Skin Testing - Changelog

[AR Husker Fan]

I use Firefox both at work and home. I have no idea what the issue is. I'm sure it's flash-related. It is a flash module, right?

I just upgraded my FF here at work to 3.6.10 and it's still doing the same thing. Cleared my cache, same thing.

If I'm the only one having this issue then it's not a big deal.

It looks like the window where the scoreboard should appear just isn't big enough. That's my only thought. Does that make sense?

Yes, it's a Flash application. What is odd is that we haven't heard from anyone else about it - and there are a lot of FireFox users on the Board. I'm wondering if it's a plug-in that you have, or perhaps your FireFox installation has become corrupted. Something along those lines.

 

[zoogs]

I use Firefox both at work and home. I have no idea what the issue is. I'm sure it's flash-related. It is a flash module, right?

I just upgraded my FF here at work to 3.6.10 and it's still doing the same thing. Cleared my cache, same thing.

If I'm the only one having this issue then it's not a big deal.

It looks like the window where the scoreboard should appear just isn't big enough. That's my only thought. Does that make sense?

The ESPN scoreboard is a flash module. I know what you mean by the window (it's enclosed by a "div" tag - same idea). What is your screen resolution? It actually just looks like you start off with it zoomed in too much. Don't know how that is possible. If the width were too small, I believe it only gets cut off to one side. You can see this happening if you open huskerboard with a small window. Actually, the whole forum list gets pushed under the sidebar if the window is small enough. I'll see if there's anything I can do about that.

 

[zoogs]

***SNIP***
I haven't changed anything else yet and at the moment, I'm searching for the CSS that controls the Pages. Frank - are there CSS files for a "CCS" (content control system) under "My Apps"? Doesn't appear to fall under the look and feel category but maybe I just haven't found it yet.

There is no CSS specific to the Pages module so far as I have been able to find. The template that controls it is in the Look & Feel. It's under the skin_ccs_global template - articlePages.

That specific file deals only with pagination (i.e, listing how many pages there are) - similar to the thread pagination template file. I still haven't found the css file that actually controls CCS...which appears to be also called IPContent, but ipcontent.css doesn't have the style definitions I am seeing on the actual page. That's okay for now since there seems to be a workaround anyway.

I added a section to the end of ipcontent.css overriding a few specific styles from the mystery css file and it seems to be working. Tested in Chrome/Firefox/IE8. So now on the Articles, the buttons, and the 2 columns appear to be working in order. Additionally, on the main page, making the window smaller no longer pushes the entire forum list down below the sidebar.

Finally, the scoreboard should resolve better in smaller resolutions. In QBSneak, it pushes itself down below the Huskerboard logo. Now, it overlays itself ontop of the Huskerboard logo. I can also let it push down below the logo if that's preferred. Here is an illustration.

 

[BIGREDIOWAN]

WOW!!! I'm trying to figure out what I like better...........I like the Alternative one better, seems more clean and organized, but I could be wrong.

 

[AR Husker Fan]

***SNIP***
I haven't changed anything else yet and at the moment, I'm searching for the CSS that controls the Pages. Frank - are there CSS files for a "CCS" (content control system) under "My Apps"? Doesn't appear to fall under the look and feel category but maybe I just haven't found it yet.

There is no CSS specific to the Pages module so far as I have been able to find. The template that controls it is in the Look & Feel. It's under the skin_ccs_global template - articlePages.

That specific file deals only with pagination (i.e, listing how many pages there are) - similar to the thread pagination template file. I still haven't found the css file that actually controls CCS...which appears to be also called IPContent, but ipcontent.css doesn't have the style definitions I am seeing on the actual page. That's okay for now since there seems to be a workaround anyway.

I added a section to the end of ipcontent.css overriding a few specific styles from the mystery css file and it seems to be working. Tested in Chrome/Firefox/IE8. The buttons, and the 2 columns appear to be working in order. Additionally, on the main page, making the window smaller no longer pushes the entire forum list down below the sidebar.

Finally, the scoreboard should resolve better in smaller resolutions. In QBSneak, it pushes itself down below the Huskerboard logo. Now, it overlays itself ontop of the Huskerboard logo. I can also let it push down below the logo if that's preferred. Here is an illustration.

***SNIP***

I prefer the Alternate look.

Yeah, the CSS file for the CCS content is...hidden? I dunno. I can't find a CSS file that seems to be specific to the IP Apps - there are none listed under that module at all. On the Template, I removed (in the QB Sneak) the tab for Media - when you clicked it, it took you to a page that lacked all the heading (banner, navigation, etc.) that everything else has.

zoogies, I think we're ready to implement the changes that you've done on the test skin (with the exception of the removal of the Tohoma font), so feel free to do that. Please make a backup of the files you changed if we need to restore at any time.

And for what it's worth, I've completely backed up the current skin (QB Sneak) in the event we ever need to re-create it.

 

[zoogs]

I think so too. It takes up more screen real estate though. You can't see from that screenshot, but the black area of the navigation bar goes down as far as it does in the current (test skin). So it would be pushing the actual forum content down further by quite a bit. On the plus side, it doesn't cover the logo up.

(oops, didn't see AR's response). Ok, got it. I changed the Tahoma font back, so I will go ahead and update QBSneak after testing out the alternative implementation of the scoreboard and letting everyone look at it live. What tab for media are you referring to?

 

[AR Husker Fan]

I think so too. It takes up more screen real estate though. You can't see from that screenshot, but the black area of the navigation bar goes down as far as it does in the current (test skin). So it would be pushing the actual forum content down further by quite a bit. On the plus side, it doesn't cover the logo up.

Yeah, but on the other hand, we're talking about non-mobile, low resolution cases only - which should be few and far between these days. And it has the benefit of leaving everything accessible, so far as I can see. A great job, by the way!

 

[AR Husker Fan]

Opps - just saw something on the test skin. Take a look at the "Today's Top Posters" - it's now overlapping the content below it. I think we need to go into that block and expand the height.

 

[zoogs]

Hm, not seeing that AR. Screenshot?

 

[AR Husker Fan]

Here you go.

 

[zoogs]

Oops, it's an overflow problem. It should be fixed now. I noticed the helmet banner on the bottom of the screen is 924px wide, so I set a minimum width of 924px for the main page area (in between the red pebble borders). That prevents those images from bleeding over to the pebbled area in smaller windows, and gets rid of some overlapping problems as well (but it does mean if the window is less than 924px wide or so, you that there will be a horizontal scrollbar. I could set this value to something less if the images weren't there or if we're okay with it running past the white and into the red).

 

[AR Husker Fan]

Oops, it's an overflow problem. It should be fixed now. I noticed the helmet banner on the bottom of the screen is 924px wide, so I set a minimum width of 924px for the main page area (in between the red pebble borders). That prevents those images from bleeding over to the pebbled area in smaller windows, and gets rid of some overlapping problems as well (but it does mean if the window is less than 924px wide or so, you that there will be a horizontal scrollbar. I could set this value to something less if the images weren't there or if we're okay with it running past the white and into the red).

Just checked - yep, it's fixed.

I'd leave it at the 924 px width. How many people have a resolution much smaller than that? Can't be many. And for those few, they need to expect to have to scroll horizonally...

 

[zoogs]

Good point on the resolutions^.

A few more things I want y'alls opinions on

- Board Index/forum display:Bold thread links,etc now normal weight

- Only forum titles ('Husker Football', 'Woodshed', etc) are red; others are black

- Underlines on all links are off by default and appear only on hover

- Forum titles larger and roomier instead of bold and underlined

- Less contrast between alternating rows in thread/forum list

- "Branding" area (logo/countdown) Messed around with logo (more on this further down)

- Sidebar:Put the ESPN scoreboard on the bottom instead. I think I like this MUCH better, but might be just me. It's definitely the odd man out of all the widgets on the sidebar and doesn't feel right as the leadoff hitter.

- Misc (less important): polished the post editor some, and the search pop-up some. Let me know if there are problems with this but it should be relatively minor changes.

Hopefully, this looks less clustered. On links, there's a couple places where links should NOT be underlined on hover. Unfortunately, these have to be added to an exceptions list of sorts to behave properly, so keep your eyes peeled for links that are either underlining or not underlining when they aren't supposed to.

Also I've been trying to figure out what to do about the top ('branding') part of the page (the area with the temp logo and scoreboard). As is, there's a bit of an "under construction" feel to it, which isn't good even for a temporary situation. I replaced the temp image with plain text, which I think works better as a fill-in while we are banner-less. And then (as an experiment) decided to throw up a background of a few former Huskers ( ) as background to see how that works. Purely experimental. One thought is we could have the same text image as a logo up front, while rotating different Huskers in the background depending on season (football/baseball/etc).

Anyway, here's what it looked like before the experiment with the background image:



By the way, the new logo stuff is all self-contained in a block of code within the global template, so it's pretty out of the loop of the other CSS changes, if we want to commit those to the QB Sneak skin. Mostly watching out for some other bugs right now, although I think QBSneak is a little buggy to begin with.

 

[knapplc]

I really like what you've done on the Test Skin. I may be running that permanently now. It just feels more clean and neat.

EDIT - Could you please remove Callahan from the banner? I'm about ready to claw my eyes out.

 

[AR Husker Fan]

***SNIP***
What tab for media are you referring to?

When you clicked on one of the announcements, it takes you to the Pages. It used to have a tab for Media, right beside the tab for Articles. I removed it as when you clicked it, you ended up on a demo page that lacked most of the heading, formatting, and navigation for the rest of the site, including the Articles page.