[rbalch]

Hey Everyone,

There are now new capabilities which allow us to have much more control over how people create and use their forum signatures.
These new features should help a lot to keep each user's signature limited to a reasonable size and format.

I have made the initial settings rather generous. I would like for you guys to reply to this topic with your own recommendations for these settings.
Below is a list of each new signature control (along with its current setting).


1. Allow links in signatures? Yes

2. Limit for the number of lines in a signature: 10

3. Limit for the number of characters per line in a signature: 200

4. Limit for the number of images in a signature: 3

5. Limit for the size of each image in a signature: 100kB (file size) -OR- 400px by 200px 320px by 240px* (width by height, in pixels)

6. Limit for the total file size of all images in a signature: 100kB

7. Show each user's signature only once per topic? No (If 'Yes', then only the user's first post in a topic would include his/her signature. Sounds good to me.)



As I said above, these are pretty generous settings. I did not want to disqualify a lot of existing signatures right off the bat. Also, all of these settings are negotiable. Please reply here with your recommendations as well as any other feedback (like if the limits don't seem to work as described, or if you see errors).


So... Here's to a future hopefully free of the ridiculous forum signatures that take up 50%+ of our screens and bog down the connections of our visitors who use dial-up, or are just very impatient (like me... sometimes).

Cheers,
Rob

*Updated February 21 - details are available later in this topic: POSTS 23 & 24

[sixgunsound]

looks good so far. i cant see any problems for me.

[nealmac]

Yep they're pretty generous. The only one I'm not sure about is number 7, as I tend to recognise a lot of people by they're signatures, rather than their usernames. Only a small issue, but I just thought I'd mention it.

[rbalch]

looks good so far. i cant see any problems for me.

I forgot to mention... These new rules apply to all members except for Admins and Ombudsmen (Global Mods).

Sixgunsound: You and I are limited by the old, less sophisticated restrictions (simply a 500 character limit with BBCode allowed yet HTML prohibited) . I made our two groups exempt since the code is not proven yet to work 'as advertised' so I'd hate for any of us to be managing something important and potentially encounter critical errors. BTW, I'm sure everyone can vouch for me that I don't ever go over-the-top with my signature setups HA

Rob

[rbalch]

Yep they're pretty generous. The only one I'm not sure about is number 7, as I tend to recognise a lot of people by they're signatures, rather than their usernames. Only a small issue, but I just thought I'd mention it.

That's my argument as well for keeping it the way it is - with one user's signature allowed multiple times per page.
It helps me often to quickly ID posts made by specific users with unique and well-known signatures.

On the other hand, I recently upped the maximum size allowed for avatars though so those are now more likely to catch the eye and help you recognize people.
Maximum avatar dimensions went from 64px square to 96px square.

[sixgunsound]

looks good so far. i cant see any problems for me.

I forgot to mention... These new rules apply to all members except for Admins and Ombudsmen (Global Mods).

Sixgunsound: You and I are limited by the old, less sophisticated restrictions (simply a 500 character limit with BBCode allowed yet HTML prohibited) . I made our two groups exempt since the code is not proven yet to work 'as advertised' so I'd hate for any of us to be managing something important and potentially encounter critical errors. BTW, I'm sure everyone can vouch for me that I don't ever go over-the-top with my signature setups HA

Rob

Haha, I think that u and I being on the old one will work. I doubt you'll catch me charging around with a 2mb photo of a donkey as my signature! Well, for that and other reasons I agree with your policies...

yeah i was just going to mention that avatars are bigger and that makes it easier without signatures. maybe that rule #7 would be good. can you apply it to individual forums or only across the whole board? maybe we should schedule a test run and let people vote on it or something and who knows, maybe nobody will have a problem, which should help people who are on dial-up

[kurtlives]

Yep they're pretty generous. The only one I'm not sure about is number 7, as I tend to recognise a lot of people by they're signatures, rather than their usernames. Only a small issue, but I just thought I'd mention it.

I totally agree with this.

[Graeme! Yes, Graeme!]

That is very generous, while still being restrictive enough to prevent huge three megapixel images or whatever. In fact, it's a lot more liberal than most other forums I have visited. Heck, there's one I go to where images have a maximum height of 80 pixels. It all seems very reasonable.

[gusdotcom]

I approve.
I'm guessing it's not possible to control how the pictures are placed because 3 pictures stacked on top of each other plus rows of text is still pretty big.
I like the new text limits. Much better system than the old.

[guru of rock n roll]

I don' understand alot of that computer talk?

[kurtlives]

Like the pixel stuff?

[Planetdriver]

Yeah, the restrictions are very lenient.
The sigs take up a lot of bandwidth, especially if you have dialup...
Hmm... Maybe we should create a feature for low bandwidth?

[AcousticSmash]

Good idea Rob, I approve of this motion.

[kurtlives]

Good idea Rob, I approve of this motion.

How does your sig work?

[guru of rock n roll]

Good idea Rob, I approve of this motion.

How does your sig work?

Goto Danasoft.com and you can get one to. Razzel has one Bax and AS. I have one but under pressure took it down.

[gusdotcom]

Yeah, the restrictions are very lenient.
The sigs take up a lot of bandwidth, especially if you have dialup...
Hmm... Maybe we should create a feature for low bandwidth?

Like the turn of sigs feature?

Is it possible to make a feature that only removes the pictures from the signatures?

[guru of rock n roll]

Is mine in violation ?

[sixgunsound]

no worries. yrs is fine.

[nealmac]

Yeah, the restrictions are very lenient.
The sigs take up a lot of bandwidth, especially if you have dialup...
Hmm... Maybe we should create a feature for low bandwidth?

You have the option to disable users sigs if you want.

[Nater11]

This doesnt make sense.... I had this pic as my sig pic for a good few weeks. i changed it today for a few hours, and then went back to the original . only now, its too big?? http://usera.imageca.../BlackAlbum.jpg

CODE

The error returned was:
Sorry, that file is too wide or too high - please try again after resizing the image

yet, the picture according to imagecave is only 6.38 KB. and only 250 X 252