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Geek Culture / No forum user list?

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Non Sequitur M
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Posted: 5th Feb 2013 19:54
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Ok. Why don't we have a list of users? And, for that matter a PM system? These are things that would DRASTICALLY enhance the experience of forum... user... ship... ness. The word isn't coming to mind, lol. Anyway... These are things that EVERY forum should come with. I mean, then you could contact ANY forum user without giving out personal contact info. Of course, I'm sure everyone is aware of that fact, I state it just for the sheer weight of the point.

Everyone is free to comment, but I'm really looking forward to the moderators responses.

Thanks in advance.
-NSM

Also, the file I'm attaching is just for my avatar.

Formerly: Amo Deus Man
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zeroSlave
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Location: Springfield
Posted: 5th Feb 2013 22:01 Edited at: 5th Feb 2013 22:05
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Quote: "Why don't we have a list of users?"

Quote: "And, yesterday, I tried to do a mass e-mail... I know that for some reason my e-mail gets marked as spam a lot. Don't know why. "


Just teasing. A PM system wouldn't be a bad idea, although I believe it has been suggested a few times before.

Everybody is a genius. But if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will live its whole life believing that it is stupid.
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Libervurto
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Location: On Toast
Posted: 5th Feb 2013 22:10
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You can see who is online on the main forum list at the bottom of the page. There wouldn't be much use in displaying every user since there are lots who have been inactive for years.

PM's are probably a good idea though. I agree that not wanting to give out personal details doesn't mean you don't want to be contacted at all.

What I'd really like to see is posting history and a uploads directory for each member (all this uploading to individual posts is untidy, leads to duplicates and makes it difficult to find certain files).

Meanwhile...
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MrValentine
AGK Backer
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Joined: 5th Dec 2010
Playing: FFVII
Posted: 5th Feb 2013 22:16
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Quote: "What I'd really like to see is posting history and a uploads directory for each member (all this uploading to individual posts is untidy, leads to duplicates and makes it difficult to find certain files)."


TA-DA!



Funny how you mentioned that in the same week I launched the Repository ^^

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AgentSam
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Posted: 5th Feb 2013 23:33 Edited at: 5th Feb 2013 23:36
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Quote: "What I'd really like to see is posting history and a uploads directory for each member (all this uploading to individual posts is untidy, leads to duplicates and makes it difficult to find certain files).
"


I would also like to see a complete posting history implemented, because the current thread search via a persons profile only allows us to get a list of the threads that person created. Not the ones the person commented in...

But - unfortunately - the likelyhood of us getting ANY of these forum updates is very low.

See this quote by Richard:

Quote: "I haven't touched the code on this forum for nearly 4 years now [EDIT: that was back in 2010] - feature requests should not be directed at me. The advantages this forum has over a generic off the shelf one is simply the vast array of moderator tools built in. It evolved around the style of community here - a process that took several years, but settled down quite nicely.

There are loads of things I wanted to add to it, but just never did. Personally I would probably start it all from scratch if I did it again - refined db structure, php5 to the core and jQuery. But hey.. that's someone elses job now.
"


Richard Davey, who created the Apollo forums, has not touched the code for over 7 years (according to his own words). And I have not EVER seen a post that mentions that anyone at TGC is working on any updates to the Apollo forum.

Quote: "Everyone is free to comment, but I'm really looking forward to the moderators responses."


Good luck with that.

Cheers,
AgentSam
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Hodgey
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Joined: 10th Oct 2009
Location: Australia
Posted: 5th Feb 2013 23:59
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Quote: "And I have not EVER seen a post that mentions that anyone at TGC is working on any updates to the Apollo forum."

Maybe not at the moment but I believe Paul implemented the new badge system and Jeku adds handy new features now and then.

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Blobby 101
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Location: England, UK
Posted: 6th Feb 2013 00:02
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There have been a few updates more recently, such as youtube/soundcloud embedding and syntax highlighting in code snippets. I believe Jeku's behind them? Either way, this has been brought up more times than I can remember, a PM system is likely to be too much of an undertaking to be implemented, and frankly isn't required. If you want to be able to receive messages from users, just put an email address in your profile, it's not that hard xD

A post history on the other hand though is something I think we really could do with, I'm always losing track of threads I've posted in and forget to check back on.

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Non Sequitur M
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Posted: 6th Feb 2013 00:42 Edited at: 6th Feb 2013 00:47
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Yes, post history would be awesome. Also, maybe we could do a community created user list with links to profiles. It kind of has a medieval/wild west feel around here. You know, you just kind of wander around the forum until you run into that person, or create a thread/post calling them out for help, or to chat, etc. It's ridiculous! I don't know. If I knew php better(I figure that's what's used), I would gladly volunteer. Lol. Anyway... I think that a user list, a PM system, and a post history would do WONDERS for bringing the community together. Haha. Oh, well... A forum user can dream can't he?

[EDIT]Nice, Zero, quote me out of context why dontcha? For the record, that e-mail only included moderators with me asking for a name change. But, it doesn't appear to have gotten through! Lol.

Formerly: Amo Deus Man
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MrValentine
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Posted: 6th Feb 2013 00:43
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Quote: "A post history on the other hand though is something I think we really could do with, I'm always losing track of threads I've posted in and forget to check back on."


I use Outlook 2010 to manage my emails and Outlooks RSS feed, the RSS feed helps me to keep track of what I have been posting in, thus allowing me to backtrack to revisit threads I have posted into, I used to use Google's RSS feeder but it was so bugged out I gave up with it once I figured out how to use the Outlook based one...

There are other services which can make use of the forums RSS feed, I suggest you look into this

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AgentSam
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Posted: 6th Feb 2013 01:14 Edited at: 6th Feb 2013 01:29
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MrValentine wrote:
Quote: "... RSS feed helps me to keep track of what I have been posting in, thus allowing me to backtrack to revisit threads I have posted into ... "


As far as I know there is only one RSS feed from the TGC forum, which covers ALL boards:
http://forum.thegamecreators.com/rss.php

Would you mind posting a screenshot of how Outlook formats your feed for you, thus enabling you to backtrack.. because that sounds really useful.

In my reader, pretty much the ONLY datafields that are useful to me, are the Date and the Subject - because the "From (aka sender)" is always simply "The Game Creators Forum".

It also looks like the feed only contains thread creation events... thus replies to an existing thread are not in the feed. (Not 100% sure about this.)

Feel free to educate me further on how to make the best use of the TGC Forum RSS feed.

Cheers,
AgentSam
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MrValentine
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Playing: FFVII
Posted: 6th Feb 2013 01:51 Edited at: 6th Feb 2013 01:54
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Well this is a quick overview...



Hopefully it explains enough for now...

EDIT

I pretty much do the same with emails

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Phaelax
DBPro Master
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Joined: 16th Apr 2003
Location: Metropia
Posted: 6th Feb 2013 02:15
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Quote: "I would also like to see a complete posting history implemented"


http://forum.thegamecreators.com/?m=forum_mythreads

Better than nothing.

"You're not going crazy. You're going sane in a crazy world!" ~Tick
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AgentSam
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Posted: 6th Feb 2013 13:14 Edited at: 6th Feb 2013 13:15
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MrValentine wrote:
Quote: "Hopefully it explains enough for now..."


Yes, it is now clear that my current news reader has been hiding some posts from me. It was only showing the first message of each thread. It propably considered replies to be duplicates of the original, because they contained the same "From" and "Subject" fields. Which goes to say how bad that reader is.. (ok, it was the RSS feed reader built into the Opera browser.)

So, it's time to look for a "real" RSS feed reader. (Preferably one that is open source.)

Phaelax wrote:
Quote: "http://forum.thegamecreators.com/?m=forum_mythreads
Better than nothing."


Mm'yea, those are the same search results you would get from the "View User Profile" page, which I already commented on.

FORUM CUSTOMIZATION

While we're discussing these much needed updates to the forum software, why don't we also consider how much we can tweak the forum by ourselves using content modifying proxies and custom CSS. I think this philosophy is very much in line with "Geek Culture".

I've implemented a multi-level forum modification (mainly for myself), that is based on the following:

- Firefox browser with the following extensions:
* Stylish
* Stylish-Custom
* NoScript

- Privoxy

HOW IT WORKS

Privoxy sits between Firefox and the web. When Firefox makes a page request, Privoxy captures it and processes it according to a set of user-specified rules (actions/filters), which may block the request, change the request headers, or modify content of the server response.

I'm using privoxy to filter the following from TGC forums:
- Block all third party banner sites and adverts (including google)
- Strip all TGC adverts
- Strip all profile images (avatars and badges)
- Strip all profile signatures
- Strip all web request for image resources related to page decorations.
- Add custom CSS classes to elements which didn't have them (for use by the Stylish CSS definitions).
- Rearranges columns in some tables, such as the thread list and search results.
- Highlights nicknames of my "favorite" forum members (multiple levels of highlighting according to my perceived importance of these members).
- Replaces button images with button CSS.

With the following modifications, I get an average block rate of about 60% on the TGC Forums. Which also means, that the forum pages load about 60% faster too!!!

Once the modified page reaches Firefox, I'm using additional "user CSS" via the Stylish extension - which allows me to finetune and toggle several CSS options on the fly, as needed. These are all user defined, user created CSS.

SOME SCREENSHOTS OF THE RESULTS (click links for fullsize image)

This is what the modified output looks like in the thread list:



This is what the modified output looks like in the message view mode, using my custom "coffee" color-theme:



These are my custom CSS options, defined in Stylish:



This is the Privoxy log-output, showing blocked requests:



SUMMARY

There's quite a lot we can do to change the forum experience by ourselves. But it's a bit more difficult to add completely new features, such as the posting history, because we don't have access to the underlying MySQL database.

If there's sufficient demand, I might make these customizations public.

(The only reason why I haven't already, is because it's not exactly simple. There isn't a one single file to distribute. This solution ties together multiple technologies and requires multiple configuration files. And, I guess, making it public would also imply that I am willing to take on the responsibility of updating it based on user requests. Which I'm not.)

Cheers,
AgentSam
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Thraxas
Retired Moderator
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Posted: 6th Feb 2013 13:29
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I've always liked how "simple" and clean these forums are. Once in a blue moon when I try to find a post I remember it can be frustrating not being able to search for user posts but 99% of the time I've been able to locate it using google without too much hassle.

As for a PM system I don't miss it. On most other forums I use I have received PMs and then not noticed them for months.

Gmail, hotmail, yahoo mail. Just 3 email providers that you can create throwaway email addresses at if you don't want to share your personal email. Who thinks my email address linked to the forum is my personal one? It's my email address I is specifically for when I don't want to give out my personal email address.

As I've said in every one of these threads when they appear every year "more features doesn't necessarily mean better forums".

Stuttering in images! Can you help?
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MrValentine
AGK Backer
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Playing: FFVII
Posted: 6th Feb 2013 13:30 Edited at: 6th Feb 2013 13:32
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To be honest with you, I hardly ever see the Lobby these days myself, as the RSS feed removes the need for me to do so...

This is way too much effort for something that is honestly not needed... aside from the annoying flash based ads [fewer these days but they are still there]

The adverts are there to hopefully generate some form of income for TGC, and can you blame them? compared to other forum sites out there, jees we have it light here..., I would not even mind paying £1 a month just to be able to come back here as much as I do! and I think that would be fair for TGC to keep the servers going...

Actually I know EA screwed up BattleField3 by introducing a Premium Player [lol] but I think Premium User might have a nice zing to it... Like, a Premium User could have certain privileges like a double size banner and be allowed to more specifically advertise their own things [still not BS stuff] and products for their own sites etc... and maybe a larger Avatar image and instead of saying just 'User' it says 'Premium User'

But seriously, if it helped TGC to generate more cash flow and fix up DBPro and advance it further, I would be willing to pay £1 a month for such a 'Zing' ^^ of course, entirely optional!

Or it could just be called 'TGC Forum Backer'

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Phaelax
DBPro Master
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Location: Metropia
Posted: 6th Feb 2013 13:47
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Let's not forget my mobile version of the forums I did a few years ago (enter as guest):
http://zimnox.com/tgc/

"You're not going crazy. You're going sane in a crazy world!" ~Tick
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MrValentine
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Playing: FFVII
Posted: 6th Feb 2013 13:50
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Nice work Phaelax! very clean design

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AgentSam
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Location: Virtual Space
Posted: 6th Feb 2013 14:04 Edited at: 6th Feb 2013 14:05
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Quote: "Let's not forget my mobile version of the forums I did a few years ago (enter as guest):
http://zimnox.com/tgc/"


I've mentally given you a star for your work on the mobile forum proxy.

Proxying the TGC forums is definately an easy way to make a customized version public. It's one of the options I have been considering for making my own customization work public. There are some security considerations for end-users, though... (such as having to login to the TGC forums through the proxy, which can easily log all user passwords during the process.)

Also, that mobile proxy should be updated, I think. I'm getting some titles with white text on a white background.. and it's omitting the AppGameKit forums completely.

Cheers,
AgentSam
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Libervurto
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Joined: 30th Jun 2006
Location: On Toast
Posted: 7th Feb 2013 12:54
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Oh, one tiny tiny TINY issue that always irritates me and could be solved very easily is the default size of the "Post Forum Message" box. Why is it so small!? Why isn't it the same height and width as a standard post?

^ That's what she said.
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mr Handy
18
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Location: out of TGC
Posted: 7th Feb 2013 14:46
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@OBese87

Chrome makes this box resisable!

*** Merry Chuckmas! ***
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Quik
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Location: Equestria!
Posted: 7th Feb 2013 15:44
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Quote: "aside from the annoying flash based ads "


... annoying? I hardly ever notice them



Whose eyes are those eyes?
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Libervurto
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Posted: 7th Feb 2013 15:53 Edited at: 7th Feb 2013 15:54
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Quote: "Chrome makes this box resizeable!"

Yes, but why should we have to drag a box every time we post a comment (and want to get an idea of how it will actually look) just because of a few parameters that never got fixed?

^ That's what she said.
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mr Handy
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Posted: 7th Feb 2013 16:21 Edited at: 7th Feb 2013 16:22
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@OBese87
Yes, but why should we type text every time we post a comment (and want to pick a nose while typing) just because of no voice recognition function?

*** Merry Chuckmas! ***
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zeroSlave
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Posted: 7th Feb 2013 16:42 Edited at: 7th Feb 2013 16:43
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Changing two variables is a bit different than integrating a voice recognition system, although, picking my nose DOES sound like something I would enjoy doing while dropping an internet presence.

Everybody is a genius. But if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will live its whole life believing that it is stupid.
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MrValentine
AGK Backer
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Playing: FFVII
Posted: 7th Feb 2013 17:43
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Quote: " ... annoying? I hardly ever notice them"


Less the ads... More Adobe Flashs instability...

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AgentSam
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Posted: 7th Feb 2013 22:30
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OBese87 wrote:
Quote: "Oh, one tiny tiny TINY issue that always irritates me and could be solved very easily is the default size of the "Post Forum Message" box. Why is it so small!? Why isn't it the same height and width as a standard post?"


If you're using Firefox, just install the Stylish extension, create a new style, and copy/paste the following CSS-code into it, and you'll get MUCH larger edit boxes -- permanently.

A lot more is possible, just check the examples I posted earlier.



Note: Customize the above CSS to your hearts content. It's not guaranteed to work 100% out of the box, because I am using several other modifications with it... so some tweaking may be required. Let me know how it works for you.

Cheers,
AgentSam
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Libervurto
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Location: On Toast
Posted: 8th Feb 2013 10:51
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Thanks, I might try this and your other examples were quite impressive. But none of this should be necessary!

^ That's what she said.
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Blobby 101
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Location: England, UK
Posted: 8th Feb 2013 11:42
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You can do the above CSS tricks using chrome too with the stylebot extension, I'm using it to make you tube's layout centralised instead of being off to the left. xD

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Non Sequitur M
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Posted: 10th Feb 2013 16:15
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@AgentSam: Lol, sounds like a lot of coding time I could use on my main project(Now that I've got a team, I can't dawdle around). Plus, I'm only decent at coding html.

@Thraxas: Sorry to be another voice among many. Lol. It's just something that came to mind. Not like the forums are broken or anything. Haha.

@Everyone else: Yeah, what you said... Jk. It's been a few days since I last visited the thread. Gimme a minute... Hmm...

Mr. Handy wrote:
Quote: "Chrome makes this box resisable!"

I didn't know that! You just blew my mind! It was hiding in front of me the whole time! XD

I wish I had something to throw in to the hat, but... I have only ever picked my forum color from the user settings. XD

Formerly: Amo Deus Man
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AgentSam
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Posted: 10th Feb 2013 20:14
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Non Sequitur M wrote:
Quote: "@AgentSam: Lol, sounds like a lot of coding time I could use on my main project (Now that I've got a team, I can't dawdle around). Plus, I'm only decent at coding html."


Mm'yea, I would not recommend the things I do, to most people. I'm quite fluent in HTML, CSS, Javascript and regular expressions, so for me, these website tweaks are easy and fast to make.

The tips I have given are to be used at ones own discretion, according to ones own abilities.

Cheers,
AgentSam
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