Upcoming downtime, phpBB upgrade, new theme
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- Tycoon
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Re: Upcoming downtime, phpBB upgrade, new theme
The description for attachments is difficult to read, I am guessing it is leftover original CSS from before you modified it.
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- orudge
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Re: Upcoming downtime, phpBB upgrade, new theme
I will be making modifications as soon as I’m able to (hopefully the next few days) to improve the colours - the bright blue will be going, amongst other things! Thanks for your patience.
The old TT theme on the phpBB 3/3.1 forums (that we’ve used since around 2008) was based on the even older phpBB 2 theme, subSilver. proSilver, the theme we’re now using as a base, was introduced in phpBB 3, and was then quite a radical departure from what went before. The TT theme was never adjusted though and became increasingly ancient, and subSilver is simply no longer supported in phpBB 3.2. It could probably have been upgraded but ultimately a clean break was necessary. Unfortunately my free time is somewhat lacking with 3 kids on the go, so I pushed this out when it seemed initially “good enough”. I am aware that further changes are needed though, and hope to get them in place quite soon. Thanks for your patience, everyone, and a special thanks to those who have reported specific issues or offered useful suggestions!
The old TT theme on the phpBB 3/3.1 forums (that we’ve used since around 2008) was based on the even older phpBB 2 theme, subSilver. proSilver, the theme we’re now using as a base, was introduced in phpBB 3, and was then quite a radical departure from what went before. The TT theme was never adjusted though and became increasingly ancient, and subSilver is simply no longer supported in phpBB 3.2. It could probably have been upgraded but ultimately a clean break was necessary. Unfortunately my free time is somewhat lacking with 3 kids on the go, so I pushed this out when it seemed initially “good enough”. I am aware that further changes are needed though, and hope to get them in place quite soon. Thanks for your patience, everyone, and a special thanks to those who have reported specific issues or offered useful suggestions!
Re: Upcoming downtime, phpBB upgrade, new theme
So, I see we've made the transition to PHPBB3! Woot!
I did some of the work to try to transition the old PHPBB2 "Transport Tycoon" temperate theme to PHPBB3. Now that I see it in action, here's some of my thoughts, maybe some notes for me to try to go back and fix.
1. The color for the moderators needs to change. The green text is getting lost in the green background. Or, maybe I need to find a way to use a colored background.
2. The areas with blue backgrounds is annoying me. Needs a different color, and maybe something semi-transparent?
3. I feel like there needs to be more space between each group of forums on the main page.
4. We need more visible icons to indicate forums which have new posts, or maybe some other color for the background? I'm not sure what to do here, because changing icons is one of the most difficult parts of PHPBB3.
5. I think some of the areas that have a whitish-pale-bluish background needs something darker.
6. Quotes and Code sections definitely need to be black, not white.
7. Mobile version looks SO MUCH BETTER! With that said, I noticed the logo is missing from the mobile versions, but I dunno if that can easily be fixed.
8. Footer in the mobile version has a weird padding around it which doesn't make it symmetrical with the bottom directory.
So, with all that said, let me just say that trying to transition from our old subSilver-based theme to the new proSilver-based theme has been incredibly frustrating and difficult. An entirely new system altogether. Unfortunately after all this time there is no simple theme editor for PHPBB3 like there was for PHPBB2. It used to be that you could use a GUI interface to pick and choose colors, images, and style settings. None of that exists anymore. I had to spend many hours trying to manually track down every color in every line of code through every template, embedded in a template, embedded in a template, embedded in a template. I noticed that a LOT of theme did not make the transition from PHPBB3.1 to PHPBB3.2, authors simply abandoned them, and in turn many theme creators have abandoned PHPBB3 support in favor of other forum systems.
The icons are really going to be the most difficult thing to adjust. I can create new high-res versions of the old icons. It's simply not easy AT ALL to get them to replace the new icon font that PHPBB3 uses. They're embedded everywhere and I have my doubts that trying to use a mass search/replace is going to accurately find them all.
I did some of the work to try to transition the old PHPBB2 "Transport Tycoon" temperate theme to PHPBB3. Now that I see it in action, here's some of my thoughts, maybe some notes for me to try to go back and fix.
1. The color for the moderators needs to change. The green text is getting lost in the green background. Or, maybe I need to find a way to use a colored background.
2. The areas with blue backgrounds is annoying me. Needs a different color, and maybe something semi-transparent?
3. I feel like there needs to be more space between each group of forums on the main page.
4. We need more visible icons to indicate forums which have new posts, or maybe some other color for the background? I'm not sure what to do here, because changing icons is one of the most difficult parts of PHPBB3.
5. I think some of the areas that have a whitish-pale-bluish background needs something darker.
6. Quotes and Code sections definitely need to be black, not white.
7. Mobile version looks SO MUCH BETTER! With that said, I noticed the logo is missing from the mobile versions, but I dunno if that can easily be fixed.
8. Footer in the mobile version has a weird padding around it which doesn't make it symmetrical with the bottom directory.
So, with all that said, let me just say that trying to transition from our old subSilver-based theme to the new proSilver-based theme has been incredibly frustrating and difficult. An entirely new system altogether. Unfortunately after all this time there is no simple theme editor for PHPBB3 like there was for PHPBB2. It used to be that you could use a GUI interface to pick and choose colors, images, and style settings. None of that exists anymore. I had to spend many hours trying to manually track down every color in every line of code through every template, embedded in a template, embedded in a template, embedded in a template. I noticed that a LOT of theme did not make the transition from PHPBB3.1 to PHPBB3.2, authors simply abandoned them, and in turn many theme creators have abandoned PHPBB3 support in favor of other forum systems.
The icons are really going to be the most difficult thing to adjust. I can create new high-res versions of the old icons. It's simply not easy AT ALL to get them to replace the new icon font that PHPBB3 uses. They're embedded everywhere and I have my doubts that trying to use a mass search/replace is going to accurately find them all.
Do you like drones, quadcopters & flying toys? Check out Drone Strike Force!
Base Music Sets: OpenMSX | Scott Joplin Anthology | Traditional Winter Holiday Music | Modern Motion Music
Other Projects: 2CC Trams | Modern Waypoints | Sprite Sandbox & NewGRF Releases | Ideabox | Town Names | Isle of Sodor Scenario | Random Sprite Repository
Misc Topics: My Screenshots | Forgotten NewGRFs | Unfinished Graphics Sets | Stats Shack | GarryG's Auz Sets
Base Music Sets: OpenMSX | Scott Joplin Anthology | Traditional Winter Holiday Music | Modern Motion Music
Other Projects: 2CC Trams | Modern Waypoints | Sprite Sandbox & NewGRF Releases | Ideabox | Town Names | Isle of Sodor Scenario | Random Sprite Repository
Misc Topics: My Screenshots | Forgotten NewGRFs | Unfinished Graphics Sets | Stats Shack | GarryG's Auz Sets
Re: Upcoming downtime, phpBB upgrade, new theme
Regarding the icons, you might hunt for a dark theme on the phpBB site and grab some dark ones from there.
The blue in the header is the phpBB default color, BTW.
The blue in the header is the phpBB default color, BTW.
- orudge
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Re: Upcoming downtime, phpBB upgrade, new theme
I think the post/forum icons (which are still standard image files) would be easy to replace if we can get high res versions of them. I don’t mind the other icons staying the same for now.
Re: Upcoming downtime, phpBB upgrade, new theme
Maybe the icons from this one would do: https://www.phpbb.com/customise/db/style/black_silver/
And for a recolor of the official buttons, there is a GDK available: https://www.phpbb.com/community/viewtopic.php?t=542993
And for a recolor of the official buttons, there is a GDK available: https://www.phpbb.com/community/viewtopic.php?t=542993
Re: Upcoming downtime, phpBB upgrade, new theme
There's actually a good reason for that with HTTP transfers. Downloading from a single site (the first part of the URL, like www.tt-forums.net_ is a blocking request (they have to be done one after the other), but requesting scripts and other items from another site (maxcdn.bootstrapcdn.com and the like) means you get your content faster.Auge wrote: ↑11 Jun 2019 13:57 Hello
Nice to see a new, more responsive theme (used the old pro silver theme during the last two years) even I spotted a few inconsistencies (IMHO unsuitable combinations of colours (not only the blue bars)) here and there. Nice on the whole. ... But ...
I was a bit puzzled in the first moment because I saw placeholders over placeholders all over the place (I am a user of NoScript and uBlock origin). I.e. the icon font gets loaded from maxcdn.bootstrapcdn.com instead from the own server (tt-forums.net). Furthermore the forum loads parts of its content from google.com, googleapis.com and cloudflare.com. Is it really necessary to load so many components of the site from foreign servers?
Tschö, Auge
Duct tape is like the Force - it has a Dark side, a Light side, and it holds the universe together.
Re: Upcoming downtime, phpBB upgrade, new theme
Hello
But in all cases a request for possibly changed ressources goes to all of these servers and if no change is announced the element comes from the cache. At that point it becomes an issue of privacy. Not, because this site loads foreign content but many sites does this and so Google, Cloudflare and $whoEver gets an overview about the activities of every one of us. Which sites we visit, how often we does it, and how much time we spend there, what we buy and what we are interested in. This is IMHO not desirable and it is at least partially preventable.
I know, we germans (or at least many of us) seems to be alone with this opinion but for us it is as it is.
Tschö, Auge
No, there isn't (nowadays). This was an issue in times of HTTP 1, when for every ressource (page, images, scripts, css) a HTTP connection was opened and these requests was processed serially one after the other. With HTTP 1.1 a request opened one connection for all ressources (from one source server), and was able to load up to four ressources (HTML page, images, scripts, css) simultaneously. Nowadays with HTTP 2 this is not an issue at all. All ressources (from one source server) get loaded simultaneously. But several source servers can (not must) lead to additional delays. As I can see the server tt-forums.net and all other servers (Google, Cloudflare, Bootstrapcdn) serves the contents with HTTP 2. Furthermore most of the ressources are cached.Scautura wrote: ↑12 Jun 2019 12:00There's actually a good reason for that with HTTP transfers. Downloading from a single site (the first part of the URL, like www.tt-forums.net_ is a blocking request (they have to be done one after the other), but requesting scripts and other items from another site (maxcdn.bootstrapcdn.com and the like) means you get your content faster.
But in all cases a request for possibly changed ressources goes to all of these servers and if no change is announced the element comes from the cache. At that point it becomes an issue of privacy. Not, because this site loads foreign content but many sites does this and so Google, Cloudflare and $whoEver gets an overview about the activities of every one of us. Which sites we visit, how often we does it, and how much time we spend there, what we buy and what we are interested in. This is IMHO not desirable and it is at least partially preventable.
I know, we germans (or at least many of us) seems to be alone with this opinion but for us it is as it is.
Tschö, Auge
- orudge
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Re: Upcoming downtime, phpBB upgrade, new theme
I've made some initial CSS tweaks which should make the forums look a bit more like they used to. I've not touched icons, etc, yet. You may need a hard refresh to get the updated CSS.
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Re: Upcoming downtime, phpBB upgrade, new theme
That already makes a world of difference!
Re: Upcoming downtime, phpBB upgrade, new theme
The quote boxes look tons better now, as does the new green border around the forum list on the main page.
Do you like drones, quadcopters & flying toys? Check out Drone Strike Force!
Base Music Sets: OpenMSX | Scott Joplin Anthology | Traditional Winter Holiday Music | Modern Motion Music
Other Projects: 2CC Trams | Modern Waypoints | Sprite Sandbox & NewGRF Releases | Ideabox | Town Names | Isle of Sodor Scenario | Random Sprite Repository
Misc Topics: My Screenshots | Forgotten NewGRFs | Unfinished Graphics Sets | Stats Shack | GarryG's Auz Sets
Base Music Sets: OpenMSX | Scott Joplin Anthology | Traditional Winter Holiday Music | Modern Motion Music
Other Projects: 2CC Trams | Modern Waypoints | Sprite Sandbox & NewGRF Releases | Ideabox | Town Names | Isle of Sodor Scenario | Random Sprite Repository
Misc Topics: My Screenshots | Forgotten NewGRFs | Unfinished Graphics Sets | Stats Shack | GarryG's Auz Sets
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Re: Upcoming downtime, phpBB upgrade, new theme
Global Moderators are now stuck in invisible mode. That is to say, they are not visible on the who is online list.
The rank colours are fairly OK within the forum, but where there is no background the global moderators especially suffer from invisibility issues.
Re: Upcoming downtime, phpBB upgrade, new theme
That's just as well, we operate in the shadows.
My Scenarios:
Archipiélago Hermoso (Latest Release: Version 3.2)
Turnpike Falls (Latest Release: Version 0.91)
Re: Upcoming downtime, phpBB upgrade, new theme
You'll never see us coming.. mwuhahaha!
Re: Upcoming downtime, phpBB upgrade, new theme
Is there any chance the grey bar at the top with the quick links/board index could be reorganised so that the board index button is on the top line as opposed to the bottom, as it was before the upgrade?
Very much a retired regular poster..... If you can say that
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Re: Upcoming downtime, phpBB upgrade, new theme
I’d prefer to minimise the changes from stock phpBB to make future maintenance easier, so probably won’t change that, sorry. You should get used to it quickly enough I’m sure!
Re: Upcoming downtime, phpBB upgrade, new theme
Also incase you haven't seen yet, there is a bit of black text at the top of the profile page, doesnt really contrast well with the green.
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Very much a retired regular poster..... If you can say that
- orudge
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Re: Upcoming downtime, phpBB upgrade, new theme
Ah yes, thanks. I adjusted one bit of styling to make something black instead of white, but it seems it's used in a few other places. I'll need to track them down.
- orudge
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Re: Upcoming downtime, phpBB upgrade, new theme
With phpBB upgraded, I've now upgraded the OS on the server. The forums and wiki should all be functional - if anybody spots any problems, let me know.
The projects.tt-forums.net site is currently down. This include the TTDPatch bug tracker, which I intend to migrate to the TTDPatch GitHub project in the near future. I hope to get it back up shortly.
The projects.tt-forums.net site is currently down. This include the TTDPatch bug tracker, which I intend to migrate to the TTDPatch GitHub project in the near future. I hope to get it back up shortly.
Re: Upcoming downtime, phpBB upgrade, new theme
It's very encouraging to see this time spent developing the forums. Having a mobile accessible site feels really good, and could potentially attract more members since a mobile friendly site is boosted in Google searches compared to those who are not mobile friendly.
It seems the OS upgrade went fine too, the forums were not down for long. Good work, Owen!
It seems the OS upgrade went fine too, the forums were not down for long. Good work, Owen!
My Scenarios:
Archipiélago Hermoso (Latest Release: Version 3.2)
Turnpike Falls (Latest Release: Version 0.91)
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