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Messages - markham
16
Bug reports / Re: Reply post showing as 'New'
« on July 25th, 2012, 05:55 AM »
Quote from Nao on July 24th, 2012, 06:48 PM
- Calculation: how about we store a 'snapshot' of boards in localStorage, and use that to determine whether there are new boards at runtime? (With JavaScript...) That's in reply to Dragooon's post. I'll go back to sleep now...

- new icon: I'll mention that in the other topic.
Just thought I'd mention that that would have privacy implications and is covered by the EU's PECR ....
17
Archived fixes / Re: Time offset (auto detect)
« on July 25th, 2012, 05:25 AM »
Quote from Arantor on July 24th, 2012, 08:38 PM
It would really help if we knew people in these areas to be able to judge what's right.

It's no big deal to add these extra items in, though ;)
I'm currently at GMT[1]+8 and to be honest, I don't think it matters too much whether Beijing or if Taipei is used although Hong Kong would be a more "neutral" option.

As far as Russia is concerned, there are two "standard" times used throughout the country. There's the "longitudinal" time with St Petersburg and Moscow at GMT+4 through to Vladivostok at GMT+10, by which businesses operate at the local level; there's also "Moscow Time" which is still used by the railways and (I believe) airlines and is also used by businesses, government departments etc., at the national level. China follows a similar model.

That said though, I recently installed Ubuntu 12.04LTS onto a netbook that had previously been struggling with Windows 7[2] and I was pleasantly surprised to see that Ubuntu's installer was very obviously using geo-location to suggest the time-zone. You see, no software that I've come across ever suggests "Manila" and although it got the city wrong[3], it did get the right country. I'm wondering whether Wedge could use a similar system - just think of all those bytes you could save, Nao, by not having an extensive list of options! :)
 
 
 1. and being British, I positively refuse to call it "UTC"
 2. despite the fact that it has 2Gb of physical memory
 3. I'm actually in Davao, a two-plus hour flight to the south
18
The Pub / Re: Only display 'Redirect boards' when there actually are any
« on July 24th, 2012, 10:30 AM »
Having a legend at the foot of the Board Index is useful but I do agree that there's little point in showing the legend for redirected boards when there are none. As for the whole thing getting some "UI love", that depends on what you have in mind; right now, it's fine as far as I personally am concerned but these things are very subjective.

19
The Pub / Re: The Cookie Law (in the UK at least)
« on June 22nd, 2012, 02:01 PM »
Quote from Arantor on June 22nd, 2012, 01:05 PM
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If so, how is that possible? Has it been encoded as an animated GIF and the "animation" part is some Java that sets the cookie because that's the only way I can see this working?
Images have headers just like normal web pages, the cookie is an absolutely standard part of this (it's part of HTTP of sorts), so you can trivially set a cookie on requesting an image, just like you can to request a web page.
Yup, I can understand that scenario if I were to re-post the image on another site in exactly the same way has nend has here, by embedding its URL. But I can't see that working if I were to download that avatar from wedge.org and then upload it elsewhere and include it in a message.

I guess there's no way for a site to check if such a trick is being used - by which I mean, could (eg) wedge.org prevent another site from sending its user a cookie in the way nend has illustrated?
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The Pub / Re: The Cookie Law (in the UK at least)
« on June 22nd, 2012, 01:02 PM »
Quote from nend on June 22nd, 2012, 06:27 AM
I hate to do another example, but here is a image above. It is a SMF attachment from another site. If you look at your cookies now there will be some new cookies in there that are not from wedge.org or authorized and/or have proper consent from wedge.org but in the browser they are associated with wedge.org and this page. If you notice there will be a few cookies from sicomm.us in the site wedge.org.

However this could be a honest user who doesn't know the image comes with a cookie. This however from what I hear is not condone.

The thing I want to know is if the news ticker is condone because I know there is no way to display a consent due to security and without the cookie the news ticker will not work.
No extra cookies have been set for wedge.org but a (ie 1) cookie was set for sicomm.us called nend_sig. But thank you for highlighting a problem area - and one that really doesn't seem to be covered. I guess in this case the onus of compliance would theoretically be on sicomm.us which, unless it can obtain prior consent, shouldn't be adding cookies to its images.

Are you saying though, that were I to re-use that image in a message - posted on another site - that anyone who reads that message (but not yours posted here) will also have that sicomm.us cookie? If so, how is that possible? Has it been encoded as an animated GIF and the "animation" part is some Java that sets the cookie because that's the only way I can see this working?
21
The Pub / Re: The Cookie Law (in the UK at least)
« on June 22nd, 2012, 06:13 AM »
Quote from Arantor on June 22nd, 2012, 05:06 AM
Mind you, the way it's all implemented, most sites aren't being particularly explicit about cookies - XenForo for example has now complied with the law but falls a bit short on thoroughness IMHO, it doesn't even mention that the analytics cookies are from Google. And the cookies are set before the user has a chance to refuse them.
Sounds a bit like the various "solutions" offered by Wolf Software; even if you refuse to accept the cookies, it sets one anyway.
22
The Pub / Re: The Cookie Law (in the UK at least)
« on June 22nd, 2012, 06:06 AM »
@nend: Yes but you know what cookies could be set, it's simply a case of displaying a page with their names, persistency, content and use  :). You can use this page as a model if you wish.

I'm pretty sure I'm correct in saying that you would be responsible for all the cookies Coppermine sets as that software is on your server and is serving pictures etc., to people on your site.
23
The Pub / Re: The Cookie Law (in the UK at least)
« on June 19th, 2012, 07:27 PM »
The problem is that we as a society have become increasingly reluctant to take responsibility for our actions, more so over the last 70 years[1] and it is only since 1990[2]  that we have had any legislation concerning the (mis)use of computers. The Internet has long been regarded as the "last bastion of freedom" being as it has been largely unregulated. Some have exploited the freedoms it provided and now consider any internet-related legislation as being an attack on the freedom of speech. But what they forget is that with freedoms you have responsibilities: people want the freedoms but shun the associated responsibilities.

The Cookie Law, all its faults aside, does at least put the onus of compliance in the right place and, as Arantor says, should make site owners take a hard look at their use of cookies (and other similar devices such as web beacons) and possibly cull those that really aren't that important or beneficial (yes Google, I'm looking at you). But the law is not an attack on the freedom of speech.

For Forum-only sites, there really shouldn't be a problem but for multi-software sites the problems are far greater.
 1. The formation of the National Health Service immediately post-WW2 is seen by many as the birth of "nanny-stateism"
 2. The Computer Misuse Act
24
Other software / Re: Opera 12 (release) breaks Nao's Footnotes Mod in SMF
« on June 18th, 2012, 08:46 PM »
Quote from Arantor on June 18th, 2012, 07:30 PM
Quote from Nao on June 18th, 2012, 06:50 PM
Google doesn't read gmail e-mails apart from computing/analyzing contents to provide targeted advertisements... (Can live with that -- a single line of text...)
That's what they tell you. Given their other activities, eg all the wi-fi slurping that went on with Street View, I'm not sure I believe a word of it.
I've read that both the British and Irish governments are to reopen their respective inquiries into what exactly Google's cars did eavesdrop on and what happened to all that data that they weren't supposed to be collecting.
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@markham: I have never observed any issues with Webkit being unable to scroll horizontally in any fashion you throw at it.
Oh it does scroll horizontally but the problem I found was that the items were not constrained within the display area. But it works and the owner is happy, so I'm not going to spend any more time trying to fix it[1]
 1. Given that hopefully we'll be migrating to Wedge
25
Other software / Re: Opera 12 (release) breaks Nao's Footnotes Mod in SMF
« on June 18th, 2012, 06:56 PM »
Quote from Nao on June 18th, 2012, 03:59 PM
Quote from markham on June 18th, 2012, 10:25 AM
My posted link gave you a 404?
No, your forum link in your profile...
Oh ... ooops!  :blush: I have rectified that small matter  :).
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In many respects I agree with your critique of our portal, it is a bit "busy" but it is what the site owner wants. I thought the slow scrolling display of (Aeva) gallery items is a little less boring than simply a stic display of 3 or 4 pictures.
It displays 20 pics as the header says, and since it's so slow to scroll, no one will ever wait to see the 20th, thus making it a waste of your server resources to both generate the thumbnail and send it to the browser...
Well it started out as a static display of 6 thumbnails in a full width block but the owner didn't like it and asked me to come up with a different idea. Yes the scroll speed is possibly a little slow even though I spent quite some time adjusting it for the best look. Any faster and blurring can occur. I also had to take into account that not all browsers can scroll the block horizontally - webkit ones can't for some reason - so I had to make changes to allow for vertical scroll which is how Chrome et al display that block.

26
Other software / Re: Opera 12 (release) breaks Nao's Footnotes Mod in SMF
« on June 18th, 2012, 10:25 AM »
Quote from Nao on June 18th, 2012, 09:34 AM
Yes that's exactly what I said... The CSS for footnotes is not being loaded.

Your file is 65+KB in normal mode, and 64 967 bytes when Turbo is enabled. There's probably something that prevents Opera from loading more than 64KB worth of data (including headers I guess) in Turbo mode. You'll have to contact them... Or try to set up Turbo to work correctly on large files.
Or just move your useless CSS to the end of the CSS file.
Thank you, Nao!! I moved the footnotes CSS to the beginning of the file and now footnotes are displaying correctly in Turbo mode, so size matters! I've also minified the css file and it's now just 46,244 so there shouldn't be any problems.

I did look for settings for Turbo mode but there aren't any other than "on", "off" and "automatic".
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BTW your site's fixed toolbars --- brrr... Do you really like THAT? And your website link here is 404 (has an extra s at the end)... And I think the cookie message should be removed (eh), or at the very least, shown using something else than the dreaded SMF loading message styling... And I think your homepage has too many blocks and silly animations... Then again, portal-like sites were my love a dozen years ago. Even the homepage on wedge.org is too heavy-loaded for me now... And you didn't come for design advices.
The fixed menu bar was requested by several members and it does aid navigation but I agree, it's a matter of personal preference.

My posted link gave you a 404? Umm, I've just clicked on the links - both my original and where you quoted it - and they work just fine. Not sure what's happening there.

In many respects I agree with your critique of our portal, it is a bit "busy" but it is what the site owner wants. I thought the slow scrolling display of (Aeva) gallery items is a little less boring than simply a stic display of 3 or 4 pictures. I'd prefer them being a bit bigger and without the thunbnail border but that would require resizing each picture's preview and add considerably to the load time. At least there aren't any awful flash animations!

The Cookie Acceptance panel.... yes, well.... I do agree with you and one day I might actually know enough CSS (and/or Java) to make it a bit more presentable. On the other hand, its gaudiness does draw your attention and makes you want to click on "I accept" just to get rid of it!!

Thanks for your assistance, I really appreciate it - and welcomed your constructive criticisms too!
27
Other software / Re: Opera 12 (release) breaks Nao's Footnotes Mod in SMF
« on June 18th, 2012, 08:42 AM »
Quote from Nao on June 18th, 2012, 08:29 AM
Quote from markham on June 18th, 2012, 07:47 AM
Yes, this page where the first footnote's link is on the first line.
"Please log-in or disable Opera's "Turbo" mode to continue."
Uh...
If I disable it, the page works fine. (Except for the annoying popup that prevents me from clearly seeing which footnotes are linked to what...)
Ummm.... yes!  :whistle:For security reasons, we don't allow visitors to view the sites (or register) via a proxy. I'm PM'ing you your login details (no authentication required) but you will need to accept our Cookies first, sorry about that[1]
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Quote from markham on June 18th, 2012, 07:47 AM
Umm .... that makes no sense at all. Why would turbo mode affect the loading of CSS? My site doesn't know about Opera's turbo mode and serves the same files to all. It is as if the CSS is being partly stripped-out.
I just don't know. But that doesn't make sense otherwise...
 1. However, once you have completed your tests, and if you want our cookies to be removed, simply go to the Portal page ("Home") and scroll-down until you see "Cookie and you" where you'll find a link that does exactly that.
It's as if part of the CSS - in this case index.css - is being stripped-out and not transmitted by Opera's turbo mode proxy server.

There's a problem with the placement of footnotes on Wedge, however ...
28
Other software / Re: Opera 12 (release) breaks Nao's Footnotes Mod in SMF
« on June 18th, 2012, 07:47 AM »
Quote from Nao on June 17th, 2012, 11:10 PM
Ah. Well. I don't know a thing about turbo mode...
Still works in opera mini though. And it's 100% turbo iirc.
Nao, there's no problem with the formatting of footnotes on Wedge.org but there is on an SMF-powered forum.
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Posted: June 17th, 2012, 08:50 PM

Can you post a link to a page where it fails?
Yes, this page where the first footnote's link is on the first line.
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Posted: June 17th, 2012, 08:54 PM

Hmm... Any chance the CSS for Footnotes is simply *not* loading...?
Umm .... that makes no sense at all. Why would turbo mode affect the loading of CSS? My site doesn't know about Opera's turbo mode and serves the same files to all. It is as if the CSS is being partly stripped-out.
29
Other software / Re: Opera 12 (release) breaks Nao's Footnotes Mod in SMF
« on June 17th, 2012, 07:41 PM »
I don't know if this is related but before v12 was released, Opera was using proxy servers in China and the US to serve the compressed pages under "turbo mode". Now that v12 is out, Opera is using its own server at opera.net so maybe some bugs there.
30
Other software / Re: Opera 12 (release) breaks Nao's Footnotes Mod in SMF
« on June 17th, 2012, 07:35 PM »
Well I've found the cause of my issue - and I'm pretty sure it isn't something that you can fix, Nao. It's Opera's "turbo mode"! If it's disabled, then SMF footnotes work just fine but if enabled, they don't.[1]
 1.  Though quite why Wedge's footnotes are not affected at all by turbo mode escapes me ....