rejetto forum

Software => HTML & templates => HFS ~ HTTP File Server => RAWR-Designs => Topic started by: TSG on July 17, 2009, 06:34:17 AM

Title: The Future of HFS Live 2
Post by: TSG on July 17, 2009, 06:34:17 AM
I am trying to make contact with Alvaro (Chrno) to get permission from him to rebuild his template from the ground up. We actually talked quite a lot over MSN in the past, I am sure he would be happy for me to take the reins. The first thing I would do is re-write the entire template from the ground up, and use his image sets to create 3 themes on a switch like RAWR-Template. Atleast it will be more accessible this way. It is on a creative commons license, I could go ahead and redo it right away, but I respect Alvaro and will get his permission first.



EDIT: I have the source files and the permission from Alvaro to do the Live template reboot. I will get onto it when I have the chance.
Title: Re: The Future of HFS Live 2
Post by: TSG on July 18, 2009, 07:31:26 AM
I have sat down this afternoon and worked out my plan for Live 3.

Basically I will write the template code from scratch, the template will be written properly in simple HTML and I will use CSS for as much as possible. I honestly do not need JavaScript for anything with the current plan. I cannot guarantee IE6 support for a lot of the template, but that is the case with most modern websites. We are up to IE8 now anyway, YouTube is currently dropping support for IE6. It doesn't mean it wont work though, I will try to make it work as best possible.

Live 2 has A LOT of JavaScript, the template is practically built using it, its too much of a bandwidth requirement and has too many files for such a simple HFS template. It makes it too complicated to edit and the image server idea was just a bad design decision. (no offense to Alvaro but I think he would agree with that).

Hopefully my version of the template will make it more accessible to newbie users and I like the addition of the template as its interface was specifically designed for handheld portable devices, which is something we are lacking to offer at the moment, other templates will work but they are designed for a PC web browser and resolution.

I will keep the name, so people still know the templates history, but I will remove the windows branding and replace it with something else. I believe the template has a market and it will continue to be a popular choice for HFS users.

As for multi-language support, I noticed Live 2 supported Spanish and English, I will take it into consideration. I could possibly integrate language files like RAWR-Template and ToG but I think its best to start off basic and polish the template first.



I just noticed the template has a flash player in it, however it appears to be broken and buggy... I might replace it with RAWR-Player, but we'll see.
Title: Re: The Future of HFS Live 2
Post by: DarkSide on July 18, 2009, 04:21:08 PM
Excellent cant wait.
Title: Re: The Future of HFS Live 2
Post by: TSG on July 18, 2009, 04:51:02 PM
Like most developers the source files are sorted in a way only the author understands :P so I spent tonight digging through it all looking for the major source files i need, like the navigation.

Expect a blue version released first... sorry for the live black fans... but I am having trouble finding that in the folder, will look more tomorrow.

I have designed it a bit differently, my version has the glass effect above the logo, so on iPhone or PSP you will only see the glass effect as the header, the logo will not be seen so it doesn't interfere with the navigation appearance. I hope anyway, I am just using Google, I might use my sisters PSP to test that... possibly her boyfriends iPod for the other most popular...

EDIT: dw found black.

Also does anyone actually like the Live Red? I like the Blue and Black but the Red is a bit hard on the eyes this early in the morning :P I might still include it, depends on the reaction.
Title: Re: The Future of HFS Live 2
Post by: TSG on July 19, 2009, 04:30:39 PM
Ok here is the progress so far, I quite like how it is turning out, for now I have rigged up some macro to the old icons provided by Alvaro, but hopefully when we have access to 32x32 icons I can simply link them in and I wont need so many different things. Its a very light template, and fits in the PSP browser perfectly. Also doesn't look too shabby on a PC browser.

Unknown to me but I found out today that iPod and iPhone use zooming in the browser. So I don't have to worry about that so much. Other phones I can't test but I am not going to get paranoid about it.

I think it might also be the first template to only use DIV and CSS markup. No TABLE markup at all :o

I rigged up a macro to search for generated thumbnails from our generator, if none, load the original image. To prevent massive lag with some pages I have not included tif or bmp. Our generator does compress these filetypes but for the web they aren't a smart idea.

There is differences between mine and Alvaro's version, mostly because I am avoiding unnecessary javascript or errors as much as possible.

All I have to do now is make the upload section and the blue version of the template will be complete!

I haven't hooked it up yet but its looking like this template should support the RAWR/ToG language files... so that will be good. I like the simplicity of this template (never thought I would say that about Live template...), I am in two minds about including previews, it'll just complicate things and the portable devices most likely wont work with the code anyway.
Title: Re: The Future of HFS Live 2
Post by: mysoogal on July 19, 2009, 07:39:38 PM
so no video thumbnail support  :o
Title: Re: The Future of HFS Live 2
Post by: Sapphirescales on July 20, 2009, 05:03:14 AM
Wow.  I must say I'm VERY pleased that you've taken this up TSG.  I've always loved the simple look of the Live2 template, but when I went to edit it......let's just say my view of how simple it was changed. :P  Holy Sheesters!  I don't know you you're even making sense of any of that. :D

I can't wait to see your code.  All I gotta say is it better be easier and more understandable!  If I could make a suggestion, I'd like it to be able to have native image preview support.......meaning no preview generator program.  That's the #1 thing that was so great about that template.  It's a real pain not to be able to view the images without generating them.  If you can't do that at least make it so you don't have to click a button to see each and every image that you want to see a preview of.  That's what really gets me in the RAWR template.
Title: Re: The Future of HFS Live 2
Post by: TSG on July 20, 2009, 05:52:21 AM
I have made a macro that will show the original image as the thumbnail unless there is a generated one, until rejetto gets EXIF thumbnails working for JPG, then I'll need another check of sorts. I tried to implement the preview box last night, but it wont work at the moment. I am tempted to leave it until the new preview box is finished. So for now it will only have thumbnails.
Title: Re: The Future of HFS Live 2
Post by: Sapphirescales on July 20, 2009, 07:26:35 AM
How about showing the files differently?  All that blank white space seems like a real waste to me, especially if you've got a lot of files/folders to display.
Title: Re: The Future of HFS Live 2
Post by: TSG on July 20, 2009, 07:40:15 AM
Well the main problem would be filename lengths, and also the thumbnails are a larger div... by mistake I did make it work kinda like windows tile setting, but it was all uneven, they have to be all the same size for it to work correctly.
Title: Re: The Future of HFS Live 2
Post by: Sapphirescales on July 20, 2009, 07:42:54 AM
Well can't you make it so if the filename is too long it would just run off?  Sort of like thisisalongfreakingfilenamethatissogre........

All that blank space is just so wasteful.  I bought a 28" monitor for a reason.  I want to be able to make use of every pixel I've got and it'd be a real shame if you had to scroll down when there's all that useful tempting space just waiting to be used on the right side of the screen......
Title: Re: The Future of HFS Live 2
Post by: TSG on July 20, 2009, 07:46:07 AM
yeah I'm using a 24" here but you gotta remember there is only so much you can do.
Title: Re: The Future of HFS Live 2
Post by: Sapphirescales on July 20, 2009, 07:47:29 AM
My knowledge of what you're doing is limited, I do admit, but couldn't you implement something like a table to force the sections to be a certain width?  Perhaps specify the width of each section in the DIV?
Title: Re: The Future of HFS Live 2
Post by: TSG on July 20, 2009, 09:04:42 AM
you can pay me later :D I just need to configure it so that all the parts are the same size now, then it should work just fine.

Only thing is the white space used is now at the bottom on larger resolutions. I guess with more files it will work better...
Title: Re: The Future of HFS Live 2
Post by: Sapphirescales on July 20, 2009, 09:07:23 AM
That's great! ;D ;D ;D

Now what about the video preview?  You're not going to include it with this template?  I don't think you should be looking at this as an exclusively mobile device server template.  After all, who puts up their entire server only to serve portable devices?  It's neat that it works so well on portable devices, but frankly I don't think that should be your main goal here.  Live is a very nice template and it has much potential. 
Title: Re: The Future of HFS Live 2
Post by: TSG on July 20, 2009, 09:20:47 AM
The way this file list works, it will be much easier to use the new preview box for previews. Which is still under construction.
Title: Re: The Future of HFS Live 2
Post by: Sapphirescales on July 20, 2009, 09:32:57 AM
I assume the inability to close the box is something that's going to be corrected? :P

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.
Title: Re: The Future of HFS Live 2
Post by: TSG on July 20, 2009, 09:48:03 AM
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.
Title: Re: The Future of HFS Live 2
Post by: Sapphirescales on July 20, 2009, 09:56:06 AM
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...........
Title: Re: The Future of HFS Live 2
Post by: TSG on July 20, 2009, 11:34:40 AM
No I will not be adding delete, rename or anything like that.

I have already put the comment field into the title value.
Title: Re: The Future of HFS Live 2
Post by: Sapphirescales on July 20, 2009, 02:55:46 PM
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.
Title: Re: The Future of HFS Live 2
Post by: TSG on July 20, 2009, 03:05:21 PM
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.
Title: Re: The Future of HFS Live 2
Post by: Sapphirescales on July 20, 2009, 03:09:36 PM
Any way we could get some download links?  I gotta take that thing apart. :o
Title: Re: The Future of HFS Live 2
Post by: TSG on July 20, 2009, 03:43:27 PM
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 :P

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.
Title: Re: The Future of HFS Live 2
Post by: Sapphirescales on July 20, 2009, 03:52:01 PM
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? :'(
Title: Re: The Future of HFS Live 2
Post by: TSG on July 20, 2009, 04:27:01 PM
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.
Title: Re: The Future of HFS Live 2
Post by: Sapphirescales on July 20, 2009, 04:31:28 PM
Looks Good! ;D

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.
Title: Re: The Future of HFS Live 2
Post by: TSG on July 20, 2009, 04:35:56 PM
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.
Title: Re: The Future of HFS Live 2
Post by: Sapphirescales on July 20, 2009, 04:39:07 PM
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. :D
Title: Re: The Future of HFS Live 2
Post by: TSG on July 20, 2009, 04:47:49 PM
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.
Title: Re: The Future of HFS Live 2
Post by: mysoogal on July 21, 2009, 01:07:09 AM
tsg, possible if you can also add jpg support so the template also displays jpg in thumbnail style instead of the icons :O

i have posted before here about this thing http://www.rejetto.com/forum/index.php?topic=7166.0 but it seems not much interests  :-\
Title: Re: The Future of HFS Live 2
Post by: TSG on July 21, 2009, 07:16:36 AM
I already have a thumbnail system replicating the Live 2 one, I wont be making something like that. It would break the html/css layout. Something you can achieve on your own I think. If you make a thumbnail view, you need to make a thumbnail view for every file/folder/link, and this template has a tile effect, I'm not going to be changing it.
Title: Re: The Future of HFS Live 2
Post by: Sapphirescales on July 21, 2009, 11:52:02 AM
This template is going to be nothing but bare bone basics.  We'll have to add everything to it including the delete feature, rename feature, new folder creation feature, and I'm also going to work on a "view type" feature.  I might even try to make a dynamic slider like Windows Vista has for resizing the icons and thumbnails on a certain page.  Of course that's gonna take a really good icon set in .png format so it'll take a lot of bandwidth.  If I'm dumping RAWR for this it's gonna have to be good so I'm going to be spending a lot of time customizing this kickin' template. ;D

But I do agree with TSG about the check boxes.  They don't belong on this template or the RAWR template.  That's why I'm using a textbox for each function.  To impliment the delete, rename, and new folder function I'll be using text boxes.  I might be able to make them look decent on the actual Live template itself, but I don't think so.  I'm going to use a dynamic page tabbing system coded in straight CSS so just a button will be on the actual page.  Then when the user hovers over the "delete" button, a small window will drop down and ask them to type in the file/folder name that they want to delete.  It may not be perfect, but it's the best I can do.

These functions such as delete are very useful and shouldn't just be in an admin panel.  If your friends are uploading files to your server, the should be able to have total control over their files.  If they don't, then what's the point in doing it?
Title: Re: The Future of HFS Live 2
Post by: TSG on July 21, 2009, 12:31:58 PM
I kinda replied to you here: http://www.rejetto.com/forum/index.php?topic=7174.msg1045137#msg1045137 Sapphirescales

Live 3 is in bug testing at the moment, I expect to release the first version very soon.
Title: Re: The Future of HFS Live 2
Post by: Sapphirescales on July 21, 2009, 12:55:36 PM
Sounds good.  I've already come to the conclusion that I'll have to add all the neat features I want myself until RAWR-X comes out.  I might actually create individual delete buttons for each file, but I don't know what I can do until I see the actual code itself.  I'm still eagerly awaiting it's release.  I'm sick of RAWR.  It looks.....old sorry to say.  It matches Windows XP perfectly, but with the cool interfaces of Windows Vista and Windows 7, it just looks old and dry.  I can't wait to take Live 3 apart.  I'll figure something out to get the features I need on it.
Title: Re: The Future of HFS Live 2
Post by: nukie on December 04, 2009, 12:12:30 AM
Sapphirescales, would you mind sharing the modified Live 3 template when you finished?
Title: Re: The Future of HFS Live 2
Post by: Sapphirescales on December 04, 2009, 12:19:56 AM
Check out the link in my sig.  You can use my older version of Live 3 (the one I was making when I made the posts in this topic), or you can wait for my newest version (check page 3 in the topic to see a screenshot).
Title: Re: The Future of HFS Live 2
Post by: nukie on December 04, 2009, 01:21:41 AM
ah ok, will do, thx :)