The Future of HFS Live 2

[TSG]

The way this file list works, it will be much easier to use the new preview box for previews. Which is still under construction.

[Sapphirescales]

I assume the inability to close the box is something that's going to be corrected?

I use something very similar on my website called thickbox.  As far as I can tell it's compatible with all browsers (well at least the 5 main ones).  Are you sure yours does too?  And are you going to spruce up the preview box a little so it matches the templates?  It looks rather.....bland at the moment.

EDIT:
And about the image previews.....are you going to make it so they maintain their aspect ratio?  The old Live template didn't do that.  It squished them down to the standard size, which made some images look pretty bad.

[TSG]

Click the black area, there will be a close button but like I said, incomplete.

Ours works with all browsers, there is a few bugs to tidy up but RAWR-Designs wont use something unless we made it so even if its not as great as some we'll still use it. Like our RAWR-Player.

The preview box will get some styling eventually.

Its pretty much impossible to keep the aspect with the full image thumbnails, unless you use our generator to make cropped images. And I really don't want to run a script on every image thumbnail, that will cause some massive slowdown.

[Sapphirescales]

May I suggest instead of having all the file info underneath the title that you have a few buttons with options such as "delete" and "rename"?  That would be so awesome.  You know, if you click the delete button a confirmation box would come up and ask you if you really wanted to delete the file and if you clicked the rename button a box would come up asking you for the new file name?

Might I also suggest a hover capability for folder descriptions?  Like if you hover the mouse over a folder the description will come up?  There doesn't seem to be any room for the folder descriptions on this template...........

[TSG]

No I will not be adding delete, rename or anything like that.

I have already put the comment field into the title value.

[Sapphirescales]

Do you guys plan to put a delete feature in your templates anytime soon?  I mean, the default template has the delete feature and it's really an absolute requirement.  Renaming files/folders and creating new folders would be nice too, but I'd settle for just the ability to delete files.

[TSG]

Nope, if rejetto has it in the default its there as a proof of concept, just because HFS has a feature doesn't mean a template will use it. The mistake we made with our previous templates was that they tried to do everything. I don't believe rename or delete are features that should be on the template itself. They should be accessed using an administration panel, one that also has user account control and stuff like that. If you host a website using a good CMS do you modify the site from the front end? No you log into a separate, usually hidden, administration area.

That and there is no nice way of doing such a thing at the moment, none that I like anyway. Same goes for the selective archive download. Our new template will change all of this hopefully.

Anyway, the Black version is finished.

[Sapphirescales]

Any way we could get some download links?  I gotta take that thing apart.

[TSG]

I decided to take a shower and think about the selective download and delete feature. I think for our templates, the checkbox method does not work. What I want is a way to select items on the page, and they stay highlighted, then clicking delete or archive would work some magic. But I do not want to distract Richard from RAWR-X its a huge task. It would be almost rude of me to request another feature to work on

I am actually working on the red theme atm, then I will get onto making the interface for the new preview box... hopefully I can push out the first version of this template by tomorrow or the next day.

[Sapphirescales]

Can't you overlay an enlarged checkbox over the file/folder and hide it?  That would work wouldn't it?  Then you could have a hover element so the files/folders look different when selected.  I remember a friend of mine doing this, but I can't remember how he did it.  I wish I could contact him but....he died so no help there.  40 is the magical age for techs, isn't it?

[TSG]

It would all require javascript, which is somewhere Richard is more comfortable, so I let him do it, something that takes me a few days will take him a few hours. Just like he leaves the design side of things to me.

All the themes are completed.

The only thing it still lacks in its basic state is the server progress/transfers page.. Live never had it, neither does Terayon... is it a big deal, I don't know. We were talking tonight about a flash uploader to enable multi-file and dynamic status, which would solve the need for a transfers button altogether in all of our templates. But its all time.

[Sapphirescales]

Looks Good!

As for the progress bar, yeah I'd say it's a big deal.  Many people have slower connections and they want to know that their files are actually uploading. 

On the topic of a flash uploader, that would be wonderful.  I suggest using Java.  It seemed a lot easier to me than that flash stuff.  Of course I don't know Java or flash.  I pick stuff up through experimentation.  I'd just check out both if I were you.  I can't even express how great it would be if you could get some sort of flash uploader.  Selecting each and every file manually is such a pain.

[TSG]

Yeah, well there is always a trade off, if we work on something as large scale as that, small updates get trashed. If a flash uploader happens it'll appear on RAWR-X first.

[Sapphirescales]

Are you sure Live didn't have a transfers page?  I swear to God I remember uploading stuff to there and having a transfers page come up.  There were two versions as well as the themes.  There was Live Basic and Live Ultima.  Perhaps one had a progress uploader and one did not?

As for the flash uploader, can't you just find someone who's already made one and use that temporarily until you can make one yourselves?  I'm sure there are a couple of free one's out there.  I just can't understand all that wonderful code googily goop.

[TSG]

lol we made a pact when starting RAWR-Designs that everything that is possible to make ourselves, we will make ourselves. It helps us learn and have things we can use in other websites later.

But of course I will talk with Richard later about all this, he is busy at a driving lesson, and its 3am here so I am about to crash.

If Live 2 has a progress feature it was most likely a JavaScript one, literally can't access the upload section in Live 2, it just has a blank page, no idea what is wrong with it. I'll implement a basic one in this tomorrow I think, for now I'm going to bed.