> Sorry about the delay in replying, a truck tore down my cable line and my only slow backup internet access was interrupted by angry phone calls to the cable company.
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> > This one concerns me. The more the PVB uses specific non-transferrable icons (like the blue and red dots on the main page and smileys) the more I have transferred pages with little red crosses on white boxes all over them that I have to manually edit out. If the default display format remains with a column down one side I'll need to edit every single page I archive to keep it consistent in appearance with the 500+ story pages already on my site. Depending on what the debate concludes I might be lobbying for a "Convert to Archive" button somewhere that creates a page suitable for offsite storage.
> There already is one in every post. The "Printable" link at the top eliminates most images and switches to a "high contrast" layout. I haven't really looked at it heavily though so it may need more image elimination.
> Only thing I didn't think of is the possibility of exporting the main page or multiple messages at once.
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> > I prefer the horizontal material at the top. For story posts this seems the right "intro" - a banner image, then the title and credits, then the story. The reply button at the bottom is important as well, because that should be the next natural response of anyone having read the content.
> Here's the problem with the vertical bar at the top that seemed to be constant:  Text is vertical.  That means as long names, large text, and long subjects start to add up the horizontal bar at the top becomes so large that it takes up a whole page by itself. If the banner is large enough it's nearly a page and a half before the story text.  On a small portable device it can seem like an eternity before you get there. ÂÂ
> A smaller vertical bar forces the text into a smaller space so it can't spill over like that.  I'm still thinking over and adjusting hoping it'll work because personally I like less clutter.  If it doesn't work I'll have to rethink it.
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> > I appreciate the question of horizontal space saving, but actually the vertical space loss is much greater for story-length posts, especially if they are printed out (and the black band there is murder on printer cartidges). I also find the not-quite-black band down the side of the page intrusive, and it tends to clash with some colours -lightslategrey, for example.
> The grey band is just part of the board's color selection at the moment.  As I convert from settings-based colors to Style Sheets I'll have more flexibility in changing colors of individual parts, and doing it quickly.
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> > I agree that it's better to have micros disabled by default. However, it should be a customisable option in the user settings.
> That's more difficult simply because there is only one message board header right now and it's only changeable by the mods.  I might add a separate page for playing with Micros later.
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> > How does CSS affect pages I lift to the Homepage of Doom?
> It makes all formatting on the page disappear.  If you don't download and apply the style.css file I have, the pages will all be black on white.  Or you can write another CSS (or I can give you one) that changes the color scheme and styles entirely.
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> How about an underline that appears when you float the cursor over it?  It doesn't have to be a background color.
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> > We have some talented graphics people right here on the board. Why don't we get them to suggest some way of simplifying the top-of-page layout?
> That's both a good idea and a bad one.  Artists usually design things like icons to be part of a bigger design.  If some people on the board don't like that we'll end up with one heartbroken and insulted artist.  :)
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> > Finally, in the subject and name lines in the revised posting form in IE the return key now starts a new line of input text rather than sending the message, requiring instead that I scroll down and use the button which is down off the bottom of the screen. This needs correcting.
> I'm going to have to find a way to trap the Enter key.  Only problem is, once again, it'll require Javascript.
> That problem came about, ironically, because IE couldn't handle the text parsing in Javascript with HTML-containing fields like the Subject and Name.  I had to switch them to Textarea fields because of it.
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