Creating a forum is harder than I first anticipated…
Forum
Long, long ago, before this blog went public in week 24 of development, CCSO had a fascinating forum. Those of you who have been around since the beginning may well remember my adventures… my discovery, my journey, and my fights with phpBB.
Essentially a forum in a box, phpBB is a godsend to any novice web developer. You set it up and you’re all ready to go. Hundreds of cool features, amazing styles, and everything else you could ever really want.
Anyone remember that image? 26th July 2014. From one of the private weekly updates before CCSO went public.
Anyway, long story short… I lost two months on phpBB. It was amazing. I could have worshipped it. But, it was inflexible. You got what you got, and nothing more. I wanted something that I had more control over. I spent so long reading through the documentation, testing so many things, and yes I could edit it to an extent, but it just wasn’t enough in the end.
I waved goodbye to phpBB 😦
I knew creating a forum was way above my skill level at that time so I left it and moved on to greener pastures…
But now the forum situation changes!
Gah! Not quite as handsome as phpBB, but it is a starting point!
I thought this would be a fairly straightforward task, yet I grossly underestimated the confusingality* of it all. Forums are pretty complex systems, if I’m honest. There are so many variables you have to keep track of and juggle as you traverse or make changes to the forum.
*Now a word.
It was a difficult task (as you can probably tell by the intro comic). Despite this, I succeeded! I am proud of the achievement. The forum is solid and provides a good base to build upon.
I know you are eagerly scanning ahead in this text searching for how to access it. Stop right here! Here you go: Visit the index page of the alpha site. The link is there. You’ll be prompted to log in if you aren’t already as this is required to use the forum.
I greatly look forward to seeing the twisted and warped mess you make of it ^^ Just judging from past experience when I let loose testers on a new feature. Once one of you finds a bug it spreads like wildfire!
Updates to this forum are likely going to be frequent throughout the coming fortnight. I found it quite an enjoyable object to work with – at least once the functionality started to all click together – so I’m motivated to continue to work on it and add even more features.
Art
And where would we be without an art section? This time only one piece but there is something bigger we’re working on at the moment! I’m sure you’ll see the secret soon.
For now though… have a Drill!
Great work, Shoopiewoopie! (she hates me calling her that hehe)
That’s all for this week!
The beta site is coming together nicely. I know a lot of these projects aren’t 100% complete, but they are getting there. My skills are improving all the time, allowing me to attempt larger and more complex tasks and functionality. You all have a lot to look forward to! See you soon!
CC Survival 