dirk: Change Is Coming (to Simtropolis) Version 6.0!

[sim-Al2 4]

Small country. Big mouth. quote>

Your telling me. Oh wait. That thought reached my fingers, didn't it?

[hamsterTK 93]

Do you think the "flight suit" bird diaper is something you can put on your bird to allow it to hop or fly around your house without pooing on everything?

likewise I suspect the rail track greaser is for model trains

[hamsterTK 93]

That is definetely one of the more unusual items I have ever googled photos of...

[buildsolid 4]

^^^ Thats so weird?

[Duke87 1,070]

Originally posted by: hamsterTK Do you think the "flight suit" bird diaper is something you can put on your bird to allow it to hop or fly around your house without pooing on everything?quote>

Somewhat related: have you ever wondered why you always see bird poop but you never ever see bird pee?

Well, you do. The excretory system of avians is such that they release both together. The white stuff is actually the metabolic waste (aka urine). If you look closer among it, you'll see a few lumps of solid stuff which is the digestive waste (aka feces).

If you paid attention in 10th grade biology, you might have known that.

[Streetwise 3]

Originally posted by: Duke87

Originally posted by: abcvs

I never know if I should capitalise the a or not when abcvs is at the beginning of the sentence...  it is a bit of a dilemma...   Duke...  a little gramatical help?quote>

I make it a point to not capitalize usernames that are not capitalized, e.g. "dirk", not "Dirk". However, when they appear at the beginning of a sentence, you kind of have to capitalize them. quote>

That's my thinking, too. 

[Cockatoo 2,257]

Originally posted by: hamsterTK That is definetely one of the more unusual items I have ever googled photos of...

-pic removed-quote>

That, undoubtedly, is the stupidest thing I have ever seen. That poor African Grey, he must feel like such an idiot.

[Craig-Abcvs 1,595]

Dirk is the master of suspense...   when did all this banner business start?   August or something?

[buildsolid 4]

Yeh started by you in sept. (just looked on pg 1) Don't worry cockatoo you were like that when you were a baby!! had to contol you somehow.

[The Arrowz 3]

I hope the new change can support special characters (chinese, accents, etc...).

[Duke87 1,070]

Originally posted by: The Arrowz I hope the new change can support special characters (chinese, accents, etc...).quote>

Unless we switch forum software again, I doubt it will.

Would be nice.

Concern has been raised that it would make moderation difficult since if someone posts something obscene and inflammatory in, say, Thai, it's unlikely that it will be caught since very few people could read it.

Though, one could make the argument that if no one can read it that it doesn't really matter if it's obscene.

Still, a simple solution would be to make it a policy that if someone posts in something like Chinese without also providing an English translation that it will be removed, no questions asked.

[R30hedron 28]

Well, actually, I've found something a while ago that allows you to do accents and other special characters involving the alt key!
examples: alt+21   --> §
          alt+130  --> é
          alt+232  --> Φ
          alt+0175 --> ¯
You get the picture, I don't know all of the alt key+number combinations, but if someone does, it could revolutionize ascii type art!
(Or you could just insert and copy the symbols from Microsoft Word, your call...)

[JakeMD 107]

Alt Key Combo's

[Shingure 56]

You can also switch the keyboard input to U.S International Setting as well.

[Lyhoko Leaci 770]

Brad: There's also the insert special characters button in the reply box.

Brian: It's next to the smiley button if you don't know where it is.

[Duke87 1,070]

Originally posted by: R_Triacontahedron

Well, actually, I've found something a while ago that allows you to do accents and other special characters involving the alt key!

examples: alt+21   --> §

          alt+130  --> é

          alt+232  --> Φ

          alt+0175 --> ¯

You get the picture, I don't know all of the alt key+number combinations, but if someone does, it could revolutionize ascii type art!

(Or you could just insert and copy the symbols from Microsoft Word, your call...)

quote>

That's not the point. Yes, there are various ways of getting characters that are not on your keyboard.

The point is that the forum software does not support many of them.

For instance, this is Japanese:

??????????????????????????????????????????????????????

???????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????

Notice how it doesn't actually show properly.

Also, pasting from Word is a bad idea since it creates that ">>" stuff because the forum doesn't interpret the fancy formatting properly.

Pasting from Wordpad, however, has no such issue. So do that instead.

And I assume by your use of "-->" that you're not aware of these characters: ↑↓→←↔

[Craig-Abcvs 1,595]

Pasting from Wordpad, however, has no such issue. So do that instead.

quote>

I agree with Duke that copying and pasting from Word to a ST reply box is a bad idea...  even with that clean up box thingy...

I have had a few disasters trying to do that...

I use notedpad all the time, especially if you want to copy and paste text from the internet...   very effective at getting rid of hidden formatting.

Then you can start fresh with the ST forum formatting tools as needed.

[JakeMD 107]

The ST forum formatting tools are far better than any other forum software I know of... Simply because it uses BBC and its own web-based editor. The quick reply even accepts html.

[Lyhoko Leaci 770]

Originally posted by: abcvs

Pasting from Wordpad, however, has no such issue. So do that instead.

quote>

I agree with Duke that copying and pasting from Word to a ST reply box is a bad idea...  even with that clean up box thingy...

I have had a few disasters trying to do that...

I use notedpad all the time, especially if you want to copy and paste text from the internet...   very effective at getting rid of hidden formatting.

Then you can start fresh with the ST forum formatting tools as needed.quote>

Brian: The quick reply box also works as a format dump, too, and you don't need to open up a new window for it, either.

Brad: Just make sure you don't accidentally post it before you're ready.

[R30hedron 28]

umm, soon after my last post I remembered about the arrows...

I only know around 256 characters that can be done with the alt key, but I had no idea that there were 65536 characters, (By the time I get to alt+257, it starts to repeat)

But if it is a bad idea to copy and paste from Word, why is there a "Paste from Word" button? (5th button from the top left)

More or less back on topic, One group of forums, "City-Building Topics", is not visible on the left hand navigation panel, would that be fixed in Simtropolis 6.0? 

[Craig-Abcvs 1,595]

More or less back on topic, One group of forums, "City-Building Topics", is not visible on the left hand navigation panel, would that be fixed in Simtropolis 6.0? quote>

Not sure about that...  not all the forums have a short cut button on the left hand navigaiton panel...  I guess it is just a matter of available space.

There is the Quick Menu of course and that is a useful way to jump to any forum from anywhere on the site.

Dirk is pretty mysterious, we wont really know what the new site will look like until he puts it up...

Unless he posts a teaser pic...  

[Duke87 1,070]

Originally posted by: R_Triacontahedron

But if it is a bad idea to copy and paste from Word, why is there a "Paste from Word" button? (5th button from the top left)quote>

It's misleadingly labeled. Always has been. It may say, "paste from Word", bt really, it's just plain old "paste" (from anything). I never use it, I always just hit Ctrl+V

As for it being a bad idea to actually paste stuff from word... well, that's a bug that didn't exist prior to ST 5.0. Like the page flip bug.

On the other hand, there were many bugs before 5.0 that were fixed with it. For instance, the rich text editor didn't work in Firefox. Often, posts would fail to go through and you'd have to try again. Idealbb was getting buggy and the company that made it stopped supporting it, so we switched.

There were downsides, of course, but plenty of advantages, too.

For example, prior to ST 5.0:

- you could not delete your own posts

- you could not edit the title of a topic you started, only a mod or admin could.

- there was no such thing as a "topic summary"

- you couldn't have more than one poll per thread

- there were no private topics or forums except for the staff

[Hagar Topeka 1 22]

Although I have no idea how it would be done, what it involves, if this "Version 6.0" thing even applies to it, and a million other qualifiers,

I'd like to see a sorting method for the STEX which ranks content by ratio of views to downloads. I often use this method to decide whether a particular BAT is better than another. Those which have been around for a while are often more popular, as they have had more time to be downloaded.

I can see the problems with this, though. Different types of content wouldn't be equal, since people might go looking for a modd or texture regardless of how good it was, which would decrease the ratio (Closer to 1:1) since people wouldn't just browse a texture pack. And it would create a whole new priority for posters (those who post, not wall-mounted images) to keep people from just looking at something they weren't going to download. When were the sorting/ranking options for the STEX added?

And about the bird... How would you change the diaper every day? What if you had a bunch of birds? Where would you even get one of these things? Why does it matter?

I know that on Windows XP Media Center Edition you can find all special characters on the character map, and then copy and paste.

Start>All Programs>Accessories>System Tools>Character Map

[Tarkus 6,933]

Maybe I'm seeing things, but it seems that the Page Flip bug has actually been fixed!  Thanks, dirk!

-Alex (Tarkus)

[JakeMD 107]

Ok being as ocd as I am, I am reluctant to visit this thread until the page stretch problem is fixed

[T Wrecks 10,210]

Personally, I'd already be happy if the new site finally was compliant to W3C standards, because in Opera, I cannot use 90% of the specials functions and need to enter every line break manually, for example.

[Duke87 1,070]

Originally posted by: Tarkus Maybe I'm seeing things, but it seems that the Page Flip bug has actually been fixed! quote>

Well, a lot of old long threads still have blank pages on the end.

So, the cases of new pages being added before they should are still evident.

As for the matter of new pages not being added when they should... well, that can't be checked quite so easily, so you may or may not be seeing things on that.

[Kevin 101]

Originally posted by: Tarkus Maybe I'm seeing things, but it seems that the Page Flip bug has actually been fixed!  Thanks, dirk!

-Alex (Tarkus)quote>

Not sure, but I think dirk is doing a lot of under-the-hood stuff before giving the place a fresh coat of paint. The site does seem speedier...

[Craig-Abcvs 1,595]

Originally posted by: Cheese89

Not sure, but I think dirk is doing a lot of under-the-hood stuff before giving the place a fresh coat of paint. The site does seem speedier...quote>

 

[Kevin 101]

Craig you weren't supposed to leak the picture of the new ST server!