Main page news script not updating, on diff database

[The Helper]

Main page news script not synchronized with News forum. The front page is pulling the news from a different database. It does not show my upgrade post or Chile's reply to my Florida post.

 

[Chile]

the script is nearly completed. I just need to work on the styles

If someone can post a news item to the WCII news forum, I'll also set up a news page for it.

 

[SD_Ryoko]

Okay, well I posted something.

That forum says 'news on the front of the tutorial page'

So I'm confused. Do posts in that forum go TO the front page of tutorial site, or what did you mean?

I can change the page of the tutorial site to accomodate, but I don't know how to link contect from the forum.

I'd imagine you would have to grab it from the forum using MySQL ?

 

[Chile]

Yes.

I wrote a Vbulletin 3.06 news script for the main page of TheHelper. I am currently working on the cascading styles for presentation, and wondering what other useful formatting I could add to make it less generic looking without changing the overall look of the site (As I was asked not to touch).

The Tutorials section will also have a news script to take information from the tutorial news forum, and present on the subdomain.

 

[SD_Ryoko]

I see, I see.

I'll tell you this. It SS includes a file called news.html, so thats what would get altered.

The template also has these values, which you can use for colors. Most of them are for the search script. The ones I use are title, smalltitle (titles are the blue) tutorial (common text) and menu. You can also add any you like to menutop.shtml

.bright { color:00FFFF; font-size:17px }
.title { color:1E90FF; font-size:20px; font-family: "times new roman"; }
.smalltitle { color:1E90FF; font-size:17px; font-family: "times new roman"; }
.menu { color:white; font-size:17px }
.tutorial { color:white; font-size:17px; font-family: arial; }
.highlight { background: #FFFF40; }
.searchheading { font-size: 20px; font-weight: bold; color: #1E90FF}
.summary { font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; color: white}
.results { font-size: 15px; color: #FFD700}
.category { color: #999999; }
.description { font-size: 15px; color: #008000; }
.context { font-size: 15px; color: white}
.infoline { font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; color: #808080; }
.result_title { font-size: 17px; }

 

[Chile]

bear in mind, also, that vBulletin allows you to post in different colors.

Because I wrote my own bbcode parser for our news blog, the color you post in should be the one to show up in any news script. If you post some text larger, it should also appear larger in the blog.

However, this does bring about a small challenge to ensure that the output news text is an appropriate color for the WC III News blog. I may still have some work ahead of me, heh.

 

[SD_Ryoko]

Hummm

Maybe make it look just like the first thread in the post does, with the title size and font, then the body size and font.

A single pixel "tutorial blue" table border would look appropriate.

Then make the header the <FONT CLASS="smalltitle"> and the body of the message <FONT CLASS="tutorial">

PS- Thank you for changing the font sizes/bold in the forum layout, much better on they eyes now. Phew!

 

[SD_Ryoko]

At work, I am using large fonts.

At home, small fonts, due to some game compatabilities.

The difference on the forum is drastic, here the fonts are GIANT and bold, while at home they are slim and neat.

I realize this may be hard to compensate for though.

 

[SD_Ryoko]

Chile

http://www.world-editor-tutorials.thehelper.net/newstemp.shtml

 

[SD_Ryoko]

Um, nevermind I guess.

It wont let me connect to the FTP now to change the formatting again, the way it needs to be to handle multiple news posts.

 

[The Helper]

I was not actually thinking of making the news script the entire content of the tutorials main page. What I was actually envisioning was just like the first 8 articles summarized at the top of the page like on thehelper.net and then the current content of the page, what is there now. I like the completed projects and the request for tutorials on the front page. In other words, my vision was the news headlines like the recent forum posts on thehelper.net main page and really that was all.

I also considered the same summary headlines and displaying maybe 3 messages from the news on the page.

I think it would also be good if the world editor forum style was the same as the tutorials site, sharing the same sidebar. In other words, not thehelper.net sidebar but the tutorials sidebar instead on the forum then the colors and title and graphics matching the tutorials site.

In other words, to make the forum look like it was part of the tutorials site, which in reality it is.

 

[SD_Ryoko]

Hmmm let me explain what I was showing.

That news sample page I linked, would be on the front page, after the introduction and hosted projects. It takes that file and SSI includes it into the home page at the end.

It was only by itself because it was a concept for the script.

This would essentially replace the news I have listed at the bottom.

Is that what your thinking as well?

 

[The Helper]

Sounds good to me - except I would add the little summary of like the last 8 news posts at the very beginning to balance it all out - or maybe the last 8 posts on the Warcraft forum. I think the news should be presented at least in summary first but I would also want that to fit on the very first screen that you could view with the current page content. In my vision but as far as the Tutorials site is concerned I give you veto power.

 

[SD_Ryoko]

I see. Your concerned people won't see it at the bottom of the page, right?

I'll put some thought into the front page layout. Maybe we'll shorted up paragraphs and stuff.... or something. Or put the posts at the top....

I'll put thought to it.

 

[SD_Ryoko]

We can off the second paragraph, or add just news titles before submissions, and the full news at the bottom. Or both. I can almost see the news on mine.

Of course, as the completed projects grew, this would get pushed down. Sadly though, I am pretty sure Mind and I are the only ones who've 'officially' released anything for download since I signed up. Posted maps are tests and concepts.

And now that I say that, I can't help but feel a little bit like I'm wasting time. Heh.

[edit]
If this forum adds 3 inches to the right of a photo and widens all the posts, is that a display error?

 

[The Helper]

I am going to comment on this tomorrow after giving careful consideration.

 

[SD_Ryoko]

One of our users is submitting a large tutorial soon, with pics.

It would be nice if the first working news post was the announcement of a new tutorial, and making his tutorial debut.

 

[The Helper]

Chile is busy upgrading his site RPG Stars with his new forum software plus he is on a 7 day straight work binge. I don't know if he is going to be active to integrate this. I can probably hack something together but it probably will not look as good as Chile can make it and if the site is not PHP it will not work.

 

[Chile]

The beauty of the news script, even if it's pretty ugly php, is that it can be used for every forum on the board, can display images posted in the forums, and can even be tweaked to present the most recently replied topics instead of the last posted topics.

If the divisions of the tutorial page are saved as .php extentions, and are properly divided (meaning one php file is left, one is right, etc) then it's really easy to include them in a forum style. This is how our left panel and head banner are done on the main forums here. It makes the navigation and headers truly global for this domain.

 

[The Helper]

Actually the issue I think SD_Ryoko is talking about is just the news script integration with the Tutorials main page. We can definitely do that without doing what we are talking about in the other forum.... As a matter of fact I am thinking about moving this thread.