Guess im the first here - and the first to say i like the changes - but my brain is itching to dig into learning about CSS - could be fun to customize BK - like a myspace - with games on it!!

Either way - I like whats here - and i love it that your making the option available for those that dont to change it on their own..... good job fencer!!!

Well, I know CSS, but how do I get BrainKing to use my CSS? Unfortunally, my browser doesn't have an option to insert a user supplied style sheet in addition to the document supplied style sheet.

Love the option to choose the color of the background, my eyes and I thank you!

I have the ""Show menu column/row on game pages" option unchecked, so less things load while I play a game.

Before the site design change, it would still load the left column (with just "Main Page" line), and also show the middle column (with the game), and then also show the right column (with the Game Notation in it - EVEN if you choose not to view it)

So for some-what slow connection, the game page would start to load, and as you start to move your mouse to make a move, the next column would load - Shifting the board over making you make a bad move.

-------

NOW I'm glad to see that when you have the option ""Show menu column/row on game pages" unchecked, the left column does not even load anymore - YEA! 1/2 way there.

Is there ANY ANY ANY way to also have an option to turn off the right hand column where the game notation is? That would solve the long-held Firefox bug that loads the page in a strange way that shifts the page over during the page load.

I don't know enough about CCS to know if it is possible in there, but if not - FENCER - any chance for this option? Right now, the only thing in the right hand column is "Game notation (show)" and does not need a whole column just for the option to show the game notation.

BIG BAD WOLF: hehe - side effect!!! as in - the column on the side!! hehe

redfrog: Well before the site design change, the left column still loaded with just "Main Page" in it (again, a waste to load a whole column for just 2 words)

But after Fencer fixed the bug in that option, that column does not even load!

(I just hope Fencer does not add that column back in for some reason - both columns on the game page are NOT needed.... well unless you use any information in any of them, which I do not - I just want my game to load as quickly as possible, and would be nice to also have an additional submit button above the board also - giving me the option to not even scroll down.)

The more simple that game page is, the better in my opinion. All the extra "junk" is good when you are not playing your games - not needed while you are playing your games.

BIG BAD WOLF: I say the more options he can give - the better - I fully understand and support your request - it sounds reasonable -

Id also like to suggest - in addition to being able to turn off the columns, being able to choose to keep the f/s listings and favorite discussion board listings column from the main page - on the game page as well - maybe a set of links at the top of the column to let you toggle back and forth if you wish - i like to stay in the games - moving from game to game - but if im involved in a conversation on the discussion boards - id like to see if the thread was updated without having to back to the main page - does that make any sense?

BIG BAD WOLF: if Fencer does put in a submit button above game boards I sure hope he makes it optional so you can turn it off. I like my game board as close to the top of the page as humanly possible and sure hope Fencer never puts anything above mine.

volant: Oh yes - an option for sure since I know some people like scrolling down past the board (checking the board to make sure their move is good) before submitting.

For me, as long as the board does not "shift" while the page loads, I've already looked at the board when I made my move - and ready to submit and move on.

If I know the submit button is going to be in the same spot every move, it would speed things up a lot - letting me put my mouse where the submit button will be and being able to click as soon as it loads - without first waiting for page to load, then scrolling down the page - then looking for the submit button - then finaly clicking on it.

Yes, Optional of course.

Can we have the "Move" button just below the player stats, but just above the message area?

BIG BAD WOLF: sounds very streamlined and efficient a great idea :)

BIG BAD WOLF: Like this?

Fencer:

I was a bit worried because I use the game notation a lot for only one type of game but the link at the top of the game page makes that easy.

I just finished a game  and chose "stay here" just to check and the archived game came up with both the new "Show game notation" link at the top as well as the right side column with "Game Notation (show)" in it.

BIG BAD WOLF: A not so great side effect is that now the "Main Page" doesn't have associated with it the red numbers where I could control how many games I still have to play, or click on to go to the game with least time left, like I used to.

pauloaguia: We are flexible.

TarantinoFan: Not anymore.

AbigailII: Use the new option "External style URL" on the Settings page.

pauloaguia: I compensate for that by having the move button with the drop box beside it. I have several different choices available to me but if you just had the one choice it shouldn't add too much to your load time.

Fencer: LOL. You beat me to it!

TarantinoFan: There's no option in that combo to go to the game with the least time left. I usually have my games sorted by time of last move and my main page sorted by time left. The red numbers use the sorting in the main page and the "goto next game" option uses my srting of last move time, so I'm happy.

Anyway, it's been "fixed" now, thanks Fencer

pauloaguia: On the settings page just under the 3 choices of style and main page options there is a choice of "Sort next game by" Set your choice to "time left" and click the ascending radio button and your "go to next move" will automatically go to the game with the least time left.

Why is the choice of "sort next game by" so far away from the list of options available. I messaged about on the BK.com board yesterday and then managed to find it after a conversation with hrqls. I really think they should be together as they really do relate to each other and the "sort next game by" really has nothing to do with main page options.

TarantinoFan: Please file it as a priority 5 bug.
Otherwise I will forget about it.

TarantinoFan: Thanks for the help, I know all that. I already have my settings the way I like them, thank you anyway.

I'm looking at having certain items in the right hide side column to be hidden. For instance, if you don't bother with labelling people, you will never have any friends that can be online, and you may want the 'Friends online' box in the RHS column to be hidden. But currently, this isn't easy to do - the box consists of a table with two rows. The class of the table is 'status-inner-space', but you cannot say "oh, I'll just set visibility for that class to hidden', because then other boxes will disappear as well. And while the 'Friends online' has a unique class ("status-friends-header"), the following 'none' is in the class ("menu-section"), which isn't unique either. Even '.status-inner-space.menu-section' isn't unique.

It would be useful if the tables forming the boxes in the RHS column (Date and time, Friends online, Favourite boards, Fellowships, Tip of the day) were inside DIV elements with unique class or id names.

AbigailII: Right, I agree.

Any chance of having the friends, boards, and f/s info column available as on option to display on the games page?

I do not know how easy/hard this would be to do. I asked a while ago on Feature about it but no one answered.
Its great not having the LHS column in games, and even faster without the RHS column game notation.
Virtually none of the information in the LH column is relevant while playing games but it would be nice if we could move some of the information from the RHS column (i.e. Friends online, and Fav Boards) into the LH column. That way we could happily play games and also keep an eye out for friends and Discussion boards without leaving games.
It sounds like a lot of code changing to me, but thought i would mention it

MadMonkey: I dont mind playing with either column - i like seeing all the info while in the game page....ive used the notation column occasionally, but id rather have the option to display the RH main page instead.....

Ok, now that everybody can include external stylesheets, everybody that would like to have the old style might set this option to "http://toedder.net/bk/brainking.css" to see if you are happy with it.

I didn't do everything 100% like it was before, but concentrated on the main issues like the color of the Main Page's lists and so on. It should be very familiar, even though I kept good changes that were made in the last time like the tabbed appearance on profile-, settings- and other pages.

Gordon Shumway: I am trying it now, it bring back memories lol

Seriously, its very good

Gordon Shumway: Good work.

Fencer: could we have somewhere stats of users of the diverse styles?

Active users only, of course. No point having the 40000 ghosts of brainking as users of the default castle style :)

rabbitoid: I will generate it when I am back.

Fencer, MadMonkey: Thank you

Gordon Shumway: well done! thanks!
(quite fast as well :))

please announce it on the brainking.com board as well

rabbitoid: Users who have been active in last 14 days.

Castle: 3572
Simple: 553
No fonts: 334

Fencer: good, I like being in the minority :)

Fencer: I wonder how many of those 3572 castle users have no idea you can change style (since castle is the default). Did you keep statistics of which styles people used in the past? If so, one can figure out how many of the castle users have actually tried out the other styles.

AbigailII: I don't keep this statistics and I don't it's worth analyzing the server access log files.

Hrqls: Thank you :)
I was just about to do that, but I am not sure. I thought and think it would be better and more trustful to have those user styles hosted on BrainKing.com instead of having them cluttered over various third party sites. At least styles that were so commonly requested like the classic BK theme. Otherwise many people would rely on my little site for this style, and if I once forgot to pay my bills, it might even be gone .

I think the option to link to external styles is great for testing them, and even for introducing them to the crowd, discuss and perhaps alter them, according to the critics you might get. But I don't think it would be too smart to use this method permanently for including custom styles.

But in the end, this is Fencer's decision and perhaps he can lighten our minds up: Do you plan to include those user committed styles in another way than by linking to them, i.e. might there be more options in the settings?

Gordon Shumway: Yes, I do. When a style is finished and works with no problems on all major web browsers (Firefox, IE 7, Opera), I will add it to the BrainKing repository and everyone will be able to set it on the Settings page.

AbigailII: It is done.

Gordon Shumway: *nod* sounds logical ..
i wont post the link on there either :) .. people interested will come to this board and find it here to test it and test their own preferences :)

Fencer: Great :)

I have a question about that: How will styles be maintained?

I tested mine with all 3 browsers you mentioned, and it seemed to work as intended on all of them. But today, you made some - reasonable - changes to the right hand column, which caused the text-align to be converted to center. I didn't understand it, but fixed it immediately. This was pretty easy because I still have direct access to my stylesheet and the changes are immediately available to everybody who uses the sheet. But if the style was hosted on BrainKing.com without me having access to it, such changes would have been made by you, meaning you had to check out every page in every style to be sure they all still work.

This seems to lead to the conclusion that the best would be to have some authoring system for stylesheets. In other words: that stylesheets, even after being included in the BrainKing style repository, would be maintained by either their author or some other maintainer.

Gordon Shumway: Yes, I know. The strategy is still being formulated. But I don't think there would be many changes to the CSS structure in the future.

But I don't think there would be many changes to the CSS structure in the future.
Well, here's a request for a small change :

On pages with "tabs" (like Profile, Settings or Statistics), could there be a class for the unselected tabs?
And while I'm at it, could the select tab be anything other than "shadow-table"?
And to really push it, could the options be DIV's instead of TD's?

Each of these options would help me make it nicer, but at least the first one would be very welcomed.

pauloaguia: It is done.

Fencer: Thank you