Board Optimization - Digital Point Better CSS

About
This is something we use on digitalpoint.com to make the CSS better and more efficient.

Installation

• Upload the contents of the upload folder to your installation
• Install the product-digitalpoint_css.xml product under AdminCP -> Plugins & Products -> Manage Products -> Add/Import Product

You can see a live version in action here (on any page really): http://forums.digitalpoint.com/

Details
Rounded Corners
vBulletin 4 only supports rounded corners for Firefox, Chrome and Safari. This plug-in makes rounded corners also work in Opera and Internet Explorer.

Gradients
It appends some CSS markup to your primary CSS file that makes use of CSS3 gradients (gradients defined right in the CSS file itself). vBulletin uses 5-7 gradient images per page view normally, and this eliminates the need for the browser to download those images. CSS3 gradients are supported in Safari, Firefox, Opera and Chrome. For browsers that don't support CSS3 gradients, they will simply fall back to the normal image-based CSS gradients that vBulletin uses by default.

Notes
This plug-in is useful for sites that use vBulletin 4 default styles, or at least styles that utilize the same classes and methods for doing things within the CSS files.

This plug-in does NOT add any extra CSS files, nor does it edit your existing ones. Instead it appends some new info to the end of your main CSS file that comes from it's own template. It also adds an attribution link.

You can find more info here: http://products.digitalpoint.com/vbulletin-css.php

Changes
1.0.2

• CSS3 Gradient support for IE10 (early, I know... but it's there)
• Handles gradients in vB Suite Blog and CMS
• Works properly for CSS stored as files

Uninstallation: Automatic uninstallation is a bit of a catch 22... you need to compile templates to uninstall it, but vBulletin has no function built in to compile a group of templates. So uninstalling it removes the code needed to uninstall before the uninstall code is executed. So in order to uninstall this, disable just the one plug-in that is part of this product at the template_compile location, and then run Compile CSS Templates option under AdminCP -> Maintenance -> Update Counters. Once you do that, you can uninstall the whole product without any problems.

[djbaxter]

Originally Posted by ChemicalKicks

His tone is completely wrong but don't be so quick to jump to conclusions, maybe like me he has paid to remove the copyright. The last thing you'd want to do is add something to the footer again.

I find these little self-righteous explosions ("How DARE you include a footer link!") to be very tedious. The solution is easy and obvious:

Don't want the footer?

(1) Contact the author and see if you can make an arrangement to remove it, perhaps for a fee as you do with an unbranded vBulletin license.

(2) Uninstall the add-on.

What NOT to do?

(3) Post some self-righteous rant in the coder's thread making an utter fool of yourself by telling everyone how outraged you are.

[djbaxter]

Originally Posted by djbaxter

I can see the effect at DigitalPoint with IE9.

But on my forum, using styles with limited departure from the default, no rounded corners. I don't even get them in the vBulletin default style.

Any known conflicts?

Solution:

Admin CP >> Settings >> Options >> Cookies and HTTP Header Options

Set Disable IE8 Compatibility Mode = No

Then rounded corners work. Partially. On the home page but not on all pages.

See attachments.

[djbaxter]

Error on uninstall:

Compiling CSS templates...

Warning: mysql_query(): 7 is not a valid MySQL-Link resource in [path]/includes/class_core.php on line 414

Warning: mysql_error(): 7 is not a valid MySQL-Link resource in [path]/includes/class_core.php on line 1025

Warning: mysql_errno(): 7 is not a valid MySQL-Link resource in [path]/includes/class_core.php on line 1043

Warning: mysql_query(): 7 is not a valid MySQL-Link resource in [path]/includes/class_core.php on line 414

Warning: mysql_error(): 7 is not a valid MySQL-Link resource in [path]/includes/class_core.php on line 1025

Warning: mysql_errno(): 7 is not a valid MySQL-Link resource in [path]/includes/class_core.php on line 1043

Database error in vBulletin 4.1.3:

Invalid SQL:

UPDATE vbadminutil SET
text = UNIX_TIMESTAMP()
WHERE title = 'datastorelock' AND text < UNIX_TIMESTAMP() - 15;

[djbaxter]

Originally Posted by djbaxter

Solution:

Admin CP >> Settings >> Options >> Cookies and HTTP Header Options

Then rounded corners work. Partially. On the home page but not on all pages.

See attachments.

Actually, on checking further I see the same thing on the DigitalPoint forum: Only partially rounding corners.

[CK]

Originally Posted by djbaxter

I find these little self-righteous explosions ("How DARE you include a footer link!") to be very tedious. The solution is easy and obvious:

Don't want the footer?

(1) Contact the author and see if you can make an arrangement to remove it, perhaps for a fee as you do with an unbranded vBulletin license.

(2) Uninstall the add-on.

What NOT to do?

(3) Post some self-righteous rant in the coder's thread making an utter fool of yourself by telling everyone how outraged you are.

I fully agree with you, you'll notice just above his post what I asked

[billstelling]

if your going to add a footer link in a mod then it should be included in the product details. It gets old in a hurry when they get snuck in like that. And they serve no purpose to the forum members at all. Just a way to try and make money by forcing us to pay to get rid of them. If its good i will donate all on my own and don't need some lame ass link in the footer to get me to do it.
oh and it was IE9 to the question above.

[digitalpoint]

Regarding the rounding corners... it doesn't round every corner, only corners that vBulletin rounds normally in Firefox, Safari and Chrome.

For the install issues... had to do some obnoxiously roundabout things to get it to be able to (properly) compile templates on installation/uninstallation. But I think I'm going to change it so there is a separate process to do it that the install gets redirected to. It should solve the installation screwiness for some people.

For the attribution link... we don't have a paid/attribution free version (too much work to set up something like that), but people are of course free to not use it of course. The add-on description was changed to mention it.

[billstelling]

I do hope you get this one working as it will be a good add on. What is the deal with IE that it doesn't support rounded corners or shadowing?

[djbaxter]

Originally Posted by billstelling

I do hope you get this one working as it will be a good add on. What is the deal with IE that it doesn't support rounded corners or shadowing?

IE9 does support that. But current versions of vBulletin do workarounds with the CSS for IE because earlier versions did not. vBulletin has not yet caught up with IE9.

[digitalpoint]

For those having issues installing or uninstalling... I simplified it and instead of trying to get "tricky" and making the whole process automatic (which was causing problems for some people), I instead made a function to compile CSS functions that will show up under the "Update Counters" area of the AdminCP. When you install, the system will automatically redirect you there and do it automatically.

Uninstallation is a bit obnoxious though since when you uninstall, you also lose the Compile CSS Templates option, so you can't really automate it. See update in original post for a note on how to (properly) uninstall manually.

Doing it this way should eliminate the SQL errors some people were getting as well as PHP memory limits and execution time (since it will process 25 at a time and then start a new batch of 25... resetting PHP execution time and memory in the process).