http://dangerdogz.com/index.html Wed, 22 Feb 2012 19:46:43 +0000 43200 Manage articles http://dangerdogz.com/index.html/_/articles/frontpage/welcome Welcome to the DangerDogz Home

Who are the DangerDogz

Formed by our very own Patriarch ‘Blairgowrie’, the DangerDogz came into being some 7 years ago with a view to flying the IL2 Sturmovik WWII flight simulator. It now boasts a large membership, primarily from Europe, North America and Canada. Our pilots cover all abilities, ranging from those going through “learn as they fly” (no grading here, it’s not Crufts after all!) through to us being proud to claim as our own, past winners of the Joint Ops Virtual Combat Pilot School “Top Gun” competition.


There is however one training routine we would like to make all new members aware of, which is our ‘Sufficient Height and Elevation Escape Procedure’ known as ‘SHEEP’.
You may often hear on comms references to, “having a bad experience while in an inverted SHEEP” or “I got a bad kick back whilst doing a SHEEP” and “I woke up in a field after pulling a SHEEP”.
We would like to assure all new and prospective members of a sensitive disposition that no depravity is inferred (except in some cases, but that’s another story).

The DangerDogz have many well respected members of both the Vanilla and Modding Communities. Despite the geographical spread and time zones (we have even invented our own), there is one thing that unites the group, and that is a desire to have fun, enjoy camaraderie like being down the pub with your mates and share in the immersion provided by this fantastic simulator. OK, strictly speaking that’s three things, but the Dogz never could count. We run both formal and informal events, so informal in fact that when a mission is terminated due to someone crashing on take-off (a less than infrequent event) it can be every man for himself as your wingman lines you up for a kill. We meet multiple times through the week with attendance welcomed, not expected.

The DangerDogz form part of the K9 Squadrons, a loose amalgamation of our own group and the HellHounds. The group stays up to date with the latest official versions as well as Ultrapack Mods and all the extra goodies they have to offer. Some of our members also like to indulge their Biggles fantasies playing ‘Rise of Flight’ or enjoying the thrust of ‘Lock On’. In March 2011 we added the long-awaited follow-up ‘Cliffs of Dover’.

What is ‘IL2 Sturmovik’?

IL2 Sturmovik popped into the collective consciousness at large in late 1998, when an obscure Russian developer Oleg Maddox started publicizing his new project to the flight simulation community (a genre that until then had been dominated by large American publishers).
Of note was the fact that his project focused on the Russian Front of the war, prior flight sims had their sights firmly on showcasing the American and other Western aircraft, and this was met at the time with scepticism. This scepticism initially gave way to great anticipation when the first screenshots and technology briefs were released. I say initially because at that time PC's were relatively limited in their abilities (never mind the fact that the computers that got the Apollo up and down were less able than most pocket calculators) and this perception of the PC's abilities started rumors of IL2 Sturmovik being something of a con.
How much easier for complacent competitors to shift focus away from their own lack of ability to produce such high quality and highly optimized code. Heavens forbid the masses should ever realise...ermm think.. that they had been hoodwinked into parting hard earned money for a budget release (the budget was in the production not the price of course!).
In 2001 IL2:Sturmovik was finally released to the public, and boy oh boy did it sweep the competition under the carpet. Some pundits claimed it made its competitors offerings obsolete with its well executed flight modelling and damage modelling. The graphics were the true icing on the cake, with 3D modeling that really brought the flight sim 'to life', with detailed interiors and exteriors that were a credit to the publishers obvious enthusiasm for the genre. And the weapons modelling...
In 2003 IL2:Maddox, via UBI Soft, released its successor. IL2 Sturmovik: Forgotten Battles.
They pulled off what could be considered to be a miracle, the defacto flight simulator was improved significantly with improved graphics, flight modeling and weapons modeling and the small and easy to overlook addition of a significant number of new flyable aircraft, including many of Russia's WWII allies.
And again 1C:Maddox continued to listen to its customers and provided unrivalled support for the IL2 franchise. Several free patches were released that both addressed bugs and limitations, and in some cases corrected historical portrayals of specific aircraft capabilities. They also added several new flyables and non-flyables for free.
The blood line continued with releases “Ace Expansion Pack” followed by “Pacific Fighters” which introduced the excitement of trying to land your plane on what seems like a postage stamp of a carrier. These were then followed by IL2 1946. The bar had now been set at a height others could only dream of.
This simulator took off again in March 2011 (a full two weeks after the release of ‘Il2 1946’ - bit of an in joke) with a return to the skies of Western Europe with the fall of France and the RAF’s fight for survival over the fields of southern England in the Battle of Britain with the release of the next installment in the franchise, ‘Il2 – Cliffs of Dover’. Boasting a whole new engine, enhanced graphics, weather, flight, damage and weapons modeling,
Only time will tell if this new sim was a worthy successor, but one thing is certain, the DangerDogz are leading the way!]]> Fri, 31 Dec 2010 17:07:44 +0000 5f93f983524def3dca464469d2cf9f3e http://dangerdogz.com/index.html/_/articles/forum/promoting-posts-to-articles-r1
The administrator can configure the specifics of this feature in the ACP under My Apps -> IP.Content -> Promote Article Settings. You can turn the system on and off, control which groups can copy and move posts to the articles section, and specify a few other details for the feature. A new hook is included with IP.Content which adds a button to each post labeled "Promote to Article". This button only shows up if you have permission to use the feature based on the ACP configuration.

When clicked, the button will take you to a new form where you can formalize the details of the new article. You can tweak the text and title, upload an image, and specify other pertinent details. If you are able to both move and copy posts to the articles section, you will also be asked which type of promotion you wish to use. Upon submitting the form, IP.Content handles the rest.

This new feature can be used to showcase important content otherwise hidden in your forums by pushing this content to your frontpage. It is then up to you whether you want a copy made in the articles section (leaving the original post in tact), whether you want to actually move the post to the articles section, and whether you want any cross-linking left in place. With such powerful options, we are sure you will find many uses for this new promotion tool in IP.Content 2.0.]]> Fri, 31 Dec 2010 13:02:51 +0000 6512bd43d9caa6e02c990b0a82652dca http://dangerdogz.com/index.html/_/articles/frontpage/what-is-a-frontpage-r2
Firstly, you will now be able to define "frontpage" templates in the ACP for the Articles module. IP.Content 2.0 will ship with 3 defaults:

• 1x2x2 Layout
  
  This layout will display articles in a traditional "news" style layout.
  
  
• Blog format
  
  This format will display articles in a blog-style format.
  
  
• Single column
  
  This layout will force articles to display in a single column, one per row.

You can use one or more of these frontpage layouts, or you can create your own. Experiment with displaying articles in different formats on your homepage to determine which layout your users like best.

Articles must be set to "Show on front page" in order for them to display on the homepage frontpage.

In addition to the homepage frontpage, each category has it's own frontpage. The category frontpage functions identically to the homepage frontpage, except for two important factors:

• Only records from within that category (and it's subcategories) will be displayed
  
  
• The "Show on front page" setting is not honored for the category frontpage

You will be able to easily review and manage the articles set to display on the frontpage from a new section of the ACP labeled "Frontpage Manager". We feel that this new area of the articles section will help showcase important articles and increase user interaction with your articles section.]]> Fri, 31 Dec 2010 13:02:51 +0000 c20ad4d76fe97759aa27a0c99bff6710 http://dangerdogz.com/index.html/_/misc/media/media-management-r3
From within the media module, you can create folders, upload files, move files and folders, rename files and folders, and delete files and folders. Files can be listed and you can click on a file to view it (or right click on the file to copy the link).

This simple tool can be a timesaver when you simply need to upload an image quickly for use within a page template. The media folder is defined in the media_path.php file in your forum root directory, giving you the freedom to move and organize your paths as needed.]]> Fri, 31 Dec 2010 13:02:51 +0000 c51ce410c124a10e0db5e4b97fc2af39 http://dangerdogz.com/index.html/_/pages/page-management-r4
Firstly, the folder navigation utilizes AJAX to load the folder contents inline without requiring you to visit a new page to view the contents of the folder. We found that folder navigation was a slow process, especially when working with many files and folders, so we wanted to speed up the interaction with the software in this particular area.

We have also updated some common management features to utilize AJAX to help facilitate management of your pages. Actions like clearing folders and deleting folders, for instance, will now occur without page refreshes, making your managerial activities flow smoother and quicker.

Additionally, the interface as a whole has been updated to provide a nicer, smoother feel for the page management areas. In practice, we found that many administrators spend the majority of their time setting up and utilizing IP.Content in the page management areas, so we wanted to update the user interface to make this experience as easy and enjoyable as possible. Minor details like confirmation dialogs have been updated to bring everything together for a more consistent feel.

A new filter bar, utilizing AJAX to retrieve the results without the need for a page refresh, has also been added to the page management area. You can begin typing in the name of a page and a live-search action will occur in the background, showing you the results of your search as you type. If you have many pages and many folders (and many pages within those many folders), you will find that using the filter bar to locate your pages can dramatically speed up your navigation of IP.Content within the page management areas of the ACP.

Overall, we've modernized the IP.Content page management area of the ACP, polishing up the little details, in an effort to make your experience all the more pleasant.]]> Fri, 31 Dec 2010 13:02:51 +0000 aab3238922bcc25a6f606eb525ffdc56 http://dangerdogz.com/index.html/_/misc/templates/template-management-r5

• Page Templates
  
  
• Database Templates
  
  
• Article Templates

In IP.Content 1.x, database and page templates were combined into a single "Templates" section, which worked fine for our original intentions. However, with the introduction of a separate Articles module, and additional template types related to the articles module, we decided to separate the templates so that each template type is displayed separately. This should help finding and editing your templates easier in practice, as you will be able to filter the template types and work with fewer at a time.

Within each templates section, you can create containers to group your templates into logical groupings. For instance, you may wish to create a grouping for each database you create, and then place the database templates appropriately into the container representing the database itself. Or you may wish to create multiple front page templates, and group them all together in the article templates area. You can use containers for whatever purposes you may have, or not at all: it's up to you!

Templates can be reordered by dragging and dropping the rows up and down, and they can be moved from one container to another via drag n drop as well.

Certain meta data about the templates are stored when you create new database or article templates, allowing IP.Content to tailor other areas of the ACP to help you out. For example, in IP.Content 1.x the software did not "remember" what kind of database template you were creating, so all database templates were presented in each of the dropdowns when creating or editing a database. Beginning with IP.Content 2.x, the software stores the template type when you create a new template. This allows us to show only "category listing" templates in the "category listing template" selection dropdowns. Similarly, the template tag help popup can automatically know which template type you are editing without you having to specify.

Properly making use of templates can help you push out pages on your site in a uniform manner quickly and easily, and without having to "reinvent the wheel" each time a new page is ready to be published.]]> Fri, 31 Dec 2010 13:02:51 +0000 9bf31c7ff062936a96d3c8bd1f8f2ff3 http://dangerdogz.com/index.html/_/articles/forum/store-comments-in-forum-r6
This new functionality can be enabled at a per-database and per-category level. You can specify separate forums for each category in your article section, for instance, or you can turn off forum commenting for a specific category, while enabling it for all others.

A few additional configuration options, such as allowing you to automatically remove the topic when the record is removed, and specifying a prefix and/or suffix for the topic title so that your users can more easily identify that such topics were stemmed from the articles section help round out the feature, giving you better control over how these automatically posted topics are handled.

These new forum cross-posting capabilities allow the administrator to better tie in articles with the forums, giving you better opportunities to expose your content to a wider audience. Additionally, forum management of comments provides for easier maintenance and stronger managerial options of the comments, utilizing IP.Board's powerful, proven feature set.]]> Fri, 31 Dec 2010 13:02:51 +0000 c74d97b01eae257e44aa9d5bade97baf http://dangerdogz.com/index.html/_/misc/templates/template-variables-help-r8
However, with database and article templates, there are additional variables that are passed into the template to allow it to manipulate and display the HTML that represents the content. For instance, different data is retrieved and available when you are looking at a list of articles compared to when you are viewing a single article. You need to know what these variables are in order to be able to properly modify the template to display data in the manner you want, and as such, a template variable help popup is available that will detail the variables available for each template type.

When you are editing a template, click on "template variable help" and a new window opens displaying the variables you can expect to be available to the template with a short description of each variable. If you get stuck, this help window can help shed some light on the variables that are available, what values they should contain, and how you can use these variables to your advantage to build a more dynamic and useful interface for your database.]]> Fri, 31 Dec 2010 13:02:51 +0000 6f4922f45568161a8cdf4ad2299f6d23