narcogen's picture

Archived community forum thread. Because all of the old forum posts are listed on a single page, you may see memory errors; if so, try reloading the page. To make new posts, go up one level to the new community forum and click "create new topic".

Comments

acrappa's picture

In reply to: icab, IE users' font sizes?

: Ok, I've been fiddling a bit with both the site CSS and my
: browser settings.
:
: Things still look too big in Opera because of the lack of
: any real CSS support that I can see.
:
: IE and iCab both have options to use 72 dpi or 96 dpi
: standards for rendering. 72, of course, is the native for
: the Mac and 96 for PCs.
:
: Are the Mac users out there using 72 or 96?
:
: I find that with both IE and iCab set for 72, things look
: OK and pretty much the same now in each browser, but sites
: like Myth.bungie.org and The Mill look too darn small.
:
: Should I assume people are using 96, and lower the font
: sizes some more?
:
: That might help Opera a bit. But it'll drive anybody on a
: Mac using the 72 dpi setting nuts.
:
: What does everybody think?

Anonymous's picture

Fractalus has a prior commitment to go to New York and handle some things, so he won't be around until Monday. He got part-way there on restoring the box to working condition, but won't be able to finish the job until he's back home in Florida. Sorry all.

In the mean time, contact me via hotline (hl.rampancy.net or 65.35.21.11, I'll also keep a presence at SubHL: hl.subnova.com), ICQ or direct e-mail.

Hrm... anthrax in Florida, then New York.... Naaaaah...

- Noc

wodasini's picture

I'm posting from my snazzy "Goofy" theme and everything looks pretty damn cool. I got the forums figured out finally and every thing looks cool:)

narcogen's picture

In reply to: new rampancy

: I'm posting from my snazzy "Goofy" theme and everything
: looks pretty damn cool. I got the forums figured out
: finally and every thing looks cool:)

Glad you like it!

I am working now on "Rampancy Classic" and possibly "Rampancy Lite" themes.

Also, some of the alternate themes actually have graphics in them that are used at other sites (usually drop.org, where the system originated). If anybody who wants to use these alternate themes like Goofy would like to make us alternate "Rampancy.net" logos to be used with those themes, feel free :)


Rampant for over se7en years.



narcogen's picture

As promised, there is a new theme now:

"Rampancy Classic".

It moves the recent threads for the Community and FutureMyth forums to the top of the page.

It moves the site navigation menu to the left hand column underneath the login box.

And it displays NO other boxes.


Rampant for over se7en years.



Stewart's picture

I just found out about rampancy's new site...i really like the content/layout/options versus the old one, though nice it was.

i like the blogs and the user accounts..the people who run this site are very good at what they're doing:) keep up the great work

Mojo's picture

I don't know what the hell's going on over there...but I tried to put my prefs on threaded-min, so it will looks somewhat like BBS, but I'm getting errors on every, single, friggin line. I hope you're just messin' with something currently.

Oh, and on the other rampancy layouts (other than the double sided ones) the logos up at the top work not.

Just thought you might want to know.

later,

Mojo

later,
Mojo

narcogen's picture

In reply to: Hey..uh..erm...

: I don't know what the hell's going on over there...but I
: tried to put my prefs on threaded-min, so it will looks
: somewhat like BBS, but I'm getting errors on every, single,
: friggin line. I hope you're just messin' with something
: currently.

Yeah, probably was :)
:
: Oh, and on the other rampancy layouts (other than the
: double sided ones) the logos up at the top work not.

Yeah, acrappa pointed it out to me about an hour ago. Should be fixed now. Some of the image links in the theme files were messed up. I didn't notice it myself because the files USED to be in that location, and IE had cached them, but for people who weren't viewing the site for the last week and reloading every thirty seconds, well, they missed out :)

Should be OK now, though.


Rampant for over se7en years.



Mojo's picture

You may wish to make the 'cute' little icons next to the forum posts option. While they do indicate that those are forum posts, are they really necessary? The rest is shaping up incredibly nicely, keep up the great work!

later,
Mojo

later,
Mojo

narcogen's picture

In reply to: Suggestion

: You may wish to make the 'cute' little icons next to the
: forum posts option. While they do indicate that those are
: forum posts, are they really necessary?

Actually, they indicate something else-- because you'll notice they also appear next to news items in newsfeed boxes, and that they only appear at all if you're logged in.

The graphic is there to indicate that the item can be added to your blog (or weblog). If you browse to the "information" area, you'll see the beginnings of a Rampancy site FAQ that describes the blog in a little more detail, and the forum. The rest is coming soon.

The rest is shaping
: up incredibly nicely, keep up the great work!

Thanks!


Rampant for over se7en years.



kalis's picture

Found This interesting tidbit over at slashdot... All about running OSX on older macs, and memory optimizations for finder image buffers... I'm glad I found it, as I should be in possession of a mac very soon™.

narcogen's picture

In reply to: For Mac users...

: Found : href="http://slashdot.org/articles/01/10/13/0953256.shtml">This
: interesting tidbit over at slashdot... All about running OSX
: on older macs, and memory optimizations for finder image
: buffers... I'm glad I found it, as I should be in possession
: of a mac very soon™.

Aye, and probably the best bit is here:

http://newforums.macnn.com/cgi-bin/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic&f=46&t=000100

A way to activate a window buffer compression routine in 10.1 that is there, but off by default.

Andrew Welch of Ambrosia Software found this out-- apparently it offers a significant reduction in memory use AND an increase in performance.

A rare win/win situation.


Rampant for over se7en years.



vector40's picture

In reply to: Re: For Mac users...

I'll be damned. Go Andrew!

Dispatcher's picture

In reply to: Re: For Mac users...

You guys are gonna make my eventual adjustment to OS X easier.

Thanks!

nimrod's picture

Noticed this here

Some guy figured out the Oni data formats and put them into his own program, combining it with some Max Payne features. There's no binary, but some cool screenshots. Take a look.

vector40's picture

About the news...

First of all, when was it confirmed that Halo was shooting for a locked 30 FPS? The only place I heard that was from the bogus Perfect Cowbow, who was of course, bogus.

Second of all, 30 FPS is not at all bad if it's LOCKED. Yeah, PCers waltz around with 60, 70, and upwards of there, but that's wavering all over the place--the main reason for it is because it reduces the chance that it WILL drop to something unreasonable (10 FPS or something). 30 is just fine if it never drops any lower.

Just my little quibble.

And narc, I found out why I kept being logged out--whenever you log in, then press the back button, you're out again. Which is sort of understandable, I guess.

Claude Errera's picture

In reply to: Whoa now, whoa now, whoa now.

: About the news...
:
: First of all, when was it confirmed that Halo was shooting
: for a locked 30 FPS? The only place I heard that was from
: the bogus Perfect Cowbow, who was of course, bogus.

Perfect Cowboy claimed a locked 60 fps.

: And narc, I found out why I kept being logged
: out--whenever you log in, then press the back button, you're
: out again. Which is sort of understandable, I guess.

Hmm. I just tested this (in Mac IE, which I think you said is what you used) - no logouts here, no matter HOW many times I press the back button.

Keep trying.

Anonymous's picture

In reply to: Re: Whoa now, whoa now, whoa now.

: Perfect Cowboy claimed a locked 60 fps.

Oops - think you're right. I especially like how I spelled cowboy, too, which should have been a red flag right away :P

narcogen's picture

In reply to: Whoa now, whoa now, whoa now.

: Second of all, 30 FPS is not at all bad if it's LOCKED.

You're right, it would be.

But if it's stuttering, it's not locked, is it?

And you're right, there was no official confirmation of the lock. I'll go back through my notes, perhaps I'm just remembering the "Perfect Cowboy" hoax.

: Yeah, PCers waltz around with 60, 70, and upwards of there,
: but that's wavering all over the place--the main reason for
: it is because it reduces the chance that it WILL drop to
: something unreasonable (10 FPS or something). 30 is just
: fine if it never drops any lower.
:
:
: Just my little quibble.
:
: And narc, I found out why I kept being logged
: out--whenever you log in, then press the back button, you're
: out again. Which is sort of understandable, I guess.

I may have to test this on a PC. None of my Mac browsers-- IE, Opera, iCab or NS-- log me out when I hit back.

They used to do weird things before I turned caching on the site (yes, it has its own cache,


Rampant for over se7en years.



vector40's picture

In reply to: Re: Whoa now, whoa now, whoa now.

: I may have to test this on a PC. None of my Mac browsers--
: IE, Opera, iCab or NS-- log me out when I hit back.

Ah, crud. Of course - of COURSE - I can't seem to recreate that effect anymore. ::rolls eyes:: I'll holler if it happens again.
By the way, Narc, don't take any of these little rants as complaints - I actually do like what you're doing here. Just consider it contructive criticism.

narcogen's picture

In reply to: Re: Whoa now, whoa now, whoa now.

: : I may have to test this on a PC. None of my Mac
: browsers--
: : IE, Opera, iCab or NS-- log me out when I hit back.
:
: Ah, crud. Of course - of COURSE - I can't seem to recreate
: that effect anymore. ::rolls eyes:: I'll holler if it
: happens again.

OK, no problem. I think at the first it was caused by not having the system's own caching on; each page would have included a pragma directive in the header instructing your browser not to cache the page, which means you'd get a "page expired" error when hitting "back" that would probably destroy your session cookie.

Sometime at the start of the weekend I turned on the caching; the cache time is short (since I want pages like the thread indexes to update when somebody posts) but it should be long enough so that people can hit back without logging out all over the place.

: By the way, Narc, don't take any of these little rants as
: complaints - I actually do like what you're doing here. Just
: consider it contructive criticism.

Thanks! It's great to hear. I realize that changing anything on a site is going to sit differently with different people, and we'll do our best to make everybody feel as comfortable as possible. We certainly don't want people to have to login every time they hit "back" :)


Rampant for over se7en years.



Johnny Law's picture

In reply to: Whoa now, whoa now, whoa now.

: Second of all, 30 FPS is not at all bad if it's LOCKED.
: Yeah, PCers waltz around with 60, 70, and upwards of there,
: but that's wavering all over the place--the main reason for
: it is because it reduces the chance that it WILL drop to
: something unreasonable (10 FPS or something).

Sort of.. it's good to have a high average framerate because that implies a high minimum framerate, yes, but the acceptable minimum framerate bottoms out way above the 10 FPS zone.

If you talk to the people who design flight simulators or consumer 3D graphics systems or high-end monitors, or anyone who studies how human perception affects the design of display devices, you'll get the rule of thumb that you must have a sustained (not average, but sustained) framerate of at least 50 or 60 FPS to have good simulation of motion, and at least 80 FPS to get rid of flicker in the peripheral vision and other nagging discrepancies. I think that just about anyone who's in that sort of business these days shoots for 100 FPS.

The reason console game designers can get away with 30 FPS is frankly because the television is a cruddy display device. :-) Rendering faster than 30 FPS is pretty much a waste on a TV. There's a lot of hand-waving one could do at this point about interlacing but I'm not informed enough to tackle that; in any case rendering more than 60 FPS is an absolutely undeniable waste on a TV.

What I'm sort of curious about is how this ties into the input management. The problem with 30 FPS is not only its jerky appearance but also sluggish controls response. The former problem is addressed somewhat by the way the TV display smears everything around. If the input and "physics frames" are processed at a much faster rate, decoupled from the rendering rate, it might serve to alleviate the latter problem. But frankly I have no idea about how that is typically handled or how feasible it might be. Maybe it's a hellish amount of work so nobody does that, or maybe every game already does that and things would be even worse without it. :-)

narcogen's picture

In reply to: Re: Whoa now, whoa now, whoa now.

: : Second of all, 30 FPS is not at all bad if it's
: LOCKED.
: : Yeah, PCers waltz around with 60, 70, and upwards of
: there,
: : but that's wavering all over the place--the main reason
: for
: : it is because it reduces the chance that it WILL drop
: to
: : something unreasonable (10 FPS or something).
:
: Sort of.. it's good to have a high average framerate
: because that implies a high minimum framerate, yes, but the
: acceptable minimum framerate bottoms out way above the 10
: FPS zone.
:
: If you talk to the people who design flight simulators or
: consumer 3D graphics systems or high-end monitors, or anyone
: who studies how human perception affects the design of
: display devices, you'll get the rule of thumb that you must
: have a sustained (not average, but sustained) framerate of
: at least 50 or 60 FPS to have good simulation of motion, and
: at least 80 FPS to get rid of flicker in the peripheral
: vision and other nagging discrepancies. I think that just
: about anyone who's in that sort of business these days
: shoots for 100 FPS.
:
: The reason console game designers can get away with 30 FPS
: is frankly because the television is a cruddy display
: device. :-) Rendering faster than 30 FPS is pretty much a
: waste on a TV. There's a lot of hand-waving one could do at
: this point about interlacing but I'm not informed enough to
: tackle that; in any case rendering more than 60 FPS is an
: absolutely undeniable waste on a TV.
:
: What I'm sort of curious about is how this ties into the
: input management. The problem with 30 FPS is not only its
: jerky appearance but also sluggish controls response. The
: former problem is addressed somewhat by the way the TV
: display smears everything around. If the input and "physics
: frames" are processed at a much faster rate, decoupled from
: the rendering rate, it might serve to alleviate the latter
: problem. But frankly I have no idea about how that is
: typically handled or how feasible it might be. Maybe it's a
: hellish amount of work so nobody does that, or maybe every
: game already does that and things would be even worse
: without it. :-)

This is only a test. Just seeing if this goes where it is supposed to.


Rampant for over se7en years.



narcogen's picture

OK.. after a look at the site statistics and the thread about browser DPI settings, I've dropped the font size for all the site elements by one point. (No, I haven't tried specifying in pixels yet; I'm not sure which of the major browsers support that and if so how good said support is, I may test that next if there's an uproar about how things look now.)

With about half the site users on Windows, they're stuck with 96. Of the Mac users, about half were using 96 DPI or willing to switch.

Looking at the site now in each of the 4 Mac browsers I have, Opera, IE and iCab are all pretty close now (with iCab and IE set at 96 DPI), with Netscape 4.7 the odd one out; stuck at 72 DPI and without CSS support, everything looks too small.

I've also consolidated the theme files; all the light on dark themes and their graphics are in a single folder; the Rampancy White theme has its own.

This *may* mean that momentarily some of you might see graphic links broken; the site has its own cache, and so does your browser. Clear the browser cache and wait 90 seconds (the TTL of the system's cache) and everything should be fine.


Rampant for over se7en years.



Claude Errera's picture

In reply to: CSS adjustment; 96 DPI

I like it much better in IE now - and I'd already given up on NS4 for this site. :) FWIW, it's quite readable in NS 6.1.

You wanna know something amazing? It looks good in WebTV!

:)

narcogen's picture

In reply to: Re: CSS adjustment; 96 DPI

: I like it much better in IE now - and I'd already given up
: on NS4 for this site. :) FWIW, it's quite readable in NS
: 6.1.
:
I have to admit, after a few attempts at trying to use NS 6, I gave up on it entirely.

I use IE when I have to for sites that won't work in Opera, and that's pretty much it.

: You wanna know something amazing? It looks good in
: WebTV!

That... is truly amazing. I don't have a WebTV. Can you take screenshots with it? I'd be curious just to see what the output looks like :)

BTW, I've made another round of changes/fixes since yesterday, I'll be posting a progress report here before I go to bed in an hour or two.


Rampant for over se7en years.



Claude Errera's picture

In reply to: Re: CSS adjustment; 96 DPI

: : I like it much better in IE now - and I'd already given
: up
: : on NS4 for this site. :) FWIW, it's quite readable in
: NS
: : 6.1.
: :
: I have to admit, after a few attempts at trying to use NS
: 6, I gave up on it entirely.
:
6.1 is LIGHT YEARS beyond 6.0. :)

: : You wanna know something amazing? It looks good in
: : WebTV!
:
: That... is truly amazing. I don't have a WebTV. Can you
: take screenshots with it? I'd be curious just to see what
: the output looks like :)

Sorry, meant to snap a couple this afternoon, forgot.

The top of the front page

The top of the forums

Not perfect... but quite readable. :)

narcogen's picture

I'm not going to make this a poll item just yet (since anon users can't vote right now anyway...)

Looking at the current poll, it looks like the majority of users-- 75% in fact-- were in favor of SOME kind of change to Rampancy.net.

The problem is, they're roughly split half and half between going back to a simpler design like The Core had, or to a more complicated system like the one we're beta testing now. (We apologize here again for the forced beta test conditions; the hard drive failure last week WAS unplanned, I promise.)

This new system is far more flexible, layout-wise, than the old one, and it allows users to change that look radically if they want... but only those users who register for accounts and are willing to login when they view the site. (We're examining ways to make logins permanent with cookies; bear with us.)

That simpler look of the old Rampancy site is available through the system's "theme" setting-- Rampancy Classic has just the two overhead "recent threads" boxes, a simple lefthand menu, and nothing else.

The problem is that the users who want the simpler design also, for the most part, don't want to login. And if they don't login, they can't change the site theme; they get the default, which right now is "Rampancy"-- which has a lot of boxes turned on and displays columns on the left and right side of the page.

So, here's what I propose:

We can make Rampancy Classic the default theme. That's what all anonymous users will see, as well as registered users who have never set their user account settings. Anyone who gets switched to the Classic theme and doesn't like it can always change their setting back to Rampancy, R-Left, R-Right, the new "Rampancy White"-- just like Rampancy but in vanilla-- or any of the other available themes. I'll reiterate my request here for new Rampancy logos that will fit these other color schemes-- those using Jeroen, Marvin, or Goofy-- send me a graphic! We'll put your name on it! :)

This means that anonymous users who don't want to bother with logging in or use any of the new features won't have to see them if they don't want to, and they'll have a site that mostly looks the way they are used to.

The only downside I can see would be from users who like some of the new features-- like the newsfeed boxes-- but aren't logging in. Those users will have to click a menu item to see news feeds and other features. Also, to new users who come to the site, a lot of those new features won't be obvious in the Rampancy Classic theme, and if they never see them they might not bother to register, won't know that other themes exist, and might not ever see the new features.

Any thoughts?


Rampant for over se7en years.



Johnny Law's picture

In reply to: Should Classic be the default theme?

Make the default simple. It's too scary otherwise.

Users with accounts are good; encouraging users to get accounts is good. You wants the extra features, you gets an account.

narcogen's picture

In reply to: Re: Should Classic be the default theme?

: Make the default simple. It's too scary otherwise.
:
: Users with accounts are good; encouraging users to get
: accounts is good. You wants the extra features, you gets an
: account.

I agree entirely-- I'm just thinking that if the default theme doesn't show any of those features, people without accounts won't know what they are missing.

But at any rate, that's two votes for Classic as default :)

I think I'll probably do it later today, at least just as a test.


Rampant for over se7en years.



vector40's picture

In reply to: J. Law and ax vote yes :)

: : Make the default simple. It's too scary otherwise.
: :
: : Users with accounts are good; encouraging users to get
: : accounts is good. You wants the extra features, you
: gets an
: : account.
:
: I agree entirely-- I'm just thinking that if the default
: theme doesn't show any of those features, people without
: accounts won't know what they are missing.
:
: But at any rate, that's two votes for Classic as default
: :)
:
: I think I'll probably do it later today, at least just as
: a test.

Do you think we have to have the little red marks on the items in the menus? It looks really off.

narcogen's picture

In reply to: Re: J. Law and ax vote yes :)

: Do you think we have to have the little red marks on the
: items in the menus? It looks really off.

The icon has to be there to activate the 'blog this' function.

However... it doesn't need to be red. The system came with just one .gif for this function.

I'll be changing it to something more theme-appropriate as soon as I get a round 'tuit'.

If anyone wants to submit something, feel free :)


Rampant for over se7en years.



Anonymous's picture

In reply to: Should Classic be the default theme?

Yeah... while the new interface is nice and (obviously) more flexible, my eyes are so used to the old Core system that I prefer it over any other BBS system I've seen.

Now, maybe this is like the debate of mouse/keyboard vs console controller, and that I'll just have to learn to get used to it.

-Loph
lophan@bungie.org

narcogen's picture

In reply to: Re: I vote yes...

Lophan wrote on Thursday, 10/18/2001 - 08:26:

: Yeah... while the new interface is nice and (obviously)
: more flexible, my eyes are so used to the old Core system
: that I prefer it over any other BBS system I've seen.

Well, you've got your wish, at least so far-- Rampancy Classic 72DPI is currently the default theme.

If there are any elements of the new system that seem confusing compared to the old-- or anything that doesn't look like you expect-- let me know. Chances are that there may be a system setting you can alter to get what you want, and if not, I may be able to make a change to give you the view you want as an option.
:
: Now, maybe this is like the debate of mouse/keyboard vs
: console controller, and that I'll just have to learn to get
: used to it.

heh :D


Rampant for over se7en years.



Johnny Law's picture

I like the UnConeD theme (whatever-the-hell that name means), with a few exceptions so far in the threaded-min forum view... do with these comments as you will:

- The post names text doesn't have quite enough contrast with the background.

- The post names section seems "uncontained" and breaks the nice regularized boxed-up look of UnConeD.

- It would be good to have a button at the top of the page for starting a thread, or at least a link to be able to quickly click down to the control panel at the bottom.

narcogen's picture

In reply to: Themes feedback

: I like the UnConeD theme (whatever-the-hell that name
: means),

It's the nickname of one of the Drupal developers who made the theme. Beyond that... I don't really know :)

with a few exceptions so far in the threaded-min
: forum view... do with these comments as you will:
:
: - The post names text doesn't have quite enough contrast
: with the background.

Ok, I can look at that. I haven't really looked too closely at any of the themes the system came bundled with.
:
: - The post names section seems "uncontained" and breaks
: the nice regularized boxed-up look of UnConeD.

That may be my fault-- I changed the size of the reply form by adding an extra field-- the theme may be expecting it to be a certain height, and it's been messed up somehow by that change. I'll take a look.
:
: - It would be good to have a button at the top of
: the page for starting a thread, or at least a link to be
: able to quickly click down to the control panel at the
: bottom.

At the very least I know I can add an anchor link to the control panel. Piece of cake.

I'm working on adding the reply form to the bottom of the page.


Rampant for over se7en years.



Johnny Law's picture

...is having links to the rest of the thread posts in the post view.

This lets me pop a thread into its own window and run through it there, rather than having to keep referring back to the index page. Especially when my connect (or your server) is being sluggish, since I can run through several threads in parallel that way and let the next post for a certain thread be loading while I read the others.

Is this format available in the new system if I turn on some knob somewhere?

kalis's picture

I loaded the rampancy page and found that i was already logged in!

Is this something you did Narc, or just a weird fluke that might be caused by the fact that I haven't rebooted yet? It's been a couple hours since I'd been here last...

acrappa's picture

In reply to: Much to my surprise...

Did you close your browser? If you haven't closed your browser, you won't have to log in again until you do.

narcogen's picture

In reply to: Much to my surprise...

: I loaded the rampancy page and found that i was already
: logged in!
:
: Is this something you did Narc, or just a weird fluke that
: might be caused by the fact that I haven't rebooted yet?
: It's been a couple hours since I'd been here last...

Just did it-- thank anima, he suggested the fix.

The short explanation is that one line changed this. The session cookie now lasts for one week. If you login to R.net, you'll stay logged in as long as you view at least one page a week.

Of course, there is a downside to this-- it means people who read R.net on a public terminal and login should LOGOUT when they leave to destroy the cookie.


Rampant for over se7en years.



Mojo's picture

I guess I must be the ONLY person who runs their web-browser at 72 dpi! If I view this webpage at 72dpi at 100% zoom, then I can not make out the text.. well, I can, but its an incredible strain on my eyes and actually takes effort to decypher just the characters.

Narc, I know you're trying to do everything at once, and I think that some people came to a concensus on the fact that they used 96dpi... but do you think it would be possible, if this website is as customizable as you claim it to be, to allow for an option to pick the font size? As of now.. its just way too small. (Its small to the point where the characters are missing pixels that would normally define their shape)...

anyway, thanks if you can, and thanks if you can't (for running such a nice website ;))

later,
Mojo

later,
Mojo

acrappa's picture

In reply to: Can't...read...anything!

Perhaps a font customization feature will be added later, but as of right now, the site is practically unusable at 72 dpi and there's no way around it other than switching to 96 dpi.

narcogen's picture

In reply to: Can't...read...anything!

: I guess I must be the ONLY person who runs their
: web-browser at 72 dpi!

Actually, up until now I did, too. I stuck with it because that's the Mac's native resolution-- and at least up until a year or two ago, there were lots of sites that looked just fine at 72. OK, some looked too big, but it wasn't a big deal.

It wasn't until I looked at the logs and asked who was using 96, compared the views of this site and others at 72 that I decided to switch. I found that the only browser left truly unusable was NS 4.7-- and from the server logs, most of us stopped using it awhile ago anyway.

Secondly, sites that I used to have to view at 120% text zoom-- like The Mill and Myth.bungie.org-- suddenly became legible at 100% text zoom, so I didn't have to change my settings to view a different site.

[snip]

: Narc, I know you're trying to do everything at once, and I
: think that some people came to a concensus on the fact that
: they used 96dpi... but do you think it would be possible, if
: this website is as customizable as you claim it to be, to
: allow for an option to pick the font size? As of now.. its
: just way too small. (Its small to the point where the
: characters are missing pixels that would normally define
: their shape)...

Actually, this should be possible, and I may be able to do it today. What I will do is make copies of each of the existing Rampancy themes with higher font sizes, and name them "Rampancy-72", "Rampancy Left-72" etc etc. Later on perhaps I can make a more elegant solution.

The first step with all these changes is going to be to make sure everything works in a way we can all be happy with-- after that I'm going to try and integrate it into this system in a way that makes sense; in this case, probably adding font size and other things to the User account settings instead of just making a bunch of themes.
:
: anyway, thanks if you can, and thanks if you can't (for
: running such a nice website ;))
:
: later,
: Mojo


Rampant for over se7en years.



Mojo's picture

In reply to: Re: Can't...read...anything!

: Actually, this should be possible, and I may be able to do
: it today. What I will do is make copies of each of the
: existing Rampancy themes with higher font sizes, and name
: them "Rampancy-72", "Rampancy Left-72" etc etc. Later on
: perhaps I can make a more elegant solution.

I am perfectly fine with this non-elegant soultion if I can read the site. Sounds great to me! :)

Sorry to cause you to do more work..

Mojo

later,
Mojo

narcogen's picture

In reply to: thanks

: I am perfectly fine with this non-elegant soultion if I
: can read the site. Sounds great to me! :)

It's done. Go take a look. I haven't modified the "Rampancy White" theme yet (or made any variations of it yet) but to be honest I only know of one person who is using it.


Rampant for over se7en years.



Sta7ic's picture

In reply to: 72DPI Themes Done

narcogen wrote on Monday, 10/15/2001 - 20:30:

:
: : I am perfectly fine with this non-elegant soultion if
: I
: : can read the site. Sounds great to me! :)
:
: It's done. Go take a look. I haven't modified the
: "Rampancy White" theme yet (or made any variations of it
: yet) but to be honest I only know of one person who is using
: it.

Anonymous's picture

Firstly, when you order an xbox bundle, it no matter where, its like buying any other system, you get all the necessary cords and cables right? I can see Microsoft making you buy the cords you need. And secondly, how do i know if my tv can use the advanced audio/visual cable Micro$oft sells for the x box.

vector40's picture

::looks around nervously, wondering if forum is going to be deleted::

Okay, I'm taking roll for the Launch Party. Who's planning on being there?

narcogen's picture

A few more changes and bug fixes have been made on the site. In addition, there are a few known issues:

  • All the themes EXCEPT "Goofy" have been modified to display threads beneath message bodies in the List-Min and Threaded-Min view modes. They have also been modified to display Post forms beneath thread displays UNLESS you are previewing a post. If you're using one of any of these themes EXCEPT "Goofy" and observe behavior that's not consistent with this, let me know.
  • There are four more modified Rampancy themes available. These have slightly higher font sizes and are appropriate for Macintosh browsers using the 72DPI font size setting.
  • The ordering of the boxes has been changed; there were some problems in some of the themes that only used one column. Now, in general, in themes with one column all the local boxes will appear near the top (forums first) and the news feeds near the bottom. In two-column layout, the local columns will appear on the left, and the non-local ones on the right. (The exception is the Headlines box, which is local but appears in the top-right, just above the b.org feed.)
  • The two boxes with recent forum threads are different from the others. They will appear on the main page, but not elsewhere.
  • Some fixes were also made to how these boxes are generated. Previously, there were two copies of the XML news feeds generated by the forum indexes, with slightly different URLs. One set was for the normal left/right column themes, the other set (labeled "recent threads") was for the boxes at the top of the Rampancy Classic theme.

    However, this arrangement caused some problems. The second set of feeds had to have a different URL than the regular ones, otherwise the system interpreted it as a duplicate and deactivated it. The different URL meant that the system logged you out when you clicked one of these links, since the session cookie depends on the server name in the URL. This has now been fixed.

  • Instead of expiring when you quit your browser, the session cookie will now last for seven days. Once you login, if you view at least one page a week, you'll stay logged in. This has two drawbacks: one, those who login to Rampancy from a public machine, such as in a computer lab, should logout when they leave to destroy the cookie. Secondly, the routine that displays "new" next to forum threads is now broken, as it depends on the timestamp generated the last time you were authenticated. A new routine will be written. I'm open to suggestions as to how this should be handled-- considering posts new in the last X hours or minutes or days, or since the last time the user posted or viewed the index.
  • Rampancy Classic-72 is now the default theme. Users who haven't specified a theme, or haven't logged in, will see this one. It has just the two forum thread boxes, the account box, and a simple site menu. The menu is currently not complete; but items added to it will be in the same simple style, and not the "box" style used by other Rampancy themes. I've chosen the larger font size because I'm hearing a lot more "the fonts are too small" complaints than "the fonts are too large" complaints. If there's feedback on this, though, I may change it to straight Rampancy Classic.
  • Ok, this one is a bit esoteric... but here goes. For some of the features on the site, we're actually feeding data generated by one module into another. The system creates and interprets XML news feeds in the RSS .9 format. I've modified the system so that it does this for forum threads as well as news stories, and used that feed to create the boxes that link to recent threads. The system also has a way of keeping track of keywords associated with news items, and with news *feeds* (that is, not individual items in a feed, but all items from a particular source). This created an annoying problem when viewing the News Feeds page grouped by topic. While it's fine that all the items coming from the Xbox site feeds get categorized with the "xbox" keyword (because I've associated that keyword with the feed) and likewise for halo.bungie.org and MythVillage, for our own headlines this caused a problem. Our news items might be about Myth, or Oni, or Marathon, or Halo-- our news feed can't be associated with any single keyword. Which was annoying, because elsewhere in the system, the keyword was already associated with these items-- the RSS parser just didn't know anything about them because there's no tag for it in the RSS format. What I've done now is changed the RSS formatting and parsing routines to append the category to the start of the item description, if it exists. And the parser checks if the category has been appended, and takes that as the keyword for the item instead of the general keyword associated with the feed. You'll see this if you view the news feeds page by topic; posts about the Rampancy site are now under "rampancy" and items about Halo, Marathon, Myth and Oni now appear in the appropriate places.
  • Stuff left to do:

  • Indicating where the current message is in the thread index, by removing the link and/or using bold text
  • New routine for calculating which messages are new
  • This is more of a question than a definite to-do... but right now we've got three forums. We started out with just the one. When the first news about Phoenix started to trickle out, we re-started FutureMyth, for discussion of that and, later, Myth 3. We had lots of requests for a spam forum, but didn't have any way of adding one in the interim between when Ferrex left the site to work for Bungie Studios and now. But for a site that's always been about Bungie in general with an emphasis on Halo, there's no Halo specific forum. Should we have one? Or should we add an item to the community forum that lets posters specify a topic, like we do with news stories?
  • The "recent comments" routine (also called Tracker) doesn't tag any items as "new"-- it just lists them, first by node (whether the comment is attached to a story, a forum, or something else) and then by timestamp, newest first. But it doesn't indicate which of these was new since the last time you viewed the page, or the last day, or something else more useful.
  • Right now the limits for the number of items on a page is global-- even for the forum. And there is no way to see items that "fall off the page" except by doing a search. This will be fixed.
  • Right now the limit on the number of items in a box is global. This will be fixed first to allow different limits for different boxes (say, fewer items in the boxes in Classic mode, more elsewhere) and then to allow user-definable limits on a per-theme and then possibly per-box basis.

  • Rampant for over se7en years.



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