DRUMMER CAFE

Last Post
When you see this in a thread, located on the right by the thread/post's day and time, click on it to be taken to the last post in that thread.

Site Atributes / Access Buttons
Throughout the entire site of the Drummer Cafe, not just the forum, you'll see these buttons in the upper right-hand side of the site.

This first two buttons, , increase and decrease (respectively) the font size of the entire site. This may (or may not) be helpful to you depending on your screen resolution, screen size and browser window size.

The center button, , is simply a reset button, bringing the font size of the entire Drummer Cafe back to the default settings.

The last two buttons change the overall width of the Drummer Cafe site within your broswer window. set's the site to a fixed width which may be advantagious to those using 800x600 screen resolutions. is the default setting. It keeps the entire site in a fluid state so that when you decrease the size of your browser window, you don't have to scroll right/left in order to read the contents.


As with all features on the Drummer Cafe, I encourage you to experiment and explore ... figuring out what works best for you.

I've recently spent some time fine tuning the Search function here at the Drummer Cafe. The entire database has now been indexed and should increase the overall performance of your searches. Give it a go sometime and see how it works!

FYI ... the Search function is only available to registered members of the Drummer Cafe.

Also, there are two separate search features ... one for the forum and for the rest of the Drummer Cafe website.

Major changes in these areas are taking place ...

VIP Lounge | Chat Room
It's back with a brand new (beta) design! Run entire with Flash technology, the chat room will recognize that you are logged into the forum and will automatically log you in to the chat room when you select to go there. This means that only VIP members will have access to the chat room.

To see if anyone is in the VIP Lounge, look at the bottom screen on the page of the forum. Under the Users Online heading you see 0 Users in Lounge, or if someone is there, the 0 will be another integer telling how many users are in the chat room.

Resources
In the past only VIP members could even see the VIP Lounge, which contained a lot of different resources (audio, video, drum charts, articles, etc.). As those same members have noticed, the present VIP Lounge has diminished and not been updated in some time. The reason is that all of the VIP resources are being moved into the appropriate sections of the Drummer Cafe website and not the forum. For example, any lesson materials for VIP members will be mixed in with the normal lesson materials here at the Drummer Cafe. However, these special resources will only be able to be accessed by VIP Members.

Since this change is occuring, there really is no longer a need for a specific section within the forum. With this change, the VIP Lounge is now the chat room. It's basically a private chat room for VIP Members, only accessible by logging in with the same username/password that you use here on the forum.

If your membership account was deleted in the past due to inactivity, and you've joined the Drummer Cafe again, contact Bart so he can associate your old posts with your new account!

The Drummer Cafe maintains an accurate count of active members here on the forum. Failing to login over an extended period of time will place your membership account in the queue for removal. You can always register again, but it's best to at least login to the Drummer Cafe once a month ... and why wouldn't you want to do that! 

The Drummer Cafe now offers a Spell Check feature.

To use this feature simply start a thread with a post or reply to an existing thread. You'll see the Spell Check button just to the right of Post and Preview.

When you click on SPELL CHECK, a pop-up will appear and highlight words that appear to be misspelled. You can either type in a correction, use one of the suggested words that the system offers, or ignore it all together. When you are done, an OKAY button will appear. Once you click that, the pop-up window will close and you'll be taken back to your original post to choose either Post or Preview ... of Spell Check again if you need it.

Hope this meets the need(s) that some of you have been wanting ... and I hope some of you will start using this feature, because YOU NEED IT! If you use the FireFox web browser, the browser of choice for surfing the Drummer Cafe, it already has a spell check feature built in, so you don't need the one here on the forum. Unfortunately I can't offer you a grammar check feature at this time. 

I just added a new feature to the Drummer Cafe forum that automatically embeds the video clip for you. All you have to do is post the URL of the video you want to display or share and ... BOOM ... instant video display.

What's even better is that this new feature supports the following video clip sites:
123video.nl, Aniboom, AOL Uncut, AtomFilms, AtomFilms Uploads, Biku, BrightCove, CellFish, ClipFish.de, CollegeHumor, DailyMotion.com, DailyMotion.Alice.It, Dave.tv, dv.ouou, ESPN, Gametrailers, GameVideos, Glumbert, Godtube, Google Video, Guba, Hulu(US Only), IFilm, Koreus, Libero.it, LiveLeak, LiveVideo, Megavideo, MetaCafe, MSN Live/Soapbox Video, Mofile, MThai, MySpaceTv, MyVideo.de, OnSmash, Revver, Sevenload, Stage6, Streetfire.net, Tudou, Veoh, videotube.de, Vidiac, VidMax, Vimeo, VSocial, WeGame, Yahoo, Yahoo HK, Youku, and YouTube (including Playlists).

A few things to note:

• You can't just embed ANY video hosted ANYWHERE, it only works for trusted supported sites.
• There's a limit to the number of videos per page to keep your browser from overloading and crashing.
• Disabled for Printer Friendly pages.
• Disabled for all Signatures

ENJOY!

Below is a diagram which briefly goes over the controls and features that you will find on Drummer Cafe TV ... some of which are new ... followed by more detailed explanations.


DETAILED EXPLANATIONS:

1. The Play/Pause button appears briefly at the beginning of each video segment; mousing over the area region will cause the button to reappear. This button allows you to pause the video at any time, for whatever reason. This can be especially useful if you don't have a broadband connection (eg. dial-up) and the video stream is stuttered. Pausing the video once it has started playing will allow the video to continue downloading, allowing you to Play the video once a substantial portion of the feed has been buffered.

2. The Time Line Cursor appears briefly at the beginning of each video segment; mousing over the area region will cause the time line to reappear. The cursor allows you to move forward or backwards in the video. You will not, however, be able to advance any further than what has already been buffered. Useful tool if you want to go back and view a particular portion in the segment or advance forward without moving to the next segment.

3. Volume Control appears briefly at the beginning of each video segment; mousing over the area region will cause the slide button to reappear. The default volume is set to 100%. You can reduce the overall volume of the segment using this control ... without having to physically change the volume on your computer speakers.

4. The Gallery Page is basically a menu page which shows all of the episodes currently archived on DCTV. Previous weekly episodes can be found here for a short time, as well as popular episodes (eg. Chicago Drum Show, Community Drum Solo, etc.). Once you finish watching the current episode on DCTV, you will automatically be taken to the Gallery to choose other featured or past episodes.

5. The Menu Page buttons are used only when there are more than 10 Segment Navigation Icons. You can advance the page FORWARD or BACKWARD as needed.

6. Navigation buttons allow you to move to the NEXT or PREVIOUS segment, even if you don't see the appropriate Segment Navigation Icon on screen.

7. The Segment Navigation Icons designate each segment within an episode. If you mouse-over the icon a larger thumbnail image will appear, giving you a better snapshot of what that particular segment is about. You will not see a larger thumbnail when you mouse-over the icon of the segment you are currently watching. Clicking on the icon will take you to that particular segment.

8. Advance to Next Segment button, when clicked, moves you forward to the next segment in sequence.

9. Full Screen Mode is just that ... full screen viewing of DCTV. To return to Normal Mode, press the ESC button on your computer keyboard. All of the above buttons/controls and features will continue to work in Full Screen Mode.

At any time during a broadcast you can mouse-over the viewer window of DCTV to see a Title and Description of the segment you are currently watching. Some segments will have additional information for you to view or read about. For these types of segments, clicking on the viewer window will cause a new browser window to pop-up with the information you seek. This will allow to continue watching the segment on DCTV, then read/view the additional info in the new browser window at a later time. You could also pause the DCTV feed while you go ahead and check out the content in the new browser window. Any time there is a link for you to click on the viewer window, you should see your mouse cursor change ... just like you would anytime you mouse-over a link on the Drummer Cafe website.