Skin Testing - Changelog

This is just bizarre - the changes I made to QBL are the same changes I made to the QB Live and the QB Test pages. Nothing should have affected the Next Game to the point it's not working.

I'm seeing the logo when I use the QBL skin - do you see it now?

 
OK, I'm on Safari now while Firefox is restarting.

On QBL I have the HuskerNation banner, the new Killer Cacti banner, but the countdown clock isn't working.

On QB Live everything seems to be working.

On QB Test everything seems to be working.

On QB Sneak everything seems to be working.

So the only one not working is QBL and that's on Safari and Firefox.

Heading back to Firefox....

 
I'm sure you've tried this, but try hitting Refresh and see if the logo shows up.

There's something else wrong with the Countdown Clock under QBL - the digits should be contained in fields - little squares that have thin black borders. Showing up on the other skins (and the clock works under them) but not in QBL. I didn't do anything to the clock except positioning, and I've even gone back in under QB Test, copied the appropirate code and placed it in QBL.

Worse, the clock is a "block" - except for appearance, it should be the same for any skin. And even worse, in doing a comparison between QBL and QB Test, I notice that there was a line of code in QB Test that wasn't in QBL for the clock - and it was a line to display the score_center block. That line would have been in both, since QBL was copied from QB Test. So how did that line go missing in QBL? Neither zoogies or I touched that part of the code - we both are commenting the hell out of any changes we make, so we both can tell immediately if one of us has done anything. Again, it's almost as if someone is dicking around with the raw files, since we could see in the Control Panel if anyone had logged in.

 
Who has access to the raw files? That's weird.

I have Adblock on Firefox, so I just spent some time killing all of my filters on HB - like this emoticon, which annoys me: :bonesflag:

I disabled everything, and suddenly on QBL I have the new banner and HuskerNation's banner, which I hadn't blocked before, so I wonder if somehow some of the emoticons I had blocked got wrapped up in this issue.

No matter what I do, the clock does not work on QBL.

And now that we're seeing some weirdness, there WERE underlines on the links for a while, but now they're gone again.

Someone, somewhere, has to be messing with this stuff. Gotta be.

 
And another thing - I just noticed that my black banner across the top is gone, and I still have this "IP.Content -> Blocks --> " text across the top of my screen. Screenie:

screen_shot_2010-10-29_at_10.08.10_pm.png


EDIT - check that: My black bar is back. :facepalm:

I'm done playing interwebz detective today. Gotta go to bed. Good luck with all of this.

 
Last edited by a moderator:
I don't think anyone is messing with the stuff - there's just some changes that we made that affected other things, but we didn't realize that it would.

Here's one example: with the next_game scoreboard moving into its own little parse_block (not sure what that exactly entails) - the reason the numbers aren't bordered anymore is because that's a background image, which isn't linked to an absolute URL.

In QBL, it's linked to: http://www.huskerboard.com/public/style_images/silverred/drop_down/dash.png

In QBTest, it's linked to: http://www.huskerboard.com/public/style_images/qb_test/drop_down/dash.png

The image doesn't exist under the silverred directory, so that's why it isn't showing up.

I copied the style and global template from QB Test into QBL, and it looks like that should be fixed, for now.

I think I should commit the latest changes I made to QBLive, as well, to fix the cropping of the logo image.

Knapp, you must have gotten that screenshot after I copied over the stylesheet but before I copied over the template, from QBTest to QBL ;P

 
Last edited by a moderator:
And now I'm seeing the background pebbled look on the left and right. zoogies might have done that - we're both in the Templates, but the background is in the CSS files, not the Templates.

I don't know what's going on, but I don't like this - if someone is messing with the raw files, we've got a problem. It may be innocent - the design company or something - but we need to know who and why they are doing it if that's the case.

 
And even worse, in doing a comparison between QBL and QB Test, I notice that there was a line of code in QB Test that wasn't in QBL for the clock - and it was a line to display the score_center block.
Click to expand...
Where's this line of code you are referring to, AR? Thanks.

 
zoogies said:
I don't think anyone is messing with the stuff - there's just some changes that we made that affected other things, but we didn't realize that it would.

Here's one example: with the next_game scoreboard moving into its own little parse_block (not sure what that exactly entails) - the reason the numbers aren't bordered anymore is because that's a background image, which isn't linked to an absolute URL.

In QBL, it's linked to: http://www.huskerboa...c/style_images/silverred/drop_down/dash.png

In QBTest, it's linked to: http://www.huskerboa...c/style_images/qb_test/drop_down/dash.png

The image doesn't exist under the silverred directory, so that's why it isn't showing up.

I copied the style and global template from QB Test into QBL, and it looks like that should be fixed, for now.

I think I should commit the latest changes I made to QBLive, as well, to fix the cropping of the logo image.

Knapp, you must have gotten that screenshot after I copied over the stylesheet but before I copied over the template, from QBTest to QBL ;P
Click to expand...
Bingo - that was the clue. silverred had no drop_down folder at all. I copied it from qb_test to silverred, and now it's working.

But that raises a different issue - if it was working before for Lance, what changed? Why did it stop? That's not a code issue - that was stuff I had to copy over via FTP to get the images in place.

 
zoogies said:
And even worse, in doing a comparison between QBL and QB Test, I notice that there was a line of code in QB Test that wasn't in QBL for the clock - and it was a line to display the score_center block.
Click to expand...
Where's this line of code you are referring to, AR? Thanks.
Click to expand...
Line 3778 in the ipb_styles_css file. I've added it to the QBL file, so it's now in both of the ipb_styles_css files.

 
AR Husker Fan said:
Bingo - that was the clue. silverred had no drop_down folder at all. I copied it from qb_test to silverred, and now it's working.

But that raises a different issue - if it was working before for Lance, what changed? Why did it stop? That's not a code issue - that was stuff I had to copy over via FTP to get the images in place.
Click to expand...
Silverred shouldn't have a dropdown folder; I guess the thing is that the link is wrong, it shouldn't be to the silverred directory. To answer the 'why did it stop?' question - my guess is that it stopped working after the logo section was made into a parse_block. The parse block is generating a different directory for those images than what was happening before. How did you create the parse_block, and how do you see what it generates?

I mucked up QBTest momentarily after putting it live, but it turns out that some of the commenting out of blocks of code isn't taking in certain browsers. I took out the offending bit of code and everything should be fixed now - including QBL. I notice the scoreboard seems to be fixed on that as well; Lance, can you confirm? Still don't know what is up with the ESPN Scoreboard for you. Have you tried, per chance, clearing all cookies, or using a different browser, etc. I'm sure you have but just thought I would confirm.

Regarding Bradr's thread (link), I've extended the min-width of the page from 924px to 970px, so there should no longer be any overlap of the logo and the next_game block. Apparently, in some browsers, "->" closes comments, which is causing IP->content blocks to be displayed. I've made a backup (~10:27PM pacific time, 10/29) of globalTemplates and ipb_styles to my desktop and committed those changes to QBLive.

 
Last edited by a moderator:
zoogies said:
Silverred shouldn't have a dropdown folder; I guess the thing is that the link is wrong, it shouldn't be to the silverred directory. To answer the 'why did it stop?' question - my guess is that it stopped working after the logo section was made into a parse_block. The parse block is generating a different directory for those images than what was happening before. How did you create the parse_block, and how do you see what it generates?
Click to expand...
No, it's not the parse_block. It's the image directory that I specified for the QBL skin. If you go into the Settings for each skin, you can specify a specific image directory. The silverred is the one that has all the icons that Lance prefers, so I set the QBL skin to that directory. Trouble was, that directory was created for a much earlier skin, unrelated to any of the QB skins. Dropping the drop_down folder in silverred made those images accessible to QBL.

A Block is just code you would drop into a web page. Removing it from the page and creating a block with it just makes it a lot easier to change the code - you can go into the Admin Control Panel and it will display just like a template or CSS file you see in the Admin Control Panel. But all a Block contains is just the code for that limited section of the Boad. The Countdown Clock/Next Game, Previous Game, and ESPN Scoreboard are all blocks. Once you create the code, you assign it a name, similar to a Class or ID in CSS. You can then just reference the Block name through the parse_block tag, and it reads the code from that block to the page being generated. What I did for that particular block is to take the code I had used for the HuskerNation banner and removed it from the globalTemplate. I then created the block and dropped the code in the block, named it, and then referenced the Block in the globalTemplate file for all the QB skins (except QB Sneak, as we wanted to leave that relatively unchanged). The reason I created that block is that eventually we'll want to replace the code it generates with a JavaScript for a banner ad rotator - this will make it far easier to change what banners are displayed, sequence, etc. when we do that.

The beauty of Blocks is that once you create them and insert the parse_block into each page you want it to display, all you have to do is change the Block and it's reflected on each page that has that parse_block tag. In that regard, it's similar to CSS. But a single Block can apply to as many different skins as you want, and not just a single skin. The downside is that it means that if you want to change just a single skin, you have to code just that skin. As an example, when I test the banner ad rotator script, I'll remove the parse_block for the current HuskerNation banner from the QB Test globalTemplate, and insert the script and code directly into that Template. Once it's working the way I want, I'll then remove that code from the Template and drop it in that Block, and add the parse_block tag back to the skin. Since that parse_block tag is already in the the globalTemplate file for the other QB skins, it will immediately appear in all of them.

What I'm going to do is to grant you access to the Blocks and related items - you can access them from the My Apps tab on the opening page of the Admin Control Panel. Then, click IP.Apps from the dropdown, and on the new page look to the left and you'll see the Block link.

zoogies said:
Regarding Bradr's thread (link), I've extended the min-width of the page from 924px to 970px, so there should no longer be any overlap of the logo and the next_game block. Apparently, in some browsers, "->" closes comments, which is causing IP->content blocks to be displayed. I've made a backup (~10:27PM pacific time, 10/29) of globalTemplates and ipb_styles to my desktop and committed those changes to QBLive.
Click to expand...
Good deal. Thanks!

 
zoogies said:
AR Husker Fan said:
zoogies said:
***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.
Click to expand...
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.
Click to expand...
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.

***SNIP***
Click to expand...
Found it!!!! It's under the My Apps - IP.Content - assets - index.css. There's a small arrow beside assets - click it, and under it is the index.css. That controls the Articles page.

 
I tinkered around with QB Live a little bit in order to bring back (for now) the Calendar and Pages section of the main menu. I just changed the link to the home page (which is redundant -- we already have the logo linking back to the home page). I thought about removing it, but I just renamed it from

:: HuskerBoard.com - Husker Message Board

to just 'HB.' The :: didn't seem to really fit in with the overall smooth/clean look of the theme and the length was a bit clunky. I think there could be some more moving stuff around or renaming there but haven't given it much thought.

 
Back
Top