I don't think it makes any difference to the size of overlaid pages like  the Forum as I have the screen on full width and clicked on the Sun page link and it came out in the reduced size.  It may make a difference to the startup page size on IE7 - I shall try and remember to reduce it before closing  down.

Quoted from bootneck

I shall try and remember to reduce it before closing  down.

Er...

If you want it to be maximised next time you start it (as hinted in the original query about the size), don't you want to remember to make it full size before you close down?

I'm still a bit unsure if I really have picked up on your description - I've handled dozens of PCs/programs, and (ruling out the few programs that have e.g. 'Start maximised' as an option) haven't come across any that change size between being closed down and then re-opened.

The only possible exception I can think of, and even that can be set in the options, is image viewing/editing software, as it can be set to open at the size of the image it is displaying, if the image is less than the full size of the screen.

Don't know if we've got anywhere with this, I don't think it's anything to do with the forum though, other than the minimum width of course, thanks to that Quick Reply toolbar.

I can now tell you that if you close IE7 down in reduced mode it will reopen in reduced mode and with full screen mode opens in full screen mode. Mind you, when it restarts after crashing, as it is doing quite regularly at present, it comes back on reduced mode. Any overlaid screen like the forum always comes up in reduced mode.

Changing tack slightly - why are there so many updates about at present? Is everyone trying to update their work to make it compatible with IE7 or has there been some great leap forward in prgramming generally?

I can't recommend enough switching to Firefox instead of IE. Even the IE7 'catch up' to Firefox is still inferior, and a pain with its endless stream of tiresome 'updates'. I think I mentioned before there is no penalty or overhead associated with downloading and installing it. Again, unlike IE (any version) it doesn't become an unremoveable part of your PC, and can be uninstalled and deleted at any time (but who would after using it for a week or two ). I really really would install it, and run it exclusively for a couple of weeks before deciding if it was liked or not (especially if IE7 is doing the dirty and crashing out regularly.

If IE7's crashing, I recommend you carry out scandisk and defragmentation of your hard disk - IE leaves a load of rubbish on your drive every time you use it (another failing Firefox doesn't suffer from). Before running these options, I'd also run the disk cleanup option, and choose to delete all the files it describes as tempory and safe to delete.

Start of the year, always the best time to launch upgrades and updates, then you can claim your software is 'ready' for 2007.

One question, what do you mean by Any overlaid screen like the forum? I don't understand what's meant, and there's nothing controls 'overlaying'.

Do you just mean that it comes back in a window, and on top of any others if IE has crashed and you restart?

Sorry I should avoid "Jargon"!!!! When I load the likes of SS it comes up full screen. When I click on the Forum it comes up as a reduced size screen on top of (or overlaid) the SS screen.

AH! Right! (Don't worry about jargon, we are talking computers after all ).

This is (another) of IE7's deficiencies (I told you all it had them )

Site policy in SS is that internal pages (pages that are 'ours' and are within the site) will open in the same window (or tab) as the site itself. This means if you select an SS page from an internal link on a page, it opens in the same window (or tab).

External, or 3rd party sites (which are always indicated by the little arrow graphic that appears just after the link) are set to open in a new, or separate, window. This being because they are independent of the SS site. Firefox is smart enough to have the ability to simply open the new site in a new tab, IE7 unfortunately can only open another window - there may be a way to make it open a new tab, but I can't find one that works.

For me at least, the separate tab (or window) is ideal for the forum or blog, as I usually need to see an SS page while using the forum or blog, and having them open in the same window would make that impossible.

So, if you're set on using IE7, you're doomed to an existence with the forum and blog opening in new windows on top of the full size SS window, and not in tabs.

You can get around this IE7 naughty by opening the link using a right click, instead of the usual left click, as this will open a pop-up, offering you the option to open the link in a new tab, avoiding the opening of more new windows.

I haven't forgotten to look at restoring the old 'shades of grey' appearance. The good new is the new template is starting to make sense, and I've picked a spot near (actually in) the top left corner for the logo, and I see where the writer has put the styles for each section of the board, but he's also added graduated/shaded graphics similar to the ones I had in our modified appearance, so I'm having to unlearn the way I did it (which is fixed in my mind and won't go away!) and do it his way, to keep it consistent to make later revisions easy to incorporate.

Fortunately I'm able to do this on themes you can't see, so you don't have to put up with the appearance yo-yoing all over the place, but it does for me, and it can be a bit alarming to login and see something different each time, so consider yourself lucky all you have to put up with is the pale default scheme.

The hassle comes when the colours move into darker shades, as this makes the text difficult to see when it appears in certain areas. While it can be lightened to make it more visible, there's a problem if the same text appearance is called up somewhere there is a lighter background, so everything interacts. If you're not aware, each individual word or text section doesn't get its colour specified every time it appears (that would take forever anyway, and twice as long if it ever needed to be changed). Instead, a few styles are defined, and these set the colour of text, background etc, and are applied as required. This means changing the style quickly changes all the appearance, but has the disadvantage of needing more care, to ensure the style definitions work together.

I'll get a round tuit

These round tuit's are getting harder to find. I just did a comparison between the old forum style and the default one in place at the moment (for you guys - I see both, which is really confusing) and I didn't realise how much I'd fiddle with the original to get the appearance. Clearly I hadn't thought of revamping the whole thing at some point.

It's not so much that it's a big deal - an hour or two's dedicated effort would produce a close finish, but the hassle comes from the mix of dark and light, and the way the new system uses dark vs. light colours for text and backgrounds. I already know some of the old settings put dark text on a dark background, and light on light to in some cases (not very good for readability) and some text is also very close to background shading if it's neither dark nor light in some cases. So I can't just lift the old stuff and tweak it - apart from the fact that it omits a huge chunk of the new styles in the forum, so I'd have to go find them manually by eye/

I will get to it though. Reason being the standard forum style (for some unfathomable reason) doesn't highlight links in text unless the mouse pointer passes over the text, so the reader has no way of knowing the poster has given a link, except by accident. Unless the poster just stick the link in the text, without using the url start and finish tags.

And... that will irritate me until I have links that show up as links (naughty)

You're lucky you can't see what I can...

Currently black text on a royal blue background!

Good eye exercise though

Irritatingly, I can't quite get the shades of grey to butt against each other the way I want, and the new layout has a fine white border  padding slipped in on most things that is just one step too many to remove easily.

Most irritating though was discovering that the text and link colouring didn't port over consistently - some link did colour correctly, other just beside them didn't. I don;t know why, as far as I see they should all behave the same. After all, that's the way things are supposed to work anyway.

Now that it's started to work without breaking it completely (unless I choose to) I'll probably start slipping the development changes over to the live forum so I don't have to keep running two side by side - and hurting my head

As always...

Drop a comment for anything horrible seen (hopefully it will just be something being tweaked, but I may miss something you think is blatantly wrong).

I have just inadvertantly clicked the mouse on the wrong place - result - white type on a blue strip background. Very colourful.

I'd like to claim the credit, but...

That's just the standard click-drag-select highlighting

(shhh)