DAC - Now with searchable news and changeable templates!

Post by **DarkUnderlord** » Thu May 19, 2005 8:13 am

[ Community -> Update ] - News related to <a href="http://www.duckandcover.cx/archives.php ... ry=10">Top Story: DAC Needs HTML Help!</a> | More info on <a href="http://wikipocalypse.duckandcover.cx/in ... title=Duck and Cover">Community: Duck and Cover</a>

All righty then. Your favourite post-apocalyptic news source (that's supposed to mean us) now has some nifty <strike>old</strike>
new features that I've just rolled out. If you look in the right
hand-menu and scroll right the way down the bottom, you'll find a
little heading called "Change Template". Take a guess at what that lets
you do. At the moment, there's only an incomplete template called
"Roach" available but you can change templates and see what it looks
like.However,
what it means is that if you'd like to make a
template for DAC, you now can (hence the why DAC needs HTML help since
we've got a handful ready to go but no-one to do them - apart from me
and I can't be stuffed). Cook something up for us and we can
simply add it to the available templates for others to choose from.
There are a few things you'll need to do so your template works with
the site properly but more details on that are available from me if you
need them (I may make a post <a target="_self" href="http://www.duckandcover.cx/forums/viewf ... p?f=28">in the Trashcan</a> about it shortly too).To
stop you bastards sucking bandwidth by unnecessarily changing your
template 20 times every day, we've set a limit on the number of changes
you're allowed every week. At the moment, you're allowed to change your
template 3 times every 7 days. Once 7 days is up, you get another 3
changes.Something else rather exciting is you can now search our news and content items! Head on over to our <a target="_self" href="http://www.duckandcover.cx/archives.php">news archives</a> or <a target="_self" href="http://www.duckandcover.cx/content.php">content listing</a> and search for items to your hearts content. Completely useless facts from our news archives include:
<ul>
<li>Mr. Teatime has posted 561 news items which is 409 more than
Killzig ever did and 273 more than Kreegle (who's listed as Anonymous
because his account was deleted when Killzig has his deranged episode).</li>
<li>We have <a target="_self" href="http://www.duckandcover.cx/archives.php ... ssault">42 news items about Auto Assault</a>, <a target="_self" href="http://www.duckandcover.cx/archives.php ... ssault">35 of which</a> were posted by Mr. Teatime.</li>
<li>In total, 502 news items were posted on DAC in 2004. That compares with 437 so far this year.</li>
<li>I'm sure you're more than capable of boring yourself to death with other more useless search results.

</li>
</ul>
Another thing you'll notice is a "Related News Items" link appearing
next to the "posted by" bit in news items. Following this link loads
that news item and lists beneath it any news items which may in some
way be relevant to it, such as other news from the same source, posted
on the same day or related to the same company and so on.We also now have a <a target="_self" href="http://www.duckandcover.cx/contact.php">contact us form</a>
which you can use to send us any info you might think we'd want to hear
such as a news item or something else which isn't a news item, like
questions and things maybe.

Post by **Alexander** » Thu May 19, 2005 10:22 am

DArkUnderlord wrote:# Mr. Teatime has posted 561 news items which is 409 more than Killzig ever did and 273 more than Kreegle (who's listed as Anonymous because his account was deleted when Killzig has his deranged episode).
# We have 42 news items about Auto Assault, 35 of which were posted by Mr. Teatime.
...

Haha! Statistics! At last...

Hey, I searched for news related to Arnold Schwarzenegger and there were only two news articles on him. I am a bit dissapointed I have to say...

Also, that "Roach"-template kind of reminds me of the design Terra Arcanum has... hmmm...

Anyhow, good work!

Mr. Teatime · Post by **Mr. Teatime** » Thu May 19, 2005 12:33 pm

Man, I've posted a lot of news.

Insane-Lark · Post by **Insane-Lark** » Thu May 19, 2005 7:21 pm

Nifty & rather fun to look through. Yep Tea, you are a news whore. Good job man.

ApTyp · Post by **ApTyp** » Thu May 19, 2005 9:52 pm

I told him, when you don't have any real news, make something up.

How about official Fallout 3 from Bethesda preview?

Post by **Alexander** » Thu May 19, 2005 10:12 pm

ApTyp wrote:I told him, when you don't have any real news, make something up.

How about official Fallout 3 from Bethesda preview?

You speak the words of a true journalist, pray tell ApTyp, have you worked at a real newspaper at some point in your life?

Niektory · Post by **Niektory** » Fri May 20, 2005 12:00 am

"You have 3 changes left. This counter will reset in -12915 days."

That's quite a while.

Post by **DarkUnderlord** » Fri May 20, 2005 7:43 am

Odd. I just checked the values in your user data, copied that to a test account and got the standard "7 days" output. Could've been a minor conflict of some sort. Not sure though.

Is it still saying -12915 days?

Ashmo · Post by **Ashmo** » Fri May 20, 2005 7:49 am

First of all your main layout is broken in Firefox (might be due to the oversized banner) and even more so in MSIE (the navigation list items have bullets, amongst other things).

Secondly I can't find a template change option in EITHER browser. Not on the right navigation panel, not in the footer, not in the header, nowhere.

Thirdly, do you have the layout for download somewhere so people could have something to base new layouts on?

Niektory · Post by **Niektory** » Fri May 20, 2005 8:13 am

DarkUnderlord wrote:Odd. I just checked the values in your user data, copied that to a test account and got the standard "7 days" output. Could've been a minor conflict of some sort. Not sure though.

Is it still saying -12915 days?

No, it was saying that before I used any changes. Now when I used one it's ok. I have created a test account (name 'lol' password 'lol'), see for yourself.

Post by **DarkUnderlord** » Fri May 20, 2005 9:33 am

Ashmo wrote:First of all your main layout is broken in Firefox (might be due to the oversized banner)

You've been on DAC how long and you're only telling us this now? I would've thought you'd had a go a lot sooner.

But "Broken" how? What resolution are you running at? I know the right panel messes up on occasion depending on the ad that's being displayed.

Ashmo wrote:and even more so in MSIE (the navigation list items have bullets, amongst other things).

Well, the navigation list items and everything else in the main template are supposed to have bullets. Do you mean they have two sets of bullets though?

Ashmo wrote:Secondly I can't find a template change option in EITHER browser. Not on the right navigation panel, not in the footer, not in the header, nowhere.

You have to be logged in. Make sure the front page says "You are logged in as" and the template change option will be in the right menu, at the bottom.

Ashmo wrote:Thirdly, do you have the layout for download somewhere so people could have something to base new layouts on?

I made a thread in the Trash Can here.

NiektÃƒÂ³ry wrote:No, it was saying that before I used any changes. Now when I used one it's ok. I have created a test account (name 'lol' password 'lol'), see for yourself.

It says "7 days" like it should.

I think I know what the problem might be though. Reloading the front page should fix it and display the correct value.

Ashmo · Post by **Ashmo** » Fri May 20, 2005 2:24 pm

DarkUnderlord wrote:
Ashmo wrote:First of all your main layout is broken in Firefox (might be due to the oversized banner)
You've been on DAC how long and you're only telling us this now? I would've thought you'd had a go a lot sooner. But "Broken" how? What resolution are you running at? I know the right panel messes up on occasion depending on the ad that's being displayed.

Didn't check it out in MSIE before and the right navigation (which is what's borked now) was working fine before you moved to the new (old) server and changed the ad size.

The navigation is all that is screwed (position-wise) in Firefox and only if the browser wiundow gets lower than roughly 1000 pixels in width. Maybe a more dynamic layout would be a good idea?

Ashmo wrote:and even more so in MSIE (the navigation list items have bullets, amongst other things).
Well, the navigation list items and everything else in the main template are supposed to have bullets. Do you mean they have two sets of bullets though?

Well, I only conciously noticed the bullets in MSIE because the background of the right navigation is somehow indented on the right (a couple of pixels) and the list in turn is indented even more (and thus the bullets are on the left of the navigation background).

Ashmo wrote:Secondly I can't find a template change option in EITHER browser. Not on the right navigation panel, not in the footer, not in the header, nowhere.
You have to be logged in. Make sure the front page says "You are logged in as" and the template change option will be in the right menu, at the bottom.

Meh, my workplace PC always performs auto-logout. Sorry.

Ashmo wrote:Thirdly, do you have the layout for download somewhere so people could have something to base new layouts on?
I made a thread in the Trash Can here.

Merci.

Post by **DarkUnderlord** » Sat May 21, 2005 12:42 am

Ashmo wrote:The navigation is all that is screwed (position-wise) in Firefox and only if the browser wiundow gets lower than roughly 1000 pixels in width. Maybe a more dynamic layout would be a good idea?

I gather you mean it looks a little something like this? I only get that if I squish the window up a lot though it does depend on the "random caption" that's displayed. Some of them are a bit longer than others and will mess up that right side like that if the browser window isn't big enough.

I *think* this is what you mean but that window is 558 x 478 (I can never remember which one of those is width) which is pretty fucking small, certainly half the 1000 pixels you get it occuring at.

Ashmo wrote:Well, I only conciously noticed the bullets in MSIE because the background of the right navigation is somehow indented on the right (a couple of pixels) and the list in turn is indented even more (and thus the bullets are on the left of the navigation background).

Can you take a screenshot of that? I've opened it in IE but can't seem to get the same problem (IE 6.x).

The main.tpl that I link in the Trashcan is the "classic" one. If you want (have the time or desire), I can give you all .tpl files and the stylesheet for the template if you want to fix it up or maybe even make a complete XHTML strict version or something.

Ashmo · Post by **Ashmo** » Sat May 21, 2005 2:13 am

I think you were answering the quotes in reverse.

The screenshot you posted shows exactly what I see in MSIE. Although it may be possible the computer I'm forced to use at work actually runs at 800x600 I think I would have noticed that. I'm pretty sure it's 1024x768.

The window looked wrong in MSIE when it was approx. 90% the screen in width, so I guess that'd be something close to 1000 px.

The bug occuring in Firefox is what occurs when the ads (728 px in width, approx.) blow up the layout because the window is too small.
It's the known issue you described earlier.

Stainless · Post by **Stainless** » Sat May 21, 2005 3:17 am

I never really have an problems viewing it through firefox.

That template thing is rather nice.

Blargh · Post by **Blargh** » Sat May 21, 2005 8:21 am

Huzzah for Adblock.

Post by **Alexander** » Sat May 21, 2005 1:08 pm

DarkUnderlord wrote:bla bla navigation and site design... also, browsers.

Look here:

Now that some smartypants made a thread that is called "LEEEEROOOY JEEEEEENNS!!!" it looks even more fucked up... maybe you can write a script or something that cuts off the title of the thread being displayed in the Hot Topics-area after that it has reached a certain limit of characters?

Post by **King of Creation** » Sat May 21, 2005 3:36 pm

Yeah..its fucked up for me too. I'll edit the title of that topic to see if it helps.