About the EqEmu website

[-=stealth=-]

I was wondering if anyone could tell me how to make those boxes like there are on the front page. Im assuming its something with java, but I was wondering two things.

1. What is the name of this sort of posting, where you can just type in a title and then whatever you want to say, kind of like a post on a forum but it is ont the website

2. What do you have to do using java or what program to get that on a website

If you still dont know what Im talking about here is what was in one of these boxes


Site Changes
Posted by: Rogean :: 0 Replies :: 37 Views

Comin Along.

A Few changes took effect today. I Re-Coded the entire site (Sorry Tux =D) and changed a bit of things around.

I Got the newsfeed working from the News Forum.

Changed the guides around a little. I Added merth's Setup Guide on 0.5.0 Servers. I Split the information from the bottom of the 4.4 setup to different catagories. (See Guides.)
More Stuff to Come~

For the 0.5.0 EQHost.txt, Click Here.
For 4.4 EQHost.txt, Click Here

Currently if you have patched on or after Aug 26th you are UNABLE to play on the 0.5.0 servers. (See post below).

-Rogean

[Saethan]

It's HTML coding(probably php for actually putting in the updates). Pretty simple to do. www.webmonkey.com is a good place to go for website coding help.

[Rogean]

As far as the news goes, The PHP Takes posts from the database of the forums and puts it in the proper format to post on the site.

The Boxes are made with Tables. They used to be made with divs when Tux Racer made them, but i re-coded it. The site is now a Big Table. First Cell is the Image on the top. Then the second cell are the Menu Boxes. The Menu's are made with div's.

<table width=100% border='0' cellspacing='0' cellpadding='0'>
<tr><td valign='top' align='left' colspan='3'>
<img src="logo.png" height=86 width=531>
</td></tr>
<tr>
<td width="35" valign='top' align='left'>
<div class="menus">
<div class="menu">Menu<br />
  - <a href="main.php" class="menus">News</a><br />
  - <a href="/forums/viewforum.php?f=26" class="menus">Faq</a><br />
  - <a href="guides.php" class="menus">Guides</a><br />
  - <a href="irc.php" class="menus">Irc Chat</a><br />
  - <a href="/forums/" class="menus">Forums</a><br />
</div>
etc etc up to
</div>
</td><td> </td><td width=100% valign='top' align='left'>
<? echo $out[body]; ?>
</div>
</td></tr></table>

[Rogean]

and the Divs:

div.menus {
float: left;
font-size: 10px;
font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;
}
.menu {
width: 100px;
color: white;
background: #1D2E47;
border: 1px solid #506076;
padding-bottom: 2px;
margin-bottom: 3px;
cursor: default;
}

Any more questions you can feel free to talk to me on the IRC Server (Rogean) Or PM Me.

[tuxracer]

The original design is all XHTML/CSS. I'm a CSS guru, so if you need help hit me up on irc.forever-hacking.net or Tux0Racer on AIM. You can see the design in its unmodified, table-free from at macroquest.sf.net. When you use divs and CSS, as apposed to tables, you can easily change the entire layout just by editing the stylesheet. You can also provide alternative stylesheets (as I have done). So far the ones I've provided only change the color scheme and size. But you could easily change the entire layout thanks to the use of divs and CSS.

From a programming standpoint my approach is similar to having all of the settings and preferences of a program be stored in an ini file that can be changed at will, as apposed to having everything hard coded into the program.

[Rogean]

heh, I can change the whole layout of the site, colors, etc, as well.

[tuxracer]

Using your method it would be possible, however it would be a fairly elaborate process. I can change the entire layout of the site by just editing no more than three or four lines of the stylesheet. It's a very straightforward process. When you use tables you basically lock the design in place, and to dramatically change the layout you'd have to re-arrange things quite a bit. Also, when stylesheets are used, the client has a lot more control over the design as well. Which may not seem important on the surface, however as web access starts becoming available on more devices (e.g. cell phones, PDAs, watches, etc) the usefulness starts to show through. This is actually one of the main purposes for CSS, though I like to use it for other reasons (e.g. simplicity). A cell phone, say, can take a site that has a pure CSS layout and ignore the stylesheets and just download the data contained on the site, and from there format it in the best way for a 2x2inch screen ;). I am not aware of any mainstream devices that take advantage of this currently, however as CSS becomes more prevalent you'll start to see devices taking advantage of this. A good example of a mainstream site is wired.com, that is a completely table-free pure CSS layout.

http://www.meyerweb.com/eric/css/edge/ has some good info.

[Rogean]

Tux, The site right now is as customizable as it was when you made it, maybe even more.

[tuxracer]

I agree that it may be as customizable, but as I said, I can dramatically change the layout by editing a few lines of a stylesheet. Using your method would require a fairly elaberate re-arrangement of all of the markup, as everything is locked in seperate tables. So you would essencially have to write entirely new layouts and call the data in their via php using your method. With CSS you can write everything once, and just change a few lines of the stylesheet if you wish to change anything. As apposed to going in and re-arranging all of the markup into the correct tables and whatnot to accomplish the layout you are looking for.

I can be done, it's just less time consuming using CSS :). It is also much simper. I also feel that it scales a lot better, and the folks at wired.com seem to agree. <font>, < b >, < i >, etc... tags are depriciated. They are not even present in the XHTML 2.0 spec.

[Rogean]

Tux, I dont think you noticed, but i am still using the table divs. The whole site isnt in tables, its just one table holding the divs together Without the absolute positions that the divs are using. So i can, as well, "Dramatically" change anything i want with editing a few lines.

[tuxracer]

I see. Well I prefer the clean, standard compliant markup of XHTML/CSS. As apposed to hacked up HTML with php thrown in the mix. http://validator.w3.org/check?uri=http%3A%2F%2Fmacroquest.sourceforge.net% 2F :wink:

[tuxracer]

http://www.codemonkeyx.net/news/archives/2003/8/25/the_benifits_of_css :wink: