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The Old Man

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Posts posted by The Old Man

  1. Thanks for this. As a noobie, I was surprised how much is done outside of the dev center and in a text editor or IDE when creating a plug-in.
    I was kind of expecting to see live variables, strings in a sidebar, with realtime error messages or something. Something called Whoops appears sometimes, but its a bit overwhelming and there is nothing to say how to use it in the tutorials section.

    Its taken me 3 days to work out how to make a quick debug entry and I still can't get it to log the form->$values I've just saved inside it. Why is an exception with a 200 message needed when 1 line of text would surely do? I'm obviously a newbie.

  2. Hi,

    In a Plugin Settings form, I can add text, with HTML formatting etc by using:

    $form->addMessage('mymessage');

    and a language string:

    'mymessage' => "<p>Thinking bout burgers.</p>
    		<p>I wish I had one, right now. I'd eat it all up. With onion rings of course.</p>"

    This works, but if I try to insert tags for a hyperlink to open in a new tab/window such as for example:

     <a href="https://www.w3schools.com" target="_blank" title="Visit W3Schools (in a new tab/window).">Visit W3Schools</a> 

    ... it refuses to display the form. I recall HTML is filtered automatically, so entering raw is okay.

    What is the best practice to insert a URL into my text?

    Secondly, I can't seem to find a helper for a button (to add a few buttons to my plug-in settings page), should I create my own in a language string? I've not started with templates yet, only code hooks and plugin settings.

    Many thanks!

  3. Please, pretty please, with donuts on, can you extend stock photos to include Unsplash for 4.5? Would be brilliant to have this choice built in on release rather than have to write a mod. I'm also using Unsplash more and more in particular for Pages content and within widgets.

    Many thanks 🙏🏻

     

    On 1/24/2020 at 9:16 AM, The Old Man said:

    Thanks for pouring some sugar on 4.5@Matt!
     

    I recently started using Unsplash, they have some stunning photos.
    https://unsplash.com/

    They also have a modern API:

    https://unsplash.com/developers

     

     

     

    On 1/25/2020 at 11:49 AM, GlenP said:

    What a great site. Thank you for highlighting it. Pixabay looks quite limited for our area of interest but that site is very good for us.

     

    On 1/28/2020 at 9:22 PM, beats23 said:

    Please addhttps://unsplash.com/to the code.

    Thanks.

     

    On 6/23/2020 at 3:17 PM, GlenP said:

    I agree. Unsplash will work for us while Pixabay won't.

     

     
  4. Hi,

    Yes, the ad network will likely be using a CDN and that's fine, Securi is a different fish altogether, it's a security and audit service.

    If you have a server manager, sure it wouldn't do any harm, but I'd try and do a bit of testing first. Perhaps you could start by deactivating all of the ads and the ad platform first, clear your AdminCP Cache (run the support tool), clear Cloudflare's cache and see what happens to the performance and errors, in particular the malformed header tags. Use the free GTMetrix and run at least 3 quick checks, before and after or try and use Redbot. If the malformed headers disappear you know that's it's something to do with their ad platform, their configuration or their content.
     

    Those malformed headers are from the actual html webpage, not a file such as an image file, so something either on the server itself is setting or changing breaking them or perhaps you have a plugin or app or something in IPS's AdminCP you could rule out by deactivating it temporarily.

  5. Hi,

    Just took a quick look using GTMetrix and Redbot and they show some invalid characters (commas) in your HTTP headers and duplicated headers properties which won't be helping. These are probably inadvertently blocking genuine urls loaded by your page. The ones coming from Cloudflare will be syntactically valid, but check your server configuration as that will generate them first, and perhaps check in the AdminCP in case you are using their headers feature can duplicate headers. Look defiant at Content Security Policy and X-Frame Options. 

    HTTP/1.1 200 OK
    Date: Sat, 06 Jun 2020 17:19:48 GMT
    Content-Type: text/html;charset=UTF-8
    Transfer-Encoding: chunked
    Connection: keep-alive
    Set-Cookie: __cfduid=d6ca9e2f11bb679d134153007b3e5a3321591463987;
            expires=Mon, 06-Jul-20 17:19:47 GMT; path=/;
            domain=.breatheheavy.com; HttpOnly; SameSite=Lax
    Cache-Control: max-age=600, public
    Content-Security-Policy: upgrade-insecure-requests;, upgrade-insecure-
            requests;
    Display: pub_site_to_orig_sol
    Expires: Sat, 06 Jun 2020 17:29:48 GMT
    Host-Header: e172abecbd394f56a1a2479517f27fbfe05ff815
    Last-Modified: Sat, 06 Jun 2020 17:17:33 GMT
    Pagespeed: off
    Pragma: public
    Response: 200
    Set-Cookie: ips4_IPSSessionFront=0d58a60ca0463a7fda66fe44ded47a01; path=/;
            secure; HttpOnly
    Set-Cookie: ips4_guestTime=1591463988; path=/exhale/; secure; HttpOnly
    Set-Cookie: ezoadgid_177600=-1; Path=/; Domain=breatheheavy.com;
            Expires=Sat, 06 Jun 2020 17:49:48 UTC
    Set-Cookie: ezoref_177600=; Path=/; Domain=breatheheavy.com; Expires=Sat, 06
            Jun 2020 19:19:48 UTC
    Set-Cookie: ezoab_177600=mod15-c; Path=/; Domain=breatheheavy.com;
            Expires=Sat, 06 Jun 2020 19:19:48 UTC
    Set-Cookie: active_template::177600=pub_site.1591463988; Path=/;
            Domain=breatheheavy.com; Expires=Mon, 08 Jun 2020
            17:19:48 UTC
    Set-Cookie: lp_177600=https://www.breatheheavy.com/exhale/; Path=/;
            Domain=breatheheavy.com; Expires=Sat, 06 Jun 2020
            19:19:48 UTC
    Set-Cookie: ezovuuidtime_177600=1591463988; Path=/; Domain=breatheheavy.com;
            Expires=Mon, 08 Jun 2020 17:19:48 UTC
    Set-Cookie: ezovuuid_177600=94ca7346-0f41-4483-659e-0e3155b01da5; Path=/;
            Domain=breatheheavy.com; Expires=Sat, 06 Jun 2020
            17:49:48 UTC
    Set-Cookie: ezopvc_177600=1; Path=/; Domain=breatheheavy.com; Expires=Sat,
            06 Jun 2020 17:49:48 UTC
    Set-Cookie: ezCMPCCS=true; Path=/; Domain=breatheheavy.com; Expires=Sun, 06
            Jun 2021 17:19:48 GMT
    Vary: Accept-Encoding
    Vary: cookie,Accept-Encoding,User-Agent,X-APP-JSON
    X-Content-Type-Options: nosniff
    X-Ezoic-Cdn: Miss
    X-Frame-Options: SAMEORIGIN, sameorigin
    X-Ips-Cached-Response: Sat, 06 Jun 2020 17:17:33 GMT
    X-Ips-Loggedin: 0
    X-Middleton-Display: pub_site_to_orig_sol
    X-Middleton-Response: 200
    X-Sol: pub_site
    X-Sucuri-Cache: MISS
    X-Sucuri-Id: 11004
    X-Xss-Protection: 1; mode=block, 0
    CF-Cache-Status: DYNAMIC
    cf-request-id: 032c3e62f800009641d33cf200000001
    Expect-CT: max-age=604800, report-uri="https://report-
            uri.cloudflare.com/cdn-cgi/beacon/expect-ct"
    Server: cloudflare
    CF-RAY: 59f3cce4cd9f9641-SJC


    The more custom headers and Vary properties you have, the less chance of requests being cached. Caching by user agent is definitely one to avoid performance wise, there are far too many variations with so many user agents out there.

  6. Agreed, a typography appreciating man such as yourself may find appeal in the FA5 literature improvements, I don't really know much about them.

    Don't get me wrong, v4 was certainly great possibly even awesome in its day, but it's all relative and things obviously move on. No, I don't have actual bench tests to hand. I do recall members here saying they didn't like the v4 caveat in terms of having to load them all at once, other libraries were starting to adopt single icon support. The way the newer variations of SVG and JS are implemented in FA5 offer faster, compressible resources, when you go into the FA5 Dashboard, it tells you which methods are better than others. They're saying FA6 will be improved again, I've no reason to not believe them and that's from the people creating it. 

    In terms of accessibility, FA5 can do more of the ARIA related work for you, less attributes and code in your html page. 

    The performance and efficiency improvements of v4 to v5 were compared, documented and marketed all be it by FA at first upon release of 5, but also by third party websites, especially given the huge number of additional icons, up from I think it was 800 with FA to literally 1000's. All the extra great choice of icons and styles available to site owners and Pro License owners who want to make use of them, but of course the free icons available to all can still be used by IPS and theme designers.

    Somebody posted a link to their site recently regarding performance caching issues and it was a topic page a mortifying 10.5MB in size and loading all the javascript, CSS and icons in the FA4 doesn't help when you only need to display a handful of icons but your page is bloated with third party ads and trackers. I'm somewhat reminded in general of the old saying, "every bit helps, the old lady said, as she pissed into the sea". Tesco's used a slightly different version in their ads.

    Seriously, how time consuming would it really have been for IPS to stick with the original loading method of FA4 with the Unicode codes but use a few search and replace regex commands to update the CSS template?
    https://fontawesome.com/how-to-use/on-the-web/setup/upgrading-from-version-4#name-changes

    There are even third party scripts out there to save some time: https://stackoverflow.com/a/54179185

     

  7. Yes, I think justification for upgrading outdated third party libraries extends far beyond just the oranges vs lemons design scenario of the icons, it's also about performance and efficiency as well. Bells aside (!), to take perhaps another analogy since the early 20th century the humble car has still had wheels, a motor, seats and lights but mankind didn't stick with the Ford Model T or the 4th era of vehicles because it was essentially the same thing. People upgraded their for cars for aesthetics, safety, security, performance, availability and efficiency when the designers and manufactures improved them. FA4 is slow and inefficient, not desirable qualities end users appreciate.

  8. Thanks @Rikki, yes I definitely agree about the shim quick fix, I removed it after trialing it, but it might be worth another look as the additional icon designs aside, the modern FA5 SVG files are very fast, efficient and the individual icons can load as needed by the page, without having to download the whole mother-lode of icons.

    Plus you could probably remove the whole separate Icomoon web font library as I bet those few icons it provides are now included within FA4 or FA5 these days.

    TBH I always kind of assumed you could do some careful automatic search and replace within your source.

    Actually that reminds me, I saw some Google warnings this week in Lighthouse about security vulnerabilities discovered in the jQuery version that IPS uses. That might need an update.

  9. Hi IPS,

    Just to let you know the credited link mentioned in the gallery.css template redirects to a site with a Hong Kong based domain. No idea what it is but I recognise a certain footballer!

    /* This is to make the video responsive in size
    	See: http://3strandsmarketing.com/video-fluid-2.php */
    /* top/bottom adjusted to avoid the 'fade' area */

     

  10. FA4 was rather amazingly last updated in 2016 and almost 3 years since FA5 was released, but despite multiple requests from clients, IPS didn't/wouldn't support it. Somewhat frustrated, but fortunately not in a sexual way, we chuckled cheekily that FA6 would be out by the time FA5 was integrated, but more seriously it is IMHO still a missed opportunity as there were a lot of really good features like Pro, Duotone and Light icons and of course the super useful themed Icon Packs.

    So I personally think, respectfully and sadly, that IPS 'dropped the ball' by not utilising a team member to update the outdated FA4 integration. If IPS had launched an integrated proprietary awards and badges feature (er, hello?) for members after adding the automated rule logic of member promotions, it could really have shined by supporting FA5's theme packs and new styles like the multi colour Duo Tone icons.

    Some time ago FA launched kits for FA5 with the ability to upgrade to FA5 on the fly, but the FA4 to FA5 shim although super useful, meant accepting a performance hit, especially if you use more than one style of icon. 

    So here's hoping that Font Awesome 6 once released later this year will be integrated into IPS a lot sooner.

    If you have a Pro licence for FA5, look out for the limited time discounted FA6 Pro upgrade offer.

    If you haven't already seen it, enjoy the crazy video (that probably should have been shorter!) 🤔

    https://fontawesome.com/6

  11. Hi,

    Redis is fairly well acknowledged for providing better performance than Memcached, it is the current 'go-to' solution, so I'm a bit surprised. 
    Your Redis Info/config may provide the experts with more clues, and perhaps a copy of whatever your Redis settings in AdminCP's Support pages are reporting as being utilised.

    I've found on my public sites, I've no private/Intranet sites, that the amount of stored Redis data seems to drop after a week or so, and seemingly isn't replenished until something major changes. Then the same thing happens, after another 7-10 days the keys/memory consumed seems to reduce again. It's almost as if the keys expire or maybe are evicted and not replaced when the software checks to see if the object is in the Redis cache.

    Btw, check your Redis is connecting via a unix socket for faster performance.

  12. Hi there,

    I never understood why they ignored all the feedback about how there is no enable/disable toggle and it shows such a small image and makes navigation difficult. There is a third party Marketplace plug-in that disables the absolute abomination that is the v4.4 Lightbox. You'll probably need to renew your IPS License to be able to get it if you have one.

     

  13. If you have Wordpress, I recently had to remove the Wordfence plugin (an excellent software firewall/security plugin) because it kept stopping me editing settings and templates in AdminCP, even though I told it to ignore my IPS Community folder. It got to the point where I was concerned about upgrades being interfered with.

  14. On 12/30/2019 at 5:04 AM, Mike John said:

    This shouldn't be a problem, noted this for a future update.

    Great, thanks Michael!

    On 12/30/2019 at 5:04 AM, Mike John said:

    Like the tag mentions? @The Old Man

    Well I was actually thinking the tags which you can add to a topic. The ones that get separated with a comma if you add more than one.

    On 12/30/2019 at 5:04 AM, Mike John said:

    If there's enough demand for this, I'll consider it. If it's just birthday topics, then adding a few additional message settings shouldn't be a problem.

    Yes, just for the topic template that you set up in the AdminCP. Currently every Birthday topic's first post looks identical, but if as an admin we could create a few templates instead of just the current one template (with varying fonts, images or wording), the it would add a bit more variety as the app would choose one at random each time it created the topic.

    Thanks Mike, have a great New Year!

  15. Season's Greetings @Mike John

    Just a few suggestions for Birthday Greeter, if that's okay! 

    When the Birthday Greeter sends out an auto birthday email, if there is also a birthday topic that gets/got created, perhaps the email could also include a link to it? This way an absent member would be even more likely to visit the forum if they know there's a topic with greetings.

    (This occurred to me because I think we had such a member visit this week after their birthday, but they didn't choose to post in their birthday topic, and I wondered if they'd missed it for some reason.)

    Secondly, I wondered if it was possible for the birthday topic to include a tag with the person's name? Before birthday greeter, I used to add a tag like 'Happy Birthday membername' to birthday topics, which was handy as we could click to see previous years greetings.

    Last suggestion!  The birthday topics only have one template, so all topics look the same and contain the same message and images/emoji. If we could add up to say 3, or maybe 5 topic templates and birthday greeter used 1 at random, it would add some more variety, they'd have a less automated, more personal feel.

    Thanks!

    P.S. I lied. Here's another one. Through the use of extra language strings, perhaps the birthday greeter could also optionally send out anniversary greetings based on a member's join date?

  16. Hi @Pete T

    Thanks again for this great plug-in!

    Spotted a small bug that's causing W3C Validation errors for each member photo listed. The opening and closing HTML li list tags are missing from the template in two places, but it's because of the ul tag line preceding them. I moved that line down to above the comma separated list (no photos, text only) and it seems fine. 
     

    <ul class='ipsList_inline ipsList_csv ipsList_noSpacing'>


    to:

    {{else}}
                <ul class='ipsList_inline ipsList_csv ipsList_noSpacing'>
    			{{foreach $members as $row}}
    				<li>{template="userLinkFromData" group="global" app="core" params="$row['member_id'], $row['name'], $row['members_seo_name'], $row['member_group_id']"}</li>
    			{{endforeach}}
                </ul>
    		  {{endif}}

    and moved up the closing ul tag above the endif.
     

    Regards

  17. FA5 has been out for so long and had like a dozen releases that, I can't believe it still hasn't been properly integrated. Grumble, dropped the ball, mumble, mutter.... Just kidding. 🥰 The new FA5 extra icons packs are really nice. I wonder if IPS might one day release a SASS/LESS where CSS can be more quickly updated. 
     

    Not had much time to test but a few days ago I tried out the new FA5 'kits' option with IPS4.4.8 and it certainly has great potential. Anyone else tried it yet?
    You basically remove the existing FA4 import code and install one line of JS script to pull in your newly created kit, then on the FA5 dashboard site you can flick one of the toggle switches, and in theory it upgrades you on the fly to FA5, but better than the old 4-5 shim they originally released as a stop gap because it corrects any outdated icon codes and adds ARIA accessibility on the fly (i.e. all of them In the case of IPS!).

    E45323AF-E264-4B82-9360-14B29FA37DB3.thumb.png.d63242bddb3eaaa9222e352fd0859ee4.png
     

    58C543F8-3CCE-4082-83E9-0A2D3B32E346.thumb.png.b0c31266bc0449318ff0a65825a99dfd.png

     

    It also only loads the icons you need, which sounds like a great performance boost. It allowed me to use Duotone icons. I tried the web font option first then the faster recommended SVG option, it worked but some icons seemed a bit off vertical alignment wise, on overlaid icons like the Twitter and YouTube social media buttons in the footer. So I switched back to the web font version for now, however it may be because I'd been editing the pseudo CSS a bit for something else just prior, so it may work as intended.

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