Oddworld Forums - An Opportunity for OWF's Rebirth

Oddworld Forums (http://www.oddworldforums.net/index.php)

- Forum Suggestions & Help (http://www.oddworldforums.net/forumdisplay.php?f=15)

- - An Opportunity for OWF's Rebirth (http://www.oddworldforums.net/showthread.php?t=24134)

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OWF isn't that bad on mobile. Then again, this is my first time using a phone for anything besides texting and calls.

I find it very hard to navigate and tiny. It could in fact be, a forum for ants when on my phone screen.

Oh, the thread is going to be hosted by fresher people. I am voting.

Nate, are the stats at the bottom of the forum accurate? Are we still running vBulletin 3.8.7? I did a bit of sleuthing and found a Mobile Suite available for vBulletin 3.8.10 and up. I'm not a techno-wiz, so I'm not sure if this would be compatible or not. The link is here: http://www.vbulletin.com/en/mobile/

It's 150 USD.

Apparently, vBulletin 4 and up comes standard with a Mobile Suite.

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Oh, the thread is not going to be hosted by pleasant people. I am not voting.

When this award system does come into fruition, please vote. The single vote from a sane person could put it in good graces.

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Although I agree with you, I don't particularly think any of this is a bad thing. For example, the reputation of this forum is on par with the Belanglo State Forest, and while not everyone who wanders into that vast web ends up butchered, people still avoid it just the same.

A new forum wouldn't flourish immediately, but it would have a fighting chance, especially with OI supporting its fandom. I have no doubts they'd advertise an HD Remaster of Oddworld Forums. We could call it Oddworld Forums: New 'n' Tasty, and it can be built upon Unity!

Joking aside, it's a speed bump, not a stop sign, and I wouldn't say it's completely out of the question.

I'll agree to disagree on that one. There's a whole spectrum of catalysts, not least of which are the aesthetics and features. We definitely need to focus on content, yes, but I see no reason not to discuss the elephant in the room when it's sitting on all of our faces, especially since several members have cited moving to a new forum—where the administrators would have unfettered access—as a possibility they'd also consider.

I'm not saying that being mobile-unfriendly isn't a factor, but that it's not the biggest factor. It's like this: an active forum without mobile accessibility would still be active, but adding mobile features to an inactive forum won't rejuvenate it by itself - the problem is how active the forum is in the first place.

Most of the issues with this forum are a result of a stagnant community and a lack of activity. That can be solved without ditching the current site and starting a new one, and without touching a single line of code.

I'd suggest that people here focus on coming up with ideas for content to stir up activity, and plan out how those would work out. Several good ideas have already been suggested here; there should be more discussion about those.

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EDIT: Also, this website is borderline unbearable when accessed on an iPad. For whatever reason, it signs me out after five minutes every single time, and often deleted my posts when I hit 'reply'. It just did it to me with this post, though I've gotten into a habit of saving most things I type up before submitting them.

I'm writing this post on an iPad and I can't say I've ever experienced that. At worst, the buttons and links aren't really finger-friendly, but the issues you're describing are way worse than anything I've seen.

I think we should unite instead of dividing ourselves into two forums

I agree with everything you said, Manco. :) In a fair world, we would have both a strong, united community and a flashy forum, but I guess, for the time being, we have to make do.

Hell, we survived this long.

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I never have an issue on my iMac, and I don't have a smart phone to test it with, so I can only assume it's because the iPad is a remote device. It's annoying as crap, and one of the main reasons I'm an infrequent poster.

@Varrok, I agree.

Being a strong, flashy forum is the antithesis of what this community was always about. This is our quiet corner of the internet. If we blew up it'd go to shit and lose the closeness we've built up over the years.

We've been so close that most of our veteran members left.

I don’t think anyone’s looking for this place to blow up, but it’s certainly reasonable to expect this place to be larger and busier than it is now.

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For the record I use an iPad Mini 2 running iOS 10, and I use Safari. All I can suggest is maybe taking a look at your cookie settings, or if you’re using a different browser then try Safari instead.

varrok am i a veteran yet? i got the mile high club achievement on cod4 :o)

Depends. Have you left yet?

varrok have you ever answered the question "why is varrok so sour?" because it is a great mystery to all the cool kids like OddMan360

varrok has been a sour puss lately

mans gonna have to change his name to Sourrok

at least that's better than oddman360

at least that's better than being fired from subway

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Ironically, I'm using the exact same iPad model, with iOS 10 and I use Safari. Cookie settings are on always allow. I don't visit any other forums, so maybe it's not unique to OWF. Reddit never seemed to pose a problem though. :fuzconf:

As I said, I've gotten into a habit of copying each post before I submit it. It's not the end of the world. :p

@Everyone else: Try to stay on-topic guys. We should be discussing the forum and brainstorming concepts to make it more active.

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Slog made a full on forum theme recently and it was never integrated....

... because integration would involve more than simply copying over some files. It would have needed Peter to do work. Significant levels of work.

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Yes, 3.8.7. That link is for vBulletin 5, though.

He never got back to me regarding what needed to be done to implement the theme. I'm still more than willing to integrate everything into the source code myself so all that needs to be done is some copying and pasting into the appropriate places, but I need the source code of either the Industrial or the Native themes before I can do that. I learned JS and PHP proper in the time since I made the theme and it's assets, so anything there that's busted I can fix up if I'm pointed in the right direction.

I'm not willing to start on a better theme for the other skin style until the Necrum skin is implemented because if I can't get one skin going, what's the point in doing another that'll never see any use either, right?

i still say the incosistent font sizes is the worst thing on mobile here, doesnt even make any sense

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i still say the incosistent font sizes is the worst thing on mobile here, doesnt even make any sense

I can explain why this happens!

The long story short is: in CSS, there are multiple different units to specify font sizes in; some of them are relative (em, rem, %) and some are fixed size (pt, px). Font sizes set in relative units will adapt in size depending on factors such as screen resolution, CSS cascade, etc; fixed units will generally be more resilient.

So when you browse the forum on mobile and see weirdly large font sizes, those are probably set in a fixed size unit, because whoever wrote the theme CSS wasn’t consistent.

i mean like, in someone's forum post, the first paragraph is sometimes huge, then the rest normal, or its all really small. its mega annoying. not separate bits of text across the page

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i mean like, in someone's forum post, the first paragraph is sometimes huge, then the rest normal, or its all really small. its mega annoying. not separate bits of text across the page

CSS is a beautiful and terrible thing to behold.

::first-child and ::first-of-type are rules that exist

FTR the theme I put together is definitely a lot more mobile friendly since I actually know how to, you know, use CSS and optimize

step 1 to having an active forum - post. here's an example i did just now. :)

Great! Now here's the step 2: Think before you post.

Sourest Member
Varrok

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step 1 to having an active forum - post. here's an example i did just now. :)

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Great! Now here's the step 2: Think before you post.

You two have ideal relationship goals! (y) I look up to you. :fuzgrin:

he's gay, i am not, it does not cooperate