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Block ideas..

Started by bloc, November 17, 2014, 07:15:41 PM

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bloc

Strangely as I am working on the BAC features - which include a..tada.. portal lol, I started looking at ideas for easy-made blocks. Like one I coding now called "Movie of the week". Basically its a block that takes a youtube link(for a trailer of course lol), a IMDB id for fetching plot etc. and then a assignable Poll id, which links this whole thing to a topic with that poll. The poll can be anything of course, but a logic step would be whether you seen the movie or not - or liked it for example.

Of course I then had to also add a BBC tag that allowed the same info fetched(and cached of course)from IMDB inside the topic..and a Youtube tag for the same purpose.So, a liiiittle more to it than what I started with haha. :) But it feels fun, creating things like this, that really feels can be of interest to me. I mean, I like movies, and this is a good way to put up movies I want to highlight. maybe some poor soul will even take part in the poll lol.

Other uses for this could be book reviews..or TV-shows of course. Or just any bit of news. Polls are under-rated as a tool, and SMF have always focused too much on them as the "main thing" in a topic, while they really are just a cog at best.


Ken.

Sounds like an interesting process, it will be fun to see the end result.
" If everything seems under control, you're not going fast enough." - Mario Andretti
Yesterday When I was Young.

Freddy

Sounds interesting. Only thing I thought was about copyright at IMDB.

I list movies on one of my sites with trailers and artwork. For the synopsis I use Wikipedia and then put a license message as per their copyright rules.

To be fair I don't know what IMDB has for a license of their wordage. maybe they will allow it.

bloc

Not sure either, but worth to investigate. I do however, have a linked IMDB icon next to the info. Its after all their info lol.

IchBin


bloc

Its the admin part of the mod tied to themes I am creating now. Blocthemes Admin Center or BAC for short. Its a way to combine everything, and make it easier to update as its a mod etc. That is, it started that way, but now have grown into a mod where it installs themes but do not use the theme xml file to install it. In fact, they don't even have one atm. The features it has, are a lightweight portal + the boardtype stuff I used in Protendo and earlier theme projects: showing boards as blogs, galleries etc. Adding new BBC types are a part of that.

I guess it will move towards it being a mod thats adds themes(but without the theme_info.xml files) - rather than a theme that also add a mod. In the latter it implies having to duplicate the admin files in every theme, but I see thats counter-productive in the long run, so I am going for a mod that installs itself - then adds the themes you like through fetching them from the blocthemes site, or just package the whole thing together.

You see, I expanded the "current theme settings" in these themes to more things like uploading image files for logo,background, color control for setting a background color and so on. But its only reachable inside the BAC portion of admin, not "current theme settings". That way its only tied to those themes and not every SMF theme.

Anyways...its whats its interesting to work with right now, I have a use for it, and theres not much time for anything else. Sorry for the long(ish) reply. :)

ZarPrime

I always thought it stood for Blood Alcohol Content but, like you Brad, I couldn't imagine what that might have to do with blocks. LOL   :2funny:

Ken.

Here's one version in use on my live site.
http://www.ourfamilyforum.org/FamilyForum/index.php?action=forum;theme=64

Any TP staff wanting to look inside let me know. (PM me)  8)
" If everything seems under control, you're not going fast enough." - Mario Andretti
Yesterday When I was Young.

bloc

Quote from: ZarPrime on November 20, 2014, 11:04:59 PM
I always thought it stood for Blood Alcohol Content but, like you Brad, I couldn't imagine what that might have to do with blocks. LOL   :2funny:
It does? Hehe, never would have guessed.. :)

To give an update, I added some screenshots of things.

Freddy

Very nice looking Bloc, clean and attractive  O0