Sigs....

[JAG]

Is it possible at all to let us have a few more charactors for our sigs. It seems amazing to me that while people are allowed HUGE pictures in sigs which take up a lot of room and time in loading, people who want to put a saying of more than a few lines or a short - yes short, not talking huge ones here - poem are unable to do so due to the very restrictive 500 charactors. This, may I add, is also charactors WITH spaces, not without, so it is not even as if this is as big as it seems.

Is it possible for those who want to get a point across which is just as distinct and worthy as pictures in sigs get given the chance? These also will not only take up less room than the picture sigs, which are allowed at the moment, but also will not hinder loading onto computers like the pictures. Please could we be given a bit more lee-way in what we can put in our sig - word wise.

[Kaiser of Arabia]

i concur, i want more than 500 chars!

[Silver Rusher]

Yeah, I think that if it's possible on VB it should be a limit of 1,000 with only a few small pics allowed. (I only have one pic in my sig, a banner...)

[Louis de la Ferte Ste Colombe]

In my opinion, sigs are already way too lax... some topics look like slide show of sig. I'd really like the current rules about sigs to be enforced.

1 pic of very small size, and enough characters for a small poem, haiku style. No more. Make your point with limited means.

Louis,

[Tricky Lady]

One more reason to permanently hide the sigs. I'm glad that this is an option.

[JAG]

So... Tosa any chance of more charactors for sigs?

[therother]

I don't think we want threads being taken up with long text signatures either. There are tight restrictions on the dimensions (not just the file size) of signature pictures; if you have a 20-line poem as your signature, it will take up much more room than a picture 150 pixels in height. I suppose there could be a line restriction on signatures, but that would work against the use of longer poems, no?

I currently have signatures on, as I have a fast connection, and I like to see them. But if they start to take up more vertical room than the posts themselves, then more people like myself will feel compelled to turn them off, which would be a shame.

[TosaInu]

Hello,

VB doesn't offer a line restriction as far as I know.

I think that the regulations about signature pictures are both clear and fair. Yet, we already see pictures not matching those rules, not by a small margin but 10's or even 100's k bigger.

Allowing 500+ chars in signatures will offer the ability to create sigs with both huge pictures and huge text. More people will be forced to turn off this extra dimension.

I'ld be willing to look into this if people gave some thoughts about other users.

[therother]

VB doesn't offer a line restriction as far as I know.

Well, in v2 it was possible via various hacks, IIRC. Perhaps they didn't add the feature for the new version - can't check as the official site seems to be down at the moment. Not a great advertisement for their products!

[Mouzafphaerre]

-
Can my query about table tags help? IMHO if we had tables pics and text could coexist in adjacent coloumns saving vertical space.


_

[The_Emperor]

Wow another Sig topic to follow mine...

Personally I agree that signatures are currently rather lax. For my part I have tried to keep the file size down and the text as short as possible.

It would be great if we could have some file size restrictions though.

[TosaInu]

Mouzafphaerre .. the coin hits the lever Worth looking at this. Table tags are a dangerous thing for forum layout though.

Checking filesize would be nice.

[therother]

It would be great if we could have some file size restrictions though.

It appears that Jelsoft haven't integrated that many tools for controlling signatures (both text and images) as yet.

The hacker community is still as active as ever though, and there are a number of mods for this area, ranging from fairly crude to quite elegant (and complex) solutions. This one (home site) seems to be widely acknowledged as the most promising solution for restricting both signature dimension and file size -- as well as a few secondary benefits -- but it seems to have one or two known issues.

Of course, all this is dependent on a number of factors, not least the amount of time our esteemed administrator can spend on the inevitable road testing any mod before putting it live.

[Mouzafphaerre]

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Mouzafphaerre .. the coin hits the lever Worth looking at this. Table tags are a dangerous thing for forum layout though.

Could limiting the table width to a certain size or a certain percentage of the allocated message be possible, they would be harmless, obedient tags.


_

[Louis VI the Fat]

... some topics look like slide show of sig.

1 pic of very small size, and enough characters for a small poem, haiku style. No more. Make your point with limited means.

Louis.

I concur.

Louis IV.

[TosaInu]

The problem is that table tags tend to affect the look of the forum layout (forget to use the closing tag).

Thanks for the link therother. The host will have to change the PHP configuration. I'm currently occupied with another hack. I think you'll see it soon.

[Templar Knight]

why do people need huge sig pics anyway?

[Admintestc3]

Post.

[Kaiser of Arabia]

599.992 posts!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!1111111oneoneoneoneshift+1shift+1shift+1shift+1
[Capslock]OH MY GOD[/capslock]
-Capo

[TosaInu]

AdminTest is an account I use to check things. The postcount is edited.

[Kraellin]

i'm against large text sigs for one simple reason; every time i see a certain person's text sig, i keep thinking this is a new post, plus he already has a sig pic as well. it's just too much. most every forum i visit you are limited to one or maybe two lines and no sig pic. now, we dont have to follow the crowd, that's true. but, it does get to be beyond a reasonable amount somewhere around 4 or 5 lines, and even that's pretty generous.

also bear in mind that every sig line and pic adds to overall 'weight' of the Org and we've already had to cut posts because of some cap which seems to exist either with this board or with the server we are on. so, do you want larger sigs and see your posts cut more often, or do we use a little conservation and save the whale :)

K.

[therother]

During my trawl of vBulletin hacks, I found one called User Selectable Signature Line Display Limit. Which basically does what it says on the tin - allows individual users to select how many lines of signature text will be displayed. Quite handy, I would think, assuming it works as advertised.

For the sake of completeness, these are the others I found:

• Quick Sig Image Size Limiter - reportedly limits, with modification, both the file size and dimensions of signature pictures. Problem is that the changes/add-ons to the original code are in the thread and have not been collated in the original post.
  
• Easily limit the size of user signatures - with this one, the browser will only show the "first" x pixels in width and y pixels in height of the signature picture, and the rest will be hidden. x and y are admin definable. No file size limit though.
  
• Signature Mod v1.0 Beta 2 - older hack that seems to have been superseded by User Selectable Signature Line Display Limit mentioned above.

Anyhow, looking forward to seeing what new feature(s) you are currently concocting for us Tosa!

Edit: Forgot one

• Showing signatures once per page - again, fairly straightforward: "This will cause each user's signature to be shown only on their first post on each page."

[Mouzafphaerre]

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The problem is that table tags tend to affect the look of the forum layout (forget to use the closing tag).

I've just tested Simple Machines at their forum. Table code without closing tag is disregarded and processed as text. There should be something identical in VB, which is a pretty expensive piece of software as opposed to the freeware SM.
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[TosaInu]

I think that the regulations about signature pictures are both clear and fair. Yet, we already see pictures not matching those rules, not by a small margin but 10's or even 100's k bigger.

Allowing 500+ chars in signatures will offer the ability to create sigs with both huge pictures and huge text. More people will be forced to turn off this extra dimension.

I'ld be willing to look into this if people gave some thoughts about other users.

[TosaInu]

I think that the regulations about signature pictures are both clear and fair. Yet, we see pictures not matching those rules, not by a small margin but 10's or even 100's kb bigger.

More people will be forced to turn off this extra dimension.

[KukriKhan]

For our politeness-impaired members, allow me to translate:

The forum Admin has repeated himself (politely) twice over the past 9 days. I've known him since 2000, and never seen him double-post, much less triple-post.

Everyone should check their sig now for compliance with the stated Org standard - and spread the word that sig size and bandwidth will be scrutinized closely by staff. Voluntary compliance is preferred, of course.

Anyone with trouble bringing their sig into compliance can feel free to contact me or any other moderator - many of us have image-resizing software we can use to assist.

[Duke John]

So when can we start warning people for not thinking about others in a community?

Just give the call.
*finger twitches*

[Medieval Assassin]

I am a 56ker... The forum is great, the page loads up and THEN the pictures and sigs appear,I can read the page before the pictures all load up...its not the size or kb, its the number of pixils.

[therother]

Everyone should check their sig now for compliance with the stated Org standard...

Hint - there are a few in this very thread who aren't currently complying with the Org's standards.

Tip for the narrowbanders: you can turn off avatars, signatures and images by going into your User Control Panel (UserCP), select Edit Options, and scroll down to Thread Display Options. You can also alter the number of posts shown per page.

Depending on the cache settings of your browser, these options could improve page loading times significantly.

[Uesugi Kenshin]

WOO HOO MINE COMPLIES!


I have 56k and the only real trouble I have had is tonight, probably from AIM being open and when I went to the CTW loading screens thread.... many large but necessary pictures. But the rules should definately not be made more lax because my modem would have an aneurysm!