|
Post by vicki on Oct 7, 2005 10:39:54 GMT -5
If you'd like to register as test4 and try it out on IE, that would be great (I don't have IE at the moment...). It works perfectly in Firefox, and in Safari, the only problem is that the cursor moves in front of the smilie (not a huge problem). In a nutshell, no smilies don't work in IE for mac - my 'alter ego' test4 has posted a message about it! maybe just have a sentence telling people to click the help button for more info if this is their first visit to a message board? Had a quick flick through the help page - yeah, a sentence pointing people in the right direction should do the trick! But I'm kind of fond of the blue-white scheme (because it's inverted in the categories compared to the boards - i. e. white on blue for categories, blue on white for boards, which is a nice effect... I reckon). The blue is very tasteful - also, the new colour scheme is easy on the eye - and better than a technicolour extravaganza like on some websites! (it's also especially good as I seem to post a lot late at night! ;D and so it's better if it's more on the relaxing side That might be it (or they might expect a lengthy registration process?). Not sure - perhaps. Usually when signing up to things on the web, not only does it take ages but you're also asked for an email address - usually so that you can be sent loads of spam (and I don't mean the vile tinned meat they used to feed us at school! ;D) I was up till 4 am one morning when someone had decided to mass-post advertisements for the horror-flick "The Dentist II" ...) I can't believe someone did that! They obviously weren't phobic... !! Err, stupid question, but what's an XDA??? Similar to a BlackBerry but better (not that I'm biased! ) It's mobile phone, PDA, internet surfing, music playing wizzy gadget thingy from O2. I upgraded from an ordinary mobile in January to an XDA II - and I probably love it just as much as my iPod! It runs Pocket PC Windows which means that it has Internet Explorer, Media Player, Word, Excel, Powerpoint/PDF viewer etc. The bonus being that because it's a phone and PDA combined - rather than surfing the mobile web via WAP, you can actually view proper web pages through IE via GPRS instead. www.o2.co.uk/xdaI was wondering last night how to create a dentist database and it struck me that I can use another message board for that purpose (strip it down to its basic components, don't enable posting, and have everything neatly categorised by country, state/county, and city... very easy to administer, modify and back up! And free!). I thought that was quite an ingenious little idea... Fab idea One of the things I've noticed about various 'find a dentist' lists/databases for phobics is that the info isn't always consistant or presented in an easy to use/navigate format. Would it be a completely separate board with a different link from the website?
|
|
|
Post by gdentalfear on Oct 7, 2005 15:54:06 GMT -5
It's 13 point now inside the boards - is that big enough? Nope I've registered an alter ego on the new board (test5) and written more about the size. But basically, on my Windows PC, the change to a larger font is not noticeably different . Maybe it appears different on a Mac. G.
|
|
|
Post by letsconnect on Oct 7, 2005 22:13:05 GMT -5
Sorry about the IE for Mac issue - they (M'Sh*te)'ve never bothered to update it, and looks like it ain't compatible with XHTML ... will publish a list of smilie codes though (once someone has figured out how to replace the default smilies, that is... apparently, I'm the first person trying to do that... looks like the Perl script will have to be modified...) I'll see what I can do... I changed the blue font to one shade darker... does it still look OK? I can change it back, I was just worried that people might not be able to read it when it's bright (in places where it's bright, that is... like California... urgh, don't get me started. This climate is sooo miserable). No, just a spammer... they're annoying though, so an easy sign-up would be cool. The system in place is extremely easy, cos you don't have to check your e-mail... on the downside, you have to remember your password? Sounds very cool ;D! Not on the cards here at the moment, I'm investing in the internet instead ! Completely separate - I read that it's possible to install a second board simply by renaming the cgi-bin folder name for the second YaBB board and setting all the admin functions separately... they can still share the same public files. I was thinking of having the categories as countries, and then boards by regions (e.g. states/counties), and the individual posts by city/region... it would be ridiculously easy to maintain and backup, and, as I said, free...
|
|
|
Post by vicki on Oct 8, 2005 11:26:40 GMT -5
will publish a list of smilie codes though (once someone has figured out how to replace the default smilies, that is... apparently, I'm the first person trying to do that... A list would also be good cos if I reply using the XDA (which incidently I've just bought a folding keyboard for this afternoon and it's soooooo cool - Yeah, OK I'm gadget mad! ;D) then I don't have a mouse to click on the smilies with anyway. I changed the blue font to one shade darker... does it still look OK? I can change it back, I was just worried that people might not be able to read it when it's bright (in places where it's bright, that is... like California... urgh, don't get me started. This climate is sooo miserable). Colour looks fine to me. As for the miserable climate, I suppose that depends where you are... my relatives who live 'down south' are always being smug about their weather being better than where I am! That's OK because we get more snow than they do and that can be an excellent excuse not to go to work ! The system in place is extremely easy, cos you don't have to check your e-mail... on the downside, you have to remember your password? Maybe... Too many 4 or 6 digit passwords to remember these days - particularly if your memory is like mine - like swiss cheese ! I was thinking of having the categories as countries, and then boards by regions (e.g. states/counties), and the individual posts by city/region... it would be ridiculously easy to maintain and backup, and, as I said, free... Sounds great - I may be using it if all doesn't go according to plan at the next appointment (which is a nice long 14 weeks and 2 days away. From past experience this means I've got about 10 worry-free weeks left before the panic starts to kick in).
|
|
|
Post by gdentalfear on Oct 8, 2005 12:04:19 GMT -5
When I first heard about the new improved version of the board, I was all excited.
And don't get me wrong the overall appearance/design of the new board is great.
But if I have to struggle to read it, it won't be any good to me. At the moment, I'm hoping we stay with the old board for a while. The font size here is about double what it is on the new board. Nice and easy to read. Sigh.
G.
|
|
|
Post by letsconnect on Oct 8, 2005 13:08:51 GMT -5
I managed to find out what the problem is. Some versions of IE are buggy and do not properly support absolute font sizes. I'll see if I can get hold of a script which makes them relative.
|
|
|
Post by letsconnect on Oct 8, 2005 16:36:25 GMT -5
The story is that IE 6.0.2 has bugs which don't allow CSS (Cascading Style Sheets) to work properly: "IE 6.0.2 isn't the most reliable browser for CSS, Javascript or HTML implementation--many users I know reverted to IE 5.x after they found so many bugs. Subsequent releases of IE 6 have had bug fixes applied, so your results will be a lot more accurate in later releases. As each new browser version is released, it will comply more and more accurately to the W3C Recommendations and "illegal" solutions will gradually collapse, so it's a good idea to go with a recommended solution if you can." I'll see if I can find a workaround, but in the meantime, you could use Firefox? The URL is www.mozilla.org/products/firefox/
|
|
|
Post by letsconnect on Oct 9, 2005 8:47:11 GMT -5
I've found a workaround, it'll take a little while to implement though:
at present, the stylesheet specifies font size in absolute values (pixels). While pixels are widely used by webdesigners to specify the look and feel of their pages, they do not allow for resizing (the "make bigger" function won't work). Ditto for font sizes specified in points. Usually, pixels display correctly, but there can be problems with certain browsers and browser settings.
The current design seems to display correctly on most computers, but for anyone who wants to resize the font, I will include a second stylesheet (same colours), which uses a relative font size such as ems or xx-small to xx-large. It might take a few days though because I haven't got the faintest notion how to go about this, LOL ;D. This would be used in the same way as that forum you pointed out to me - you'd simply select your preferred style.
|
|
|
Post by letsconnect on Oct 9, 2005 8:58:47 GMT -5
Sounds *very* neat !! Smilie list will be made available. Are there any smilies that are "missing" (i. e. smilies you'd like to see and that don't exist at present)? I can't add much more, otherwise it'll take too long to load the pages, but if there's anything that's needed... The lighter shade looked slightly more calming, but as I said, I was worried about legibility... LOL ! By "miserable" I mean anything below 20 degrees celsius (can't find degree symbol right now). Then again, the forum has a "forgot password" function, and you can get a new password by providing your e-mail address... I'd forgotten about that. Don't get your hopes up too high - the "database" isn't that heavily populated (yet ?). I don't know if this is going to work out at all, Andy of Beyond Fear has been trying for years and it's really hard to get anyone to put up suggestions. But doctoroogle.com's success suggests that it may be doable. We'll see!
|
|
|
Post by vicki on Oct 10, 2005 4:02:33 GMT -5
Are there any smilies that are "missing" (i. e. smilies you'd like to see and that don't exist at present)? The selection is pretty good although a trembling version of that looks like it's seen a ghost would be probably more representative of my "state" !! The lighter shade looked slightly more calming, but as I said, I was worried about legibility... It seems pretty legible to me. Although, I'm just comparing the two side by side (on PC) and the text on this board is bigger than on the new one Strange... I can still read it OK though. Don't get your hopes up too high - the "database" isn't that heavily populated (yet ?). I don't know if this is going to work out at all, Andy of Beyond Fear has been trying for years and it's really hard to get anyone to put up suggestions. But doctoroogle.com's success suggests that it may be doable. We'll see! I'm sure it's doable. It's probably just a question of good publicity to get people to use it and also encouraging members to post recommendations if they find someone they're happy with. How would people post recommendations? It would be good if all the recommendations provided the same info - e.g. services and comments on what they're like (postive feedback of course ). By the way, nice idea of having a PM that's sent to new members when they sign up . Maybe something could be worked into the welcome message about recommending dentists?
|
|
|
Post by gdentalfear on Oct 10, 2005 6:35:31 GMT -5
I've found a workaround, it'll take a little while to implement though: The current design seems to display correctly on most computers, but for anyone who wants to resize the font, I will include a second stylesheet (same colours), which uses a relative font size such as ems or xx-small to xx-large. It might take a few days though because I haven't got the faintest notion how to go about this, LOL ;D. . Hi Let's that sounds brilliant! Thanks very much for researching this so thoroughly!! G.
|
|
|
Post by letsconnect on Oct 10, 2005 9:02:50 GMT -5
It's proving a bit more complicated than I thought... could you have a look at how it compares to this ProBoards forum right now (in terms of font size)? I changed some of the classes to larger pixel sizes (I've also got an alternate stylesheet in ems, but it looks slightly awful)... On my computer, it's quite a bit bigger than here... Also, could you have a look at how it compares to a "standard font" YaBB forum, e. g. www.bubblegum.nl/forum/Cheers - it's really hard to second-guess what you're seeing on your computers... (apart from actual browser issues with some IE editions, there are tons of other problems... see here: www.createwebmagic.com/css101/appendix/?inc=sizing ). I can't figure this out at all - the font sizes here are specified in pixels as well (but smaller(!) than on the new forum... which is the way it appears on my screen as well)... the code for this forum is: <style type="text/css"><!-- body { font-family: Verdana,Arial;font-size:12px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; } td { font-family: Verdana,Arial; color: 000000; font-size:11px} input { font-family: Verdana,Arial; font-size: 9pt; color: 000000; } textarea { font-family: Verdana,Arial; font-size: 9pt; color: 000000; } select { font-family: Verdana,Arial; font-size: 7pt; color: 000000; } optgroup { font-family: Verdana,Arial; font-size: 7pt; color: 000000; } A:link { text-decoration: none; color: FF6600; } A:visited { text-decoration: none; color: FF6600; } A:hover { text-decoration: underline overline; color: FF6600; } .nav { font-size: 10px; text-decoration: none; color: 000000; } .nav:link { font-size: 10px; text-decoration: none; color: FF6600; } .nav:visited { font-size: 10px; text-decoration: none; color: FF6600; } .nav:hover { font-size: 10px; text-decoration: none; color: FF6600; text-decoration: underline; } .windowbg { background-color: FFFFFF; font-size: 11px; color: 000000; } .windowbg2 { background-color: FFFFFF; font-size: 11px; color: 000000; } .titlebg { background-color: FFCC33; font-style: normal; font-weight: bold; font-size: 12px; color: 000000; } .popuptitlebg { background-color: FFCC33; font-style: normal; font-weight: bold; font-size: 12px; color: 000000; } .catbg { background-color: 99CCFF; color: 000000; font-weight: bold; font-size: 13px; } .hr { color: 99CCFF;} .bordercolor { background-color: 000000; } .quote { font-size: 10px; color: 000000; background-color: FFFFFF; } .code { font-size: 10px; font-family: Courier New; color: 000000; background-color: FFFFFF; } I'm using the same or larger pixel sizes on YaBB, and theoretically, they should display the same as here??
|
|
|
Post by letsconnect on Oct 10, 2005 9:10:28 GMT -5
? Strange, for me it's the other way round... The Find-a-Dentist board... hopefully... you wouldn't believe some of the "recommendations" I get via e-mail ("Dr Smith is great with phobics" - err, but where does he/she live?? No contact e-mails provided, of course ). Excellent idea!!
|
|
|
Post by vicki on Oct 11, 2005 9:21:05 GMT -5
? ;D lol! Err... nearly, but not quite! It doesn't shake enough (although my hair is that long - but red not blue!)!! Probably more a cross between , and ! Strange, for me it's the other way round... Computers are strange... especially PC's ! One of my work colleagues is more in favour of what he calls the "organic word processor" - i.e. pen and paper! I have to say that despite my infatuation with all things Apple, sometimes I have to agree! The Find-a-Dentist board... hopefully... you wouldn't believe some of the "recommendations" I get via e-mail ("Dr Smith is great with phobics" - err, but where does he/she live?? No contact e-mails provided, of course ). I think you said earlier that posts would be disabled on this board, so people would submit recommendations via email, which you'd then add to the relevant location post on the new board? You could have a 'Recommend A Dentist' button which when clicked on would lead to a simple online form. Once submitted, the form would still arrive in your inbox as an email. That way you could ensure you get the relevant info such as name, location, contact details, services, comments/feedback etc. You could also make it so that the form can't be submitted unless certain fields are completed (as usual - full of ideas but no idea how you'd go about it - I'm sure you'll figure something out though! ). If you have a "Recommend A Dentist" button on the website and make it as prominent as "Find A Dentist" it might also send a sort of 'subliminal' message to people (who may or may not be members of the message board) - if they don't have any luck searching the database but then find Mr or Mrs "Right" through another source, they might remember it and still come back to submit a recommendation. To increase the number of users and recommendations it might also be worth looking at what search terms people use when looking for a phobic friendly dentist on the internet? For example in Google, I'd select UK pages only and type: "dentist+nervous patients+(county)". But I came across Dental Fear Central by selecting search the web and typing "Dental Phobia"
|
|
|
Post by gdentalfear on Oct 12, 2005 4:55:00 GMT -5
It's proving a bit more complicated than I thought... could you have a look at how it compares to this ProBoards forum right now (in terms of font size)? I changed some of the classes to larger pixel sizes (I've also got an alternate stylesheet in ems, but it looks slightly awful)... On my computer, it's quite a bit bigger than here... Also, could you have a look at how it compares to a "standard font" YaBB forum, e. g. www.bubblegum.nl/forum/The verdict: Text in the new forum is still much smaller than in the old forum. But (the good news), it is much larger than the text in the bubblegum forum; that one is hopeless size-wise. The code you posted is double-dutch to me (pun intended). But I had another idea: I am a member of yet anoyther forum that used to be as small as the bubblegum one. I emailed the mod and he added a LARGER option in 24 hours (with some teasing banter of course). I'll send you a PM with the forum address and mod details. My idea: email the mod and ask him what code he used to make it all nice and big. G.
|
|
|
Post by letsconnect on Oct 12, 2005 6:34:34 GMT -5
Got your PM - I know how the admin of the other forum did it (it's easy to create alternate stylesheets which you can change in the profile), the only difficulty would be to create it from the front page (for guests), as a mod for doing that is not available (yet?).
With the instructions you sent me, I will be able to view the source code of various style sheets (won't have to contact the admin for that). I can then use those font sizes and styles for alternate style sheets, and change the main one back.
Have you tried FireFox yet?? It would really be worth your while, I'd say...
The code here has some fonts specified in points rather than pixels, but apparently, the difference in display size can be even greater with points... I decided against using ems after reading that Netscape Navigator can't cope with them... so it's back to pixels, I think.
|
|
|
Post by letsconnect on Oct 12, 2005 7:03:07 GMT -5
If you ever come across one, let me know the URL/location where you found it and I'll add it...
It's a pity so many intranets run on IE only... Firefox is a far superior browser, also for those with sight problems!!
I was thinking of having one board which is posting-enabled, for new recommendations...
As far as I know, that's easy enough - the 'Recommend a Dentist' button is a brilliant idea, I'll stick one on the homepage!!
SEO for the new site is another day's work... the easiest thing would be to add the keywords to each single post on the find-a-dentist board (they do get crawled, apparently...)
|
|
|
Post by letsconnect on Oct 13, 2005 17:06:08 GMT -5
Err, OK, so I've made a template in 20 pixels. It's called "large" and gives me a massive headache, but someone else might like it - I hope... Uhm, are you sure your screen/display resolution is set correctly? If it's set higher than 1024x768, you'll perceive the text as smaller (because there will be more pixels on the screen...)
|
|
|
Post by vicki on Oct 14, 2005 7:07:54 GMT -5
If you ever come across one, let me know the URL/location where you found it and I'll add it... Could be like looking for a needle in a haystack!! ;D Might learn how to create one myself (something to do when the weather's not too good outside!) It's a pity so many intranets run on IE only... Firefox is a far superior browser, also for those with sight problems!! Down with IE! Although you can change the text size in IE 5.2 (mac) - but I'm too lazy to do that so I just move closer to the screen! ;D. Unfortunately Firefox isn't an option for me at work but the good news is that we are in the process of upgrading to OS X Tiger - and I'm reliably informed that it doesn't come with IE anymore so it looks like I'll be able to use Safari at last which has got to be a big improvement (on the smiley front ;D!)
|
|
|
Post by letsconnect on Oct 14, 2005 19:01:47 GMT -5
Hm, I'm going to try and learn HTML and CSS now... decided against using DreamWeaver... this is going to be one embarrassing venture, I can just feel it coming (see www.dentalfearcentral.org/ for my very first html page... err, this is *not* indicative of the final product, I don't hope, lol , but you've gotta start somewhere... I was happy enough to figure out how to use a text editor and get it up on the web!). It is indeed! The cursor still moves in front of the smiley rather than behind it, but it's a very minor hassle... How does the new default forum at www.dentalfearcentral.org/cgi-bin/yabb2/YaBB.pl look now, compared to this forum? On my screen, the new one is slightly larger in terms of font size... I've added a make bigger and make smaller option, but you need to be logged in to change your default font size.
|
|
|
Post by vicki on Oct 15, 2005 13:45:44 GMT -5
Hm, I'm going to try and learn HTML and CSS now... decided against using DreamWeaver... this is going to be one embarrassing venture, I can just feel it coming Enjoy your voyage of discovery!!! ;D Colours look OK. There's actually quite a lot of info on Dental Fear Central - would be a shame if you lost some of it as it's really useful (It's also your USP (unique selling point) - I haven't come across another site with anywhere near as much useful info ). Maybe you could have a system where everything is laid out so that it's easy to navigate around (and you can see where you've just come from rather than going back to the home page) e.g. www.boots.com <--- uses a similar bar thingy at the top. How does the new default forum at www.dentalfearcentral.org/cgi-bin/yabb2/YaBB.pl look now, compared to this forum? On my screen, the new one is slightly larger in terms of font size... I've added a make bigger and make smaller option, but you need to be logged in to change your default font size. It's actually smaller on the new one than on here (on my PC - can still read it though Where is the bigger/smaller option when logged in? Curiously enough, it's the other way round on the XDA - bigger on the new forum and smaller on here! Who knows?!! I can still read it anyway ;D By the way, love the approval stamp logo on the Find a Dentist board - Were you inspired by the Apple 'Mail' software icon by any chance??!
|
|
|
Post by letsconnect on Oct 15, 2005 15:06:13 GMT -5
Got a book today entitled "Spring into HTML and CSS" - apparently, it's "the smart professional's choice", lol ... it'll take me a while to work my through it, but it seems very well explained... I haven't decided on the final colour scheme yet, but it will contain yellowy-orange and a muted blue... need to decide on the two additional colours yet... some sort of green (haven't decided yet) and some other colour, maybe a reddish maroon, but it might look too stark for some of the side nav bars... we'll see! Well the current plan is to have a top nav bar with links to the main sections (Info, i.e. most of the current dentalfearcentral.com site, Forum, Find - that's the find-a-dentist database/forum, Stories - which is currently hosted on a free tripod domain and in serious need of updating, Links&Articles, and maybe a Procedures section for common dental procedures, if I can get enough writers for that one). Each section bar the Find and Forum would have a navigation sidebar in a separate colour so that you'd know what section you're in. The colours would correspond to coloured backgrounds in the top nav bar. I'll have to see how it all pans out, though... Regarding info, I don't want to loose any, but some sections contain too much repetition, so I'd like to condense it a bit and break some of the pages up into separate pages... but I'll leave that one till last, do the easy sections first (like "Stories"). Maybe my new book will shed some light on the matter ;D! It's got something to do with pixels, which seem to be the "vogue" size these days... No, I'm using this nifty (and affordable) logomaker (that's where I got druggie from), and lost my copy, so Marc, the guy who runs the show, gave me their big edition for free - which was very nice of him ;D!! Anyway, I said I'd mention his site in return, so here it is: www.thelogocreator.com/
|
|
|
Post by vicki on Oct 16, 2005 13:03:46 GMT -5
Stories - which is currently hosted on a free tripod domain and in serious need of updating Would it be easier to have another forum for stories? People could still post stories onto a board and they could even be organised by fear(s) if/where applicable - similar to the way the dentistry questions archive works on the new forum. It would enable people to find success stories about their own fears - and get ideas for solutions maybe? Maybe my new book will shed some light on the matter ;D! It's got something to do with pixels, which seem to be the "vogue" size these days... Ah well, it's all gobbledegook to me - I know about pixels in Photoshop, but that's about it !
|
|
|
Post by letsconnect on Oct 16, 2005 13:31:22 GMT -5
A good idea in theory - the problem is that I might run into space and bandwidth problems if I add yet another forum (cheapskate website design )... so the short answer is, probably not doable I did take up your other idea though (about an additional seal of approval for repeat recommendations) - here it is: ;D Well, the story is (quoting from my new book here): "The most commonly used length values for type on the Web are pixels and ems because, technically, they are both scalable... There's a major problem, however: Microsoft Internet Explorer for Windows does not scale pixels. This is a terrible oversight that has caused real problems, especially because you want to offer your vision-impaired users scalable sizing... The pixels should scale - and they do in browsers with correct font-sizing support... As a result, many web designers advocate the use of ems over pixels. You'll note, however, the teeny text on the left. This can also cuase serious problems if people have their browsers set to a smaller font size than medium." Sooo... considering that neither ems nor pixels work, I might go with absolute keywords instead. The problem with them is that IE4 and IE5 display them incorrectly (one size too small) !! You just can't win... With older websites written in html without CSS, the problem doesn't exist because the sizing goes from 1 to 7 and displays pretty consistently across browsers, but with CSS, there are numerous problems esp. with IE. But CSS's advantages are so compelling (much faster loading pages, consistent look easily achieved, etc.) that it would be madness to go old-style HTML.
|
|
|
Post by vicki on Oct 17, 2005 3:11:15 GMT -5
Good News!!! I have just finished upgrading my mac at work to OS X Tiger - complete with Safari and no IE ( ) and not only do the smileys work but the text is bigger! The only tiny little problem is that every time I click a smiley - it inserts all the content of the message again [Actually, I've just posted another message and now the smiley's don't work and now I'm REALLY confused! )
|
|