Rosio Pavoris

So, the only way to get vertical alignment in tables to work out, apparently, is by declaring it to be HTML 3.2 or older (from the doctypes listed here, at least). However, HTML 3.2 doesn’t support CSS. Nice, eh?
Interestingly, their CSS validator doesn’t give so much as a warning for the vertical-align attribute I used in rotahall.css; though it does, obviously, for the custom scrollbar and the overflow attribute.

I’m going to try to find a different way to do this vertical alignment thing. Looking into DIV and whatnot.

It’s, like, Skatje’s birthday today. She doesn’t read this blog, AFAIK, but I thought I’d mention it. Send her your love.

(Just checked, to make sure; we’ve gotten 65 hits from Mac users so far, which is mostly from when I asked Skatje how the site looked in Safari. Incidentally, this also means Sarorcia isn’t bothering to show up at all.)

Played around with PHP some more, got the search function on muffins.html to work. So yay. I can see why Mercury coded SWBHG off of the acmlm boards, though. Cookie generation is meh.
Speaking of Mercury, he failed to show up this weekend.

Rewrote about.html after announcing staff yesterday. Rewrote content.html to take new content into account. Rewrote forums.html for the same reason.

Slowly working down the list (actually, working down the list at a remarkable pace; it’s just a really long list). The basic content is mostly there, now it’s just reworking and fine-tuning.

Took a look at PHP, because I had a use for it. It’s surprisingly easy to pick up new languages when you can actually use them. That’s how I learned Javascript and CSS earlier. >.>

Set up a few calculators for MSAIT. Most people won’t have any use for this, especially not at first, except for me. Now I just need to find a way to interact with MySQL databases, so I can store relevant info about planets and stuff. With there being about 160 systems in the MSAIT galaxy, and most systems having multiple planets, I feel this would be rather handy. >.>

I’ll keep playing around with it. I’ve made goldfish.rotahall.org my testing grounds, so no need for new content there just yet. It’d just clutter stuff up. I still wont be adding orphan pages in that subdomain to subdomains.html, but now mostly because it changes too quickly to bother keeping track of.

Rouge needs better RL friends. Story at 11.

The best part is where he tries to look like the reasonable party for “politely” asking me not to flame him while still insisting on being a fucking tardgargler.

His parents are siblings, I just know it.

goldfish.rotahall.org now has a placeholder for content. This has always inspired me to get stuff done in the past (the layout for index.html grew out of a placeholder that got too elaborate), so maybe something will happen there.

The placeholder has not been added to the orphan pages on subdomains.html, and nothing developed on goldfish.rotahall.org ever will. If people can’t find it on their own, they don’t deserve to.

‘kay. I wrote the rest of the skeleton rules for MSAIT. The rest I’m pretty confident I can make up as I go along. Also plotted out an eight-player starmap, which I may or may not need to get digitalisated and uploaded somewhere. I probably should, really.

Also created MSAIT forums, which aren’t public yet. I think we might be able to pull it off. Just need a few more players. Everyone who wants to play pretty much has to get their entries in today or tomorrow, because I’ll need to do some specific preparing and I do want to open on Sunday. Quhan still hasn’t entered, which is a bit of a surprise.
Current players are Rouge, rednwhite, Roberts, Qow, and Terras (that’s the order they entered in). I’d like two or three more. >.>

Removed the global forwarder for e-mail sent to *@rotahall.org. It’s now done on a per-address basis. The only existing addresses are rotahall@rotahall.org (default, not a forwarder, rarely checked), cairnarvon@rotahall.org, and admin@rotahall.org. Those last two both forward to cairnarvon@gmail.com.

I hope this doesn’t create problems for anyone, but I really, really doubt it.

Terras made up a name for our game: “Majickal Space Adventurs… IN TECHNICOLOR!”
That blog technically isn’t open yet, but if you’re going to play, feel free to register. Rednwhite made the banner. So far, the only confirmed players are Rouge and rednwhite.

If nothing else, at least it got Lori and rednwhite to register on the forums.

Also, MSAIT category created for this blog, msait.rotahall.org subdomain created, &c. All very exciting stuff.

Linky.

Worth looking into. I got it to work with Gajim (I initially tried Gaim, but that didn’t work out; I just picked a random Jabber client next), and Rouge got it to work under Kopete. Let’s hope they release a client tomorrow.

I’m cairnarvon@gmail.com, obviously.

I hid the D&D forums from everyone except Quhan, Coren, Artoch, and myself (individual permission mask overrides kick ass). This makes the forums a bit less cluttery, and solves the problem of the “useless” forums.

Also created this thread about a possible game we could play. It’d add some more purpose to Rota Hall, and possibly bring in a few new people (rednwhite has expressed at least some interest). I’ve been thinking about it, and it looks like we can pull this off. Haven’t written any hard rules yet, though most rules will probably end up being made up on the fly anyway. I’ve got the basic idea for the game, and, as always with games like this, the players will determine most of the rest.

Terras has been using his FTP access to work on the LBRS site a bit, and is developing CSS skills. Yay for competent and active subdomain admins.
(Not criticising Rouge, BTW; only one occasion has arisen where he needed to use his FTP account, and he did so competently. Don’t want unnecessary FTP use either. I’ve just got a feeling that Thomas, for example, will just end up doing nothing at all as a subdomain admin (if he even ever shows up in the first place).)

Still zero hits on any part of Rotahall.org originating from groups.msn.com, BTW.

Rouge berated me for not using CSS to define my tables, so that’s fixed. Tried to find the code on the w3c website at first, but what I gathered from that was that it was impossible, so I looked elsewhere. Done now, and the code for main.html is next to valid now. Doesn’t have a doctype declared, because that always seems to fuck everything up.

Terras asked why CGI:IRC isn’t available from irc.html. He has a valid point, I guess. I downloaded the software, but it looks pretty dodgy. I mean, I know it has advantages from a user-side point of view, but it might take a few tries to get it up and running. I’ll look into that next.

Finished moving the threads I wanted to preserve from the old forums (only the ones I posted myself; I’ll leave the old forums open for a few more weeks to give other the opportunity to do the same). That’s another point off my list.

Lori seems to like her current skin, so we don’t have to worry about that too much anymore (keeping an eye out for better ones all the same, though). There was a PHP issue with it earlier (crappy code), but I managed to fix it. Go me.

I’ve given Terras FTP access to lbrs.rotahall.org, which he’s used to work on the LBRS site a bit. Yes, that means he’s now officially the subdomain admin for lbrs.rotahall.org. Well, not officially yet, I guess. Once I announce new staff members on Sunday (probably), it’ll be official.
This was the second FTP account created. Rouge received the first, for forums.rotahall.org. He’ll be the subdomain admin for that subdomain when I announce it too. Other subdomains that will need admins are community.rotahall.org and swbhg.rotahall.org. Admins for that will probably be Thomas and Mercury, but they aren’t really decided yet (and none of the subdomain admins are set in stone at this point).

Eventually we’ll need one for goldfish.rotahall.org too.

Downloaded and installed a few green skins for Lori’s blog. No Green Day skins specifically, though. Good ones are hard to find. I hope she’ll like it, at least. The one I made her current skin has some added functionality, too.

Created a .quotecredit class, which will probably only be used on main.html, to (surprisingly) credit the quotes. I was using a font tag for that, and it bothered me. Should also be handier once I get around to making a random quote display thing like on the forums (only not scrolling, of course). It’s odd how text-size:small is next to useless in IE, but text-size:xx-small does the exact same thing as in Firefox.

Played around with the w3c validator a bit in an effort to find a proper doctype (mostly for Rouge’s benefit :P). I used main.html, only to find that tables fuck stuff up. Still, next to valid for most doctypes. >.>

If Lori likes her skin, there are essentially six things remaining on my to-do list, the most difficult of which will probably be assigning and announcing staff. Well, seven things, if Mercury accepts my offer of hosting for SWBHG.

The seven things, then:

• Picking & announcing staff.
• Random quotes on main.html.
• Getting the Cafepress store up and running.
• Moving the most important threads from the old forums.
• Converting the code to match a doctype, preferably (but not realistically) XHTML.
• Development of goldfish.rotahall.org (DISCORDIA).
• Getting SWBHG running again, in some way.

So yeah. Mostly finished with hard work.

Created content.html (finally) and forums.html, for more user-friendliness and less annoying questions (though I haven’t gotten any of those yet; maybe I should include my e-mail on a few of the pages).

Both of those look fairly empty, and I created them pretty much on the assumption that I’ll be adding swbhg.rotahall.org to both of those. The subdomain’s been created, BTW, as well as an FTP account for it. Just waiting for Merc to reply now. >.>
Probably too hopeful, I know, but I want to play SWBHG again.

Wrote an irc.html to link to from the main page without actually immediately loading the Java applet. Better this way. Maybe I should write a forums.html too, for consistency.

Reposted the orange juice thread. Q isn’t playing along.

Also found a screenshot from the early days of SWBHG in my archives. Posted it on the forums, and I e-mailed Mercury about bringing SWBHG back. Offered to host it for him, too.

I’m tempted to e-mail Thomas about community.rotahall.org too, but he’s probably on vacation. That’s pretty much the only reason I can think of why he hasn’t contacted me yet, anyway.

Two things remain to be done: reposting dozens of threads from the old forums that really shouldn’t be lost, and writing content.html, which I’d really rather not.
I think I’ll procrastinate and fiddle with a photo gallery instead, like Haplo suggested.

lori.rotahall.org created. Lori/CP8948 is a member of the Cult of the LBRS. She’s not staff, but in a bout of arbitrary unfairness, I decided to offer her a blog. She’s been looking for a Green Day skin since I turned it over to her, but hasn’t had too much luck.

To avoid confusion in the future: Lori isn’t her real name. Cra(c)ker of Death named her Lori because he thought ClarinetPlayer8948 (her full KoL username) was too long. Her real name’s Sarah, IIRC.

I hate the #pos regulars. Wrote an applet to get there, though.
Joost is reasonably intelligent, but he argues with me because he feels I’m too much of an extremist. Mostly because he doesn’t know me well enough, I guess. Danny74 is, of course, too dumb to even carry on a regular conversation. Nomado’s English is too bad to follow what we’re talking about.

Ended up agreeing to disagree until next time with Joost. Danny ended up completely missing the point. I have no idea if Nomado was paying attention or not.

Now we’re discussing less volatile points. I called Danny a moron, essentially, and she stopped talking. Yay! Joost is intelligent enough.

Yay for PJIRC. Crappy IRC clients though Java applets make, PJIRC is fairly decent. I went and uploaded their applet, got it to connect to irc.zirc.org and automatically join #rotahall. Linked it from the main page.
It works for me, it works for Q, it even works for my parents’ computer. That seems to suggest to me that it’ll work for everyone.

As it stands, you can only join #rotahall and #pos with it. The code that determines which network it connects to and which channel it auto-joins and which channels it allows you to join at all is all in irc.html, though, so I’ll be able to use a single upload for all our applet needs. I’ll write a thing for #lbrs later. And possibly for #pos. And who knows, maybe the Community will pick it up and ask for a channel of their own.

Edit: Added an applet for #lbrs too.

I like how in the olden days, when I wrote my first HTML (being 1997, I think, which is barely ‘olden’ by most people’s accounts), the phrase “I’m a web designer” meant “I can use <font> without using Frontpage, and possibly simple tables and frames too”. Now, it means, at the very least, “I know several versions of HTML, know which tags I’m still allowed to use and which I’m not, I know CSS and Javascript, and quite probably at least some PHP, and I’m aware of the major weaknesses of the mainstream browsers”.
So yeah, I’m not really a web designer. But I’m a fast learner.

That’s all I wanted to say. Not much of a rant, I know. I promise I’ll be more ranty next time.