princed.org (phpBB forum + webpages)

[Norbert]

I've changed the shoutbox (chat) in several ways.
Most notably as follows.

Visitors now see a login screen. They can either login without a password as guests, to (only) read chat text. Or they can login with a username/password combination to both read and write chat text:
- Usernames are the same as forum names but end with a hyphen-minus ("-"), e.g. "Norbert-".
- Passwords will be given to users after their forum account creation via private message.

Users that already have forum accounts will receive their passwords retrospectively during the next two days.(*)
(*) Users with 4 or more posts. Other users please private message me if you want login information.

[David]

I'm curious: Why do we need the hyphen? Is it there to work around some limitation?

[Norbert]

I'm curious: Why do we need the hyphen? Is it there to work around some limitation?

The devs have plans to fix this (I chatted with one), but Firefox currently cannot store two (same-)user/(different-)pass combinations for the same location. Anyway, the chat has a bigger problem, namely that visitors do not automatically login. That can be turned on by default, but its code isn't prepared for this: when an anonymous user tries to logout in order to use a user/pass combination, the software immediately logs the user back in. I've already invested way too much time in that shoutbox, so I'm just leaving it alone for now. If there's ever a shoutbox that works with phpBB 3.1.x, we may move to that. I don't think the chat has high priority, we can all post on the (regular) forum. There are several general threads and even a thread for random off-topic stuff.

[Andrew]

Not sure whether I've mentioned this earlier but it's irritating when forum software doesn't even support linking quotes to their original posts.

[David]

it's irritating when forum software doesn't even support linking quotes to their original posts

You can put the link before the quote, as I did here: viewtopic.php?p=13741#p13741
Or you can put the link before the "wrote", as I did here: viewtopic.php?p=13915#p13915
But you have to do them manually.
Can you show me an example of automatic linking?

[Norbert]

(Unrelated to the quoting discussion above.) I've made David a (co-)global moderator.
This allows him to lock/delete/move/split/etc. threads, and edit/delete/move/etc. posts.

[David]

I've made David a (co-)global moderator.

Why exactly? Is it because you don't have much time to moderate the forum?

[Norbert]

I've made David a (co-)global moderator.

Why exactly? Is it because you don't have much time to moderate the forum?

No, it's just nice to have more than one person around who has those moderator rights.
We always had multiple moderators, until August 2013 when programmer left.
You know what you're doing, so if you want to split threads or whatever (as you suggested here), just go for it.

[Andrew]

Can you show me an example of automatic linking?

Unh, almost every other forum I frequent has it (forum software like IPBoard and others). Basically either the name of the person being quoted or the post date/time (which phpBB doesn't seem to include while quoting) or post number or some sort of icon links back to the quoted post. Essentially one shouldn't have to manually copy-paste a post's URL every time one presses the quote button.

[David]

I searched for IPBoard and I think I found an example: http://ipboard.hu/topic/1730-ipb-334-ma ... entry32511
And here: http://community.invisionpower.com/topi ... nt-2534338
The latter works only with JavaScript enabled and the arrow appears only when I move the cursor to the header of the quote.

[Andrew]

The latter works only with JavaScript enabled and the arrow appears only when I move the cursor to the header of the quote.

Don't need any fancy stuff like that. As your first link showed, a simple arrow icon that always appears in the header is fine (on this forum the icon can be used I suppose), or we can just have "<name> wrote:" also as part of the link to make it more obvious and discoverable.

Edit: There seem to be quite a few quote mods for phpBB. Here's one that seems like it might work well, in case anyone's interested:

https://www.phpbb.com/community/viewtop ... &t=1369095
https://www.phpbb.com/customise/db/mod/ ... %28qpbl%29

[David]

So there is a mod for that.
I already tried to find something like that in their Customisation Database, but "The search system is currently unavailable.".
I also scrolled through one of the categories but I don't remember which one.

[Norbert]

Next weekend (23/24 May), I'm going to upgrade the forum software to version 3.1.4.
I don't expect any problems, but the forum may then be locked/down for an hour or two.

Unrelated: someone asked via PM what the names (such as "Efendi" and "Vizier") under the forum nicks mean.
That stuff on the right, that also shows potion images.
It's just related to the number of posts you made on this forum. Here's the overview:

Guard: 0 posts
-----
Scholar Scribe (1 potion): 1+ posts
Efendi (2 potions): 5+ posts
Sheikh (3 potions): 20+ posts
Beylerbey (4 potions): 50+ posts
Vizier (5 potions): 80+ posts
-----
Sultan (1 LP): 130+ posts
Wise Scribe (2 LPs): 200+ posts
Calif (3 LPs): 400+ posts
Wizard Scribe (4 LPs): 700+ posts
The Prince of Persia (5 LPs): 1000+ posts

[Norbert]

Next weekend (23/24 May), I'm going to upgrade the forum software to version 3.1.4.
I don't expect any problems, but the forum may then be locked/down for an hour or two.

Done.
The forum software has been upgraded from 3.1.1 to 3.1.4.
Hopefully we won't run into any problems.

[Roarke]

Can someone please make a "New Levels and Mods For NES" thread on the main page ? I'm planing to make some levels and maybe others to. Or is there already a place for posting NES mods ?