If you guys notice the Help Me area, last night I was asking for folks to test the changes to how quotes are displayed in a few specific themes. Those tests seemed to pass without breaking anything, and most folks seem to appreciate the change, so I've now updated that behavior to work across all themes.
Quotes now only show a maximum of 140 pixels of information. No longer will anyone have to scroll past three pages of long replies just to see where somebody left a smiley face as a response.
ALL the information is preserved, same as always. It's just all collapsed inside a quote box now, which you have to expand by using the SHOW MORE button. Once you're done reading the quotes, you can compress them back down with SHOW LESS as the button toggles, if you want to.
We lose nothing. Everything is here just like always. For the people who need those quotes to track information flow, the info is all still there. Just expand those SHOW MORE fully and presto, you're golden. For everyone else, you get enough info to see who posted, who the new poster is replying to, and the link back to the original conversation if you're really curious and don't want to expand the conversation.
I think this should be a win-win for everyone, with nobody finding anything to really dislike about this little change. The forums have now became a little less cluttered, a little easier to navigate, and now have a lot less crap to scroll past.
You're welcome. I'll take my milk and cookies now, please. Praise me! Praise me! .css and javascript are normally a bit outside my wheelhouse, so I only failed about a bazillion times before I got this zoomed in properly for us. Even @Pete should say, "GOOD JOB VARMIT!!" over this change!
One note: This storm is coming fast this way and they're calling for a couple of inches of ice with it now. Steve the Amazing may be without power soon, and if so, I probably won't have it again for a week or so. If you guys notice anything off with this, or need any changes, you'd best post them quickly because Steve may just disappear and not be around for multiple days to make any correction for you guys. You may have to live with posts being misaligned or something odd, for a while, if the css is off on your browser/system, unless you speak up early and tell me *NOW* if you see anything unusual.
Okies guys. Same deal. Try the Twilight Theme once more for testing. I've made a minor change or two to how it was, and this seems more like how I'd envision it working better. Look for that Show More in the post and see where it's hiding at for us. It's no longer down below the area like it was. See if you can finds it.
Ok guys, help me help you by making this a better little home on the web.
Folks complain over having to scroll past pages of quotes. I've tried to fix that.
Scroll ALLLLLL the down and in the bottom right corner of any screen, you'll see a way to change themes.
Kindly swap over to the TWILIGHT THEME and then just browse the forums and see if anything seems overly broken with it. It was the least used theme, so one I used for testing my changes on.
Here is what one image of a long ass quote looks like, as they're currently rendered.
And here is the image of how these quotes would look with the changes, provided they work on all broswers and don't break anything:
If you look, that's a much smaller quote, but there's an "SHOW MORE" link which you can link to expand the collapsed quote if you really need to see what the heck the person was referring to.
It quotes it. It saves the original quote. It's still referenceable.
But it defaults to being collapsed so folks don't have to scroll past a whole page of quote just for somebody to give a smiley face or "Good job" or whatever
Test the TWILIGHT THEME, tell me how it behaves on your system and browser, and if all works as advertised, I'll push the change into everything else soon(tm).
Maybe quotes won't be the issue for folks that they've been in the past, with a little fix like this for the forums.
I wont stop my route but do you guys feel bemused, annoyed or anything else with my new methodology? I.e. I Architect now over coding for hours on end! I have to analyse, debug, edit mod etc as I used to but now I've got no limits DEV is lightning fast, i'm once again LEARNING coding and hope it'll benefit us all.
Apologies to B+ et al, for not entering this sooner; I wrote my first version of this game quite a while ago, and since then, several, (ok, much better) renditions of Boggle have been produced.
But as my version has a couple of added "features", I thought I'd present it anyway. So here it is:
GetNames
If NP < 2 Then Red: Bad: Centre "Minimum 2 players", 15: Sleep 1: System
Plr = Int(Rnd * NP) + 1
OK: Cls
LetterDistribution: '
Data "B","C","D","F","G","H","J","K","L","M","N","P","Q","R","S","T","V","W","X","Y","Z"
For a = 1 To 21: Read Cons$(a): Next
Data "A","E","I","O","U"
For a = 1 To 5: Read Vwls$(a): Next
GetBoxSize:
_KeyClear
Yellow
Centre "Box size (1=4 dice, 2=9 dice, 3=16 dice, 4=25 dice)?", 14 ' size 1 very quick, 4 can give a very long game
While size$ = "": size$ = InKey$: Wend
Size = Val(size$): If Size < 1 Or Size > 4 Then Size = 2
Centre Str$(Size), 16
_Delay .5: OK: Cls
GeMode:
_KeyClear
WIPE "141516": Centre "Choose Mode 1 or 2", 14
Centre "Mode 1: multiple use of dice, 2: single use of dice; default 1", 15 ' mode 2 allows more and longer words and higher scores
While Mode$ = "": Mode$ = InKey$: Wend
Mode = Val(Mode$): If Mode < 1 Or Mode > 2 Then Mode = 1
txt$ = "Multiple use of dice selected": If Mode = 2 Then txt$ = "Single use of dice selected"
Centre txt$, 16
Sleep 1: OK: Cls
SetUpBox:
BoxV = 176: Row = 8
RowSize = Size + 1
NumDice = RowSize * RowSize
ReDim Dice$(RowSize, RowSize)
Colm = 36 - 3 * Size
BoxH = 492 - 40 * Size
Yellow
PSet (BoxH, BoxV)
For a = 1 To RowSize
For b = 1 To RowSize
Draw "r65d60l65u60r65"
Next
nxtrow$ = "l" + Str$(65 * RowSize) + "d60"
Draw nxtrow$
Next
ShowDicePos:
White
For a = 1 To RowSize
For b = 1 To RowSize
Locate Row + a * 3, Colm + b * 5
Print "*"
Next
Print
Next
Shake:
Yellow
Centre "Press any key to shake the Box ", 31
Sleep
For a = 1 To 15: Play "v100w8l32o5t240l64c": _Delay .1: Next
_Delay .5: WIPE "31"
GetDice:
NumWds = 1: Letters$ = ""
Passes = 0
Dim Words$(75)
White
For a = 1 To RowSize
For b = 1 To RowSize
Dice$(a, b) = Cons$(Int(Rnd * 21) + 1) ' get random consonant for each die
Next
Next
For a = 1 To Size
Dice$(Int(Rnd * RowSize + 1), Int(Rnd * RowSize + 1)) = Vwls$(Int(Rnd * 5) + 1) ' include 1 vowel per grid Size to ensure words always available
Next
For a = 1 To RowSize: For b = 1 To RowSize
Letters$ = Letters$ + Dice$(a, b)
Locate Row + a * 3, Colm + b * 5
Print Dice$(a, b)
Next
Next
PlayerUp:
WIPE "29"
Wd$ = "": Ltrs = 0: WdVal = 0
If Passes = NP Then EndGame
txt$ = "": For a = 1 To NP: txt$ = txt$ + Name$(a) + ":" + Str$(Score(a)) + " ": Next: WIPE "1": Centre txt$, 1
Yellow: txt$ = "Passes:" + Str$(Passes): Centre txt$, 3
Plr = Plr + 1: If Plr > NP Then Plr = 1
txt$ = Name$(Plr) + " Playing": WIPE "06": Centre txt$, 6
T1 = Timer ' start timing player's turn
GetEntry:
Yellow
WIPE "26": txt$ = " Type your word": Centre txt$, 26
_KeyClear: k$ = ""
While k$ = "" ' wait for key press
k$ = InKey$
TimeLeft = Int(T1 - Timer + FreeTime)
If TimeLeft < 0 Then Red Else Yellow
txt$ = " Free Time remaining:" + Str$(TimeLeft) + " ": Centre txt$, 8: White
Wend
k$ = UCase$(k$) ' convert alpha to caps (Chr$(13) is unchanged)
CheckEntry:
Fail = 0
KeyCheck:
If k$ <> Chr$(13) And (k$ < "A" Or k$ > "Z") Then Fail = 1: Bad: GoTo GetEntry ' only accept Enter or alpha
If k$ >= "A" And k$ < "Z" Then
Ltrs = Ltrs + 1
WdVal = WdVal + Ltrs
Wd$ = Wd$ + k$: Centre Wd$, 29
GoTo GetEntry
End If
CheckForPass: ' Ltrs is length of wd$, WdVal is points value of Wd$
If Ltrs < 1 Then
Bad: Fail = 1: Red: Centre "Player passed their turn", 30: Sleep 1
Yellow: WIPE "30": Passes = Passes + 1: Evaluate: GoTo PlayerUp ' if no letters, set Fail flag,count as pass and evaluate
' after evaluating, always get next player
End If
Passes = 0 ' letters were entered, Passes is zeroed, continue checks
CheckLetters: ' check all letters are available in this mode
For a = 1 To Len(Wd$)
L$ = Mid$(Wd$, a, 1) ' get each letter of Wd$
Po = InStr(Letters$, L$) ' find its position in the list of dice-letters, if any
If Po = 0 Then
Bad: Fail = 1: Red: txt$ = "Illegal letter (" + Mid$(Wd$, a, 1) + ")": Centre txt$, 30
Sleep 1:: Yellow: Evaluate: GoTo PlayerUp ' if not found, set Fail flag, evaluate;
Else ' but if found,
If Mode = 2 Then Mid$(Letters$, Po, 1) = LCase$(Mid$(Letters$, Po, 1)) ' if mode 2, make dice-letter lower-case to hide it
End If
Next ' get next Wd$ letter
Letters$ = UCase$(Letters$) ' all letters were valid, back to Upper-case for next check
DupWord: ' check if word already used
For a = 1 To NumWds ' check in list of used words for duplicate
If Wd$ = Words$(a) Then
Bad: Fail = 1: Red: Centre "This word has already been used", 30
Sleep 1: Yellow: WIPE "30": Evaluate: GoTo PlayerUp ' this word is already used, set fail flag, stop checking
End If
Next
LegalWord::
Found = 0
Open "R_ALL15" For Random As #1 Len = 19 ' list of words up to 15 letters
FL = LOF(1) \ 19 + 1 ' get length of file
bot = 0: top = FL ' set bottom as 0 and top as FileLength for search area
While Abs(top - bot) > 1
srch = Int((top + bot) / 2)
Get #1, srch, A$ ' get middle word of search area
Select Case A$
Case Is = Wd$
Found = 1: Exit While ' word matched, set Found flag, stop searching
Case Is < Wd$
bot = srch ' word-list word lower is too low, move bottom up to middle
Case Is > Wd$
top = srch ' word-list word is too high move top to middle
End Select
Wend ' repeat until gap is 1 or word is found
Close
If Found = 0 Then
Bad: Fail = 1: WIPE "30": Red: Centre "Your word was not found in the Dictionary", 30
Sleep 1: Yellow: WIPE "30": Evaluate: GoTo PlayerUp
End If
OK: Evaluate: GoTo PlayerUp
Sub Evaluate:
If Fail = 1 Then ' if word failed a test,
If TimeLeft > 0 Then
TimeLeft = 0
TimeLeft = -TimeLeft ' no credits for unused time (over-time still penalized),
End If
WdVal = -WdVal ' and deduct word value
End If
Points = WdVal + TimeLeft
Score(Plr) = Score(Plr) + Points
Announce:
Sleep 1
WIPE "3031"
txt$ = "Word value: " + Str$(WdVal) + " points"
Yellow: Centre txt$, 30
txt$ = "Time adustment: " + Str$(TimeLeft) + " points"
Centre txt$, 31
txt$ = "": For a = 1 To NP: txt$ = txt$ + Name$(a) + ":" + Str$(Score(a)) + " ": Next: WIPE "1": Centre txt$, 1
Sleep 3
WIPE "3031"
If Fail = 1 Then Wd$ = LCase$(Wd$) ' change failed words to lower-case for display
NumWds = NumWds + 1: Words$(NumWds) = Wd$ ' add to found-words list (whether good or bad)
For a = 0 To 4
Locate a + 32, 1
For b = 1 To 15 ' show 10 words per row
If Words$(a * 10 + b) > "Z" Then Red Else White ' if word is lower-case, show in red, otherwise white
Print " "; Words$(a * 10 + b);
Next
Next
Wd$ = ""
End Sub
Sub EndGame
Cls
OK
Yellow: Centre "Game Finished", 10: Sleep 1
Centre "Final Scores", 12: White
For a = 1 To NP
Print Tab(33); Name$(a); Tab(46); Score(a)
Next
Winr = 1 ' assume player 1 is winner
For a = 1 To NP
If Score(a) > Score(Winr) Then Winr = a ' if player 2 score higher, change winner to player 2
Next
txt$ = "Congratulations, " + Name$(Winr)
Yellow: Centre txt$, 18: Sleep: System
End Sub
Sub Bad
Play "w1o2l16gc"
End Sub
Sub OK
Play "w1o3l64ceg"
End Sub
Sub Centre (txt$, linenum) ' centre Txt$ on Line Number
ctr = Int(CPR / 2 - Len(txt$) / 2) + 1
Locate linenum, ctr
Print txt$
End Sub
Sub WIPE (ln$)
If Len(ln$) = 1 Then ln$ = "0" + ln$
For a = 1 To Len(ln$) - 1 Step 2
wl = Val(Mid$(ln$, a, 2))
Locate wl, 1: Print Space$(CPR); ' print line of spaces on Line WL (2 digit line numbers)
Next
End Sub
Sub White
Color _RGB(255, 255, 255)
End Sub
Sub Yellow
Color _RGB(255, 255, 0)
End Sub
Sub Red
Color _RGB(255, 0, 0)
End Sub
Sub GetNames
GetOne:
_KeyClear
NP = 0
Do
If NP = 4 Then Exit Do
NP = NP + 1
Locate 14, 18
Yellow: Print "Name for player"; NP; "(or just <ENTER> to finish) ";: White
Input Plr$
If Plr$ = "" And NP < 2 Then
Red: Bad: Centre "Minimum 2 players", 15: Sleep 1: WIPE "1415": Sleep 1: GoTo GetOne
End If
If Plr$ = "" Then NP = NP - 1: Exit Sub
Plr$ = UCase$(Plr$)
If Plr$ < "A" Or Plr$ > "Z" Then Plr$ = "Player" + Str$(NP)
If Len(Plr$) > 8 Then Plr$ = Left$(Plr$, 7)
Name$(NP) = Plr$
Centre Name$(NP), 16: _Delay .5
OK
WIPE "1416"
Loop
Plr = Int(Rnd * NP) + 1
Cls
End Sub
Sub Instructions:
Yellow: Centre "Bogglish", 5
Centre "A game for 2 to 4 players", 6: White: Print
Print " This game is loosely based around the dice game of Boggle. It uses 9, 16,"
Print " 25 or 36 virtual dice. Players take turns to form words from the letters"
Print " revealed when the dice are shaken. Each letter is worth 1 point.": Print
Print " Before the game starts, players select how many dice to use. The box of"
Print " dice is then shaken, and players take turns to find words of two or more"
Print " letters that they can form using the revealed letters. Points are earned"
Print " for valid words, or lost for invalid ones, based on their length.": Print
Print " Points can also be earned or lost depending on the time spent entering the"
Print " word, with 30 seconds of free time before a time penalty of 1 point per"
Print " second is applied. Unused time earns credits, but only on valid words.": Print
Print " There are two modes of play. In Mode 1, dice can only be used once in each"
Print " word, while in Mode 2, they can be re-used any number of times. Words can"
Print " not be repeated. If a player can't find a new word they may pass, but may"
Print " continue to submit words they find later. The game ends when all players"
Print " pass consecutively."
Yellow: Centre "Press any key to start", 27
Sleep: OK: Cls
End Sub
![[Image: image.png]](https://i.ibb.co/Hfx19psV/image.png)
![[Image: image.png]](https://i.ibb.co/v6mBmrHR/image.png)
