OK, this is something that I've been working on and attempting ever since back in the 6.0 beta test. It never worked. Then a few days ago Tech-Ni-Kal and I got together determined to make it work. And finally, after months of dreaming and planning and a couple days of hacking, Tech and myself are proud to present for your viewing pleasure, YourStyle™!!! (The name's not final, but it's the best we could come up with at midnight...)

What this does, is allows your users to select from any available UBB™ Style Templates and pick the one they like best, and always view the site in that skin. Some more detailed information about this is available n the post on the demo board...

To use the demo board, log in with one of the four usernames listed below. Each username has one of the four demo Styles associated with it. Log in with any or all of them to see the different styles. Please note that for legal reasons, this is ONLY a test board. We have locked the profiles and disabled registration and posting. So for now, all you can do is look, enjoy, and drool. One small bug we've found and are working on a fix for, is that when you log out and then log back in as another username, the main forums page defaults to the first template. Simply hit Refresh/Reload in your browser, or go into a forum, or basically click any link to fix this and view the site in the Style associated with that user.

So without any further adieu, here is our demo board for you to enjoy:

http://www.stonecrick.com/testbb/cgi/ultimatebb.cgi

Login / Password:
Test One / test
Test Two / test
Test Three / test
Test Four / test

On behalf of Tech and myself, I hope you like it!

---Skorpion

I have had to pleasure to work on this hack with Skorpion so far and it has been loads of fun! We have troubleshooted alot of things that have gotten us pretty far but we are having a great time and this hack is going to be great when it is all ready.

Make sure to read the post about YourStyle™ Info at the demo board. You will learn more about this hack. I would talk some more but it is 1 am and Aol is giving me hell so...

<FONT COLOR="#000000" SIZE="1">[ July 19, 2001 12:58 AM: Message edited by: Tech-Ni-Kal ]</font>

OMG! this is soo F*CKING SWEET! woops sorry for the words but it is awsome! great job guys! when you plan to release the hack?

Yeah, it's a really good idea. I've also made it in my board (there you can also change it in My Profile and register page/register page kid)

We plan to release an early version of it sometime soon after 6.1 gets released. Right now, the hack is very basic and underdeveloped, and there is a lot of room for user error to screw up the board. Besides the legal issues, that is the main reason why we disabled so much stuff on the test board... There's just too much room to screw things up right now. And of course there's the not-cache-friendly thing, which we're gonna try to work on.

There are several other nifty features that we want to implement into the hack eventually (and that we won't tell you about quite yet), but for right now we're just concentrating on finalizing the main portion of the hack and waiting for 6.1.

---Skorpion

BTW, please do NOT email us thousands of emails asking for the code and saying I promise not to show anyone just me. I promise you it will not happen. We will release it when it is ready. Until then Skorp and I will be working on it. We will not release it earlier because you need it.

Just wanted to clarify a few things.

Pretty cool, I was just wondering how this effected your server resources. Or does it not even effect it at all?

So far, it doesn't look like it affected them at all. But I am not sure.

Nice work guys... should prove to be very popular

We hope so!

Tech-Ni-Kal and Scorpion, great job. This is something I've been looking for, for quite some time. I'll be in contact with you in the coming months.

Travis: I don't have access to Tech's server logs, so I can't really say anything. But I *believe* the resources aren't affected any differently than what happens when you just turn the cache off. No matter which style is selected, no cache just means that the UBB has to build each page every time it's called, so afaik the only difference is which style it gets built with each time. Though this is another reason we're not gonna release it till 6.1: Since 6.1 is (supposedly) going to have better I/O support, we hope turning the cache off won't be quite as big a deal on large boards as it is/was with 6.0.

Allen: Thanks. Like Tech said, we hope it will be popular.

Splitfyre: Glad to be of service.

---Skorpion

I would tell you about my server logs but they are so big it would take me at least three hours to download on my 56k. Sorry.

LK has made one that looks realy good

No offense, but what does that have to do with ours?

Very cool guys... if I can't figure out my netscape issues.. this may be JUST what I need.. I could select a netscape/internet explorer style

Looking forward to this... may solve my dilemnas hehehe...

Can't wait for 6.1.. I'll be rehacking my board from scratch.. as crazy as that sounds, i'm looking forward to it

<FONT COLOR="#000000" SIZE="1">[ July 20, 2001 11:38 AM: Message edited by: Javier97Z28 ]</font>

You do know this has to do with Style Templates, not regular templates. With this hack your user can select which Style Template they want to use. Skorp and I discussed about doing something with using different templates. I think we might work together and release it but I am not sure.

I may be wrong and you might know but the way I read it you think it has to do with templates. But I also didn't get much sleep last night sooo.

Can I join the YourStyle™ crew? Maybe I can help a little

<FONT COLOR="#000000" SIZE="1">[ July 20, 2001 12:11 PM: Message edited by: LK ]</font>

I will pm Skorp and see what he wants to do.

I am sure we could use your help because we couldn't figure out how to fix the login/logof thing and you look like you fixed it. Plus, you have gotten farther but it is all up to Skorp.