest, and remains as "Not Read Yet" indefinitely. Trying to open this message, you get an error.
- [me] BBCode adds a space after itself.
- When you click to add a poll to a topic, you are taken to a screen which displays a strip which says "Poll Setup (Add Poll)." You have to click the "(Add Poll)" link again to get any options.
Cons - Anything I don't like, big and small. Ones in red or orange are serious issues.Spoiler: click to toggle
- Unlike IF, my New Arrivals promotion to Member after 1 post doesn't work all the time. On IF, if a person posts in a forum where the post count is off, it still counts as their 1 post to gain promotion into full membership, but not here. I liked the IPB sneaksy way. I would have to do manual promotion after searching the ACP using group and last post date combo.
- When you preview your posts the BBCode buttons get lost at the top, which is problematic if you make a long post. Well, it's really too much at any time, these boxes are big.
- The PM fast reply box is at the bottom of the page but the latest message is at the top. This makes a lot of scrolling to try and read back and forth while you type.
- Forum rules still cannot be added while creating a new forum.
- Forum rules only allow BBCode. Problem could be solved if [doHTML] or an equivalent is added. The presence of table BBCode drastically reduces how much this aggravates me.
- HTML / BBCode in the forum rules gets shifted around?
- All this transparent PNG junk that doesn't work / has a delayed load (like any JS).
- I can't allow an admin's alternate account to see the trash just by giving them the staff permission mask.
- Custom profile info that shows up in posts is twice as long as it needs to be. You don't need one line for title and choice, they can be side by side in a single row of a table or they can be done like Title: Choice. I've kinda made it better with CSS.
- Still no way to post HTML. <_< If everyone's so darn afraid of script exploitation then enable it as an admin-only feature. Because admins can put scripts in the wrappers already, there's no point in restricting them.
- PM conversations are really annoying. If the convo is long it scrolls and scrolls, you can't cut out any of the old junk.
- Viewing a single category doesn't show the users online list of the entire forum. This is, of course, because it's technically just another forum. But I don't like it!
- Each forum gets its own CSS ID using something like #forum-ID. This is useful for not only skinning but also for utilizing js. However, the sub-forum listing and c_info blocks don't get their own CSS IDs, like #subforum-ID. This would be nice. Especially if you're skinning one particular forum to be a different color, you want the sub-forum listing to match. Or if I want to use jquery to append links to important pinned topics! Rawr!
- The colorization of HTML tags in the HTML BBCode block cannot be changed, it's hard-coded. So basically it's gonna look like crap in any custom skin. For now I've blacked it all out with CSS.
- When you make a new calendar event you *have* to choose a text and background color. The backgrounds have a "no color" option but not the text. This means that most links are the default color, which is black, and that is hard to see on dark custom skins.
- Is it intentional that the HTML and code tags don't work in sigs?
- When editing your signature, hitting tab once takes you to the logo link instead of to the submit changes button.
- People that register new boards get an e-mail but it doesn't tell them their username. Trust me, people get confused and need it. Especially if they didn't understand the form they were filling out when registering.
- The ACP home page doesn't have any quick search options, a shortcut to member searching or forum-making.
- Everyone keeps saying there's a "restore default CSS / images etc" option but it's not in the themes section of the ACP.
- Ditto the above for the "sorted emotes" feature.
- The language selector only has English as an option!
- I miss these e-mail options:
- Include a copy of the post when emailing me from a subscribed topic
Enabling this option will send a plain text version of the post in the subscription email.- Send a confirmation email when I receive a new personal message
Enabling this option will send an email confirmation of any new personal messages sent to you.- Enable 'Email Notification' by default?
Enabling this option will automatically subscribe you to any topic you start or reply to.- The "track topic," "print topic," "subscribe to this forum," and "new announcement" links are almost invisible hiding down there at the bottom of the page. I've overlooked them many, many times and I know they're there! >_<
- When you make a global announcement, hitting the post button then takes you to the board index instead of letting you see your newly posted announcements. It kind of makes you wonder if you even made the post!
- When I log in I can't use the name "Lothlomendil", I have to use "Lothl¨®mendil" exactly, with the accent.
- Members with special characters in their names, such as mine, can have someone register the same name, only without an accent.
- When creating a redirect forum, it lets you leave the site URL section blank. If you then leave it blank it becomes a normal forum, which is confusing.
- Already-existent forums cannot be turned into redirects.
- No e-mail notification of new PMs.
- Permissions for redirect forums aren't properly checked. If a guest doesn't have permission to view the forum but is given a link, they can click it and are still redirected. It should check permissions before redirecting so that guests clicking the link of such a forum are given the permission denied message.
- There are some things that need consideration due to having a skin changer. They neglected to think of having multiple sets of:
- Group icons.
Online list colors.- Emoticons. (Can be remedied with Helena's Cheshire emote system to a degree, emotes with additional parts like yellow hands and animations can be incompatible.)
- Forum rules don't appear while viewing topics inside that forum. They do, however, show up on the reply / edit post / new topic pages. 0_0
- Forum rules box is above the sub-forum listing instead of below.
- The third c_info box, viewers, is only on the board index and not any sub-forums.
- The only way to un-globalize one of those global announcements is to delete it. So uhm, what if I want to keep the info!? There should be some way to turn it into a regular topic.
- After editing the portal options under Board Prefs, your focus is changed back to the main board prefs page. It's annoying when you want to continue editing the portal area.
- No character counter. (I wonder what the limit on post size is, if any.)
- There's no PM reply option, only quick reply, which is annoying.
- No topic icon key.
- The search isn't very advanced. There's just one function, search for keywords in topics. But I want to look at something like "all active topics with x days." Or to be able to search within the "find all posts / topics by member" thing to have the board find keywords within those results instead of reading through 10 pages of stuff looking for what you want.
- The trashcan forum doesn't have a "viewers" column in the c_info section, so it's set to colspan of 2. One wonders why it doesn't have a viewers column. This makes it so that if I choose to have one of the c_info bits set to display:none, as I have done with the viewers column, then it horribly breaks things in the entire staff category.
- The portal's imported news has the option to show x number of posts, but it always only shows one. And it' not even be the most recent one, it's seemingly random.
- Once you add an avatar to the gallery in the ACP, it doesn't disappear from the "add" list, so you will have a stupidly huge amount of avatars in that list at all times. It's cluttered.
- There's a discrepancy regarding the borders around custom and default content blocks in the portal.
- ACP warning history has the option to "remove" warnings older than x days, but it needs an option to "lower" the warnings without removing them! Jeeze.
- Moderators (global+) can't edit sigs!? Even when there's one present. -_-
- PM toast off by default.
- Status Updates are permanently sorted by the order in which the members first posted updates. There is also no pagination. This results in only new accounts showing up in the status feed, while oldies who may still be constantly updating get lost in cyberspace.
- Custom Topic Fields - They have to be created on a forum-by-forum basis. You can only have one custom field. It's just a drop down selection. This is a poorly developed feature.
- The Portal's Latest Posts feed needs its own ID, like #latest_posts so that it can be individually skinned like all the other unique parts of the portal.
- The content of #portal_foot isn't contained within the #portal div, so styles you may have thought would work for the entire portal actually need to be replicated for the foot. Kind of annoying, doesn't make sense to exclude this but if you change it now all the existing themes will need tweaked.
- New comments on blogs don't show up in the board activity feed.
- The following elements are used in the board despite being deprecated in HTML5:
- [big] --> <big>
- [u] --> <u>
- I was reading a PM conversation in which someone had messaged me, and I had sent 1 reply back making me the most recent message at the top of the conversation. In the .c_postinfo cell, my username didn't have the group style applied to it, but the other member's original message did. Wut?
TheEnigma's Cons
- Case sensitive emoticons.
- When people comment on your blog, you don't get notified. When someone makes a new blog post, you do not get notified. You can't subscribe to blogs. So all up, you need to constantly check people's blogs if you want to see if they've said anything.
- There appears to be no way to change a theme's author or license, though I guess this doesn't won't matter when they implement code for sharing themes across boards.
- Post tags cannot be searched for,
and lack the ability to be seen or edited by admins.- Functionality for adding polls to topics is easy to miss.
- When logging in, after entering your user name, one tab will take you to the password reset link. You need to tab again to get to the password input box.
- The +/- buttons for changing the size of textareas are nice, however, they would be more useful above the post, so that you can click them multiple times without having to change where you click, as they move up or down the page.
- When logged out, if you try to access a topic for which you need to log in, logging in through the supplied login form at the top will take you to the board index, rather than the topic which you tried to view.
- Post data is not saved when you get logged out, and you return to the board index after logging back in.
- Many of the error codes are meaningless and do not adequately describe the situation which has caused some invalid action.
- There are still several areas where the style information for tags have been placed within the HTML, rather than the elements being given classes to allow you to change them in CSS.
Eratta - Miscellaneous notes.Spoiler: click to toggle
- In ACP -> Directory Options it needs to tell board admins the rules regarding the directory [e.g. not putting test boards in the directory].
- ACP -> Forum Management -> Edit Forum -> Forum Description. If they're gonna make it HTML-only, there should be a note. It needs to tell you if you use HTML or BBCode. (BBCode is dumb.)
- I put my Tulk account on mod preview the other day, and set it to last 1 day. It worked fine. The next time I warned the account, the ACP Warn History log stated "Ended Post Preview" in the actions log. Weirdness.
- Viewing your inbox resets the count to zero. However, you can still have unread messages in your inbox that you may not notice, but the zero leads you to think you don't. Maybe have it be an "unread message" counter instead of "new messages since you last checked the inbox" counter.
- ACP -> IP Address Manager -> Username Matches: Can we please add to the query results something that displays the IP you just searched for? So you know what you're looking at etc.
- ACP Staff Security Portal doesn't say what kind of score is good and what kind is bad, or how big the scale is. E.g. 1-10 with 10 being best?
- Should have the option to add a note to banned email addresses, just like you can for IPs. And for reserved names too, why not?
- Can't edit any of the banning entries.
Desired Features - New features they don't have that I want. Ones in red or orange are highly desired.Spoiler: click to toggle
- Users online today.
- Advanced / more in-depth statistics page. Graphs and charts that show this data. Members should be able to perform queries similar to those in the ACP about date ranges for browsing info.
- Total board topics.
- Total users online today/this week/month/year, with accounts listed and linked.
- Total posts/topics/registrations made today/this week/this month/this year.
- Average posts/topics/registrations per day/week/month/year.
- Most active forums/topics today/this week/month/year/ever.
- Total number of accounts using each theme.
- Include list of names with links to the accounts.
- This feature will allow you to determine the popularity of each theme so that you can better determine which ones should be removed or if new ones need added. I have themes that come with wide and narrow margin options and would like to know what people generally prefer. There are many other uses for this, such as showing which additional visible features people prefer - chat boxes and special codes that only show up in certain themes, for example. ZNR's' Theme Spotlights are a good code example.
- Total number of accounts using each profile field.
- List who is using it and who is not using it. This way, if a field is required to be filled in according to the board's rules, we can find who hasn't filled them in and send them a message asking them to remedy it. Or we can edit it in ourselves if necessary.
- If they're using a list type profile field, stats should be able to show who has selected which options, with total members using each stat shown and listed. This allows you to determine popularity of each option in case some should be removed, or to assess if a change made to one of these options may not be advisable because of its high use.
- Per-forum statistics on usage of that forums "Custom Topic Option" categories.
- Mass uploading of emotes, perhaps uploading a .zip package. Emoticon management is a pain in the arse.
- Re-arrange emote ordering. With a nice GUI, like wordpress.com's widgets. Niiiice.
- Mass avatar uploading for the custom gallery. One at a time is dumb.
- Allow multiple codes per emote instead of having to upload the emote multiple times.
- I'd also like to be able to have multiple emoticon sets due to the skin changing.
- Ditto the above for group icons.
- Add color to topic titles with HTML. And other stuff.
- Ability to edit sigs, avatars, or photos when you click on a member's avatar to edit their profile. Or maybe inline sig editing / a link to editing a member's sig while viewing a topic.
- Hidden categories.
- I would like for the "trash individual posts" feature to put the original topic's ID into the topic description, along with the username of who split it.
- Ability to arrange the order in which the custom fields appear in the profile.
- Report CP logs.
- Custom FAQ pages. It's been said that this won't happen, if we want an FAQ we can just make a topic or webpage about it and add the link to that page to the submenu or something. But who wants two FAQ's? "Go read the FAQ." "I did, but it didn't have any info in it." "Oh, go read the other FAQ."
- A "system overview" section in the ACP like that in the IF ACP. It shows how many total topics, posts, and members the board has.
- A showing of total board topics in the "board stats" section of the index.
- Inline post editing!
- Ability to customize the list of colors in the BBCode color drop down list.
- Ability to add a repeating calendar event that occurs on the x'th weekday of a month. Like how Thanksgiving is always on the last Thursday of November.
- Character counter on posts.
- Word counter on posts.
- Built-in spell checking.
- Report information about people that tried to register but were not able to because of the ban settings (e-mail, IP, username, etc). The report should include the time, the user's e-mail, their IP, and username.
- Since visitors with banned IP's wouldn't be able to try and register, perhaps also have a banned IP visitor report. Including time, IP banned, and any possible usernames associated with that ban. For example, you ban all of Dayton with an overly strong IP ban (*glares at the SZ*) then you can see that Member 1, 2, 5, 700, and Lothy were all banned as a result. Or sommat.
- Ability to do a member search on more criteria than those listed. Eg. "avatar contains," "x custom profile field contains," "location contains," etc.
- Recount post count (by group at the least).
- The "Moderated By" section of forum descriptions doesn't have its own class (I want to make it a little smaller than the c_forum text).
- Sub-pages in the website maker pages.
- Automatic resizing of images larger than specified dimensions for the board. Inspect this.
- "Hidden" warn notes that staff members can see, but no one else is able to (not even the warnee).
- Warn notes that automatically reduce themselves after a period of time, with the option to disallow lowering.
- If no doHTML equivalent, I want BBCodes that allow the following:
- Abbr
- Acronym
- Additional tag properties [title, target, alt]
- Drop down lists
- Marquee
- Scripts! Bwaha.
- An indicator in each forum that says "post count is on / off in this forum."
- Built-in moderator tools that let you hover over a member's username and see a dropdown list of quick-edit / warn / PM / etc. options for that member.
- ACP option to have all deleted posts automatically trashed instead of deleted.
- Theme settings or images should have a section in it to edit the display picture to give a preview of the skin, like the default ZB displays. [/phailed explanation]
- "View Warnings" page should say what moderation actions were taken along with the warning, such as Member Auto Tool used, suspension added, mod-queue added, etc. It does this in the ACP, but it should say in the onboard warning page too.
- Add the ability to use Member Autotools through the inline moderation options while viewing a topic.
- Report CP should show info on posts and topics awaiting approval.
- InvisionFree has that post icon feature that's full of smilies that don't mean anything, its lack of inclusion in ZB is understandable. However! I would like to see a post icon feature added to ZB that is customizable so you can create your own meanings for your chosen icons. This would entail:
- ACP section for adding each icon (topic state) to the board.
- Choose custom image for each "state" that gets globally prepended to the link on the topic title. (Shows up in forum listing, active topics page, topics by all member page, portal, etc, maybe topic view.)
- Choose custom title/text for each state's drop down selector.
- Topic Auto Tool to quickly change topic icon.
- Admin CP -> Themes -> Image Sets -> Editing Image Set: Add a "View Preview for All" button that expands them all.
- Append / Prepend to Sig AMT option.
- On-board Edit Member's Profile page should allow editing of sigs too, for admins and Global Mods.
- Ability to subscribe to a topic while posting it / posting in it (like IF).
- Member Auto-Tool categories, just like you have for Topic Auto-Tools.
- The ability to organize the files in the upload manager. The organization and interface there suck.
- The ability to upload multiple files at a time in the upload manager. This is seriously frustrating to upload an entire set of theme images one at a time, it's unnecessary.
- After uploading a file in the Upload Manager of the ACP, it'd be nice if it did the following:
- Take you back to the upload dialogue in case you want to keep uploading.
- On the upload dialogue page, show a confirmation of successful upload (already a feature) that actually shows you the links to all the images you just uploaded. (Currently, for that last part, you have to navigate to the General Files section and dig them all up manually. It's a huge waste of time when working on installing theme images.)
- Alternate row highlighting for lists in the ACP (li.odd). Lists of uploaded files, theme images, filters, emoticons, ban settings, custom profile fields, etc. all need visual differentiation.
- A "Save Draft" feature that lets you save an unfinished reply or new topic that you were working on for later. It would remember which forum or topic you were posting in so you didn't have to fish it all back up. Would need to remember posts selected for quoting and multi-quoting, along with any alterations made to those quotes.
- Revision tracking for post edits.
- Mobile stylesheet.
- Zathyus app for Apple/Android. I want push notifications on my iPad when I get new PMs, new replies to my subscribed topics, new topics in my subscribed forums, etc. I'd also like it to be organized in a similar way to the Twitter app. It allows you to have multiple accounts all in the main interface so you can manage all of them with ease. This would be useful for multiple accounts on a single board, but also for using multiple ZB forums.
- Multi-Login - This feature as it exists is neat but it doesn't really do much beyond fast account switching. I'd like to see it get more features though. I imagine being in the post form, starting a new topic or posting a reply, and having a drop down option that says "From which account would you like to post this?"
- Topic Auto Tool - Edit Custom Topic Field - An AT that applies a particular choice to a topic's selection from the Custom Field.
- Footnotes from BBCode should get their own div container and ID/style so that they can be themed differently. And then maybe kill the need for the horizontal rule above the footnotes.
- Ability to sort a forum by its Custom Topic Options.
- Topics in forums where you have "Custom Topic Option" fields filled out should display the category selected for that topic when viewing it, ideally at the top of the first post like the topic's name and description.
- Topic AutoTools that change the Custom Topic Options.
TheEnigma's Desired Features
- Having a default board actually pass w3 validation (currently 8 errors).
- More control over skins, e.g.;
- Ability to change the HTML for posts in a way similar to how you can edit a theme's layout. This would involve giving you variables such as <!-- POST_CONTENTS -->, <!-- USER_AVATAR -->, <!-- USER_SIGNATURE -->, <!-- USER_PROFILE_URL -->, etc. to intertwine with your own HTML, allowing a much greater control of layout.
- Ability to upload/download themes packaged into .zip files or some other format to ease the distribution of themes. (Will become redundant if/when cross-forum theme functionality is completed)
- Options for allowing only certain groups to view specific themes.
- Due to having multiple themes, one should be able to choose a select few colours which users may use in their posts. These colours could change for each theme to ensure that they are always legible. (Probably what Lothy was suggesting, but idea expanded a little)
- RSS feeds for blogs/announcements/custom news feeds.
- Autotools for individual posts--if you want to warn a member for a particular post, and make an example of this person, you could have an autotool which appends some message to the post (e.g.; "User banned for stupidity"), then performs some action to the offending user. These could be useful for triggering joining of groups, bans, warns, probations, etc.
- Highlighting for tracked topics.
- Differential highlighting for read/unread posts in topics.
- Ability to rate threads, i.e.; a 1-5 star rating or similar.
- Post icons for threads would be nice, though only if they were customisable.
- Ability to append/prepend the forum name or some other text to the title of the page.
- Some way to easily identify the OP's (Original Poster) posts in a topic, either through highlighting of their posts, adding some icon next to their name, or some other way.
- Ability to hide insignificant details about users, e.g.; post count and member number. (Easily done through JS, but I'm not going to slow down my forum with extra bloat.) (Could be done with my editable HTML theme idea, mentioned above)
- More options for poll, e.g.;
- Allow users to change their vote within x minutes of voting.
- Custom BBCode tags.
- When posts are modified/deleted/created, store a diff of each change, allowing you to roll back to a particular state in case of vandalism.
- Have some way to delete/trash/hide all posts for a particular user.
Upgrade Concerns - Annoyances when converting and potential losses.Spoiler: click to toggle
- Breakage of tricky doHTML magic with scripts in posts.
- Breakage of all things that used to be in HTML (forum descriptions, forum rules, etc.) that now must be done in BBCode.
Pros - Favorite features of ZB.Spoiler: click to toggle
- Joinable groups.
- Custom profile fields.
- Receive emailed board announcements? is on by default.
- Forum rules editing is there in the edit forum page with everything else.
- Unlimited sub-forums.
- PM reporting.
- Report CP.
- Skin changer.
- Website maker.
- Collapsible categories.
- Username change history.
- Find all posts by member.
- Inline moderation (especially trashing).
- Lists all current members who will be affected by an IP Ban.
- Automatic PM tracking option.
- Working highlight + click BBCode.
- Can disable specific BBCode tags.
- Can choose which tags to show in the BBCode list on the reply page.
- Spam protection.
- Member Auto Tools.
- Topic Auto Tools.
- IP Address Manager.
- Staff Security Portal.
- Admin assistants.
- General Web 2.0 appearance.
- Double post merging.
- New "recover deleted post" feature! However, it appears to be half-baked in classic ZB style. It appears to only be an option immediately after you delete a post, so if you navigate away from that page you lose the option. There is still no "confirm delete" option! It MUST confirm that you're not deleting on accident first, BEFORE moving into "recover deleted post" mode. Prevention is key, not damage control after the fact.
- "Custom Topic Option" on forum settings that allows for custom categorization of topics.
Posted in Service Feedback on Feb 27 2013, 04:07 PM · No comments
Feb 27
Former Pros and Cons of ZetaBoards (ZetaBugs)
I made this gigantic list of bugs, quirks, and features I'd like to see incorporated when I was first investigating switching from IF to ZB. This is my public record of which of those concerns have been resolved. It is the supplement to another blog post of mine which is the running record of ongoing issues I'd still like to see resolved.
Bugs - Things that don't work like they should, miscellaneous quirks. Ones in red or orange are serious issues.Spoiler: click to toggle
Preview button stopped working.Whichever "include sig in this post" option you initially choose can't be changed later (check/unchecking the box does nothing).Don't know if it's just for converted boards, but on IFS when you click a category to view only forums in that category, not all the forums show up.Skin changer doesn't work.Skinning system is messed up. When you make a new skin its CSS replaces all the other sets of CSS.Skinning system is messed up. When you edit the layout for one theme, it overwrites the layout for all themes.Forum rules don't show up in the forum!View Full Theme Preview in custom themes doesn't work (probably because of broken skinning system).When you're at Admin CP → Themes → Image Sets → Editing Image Set, the "Image Sets" link is clickable but when you click it you get "Error: The ID you selected is invalid. Error Code: 58008:161"The link to ZetaBoards at the bottom of the ACP has the address of "#".While member managers can't promote themselves to the root admin group, if there is another group in existence with full admin rights (co-admins, for example) then they can promote themselves to that group.When viewing a member's profile their avatar gets eaten.The "new poll" button doesn't show up in forums that have polls enabled. Why have a "New Poll" button in the Images section if the only poll-starting options are in a link on the "New Topic" page? Which is hard to fricking find.(They removed this button from ACP.)I still have to log into the ACP using the name "Lothlómendil" instead of "Lothlómendil".When you have a member group listed as forum moderator, clicking the link just takes you to the full member list.The old ZB logo is still in the ACP.The main ACP page still has information about the beta.The ACP's BBCode page's examples are messed up.When I view this page in IE the title is "BBCode#new#new#new#new#new" :huh:Using the "Topic History" moderation option gives you an error. "Invalid Input - Error Code: 17087:161"Blog appearance is screwed up in IE6. There is a whole page of empty space where the blog should be, adjacent to the ads. Then the blog is at the very bottom.They are still using border-collapse, which is buggy in Firefox.(Did Firefox fix this bug?)Automated (non-HTML) line breaks in forum descriptions don't work.(Forum descriptions are HTML-only?)Can't edit a member's signature or profile (interests etc.) if they don't already have information entered. This is especially annoying when you have a text custom profile field that is admin-only editable. The member can't edit it ever, and neither can an admin because the member hasn't put any data in it.Admins can now edit blank signatures.ACP -> Board Customization -> Preferences -> Posting Prefs -> Maximum images per post. I set the slider to 100 and hit save, but it keeps defaulting back to 50.
TheEnigma's Bugs
Avatars get cropped in profiles and PMs (caused by the .av_wrap class).Bold, italics, underline, and other formatting buttons for creating posts do not work in Firefox. edit: Ok, they're working correctly on this computer, will try again when I get a replacement power supply for my dead PC.
Cons - Anything I don't like, big and small. Ones in red or orange are serious issues.Spoiler: click to toggle
User group online list pre/suffixes have to be done in BBCode. Because we have a skin changer, and the colors that go with one skin may not be visible on another skin, the lack of the ability to use CSS classes is a pain in the ass. Problem could be solved if [doHTML] or an equivalent is added.[class] tags added, they work in the online lists.Trash can permissions aren't adjustable enough. I would like for admins, global moderators, and only some of the forum moderators to be able to view the trash. I have 2 moderator groups: global and per-forum (though it is most of the forums). Then some people can "buy" their own forum (guilds) and they get some small moderator abilities in there (pin, unpin, close, open), but they should not be allowed to see the trash or any other staff forum because they are not staff.You can only bulk mail one user group at a time.Can't use special characters in passwords.Can't delete PMs.All links to view a topic still always go to the last unread post instead of just letting you read the damn topic form the start.No forum jump!No IP address option in the member search page.Admin doesn't receive e-mail notification of new registrations. (The admin digest solved this.)Can't disable a member's ability to edit their own member title?If you choose to remove sig / emotes / edit by line in a post, those options aren't remembered when you re-edit the post.(They're "remembered" now, you just can't ever change them!)No e-mail notification when subscribed topics get replies.(The option is there but I'm not sure if it works.)No e-mail notification when subscribed forums get new topics.(The option is there but I'm not sure if it works.)Forum moderators (individuals & groups) still don't appear in the moderating team list.Profile field list options are not stored as arrays with unique identifiers. If I remove an item in the middle of the list, all the options shift and screw up what has been entered in people's profiles. This means I cannot remove any options from list-type profile fields! It's creating a mess on my board that is confusing and irritating for me and members alike.In the "today's posts" list, where it lists the forum the topic was made in, the forum name isn't a link to that forum. It's not a link at all, which is annoying!
TheEnigma's Cons
It acts as though you can change the default theme's CSS, but any changes you make do not stick.Theme selection dropdown appears even when you have no alternate themes to choose from.There is no BBcode for numbered lists, e.g.; [list=1][*]blah[*]blah[/list]
Desired Features - New features they don't have that I want. Ones in red or orange are highly desired.Spoiler: click to toggle
Pre-register member option."View topic history" option.Automated PM tracking.Certain text areas, especially those in the ACP, should have a width of 100%.Post delete confirmation.An IP / e-mail auto-matching "member tracking" system. It would display info such as IP addresses used to post with, most recent IP address used, matches to other accounts that share the same e-mail address, matches to other accounts in the same IP range for both registration and posting (to identify secret duplicate accounts [despite AOL repeats...]), and uhm... maybe some other stuffs.IP address in PM's (visible to only admins, and carried on from a forwarded / reported PM).A comment field for IP and e-mail address bans. Mostly to keep track of *whose* IP is being banned. It's often the case that the IP banned is not the IP registered with, so it's impossible to track down.Change member's password via ACP.An actual "view today's posts" page that shows all the day's posts one at a time, instead of just links to today's active topics. [Like SMF]Joinable group leaders don't have an easy way of knowing if there are new requests for membership. They have to go to their preferences and then click on joinable groups to see, and I know people well enough to know that they will never check there. It should have a notification system like that of the report CP.
TheEnigma's Desired Features
Functionality for easily quoting multiple posts.
Upgrade Concerns - Annoyances when converting and potential losses.Spoiler: click to toggle
Multi-Mod loss.Post / forum / member ID confusion because of the new server-wide IDs.PM loss.Old BBCode conversion into new BBCode, for example, [align=center] -> [center].Loss of ACP logs.
Pros - Favorite features of ZB that seem to have disappeared or stopped working.Spoiler: click to toggle
Working directory.
- Seems frozen in time, doesn't remove offline/deleted/shut down/inactive boards.
- Directory has stopped updating altogether.
Custom board e-mail messages.Working search function.
- Stops indexing if your board excedes 150,000 posts.
- May have another type of bug as well that has ended its ability to update.
Posted in Service Feedback on Feb 27 2013, 04:04 PM · No comments


(Thanks to Helena for sharing the secret!) You start by adding and enabling a theme in your ACP. Then you use a javascript to hide it from the drop down list, which makes it only accessible if you dig up the 
Here's the style I used to customize my colors without changing the calendar header link colors.
12:51 PM Dec 9