ThePortForum.com

Since August 2008 ThePortForum has used a custom phpBB style with a series of names beginning with ThePortForumRed.

Each of its iterations has been made by taking a new copy of the default phpBB style, prosilver, and altering that. This process is high maintenance: changes in prosilver cause a complete rewrite of ThePortForumRed. Yes, the rewrite is done with much copy-paste, but still, it is a pain.

Something called Template Inheritance allows one style to be a ‘child’ of another. That is, the child style specifies only the things that have changed, inheriting everything else. So if a new version of the parent style has new features or complexities, they would automatically be inherited by the child style. This would be more robust and much more durable, and hence less work.

It is planned to rewrite ThePortForumRed as a child of prosilver.

I am not planning any major changes that would be visible to users. But requests (please, neither silly nor facetious) might be entertained. Ask here, soon.

I have one suggestion - it relates to what might be considered the home page when using a web browser rather than the App. I expect a click on any website logo to take me 'home'. With TPF, it takes me to 'Unread posts' rather than index.php. Is that intended? Am I the only one who would prefer the Index page?

benread wrote: ↑11:17 Sun 07 Nov 2021 I have one suggestion - it relates to what might be considered the home page when using a web browser rather than the App. I expect a click on any website logo to take me 'home'. With TPF, it takes me to 'Unread posts' rather than index.php. Is that intended? Am I the only one who would prefer the Index page?

I agree. I would expect (and prefer) it to be the index page. That’s mostly because I don’t find the phpBB “unread posts” very helpful.

I’m not sure if the smilies are a separate process, but if not, could we have a couple of bottles? You are welcome to use my full-sized and half-bottle icons if they are usable.

75cl: Half: Finally, I am not sure if this a feature of my setup or something other people are noticing, but a few font sizes seem a touch on the small size. For example, in a forum view, the page numbers when a thread has multiple pagers at 9px. I think it looks a lot clearer at 10px. Also the index page seems to have a bit more whitespace than the previous version around each forum’s details. I wonder if the title of each forum could be nudged just a little bit up? But these are very small points. I am otherwise very happy with the look of ThePortForumRed.

I seem to recall that a previous upgrade resulted in the "Unread posts" link disappearing from its previous default place in the phpBB software. Someone, perhaps more than one, requested that it be put back where it was. We found a workaround by having "Unread posts" as the default link that is attached to the logo in the board settings (nothing to do with the style). It can easily be changed back but would result in the loss of the unread posts link being where it is now.

DRT wrote: ↑19:09 Mon 08 Nov 2021 I seem to recall that a previous upgrade resulted in the "Unread posts" link disappearing from its previous default place in the phpBB software. Someone, perhaps more than one, requested that it be put back where it was. We found a workaround by having "Unread posts" as the default link that is attached to the logo in the board settings (nothing to do with the style). It can easily be changed back but would result in the loss of the unread posts link being where it is now.

Ah, yes. I think I remember that. Looks like phpBB have sorted that out.

JacobH wrote: ↑13:45 Wed 10 Nov 2021

DRT wrote: ↑19:09 Mon 08 Nov 2021 I seem to recall that a previous upgrade resulted in the "Unread posts" link disappearing from its previous default place in the phpBB software. Someone, perhaps more than one, requested that it be put back where it was. We found a workaround by having "Unread posts" as the default link that is attached to the logo in the board settings (nothing to do with the style). It can easily be changed back but would result in the loss of the unread posts link being where it is now.

Ah, yes. I think I remember that. Looks like phpBB have sorted that out.

What do you mean by "have sorted that out"?

Sorted out the disappearing link: the "Unread Posts" link seems to be showing on every page for me whether I am logged in or not.

DRT wrote: ↑19:09 Mon 08 Nov 2021 I seem to recall that a previous upgrade resulted in the "Unread posts" link disappearing from its previous default place in the phpBB software. Someone, perhaps more than one, requested that it be put back where it was. We found a workaround by having "Unread posts" as the default link that is attached to the logo in the board settings (nothing to do with the style). It can easily be changed back but would result in the loss of the unread posts link being where it is now.

To explain this further...
The picture above is the current left hand corner of the screen I see in my browser. The logo in the top left and the link "Unread Posts" at the start of the breadcrumbs are both controlled by one entry in the board settings. That setting allows you to specify a url that each of those elements will take you to if you click on them. You can't choose a different url for each element. By default they both point to the main forum page, but we set the url to be the unread posts page to compensate for phpBB taking the previous link away. A second setting allows us to set the text for the root link in the breadcrumbs, which would normally default to "Home". We set that to "Unread Posts" so that is describes where the link will take you.

Ah. I'm really sorry - I remembered the discussion but thought only the logo's link had been set as a workaround and that the "unread posts" link was the default.

JacobH wrote: ↑22:54 Wed 10 Nov 2021 Ah. I'm really sorry - I remembered the discussion but thought only the logo's link had been set as a workaround and that the "unread posts" link was the default.

Don't be sorry, just be confused like we were before we worked out how to get around the feature disappearing

This might help...
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Is there any way for a user to change the red to something else? That much red really bothers my eyes trying to read it.

Andy Velebil wrote: ↑02:45 Thu 11 Nov 2021 Is there any way for a user to change the red to something else? That much red really bothers my eyes trying to read it.

I was going to suggest that you can always choose to use the original phpbb default "Prosilver" style rather than ThePortForumRed, except I just looked in the user control panel and can't see where we could choose from the available styles.
Derek - is per-user style choice still intended to be available, and if so can someone point me at where we can select it, or do we need to fix something?

I used a feature in the admin control panel to migrate everyone to the new default style PortForumRed2021_11. This includes an override of any other style selected by the user (such as prosilver), which is why Andy has been seeing red. I have now removed the override so Andy and a few others should now see the blue prosilver style.

DRT wrote: ↑09:58 Thu 11 Nov 2021 I used a feature in the admin control panel to migrate everyone to the new default style PortForumRed2021_11. This includes an override of any other style selected by the user (such as prosilver), which is why Andy has been seeing red. I have now removed the override so Andy and a few others should now see the blue prosilver style.

My eyes are now very happy. Thank you!

Only noted today, but the "online" flash across the corner of the user's icon if they are online while you are browsing the forum is currently a little "out if place" to my eye colour-wise since blues when should be red/pinks. Maybe worth a minor mod if easy. (nb alternative option of disabling the flashes if not wanted/liked)

The latest version of the style is now live. Please report any issues in this thread.

Thanks go to jdaw1 for creating the new version.

A big gap has appeared between the site logo and the header text.
Viewed on a MacBook running macOS Big Sur 11.6 in Safari 14.1.2.

Same here on chrome on Android as desktop view. It looks as though that cell may be centred, rather then left adjusted.

DRT wrote: ↑19:28 Tue 16 Nov 2021A big gap has appeared between the site logo and the header text.

Screenshot 2021-11-16 at 18.25.51.png

Viewed on a MacBook running macOS Big Sur 11.6 in Safari 14.1.2.

Believed fixed.

Decisions:

It was proposed that we make use of inheritance. Yes, except that the one thing not inherited is the CSS, which is most of our changes.

Hence rejected.



It was proposed that colours be put in variables, for ease of later changing. Rejected, because prosilver will soon die. Phpbb 4.* will have a new base style, Chameleon:

this is not just a change in the design and a simple code refactor. We are overhauling the entire way that themes will work in the next major version in order to streamline both the development of the software and make it easier on the theme designers and end-users to make simple customization. To do this one major change is the use of a build step for the theme.

So the sensible time to rebuild TPF Red completely is for phpbb 4. Hopefully — yes, I know — the working of styles will make it easier to change only icons and colours. But that is a problem for later.