Amiga.org
Amiga computer related discussion => Amiga community support ideas => Topic started by: Cammy on April 13, 2010, 11:50:10 AM
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Hello everyone. I will get straight to the point. We really need the help of someone who can program an IBrowse/AWeb-compatible forum for us. The forum is not intended to compete with or detract from Amiga.org or any other general Amiga forum, it will be focused entirely on game development for Amiga systems. A few years ago we had our Underground Arcade forum where many of us could come together and discuss our game ideas, help each other out, and we were actually making progress! Then suddenly the host for our site was gone, and we lost everything. Ever since, we have barely gotten any work done on these projects, and I feel that if we had a forum again that was open for all people interested in games development for Amiga, we would finally get back to work again!
My fellow Amiga game developers and enthusiasts agree, if we just have a place we can get our work done we'd see results so much sooner.
Please reply if you can help us, or if you support the idea of a site and forum dedicated to developing new games for Amigas. Please don't reply if you don't like the idea, we're going to do it whether you like it or not. There's no point trying to change my mind, there is no better option for us if we want more games on the Amiga, we must have a NEW forum, and it MUST be IBrowse/AWeb compatible, which means no CSS.
A new forum has the best chance of avoiding loyalty/bias issues some people might have with current forums.
Please, I don't want to have to endlessly reply to this topic having to explain all the reasons why we need this forum, we just do. If you don't understand why, please don't reply, just ignore the thread and move on. We just need someone who can program this forum and set it up for us to moderate, and you will be rewarded with new Amiga games to play made by a united world-wide Amiga community.
The forum will eventually be accompanied by a website filled with game development and programming resources and a front-end for people to visit and download the games we make.
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Were you just looking for someone to setup the forum/software or do you also need somewhere to host it?
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We have had offers from a few fellow Amiga users to host and register the domain for us, but I'm not sure if the offer still stands. In any case I think we could find someone to offer hosting for the site, and hopefully convince the current holder of the domain name to transfer it to the new site.
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Can you not find a snapshot of an older version of xoops?
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http://www.filefront.com/listing/pub2/XOOPS
Has afew releases, not sure how far back you would need to go to get a compatible version...
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I wrote one from scratch for hivelytracker.com. I could let you have a copy of the code, but I don't know if I could commit to supporting it.
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http://www.filefront.com/listing/pub2/XOOPS
Has afew releases, not sure how far back you would need to go to get a compatible version...
just keep in mind that some older versions might not be php5 compatible. this might be an issue if the server you use has php5 and don't offer php4.
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Using an older version of Xoops would very likely have the same issues AO had. That being, the hosting service using or upgrading to PHP5 and the older Xoops version not being compatable with PHP5.
There should be no problem finding an up to date current solution. The hard work would be in modifying all the display templates to be HTML 4 only. Mostly busy work running down all the templates and not missing one. Though there are just plain simple forums that would reduce this issue.
As for hosting, I'd like to recomend Valhalla-Computers.net. I've had no issues with them and any problems I've had they have worked with me to solve them.
http://valhalla-computers.net/freedom-1-hosting-plan-p-1.html
Do you know what forum package was used previously? That might be a good starting point.
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Unfortunately our older forum wasn't IBrowse compatible, which was one of the problems with it to begin with.
So I guess which forum package we choose would depend on the server? I can't afford to pay for hosting myself so I have to rely on someone to provide a host for us to use.
I have checked the HivelyTracker forum and it does indeed work in IBrowse, but I was wondering if such features as avatars, attachments and more user information like location would be supported or could be added? Also, what would the host server require to run a forum like this?
It would be nice if the forum was attractive as well as functional, I'd especially like to be able to change table colours and backgrounds so when our website is designed, we can make the forum match the design.
Thanks for replying everyone!
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@Argo
The PHP5 problems wouldn't be so bad if they could get hosting on a dedicated server somewhere, but that'll be expensive.
A few years ago we had our Underground Arcade forum where many of us could come together and discuss our game ideas, help each other out, and we were actually making progress! Then suddenly the host for our site was gone, and we lost everything.
Do you have anything of the old site? Even if all you have is a database dump, I've gained some experience over the years in migrating data from one system to another.
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Unfortunately there's nothing left! The person who offered us hosting for the forum forgot about it and the whole site was wiped. The new forum will have to start fresh, but my head is still bursting with ideas to start discussing, and I'll post about our ongoing projects too.
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If you wanted to use the code from hivelytracker.com, you just need PHP and MySQL (PHP4 or 5 is fine).
Avatars etc. would have to be added from scratch. Making a new theme is probably really easy, since all the styling is contained in a few PHP functions.
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Unfortunately there's nothing left! The person who offered us hosting for the forum forgot about it and the whole site was wiped. The new forum will have to start fresh, but my head is still bursting with ideas to start discussing, and I'll post about our ongoing projects too.
maybe one of these packages can help. http://www.forummatrix.org/
not familiar with most of these.
if you want to check compatibility i have xoops 2.3.3 installed here
http://www.bloodfire.exofire.net/Elites/ the guild associated with it is dead now.
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This has a simple enough layout that it works with Amiga browsers..
http://www.discusware.com/products/freeware.html
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Suprised this thread hasn't mysteriously vanished.
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Suprised this thread hasn't mysteriously vanished.
Really, why is that?
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What makes you think it hasn't?
Suprised this thread hasn't mysteriously vanished.
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@Argo
The PHP5 problems wouldn't be so bad if they could get hosting on a dedicated server somewhere, but that'll be expensive.
I figured cost would be an issue and dedicated server hosting would not be an option. Which is why I recommended the host I use.
One time $50 for lifetime hosting.
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So, is it a figment of our imagination that it's still here?
@Cammy
Developing a new forum from scratch would be pretty time consuming. Creating a non-css template for an existing forum engine would seem to be a more sensible idea. Alas, that can also be a bit feature-restrictive. CSS isn't just used for presentation but in conjunction with javascript is used to implement a lot of features that you might take for granted.
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I figured cost would be an issue and dedicated server hosting would not be an option. Which is why I recommended the host I use.
One time $50 for lifetime hosting.
It's real a long shot, but I wonder if the powers that be at amigaworld.net would let them have a subdomain on their dedicated box (or at least last time I checked they were using a virtual server) ? Then they can use an older version of xoops that's nice and ibrowse-friendly.
Not much to lose by asking; they can only say no, at the end of the day.
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Cammy,
Are you talking about this site?
http://www.underground-arcade.com/index.php
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@Cammy
I talked over similar idea just after I joined, a year ago plus. I mean making this very site fully compliant with AWeb/IBrowse etc. I can dig it out if you want.
Anyway my advice to you would be, as I already pointed at that time:
- use some CMS that fits your needs (well most should do)
- also a CMS that matches hosting technologies including version compatibility
- but pick the CMS that supports mobile
- then define AWeb, IBrowse and others as some cell phones in terms of content they can accept
- then enter AWeb user agent(s)
Voila!
This is tricky but while it's done, it fits all needs I suppose.
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Thank you for the suggestions, guys! I have tested out these forums in IBrowse, and while they do seem to work, there is no colour anywhere because I guess the CSS would add that.
I hope you will forgive my unfamiliarity with forum software, I have had no experience with this kind of programming before, I only know basic HTML. I understand that starting a new forum isn't the most basic task, and I was hoping that someone who reads this and already knows how to program one might offer to help. Although I could probably take the time to learn PHP and those other things myself, it could take me months and to be honest I would prefer to continue to learn Amiga programming and hopefully rely on someone else to program the forum for us. I hope you don't think this is selfish, I'm not used to asking for help. I'm certainly not asking for help from anyone who doesn't have the time, or anyone who thinks I am a scab. I'm just hoping someone out there who can program a suitable forum and wants to help the entire Amiga community by setting one up for us might offer to do it for us so we can continue with our Amiga programming.
One of our fellow Amiga game developers registered the Underground Arcade domain and set up a basic website on it for us a couple of years ago. Unfortunately it doesn't display right on Amiga browsers, and we hoped to replace it with a new website that I would probably code myself from HTML for maximum compatibility if I ever got around to it. Hopefully if we can arange hosting for the new site and forum, we'll be able to transfer the domain name over, but as you can see there is no forum on the old site at the moment.
The forum we want needs to have avatar support and coloured tables that work in Amiga browsers. Here is a website forum which works perfectly in IBrowse and looks the same as it does through OWB/Opera/Firefox - http://totalchaoseng.dbv.pl
If we could get something like this set up, that's all we'd need! I emailed the webmaster a few months ago to ask if he was interested in helping out but never got a reply.
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@Cammy
Most CMS use template based systems. The templates are small bits of code in separate files that represent the actual structure of the pages and the content (from your database, image files etc) is inserted into it to generate the final HTML, which is then sent to your browser.
A complete set of templates usually comprises a theme. It ought to be possible to create one which uses old HTML attributes in the template markup to set colours and such and strip out as much of the CSS as possible. You don't need to rewrite the whole CMS, thankfully.
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http://totalchaoseng.dbv.pl
If we could get something like this set up, that's all we'd need!
Looks like you can get that forum software here: http://www.php-fusion.co.uk/downloads.php
Since it's already written and free, getting it running shouldn't be a big deal (been years since I ran a forum myself, good old YaBB...)
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@Cammy
A complete set of templates usually comprises a theme. It ought to be possible to create one which uses old HTML attributes in the template markup to set colours and such and strip out as much of the CSS as possible. You don't need to rewrite the whole CMS, thankfully.
My point is, when you use a CMS that supports mobile, you merely create anything like template. You only force content to some compact form (i.e. HTML only) by picking proper cellphone "generation" (there's just several of them and all should be defined). And then you bind it with an ambiguous user agent that can of course, be other browser.
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My point is, when you use a CMS that supports mobile, you merely create anything like template. You only force content to some compact form (i.e. HTML only) by picking proper cellphone "generation" (there's just several of them and all should be defined). And then you bind it with an ambiguous user agent that can of course, be other browser.
No, I got that. However, most of those templates aren't necessarily that great for fullscreen browsing and they usually contain "clean" (or cleanish) HTML, free from the old HTML2/3 formatting stuff that iBrowse and the like actually use for presentation.
Either way, you are going to have to do some customisation by hand, whether you choose a mobile template to start with or not.
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Or you could just install vbulletin and I'll give you a copy of the proxy code :-)
Slight issue with that being that vbulletin isn't free and the proxy is, well, incomplete to say the least.
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I can do it. Would love to do something for the amiga gaming community.
I can do it in php, asp, .NET what ever..
Mail me if you are still looking
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Why not just set up a telnet bbs with a "message door"?
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The forum we want needs to have avatar support and coloured tables that work in Amiga browsers. Here is a website forum which works perfectly in IBrowse and looks the same as it does through OWB/Opera/Firefox - http://totalchaoseng.dbv.pl
If we could get something like this set up, that's all we'd need! I emailed the webmaster a few months ago to ask if he was interested in helping out but never got a reply.
i looked at the website and it looks like this (http://www.php-fusion.co.uk/infusions/features/index.php) is the package they used.
some themes for this package is here (http://themes.php-fusion.co.uk/infusions/theme_database/index.php)
also this (http://x10hosting.com/) is the hosting company i used. they host for free as long as you login to their forums every so often.
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Why not just set up a telnet bbs with a "message door"?
I like this idea, but then I'm biased as I run a telnet bbs d;) Easy to connect to now with flash connect through a browser or just using a telnet client i.e. syncterm.
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The problem is the CSS, I've had it drummed into my head for longer than I can remember that in-line code is BAD BAD BAD NAUGHTY EVIL and that we should always use CSS.
Truth be told, it is far easier to write with CSS once you get the hang of it and I can't really think of how to do a proper CMS without it. So you'd have to use old code and PHP 4 is dying. Many servers are removing it. I removed it from my servers a long time ago and I wasn't the first.
There really should be a retro CMS that sticks to the old rules, but I've never heard of one.
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What is that one forum setup that uses newBB?
is that a part of Xoops?
There is an Amiga forum that uses that and works with IBrowse right?
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Is this forum any good for compatibility?
http://forums.bizhat.com/hosted-phpbb-forum-support/
Bizhat offer free forum hosting and it's really easy to admin/setup (did one last year)
If not, excuse my technical ignorance about what is/isn't useful :)
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What is that one forum setup that uses newBB?
is that a part of Xoops?
yea that is available for xoops. my site uses a variation of that package called cbb.
it is the theme used that might not show well.
the different forum packages are here (http://www.xoops.org/modules/repository/viewcat.php?cid=20)
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It seems like newBB would be a solid choice for minimal flair, maximum functionality.
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I'd be happy to provide hosting. Faceless commercial hosting companies just give you a poorly set up, lowest common denominator environment with limited flexibility, and most people who say they do hosting are reselling someone else's hosting or are using a "dedicated server". We, on the other hand, host our own machines in our own rack with our own allocation of IPs and a dedicated upstream gigabit connection, so we're 100% in control of everything that goes on. Very different.
I've been hosting since the mid 1990s, and some of the people who started then still have their same accounts now. You wouldn't have to worry about all your data mysteriously disappearing when the GNU/Linux box at that faceless hosting company gets rooted or when you forget to pay your bill for a month.
I'm a supporter of the Amiga community, too, so I'd be happy to help.
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Thank you for all the advice, everyone! Thankfully Yssing has stepped up to the challenge to make the forum for us, and currently we have some hosting provided which we'll be testing out to see if the PHP-Fusion package works on it.
Although the idea of a BBS is kinda cool in an oldschool way, I think a regular web forum might be more familiar for most people to use.
Johnklos, if the server we're using doesn't turn out to be sufficient, I'd love to take up your offer for hosting. Out of curiousity, could you tell us more about your server?
We're just working out the particular sections and settings the forum will need at the moment. If anyone has any suggestions for areas which an Amiga games development forum might require, let us know. We'll probably continue to fine-tune the forum once it's up, but it would be nice to have it laid out well for everyone to jump in and use straight away.
Ideally we will have both public and private sections of the forum, because there are still a few developers who like to keep their projects under wraps at least until they're happy with the direction it's going, and others might just have some ideas they'd like to keep a secret for a while first. So the private section would be for developers only, and the other sections will be accessible to all forum users and readable by guests.
As well as adding a section where people can ask for help with games, and maybe a section for our open-source game maker engine once it gets started, this is what I've come up with for the forum so far. Please feel free to suggest better names or organisation than this, I'd prefer keep the forum more grouped together, less redundant, and we don't need any off-topic area.
Underground Arcade Forum
News & Announcements
-New Releases
-Coming Soon
-Competitions and contests (Like the Christmas and Retro Remix contests I tried to run)
Development (This section would only be accessible by developers, not the general public)
-Current projects
-Coding help
-Sound and Music
-Graphics and Design
-Ideas and concepts
Discussion
-Game related
-General Amiga topics (Not sure about this, I just added it to fill space for now)
-Feedback, suggestions and ideas
Resources (This part is for links to free sound, music, graphics and source code, tutorials and guides)
-Programming
-Graphics
-Sound
-Other
That's what I've come up with so far anyway. Thanks again for all the help you guys!
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Any news on this ? I'm pretty much constantly tinkering away making one classic game or another and this sort of forum would be quite useful.
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I'm not quite sure what's happening with the forum, but I've started pre-writing a bunch of posts for new threads I'm going to start once it's running. I've got years worth of game ideas in my head waiting to get out, and I'd really like to start discussing things like how to make the most of the chipset when making games, and talking about the limitations of each system.
I guess we'll just have to wait and see :)
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I'm not quite sure what's happening with the forum, but I've started pre-writing a bunch of posts for new threads I'm going to start once it's running. I've got years worth of game ideas in my head waiting to get out, and I'd really like to start discussing things like how to make the most of the chipset when making games, and talking about the limitations of each system.
I guess we'll just have to wait and see :)
Whats the word!
still itching to hear about the cross platform platformer.
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We have a bunch of programmers, graphic artists and musicians lined up and waiting to get into the forum, but we still need to find someone who can program it for us, remembering that it can't use CSS so that it's compatible with IBrowse.
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Hi Cammy,
The forum software used on http://www.NATAMI.net is relative simple but is works fine without CSS.
Its very slim, loads fast and and displays fully correct on any AMIGA browser too.
If the forum meets your needs we could certainly help you with it.
Cheers
Gunnar
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Hi Gunnar!
The Natami forum does indeed work perfectly in IBrowse, I read it on my A1200 every day, even if I haven't had much of a chance to post yet, sorry. I promise to introduce myself there soon.
I would be honoured if you could help us with our own forum. I was wondering if it would be possible to have avatars? I know they're not used on the Natami forum, but I'm not sure if that is by choice or a limitation of the forum software. I hope that we can have avatars on the Underground Arcade forum, I think they're cute and help me remember people.
We also seem to have lost our domain and old website, and I'm not sure if any of the offers to host and register our site for us still stand.
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Hi Gunnar!
We also seem to have lost our domain and old website, and I'm not sure if any of the offers to host and register our site for us still stand.
We have our own servers for hosting the website, hosting bug-trackers and development repositories.
I'll ask Thomas if its ok to co-host your stuff too.
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How about having an area in a BBS to discuss your venture?
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Forget about this, we're not going to do it any more.
Stupid idea has been cursed for years.
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We have a bunch of programmers, graphic artists and musicians lined up and waiting to get into the forum, but we still need to find someone who can program it for us, remembering that it can't use CSS so that it's compatible with IBrowse.
Without meaning to sound glib, you have programmers lined up but nobody among them that has any web application experience?
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Yeah, crazy as it sounds, they specialise in Blitz Basic, AmigaE and things but no one knows PHP. Anyway we don't need an Amiga games development forum anymore so it doesn't matter.
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Yeah, crazy as it sounds, they specialise in Blitz Basic, AmigaE and things but no one knows PHP.
Unfortunate. In my experience, most programmers end up knowing several languages and PHP is syntactically not a million miles from C.
Anyway we don't need an Amiga games development forum anymore so it doesn't matter.
Pity. I take it you have an alternative?
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No, I just think it's time to lay the idea to rest and move on.
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What prevents anyone from writing a web forum in Blizz Basic or Amiga E btw? It's not like PHP is the only language of the web, to put it mildly :)
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What prevents anyone from writing a web forum in Blizz Basic or Amiga E btw? It's not like PHP is the only language of the web, to put it mildly :)
CGI binaries can be written in just about anything, but I suspect you'd want to use something that can produce valid binaries for your chosen server.