UBB.Developers Forums UBB.classic V6.4 - 6.7 Modifications Forum Design Integration Ultimate BB in the index.htm

Has anyone ever seen this? I remember seeing it at one time and was really curious about how it was done. Is it common knowledge? I'd love to have people go to www.80sxchange.com and simply see my UBB right on the front page, integrated with the rest of my index.htm.

Has anyone here ever done this before?

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Sal Collaziano
www.80sxchange.com

The ONLY way that I know to do this is via an HTML frameset. Other than that, you can modify your Ultimate.cgi, but that won't be a true HTML page.

Okay. Thanks for your quick response. I'm never to thrilled about frames because I think it makes things a little wacky with the search engines.. It would be nice though! Thanks again...

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Sal Collaziano
www.80sxchange.com

or whereever your UBB is. That's it, be sure to upload in ASCII format.



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Ronin Square - http://www.roninsquare.com
"In the end, the world didn't need a Superman, just a brave one."

Really? Thanks for that info.. Unfortunatly, I think I'm on an NT server.. I wonder how difficult it would be to change over... And I wonder if it would be worth it. With what I use, I never have to worry about CHMOD and stuff like that. I don't know all too much about cgi and whatever goes along with it.

Otherwise, it doesn't seem very difficult. A one-liner! I guess I would just add that into the CGI or HTML somewhere...

Thanks again!

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Sal Collaziano
www.80sxchange.com

I recommend that you switch over to Hypermart. A very reliable host. They run a UNIX server and offer 20MBs. Also I'm sure North Sky is a UNIX because FreeServer is hosting them.

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Ronin Square - http://www.roninsquare.com
"In the end, the world didn't need a Superman, just a brave one."

That really works? Man, you learn something new everyday. I'm going to have try that!! WOW!!!

Or you could check out http://www.interserver.net , their plans are great and you can get free months of hosting if your site is the top site! They're on a unix server.


Back to the subject: I saw this at http://www.mrwebb.net , maybe Mr Webb knows.

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Head Administrator of The UBB Code Hackers Hideout - Hacking is in my veins.

[b] Read my Bio, Updated on the 18th of each month.[/b]

And I thought I answered it already.



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Ronin Square - http://www.roninsquare.com
"In the end, the world didn't need a Superman, just a brave one."

I don't think the point was to find one definitive answer.

especially since he is on NT... moving servers just so someone can have an htaccess file is a little overkill.
20mb disk space is nuttin when you have a busy ubb, like Sal does here. His server is reliable and fast. He could either do a redirect to his ultimate.cgi file or ask the tech support person to enable that file to be the equivalent of an index.htm page. Either is possible...

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Allen

- http://www.stand318.com

I suppose the best solution, for me, would be to have the UBB redesigned something like this place but with a look of my front page. I'm not sure it would really be worth it!

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Sal Collaziano
www.80sxchange.com

That's the easy part... as seen on TV! Actually as seen in the tutorials...

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Allen

- http://www.stand318.com

Well, you guys going to laugh your pants off but i am on my own server with Win98 First edition and i use savant 2.1 for webserver.

If i specify Ultimate.cgi like index page on savant i get directly to my UBB, i dont do that anymore cuz i am using also another website on it, but it works.

Oh Savant is free BTW!!! and it runs like andrea's "you know where"


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[This message has been edited by -=SpAwN=- on July 21, 2000]

Ok, so this is a dead horse that I'm reviving, but I had some thougths. Basically, it didn't occur to me to put the forums right up front; that's a great idea, since they are really the main activity on my site anyway.

Thought 1. Of course one could just cut and paste the ubb front-end into index.html. I mean, you would have to lose the info on number of posts, etc (anything that is automatically updated) but the look-and-feel can be preserved without that info. Then, once they click on a forum, they are into ubb proper. Would UBB cough up blood at having the actual Ultimate.cgi front page bypassed?

2. The idea of frames is excellent. Hmm. That way, all the other content continues to be available in other frames. But frames are so scary... Guess I'll be learning more about frames now. But what about using a table? I see that we are right now using a table on this site, and staying in the table as we navigate UBB. Can't this just be applied to the front page as well?

That's really all I had to say and ask. Thanks for the advice. Bye now.

-Axel

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if you have unlimited CGI access (cgi files dont have to be in a cgi-bin to work), you can create a forwarding file. Thats what I do, zanardi showed me how.

just make a file called index.cgi and put these lines in it:

#!/usr/bin/perl
print "Location:http://www.antipopculture.org/cgi-bin/Ultimate.cginn";

of course, change the code in accordance with your own site/settings. Also, make sure there isn't a index.html or index.htm file in that directory.

If you don't have unlimited CGI access, you can accomplish the same thing with javascript, although it moves a little slower. By slower I mean an extra second or two. To do this, make a file called index.html or index.htm, and put this inside:


<\body onload=\'location.replace("http://www.yournewpage.com");'>



ANOTHER option is a meta tag. Again, create a file called index.html or index.htm and place this inside:










The CGI, javascript, and meta tags are the preferable ones, in descending order.



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-david
delete yourself!
you got no chance to win!

You could try something like I did here, tho it has been changed a little since I last worked on it: http://drycarpet.com/forum/

I have active.cgi ssi'd into the left frame with the buttons below it for various board functions... the right frame introduces the board and some of it's functions with links into each forum.

All links open in the right frame... completely bypassing ultimate.cgi... works well for him and looks pretty decent too... still haven't gotten ubbstats.pl working in the right frame like it should...

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Allen

- http://www.stand318.com

Can't you SSI it into the index.shtml page?

Just insert this where you want the UBB to go.



Just make sure the path to Ultimate.cgi is correct.

I don't know if the links will still work right or not seeing as how I've never done it with the UBB.

Mutt made one a while back. I use it on my main page and on the forum index page.

Visit: Here right hand side near middle/bottom

It's called ubbmenu.cgi it requires ssi

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This message has been edited by C_P on September 22, 2000 at 06:58 PM

I know this is an old topic but everyone has come up with really complicated things to solve a very simple problem. Just use a blank index.html page with a redirect line to http://www.yourwebsite.com/cgi-bin/Ultimate.cgi and 0 time delay in the header and it will take you directly to the Bulletin Board when someone hits your website. It's a Meta tag that does this if I remember correctly. It's been a few years since I've used it so don't remember exactly but if needed I could look up the syntax for anyone that is interrested.

Well, yes. This would be a simple solution to get your UBB right out in front. But, what I really would like is to have my board integrated right into my front page. This way, my links are on the left and my board is in the middle and right. Know what I'm saying? I'm pretty sure I can't do that with an NT server so I gave up thinking about it. No biggie though.. Thanks for replying, Clean_Up_Crew!

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Sal Collaziano
www.80sxchange.com and

You know frames aren't any scarier than tables really.. I actually learned frames before tables when I was learning HTML... As long as you can understand the idea that you're loading a different page in every frame section, it's not that hard really..
Certainly easier than figuring out another way to do this.. so when your index page loads, it loads the ultimate.cgi page in another frame.. this would definitely be the way to do what you wanted easily, regardless of server..

If you're looking for a good reference book on all things web... try Que's Platinum Edition Learning HTML4, XML, and JAVA book.. it's very very very good as a reference guide..

This subject of UBB and Front Page intigration seems to be poping up all over the place. Here's a solution that will fit your entire web-site (Including UBB or whatever else that strike you funny).

"( Cascading Styles Sheets ==>CSS2<== )"

The powers to be are aleady working on CSS-3 concepts and design. I think its a move toward completly coding web pages myself. XML and is well on it's way as soon as the rest of us catch up with it. It takes on allot of the power of SGML without the cost and complexity of coding.

UBB dabbled in CSS to a point (but they stopped for some reason), by using the /cgi-bin/Styles.file. The concept is sound simple once you understand True HTML tags and attibutes.

I posted something similar yesterday in the UBB Question Section. You can read the the post for further details:

How Do I Add The Navigation Bar On the Left

Here's a demo of Intigration using CSS2:

2 Nav Bar Style

3 Nav Bar Style

The Source Code for Intigration

The pages aren't perfect and could use some tweeks for visual effects, but they are HTML 4.01 and CSS2 compliant (Even with the UBB forums added. That requires a little bit of UBB Script Modification though.

These two examples work on both IE v5.50.4 and Communicator v4.04.

The dynamic effects (hover-over href's, without java script, etc) are not yet enabled in Netscape as with several other functions (anybody suprised ???).

Here's the CSS2 compatability List:
Master List

Well that's my 2 cents worth. We'll see what others come up with.

GB

Hi all. Well, the frames would definately do the job - I just feel funny about them because of the search engines. Things seem to get wacky for some reason.

And the CSS2 stuff is really great - my only worry is that people aren't using up to date browsers. I suppose there's no easy way of doing things without some people not being able to see them. I wish everybody would just get on the ball and atleast use the latest software!

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Sal Collaziano
www.80sxchange.com and

Sal - You make a good point on upgrading software. It's the same all over. If you want the latest and greatest functions, you usually have to upgrade something. Some of the bigger UBB's I've seen are still running 5.3x / 5.4x versions. I suspect they go over each rev with a fine tooth comb and they pull out the snippets of code they want to
integrate.
This subject is why I started getting into the WAI W3C stuff. They lay out the ground rules & specs for guys like MS and Netscape to follow. You should check out the organizations that are involved with those gruops, they sure aren't your average Jo **** the web hack, they are Org's like (SIIA), Oracle, NBC, NATO, MIT, MS, NS, and on and one.

The answers are available, it will just take some doing, by allot of folks, to chage the current mode of operation.

GB

Yeah, the major problem with the web is the fact that even if the latest versions of MS and NS end up being totally compatible, programmers still have to deal with the fact that a large percentage of people out there are using older versions. So currently the situation is that you have to go with the lowest common denominator, or just live with the fact that some people won't see your pages the way you want them to.. It's really frustrating.. sometimes leads to having to code 2 or more versions of the same site, just to make everything work. Grrr.. Bad MS, Bad NS..

Interesting factet.. Did you know that when creating the sydney 2000 olympics website, IBM accidentally forgot to put all the ALT tags in the images? Someone using a voice browser reported them to the olympic commission or someone (I forget) and IBM quoted something like 12 months and 2 million dollars to put them all in.. Unbelievable right?

The moral of this tale is, umm, try and make your pages as accessible to as many people as possible, and maybe write a script to test for people using versions 2.0 or less of browsers and give them mean messages..