PlaneShift
Support => Forum and Website Discussions => Topic started by: Xordan on July 14, 2008, 11:39:27 pm
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Thanks to the good work by Gothi[c] we now have some new register pages :)
http://laanx.fragnetics.com/register
They're the same style as the ps.it website and have several fixes and improvements to them.
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Thanks Gothi[c] for all your hard work, the site looks great and is now more secure then it was before.
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Very nice! Good job, and many thanks for your hard work Gothi[c]. Looks and works ten times better. :thumbup:
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No problem :)
I'm sure we'll hear about a few issues with it yet, and maybe some rendering bugs maybe with different browsers... (Did any of us actually test it in IE yet? :D). :)
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Looking good! Makes me wanna create a new account :lol:
Good job Gothi[c]!
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I do hope it gets used often by many new players. Very nice job Gothi[c] and Caarrie for all her hard work also.
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Here is a question...If the register page is laanx.fragnetics.com then why are all the resources loading from planeshift.it? I suppose it is because you expect people to start at the main project page but if you are publishing just the register page elsewhere it may confuse people. Could you do a javascript check to see if it is coming from planeshift.it and so keep the resources already in memory and if from elsewhere grab the resources from the laanx machine? Alternatively keep the register page local to planeshift.it and just send the data in the background to the laanx database.
The mix of links looks odd to me, otherwise it looks much better than the old page and keeps with the current overall theme.
Perhaps it is not that important...
It appears to work well and that is the main thing.
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Also loads of thanks to Caarrie who initially started redesigning the page, and helped me test each and every little aspect of the eventual redesign. She pointed out all the little things that needed fixing and without her we wouldn't have had a new page in the first place :)
The mix of links looks odd to me, otherwise it looks much better than the old page and keeps with the current overall theme.
That's because most of the main site is located on a different server. And the register page needs to be on laanx.fragnetics.com because that's where the mysql database for the server is (which the register page needs to manipulate). For obvious security reasons mysql connections from remote hosts are disabled on that server.
And it would be silly to create 2 copies of the site on 2 different servers :)
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I would think you could load the laanx page into a frame on the planeshift page and not include all the planeshift stuff to the laanx page, that way the laanx page is clean with nothing more than you need to register -- say, everything under "Create an account!" -- and the planeshift page can still access it.
Actually the registration page need not be more than just a web form linked to the main planeshift page as well as the fragnetics page. You click on the link and a little popup window is displayed. It seems to me you are duplicating the planeshift menu system on the registration page now, at least in the html even though the files are still only in the one place.
I suppose it comes down to design choices something that works now is certainly better than something that might theoretically be better if you can figure out how to do it.
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I would think you could load the laanx page into a frame on the planeshift page and not include all the planeshift stuff to the laanx page, that way the laanx page is clean with nothing more than you need to register -- say, everything under "Create an account!" -- and the planeshift page can still access it.
http://www.html-faq.com/htmlframes/?framesareevil
;D
Actually the registration page need not be more than just a web form linked to the main planeshift page as well as the fragnetics page. You click on the link and a little popup window is displayed. It seems to me you are duplicating the planeshift menu system on the registration page now, at least in the html even though the files are still only in the one place.
I think the menu system is more an attempt at consistency and uniform look with the main page, besides, it's always nice to have all menu links handy.
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it could also be possible you end up at the register page instead of the main site so this way you can still make your way there and get the useful info that is housed there.
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So your form page has a clickable PS banner and you still get there.
I do not want to belabor this, it looks good the way it is. The menu only adds like 6KB to each page. it is not a big deal.
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Nice job. It actually makes you realize the rest of the pages with that design at planeshift.it are a little off center. :P :D
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Nice job. It actually makes you realize the rest of the pages with that design at planeshift.it are a little off center.
That would be because the planeshift.it layout is not centered at all ;)
The register pages are a complete redesign with css layout,.. we didn't copy-paste the planeshift.it code :)
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I am wondering now, my html is kind of rusty, about the overall site and not just the new register page. Is there some way to separate out the navigation menu into a separate html file that can be included in each page? It would seem to be more efficient to do this than to include the same html code (6KB!) in every page. For the new pages this thread is about it represents about 90% of the page. If it were separated out and reused it would only need to be transfered once instead of every time saving 6k per page view after the first. It may not seem like much individually but I am sure it adds up and would reduce the load on the server as well as the total monthly throughput being paid for.
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some way to separate out the navigation menu into a separate html file that can be included in each page?
For the new design we currently have the menu in it's own php file so we can just include it on whatever page we want without having to copy/paste it or rewrite it. Which is handy because there is only one single place to make menu changes and they will be consistent throughout all pages.
However, on the end-user end, to the browser it still comes out as one single page, so there is no bandwidth gained by this. That's the one and single advantage that frames had, but the disadvantages far outweigh the advantage, and especially now in modern times, now that broadband is more widespread, clarity and quality of code is far more important.
It would seem to be more efficient to do this than to include the same html code (6KB!) in every page
There was a time in the past when you would even remove all spaces and linebreaks from the html output just to save a few KB of bandwidth. That is rarely if ever done anymore. The few KB's gained would pale in comparison with the images and graphics downloaded, making it hardly seem worth the effort.
The average page download size has tripled (http://www.lunchoverip.com/2008/05/average-webpage.html) in the past 5 years, and I think the ps register page is very slim compared to many modern websites.
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Good job Gothi[c] and Caarie, the register page has been bothering me for a while now. I like uniform when it comes to websites. It looks great now!
It would seem to be more efficient to do this than to include the same html code (6KB!) in every page
There was a time in the past when you would even remove all spaces and linebreaks from the html output just to save a few KB of bandwidth. That is rarely if ever done anymore. The few KB's gained would pale in comparison with the images and graphics downloaded, making it hardly seem worth the effort.
The average page download size has tripled (http://www.lunchoverip.com/2008/05/average-webpage.html) in the past 5 years, and I think the ps register page is very slim compared to many modern websites.
I think what he meant is that it would be more efficient for you as a coder. In other words if a page is created, you wouldn't have to change each page to put in the new menu item, you could just change the external menu page. I hope I got that right.
Anyway, still good job :)
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Ah, I could not tell if you were using PHP for those particular pages or not as the link was just a directory. I added index.html to it to see and it looked the same. PHP has been known to have its own problems (http://www.google.ca/search?hl=en&q=PHP+vulnerability) but I wouldn't let that stop me from using it. It does create more work for the server, though.
I was not talking about efficient for the coder really although it is a good point. It just seemed to me that for a project run on a shoe string you might like to save money where you can. I have no idea what kind of hosting deal Talad might have for planeshift.it and the fragnetics site is donated but here is my thinking: Pulling numbers out of my hat, say the site gets 5000 viewers per day averaging 5 pages per visit. That works out to 5000*5*6KB=150MB more or less. Now that may not seem like much but that is 4.5 GB/month and with no copies of the game downloaded or players in the game. If you have the system I suggested that number is reduced fivefold as the 6KB is downloaded only once for each user. I have no idea if the 5000 users/day is anywhere near accurate I suspect it is actually fairly high. I do think that it would be low if the project was as popular as might be liked.
Still do not take this as anything more than a theoretical discussion.
As for "The average page download size has tripled in the past 5 years" bloat for bloat's sake is not good practice. This can be caused by all the newbies getting on board publishing their pages with microsoft office or some other inappropriate tool as well as increased multimedia content. Good page design has not changed and efficiencies of coding save money. It is all about the number of bits you throw at the web.
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you people are always too optimistic ;P
The bottom copyrights bar is moved 1 px right
Gothi[c], have you thought about css for input elements?
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The bottom copyrights bar is moved 1 px right
Only in ie that i have seen, in FF3 opera safari and konq it is lined up perfectly.
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/me watches as Caarie steps right into his ego.
So that means i must be using IE?
The layout is a mess to be honest. Parent elements has its own positioning in different units than its children. While there is set additional positioning for children of positioned parents, what simply overwrites the previous positioning AFAIK.
Horizontal bar if you make window too thin, while there is still room for displaying page entirelly.
In half a year another browser version comes out and it will again interpret differently.
I wish designing websides for multiple browsers was easy, but there are things you don't do, even if possible, because in the end you are simply guessing and testing how much do you have to move an element, so it looks ok, but ultimatelly not everywhere.
Anyone asking for rewriting?
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Anyone asking for rewriting?
It was just rewritten and asking for that again is rude and an insult to the guy that spent hours working on fixing it. If you want it fixed then go ahead and try but i dont gurantee that ps would accept it.
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Quite frankly, I doubt the majority or people will even notice it and if they do, they probably won't be thinking "Oh dear, how unprofessional, I better not play this game" Fact is it's already a major improvement on the last registration form and I think it's good enough considering that it looks fine on some of the more popular web browsers (IE users can suffer :P).
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Caarrie, did he authorize you to speak in his name?
Before you call someone rude maybe think what you are doing yourself.
If you want it fixed then go ahead and try but i dont gurantee that ps would accept it.
I had already known that, that's why the question.
I agree Eliseth. I'm just pointing out faults and i'm suprised by rection of some people.
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I'm sure once Gothi[c] reads this he'd be willing to take a look at his code if it's necessary. Let's not start start flaming each other, this is a thread bringing good news remember?
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Caarrie, did he authorize you to speak in his name?
Before you call someone rude maybe think what you are doing yourself.
If you want it fixed then go ahead and try but i dont gurantee that ps would accept it.
I had already known that, that's why the question.
I agree Eliseth. I'm just pointing out faults and i'm suprised by rection of some people.
I worked one on one with gothi[c] on this, and we tested all browsers we had access to. I will not go any further as this is not the purpose of this thread, atleast the site looks better. Just so you know gothi[c] took his time to work on this with no gurantee that it would be accepted either.
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Hi folks :)
I'm glad to see my crystal ball was correct and that this thread has evolved in what I expected it to evolve into :D
Yes, I know it's not perfect, so I expected all the above. :) But I didn't feel like re-doing the art to make a cleaner and more flexible dynamic design. I merely refactored the old pages, which were quite horrible into something remotely acceptable. The thing could do with a complete rewrite, but that would take a lot more time.
Ah, I could not tell if you were using PHP for those particular pages or not as the link was just a directory. I added index.html to it to see and it looked the same. PHP has been known to have its own problems but I wouldn't let that stop me from using it. It does create more work for the server, though.
Heh. Good luck inserting database records with pure html ;) Not to say we couldn't use perl or something other than php, but definitively not bare html ;) Yes, php has had vulnerabilities, so did Apache, The Linux and Windows kernel, and pretty much any other application out there... I'm not sure what the point is you're making.. That is just a matter of keeping up with updates and patches, which is not my job, as far as I know that's up to the people at fragnetics.
The most important thing fixed in the new design was some various security problems in the old design actually. I think that's far more important than any design issue.
If you're up for rewriting it from scratch, be my guest. The pages are in the www folder on svn, send the end result to Caarrie or Xordan. >o)
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Thank you for pointing me to the source. I do have one question further. I see that menu.php is essentially what I suggested it should be. The question I have is that by giving it the php extension does it all have to be parsed by the php interpreter and if so would giving it the html extension save any trouble by only having the single php expression sent to he interpreter? Or am I splitting kran hair here?
As with any server-side scripting language it is impossible to see the source from the result. If you had pointed me in the right direction initially some of my comments would have been avoided. I should have realized there was more than I could see anyway.
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I don't know why anyone would need to look for the php code. All one need is client side rendered site and a browser supporting user styles.
You have been working this way Gothic? Caarrie?
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You have been working this way Gothic? Caarrie?
nope we worked with the official source and modified it, some of it did require more then just css changes to get it to this stage.
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For me the suggestions I was making were not apparent from the output, the input is considerably different. What you see as the output is the result of all the parsing of the server-side scripting one flat file so to speak instead of the several files that cause it to be output.
When you view the source of the resultant page in your browser and compare it to the original source it came from (http://planeshift.svn.sourceforge.net/viewvc/planeshift/www/register/) you will see what I mean.
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There. Without !important tags if for implementation. Test it as userstyle. Opera, FF, Safari. You know what your browser can.
- No 1px shift
- Content won't overflow the background and #footer if too much of it
- Site is exactly as high as it is needed
- pointers
- colored input, select
Is it acceptable?
body {
background-attachment:fixed !important;
cursor:url("http://psgrafika.republika.pl/pscss/pointer_normal.png"), default !important;
}
#centerbox {
position:static !important;
margin:0px !important;
display:table-cell !important;
background-image:url("http://www.planeshift.it/graphics/contentbox.gif") !important;
background-repeat: repeat-y !important;
}
#page {
background-image:none !important;
height:0px !important;
left:50% !important;
}
#footer {
margin:-20px 0px 0px 45px !important;
width:836px !important;
position:static !important;
float:left !important;
}
#navigation {
position:static !important;
width:174px !important;
padding:10px 0px 20px 0px !important;
margin:110px 0px 0px 46px !important;
float:left !important;
}
#content {
position:static !important;
margin:110px 18px 0px 0px !important ;
width:650px !important;
float:right !important;
}
.downloadnow,
.expandcolapse {
margin:0px 0px 20px 0px !important;
position:static !important;
}
#content form th,
#content form td {
vertical-align:middle !important;
height:30px !important;
}
.endsection th,
.endsection td {
padding-bottom:20px !important;
}
input {
font-size:12px !important;
color:#D9C3B7 !important;
background-color:#362C2C !important;
border:1px inset #1F1C1C !important;
padding:2px 3px 3px 3px !important;
font-family:Tahoma, arial, helvetica, serif !important;
-moz-appearance: none !important;
}
input[type="submit"], input[type="button"] {
background-image:url(http://psgrafika.republika.pl/pscss/titlebg2.png) !important;
background-repeat:repeat-x !important;
background-position:center center !important;
font-size:12px !important;
font-weight:bold !important;
color:#EDD9B9 !important;
background-color:#4D403E !important;
border:1px outset #624F44 !important;
padding:2px 3px 3px 3px !important;
font-family:Tahoma, arial, helvetica, serif !important;
cursor:url("http://psgrafika.republika.pl/pscss/pointer_hyper.png"), pointer !important;
}
input[type="submit"]:active, input[type="button"]:active {
background-image:url(http://psgrafika.republika.pl/pscss/titlebg1.png) !important;
color:#BEA680 !important;
background-color:#312725 !important;
border:1px inset #624F44 !important;
}
select {
font-size:12px !important;
font-weight:bold !important;
color:#D9C3B7 !important;
background-color:#362C2C !important;
border:1px inset #1F1C1C !important;
padding:0px 0px 2px 0px !important;
font-family:Tahoma, arial, helvetica, serif !important;
-moz-appearance: none !important;
cursor:url("http://psgrafika.republika.pl/pscss/pointer_normal.png"), default !important;
}
option:hover {
background-image:url(http://psgrafika.republika.pl/pscss/catbg40.png) !important;
background-position:center center !important;
}
a, .submenu {
cursor:url("http://psgrafika.republika.pl/pscss/pointer_hyper.png"), default !important;
}
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As best I can tell it looks like this in a maximized window: (http://web.ncf.ca/cr502/ps/4/windows.jpg)
Is that what you were aiming at? I arrived at this conclusion by saving your script to a .css file on the desktop and then saving the register page parsed output and substituting the saved css for the master.css in the html. The planeshift banner extends beyond the rest and has an ugly blue border. In the original site the background fills the page. As you can see I have several tabs open as I often do so the current css is nicer to me than your modification. Now my method was a hack of course but perhaps you could put up a complete page where you host your css resources so I might get a better look.
In a 1680x1050 screen 1 pixel does not make a very noticeable difference.
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Because you shouldn't exclude, but combine the two ;P Just by looking at it you can say bunch of stuff is missing, so just add the modification to the original.
EDIT: INSTALLATION (http://userstyles.org/styles/8882)
an article on userstyles and scripts a bit (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stylish)
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That seems to be a useful firefox extention. It does make it hard to compare old and new versions though.
From what I could tell the two main differences were the fancy border was not a static size -- it did not extend beyond the bottom of the screen when the menu was collapsed, and the addition of a link-hover mouse pointer. The dynamic border boundary was a nice touch, the mouse pointer I can do without.
I never did see your 1 pixel offset but that could be browser or OS specific.
Was there something else I missed?
Better?
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Hard to say. You should try making use of paragraphs and punctuation maybe a bit. >o)
You missed input boxes change.
So, it looks alright?
EDIT: I have doubts if IE will deal with it right. It is because i fixed the problem with site height too long or overlayed footer if too much of the content.
To avoid it, the document structure would have to change, so i need to hear if i should try changing the source files or propose a css without the site height issues fixed.
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I am just joe blowhard. You do not need to convince me.
I was happy enough with Gothi[c]'s version.
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One thing. I hope Gothi[c] and Caarrie knows, that I do really like what they did, and even though i found flaws you couldn't deal with or just didn't notice, it doesn't mean you did a bad job.
Even though maybe you lost some friendlyness for me, I did not, hope you think the same ;)