Proboard problems By Bashan (Read 619 times)

[Bashan]

If the forum looks weird it's because proboards is initiating a new system and it has things kinda screwed up. I'm working on it but it might take until tomorrow.

[tvnacman]

thanks for the heads up !!!!!

John

[terrilee]

THANKS FOR THE INFO

[Alleyoop]

Yea i noticed it yesterday and pmed rich and he looked into it. They are going to some V5 version of software.
Alleyoop

[Bashan]

Well it took a few hours but I got it fixed. I thought some of you code heads might be interested in this. If computers and code don't interest you run away quickly.

At first I thought it was something to do with Proboards switching systems. Then I had some reports that Scoot Dawg had been hacked and I thought it might be related to that. Both of those proved dead ends so I started looking through the forum code. This would be a complete needle in the haystack but the problem was board names, thread names, categories, and so on were being smashed together in the middle of the pages. This gave me a clue that it was probably a centering function gone haywire.

One of the more perplexing challenges in keeping a forum running is dealing with code that worked just fine for a year or two but then inexplicably quits, that was the case here. The Global Header code controls the forum ID, Scooter Doc banner, the rotating donor banners, and a few other functions at the top of the site. It also has an influence on the position of the threads, boards, and categories on the pages. Forum code is an odd mix of HTML, Flash, and BB code which can lead to eye strain very quickly. I went through the Global Header three times before I got suspicious about a centering code at the top red arrow that I didn't remember seeing a closing bracket for:

Here's a closer look, this is a paragraph centering code, hence the "p":

Most codes in a bracket need a closing bracket at some point that tells them where to stop trying to order everybody around. The tricky thing about this center function is that you won't see a closing bracket like this BB code that you KNOW controls centering: [center][/center]

It actually says "center" like a good bracket should! Instead you have to look for a HTML paragraph closer which doesn't even hint at having anything to do with centering: </p>. Well there was no paragraph closer to be found so that little monster just kept telling everybody to mash together in the most unflattering ways. The addition of a paragraph closer at the very end of the Global Header set things right:



So why didn't this missing closer code cause problems before now? I had to ask my wife the web site designer that very question. She said that browsers are constntly updating and changing what aberrant code and errors they will tolerate. At some point the ax falls without warning and your code no longer works. Scooter Doc's code is altered regularly and these things just slip through. At one time there were several people that had access to that page of code, and more, that you saw on that image. I feel it's now best to keep all the blame on myself.

[kz1000st]

Not you, Rich. It was evil spirits. Time to burn more witches, yeah that's it. Warlocks and Witches casting evil spells on the internet causing all these troubles. Same ones that cause coils, CDIs and trigger units on the alternator to fail.