Maybe when the new forum skin is working and everything, we could maybe try some little things like that and see how everyone likes them. Nothing mind blowing, but neat all the same.

Yes, I liked the flag idea Eru. Maybe if we had that, you could also have fictional flags in case anyone felt like living in Hobbiton that day.

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^ By me and my SS *squiggle hugs*

Haha yeah why not. Regional flags would also be welcome (if your state/province has one, or in the case of the UK; one for England, one for Wales, one for Scotland and one for Northern Ireland)!

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.*+I'VE MET ANTIGONE, MONTANABOHEMIAN, RAIVYNN PHOENIX, BERIADANWEN & PIRATEOFTHERINGS+*.

(¯`•¸·´¯`·._.·[TRUE VAMPIRES DON'T SPARKLE]·._.·´¯`·¸•´¯)

Haha, well, this is probably going to my last major technical contribution to A-U, once I get it sorted. Then you guys can battle the codes yourselves I'm skinning the forum right now and have gotten the header and main navigation bar sorted, but this really sucks and is very complicated and I HATE THE WORLD kthxbai. Okay, not really.

Uh, anyway, I like the country flags idea I don't know how many of you besides Eru know much about phpBB and other forums, but at least with phpBB, they have what are called MODs (no, not moderators ), short for modifications. With version 3, it's super-duper easy for me to add them. A lot of them aren't really relevant to the average user, because they're behind-the-scenes stuff that makes MY life easier, but some of them--like the flags--are really nice for users. If you feel like browsing the official database, it's at http://www.phpbb.com/customise/db/modifications-1/ . If any catch your eye as "ooooh, this would be awesome," let me know. The older forum had a lot of modifications installed, but a lot of them were already included in v3.

Also - we can add custom profile fields! I already added Gender and Favorite Tolkien Book/Movie, but if you can think of any others, let me know. And don't forget to add your birthday to your profile - we get a nice birthday list on the index page now.

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I just want to say that you guys are great! I don't even know what to do with codes and software. I'm a total noob! But you guys are so great if you can turn this weird looking forum back to AU!

Arweb! Your doing such an awesome job! Thanks so much!

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O children, lift up your voice, lift up your voice,
Children, rejoice, rejoice..



It doesn't matter you don't believe in God, He believes in you.

I see there are several country flag mods there so I don't know which would be the best one.
Barely any of them come with screen shots though. Here's one of them:
http://www.phpbb.com/customise/db/mod/c ... r_edition/

I found these things that would be kind of neat:

http://www.phpbb.com/customise/db/mod/f ... le_link_2/
http://www.phpbb.com/customise/db/mod/t ... ofile_link
http://www.phpbb.com/customise/db/mod/y ... file_link/
http://www.phpbb.com/customise/db/mod/deviantart_mod/
http://www.phpbb.com/customise/db/mod/skype_mod_2
http://www.phpbb.com/customise/db/mod/karma_mod

And maybe have a way to show the wee MSN/Windows Live, AIM, Yahoo Messenger etc icons next to your other info to the left of your post?

As for custom profile fields? How about: favorite LotR race, favorite LotR location, favorite LotR character, favorite LotR moment/scene, favorite LotR score/theme/song, favorite movies, favorite TV-shows, favorite directors, favorite actors, favorite bands/artists. Just to name a few?

I also wouldn't mind being able to have a slightly larger avatar (dimensions wise). There's obviously space for it in the area to the left of your post. Perhaps 125x125 or 150x150 maximum? Just an idea.

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.*+I'VE MET ANTIGONE, MONTANABOHEMIAN, RAIVYNN PHOENIX, BERIADANWEN & PIRATEOFTHERINGS+*.

(¯`•¸·´¯`·._.·[TRUE VAMPIRES DON'T SPARKLE]·._.·´¯`·¸•´¯)

Good suggestions, I'll take a look once I don't want to kill myself looking at dark blue

Anyway, as you guys can see, the forum is now skinned. Stuff is bound to be broken, because this was a lot of skinning relatively from scratch for me (which...I really don't like, but we have an A-U style that we should keep, so there was nothing for it). Anyway, let me know if things aren't working / look terrible somewhere.

Ahhh, I already see stuff that doesn't look right...but I've been coding all afternoon and am sick of it. Maybe later.

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Well one thing that is a bit odd looking is that it seems each post has an individual width. So if you have a 700 pixel signature like myself (which used to be the maximum width before), my posts are stretched but everyone else's are fine. I don't know if it's because I'm on a 1024x768 screen resolution or if it looks like this for everyone?

But YAY for the skin being back. You've done an awesome job, Arweb!

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.*+I'VE MET ANTIGONE, MONTANABOHEMIAN, RAIVYNN PHOENIX, BERIADANWEN & PIRATEOFTHERINGS+*.

(¯`•¸·´¯`·._.·[TRUE VAMPIRES DON'T SPARKLE]·._.·´¯`·¸•´¯)

Blue is back. Snarf.

Anyone else seeing a very... slim looking forum or is it just me?

As Eru said, each persons sig is stretching their posts according to the size... but the forums are very slim looking and the discussions titles are having to be on 2 or three lines as the space for them is so small.

And it's odd how every post seems to be centered.

But... I like the fact ol' Nenya is glowing more so thanks for fixing that Arwen!

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^ By me and my SS *squiggle hugs*

Wow, this is looking great Arwen. Good work so far - and I can't wait to see it finished Also, it's a relief to have the blue back

And I love how you can preview your sig while editing it

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by Lembas

Okay! So...been doing some more work, and here's what we have:

1) Country flags! Take a look at your User Control Panel, and you should be able to select your country and its respective flag from the list, and have it displayed under your Location with each post. Does anyone want to create similarly-styled flags for different regions of Middle-earth? I mean, there are already flag images out there of places like Gondor and Rohan...they'd just need to be sized down quite a bit.

2) While you're visiting your UCP, look at all the beautiful new fields you can fill out! So much information to share with the world! Thanks to Eru for the suggestions, and if anyone thinks of other fields we should have (they can be text boxes, drop down menus, radio buttons, whatever), let me know.

3) Usernames are back to being linked to profiles. You may have noticed that with this version, the only way to get to a person's profile was to (annoyingly) go to the bottom of their post and click the Profile button. Now the username itself should be linked. Please note that I hacked this myself. I'm quite proud of my coding skills

4) Forum width. So, you guys have noticed that A-U seems "slimmer," and no, your eyes deceive you not. I set the width of everything to 85% because I thought it looked cleaner, but alas, on smaller screen resolutions, larger banners are going to stretch things a bit. Plus, I might have messed some of the widths up, because I've found several pages that look funky. I might end up switching everything back to the default width, except the index page. What do you think?

5) Signatures & Avatars. I've hidden that board since we don't need it anymore, with the whole sig preview feature.

6) Avatar size. Max. dimensions are now 125x125. I figured 150x150 might be cutting it a little close with the space provided.

7) Profanity filter. While I was transferring things, I decided to remove a few of the contested words from the filter. You should be able to say things like damn, crap, hell all you want now without being bleeped out. Not that this means I'm condoning this, of course...

8) What do you want to appear under your avatar? We could move the buttons like PM and E-mail to the left rather than under each post, or put other fields there. Of course keep in mind that if you don't have a large signature and post something short (not that ANY of us ever post just a couple words, right? ), you don't want a long list of information on the left overpowering your post content.

9) Eru mentioned adding things like links to Twitter, Skype, YouTube, DeviantArt, and Facebook accounts. Which (any? all?) of these would people like to have?

10) You know, I'm just happy no one seems to be reacting like this:



But never say I don't listen to you...most of the time

Uh, also, the forum is back to the original URL. Sorry if this confused anyone - if you're reading this, you must have figured it out xDD

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Thanks so much for doing all this updating Arweb!

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going on a journey through my old claims

*pokes head in* This is so exciting! Great job, Arweb! Thank you!

Personally, I vote default width, because I guess my screen is one of the smaller ones that have stretched posts.

Also, maybe I'm just blind as a bat, but I can't find The Green Dragon Inn (Your Life) section anywhere. Like, it's gonezo.

*le gasp* You can save your posts as drafts now? That is awesome.

EDIT: Okay, I am blind. It's right where it always was. Which is weird, because I spent a long time looking before I posted here...

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~Set by Lembas~If we grow up we're all going to be famous.

Min, I checked out your permissions, and I can see Your Life just fine - does it really not appear under Life Outside LotR? (This is something I love about the new software from an admin standpoint - I can preview the forum from the standpoint of any user to see what they see. Don't worry, I don't have access to your PMs or passwords or anything, I just get to see things how you do )

To anyone using <center> for their signatures, you'll have to update to the BBCode equivalent, [ center ] (without spaces), just updating < and > to [ and ]. Unfortunately the html version doesn't work with this software.

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Yeah, I just found it. I'm not sure what was going on, because I scrutinized the Life Outside LotR section and I swear there were only 4 sections at the time; and I'd been seeing that for a day before I posted. But since nobody else mentioned it, I figured it was either me missing something, or my computer acting up, or something. In any case, it's there now!

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~Set by Lembas~If we grow up we're all going to be famous.

Yay! I really do like all these changes/modifications - except the forum width. Every title for a post takes up twice as much space and it's reallt clunky and ugly. I don't know what everyone else sees but this is my AU at the moment.

http://img143.imageshack.us/i/image1tlg.jpg/


Also, I think the buttons for PM's etc are OK where they are now... but if more people would like easy links to FB etc, I think it would be a good idea to add them.

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^ By me and my SS *squiggle hugs*

Min: the Your Life section isn't visible to non-registered users anymore, so if you weren't logged in at the time you were browsing, maybe that's why

JF: WEIRD! It looks like this on my screen:



I agree that it does look ugly in your screenshot, so I'll try to change it back sometime this weekend. What screen resolution do you have? What does the forum index look like for you?

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