redbullmarky

as an almost identical Digg clone, wouldnt that make Digg the coolest site on the web for coming up with the theme first? ...

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-as an unregistered user, clicking 'add vote' sends me off to an "Incorrect Page". -maybe also it'd be better to not even allow user to type in message unless they're logged in - divert them to a 'you need to be logged in' page BEFORE they are presented with the post form. some would get a bit miffed if they spend ages crafting a post only to realise they forgot to log in. - the pagination on your 'Poll' thread (page with the list of topics) doesnt work. clicking 1 says the topic doesnt exist. clicking 2 gives me "Incorrect Page" otherwise, things look promising

to be fair to 13th_Star, so does myspace. only difference being myspace did it first in terms of social networking sites mixed with bad HTML - so that was its "quirk" doesnt mean i like what myspace have done though.... personally, i think that "theming" pages should be slightly limited somewhat, rather than allowing full out and out going to town HTML butchery. it's been done now, so time to move on. I can appreciate the work that would have gone into your site so far, but i think you need to change its direction/image slightly to move AWAY from myspace a bit - otherwise, well - might as well just use myspace. the music scene is good on there too - albeit all kinds of music. i'd say it "will do for now" - and as you've got a fair few members, ripping it down and starting again isnt really practical - but maybe it's worth putting a bulletin or something out to them too and see what they say. i'd start probably by making the communal pages more readable and less myspacey, and leaving the dodgy HTML to the member pages. good luck

*puke* @ web 2.0 actually, tag clouds work quite well. straying slightly into other realms, and into personal opinionsville, i actually think that sites like these (ie, quite simple, same as loads of others, etc) are a good chance to go to town, just to stand out from the crowd a bit. i've been working on a huge personal project recently and have had to look at loads of sites out there to try and get an idea of what works/what doesnt, and just generally try and give a bit of a unique edge. firstly, credit where credit's due - since you opened this topic, things have developed alot and getting there slowly. however, some of my initial sentiments still remain. it's still a bit bland/boring, it's still a bit amateurish considering the target audience, and just doesnt jump out at me. for an example of where you COULD head, and also taking on board what daniel has just posted (re tag clouds), take a look here: http://bakery.cakephp.org/ reasons why i like it - it's subtle and simple, but not dull. easy to use. i like the "category blocks" above the titles, too, as well as the date the particular piece of content was added. Ok, so it's not perfect - but it's a slight push/step up from where you are now with what is otherwise quite a similar site to yours. good work so far.

dont worry dude. i'll mark your topic solved even though you asked for the feature in the Misc forum

personally, unless it's too much trouble to enter product info twice, i'd advise against a shared DB. however, if you have to, then you'd probably be looking at seperating your pricing from the items into a table of its own, and giving all items/prices a 'site' id - something unique for each site. i have done it before - but my decision was based on the DB's having more in common than not. some of my reasons: a) same logs/sessions (i keep all my site requests/sessions in the DB) b) i used a single administration panel for both sites, as it was all recruitment based. c) both sites on the same server d) both sites share same DB structure if something was unique to a site, then the 'site' field for a record would be set to say 'siteA' or 'siteB'. if it was for both sites, then i'd leave it empty. there are advantages to having it all in one DB, mainly the fact that changing content/structure in one DB for one site would also do the same for the other, but i found it more efficient to keep them seperate.

cant speak for the second point. as for the first, the miscellaneous forum isnt really for solvable questions specifically - rather its for generally everything else. as the bumf suggests on the main page: considering the examples given in the above text: 1, discussions about weather, dogs, cars, etc don't really need to be solved 2, many of the more serious problems in the Misc category are placed in there to avoid members the task of searching for a more relevent place to post 3, if you need to post so many posts in the Misc forum (ie, your posts arent PHP related), then maybe you'd get better answers posting some of your topics in another forum. I dont mean this in a rude/nasty way - but there are adequate forums here to cover everything PHP related, hence it being phpfreaks.com, not answers.yahoo.com. so maybe to keep the site's flow, a solved button would be good - but what are YOUR reasons for wanting a solved button in the Misc forum?

you've asked so many questions recently all in quick succession that i'm trying to get my head around what you're trying to do altogether - as maybe there's already a full solution/CMS out there that will take care of everything you're asking? failing that, simple blogs are ridiculously easy to put together. If you're using either Cake or CodeIgniter like you suggested before, check out the video tutorials which will set you on your way. If not, you still shouldnt have too many problems; in many ways, writing your own blog is easier than trying to butcher an existing blog to suit the style of your own site(s).

well - call me lazy, but i've never noticed those links before either. that's good enough for me! cheers

In the regular reply box, if you look below it in the list of previous messages, each one has an "Insert Quote" link in the UR corner. Click that. sure i understand the actual BBCode button that inserts tags, but when you actually quote a person by clicking 'Quote', it actually pulls the info through such as who made the quote and what time,etc, making it easier to see who's talking about what and in reply to who, etc.

like i say - the ONLY problem i find with the quick reply box it's the only place that 'quoted' messages can be written - unless you know the full ins and outs of the [ quote ] tag to do it yourself or just copy the text, press the 'proper' reply button and paste it. ok, it's not that much hard work, but still. personally, i reckon it'd be better if clicking on "Quote" never used the quick reply area at all, and went straight to the actual reply page, but that might be just me.

yeah much better. i wouldnt necessarily see it as a problem apart from the whole quote thing.

i kinda have to agree with you on this one. either that, or allowing easier "quoted" replies when using the main reply function.

haha it starts off like a porno movie (so someone told me) but oh my god...the rapping...ouch

kinda swaying more into music-ville but trying to stay on topic - the les paul is definitely more recognisable outside the 'rock' audiience as well as in, so would be a much better bet than the ibanez picture. if ever there was a cliche for a guitar picture, the fender strat (currently in the pic) is defintely it, although using it does pose some plus points as well. again, i reckon it's a good idea to speak to her to find out whether she does. if not, then there's no harm in a) removing the guitar altogether and b) getting a pic without the mic - just a "pose" ps @dbrimlow, ibanez (RG) and gibson les paul also my weapons of choice

ok, now we're getting somewhere. but: - your logo is HUGE when it doesnt really need to be (at least on a 1024x768 anyway). it pushes your main content right down the page and leaves a huge amount of whitespace next to the logo. - it's very "faceless". you need some form of footer with all the "Help", "Contact", "Terms & Conditions", etc or whatever. just to give it a feel of being a real site, not just a test. - top logo - make it a link to the main page. - i feel lost without a navigation. granted, there's not much to navigate around, but still. - for such a simple page, it really should validate but it doesnt. either way, you really do need to get your head down and come up with what YOU consider a finished product, else we'll be running around in circles forever. I'm fully aware of how many times a project can change its look over the full course, so really, you'd be better getting critique when it's ready.

i'm kinda struggling to get my head around what you're trying to achieve...???

wouldnt it take hardly any time at all to just grab one of each file that you need to test and do it yourself?

the manual entries for htmlentities() and htmlspecialchars() do have good mentions and examples of avoiding XSS, notably in the user comments section. cheers

yeah i've looked at that before. definitely one i'll be looking more into, even if not for this particular need. anyway - thanks so far for your suggestions. I'm currently trying a few different ways just to see how they all fit together properly Cheers

are there any alternative pictures of her, perhaps "without" the mic? ie, just general poses? the fact that she's got a mic and no guitar just kinda puts her in the category of "well, i can sing but that's about it." Wheras having NOTHING would be better as the whole rock-chick thing would just be assumed. as previously mentioned also by dbrimlow, if she does infact play guitar, find out what sort. even if the guitar was silhouetted, it'd still be recognisable to avid fans - and potential fans may feel a bit misled by the implication that she is/uses stuff that she doesnt really. overall, the 3rd layout works the best. dark themes always do tend to fit in nicely with rock, just in this case she holds quite a soft, "pop" pose on a rock background. good job though, as always. cheers

features: it's your site - you tell me. what do YOU want? bugs: remember the PM I sent you about SQL injection? yep - still a HUGE problem. structure: who knows. there's only two active pages. i cant tell you much about structure. colours/layout: look at the link i posted ^ in above post.

Hi chaps I'm currently in the process of constructing a help system for my site. Whilst initially it's a fairly straightforward task, I want to build the functionality into something more re-usable for any purpose for future use. Sometimes I want it to churn out a FAQ, sometimes i might want it to be more like the sort of Help you'd see on an OS So - a few questions: 1, Does anyone have any pointers to any packages that already do specifically this that I can take a peek at? 2, How would YOU personally arrange the DB to handle something future proof in respect of a help system? On the surface, putting together a help system may seem fairly straightforward - it's literally just the future I'm considerate of... but something that could churn out something like: this or this - ie, fully fledged - is what i'm aiming for. Cheers in advance for any thoughts/opinions Mark

c'mon chap - what's the point in asking for critique, getting two valid critiques for what little content their is, doing nothing about it, and bumping your topic with a "what about now?" type thing? even when i search for a snippet and the code pops up, both my own and jcombs' opinion still stand. there's hardly anything there. what does it say about the quality of your php snippets if the quality of the site hasnt been improved one iota since the last time? c'mon dude, put some effort in and repost when you're doing better. i suggest you start by re-reading the previous posts/advice. cheers