Beta testers needed for checkers site

[matthewkooshad]

It humored me too when I was trying to find some information for you.

I am dividing the countries by their continent. Then, for Canada and USA the user can choose state/province. I would like to be more specific on the other countries if anyone can provide this information. I only have knowledge of usa and canada. Is this listing complete to go by? Any ideas on this? Thanks

[Ingo_Zachos]

Dear Matthew,

no I don't use msn messenger.
I sometimes use yahoo messenger, but I don't find the time very often recently, because I have to use a pc at work in my rest times or at a local chess club...
Sorry for that.

The list of "countries" you r referring to is also including regions and islands like Mauretania or St. Helena, without being independent countries, similar to New England, so it is of limited use only. BTW a complete list of indepemdent countries is hard to get, for some countries r only "recognized" as countries by just a few nations, so I guess the critria is hard to grasp.

Just let the "USA[s]ians" and Canadians enter with with states, and the others with their political country. I am afraid a complete list to pick from is not available, but I would use the list of the UN-members:

http://www.un.org/members/index.html

But don't forget, that soem coutries like Switzerland, are not UN members.
U see u just touched politics, and things r becoming more and more complicated...

Greetinx from Dortmund, Germany

Ingo ZUachos

[hans]

Yes, Ingo is right. A complete list of countries will be difficult and a 100% political correct will be nearly impossible. I'm working at a company going through a merger right now and there is a mismatch for a few country names like for example Palestine and some countries I never even heard of. I would not drive this too far and just take whichever list that seems suitable and go from there.

[matthewkooshad]

Please critique this country chooser for me: http://draughts.info/tmp.html

Also, what are the divided territories of australia referred to as? I know Canada's to be provinces, of course.

Thanks

Edit: I used http://flashimap.com/swf/world_combo_all.swf for the countries listings, as this is a layout I plan to try to imitate the design of. Please someone knowledgeable let me know about the bordering islands of Australia. I am not sure how these are nicely referred to as other than Oceania....

[matthewkooshad]

Just one person to give me a critique on this would be nice. I am becoming sad on this project. Please critique what was noted on Wednesday in previous post such that I can enjoy the task moreso. Thanks

[Ingo_Zachos]

Yes, this looks like a nice try for it.
"Grab your country".
I wonder how many grab the wrong one ?


Greetinx from frozen Dortmund, Germany

Ingo Zachos

[matthewkooshad]

Anyone using a width of 800px or less for screen resolution?

Take a moment to browse the site http://draughts.info

Is the width comfortably fitting within your screen area so you do not have to horizontal scroll?

If viewing problems exist for you, send me a PM with a screenshot of your browser window. (need a place to host your screenshot? http://imageshack.us )

Thanks to the people that help me.

[Michael S. Sanders]

matthewkooshad asks: Anyone using a width of 800px or less for screen resolution?

Yes, on one of my two computers, the elder is running 800x600px, using Win98SE/IE6.0.

Take a moment to browse the site http://draughts.info

Is the width comfortably fitting within your screen area so you do not have to horizontal scroll?

Almost but not quite... The width is (give or take) about 50-75px too wide or, round about one half inch too wide. A solution that works for me is to encapsulate the entire page within a table thereby allowing the content to float, something like:

<table align=center border=0 cellspacing=0 cellpadding=0 width=98%>
<tr><td align=center valign=middle>

content_goes_here

</td></tr>
</table>

'98%' would leave 1% on either side and should work with close to all resolutions. Another great thing about using percentages is that its relative to the screen on which its rendered. Superb site btw! =)

[matthewkooshad]

Thanks for the notes, mate

I was previously using a percentage for the width, but users with a high width for resolution will view it much differently than someone with a much lower width, I believe.

I did a slight more bit of testing. Imagine the horizontal line that I am using on the webpage. Using a percent (for ex. 98%), the horizontal rule will be 98% of the screen width, but the data may only take up 25% of the screen width on a person with higher than 800 width for resolution.

The reason for using > 800 for px in width was due to banner + menu px together (didn't want menu to wrap). I considered placing menu under the banner.. width would not be a problem for sure; I'm not sure how it would appear.

Thanks again.

[Michael S. Sanders]

I was previously using a percentage for the width, but users with a high width for resolution will view it much differently than someone with a much lower width, I believe.

? Percentages are static Matt. Maybe I'm not understanding your intentions.

I did a slight more bit of testing. Imagine the horizontal line that I am using on the webpage. Using a percent (for ex. 98%), the horizontal rule will be 98% of the screen width, but the data may only take up 25% of the screen width on a person with higher than 800 width for resolution.

Well, if you sandwich the entire page, or more explicitly the <body> of the document within a table (this would include any other tables as well), and do NOT hard code your numbers but rather use percentages% you'll be alright. Your source code indicates you're using a mix of the two now, some parts by percentage, other by size, this in my opinion is where your trouble lies.

But honestly, it seems to me this is really non-issue for the bulk of your audience. Statistically, 800x600 would equal < 3% of internet users.

And never mind me, I'm just the new guy looking around =) At any rate, sure does look nice - crack on!

[matthewkooshad]

Oh, I very much appreciate your notes. It has been difficult for me to find someone to do this consistently for me in the checkers community.

I am going to continue to look at this. I am slowly practicing CSS; I would like to be proficient with it enough to get rid of the tables hehe

It is weird. In checkers, we critique positions and try to find the best move, but it is hard to find someone who enjoys giving a critique on a website. It seems this would be more likely to exist in the personalities of checkers players more than it does.

[hans]

Hi Matt,

Tables are fine when you are showing records. That's what they are for. Css comes in handy when doing positioning an styling. If you start nesting tables in tables etc .. you may be better of with css.
Tons of site out there but this one I like in particular:
http://htmldog.com/

Hth,

Hans

[Michael S. Sanders]

Hey hey Matt

Well, one thing for sure... My gut feeling says you're right track. I had planned to build a small checker problem app much like your site for use under Windows. But it looks to me you've got that problem whipped! =)

And I understand about having someone around to critique code, its hard to find responsive help. I've seen some other nifty checker software here and there. I'd guess most folks for instance know how to drive a car but don't care to be mechanics, likely the same holds true with computers lol.

But don't you give up, always press forward!

[matthewkooshad]

Thank you for the nice words, Michael. I really appreciate it, man.

I created dynamic thumbnails by using tables and inserting checker images as the position exists in the database. Links exist in the table cells, and the pieces that are inserted are linked as well to make the final output appear as an image. This seemed to be a lot quicker loadtime than creating images with php; I am a little worried that this tabular output may not display as desired with some browsers.

Please give me your input on this layout: http://www.draughts.info/problems.php

Thanks as always

PS. I am still working on solutions layout for database.

[hans]

my animation use table and image swaps, no problems there ..