Phorum 5.2 template revisited

I think I have finished the initial visual changes to the Phorum 5.2 template. I still have some logistic changes (like making all URL vars exist in a URL array instead of vars like another_thing_to_link_url). If you have a second, please give it a run though. Give me your thoughts and see if I missed any pages.

Brian - Cowboy Ninja Coder - Personal Blog - Twitter

I'm sure yo are aware of most of these issues but anyway here some of my comments :)

- There's no page on start new topic? Of should I be able to start a new topic?

-newer topic goes back to list page (at least it did once...)

- print view could get rid of some additional elements, also I'm not sure if URL's are spelled out?

In general it looks pleasant and functional. I would prefer to have the message header and footer to be little more distinct from the message body though.

Still tables here and there :-( Yeah, the same old story from me :)

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-=[ Panu ]=-

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There's no page on start new topic? Of should I be able to start a new topic?

Yeah, no error message is showing there. Should be telling you to log in.

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newer topic goes back to list page (at least it did once...)

You were likely on the newest topic. Its been that way since Phorum 1.5.

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print view could get rid of some additional elements, also I'm not sure if URL's are spelled out?

Yeah, print view has not been really worked out yet.

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Still tables here and there :-( Yeah, the same old story from me :)

Only when they are superior to the alternative. When I can create columns in divs (not in XHTML 2.0 even) I will stop using as many tables.

Brian - Cowboy Ninja Coder - Personal Blog - Twitter

Nope, it now tells me I don't have priviledge to post (I'm logged in) but anyway there's the message so no problem.

yes I was on top of normal threads I guess ("bob") there were stickies but they don't count it seems. (I newer use that link usually, now I just checked them all)

It's possible to get colums without tables just not that easily, I've had some nice battles too with them :)

I'm not that purist anymore when it comes to tables, and there's lot less of them anyway. So it was just my obligatory CSS praise :)

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-=[ Panu ]=-

Probably you've already noticed, Brian, but the layout of the new template looks quite different in IE.
The tables are stretched, so that they fill the whole screen. And of course, due to Microsoft's poor support of the PNG format, none of the icon's backgrounds are transparent, but ugly grey.

I'm a convinced FF user too, but the majority of all internet surfers still uses IE, and it would be a shame if they saw a messed up version of the 5.2 template.
I know there is a copyright problem with the GIF format, but maybe it's worth considering to convert the icons to .gif, as long as IE messes with standards?

Kind regards,
FrantíX

There's a hack to get PNG support for IE. I vote for that option and then if people disable their JS even then the ugly icons are just one more reason to dump IE (< 7) for them anyway.

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-=[ Panu ]=-

yeah, step two is to make it look better in IE. But, I use FF to develop and then adjust for IE where needed. Its much easier than checking IE for everything along the way.

Brian - Cowboy Ninja Coder - Personal Blog - Twitter

As to PNG vs. GIF:
1. There is no longer a license issue with GIF, it has expired now (just because of the licensing issue many freeware graphics programs stopped supporting it and didn't put it back - which helped to push the PNG format).
2. If all you need is a simple transparent background you can do this with PNG in the same way as with GIF, and IE supports that just fine: just designate a single color as being transparent (any half-way decent graphics editor will let you do that). It's only alpha transparency that IE doesn't support. For simple icons, alpha transparency is rarely needed.

A quick look at the source and I noticed what seems superfluous code; for instance the search from is wrapped in two divs - if all you want is to style it the form's id will give you the hook you need already.

And there's an alt attribute missing for one of the icons - they contain information, so they should not only have an alt attribute (required) but appropriate alt text that replaces their function (alt="announcement", etc.).

Those are just two things that jumped out at me, I didn't look in detail - yet ;-)

-- Marjolein Katsma * Marjolein's Travel blog * Marjolein's Travel Forum
The first condition of understanding a foreign country is to smell it.
-- Rudyard Kipling

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As to PNG vs. GIF:
1. There is no longer a license issue with GIF, it has expired now (just because of the licensing issue many freeware graphics programs stopped supporting it and didn't put it back - which helped to push the PNG format).

What has also helped PNG format is that it's technologically superior to GIF, and there really is no reason to use it anymore.

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For simple icons, alpha transparency is rarely needed.

Well it depends how good you want them to look. There are icons that look good with binary transparency on every background and there are icons that don't look good.

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And there's an alt attribute missing for one of the icons - they contain information, so they should not only have an alt attribute (required) but appropriate alt text that replaces their function (alt="announcement", etc.)

Alt text describes what the icon is, title attribute describes what the icon does. IE uses alt text as title text, but in W3C world they are different. Maybe IE 7 does it right, don't know?

So when the image is present the alt text shouldn't be.

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-=[ Panu ]=-

"What has also helped PNG format is that it's technologically superior to GIF, and there really is no reason to use it anymore."

One reason: Animation. Last time I checked there was no animated PNG. (Yes, there is APNG och MNG, but that's not PNG.)

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One reason: Animation.

As I said. No reason to use it anymore :) Ok to be fair I let every animation run once on my Firefox. But I think about 99% percent of the animated gifs sent to my browser are already blocked by adblock. (as they are mostly ads). And I do tend to block annoying ads.

There are animated smileys that are sometimes amusing, but other than that I don't miss them.

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-=[ Panu ]=-

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As to PNG vs. GIF:

Ignoring the PNG vs. GIF for dummies.

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A quick look at the source and I noticed what seems superfluous code; for instance the search from is wrapped in two divs - if all you want is to style it the form's id will give you the hook you need already.

In case you ignored it, the two divs have different names. Therefore, has it occured to you that they serve different purposes? Make your own template if you don't like ours.

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And there's an alt attribute missing for one of the icons - they contain information, so they should not only have an alt attribute (required) but appropriate alt text that replaces their function (alt="announcement", etc.).

W3C requires an alt attr, it does not require a value be set for it. Therefore, it is up to the HTML author how it is used. And, IMO, icons that serve only graphical fluff should not have alt values. It creates an unexpected layout issue when they are not shown.

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Those are just two things that jumped out at me, I didn't look in detail - yet ;-)

I realize you are trying to help. However, in this project, helping means 1. asking questions, 2. providing patches with polite, constructive criticism. Perhaps there is a language barrier or perhaps its just a personality thing. Everyone on this team is in their late 20s and 30s. So, we often take the new-age cyber punk dialog the wrong way. Maybe that is the problem.

Brian - Cowboy Ninja Coder - Personal Blog - Twitter