NineChime forum

OK, I'll get Wacintaki then, since I thought those features were also added to Wax.  Thanks!  And I DO know CSS just fine.  I built a page with custom image borders using tables ... which can be entirely controlled through CSS.  Just replace the images with whatever you want, adjust the dimensions, load the new css file, and wala, you can easily change around to use anything you want... even plain old css without images if you so choose.  Seriously, tables shouldn't be condemned to being used just to make a table of data... which you see in about ... well, I've only seen that as the use in like 6 websites, not counting any forum.  Tables are too flexible and useful to be condemned to just that.

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Have you ever tried contacting Shi-Chan?  I got ahold of her once and found out how you load animations into paintchat V2.  These programs are so old and have to be updated again with modern stuff. ^_^;  Wish I knew how to do that myself.  I'm surprised the source for this free program hasn't been released for others to use.  Open sourcing is great, and she can still be attributed to creating it, so... yeah.  The program's too popular and well known for anyone to be able to rip it off as their own without getting caught.

Anyway, just throwing out ideas.

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I know about OC and kinda hate that one because for me, the way it draws isn't smooth at all... it's like circles being pasted every few pixels to draw lines.  I even created an animation and sent to a friend and as far as I can tell, it doesn't do that to him, from what he says.  Also, it doesn't have anywhere near the stuff shi has.

Haven't looked at the other...

I KNOW there is a way to do it, because shi-paintchat (v3) and paintchat v2 BOTH save animation files just fine entirely through java.  I get them and reload, load in shipainter, other stuff all the time, or I used to when I had a big paintchat group.  So there Is a way without installing a server, I know...  Just some way to get the data from the java buffer, or whatever the place is the data is held at.  It also reloads the picture animation data from cache if you close the page and reopen it and reload shipainter.
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One last question...  Would it be possible for me to rearrange some things in wacintaki to modify the look a bit?  Not css, just where some things are placed and how.  I might look into it later sometime after I learn more php... all I can do anything with that for now is include and require.  I'm trying to design my site so each part looks like it really belongs to the site, looks, design, and all.  Of course your info would be left alone at the bottom, I wouldn't try to take credit for that.  I might add that the setup was modified by me, but that's all, and might post it here if it looks good.  Sound ok?

EDIT:  Oh yeah... I also wondered what kind of cpu load wacintaki has.  I'm setting up at a host that has quad zeon processors with a whole bunch of other accounts, though they allow galleries and forums and stuff.  But, they don't allow vBulletin because it uses too much cpu power.  I honestly can't imagine this would use that much.

And last, but not least, is CGI required to use this?  I saw it referenced in the help file, but it isn't listed in your requirements.  I have to purchase CGI seperate if it is... and that's grouped with Perl and Python support.

Last edited by DC (10-18-2007 21:10:16)

Actually, the site I'm on has perl, python, cgi, etc all installed.  By buying seperate, I mean, they charge a $10 one time fee for life on the account you want it activated for in order for you to have access to use the scripts and stuff.

I guess the question of if it needs cgi activated to work is probably a no, because I got it installed last night, drew a test pic with animation and looked at the animation, and it posted and ran just fine.  Just that it took slightly longer than normal to load, but it seems that happens for any file on that server.  It just takes them longer than normal for the file to be fetched, but it sends over the net fast.  They are hosting tons of accounts, so, it makes sense if that's why it takes a bit.

I'm using my own bag of tricks to tone down file size without losing a thing in what I want to do on my site.  Even used css "spriting" to make my image borders.  I stuck all vertical images into a single file, all horizontal into a single file, all of outside corners into a single file, and all inside corners into a single file.  Then I used width and height css to dictate the widths and heights for the table cells used for the borders and corners, set the background images placing them where they need to be to loo right using background positioning, and walla, complete css controlled image borders that uses only 4 images to show 8 different corners, and 8 sets of borders.  Oh, and since it only loads 4 images to do the whole thing, it all loads hella fast.

Got the whole idea from a tutorial that showed how to use what they called css spriting to make the image rollovers on image links without having to load a new image to show the rollover image.  It works great, and cuts file sizes by using 1 color table for 4 images in 1 file.  It's all win-win.  And it's auto resizing ability makes it stretch to encompass whatever you stick in it by itself, and you can make it any width you want, too.  Here's a test preview of it in action, if you wanna check it out.  The borders themselves load fast once the server start getting those, but the rest of the page stuff has to load first.
http://dchronos.110mb.com/dchangout/index.html

Anyway, I kinda hoped shipainter was the one to get updated... and paintchat.  Really, there's some bugs still, and there's probably newer scripts to simplify some of the code in shi-painter.  A friend asked the same question I'd wondered, though I have no idea if this has been taken on yet or not, and that's how come noone else has tried yet to make a new one?  If she did those without a crack team of java experts, then anyone who can program it has to be able to as well.  Hmm...  Well, I wanted to learn java sometime after I learned php, mysql, and maybe delving a bit into perl to see how that works.  I'd love to have the ability to update the program.  It works on any OS, so that's what makes it such a good program.  And very small for what it does.  Paintchat, too.  A lot of my friends have a blast together in my pchat.

Also, Shi does have trouble with english, as you guessed.  If you wanna try, try to simplify what you ask so a translator can get it mostly right.  Could play around with google translator if you wanted, too.  I would like to ask, too, or get a group of people that would ask in a petition kind of thing to show how many people there are that would like to see this happen, and how many people actually love her program.


OK.  I had one more thing to ask...  I read in your wax poteto description that you gave shi painter a custom cursor... and I was wondering how the heck you did.  I would like to set a crosshair or outline only arrow you can see mostly through as the cursor for a looong time, since sometimes the cursor covers where you are drawing to and you can't see it until it gets out from under the cursor.  I tried using css to set a cursor on the applet and using a div around it with css, and only goit a cursor on everything that wasn't on the applet.  How'd you do that, or is it not what I'm thinking?  I did, however, find the java code to use to give a script a set cursor.  You'd have to correctly break the program apart and insert it, then recreate the executable jar file, or have the source and do the same, though.

Holy crap, no kidding?  That's it??  DAMN, where did you find that out at, anyway?  I never saw that info.

Also, I am loving wacintaki and some things I can already do, especially with using css right in the banner and announcement edit boxes. <^o^>

I have a few things, though... I'd like there to be an option to adjust the max file size allowed for avatars, and is there something that can adjust the max dimensions of an image before it is automatically made into a thumbnail, along with that max file size option?  Trying to cut images shown from 90Kb for something simple that should really save with a smaller file size even with excellent or no loss quality down to a thumb that's only 20kb, and if someone wishes to take a closer look, they can.

At least, I would like something for the max width and height allowed before it will make it a thumbnail.  I'd like to set it up so comments always wrap around the images without turning the area for the image into the full width of the screen with comment 1 under it, but still not squishing comments too much.

And one last thing, in something I remember seeing... I think I might try to make a template in some way that sets up the data so the images are on the right side with comments wrapping, so all the starting points of comments are aligned on the left side.  Easier reading, and it might look nicer in some formats.  It's gonna take some playing, though.  I need to find something that will let HomeSite parse certain visual php and show the page how it should be in php.  I've seen some info about that existing.

Thanks again for all your hard work on this!  Good luck with that new board from scratch!

EDIT:  Oh, yeah, there's 2 things about cursors... where is the center of the cursor aligned at... I mean, the tip of the pointer is the center, so where on the image (0px x 0px?) is the tip of the pointer/center of the crosshair supposed to be?  And second, do I just drop it into the same directory that shi-painter is in?

I'm gonna play around and might figure it out, but thanks for any help anyway!

Another edit:
Your cursor doesn't even attempt to show up as far as I'm seeing...  I start a new pic, and it just keeps the regular plain shadowed cursor from XP.  I don't even see the cursor image showing up under the regular cursor.  Any idea what's going on here?  I do have both Java 5 and 6 installed, if that's any help.  I installed 5 because paintchat v2 was not loading with java 6... though I still haven't tried it yet after reinstalling version 5 update 12 or whatever the latest was.

Last edited by DC (10-20-2007 01:24:42)

OK, if your code down there means if the long side is greater than (width), then make large thumbnail equals yes... then couldn't I just set that value, have an else thing thrown in under (if it needs to be), then take width and make it a variable that I can add into the control panel?  That way, I can just set 1 variable so that, if an image is larger than the variable I set on any side, it will make a thumbnail?

Also, I could swear I saw code somewhere in an oekaki board that used something like "if x side > width, then make thumb" and same for y.  It might have been right in the code for the shipainter help file, too.  I know I've seen it before, though.
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As far as comments wrapping around the image, I was just referring to having it make thumbnails for larger images instead of letting wide images push the comments under the image instead of wrapping... which would be taken care of with a maximum width variable before making a thumbnail.
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Thanks for the cursor info, though I see it's there (a circle of dots kinda like a gun sight in a game), and is in that folder, and I didn't change anything except what I was told to when I installed the latest Wacintaki.  It still shows as a mouse cursor for everyone on my board, too.
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Anyway, I have something I'd like to do with your control panel, as someone else had mentioned.  Use tabs for the options that show and hide things depending on which tab you click on.  It's a nice trick used at Newegg for it's extras panel, where everything is coded into the page, and clicking the tabs hides the other stuff and shows what value of the tab you clicked is.  If this works out, would you like the code I used to make it?

As far as changing things goes, for the moment, I don't plan much on editing the actual text used... I just might change the position of some things.  If someone selects a language, all the text should still change to what it is.  Though, I might edit the English text itself a bit, though when language is selected, it would look the same for whatever language is chosen, wouldn't it?

Anyway, I don't really plan on having anyone that doesn't understand English there, since everyone I know that's coming understands it fine.  If anything, I would have preferred a version of Wacintaki that had the alternate language options and files taken out with the English text in each php file where it shows up in the page.  I visit Japanese sites and boards and don't expect to understand the text, but will use Google translator if I have to, but I can tell what the functions do be seeing the link names.

Thanks very much for your help, Waccoon.  Oh, and one last thing I almost forgot, is there a file size limit placed on avatars, and if so, what would that be?  I'd like to set either 10 or 15 Kb, possibly 20 if I can, and state that somewhere.  A member said there was a limit, but there is nothing stating a limit in the avatar part in profiles.

Tanks again!

Last edited by DC (10-21-2007 14:54:09)

"Oh, so now you want to add JavaScript to the equation, right?  wink

I personally prefer a sidebar to tabs."

Well, since I'm the only one using it and I use javascript, it would be fine.  But also, they could be made into php includes for each section.  How about that for an easy way to set it up?

And, I'm not entirely sure what you mean about the java caching thing... I haven't tried doing anything to the image that came with Wacintaki yet, and I wonder how it affects everyone using shipainter with the same thing: they just don't see the custom cursor, even the default one that I haven't touched.

Anyway, thanks!