Creating a good-looking custom theme isn't as simple as waving a stick. Back when David and I first agreed to share this forum between our blogs, we discussed hiring a professional designer and splitting the cost of getting a custom theme made. I haven't heard back on him on the matter since, however, so I've been considering designing a new theme myself. That's gonna take some time, however.
I don't really want to use a pre-made theme because I see them a lot on other sites and I want TheWiiU.com to look unique once we do get around to putting a fresh coat of paint on it. I'm financially able to purchase one, however, and it would be a much faster way to remodel the place than me making a theme myself.
Feld0's Content
There have been 63 items by Feld0 (Search limited from 20-June 20)
#92773 More themes!
Posted by
on 10 July 2012 - 02:22 AM
in
Site News and Feedback
#92774 chat kicks me for no reason!
Posted by
on 10 July 2012 - 02:26 AM
in
Site News and Feedback
IP.Chat is quite a glitchy piece of software. It's supposed to auto-kick you after 30 minutes of being idle, but whether it actually does or not is up in the air. In my experience, ad blockers (regardless of whether you have the site whitelisted or not - it's enough to just have one enabled) often cause problems with it. If you don't use one, then IP.Chat is likely just having a bad day.
Unfortunately, there's virtually nothing that can be done about it, as IP.Chat is a remotely hosted solution that runs on IPS's servers, not my own.
Unfortunately, there's virtually nothing that can be done about it, as IP.Chat is a remotely hosted solution that runs on IPS's servers, not my own.
#94125 Valve has officially revealed Steam for Linux - including L4D2!
Posted by
on 17 July 2012 - 05:29 PM
in
General Gaming
This is pretty exciting. Although we likely won't see the Linux version of the Steam client for a while, it's great to hear that Valve are actively working on porting it and the Source engine over. I have been considering a switch to Linux for some time; and although I'm aware that the vast majority of Steam's library won't be playable at launch, having the framework in place for Linux software delivery opens the door for developers to port their efforts over as well.
#94550 Groups?
Posted by
on 19 July 2012 - 07:29 PM
in
Site News and Feedback
There is an add-on available for IP.Board that adds "social groups" managed by members, but I really don't see the point of adding them. In my experience, such groups never get any significant amount of activity; and will do more to segregate and split apart the site's community than bring it together.
It's exactly things like these that I want to avoid. Being forever ineligible to be part of a group will inevitably cause members to feel excluded, as if they'll never have a chance of being part of "the club". It's difficult enough as it is to convince new members to an established forum that their contributions matter; social groups and cliques aren't going to help at all.
One creative group was the founding fathers on the 3DS forums. It was an invite only group that only allowed members that joined before a specific date, I think September 2010. Maybe we could have a group similar to that? Just a different time frame?
It's exactly things like these that I want to avoid. Being forever ineligible to be part of a group will inevitably cause members to feel excluded, as if they'll never have a chance of being part of "the club". It's difficult enough as it is to convince new members to an established forum that their contributions matter; social groups and cliques aren't going to help at all.
#96509 Increase/Remove The Limit of Likes
Posted by
on 29 July 2012 - 04:14 PM
in
Site News and Feedback
I thought I had this set to something higher than 10. 
Good suggestion. I went ahead and raised the limit to an unrealistically high number (unfortunately, IP.Board doesn't give me the option to remove the limit entirely).
Good suggestion. I went ahead and raised the limit to an unrealistically high number (unfortunately, IP.Board doesn't give me the option to remove the limit entirely).
#96512 Glitchy Chat Number
Posted by
on 29 July 2012 - 04:19 PM
in
Site News and Feedback
IP.Chat is a rather glitchy piece of work. It's hosted remotely on servers I don't control, and IPS are very slow with updates to it, so I'd attribute this to the software just not being quite up to par. Something we'll have to put up with, unfortunately, that is beyond my control.
#127638 Server issues
Posted by
on 11 November 2012 - 12:20 PM
in
Site News and Feedback
There was a server-wide DDoS attack today. I've been monitoring it all morning long, but it appears to have subsided now. I deployed what protection I could, but there's little that can really be done about such attacks effectively short of moving to a DDoS-protected network - and that's simply not possible from a financial perspective.
#128020 Server issues
Posted by
on 12 November 2012 - 02:25 AM
in
Site News and Feedback
Neither MLP Forums nor TheWiiU.com is even near the ballpark of being profitable enough to justify separate hosting, or being placed on a DDoS-protected network. The dedicated box they currently share is already expensive enough as it is, and is powerful enough to absorb smaller attacks to some degree without going down completely. When it's not under attack (which, let's be honest, is almost all the time - attacks don't happen all that often), it's an incredibly fast server that can take thousands of users simultaneously.
DDoS attacks can happen to anyone; and considering how many Nintendo haters are out there, I would not rule out the possibility of a direct attack on TheWiiU.com at some point in the future. Separating the sites wouldn't do anything to make us DDoS-proof.
DDoS attacks can happen to anyone; and considering how many Nintendo haters are out there, I would not rule out the possibility of a direct attack on TheWiiU.com at some point in the future. Separating the sites wouldn't do anything to make us DDoS-proof.
#133188 Revealing the Wii U Forums' new theme!
Posted by
on 19 November 2012 - 05:06 AM
in
Site News and Feedback
The banner we have up top is mostly a placeholder - it's designed to be extremely easy to swap out, so I hope to get a new one put up there soon.
Putting a functional IP.Board theme together from Cerberus's and Keanu Riives's designs may look easy, but it came out to be a fairly challenging and quite time-consuming exercise in my CSS skills - the thing is, virtually nothing from the PSD's can be reused directly in the theme; everything has to be meticulously recreated in CSS.
This has been in the works more or less since Cerberus posted his first theme concept. Although there are still a few tweaks I'd like to make, I'm really glad to finally have a proper custom look for this place.
Putting a functional IP.Board theme together from Cerberus's and Keanu Riives's designs may look easy, but it came out to be a fairly challenging and quite time-consuming exercise in my CSS skills - the thing is, virtually nothing from the PSD's can be reused directly in the theme; everything has to be meticulously recreated in CSS.
This has been in the works more or less since Cerberus posted his first theme concept. Although there are still a few tweaks I'd like to make, I'm really glad to finally have a proper custom look for this place.
#133224 Revealing the Wii U Forums' new theme!
Posted by
on 19 November 2012 - 05:34 AM
in
Site News and Feedback
Honestly, I wish the new theme went all the way down. It looks nice, but the abrupt stop kills it for me.
^ Yeah, that's what I've also said. It isn't flush, and both the checkered element and the banner element collide badly. Heck, even something as basic as a Wii U Blue border to give off the effect of a box art or something corny like that would break the elements nicely.
The feedback is appreciated.
I added a 6-pixel border to the bottom of the banner. You may need to do a hard refresh or clear your cache to see it. Does it look better?
#133242 Revealing the Wii U Forums' new theme!
Posted by
on 19 November 2012 - 05:46 AM
in
Site News and Feedback
Feld0, i've noticed that it doesn't do the border in threads...
Clear your cache. The same CSS file is used for the entire site.
#133259 Revealing the Wii U Forums' new theme!
Posted by
on 19 November 2012 - 05:57 AM
in
Site News and Feedback
Looks badass! Just one problem, the same one that Auzzie mentioned in a status update, those yellow jaggies need a smoothening.
Sorry for missing this. Unfortunately, there isn't much I can do about that. The appearance of that yellow curve is entirely up to your browser's rendering engine, and some browsers just do a better job of anti-aliasing it than others (that area of the skin is done purely in CSS code, with no images, to ensure it scales nicely to different browser windows and keeping page load times down).
From what I've seen, it looks significantly better in Internet Explorer 9 and Firefox 10 than Chrome 24. The former two browsers also didn't have trouble rendering the non-standard font I initially put the theme up with.
If I didn't know any better, I'd say that you've also reverted to the previous font.
The font is currently set to Helvetica. If you're still seeing Montserrat (the one that Chrome didn't like), clear your cache.
#133691 Revealing the Wii U Forums' new theme!
Posted by
on 19 November 2012 - 01:43 PM
in
Site News and Feedback
Probably not. Feld0 hosts this site using IP. Board, so I think we have to use the stock smileys.
IP.Board supports custom smileys, but someone will have to make them.
Of all the forum platforms out there, I'd go as far as to say IPB is actually the most customizable one. Also, I host on my own dedicated server...
#134406 Scheduled Maintenance Notice - November 20 @ 11:00 PM PST
Posted by
on 20 November 2012 - 06:35 AM
in
Site News and Feedback
Heads up! I'll be moving TheWiiU.com to a shiny new server in a little less than 15 hours. It has identical specs to the current one, but is running the latest versions of CentOS, Sphinx, and PHP; the latter two boast some pretty incredible improvements in performance and resource efficiency.
This is already a pretty fast site, but the new server will make even faster.
Maintenance will begin at 11:00 PM Pacific Time (GMT-8) and is expected to take approximately 30 minutes.
This is already a pretty fast site, but the new server will make even faster.
Maintenance will begin at 11:00 PM Pacific Time (GMT-8) and is expected to take approximately 30 minutes.
#134428 Scheduled Maintenance Notice - November 20 @ 11:00 PM PST
Posted by
on 20 November 2012 - 06:58 AM
in
Site News and Feedback
Thanks feld0, just wondering if this will change the apperance of the site at all?
No. I'm just moving the site to a new server - nothing is being changed. Everything will look and work exactly as it does now.
The only visible change this may bring is faster response times, as the new server is running newer and better versions of just about everything.
#134547 Scheduled Maintenance Notice - November 20 @ 11:00 PM PST
Posted by
on 20 November 2012 - 09:37 AM
in
Site News and Feedback
Is MLPF moving with us?
MLP Forums was moved to the new server Sunday morning. It was the "guinea pig" of the migration, so to speak.
I know you hate the idea of sharing server space with a pony forum, Nollog; but TheWiiU.com would be on a cheap shared hosting package if it wasn't for MLP Forums (and you may remember how well that worked the last time we had 400+ users online at once). It's because of MLPF that all my other sites enjoy the luxury of a high-end dedicated server.
#135252 Scheduled Maintenance Notice - November 20 @ 11:00 PM PST
Posted by
on 21 November 2012 - 04:32 AM
in
Site News and Feedback
The migration was completed without a hitch and the search engine has been reconfigured on the new server. Enjoy!
#137804 Banner complaint (please read)
Posted by
on 25 November 2012 - 03:59 AM
in
Site News and Feedback
Considering that this is a Wii U forum first and foremost, and not so much a chatroom, I left out the red badge on the Chat link in the new theme so as not to draw any more attention to the chatroom than to any other area of the site.
The chatroom is an area of the site that doesn't produce any publicly visible or searchable content. While I acknowledge that it's a beloved community hotspot, focusing too much activity and attention there will ultimately detract from the amount of publicly available content that gets created on the forums, which is indexed by search engines and found by guests, who subsequently join to contribute to it. The chatroom regulars can always click into the chatroom to see who's there.
The chatroom is an area of the site that doesn't produce any publicly visible or searchable content. While I acknowledge that it's a beloved community hotspot, focusing too much activity and attention there will ultimately detract from the amount of publicly available content that gets created on the forums, which is indexed by search engines and found by guests, who subsequently join to contribute to it. The chatroom regulars can always click into the chatroom to see who's there.
#175685 Nintendo Network ID On Profile Page
Posted by
on 24 February 2013 - 05:40 PM
in
Site News and Feedback
This has been added.
#175687 Notification Change
Posted by
on 24 February 2013 - 05:42 PM
in
Site News and Feedback
This isn't technically possible to accomplish with IP.Board in its current state, but it looks like what's needed to request the feature has been done. It's up to IPS to make the change now, which will require a fundamental refactoring of the notifications system.
#175688 I need help with -one- tiny thing on my profile.
Posted by
on 24 February 2013 - 05:43 PM
in
Site News and Feedback
That field is only visible to site staff and yourself, so there's no privacy issue to worry about with it. It will not be getting removed or made user-editable in the foreseeable future, as it is useful data for us.
#175695 Spam Centre; Removal of Permissions
Posted by
on 24 February 2013 - 05:48 PM
in
Site News and Feedback
There's a little "Report" button on every single post that exists precisely for this purpose. I suggest using it if you come across spam or any other content that really doesn't need to be there.
#175696 Chat kick problem request
Posted by
on 24 February 2013 - 05:51 PM
in
Site News and Feedback
IP.Chat isn't exactly known for being reliable. If you get kicked out for inactivity, just hop back in. Unfortunately, there isn't much more that can be done about it because it doesn't run on servers I control.
#175697 Liking in Chat
Posted by
on 24 February 2013 - 05:53 PM
in
Site News and Feedback
I can't see this happening, realistically. Apart from the fact that it isn't technically possible with IP.Chat, the ability to "like" chat messages sounds like it will bring a lot more bad behaviour than good.
#175698 Forum Request : Liking status updates
Posted by
on 24 February 2013 - 05:56 PM
in
Site News and Feedback
Im pretty sure this is a topic that's been adresses before. We used to be able to do it for a short while, but Feld0 scratched the system because it was riddled with bugs. We won't get them back.
On the subject of the like system, I have no problems with it. I prefer by to see a post with 70 likes than see a thread derailed by "this/+1/took it right out of my mouth" posts. It's happened before.
Also, saying it's the system's fault that some people abuse it is one of the stupidest things I've read in a while. It's equivalent to saying that matches should be banned because some people have started fires.
Edit: Lol, fail at not noticing Nollog basically said the same thing with one sentence.
Pretty much this. ^
IP.Board's implementation of status updates is rather spartan, and implementing likes on them properly is much more trouble than it's worth.
