A clarification about sig image posting

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A clarification about sig image posting

Postby lwf58 » Sat May 31, 2008 10:30 am

I just noticed (not necessarily the first time I saw it, just the first time it registered) a site member who had two signature images.

(No, I'm not talking about me!) :roll:

This prompted me to write this note about the use of multiple sig images.

Using multiple images is permissible... however, the two images combined must still fit within the stated limits listed in rule 1-I.

In effect, if you want to have multiple sig images, you have to imagine a 350 x 100 pixel box, and both images have to fit in it.

Let's use my own sig as an example. My two images are 40 pixels high, and when stacked have a combined height of about 82 pixels that includes the space between them. They are each 200 pixels wide. Their combined file size is 12 kb (about 6 kb apiece). Here's the limits listed in the site rule:

I) Signature images should be under 100 pixels tall by 350 pixels wide of image size and 100kb of file size. Avatars are limited to 225 (height) by 140 (width) in size. and 100kb of file size. Animated avatars are allowed, but annoying ones will be subject to change. Animated avatars must meet the same criteria as non-animated avatars.


So, you can see that my sig images are well within the limits in all three criteria when viewed either separately or as a block. Anyone else who might want to have a multi-image sig must follow the same guidelines.

I'll amend the site rules to include this.
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Postby Spokavriel » Sat May 31, 2008 2:45 pm

It's a little tougher with the arrow after a linked image so is there going to be an allowance for images that go a little over horizontally because of the link marker so long as the images themselves don't add up to more than 350 wide? Or is it better to just play it safe and say 2 side by side images need to keep the pixel count to 300 to allow for the added link pointer?
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Postby lwf58 » Sat May 31, 2008 3:01 pm

The markers are not part of the image. If the properties of an image say its horizontal dimension is 350 pixels wide, or if the widths of two images equal 350 pixels, that's all we care about.

Again, though, spaces between images are counted. Multiple images cannot take up any more area than a single 100 x 350 pixel image.

There is a theme running through rule 1-I. The basic idea is that you have a certain amount of bandwidth and area to play with (350 x 100 pixels, 100 kb). What you do with that area is completely up to you, as long as it's not going to offend other site members. If you wanted to - and could find a way to do it - you could post a mosaic of 100 separate images that were 1 kb apiece and fit inside a 350 x 100 pixel box.
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Postby Spokavriel » Sat May 31, 2008 6:29 pm

It's just if the linked images are side by side the link indicating arrow would still show up in between them. Although now I'm tempted to make 350 10x10 images... Then again maybe not it would be a P.i.t.A. to add up the sizes and make certain I didn't go over.
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Postby Yrael » Sat May 31, 2008 8:12 pm

I've never gotten around to creating a sig image for the site, but for future reference, what is this link indicating arrow you're speaking of?
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Postby mondu_the_fat » Sat May 31, 2008 8:32 pm

Look at lwf58's sig. There's an upwards-pointing diagonal arrow to the right of his two sigs.
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Postby Spokavriel » Sun Jun 01, 2008 2:21 pm

When the text or image is a link it gets underlined and the arrow pops up after it. If each image has a different link side by side those arrows could add to the over all width and take it past the limits.

Then again doing too many links you could have a monster of code invisible in the sig.
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Postby J. St.C. Patrick » Sun Jun 01, 2008 3:10 pm

mondu_the_fat wrote:Look at lwf58's sig. There's an upwards-pointing diagonal arrow to the right of his two sigs.


Spokavriel wrote:When the text or image is a link it gets underlined and the arrow pops up after it. If each image has a different link side by side those arrows could add to the over all width and take it past the limits.


Curious.
The arrow you describe does not show up on my screen in either "The Temple" or "subSilver" formats, though the underlining does.
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Postby Yrael » Sun Jun 01, 2008 3:17 pm

J. St.C. Patrick wrote:Curious.
The arrow you describe does not show up on my screen in either "The Temple" or "subSilver" formats, though the underlining does.


Same here. I even pulled up IE (Firefox is my default browser, and I thought AdBlock+ may have been filtering it out), and still had the same result in it. No sign of any arrows in either browser, in either theme.
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Postby Spokavriel » Sun Jun 01, 2008 3:49 pm

That is odd. I'm viewing it using The Temple skin and I've always seen them. Their on just about every link that opens a new window on this site for me. It could be a browser thing because I use SeaMonkey but Even back before the Mozilla Suite project got canceled I also always saw them with that too. Maybe it's something that's being added by the Bulletin board software because I allow the Java scripts to run. The ones that round edges and all.
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Postby B'man » Sun Jun 01, 2008 7:06 pm

Code: Select all
/* Link Styling */

#content a,#side a,#bottom a,#alert a {
   text-decoration: none;
   border-bottom: 1px dashed;
   padding-bottom: 0px;
}
a:after {
  margin: 0 3px;
}

a:link,a:visited:hover {
  color: #3060bf;
}
a[target]:link:after,a[target]:visited:hover:after {
  content: url(External.gif);
}
a:link:hover,a:visited {
  color: #405580;
}
a[target]:link:hover:after,a[target]:visited:after {
  content: url(ExternalVis.gif);
}


Temple skin. IE6 (and possibly IE7, haven't checked) doesn't support the :after method in CSS2, so you won't see the arrows in it.
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Postby Yrael » Sun Jun 01, 2008 7:39 pm

It was a theme issue. I thought I'd tried both themes on both browsers, but apparently I forgot to check the Temple them in Firefox, since I see the arrows on it now.

I've always used the non-Temple, since back when the current forums went live the Temple theme had a slight delay in loading pages for some reason.
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Postby Sailor Sedai (Ellf) » Sun Jun 01, 2008 8:04 pm

*Scratches his head nervously*

Yeah... I was the person who had the two sig images. Oops. It's a good rule, and good guideline to follow.
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Postby B'man » Sun Jun 01, 2008 8:23 pm

lwf58 wrote:If you wanted to - and could find a way to do it - you could post a mosaic of 100 separate images that were 1 kb apiece and fit inside a 350 x 100 pixel box.


Which is of course impossible - the absolute minimum (as far as I know) BBcode for a single image is 20 digits, making the max images around 20 even if you're pushing the URI length to the limit ;p

Theory's sound though ^^


Yrael wrote:I've always used the non-Temple, since back when the current forums went live the Temple theme had a slight delay in loading pages for some reason.


That really depends on how the browser handles it. The rounded edges, as mentioned earlier, uses Javascript, and it's a pretty hefty script considering. It has to wait until the page has finished loading before it goes to work, so the page appears to freeze for a second at that point. Either that or it doesn't show the page until it's done all the work. Depends on the browser.

But yeah, I use SubSilver as well since I don't want to put up with it.


One thing I've been wondering; a while back I was going to put a simple Flash movie in my sig (I'm not bothered about it any more, don't worry ;p) but it was a couple hundred pixels too wide and I couldn't be bothered to squash it to 350px or whatever.

But on another forum I go to, I did put it on, and after a while it was taken off by staff for "being Flash". The movie was only about 90KB (before the movie-playing feature, which would only get going if the viewer decided to start it), and the place had no problem with similar sigs that were GIFs instead and well over a megabyte. So I was a little miffed, to say the least.

Anyway, just in case I make another such movie in the future, what's FFs' take on Flash movies?
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Postby lwf58 » Mon Jun 02, 2008 11:08 am

B'man wrote:But on another forum I go to, I did put it on, and after a while it was taken off by staff for "being Flash". The movie was only about 90KB (before the movie-playing feature, which would only get going if the viewer decided to start it), and the place had no problem with similar sigs that were GIFs instead and well over a megabyte. So I was a little miffed, to say the least.

Anyway, just in case I make another such movie in the future, what's FFs' take on Flash movies?


As long as it fits the area and bandwidth limit, it's okay. Flash is just another way of animating an image, and animated images are permitted. Since flash rendering is all client-side and our server won't be hosting the .swf file, it makes no difference to us. What we are concerned with is keeping total page-loading times within reason for those who use analog modems.
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