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Messages - Arantor
5551
Plugins / Re: Plugins I refuse to do
« on November 6th, 2011, 05:39 PM »
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You've hit the nail on the head as what I'd actually desire though it hadn't occurred to me that the links could/should be checked (better than having to manually check each post).
To be honest, that's sort of my job when it comes to analysis and design. It isn't about what you think you want but what you actually need, and you'd be surprised how often the two are different. No, I'll rephrase that, you probably won't be surprised how often the two are different, but you would probably be surprised how *vastly* different they usually are.

To put it into context, have a read of http://thedailywtf.com/Articles/Classic-WTF-Lock-and-Key.aspx - that's the best (worst!) example of what people think they want as compared to what they need.
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The links are generated based on items that can be sent/accepted ad daily gifts, in a bit I'll try to grab a link or 2.
Yeah, I'm just intrigued by exactly how this works, since my reaction above is based on how it's described, but it's likely that I've made more than one assumption in suggesting what I did.
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I get it now.. and V/E P does exactly what I want as we do not display the list of topics just that the board exists.
Yup, and that makes sense. The design was specific for that, so that view and enter were decoupled and that you could grant, not give or deny based on any combination of groups you cared to name. I can easily envisage sites that use any combination of them depending on circumstance, but I have yet to see a site that hides the contents of topics from guests that would actually encourage me to post - because if a search engine doesn't see the content, how do I find that I want that site?

I want to say that you'd be surprised at the people that don't realise this, but I doubt you would actually be surprised by it.
5552
Off-topic / Voxatron + others...
« on November 6th, 2011, 05:33 PM »
Those of you who've read InI or one of my fairly seldom Twitter posts, will know that I follow the Humble Indie Bundles, and when this one came around (before it was a bundle), I thought it was pretty awesome.

I've always loved the notion of voxels, though fully accept that the processing power and storage requirements make it rather impractical at this time to work with. So a voxel based shooter in retro style, with some interesting quirks... sign me up.

http://www.humblebundle.com/ for those not familiar with the idea. There's a video too.

Then they added the Binding of Isaac and Blocks That Matter.


Then... today, I dug out my old joypad and coaxed it into life. Games are suddenly easier to play :D I've also found myself playing games a bit more lately, just out of a sense of frustration with some of the code I've been doing lately, so something like this means I can try out a lot of my older games again in a new way without any real effort, as it were...
5553
Plugins / Re: Plugins I refuse to do
« on November 6th, 2011, 05:16 PM »
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It would be a rather specific case
In which case it's not a good fit, or to use the terminology from InI[1], you're still solving the wrong problem. What would really suit is a facility whereby only the first post is shown until a suitable link has been posted, rather than something that allowed generic access (however limited) to the topic at hand. I probably wouldn't even show it as a topic to start with, but just the opening post on its own page, and a single line box to put the URL in (plus any other information needed)

I am curious as to what links these are...
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Never used this mod so I'm just going to assume it's rather close to what View/Enter Permissions does which I find extremely useful however my setup isn't aimed guests but rather the existing members.
Sort of. Whereas V/E P lets a board be visible on the board index but disallow access or visibility (which means you can have hidden but accessible, or visible but inaccessible boards)[2] this mod will let you see the list of topics in a board but not access the actual topics themselves.

The idea is that it is used to allow guests to see topics but to encourage them to register in order to see the content. But it hides the content from search engines meaning that unless there's something else to encourage them to visit, they'll never even find it, let alone be incentivised to register.
 1. I really must catch up and write some more posts, just not had time lately.
 2. For example, you could show the existence of premium boards to regular members but disallow them access. More crucially, V/E P also lets you ban people from a given board, e.g. troublemakers.
5554
Features / Re: Thought system
« on November 6th, 2011, 02:12 PM »
There's a side benefit of that for touch users, if someone posts a link as a thought, it means it's accessible directly as opposed to tapping once to activate edit and subsequently disable the event handler, so that the link becomes accessible directly.

I think the choice of forcing a discrete button press is not a bad one, you still have the notion of a button press anyway but it's much clearer as to what you're doing :)
5555
The Pub / Re: Logo Madness
« on November 6th, 2011, 02:09 PM »
Quote from Nao on November 6th, 2011, 11:19 AM
(Please hover the logo in the sidebar to see the old one. I added this so they can be easily compared :P)
Nice :)

The shadow is less pronounced in the new one, which works for me, as well as the newer font (somehow the italics just didn't work quite as well as they might have)
5556
Off-topic / Re: Doctor Who
« on November 6th, 2011, 02:08 PM »
(Psst, Aaron posted that earlier ;))
5557
The Pub / Re: Logo Madness
« on November 6th, 2011, 02:09 AM »
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Not at all? Too... girly, maybe?
No, it's not that, it's more that it just doesn't aesthetically work for me, and on a meta level, I get the feeling of things being misaligned (which usually means buggy)
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The favicon is already done, I'm using it on my local install...
Do you mean uploading it on wedge.org?
No, I meant making it the favicon in the main trunk :D
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In terms of typography history though, that 'g' is a staple, especially in the Humanist family. (Much less in Grotesque, except Franklin Gothic for instance.)
True enough - but it isn't in most sans-serif fonts and if it is, it's more subtle and understated than that.
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Well that wouldn't start with a W...
That's just not cricket!
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Hmm, sure... So, ditching Wuthering entirely and focusing on a Whore (sorry, Core ) conversion...?
But I have to say, I haven't seen a Core in a long time...
I still use Core on at least two sites, even though 2.0 is installed.
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The idea was simply to make it easier for SMF themers to start from a base they know well. I guess Core is also such a base...
It's no better or worse a base than Curve, and frankly it's not really that consistent to Curve anyway now with all the HTML5 and <we> changes.
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Heck, I miss the sm.org of yore... Circa 2003-2005
That's before my time but looks nice enough.
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Anyway...

I've updated the sidebar logo to use Helvetica + a slightly modified logo where the drop shadow is much, much more subtle. The slogan has also been updated to use Helvetica.
Go back to post #722 to compare with the earlier logo if you'd like. I'm taking a couple of days considering this one!
Yeah, I think I will leave it a few days to let it sink in.
5558
Plugins / Re: Plugins I refuse to do
« on November 5th, 2011, 05:58 PM »
Yup, that's exactly it.

I've long thought about integrating some form of that into Wedge, too.
5559
Plugins / Re: Plugins I refuse to do
« on November 5th, 2011, 05:12 PM »
Actually, while I appreciate your post is written in jest, there is a perfectly valid plugin for SMF (I know, I wrote it) that actually does some of those things, and other similar things (and it wouldn't be hard to do something like it but better in Wedge)

Imagine you have a pain user you want rid of.[1] For them, make it seem slow, disable certain features but pretend it's because the site's busy and can't handle the load. But only for them. Eventually they will take the hint.
 1. Or someone you want to prank, as was seen a couple of years ago.
5560
The Pub / Re: Logo Madness
« on November 5th, 2011, 04:08 PM »
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- Any opinion on the petals? I'm not sure...?
I dunno, they just don't quite work for me.
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- simple-green works great as a favicon, BTW. So far it's the best result I've had when reducing a logo to 16x16 dimensions.
Dooooooo eeeeeeet.
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- The Candara font uses a classic 'g' that you'll find in pretty much every Serif font, where the upper circle is smaller and misaligned compared to the rest. This is something I always disliked, and the main issue with that font. I do like how its curves complement the petals, though.
That's my point. The classic g in serif style is out of place in a sans-serif font, and as much as it looks out of place, it also looks like it's not meant to be there, as though it's an after thought not implemented cleanly.
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- I wasn't too sure about blocesque. I like its simplicity, but perhaps it lacks a bit of 'soul'. Considering the 'orange wedge' was one of my original ideas... Maybe I just outgrew it. I mostly wanted to make various layouts with this logo (not simply 'logo followed with text'), but nothing struck me as interesting.
It is an evolutionary process and I think you just outgrew it.
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- I'll keep the sidebar the way it is for now, then. We can always rediscuss it later. Perhaps I'll make a Without Alcohol skin where I'm simplifying the overall style.
Call it Tea. ;)
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- I don't use Warm a lot either, and that's mainly why I went crazy with it a few weeks ago. Plus, the whole 'sidebar put to the very left' thing was the perfect catalyst to start working on the template skeleton system.
As ever, necessity is the mother of invention ;)
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- Actually it's Wuthering I like the least... It lacks personality. This is mainly because it started as Curve, then evolved progressively into Wine and I stopped halfway. I should probably make a REAL clone of Curve (perhaps using CSS3 only, like IIRC Fustrate very cleverly did a couple of years ago), and get rid of Wuthering. Then it would give me some extra space to make a 'Very simplistic skin' (à la WordPress default skins -- i.e. mostly white stuff, no backgrounds, no CSS effects, something to use as a base or something), and then another skin that would be used on Wedge.org exclusively. (Basically something halfway between Wine and Noisen...)
To be brutally honest, I'd rather have a clone of 1.1's Core with a few subtle curves than have a clone of Curve. Don't get me wrong, Curve's nice enough but I'm just fed up of it, it just feels way too bland now it's sort of saturated. Core, though, never felt like that to me.

Having a unique site theme would be good, actually. I still miss the theme sm.org had back in 2009 before they updated and put Curve on it. It had some of the Curve vibe without actually being Curve.

Spoiler for anyone who doesn't remember. (It's the only picture I have, since I long since lost access to the theme files themselves...)

(click to show/hide)


Yes, I designed this way back, as shown in http://www.simplemachines.org/community/index.php?topic=317545.msg2109090#msg2109090
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- I agree that just using bold on the headers is not enough. Warm not only uses a different color, but also a text shadow. Overall it's not THAT important though.
No, but it's the sort of detail that elevates a design from being good to great.
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One of the things that's important, IMHO, is to be able to recognized the two main needs to change an ever-evolving skin or logo:
- actually prospecting ways to improve them...
- and being bored with the current version!
If you're finding yourself unable to improve it in a given direction, it's usually a sign that the current direction is ultimately a dead end and that backtracking to find another direction is probably the answer.
5561
The Pub / Re: Logo Madness
« on November 5th, 2011, 03:00 PM »
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I figure it's time to ask for opinions since I've cleaned up the attachment list and removed the logos that really don't cut it for me.
I still like simply-green and orig, as well as safe6, and any of those would be more than suitable, IMO. (The two tone text in safe6 sort of works for me depending on my mood, sometimes I like the emphasis on 'we' and sometimes I'd prefer the whole rather than a part to be emphasised)

*ca153 looks nice but the g seems out of place compared to the other letters.

I'm not a fan of bloceqsue, personally. I understand the mentality of the circle + wedge but it just doesn't really fit for me.
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And completely unrelated, but... I'm pondering whether to simplify the sidebar by removing all backgrounds.
I like both... The complex version looks cooler on first look, but when the sidebar is very crowded, the simple version is probably easier to take. I can't make up my mind so... Maybe you guys have something to say about it
As someone that's creating sidebar blocks pretty heavily in different projects I have to say that without some kind of visual cue between blocks, that's more than just a heavier header, it looks too jumbled together. The style on Noisen and here works quite well, I find.

I wouldn't be opposed to removing the border on the sidebar but leaving the bar headers in.

Note that I don't use Warm often and any time I've looked at it has been to look at the way the sidebar is outside the main content, as it were, not to look at how the sidebar blocks looked, though looking at your screenshot, the one thing I was getting at is taken into account: headers are not just heavier weight compared to the content but a different colour, which is important.
5562
Off-topic / Re: Doctor Who
« on November 5th, 2011, 02:53 AM »
The season 5 one was better there, I thought. Good but not laugh-out-loud worthy.
5563
Plugins / Re: Plugins I refuse to do
« on November 5th, 2011, 01:39 AM »
Yeah, Nao's hardcore like that :D
5564
Plugins / Re: Plugins I refuse to do
« on November 4th, 2011, 11:02 PM »
Nao makes me look so tame; it's unusual if I have even 10 tabs open at once.
5565
Off-topic / Re: Yuck...
« on November 4th, 2011, 07:32 PM »
I was going to say... what's changed since 3.2? The nav menu is still not that interesting.