you best and really only option is to create your own theme… I think you will be surprised at how easy it is to duplicate one of ours and make it your own – no more than 10 mins…

see:  http://codex.simple-press.com/codex/themes/theme-basics/creating-a-theme/

then just edit the spTopicView.php template file for this template function:http://codex.simple-press.com/codex/api/template-functions-and-the-api/display-template-functions/topic-view/sp_postindexusersignature/

and change the sig height to be large enough to hold your image…

you could just edit our default theme but you will lose any changes should you ever update the theme…

i think its just weird that such a normal forum option is such an hasel to get working properly…. 

i have my own WP theme, made my own theme base on the default SP theme, the problem is still the same

i have now 400px of space between post just to show one forum user 400px height signature. i understand 400 is alot… but if they want it they should get it 

Cheers

Simple:Press is displayed using a theme and templates – in exactly the same way that WordPress is. That makes it infinitely flexible in how things are displayed and is far, far better than page after page of inflexible option switches.

The problem with the signature area is we wanted to keep it to the bottom of the post content area but this simple design objective actually poses a huge problem for the html and css tools available to us. And the most significant and nuisance factor of that is that the height needs to be specified and ‘reserved’ – regardless of if it is used or not.

We don’t much like it but have found no other workable solution. If someone out there can solve this problem in a better way then we really would like to hear from them. Very much so.

good answer I will ask around on my old job a lot of code kiddies there

Juciy Jane said
i think its just weird that such a normal forum option is such an hasel to get working properly…. 

i have my own WP theme, made my own theme base on the default SP theme, the problem is still the same

i have now 400px of space between post just to show one forum user 400px height signature. i understand 400 is alot… but if they want it they should get it 

 

Cheers

I guess I should add that after trying BBPress and finding it a bit too ridiculous to customize I dumped it. In fact, maybe I’m not even posting in the right area, but I followed a link to this thread from another concerning sig rendering.

We used forum press for a long time with not a lot of issues, but after what seems to be a lot of discontent and unprofessional-ism from the plug-in authors(not to mention a lack of updates), our non-profit group decided to anti-up, (at my urging), to go the Simple-Press route.

One thing we NEVER had an issue with when using Forum Press was the ability to add and show sigs correctly. Easy or not, and I’m completely understanding the reasons SP is the way it is, and I appreciate what Swordfish and Papa have said, I don’t think having to rewrite themes to make something as rudimentary as allowing guys n gals to add sigs in a simple way and have them show up properly is something we should have to do. Especially as paying members supporting the plugin.

Guess I’ll follow the tutorial in the codex and take my chances. What’s 10 minutes hacking away on that when you have statistic spreadsheets, schedules, email marketing and game updates to do right? 

Don’t get me wrong, there are a ton of features I’m digging with SP and love the many parameters and the ability to customize features. We love being able to put photos in posts easily and are working on rankings and such. I did a lot of reviewing, (literally weeks), trying to come up with a solution that would be easy to work with as well as enjoyable for our website members and guests and even after reading complaints about having to pay for support, chose SP so I”m not going anywhere.

well as stated – if we can ever find a decent alternative method – that ticks all the right boxes – then I assure you we will use it!

I would say though that up to a point Juciy Jane is perhaps not representative of most SP users in that we have had far, far more requests on how to limit Signature size which led to the maximum image size being implemented. I can understand why the comment was made – if they want it they should get it – but I believe it to be more of a minority view.

The implementation of the signature code caused a lot of research and tearing out of hair! There are times when html and css can be really quite hostile to what seems like obvious things to want to do. Unless – of course – we just missed something obvious!

I can feel your pain. I truly can. A lot of people don’t have a clue as to how much work it is trying to keep a website going let alone designing plugins for mass audience like you guys do.

We struggled over limits but decided that since so many of our members already had sigs up to 469×300 and of those, a couple of us had to make for our members, we felt it best to leave it at that size. Yes, it’s kinda huge and probably more than what most sites would allow but we are small and don’t have a ton of traffic that would tax the server. Unlimited space and bandwidth is great isn’t it?!

OK so let me ask this…after reading through codex, I come to the end and it says essentially that if the main default theme is updated, then I will most likely have to update the child theme as well. As I am happy with colors and the way the default theme works and the only reason I’m digging into it anyway is to fix the max height issue, wouldn’t easiest thing be to just change max height from 55px in the default? In other words why go through the trouble of creating child theme and editing when I’ll just have to update that like I would the default?

Thanks a lot for the continued support!

Main themes that are changed will need changing again every time there is an update to the software. While it ia true that supplied themes do not get updated as often as the core SP or some plugins it can still happen quite often.

Often the changes that happen to a supplied theme are – for example – to support a new SP plugin or – as in the case of the forthcoming 5.4.1 – to solve a probpem that a few users have with popup dialog windows. So it means that it is not always necessary to update a custom theme. In fact – if there is no problem with it and new feature support is not wanted then it can be left alone. So basically editing becomes a lot less frequent.

Nice one Bobby G.

iI love SP and its great. but this is such a normal basic thing in a forum that it should be working… espacialy after we paid for support.

Dont get me wrong guys like a said before i love SP. image upload is great… this is just the last thing i need to get fixed

Cheers and  keep up the good work 

PS: Bobby G. you make games ?

Sorry but I do not understand what you mean by ‘should be working’. And I am not sure really what paid support has to do with it either.

It does work. It might not work the way you would prefer it to but it does work. And it is also very rare for anyone to actually – shall we say complain – about the way it works.

We do the best we can and one of the most difficult tasks is to please all of the people all of the time. Especially those (and I do NOT mean you here) who come along and say such and such a feature does not work the same way as in phpBB or SMF!

As to the signature I think I have more than covered that above but you know – you can actually override the way this is handled with standard WordPress style filters which is another option open to any user. Just about anything can be changed using filters.

And meanwhile – again as I have said – we are looking for a better approach.

But… it does ‘work’

yeah your definition of working is different off mine…  😉 but im not complaining mate… like i said before i love SP… but for me signatures are a basic element of a forum and should not add white space to a website… nothing should add white space to a website.

telling me this works and it doesn’t for me i don’t call support.

but i’m not complaining… i’m giving feedback :D… and i’m always willing to help out…

well, not to be picky, but it does work… 😉  its a design decision..  your preference would be to have the css not fix it at the bottom… which you can do…

and we always listen to any feedback… its how we determine the direction of things here… 

I got it rolling. Just edited main theme. I’ll take my chances. Members are happy so it’s all good. Thanks!

okay… update to default theme coming tomorrow evening if plan holds…