Hi RonTek,

you've done a great job here but I've noticed a few minor issues in the posting code:

• the posts are not left aligned and words are wrapped off at the right margin (done!)
• taking a single new line in the edit window doesn't make a new line (paragraph) in the post
• Submitting posts takes you to the top level of the forum, not really an issue but though I'd mention it (done!)

Also, a few suggestions:

• a BMX MaxGUI board (done!)
• the white color theme is too bright and quite off-putting. Try using the light grey you have for white (like post backgrounds) and then a darker grey (or blue) for what is currently light grey.(done!)

Thanks!

I'm not a fan of the white background either. Makes it look like a .com site.
Prefer dark, like SyntaxBomb, Socoder, or dbfinteractive, but it's just personal preference.
Customizable account settings, perhaps?

Also, emojis don't seem to be working for me.

Sorry for the late reply guys as I am currently having internet connection problems and thanks for these suggestions!

@Mark Thanks! Yes, I'll have the white background issue updated asap since this has been the most requested and also the MaxGUI board setup, will go over the rest again as soon I got my connection issues fixed.

@Retro Hi Retro, Welcome to the forums! Yes, still working on some site features and issues, but already added custom themes on my list.
With the emojis issue, you can try a simple one by adding two colons ":" between the word "smiley", then the full list link is on the editor buttons.

cheers guys and be right back..

Update:

• Background now has a lighter grey color instead of white, hope this has decreased the brightness.
• MaxGUI category added.

Thanks RonTek!

The background's much better now. Any plans for an alternative dark skin for the dark side of the Blitz?

Edit: Oh, you've got submit returning to the same page now too. Nice!

Edit: it seems when you edit and submit it goes back to the top forum level.

Another suggestion, the topic title doesn't stand out enough, maybe the blue bar would be better grey. I remember on BB titles were "forum name > topic name" and there was a link to the forum too, which was handy.

Here's an idea RonTek, I have all the old Blitzcoder tutorials backed up somewhere, we could restore all that stuff to this site, I don't think there would be any legal problems since the original is dead and they were community-written articles. So maybe write a converter from html to markdown syntax to minimize the work, and either set up a tutorials forum for each language or maybe a general tutorials forum would be better.

Do you have any plans for this?

Ah yes, I'm still working on edits that should return on the same topic. As for the forum, agreed this needs more improvement and I'm also thinking of adding a navigation pillbox on that area.

As for the tutorials, there are plans, but I'm thinking this is more a per author/contributor thing with newer content since most blitz related sites probably has some of those content, something like the old archives which is now posted in SyntaxBomb, which is great to see. We could however filter out and pick or get some info that can still be useful today. I will be providing a separate section with a similar tagging system for the tutorials soon.

I'm also looking next into rebuilding the online manuals for the respective Blitz languages and Monkey-X as well if possible, would that be a good idea?

Thanks for these suggestions!

Hi RonTek,

the way that BB did it was 3 levels like "Community > Feedback and Suggestions > Some suggestions and issues" where the "forum group" link just takes you back to the top level but it looks a bit better than just 2 levels.

That sounds perfect, yes a tutorials section where you use tags to add topics, then we all have control over it, and name tags according to forum group like "blitzmax-ng" + "tutorials". Talking of tags, it would be clearer if all tags where at the top of the main code archives board.

Well we lost a lot of good community written info when BB went down, so a place for everyone to enhance the manuals would be great and such a place doesn't exist at the moment, I think it's a big job there are hundreds of commands for each language so if you created a forum and submitted each command manually it would probably drive you nuts. Is there a way to automate it, like a forum bot or something?

Thanks!

Hey Mark, yes I see that we could use something like an HTML to Markdown converter for the manuals, probably start with Blitz3D/Plus then BMX and Monkey-X last. I was also thinking of posting the default BRL modules manuals for Max (similar to bb site?) to start with and take it from there.

I'm now working on getting the tags on the code archives home page, thanks for tip!

Don't forget that Brucey is working on a site which will have the Bmx NG manual which has extra modules to Bmx vanilla/OS. IIRC he plans on making it accept comments.

Personally, I would prefer an update to the offline Bmx (NG) docs as that is what I always use, but we lost all the comments as mentioned so I guess we need an editable online manual to build that up again. Instead of reproducing the entire manual, which is a bit pointless, you could just set up a manuals forum group and let users add the command they want to comment on, explaining somewhere that they have to copy and post the command info from the manual first, this way it is much easier to set up and produce an updated offline manual later. You could provide the HTML to Markdown converter to make this easier for users.

I see. Yes, I don't mind rebuilding the manuals from member contributions, it's a good and new idea anyway. We could use the manual tag to link posts as manuals. Thanks.

I'll have a go at the HTML to Markdown converter, I'm going to be doing a BBDoc converter soon so I may as well do Markdown while I'm at it, hopefully I can get it to work for all docs. I'll write it in Bmx and provide the source, then you could build an app for Win/Mac and provide a download for people who don't use Bmx. What do you think?

That would be awesome, thanks Mark!

I just noticed there is this topic..
Good call..
I was trying my self to make a blitz website.. And I have..
But no one Registered..
Anyway ill do my best and give advices
Beyond the normal pattern of thinking..

What about a topic of Suggested Projects and requests?

Thanks Hardcoal, and all suggestions are welcome to improve and enhance this new blitz community. Yes, a kudos or like button is already on my list of priorities.

also , every time i enter the site i need to relog :) no big deal but just saying..
is it time limited or something?

Ah yes, that will be my next fix. Thanks for the reminder!

Good news, I found a copy of my BlitzMax manual comments, well it's one comment selected by anything with a code sample so things are missing but it's still pretty good! So RonTek, when you set up a board like the Code Archives I'll post the snippets to the beginners board.

That's awesome Mark! Yes, let me get back to you on that and post it here or as site update when ready. Thanks a lot!

It will also be a good idea to get alert when you get a reply even threw windows 10 or an email

Also a dedicated page with an image and description of a tool made for blitz and a download link and so on..

I think blitz can be promoted especially for kids that are doing their first steps into programming..

Mark Sibley's biggest mistake was not promoting it well

I don't know why I didn't think of this before but you can get a lot (not all) of the BB manual comments from Internet Archive, this cover a lot of what I didn't save. Here's Blitzmax commands and Blitz3d and even Blitzplus. Unfortunately the manuals boards were never cached so every B3d command will have to be checked.

Thanks Mark and noted on that. I'll just try to find and get a local copy of these command pages.

I agree and I like your suggestion Hardcoal. Yes, Tools and Manuals are next on my todo list. I will consider email notifications, but moving forward there will be browser and phone/device notification option in the works to keep it fresh.

Update: Just added the login forever feature, just tick the option under login page.

cheers.

i dont remeber if i asked for a button that takes you to the last post or not.. but here again i mention this if i havnt :)
cheers

Ah yes, thanks for the reminder! I will update this when I get a chance.

what about maxgui section in the forum?
if you ask me .. the more sections the better :)
i mean what harm can it do..

Also i know this one is too much.. but is it possible to enbale the user to move a topic from a place he posted it into a more suitable place if he desire?

Hey hardcoal, I thought the GUI section is already suitable for MaxGUI stuff. http://blitzcoder.org/forum/topics.php?category=31

As for changing topic categories, it is not top priority right now, but we could add or consider this to the To Do list. Thanks!

Ok.. i just noticed it thanks :) Keep the good holy work bud

Sure thing hardcoal! It's good how things are shaping up here!

For reference, the tags are now in place for the blitzmax manual

2d

basic
maths
string
input
graphics
graphics-max2d
graphics-pixmaps
audio
file
streams
network
network-gamenet
banks
data
event
system
zlib

gui

maxgui
gadgets
windows
canvases
panels
sliders
menus
toolbars
tabbers
labels
buttons
text-fields
text-areas
list-boxes
combo-boxes
tree-views
html-views
progress-bars
requesters
icon-strips
text

So for example, setting up the CreatePixmap command should have these tags in any order:

command blitzmax 2d graphics-pixmaps

Hi RonTek,

I tried out the BlitzMax manual tags but it doesn't seem to retain them, maybe I'm doing something wrong or is it just not set up yet?

Hey Mark,

The new manual tags for blitzmax should work now, are you having problems entering like the one below?

I think you should also leave the command name only as it is (ie. "compress2") so it will be indexed properly in the table of contents. I will be lifting the title character minimum if needed and just added the new category here for all command related topics.

http://blitzcoder.org/forum/topics.php?category=34

It is still ideal to add the command tag just to keep things in place and for added info.

Thanks.

I have created and transferred the CreatePixmap command to you as an example and reference. The table style needs some spacing though which I will update today.

If you think the related commands should be included, then it will be as simple as having the line that starts with "See also: "

The whole line will be parsed with separate commas and will do a non-sensitive query like search to find and link to the topic, something like..

See also: PickedX, PickedZ

Oops, silly me I didn't realize you have to click on the dropdown menu for it to work.

I've edited the compress2 post now, thanks. I also added a reference/category note as I think the module it's from should be made clear.

There aren't any "see also" links in BlitzMax, I think it's cool but not really essential.

Anyway, great work thanks again!

Ah that's great and no worries, it does seems confusing at times. Ok I see, just got that reference from the Blitz3D manual anyways. :-)

Table spacing now fixed, cheers.

I've been a bit busy but I'll post the manuals comments I have soon. How's the Manuals board doing?

Biggest issue not yet fixed imo is: in the reply/edit textbox you need 2 new lines to make one new line in the post.

Found a problem, while posting a new topic for RSet it said the title must be at least 8 characters.

Hey Mark, yes same here kind of a busy month now for me, but will set the last big changes once I have more free time. The extra line break might either be a bug or lacking feature with the current parser framework that the site is using. Can you post a sample unedited entry so we can test it as soon as I have the time to fix it?

I already decreased the minimum to 2 characters on the Manual category, let me know how it goes.

Hi Ron,
I posted a single new-line example here http://blitzcoder.org/forum/topic.php?id=73
The new topic page still has an 8 character minimum limit but I was able to change it on the edit page.

Ok that's great thanks Mark. It should lift the 8 char minimum only on Blitz Documentation category, but yes I also allowed editing set to mininum of 2, awesome you figured that out. I could do the same on all when I do my next site update. I already started working on the custom docs section bit by bit.

Btw, would it be a good idea if the docs can be expandable, meaning new commands (user mods) can be moderated and eventually added? or just like the old stuff as we can just use static pages for the commands list.

Edit: It should work now with the 2 char limit on create, just a typo on the wrong category!

Hey Mark, I think I got the Blitzmax Manual by category working now as dry run. Btw, the LSet command should also be tagged under string. CreatePixmap entry and topic now shows under correct sub category.

Thanks.

Hi Ron,
yes the new topic title limit is changed now, thanks. The manuals board looks awesome! I do find the categories a bit confusing though, I gather a command is only in one category. I added the string tag for LSet and added a few new commands.

I've noticed there is actually a "See Also:" in the Blitzmax docs but it seems just to be in Maxgui, in other modules it just links as the commands are mentioned.

IMHO, expanding the manual to user modules is a nice idea but in reality I don't think anyone would do this, maybe wxMax but I always used Maxgui. I would think people can just send comments to the author on Github or whatever. The Brl modules are used by everyone so it's good to have a special place for them where tips and corrections can be found quickly.

That's great Mark! Yes, just got the last A - Z part now complete and ready. It is a bit confusing at first, but just remember the 2 subcategory 2D and GUI are required for tags in blitzmax. I just thought actual forum category is needed so the commands can be browsed easily in one place without additional tag filterings later on.

From hereon It will be easy to add other manuals since the base features are already setup. Honestly, I did not think it will go that smooth at first with this last big update. Now we are ready to move forward with other stuff and fixes, I'm also thinking of adding the same worklogs section if that would also be a good idea.

Yes, let's see how we can go about with the See Also subsection, I'm sure it will still come in handy for old and new online help readers.

cheers.

A-Z looks good Ron!

I'm wondering if it would be better to insert all the command names into the manuals as text only then make them links if someone has posted a topic, people could then use that as a reference for adding tags.

Yes, I suppose worklogs may be useful, all you'd really need is a special forum but you could create tag categories similar to the code archives but not the same, maybe just: 2d/3d/gui/miscellaneous for each language.

great thanks Mark! Yes, that was the idea before the update. The problem with it is the site will have to check with all commands if it existed or not, something along those lines, but let me see if we can have other ways to make it easier with that idea.

Yes, that sounds good with the worklogs, I'll keep that in mind. Thanks.

Biggest issue not yet fixed imo is: in the reply/edit textbox you need 2 new lines to make one new line in the post.

Quick Update:
The parser and formatting has been updated..
and now supports normal one new line..
or single line breaks..
like this one!