Recent DOS Games Discussion Forum mods

Post by **emmzee** » Sun Feb 20, 2005 12:45 am

Hiya

Recently I've made some mods (changes) to the boards, here are the changes made so far:

Major mods:

1) Google Adsense ads

You probably haven't noticed any ads on the boards if you're a member ... that's because the ads only show to guests. (If you're logged in, you won't see 'em.) This way only drive-by visitors (who visit once and then never again) are the only ones who have to see 'em. They're only text so they're not too bad anyways.

2) Search Engine Optimization

Again, this affects only guests. If you're not logged in the URLs are all changed to search-engine friendly URLs ending in .html ... this is useful to help search engines fully crawl the message board, hopefully helping it appear more often in search results, helping more people find it.

3) Online/offline Indicators

There's now little guys that look like this <img src="http://www.dosgames.com/forum/templates ... ffline.gif" width="" height="" alt="offline"> running around the forum

It now shows beside each post (and in your profile etc) whether you're online or not.

Minor mods

1) Removed auto-forwarding after posting

Removed the meta tag so now you can leisurely choose to view your post or go back to the forum.

2) Post title on reply screen

The title of the post you're replying to now shows on the reply screen.

Future mod(s)

Stuff you wanna see? Reply to let me know. I'd like to add another field or two to people's profiles, to let them list their favorite DOS games ... I have a mod for that but it will take awhile so I'll probably tackle that one later.

*** Also! If you notice any errors/weirdness that may have been caused by these mods, please let me know. Thankees!

Thunderdog · Post by **Thunderdog** » Sun Feb 20, 2005 3:08 pm

Excellent.

Mr. Boring · Post by **Mr. Boring** » Mon Feb 21, 2005 11:20 am

It's excellent, very good

Post by **emmzee** » Mon Feb 21, 2005 7:38 pm

Logo added

Thunderdog · Post by **Thunderdog** » Mon Feb 21, 2005 7:40 pm

But I thought this was the DOSgames discussion forum, not the DOSgames.com only forum?

Post by **Wally** » Mon Feb 21, 2005 8:02 pm

nice logo darren

BTW it would be even nicer if you removed

DOS Games Discussion
A message board to talk about DOS games, get help, and find old games.
NO warez or abandonware posts please.

and had that within the logo. u know what i mean?

Post by **emmzee** » Mon Feb 21, 2005 8:03 pm

Thunderdog wrote:But I thought this was the DOSgames discussion forum, not the DOSgames.com only forum?

Hmm, thats a good point. Maybe I should work in the logos of the other sites in there somewhere ...

Post by **emmzee** » Mon Feb 21, 2005 9:16 pm

Well whatta ya know, a new version of phpBB was released today. I made all the changes manually, and it seems to have worked. Voila, v2.0.12 ... we're on the bleeding edge here, people!

Post by **Dogbreath** » Mon Feb 21, 2005 10:27 pm

Damn... that logo is aweful. It's not the logo itself but the fact it clashes horridly with the pure white below it. Can't you return the old checkered style grey backround? I see it between posts but it seems to have otherwise dissapeared...

(Or, if not, just find a way to soften the white... yeech)

Post by **emmzee** » Mon Feb 21, 2005 10:48 pm

I thought it looked good like that

Well originally there was a checkerboard border, but for some reason it was screwing up in IE (looked fine in Firefox) so I got rid of it for now ... in IE it was expanding beyond the screen so you'd get that horizontal scrollbar. I'll play 'round with it to see if I can fix it.

Edit: Howzat? Better?

Post by **Dogbreath** » Mon Feb 21, 2005 11:53 pm

Better... now if you could adjust the screen 20 degrees, turn on the fan, and bring me a martini...

Post by **emmzee** » Sat Feb 26, 2005 11:33 pm

Two recent mods:

1) Zero posters

For anyone that's been complaining about the inflated memberlist due to all the people that register and never post ... rejoice! All zero-posters should now be totally hidden. People only show up in the memberlist (and stats) when they have made at least one post.

2) Minor profile changes

Your profile has had the following changes made:
"Occupation" -> "Favorite Games"
"Interests" -> "Non-Gaming Interests"
I was going to add another field for the "Favorite Games" category but that was a WHOLE lot of work whereas changing the occupation field required only changing one line.

So if you've filled in an occupation you should edit your profile.

Question: Should "Favorite Games" be listed with a person's "Location" whenever they post? (Given time for people to change their "Occupation" to "Favorite Games" of course)

Further mods will come sooner or later ... most likely later

(This is kinda fun! I plan to continue until I screw up the board and have to reinstall

)

Thunderdog · Post by **Thunderdog** » Sat Feb 26, 2005 11:37 pm

That brings us down to 931 users. XD

Post by **emmzee** » Sat Feb 26, 2005 11:43 pm

Yep, now we can look forward to 1,000

Also, forgot to mention, changed the search to default to "Search for all terms" instead of "Search for any terms" since I always want to do an "all" search

Dosser · Post by **Dosser** » Sun Feb 27, 2005 1:10 am

LOL: I guess Dark Lord will confuse a lot of people by claiming to be 2000th member

Dopefish · Post by **Dopefish** » Sun Feb 27, 2005 1:20 am

Why do I have to log in everytime I visit even though I check the "Log me in whenever I visit" box?

Kazer0 · Post by **Kazer0** » Sun Feb 27, 2005 12:37 pm

Aw, you suck. I just went to gamehippo last week to brag about having more users than them.

Post by **emmzee** » Sun Feb 27, 2005 4:17 pm

Dopefish wrote:Why do I have to log in everytime I visit even though I check the "Log me in whenever I visit" box?

I dunno ... must be something to do with cookies? Anyone else have this problem?

Kazer0 wrote:Aw, you suck. I just went to gamehippo last week to brag about having more users than them.

I can't win.