Was wondering about the lack of the full screen mode on YAFs wonderful BBCode which embedds a youtube video.
Simple goto Admin — BB Code and Edit the Youtube BBCode record.
The Regex should be changed to:
<!– BEGIN youtube –><object width=”425″ height=”350″><param name=”movie” value=”http://${prefix}youtube.com/v/${id}”></param><param name=”allowFullScreen” value=”true”></param><embed src=”http://${prefix}youtube.com/v/${id}&fs=1” type=”application/x-shockwave-flash” width=”425″ height=”350″ allowfullscreen=”true”></embed></object><!– END youtube –>
The important bits are the param allowFullScreen, adding allowfullscreen to the embed tag, and also fs=1 to the querystring on the embed src value.
Filed under: Yet Another Forum | Leave a Comment
I’ve recently encountered a problem with YAF 1.95 and the installer. Due to the fact that YAF checks for your .NET Trust Settings in the installation package you might possibly run into an issue if your hosting company uses a custom trust configuration with a custom name i.e. mediumtrust-custom.config . Jodohost did exactly that, and I really don’t want to move hosts.
Since Jodohosts is pretty much a medium trust config with a few full trust privileges thrown in, I’ve just added to the SVN the ability to override the YAF Installer check with a close approximation of the host.
To this end we now have:
<add key="YAF.OverrideTrustLevel" value="Medium" />
Which of course, blocks the Trust Check and returns Medium trust in this case.
Hope this helps someone else.
Filed under: Yet Another Forum | Leave a Comment
Tags: Trust, YAF
One of things that irked me about YAF in a multi-instance implementation is that they all had to share the same Uploads folder, the same Images (Avatars/Emoticons/Ranks) and the same Themes folder.
Though for the happy bunnies running an instance per installation they don’t really suffer from this problem, the question remained on how to get YAF more multi-instance friendly.
Well fear not stout-hearted friends, Mekkers has made some initial steps in this direction. Every little helps right? (Well depends on how many bugs I’m about to introduce to the YAF SVN with this might challenge that statement).
Ok so what have I done?
Created a new singleton in YAF.Classes.Config project (not namespace) for YafBoardSettings. This contains the locations for all the things in YAF that should be basically moveable (Images/Themes/Uploads).
Added two new entries to the App.Config that you can utilise:
YAF.BoardRoot – on a typical installation this is just nothing.
YAF.MultiBoardFolders (true/false) – Appends YAF.BoardRoot with the BoardID allowing… wait for it.. Images/Uploads/Themes per Board.. Huzzah.
How it works?
Really Simple.
If you want to move the Images, Uploads, and themes folder from the root you add an entry to YAF.BoardRoot. In my example I’m going to set it to ‘Boards/’. Note no ‘/’ before the folder, only after.
Now if I copy the Images, Uploads, Themes folder to this new folder. Everything will work fine.
Now if I want to run multiple copies with Multiboard, I set YAF.MultiBoardFolder to true in the app.config.
This basically appends the value of YAF.BoardRoot with ‘/{0}’ where {0} is replaced with the BoardID so all the contents would now need to be in /Boards/1 in order for the forums to work correctly.
Right best get this comitted, and do some more testing. Wish me luck!
Filed under: Yet Another Forum | Leave a Comment
Tags: YAF
Media Center PC Mark IV
Well I have no TV today after having put together my latest MC machine (this is number four btw), the TV went and blew up. One could say my kid rocked a bit too hard when playing Guitar Hero that it caused some circuits to fry. So here I am spending my time wisely and detailing my oh-so wonderful media center pc whilst waiting for the new one to arrive.
In order to understand the method to my madness in the following build you need to know one thing ; I hate PC noise. Noise is deplorable, so whilst performance wise the spec is somewhat pitiful, I can’t hear it (well apart from the sodding hard drive but then thats next).
Here’s the kit!
Zotac MINI-ITX-B (http://www.mini-itx.com/store/?c=53)
Finally the motherboard of my dreams. Single Core 1.6ghz Atom, 9400M Nvidia Graphics on board, Optical out so I can plug it straight into my Amp. A cracking amount of USB, E-Sata, oh and HDMI (which is just as well, cos I need it for my new t.v.) All this functionality for £136 is a bit of a bargain.
Silverstone LC16M. (http://www.silverstonetek.com/products/p_contents.php?pno=lc16m&area= – )
I am a fan of nice cases, and Silverstone do make good cases. The case is extremely spacious and generally of good quality. My gripes is that it’s a steel or whatever chassis and not a pure aluminium for the price. Yes I ama proud owner of the Coolermaster/ATSC CM210, back in the glory days of the Coolermaster/Lian Li competition.
So the Silverstone LC16M is massively overkill for the motherboard I’ve chosen, but the case was one of the items left from my previous effort in the realms of quiet media center goodness. It’d be a shame to waste it.
Here’s the case with the motherboard. LMAO!
“Massively overkill” just didn’t quite do it justice.
Also here you can see the ST30NF 300W Silverstone PSU, guess what its silent too. And unlike the wondeful marketing machine when I mean silent, I mean no fans (alright I’m know I’ve got a problem).
Digital Everywhere’s FloppyDTV FireWire TV card (http://www.digital-everywhere.com/en/alcms/index.php?sid=1190057723 )
Tasty, isn’t she?
Additional kit. (2 gig of memory 1TB Seagate Barracuda SATA2 drive, PCIE Texas Instruments Firewire Card).
WAIT A MINUTE!
The main issue with the Zotac ION MINI-ITX-B; whilst completely silent and having very nearly every single feature I need,is that its missing one piece of core functionality. I need firewire for the FloppyDTV card. This wouldn’t be a problem except the Zotac MINI-ITX-B has pretty much zero upgradeability options.
Now I could get a USB DVB-C card instead. But my issue with this is well Technotrends tuners are shit in comparison and uhm they are all external, the LC16M is massive and the poor MINI-ITX-B would here its own echo so I want something internal as well.
So along comes this little baby: http://www.hwtools.net/Adapter/PM2.html .
That’s right a MINI-PCIE to PCI-E convertor for a non-insane price.
Bit blurry I know; I need a better camera.
Now there is two problems with this on the Zotac motherboard. It’s pretty impossible to mount a card straight to that adapter when its connected. So I took a gamble and bought an extender cable for it. Now at £15 these are ridiculously expensive for what they are.. But I am ruled by my TV and I must obey. http://linitx.com/viewproduct.php?prodid=11766 it was.
The adapter, the extender and the firewire card.
Now learn my lesson here; the cable is very flexible or long enough, if you can get a long version do so, also the adapater faces the wrong way (another minor grievance) if you’re trying to bend it to the left of the motherboard. So I need to find a different method of extending. However with some really really dodgy screw work I managed to put it all together.
Another nuisance is that even though I have extended from the adapter using a cable, I still loose one of the three internal sata connections with all this plugged in. Grrrrr!
Did I say dodgy, I really meant shoddy 
Now before you ask, yes those are fans above the motherboard. And no they aren’t powered, I’m just lazy and I do prefer looking at them as oppose to the case without them.
So there we have it; a completely silent Media Center PC. Now of course I’ve slapped 7MC on it, generally because I really do think MS have done a good job with it. It is exceptionally quick to boot, and will generally do the job quite well.
Being a dedicated Media Center machine, all it has on it is Windows 7, uptodate drivers (nvidia has them for the ION), the oh so wonderful Media Browser, and YAMMM (Yet Another Media Manager something).
XVID’s generally consume between 40% to 60% of the processor same as watching TV through the DVB card, I’ve read good reports in response to HD like blu-ray. But quite frankly I’m not interested in Yet another disc format.
Of course nothing is perfect so here are the issues:
Skipping XVID’s – skipping lots can be really tedious. The video does not catch up with the skipping, and will look like its runnign away with itself. Short skipping like adverts is perfectly acceptable however skipping thirty minutes into something is a real drag.
Note: need to try different codec’s and see if this is a horse power issue.
Guide – Guide data takes ages to pull up on 7MC, and using my card. Whether 7MC is trying extract the EPG from the transmission; or if its generally just goosed but on two builds now first time I click guide I’ll have most channels with no data. Fifteen minutes in and the guide will be full populated.
Shoddy – at some point when I find the right kind of extender. I will mount the PCI-E flexible riser properly. But to be honest; I kind of like the shoddyness (is that a word?) of it all.
Hope this shows that the Zotac ION motherboard is a serious if underpowered contender for a Media Center solution; with a little expenditure you can add a PCIE card which I think is very much needed to complete its feature set. Compared with my previous experiments with Media Center, this is the one I am most happy with especially when compared to the rich in features but poor in support EX12000AG VIA that my previous incarnation was based on.
Happy Media Centering.
Filed under: Media Center | Leave a Comment
Tags: 7MC, Media Center, Nvidia ION
Installing YAF to a folder..
Lots of questions on how to install YAF to a folder keep appearing on the forum. Now I’ve hap-hazardly done this myself in my Portal that I’ll never finish.
So here I am going to attempt a folder install of YAF to IIS7 without the folder being configured as a seperate app. The following instructions should work just as well on a third-party hosting solution as I’m not detailing the IIS part.
So this is what my IIS looks like; I’ve set up a new website on port 93, and create a new folder.
Next step is download YAF 1.93 Final from http://forum.yetanotherforum.net/yaf_postst8229_YAF-v193-FINAL-Dated-4222009.aspx
I’m using the 2.0 Bin Version.
Extract the zip into your forum folder
My IIS screen looks like this now.
First step: Go into the webconfigs folder and copy the most suitable webconfig for you.
I’m going with recommended-web.config as I’m usiong .NET 2.0 and I am installing a fresh database. If I was upgrading from a pre-193 user base I’d use the v191-upgrade-web.config.
Copy your chosen webcofnig into the Forum Folder.
Rename it to web.config.
Now you need to set your configuration password; now without doing this step YAF will prompt you to set one and you’d need write perms to do this on the app.config file. I’m lazy so I’m just going to manually type one into the app.config.
Open up app.config
<add key=”YAF.ConfigPassword” value=”" />
I’m going to change the above to
<add key=”YAF.ConfigPassword” value=”password1234″ />
Also while I’m here I’m going to set the root folder key. You’ll find this below and its currently commented out, which it doesn’t want to be. So I moved it below the –> and voila.
<add key=”YAF.Root” value=”/Forum”/>
<add key=”YAF.BaseUrl” value=”~/Forum/” />
Next I’m going to setup the DB connection string. Edit db.config.
<add name=”yafnet” connectionString=”data source=(local);initial catalog=yafnet;integrated security=SSPI” />
Now I’m not going to delve into connectionStrings; A little googling will throw up answers depending on how you are connecting (Windows Auth/SQl Auth) or if some odd reason you’re using SQL Express.
————-
Move the App_Code folder, Bin Folder and all *.configs to the root.
Go directly browse to the forum, it should autoredirect you successfully to the install/default.aspx, if it doesn’t you haven’t got your BaseURL setup right. In my example I’ll be going to this url:
http://localhost:93/forum/install/default.aspx
Enter the password from the app.config (for this example Password1234) and click next.
Use a complex password your admin, because YAF at the moment is defaulted to this i.e. Create an Alphanumeric value.
Click finish.
Woot I have a forum.
Now I noticed I didn’t have my logo image.
So I’m opening default.aspx in the forum folder up in a text editor.
<img src=”~/images/YAFLogo.jpg” runat=”server” alt=”YetAnotherForum” id=”imgBanner” /><br/>
Change that to
<img src=”~/Forum/images/YAFLogo.jpg” runat=”server” alt=”YetAnotherForum” id=”imgBanner” /><br/>
Ofc you might want to change it somewhere/something else entirely.
Job done.
Further stuff to note; if you have an existing .NET application in the root, you will carefully need merge the configs (WinMerge is good for this). Start with the more complex of the two web.configs and merge the lesser in. For example if it was an app I had written and therefore was more familiar with, I’d use the YAF web.config and add the elements my app needed. Not the other way around 
Filed under: Yet Another Forum | 4 Comments
Tags: YAF
YAFMembershipProvider Options
Well if I’m honest I can’t say the new membership provider for YetAnotherForum has met with much success in the upgrade from RC to FINAL. Luckily though it is highly flexible, and below are the documented options for settings it up. This should allow users from Snitz to import their user base quite easily into the YAF_prov_Membership and be good to go. (Well everythings nice in theory)
YetAnotherForum Membership Provider Options:
minRequiredPasswordLength
minRequiredNonAlphanumericCharacters
maxInvalidPasswordAttempts
passwordAttemptWindow
passwordStrengthRegularExpression
useSalt (include a salt for hashing the password, Default:False)
hashHex (Used for legacy hash methods for pre-1.9.3 YAF authentication and SNITZ. Default: False).
hashCase (Options of upper/lower/none, used for Snitz/SHA256 compatibility- Default:None)
hashRemoveChars (Remove certains chars from the hash Default:String.empty).
msCompliant (Produces the password/salt combination in the same method as the standard asp.net member uses – Default is false).
enablePasswordReset.
enablePasswordRetrieval.
requiresQuestionAndAnswer.
requiresUniqueEmail (Self explanatory really).
Compatible Hash Methods: MD5, SHA1, SHA256, SHA384, SHA512
Snitz compatible provider options:
<membership defaultProvider=”YafMembershipProvider” hashAlgorithmType=”SHA256“>
<providers>
<clear/>
<add connectionStringName=”yafnet” applicationName=”YetAnotherForum” name=”YafMembershipProvider” requiresUniqueEmail=”false” type=”YAF.Providers.Membership.YafMembershipProvider” hashHex=”true” hashCase=”lower” />
</providers>
</membership>
YAF Pre 1.93 compatible provider options:
<membership defaultProvider=”YafMembershipProvider” hashAlgorithmType=”MD5“>
<providers>
<clear/>
<add connectionStringName=”yafnet” applicationName=”YetAnotherForum” name=”YafMembershipProvider” requiresUniqueEmail=”false” type=”YAF.Providers.Membership.YafMembershipProvider” hashHex=”true” hashCase=”upper” />
</providers>
</membership>
Filed under: Yet Another Forum | 1 Comment
Tags: MembershipProvider, Snitz, YAF
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