Programming Language Community Forums Update 8/15/11

[David B]

Hello All!

I am back from vacation in the Big Apple (New York City), and I am ready to continue working on the Programming Language Community Forums. Today brings plenty of changes to the forums, but before I begin telling you of today’s changes, allow me to mention a feature that has been running in the background of the forum for nearly a week now. This feature is called, “The Visitor Globe.” Here’s how the globe works. On the home page of the forum is a little HTML script that activates a globe that is located at www.programmingforums.forumotion.com/h1-visitor-globe for public viewing. The script captures your I.P. address, and searches it on www.whatismyipaddress.com to determine where you live. The globe then displays where the forum is being accessed from. The globe also has a built in hit & recent hit counter. As of the time of this posting, the only place where the link to the actual globe is located is in this post, but don’t worry, I will soon be adding a link.

Another change that I have made was making a new FAQ page. The original FAQ page that came with the forum was great when it was new, but now it is obsolete, so I have made my own. The JavaScript version of the original FAQ can be accessed at https://programmingforums.forumotion.com/faq. The original HTML FAQ can be accessed at https://programmingforums.forumotion.com/faq?dhtml=no. The new JavaScript FAQ can be accessed by clicking on the “FAQ” button, which will direct you to https://programmingforums.forumotion.com/h2-faq. If JavaScript isn’t allowed on your browser, you will see a message saying so, and will be told to go to https://programmingforums.forumotion.com/h3-faq to see the HTML version of the FAQ.

Another change that I made is the new logo. Originally, the forum's top looked like this...



Now, the top looks like this...



The logo is a .png that looks like this...



This logo has a BETA tag on it, but the final one doesn't. I am not going to show the final logo right now, but you can see it yourself. I have attached the MS Publisher file that was used to create the logo to this post. The file is located within a .zip folder because the forum's attachment service doesn't allow the uploading of .pub files.

I've also used my detective skills to resolve, "The Mystery of Multi-Quoting"! Multi-Quoting has been available on this forum since it opened, but I never knew how to use it. On every forum I have ever been on that allowed multi-quoting, you would click on the multi-quote buttons on the posts that you wanted to quote, and on the last post that you wanted to quote, you would click on the multi-quote button on it, and then click on the quote button. On this forum, it is slightly different. To multiquote, follow these instructions.

1. Click on the multi-quote button that is on the posts that you want to quote.
   
2. After you have selected the posts that you want to quote, click on the reply button, and upon the loading of the posting forum, your quotes will be waiting for you.
   

Sounds simple, right? Because I figure that many people will be asking how it is done on this forum, I have added it to the forum's FAQ.



Another little change that I made, is small, but important. I have moved the Warning Bars used in the Warning Level feature to our image host. Originally, we were accessing the warning bars from an external image host, which is fine, but if the person hosting the image decides to delete the image, we will be left with broken links to images. Below is a list of the warning bars, not listing what they do, but listing them in order from best to worst.

, , , , &

I know that in the last paragraph talking about the warning bars being moved to our image host, I mentioned that the bars are for the "Warning Level" feature. "Warning Level" doesn't really sound like good grammar, so I have decided rename this feature to, "Warning Status." "Warning Status" not only sounds more professional, but, if you think about it, makes more sense too! Your Warning Status still appears in the same place on your posts & profile as it did before, but it is now called "Warning Status" instead.



Another little change that's been made involves the "Gender" field in the profile options. Originally, anybody who selected that they were a male would have a in their profile, and anybody claiming to be female would have a in their profile. Now, all members who claim to be a male will have a on their profile, and all members who claim to be female will have a on their profile.



I've also changed the Gallery button. The old gallery button looked like , but now, the gallery button looks like . The menu should now look like the below image. If it doesn't, please tell me so that I may attempt to fix it. If the below image is to big to view on your screen, click on it.

Attachments

Programming Language Community Forums Logo Development.zip Contained within this .zip folder is the Microsoft Publisher file that I made when developing the forum logo.You don't have permission to download attachments.(1 Mb) Downloaded 5 times