New Simple Machines forum software

[EOJ]

So I changed the forums again. Some things are screwy (like the smilies), but overall the migration was smooth. All your PMs are lost, unfortunately. The old PM system really sucked, so it's not much of a loss.

The simple machine forums seem much better, hence the change. I don't have to monkey around with all the damn mods needed just to make punBB functional (and every time you upgrade the forum software you have to reinstall all those stupid mods).

The template is a decent neutral one I found. I'll hunt around for some more interesting ones.

Comments/suggestions? There's a Karma system I could implement here, maybe just for the trading section (if possible).

[jpj]

for a minute there i thought VK had blown up the forum this morning 

have to admit, i'll miss the last forums visual style   

[Plasmo]

I also liked the dark style better. But then again I don't really care about that.

[EOJ]

Yeah, I liked the old visual style too. But it was too lacking in too many other areas. I'll keep hunting, maybe there will be a similar forum theme template for this forum software. There is a dark purple style I could upload as an option, if anyone is interested.

I think you'll find the new forums much more accessible, and full of features. You can do polls now, for example. 

I have to get all our old favorite smileys uploaded again.

This should be our last forum move.

[MX7]

I think I might prefer this one. The old look was kind of dingy.

[GaijinPunch]

I like light stuff as well.  This is nice...
One day I'll update the gamengai forums, but I'm one of those guys that has to tweak his own skin, so it won't be until I have loads of time.

[zlk]

Are the old private messages gone forever?

[EOJ]

There's no way to import them here. You can still login to the old forum though (you just can't view any boards).
So you can get any PMs you need that way.

@GP: I tweaked this skin a bit, may tweak it more but I think it's OK now. I think the DDP:DFK enemy sprites as indicators of read/unread posts is a nice feature. 

[elf]

sorry but i kinda totally dislike this design.
Cant see any positive improvement except for the Ketsui-like ships that show the (no) new message status.

[EOJ]

I added a selectable dark purple theme, for those who don't like the light theme.

[EOJ]

Added some mushi futari icons for the stats section. Any other other icons you'd like to see in the site somewhere? Most are available from www.cave.co.jp

[Gwyrgyn]

The DFK sprites look kind of ugly as indicators because they don't have any transparency, and also they just kind of look weird with 'new posts' being a green thing and 'no posts' being a different red thing. Usually one thing that works well is if you just have an icon greyed out if there are no new posts.

[EOJ]

Alright, I got rid of the helicopter icon and just made a greyscale of the black ship for the "read" posts, while the "unread" posts icon is the full color image. Hope that's better.

[Geeb]

I admit I was a bit surprised to find the forum "cleansed" today.

[EOJ]

Okay, I added the feedback rating system (a modified karma system). I only want to use this for the selling forums obviously, but so far I haven't figured out how to restrict it to that one forum. Shouldn't be a problem as long as people only post positives/negatives after a transaction. We can keep the feedback forum for posting more detailed comments about transactions.

So do you guys like this idea, or feel it unnecessary?

[GaijinPunch]

Am I the only one that isn't remembered?  IE, my cookie thing isn't working.  I have to log in every time.

[EOJ]

yeah I noticed that too. It makes me re-login each time. I'll see if I can fix that.

[GaijinPunch]

I would also recommend a lighter color for links.   Looks like it's at the top of the CSS file.  Youll want to change these values:

a:link
{
        color: #000050;
        text-decoration: none;
}

.nav, .nav:link, .nav:visited
{
        font-family: Tahoma, arial, helvetica, serif;
        color: #000050;
        text-decoration: none;
}

[EOJ]

Thanks! I'll try to do that too.

[zakk]

It's making you relogin if you go to http://www.cave-stg.com/forum because it forces a redirect to http://danmakudreamer.com/forum (and cookies are not cross-domain)

However, if you submit any form/click any link/etc it all goes back to cave-stg.com. You don't HAVE to relogin, you just have to click the 'home' link and you should be ok. Fix the danmakudreamer redirect and it'll be fixed.\

edit:

oh I see. It's a dumb apache thing. "forum/" and "forum" are not the same thing; the trailing slash properly redirects to index.php, without the trailing slash it goes to danmakudreamer

[Gwyrgyn]

Okay, I added the feedback rating system (a modified karma system). I only want to use this for the selling forums obviously, but so far I haven't figured out how to restrict it to that one forum.

If you don't mind hard coding the template, just have the postbit template check the forumID to see if it's in the trading forum or not.

As for the icons... looks better, but yeah looks like it would be a pain to add transparencies to them. Maybe just change the background color in those areas to white so it matches? Not a big deal really, just a thought.

[EOJ]

@zakk: thanks a lot! I changed the main site's forum link to www.cave-stg.com/forum/index.php, and altered the site's base url to www.cave-stg.com/forum/.
This should take care of the problems, as long as people don't type in www.cave-stg.com/forum.

@Gwyrgyn: I will look into your suggestion about the trader ratings (may have some questions later as I'm not exactly a pro at this stuff!). I'd definitely like to restrict the trader ratings to the trading forum.

[EOJ]

Alright GP, I adjusted the link color to a lighter hue. If you had something else in mind, let me know the color code and I can try it out.

[GaijinPunch]

The new link color is perfect!

[EOJ]

Okay, the redirect problem is officially gone forever. I had my host totally remove danmakudreamer.com from my account, so the primary domain is cave-stg.com

[EOJ]

New update:

I got rid of the Karma system, because I found a Trader rating system mod, which I have installed. Just click on someone's Trader Rating to add feedback. You can put in the URL of the transaction there, as well as add comments.

[jammaparts]

I added a selectable dark purple theme, for those who don't like the light theme.

Very nice...I like the mystic theme. Better contrast on my mobile browser (and the changed layout loads quicker too).

[EOJ]

I fixed a problem that wouldn't let members leave trader ratings for other members. Let me know if anyone is still having problems.

[Shalashaska]

Just got back from RIMPAC and wanted to say that I like these new forums a lot more than the old ones. Keep up the good work EOJ!

[zakk]

I keep clicking those 'previous/next' thread links because I think they're for previous/next page