Vivaldi Forum mod

Maniastern

Very nice, but why the plug-in realisation? Usually, people who use such modifications do it with two or one plug-ins implementing custom CSS and JS into any website. Why not JS+CSS scripts sharing? It's nice, really, but it's also not actually good for user to install plug-in for a single site instead of using what he most likely already has. You think it worth an additional plug-in, someone else thinks the same for some other site, and we eventually have a huge pack of little plug-ins for huge pack of sites when we could have just two good plug-ins and don't be anxious about the browser productivity.

Would be nice if you share JS+CSS code here with any public code pad. I really love your work, very clear and accurate, and I also couldn't find such a beautiful dark theme on userstyles.org, so I'm really excited to finally find what I wanted. But though I think the plug-in will help people who doesn't know how code implementing plug-ins work, for others, I think, scripts sharing would be more useful.

Thank you.

Maniastern

@dleon
Got it. But what the stuff specifically? And the code, as I get it, was edited after creating the plug-in, so there is a difference between this code and the code in the "Forum customization" thread.

I mean... it's just not a hard task to share the code with codepad when one updates the plig-in and its thread, anyway. But it'd simplify using very much. Since it's a combination of scripts, even if the scripts weren't edited, sharing would be a good thing, because one shares not the scripts, but the combination of them.

luetage

@maniastern The extension is clearly for people who use the forum regularly. Obviously no one would install an extension for each site they visit. You can compare the forum mod to the reddit enhancement suite -- a tool for specialists to get more out of the site.

The extension is made up of javascript and css mods. You can download it, pick out what you need and make a simple userscript out of the parts you want to use. Vivaldi gladly allows userscripts in the extension environment. But that's not that easy to do, you gotta look out for issues when the forum is updated and stay on top of it. Therefore providing the community with a modular extension was the logical thing to do.

Btw., sorry for the lack of updates during the last month, just a few more days for the really big update.

Maniastern

@luetage
Hello)
Yes, I actually can extract the scripts, but... it's not exactly what I'm talking about. I meant, you already update the thread after the plug-in updating, so it wouldn't be so hard to update codepad with extracted userscripts. It's just... something logical for the plug-in author to share the userscript from it (since it's far more easier for creator to do it) instead of forcing users to extract the scripts on their own.

I understand what are you talking about when you mention regular using, but it's still the problem. I didn't meant people install a plug-in for every site they visit, but Vivaldi Forum is not the only popular site in the world, isn't it? I have many favourite sites and I use userscripts for each of them. And it's normal for Vivaldi users, because, you know, we here love customization)

luetage

@maniastern said in Vivaldi Forum mod:

It's just... something logical for the plug-in author to share the userscript from it...

Hmm, I fear it's not, it's a lot (and I mean really A LOT) of extra work, and besides, I actually want people to use the extension -- believe it or not
And I don't know of any extension authors who do this. Your best bet is the forum customization thread -- themes and mods copied/downloaded from there work out on their own. It's true that I heavily customised everything, so picking Vivaldi Forum Mod apart isn't simple. But for it to work the way it does, this step was needed.

And about forcing users.... this hurts, I'm not forcing anyone to use this. It's provided as is, but if you find bugs or have a feature request, I'll happily look into it. But this is just an unreasonable request

Maniastern

@luetage
Okay, got it. Sorry)

Hadden89

Probably too rude but it works xD
Hooked via vivaldi forum mod lol

/*Hide >all< deleted posts*/
li.deleted {display: none !important;}

/*Reduce posts margins*/
li[component="post"] {
	border-bottom: 1px solid !important;
	border-radius: 0px !important;
	margin-bottom: 1px !important;}

/*Increase container (test)
.container {width: 95% !important;}*/

luetage

Why rude? You can "hook" any css you want, just put it into default.css and you're good to go. The problem is the additional code will be deleted on update, so you have to save it outside and copy it back in occasionally.

Hadden89

@luetage said in Vivaldi Forum mod:

Why rude? You can "hook" any css you want, just put it into default.css and you're good to go. The problem is the additional code will be deleted on update, so you have to save it outside and copy it back in occasionally.

as approach, sometimes li.deleted are not blank but none still hide them

luetage

Vivaldi Forum mod 1.0

The promised update is here.

Changes

New custom theme option and interface
Compact header mod
Bugfixes

The current version is actually 1.12, had to fix several bugs I noticed after publishing and pushed a few updates out during the last 24 hours. This update will disable the extension, because a new permission is needed to run it. Vivaldi Forum mod has to be able to manage downloads, because the custom theme interface has an export function. If your extension isn't on 1.12 yet, you can enable Developer Mode on top of the extensions site and click "Update extensions now". This should take care of it.

Custom Theme

You can edit your custom theme by accessing its interface on the extension's options page. Access the options page, by clicking on "Forum mod" in the avatar dropdown menu, or by visiting vivaldi://extensions/. Afterwards click on the edit button (beside the custom option).

Expand to view images:

The left hand side gives you 7 color options, which will define the look of your new theme. Additional colors and shades are calculated automatically, similarly to what Vivaldi does in the browser's theme settings. Pick new colors by clicking the color button. When you are finished, you can view your new theme by clicking the Activate button and reloading the Vivaldi forum tab. Be aware that activating a theme will save your new color picks and delete the previous custom theme from the storage.

If you want to save a theme, you have to export it. Click the Export button to download a .json file containing your current theme colors. Be aware that you have to activate the theme beforehand, or the colors won't be in storage.

To load a theme file you simply click the Import button. This will overwrite your current theme, load the new theme and activate it automatically (no need to click Activate). Activating a theme will also select the custom theme option and save this setting. You won't have to click Save in the main view.

Exporting and importing themes gives us the ability to share themes. I made two you can try out immediately --

Solarized-Light.json
Solarized-Dark.json

When you create a theme, make sure you have enough contrast. The more contrast there is between your foreground and background colors, the better the readability will be. In general picking a very dark or very light background color will result in better readability and an easier time creating your theme. Foreground, Highlight, Link and Link Post should all have good contrast to the background. If you pick the same color for all options, the result will be an unreadable and monochrome mess ^^

I'm excited to see what themes you come up with. Please share and post images. As this is still in development, I'm also interested in feedback. Could be I missed theming some parts of the Forum.

Compact Header Mod

The compact header mod reduces the height of the header to the size we had before Vivaldi updated the forum. It's especially convenient for small screens, but I think it looks better overall anyway. Access this mod on the options page and hit save to enable it. All themes will use the new Vivaldi forum logo from now on. Because of this I have removed the Logo Animation mod -- it doesn't make sense when the logo is this wide.

I hope you have fun trying this out. If you have problems with any of these new settings/options, I'm happy to explain anything that might come up, just ask.

mib2berlin

@luetage
Hi and thank you for the forum mod extension.
I use it since the beginning and like it very much.

Cheers, mi

Narsis

Oooo! Just found this. Very nice and much better than what I was using before.

One thing I'm noticing right now: the text box where I'm entering this text to reply hasn't changed colours with my custom theme. (i.e. it's still white background/black text.) I'm assuming that's a bug?

luetage

This post is deleted!

Catweazle

The Dark Gray theme is excellent, good work

luetage

@catweazle Dark-Gray and Light-Gray have been created by @sjudenim and were introduced here: https://forum.vivaldi.net/topic/19728/vivaldi-forum-mod/17?page=1
I take no credit for this

And thanks for bringing this up, mentioning someone brings up a pop-up I didn't theme, and making a smiley brings up another pop-up I forgot too.

luetage

@narsis Glad you like it.
The white background is on purpose, to distinguish the write area from the background and the preview. But yeah, I can see why people could get annoyed by this, especially if the composer is expanded and full screen. I'm gonna change the write area to background hi and the preview to the actual background color (for natural preview). Will be in next update, likely in a few hours. Thank you for the suggestion.

luetage

VF Mod Version 1.21
In this update I made some more improvements to the custom theme. Additionally I played around with color combinations, and stumbled upon the Solarized palette (again) and it's a nice fit. I made a dark and a light theme and both use the original project colors. Try it out if you like. Simply download the files and use the import function in the custom theme settings to load.

Downloads
Solarized-Light.json
Solarized-Dark.json

luetage

I have a dumb request. Could someone who hasn't sent me a message yet, send me a message please? I have a feeling I forgot to theme this, and you can't simulate it. I've got a few messages over the last day, but these were all continuing a conversation....
Thanks.

edit: done, thanks

luetage

Version 1.23 released.
Containing more improvements for the custom theme. There isn't a stone left unturned by now, and I think it's pretty much finished. Furthermore @sjudenim helped me fix an issue with the flickering Forum button on selected themes, which was non trivial, to put it mildly.

Another thing: I never used Sprucey Bonus Dark myself, and the original author has since left the site. When I implemented it I asked for his permission, which he gladly gave, but he stopped working on it when it was still only semi-finished. I fixed it up back then, but didn't put any more work into it. Looking at it now it's a broken theme, there are countless inconsistencies and I'm thinking about putting it to rest. Do you want me to make a proper theme out of it, or Is anyone willing to jump in and do this? It has to be said the foundation of the theme is strong. Don't know. Opinions please.

Morg42

I'm not using it. Put it to rest, if no one speaks out for it...