The Icon Bar: Icon Bar and Acorn Arcade relaunch

The Icon Bar: News and features: Icon Bar and Acorn Arcade relaunch

Icon Bar and Acorn Arcade relaunch

Posted by The Icon Bar team on 17:36, 26/11/2006
RISC OS, Site, Flamewars, Advocacy

Change is good. Welcome to Icon Bar 2.0.

We're expanding the site's remit significantly, bringing new areas of interest to existing, lapsed and ex-RISC OS users: alternative platforms, new technologies, and various other geek-related things, whilst still keeping tabs on what's happening in the RISC OS scene. We might reminisce about the good old days of dusty computing. We might do a sex wee thinking about the next Mac OS.

Don't get us wrong, we're not dismissing RISC OS completely. But we have realised that many other things interest us too - perhaps as a consequence of the sensibilities that Acorn instilled in us - and we want to share them with you.

We might even begin to enjoy computing again.

New features

Because of the broader subject matter it's become necessary to introduce better methods of exploring the site. One way of achieving this is the introduction of tagging. Each article is tagged with appropriate keywords - just click on that tag to see other relevant articles. If you're itching to complain about us deviating from our RISC OS remit, just shut up and bookmark the RISC OS tag. Happy now? Good.

We've also merged the front page news with the forums - historically the most popular part of the site. The comments on our news items and articles now benefit from all the features found in the forums - such as quoting, hyperlinks, smileys, and avatars. If you haven't already registered a username, why not sign up now and get involved?

Acorn Arcade

The Icon Bar has merged with its sister site, Acorn Arcade. The two sites now follow the same look and feel, and share all their news, features, comments and forums. If you have an Acorn Arcade username you'll be able to log in at The Icon Bar, and vice versa.

The Playpen writ large

Anyone who reads the forums will know that authors and readers alike share interests outside of RISC OS. One of the most popular threads of recent times is about the Nintendo DS, and it's not just because it uses two ARM processors. Even discussions about snatches of song lyrics make for better threads than RISC OS arguments.

We want to leave behind the obsessive-compulsive love-hate relationship with the RISC OS scene, and all the petty infighting and repetitive arguments that plague it.

Will you join us?

	Icon Bar and Acorn Arcade relaunch
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Phil Mellor	Message #94448, posted by monkeyson2 at 14:56, 27/11/2006, in reply to message #94446
Please don't let them make me be a monkey butler monkeyson.info Posts: 12380	we were than competent


John Hoare	Message #94451, posted by moss at 15:31, 27/11/2006, in reply to message #94448
...óflå...óflå...óflå... Posts: 9348


Simon Challands	Message #94481, posted by SimonC at 19:28, 27/11/2006, in reply to message #94396
Right on, Commander! Posts: 398	OK, here's the screenshot from IE at work (although Netscape and Firefox at home doesn't look much different). Perhaps it's supposed to look like that, but I find it far too cramped.


Jeffrey Lee	Message #94484, posted by Phlamethrower at 19:42, 27/11/2006, in reply to message #94481
Hot Hot Hot Hot Hot Hot Hot Hot Hot Hot Hot Hot Hot stuff Posts: 15100	Netsurf gets the forum slightly wider for a window of that size, but not by much. Since I don't particularly like the right-hand column on the forums either, I'm thinking I could add a profile option that lets you choose whether to have the recent discussions list in the right side bar or on the left.


John Hoare	Message #94488, posted by moss at 19:52, 27/11/2006, in reply to message #94484
...óflå...óflå...óflå... Posts: 9348	Yeah, that's how it looks here. I must admit, I like the righthand sidebar - but I'm in 1280x1024. In a lesser resolution, I might not be as keen - in fact, I definitely wouldn't be. Profile option would be fine - or just getting rid of it. Either suits me.


Simon Challands	Message #94498, posted by SimonC at 20:47, 27/11/2006, in reply to message #94488
Right on, Commander! Posts: 398	I'm usually using 1280 x 1024, but I don't like filling the screen with a single window, so rarely browse with it that wide.


Phil Mellor	Message #94499, posted by monkeyson2 at 20:54, 27/11/2006, in reply to message #94498
Please don't let them make me be a monkey butler monkeyson.info Posts: 12380	Right hand column has now gone from the forums. Is the left hand side too cluttered, or does it serve more of a useful purpose now? You should be able to see the recent discussions all the time in the forums now.


Jeffrey Lee	Message #94503, posted by Phlamethrower at 21:04, 27/11/2006, in reply to message #94295
Hot Hot Hot Hot Hot Hot Hot Hot Hot Hot Hot Hot Hot stuff Posts: 15100	On this page the ^ link images at the bottom right of each comment have broken image URLs. Fixed!


Jason Togneri	Message #94561, posted by filecore at 09:37, 28/11/2006, in reply to message #94499
The Iron Lord and coming soon: Haunted House Posts: 3868	The thing is, there are effectively two left-hand bars on the forums now. There's the Forums/Profile/Search/Recent etc, and then there's the profile avatar, which is indeed wider than the menu bar. By the time you reach the actual message itself, you're already halfway across the screen. And I'm using 1280x1024 on a 19" monitor. It's just all too left-hand side heavy


Jeffrey Lee	Message #94564, posted by Phlamethrower at 10:16, 28/11/2006, in reply to message #94561
Hot Hot Hot Hot Hot Hot Hot Hot Hot Hot Hot Hot Hot stuff Posts: 15100	More like one third or two fifths of the way across the screen


Phil Mellor	Message #94565, posted by monkeyson2 at 10:32, 28/11/2006, in reply to message #94561
Please don't let them make me be a monkey butler monkeyson.info Posts: 12380	and then there's the profile avatar, which is indeed wider than the menu It's as wide as the non-breaking http://ironlord.acornarcade.com text you put in it


Jason Togneri	Message #94580, posted by filecore at 11:42, 28/11/2006, in reply to message #94565
The Iron Lord and coming soon: Haunted House Posts: 3868	It's as wide as the non-breaking http://ironlord.acornarcade.com text you put in it Yes yes yes. Oh good lord, and speaking of site redesigns and updating, there's one more project I have to get to... does anybody even play Iron Lord anymore? But anyway, what would be the point of breaking a URL? Especially given the size of some of these other avatars... EDIT: see? It now breaks every 4-6 characters and hasn't changed the overall size of the column at all. MY AVATAR IS INNOCENT! IT'S NOT MY FAULT EDIT 2: I got so used to writing a message and hitting tab->enter to post, because tab used to take you to the Posting options where Post or Save edit was the active button. Now, tab->enter takes me to Logout. That's really, really, really annoying. Can it be removed please? Why do we need a logout option at the bottom of every post? Bad design EDIT 3: The option to view the post you just posted doesn't work, it just took me back to the top of page 1 of this thread. [Edited by filecore at 11:48, 28/11/2006]


Phil Mellor	Message #94585, posted by monkeyson2 at 12:03, 28/11/2006, in reply to message #94580
Please don't let them make me be a monkey butler monkeyson.info Posts: 12380	EDIT: see? It now breaks every 4-6 characters and hasn't changed the overall size of the column at all. MY AVATAR IS INNOCENT! IT'S NOT MY FAULT It looks a little narrower to me. You can put HTML tags in your avatar (I think), which makes the url clickable and potentially shorter. EDIT: it depends on the width of your window. The avatar column isn't fixed width, so it'll look wide on wide screens, but proportionally so. Your non-breaking text caused problems on very narrow windows, because it forced the column to be at least that wide, whereas now the column can be narrower because the text can wrap. EDIT 2: I got so used to writing a message and hitting tab->enter to post, because tab used to take you to the Posting options where Post or Save edit was the active button. Now, tab->enter takes me to Logout. That's really, really, really annoying. Can it be removed please? Why do we need a logout option at the bottom of every post? Bad design Yeah, I don't know where that came from. I think it must have been part of the smarty templates for years, but we've only just got around to flushing the template cache and making it appear! I'll get rid of it later. EDIT 3: The option to view the post you just posted doesn't work, it just took me back to the top of page 1 of this thread. That's been broken forever. [Edited by monkeyson2 at 12:05, 28/11/2006]


Adam Lloyd	Message #100724, posted by adamlloyd at 20:38, 24/3/2007, in reply to message #94585
Member Posts: 155	Wow I was late signing up! well this was like my 13th try. [Edited by adamlloyd at 20:38, 24/3/2007]


Andrew Poole	Message #100725, posted by andypoole at 20:48, 24/3/2007, in reply to message #100724
Mouse enthusiast Web Twitter Posts: 5558	Wow I was late signing up! well this was like my 13th try. [Edited by adamlloyd at 20:38, 24/3/2007] ...And that required resurrecting an four month old thread because...


Adam Lloyd	Message #100989, posted by adamlloyd at 08:08, 31/3/2007, in reply to message #100725
Member Posts: 155	Wow I was late signing up! well this was like my 13th try. [Edited by adamlloyd at 20:38, 24/3/2007] ...And that required resurrecting an four month old thread because... because, you should know I lke resurrecting old threads


Richard Goodwin	Message #101027, posted by rich at 10:31, 1/4/2007, in reply to message #100989
Dictator for life Posts: 6828	And you should know, in my day job I like shutting down accounts of people that have misbehaved. ________ Cheers, Rich.


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