New User Tips

3278 · Post by **3278** » Thu May 26, 2011 4:33 pm

I've been meaning to do this for a while, but I kept putting it off until I had time to do several. Instead, I'll just offer a few as I think of them, and I encourage other long-time users to include their own.

Keyboard Shortcuts
Bulldrek was originally written for a very high volume of posting, and as such was built with several features meant to support users' efforts in that regard. One of these was the use of keyboard shortcuts [or accelerators, depending on your background] which let you quickly visit any of the forums [or the front page] quickly and easily, from anywhere on the site.

Give this a shot. Press the Alt key on your keyboard, and then, say, the number 2 key. Oops. And now you're gone. Should have told you to be ready to press "back." Hopefully you'll find your way - ah, there you are. Sorry. Now, if you didn't go away just then, you're probably using one of the browsers that doesn't support the trick we're using. Let me know, and I'll see what I can do. But if it did work for you, then here's how it works:

Code: Select all

&#91;Alt&#93; + `     Front Page
&#91;Alt&#93; + 1     Bulldrek &#91;which doesn't work, for some reason&#93;
&#91;Alt&#93; + 2     Semi-Serious Topics
&#91;Alt&#93; + 3     Artistic License
&#91;Alt&#93; + 4     Gatherings 
&#91;Alt&#93; + 5     The Game's the Thing 
&#91;Alt&#93; + 6     Words Without End 
&#91;Alt&#93; + 7     The Embassy

This being the order they're on the front page, naturally, and the order they're in the [now-persistent] footer, as well. This should work from any page on the site, so use this power with caution! A simple "back" should get you back to a post you're writing without any problems, but I shouldn't like to chance it.

Fuck! I had another one, and now I can't think what it is. Back when I remember.

3278 · Post by **3278** » Thu May 26, 2011 4:50 pm

Oh! Duh.

Board Styles
If you visit your Profile - [Control] + Left Click will usually get open it in a new tab for you, so you don't lose this one - you'll see that there's a Board Style pulldown. There are currently 3 mostly working styles, and 1 development style:

[bulldrek]
The default theme, and probably the one you're using right now. [bulldrek] was intended to be our flagship theme, the one with the most options and the most eye candy. While it doesn't compare to the resource-intensity that characterizes porcelain [the theme on freespeech-alpha, it does have a great many features and images that it doesn't strictly need, in the interests of coolness.

[inverted]
One of our users - possibly Eva? - once complained that Bulldrek was hard to read in bright locations, so we developed [inverted], which is really just the [bulldrek] theme, only in negative: black text on a white background, and brown as the compliment color [that being the color negative of Bulldrek Blue, the compliment color here]. It's usually second in line for new features - I develop live on [bulldrek], and then convert for [inverted] - but I can't possibly imagine anyone caring even a little about that.

[stripped]
This theme was an attempt to - I'm serious - present a useful, quick option for dial-up users, and for power users who wanted a simple, minimalist, basic interface. I went as far as I could at the time [although porcelain took the minimalism to a whole new level] in taking elements out, and I sometimes go in and trim more where I can. Among what's missing: avatars, signatures, most board images. [I'd take more out if I could; all, if I could.] Because it gets used rarely, and has a unique flavor already, I often make changes on [stripped] that I couldn't make on [bulldrek]; if I'm not mistaken, it's posting page is currently impersonating porcelain's a bit.

[mobile] [development!]
In an attempt to vaguely keep up with modernity - do we seriously have a theme for dial-up users? - [mobile] is an attempt to format the board for mobile devices like smartphones and tablets. Based on [stripped], it takes the reduction farther, while resizing elements to enhance useability on touch interfaces. It's very much just a lark, a fun project I work on in my spare time, and I have no idea if anything will ever come of it, but it's there, anyway.

Bulldrek contains a large number of hacked-together features that make it not work with normal themes for phpBB, so we can't just install something you've seen on the web and liked, but if there's something you're interested in seeing, let us know, and we'll see what can be done.