December 2009
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Ask 404TS: How do I expand your phpBB mods to work for the Subsilver2 theme?
I’ve written two unofficial mods for phpBB3 forums previously that worked very well for those using the Prosilver theme, the MP3 inline attachment mod and the FLV inline attachment mod. Recently, I was asked in the forums how to make them work for the Subsilver2 theme, the other popular theme that many styled themes are based on. After puzzling on it for a long time and decoding the makeup of the Subsilver2 theme, I figured out a way to make it reliably work. Installing this mod will allow you to place inline .flv or .mp3 files to be played streaming with a simple Flash player.
ClickHeat – Get a HeatMap of Clicks on your Site
If you’re looking for an easy way to figure out how your visitors are interacting with your website, you might be interested in ClickHeat. ClickHeat adds a small bit of Javascript to a web page and then will record where clicks occurred, even if they weren’t links. This would be important if you’ve recently redesigned your website and visitors are not finding it as intuitive as you’d like. Say there’s a deceptive image that everybody thinks should be a link, you would see a lot of clicks on that image even though clicking it does nothing. ClickHeat provides an easy, non-invasive way to do some basic usability testing for your site.
Sneak Preview of the Coming Google AdSense Interface Overhaul
This morning I received an e-mail from Google AdSense inviting me to check out the new interface they’re working on developing in a limited Beta test. I’ve captured some screenshots to share the sneak preview of the coming changes. It appears to be an overdue overhaul and the e-mail touts these benefits:
- Comprehensive performance reports: View your daily stats in graph format, and gain insight into new metrics such as the amount you’re earning from different ad types, targeting types, and bid types.
IrfanView – The Best TIFF Viewer
I recently received hundreds of TIFF images which gave me the chance to reacquaint myself with IrfanView which is, in my opinion, the best TIFF viewer out there. The TIFF image format is commonly used for scanned documents and images with a high color-depth. Unfortunately, being able to open the format seems a little less common. IrfanView takes care of that problem and has a few other notable features.
Wibiya – A Toolbar for Your Site That Engages Your Visitors
Wibiya creates a Javascript-powered toolbar that attaches to the bottom of the screen and stays there without any jumping as the user scrolls. Wibiya is currently in invite-only mode, but you can request an invitation be sent to you and a few days later be creating your account, invite in hand. The toolbar improves the user interface of almost every website by providing a consistent location for users to clearly find different aspects of your site. It also engages your visitors, allows you to communicate with them directly, and encourage them to further explore your site. You may have seen the Wibiya toolbar on a number of sites because it is very simple to implement and its functions are very comprehensive as to the needs a website will typically have. Not only is the Wibiya toolbar very comprehensive, but it’s also customizable. You can choose everything from the color scheme of the toolbar to the apps that appear on your toolbar.
HTML5 Video and Audio tags BBCode for phpBB
HTML 5 has brought a few cool things with its arrivals. With browsers starting to understand these features and people updating their browsers, we can start to implement some of these items and get them into every day use. The ability to embed audio and video without being required to wrap it in an external player and require that your users also have that plugin is a great step forward for a multimedia web. To make its implementation a little more practical, here you can see how it works and how to use it in a phpBB forum. Check out the comments on this article in our forums to see it in action.
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