I watched a lot of cartoons and movies. I draw incessantly and carry a sketchbook everywhere. I work in animation and self-publish my books. There are monsters in the streets, don't wear red. Mad bulls and monsters hate that color. I still watch cartoons.

Friday, March 03, 2006

How to post your marvelous OK-BBS drawings



Easy. First off, for those of you wondering what OK-BBS is, check out this entry on Wikipedia. Then take a look at the side bar where I have a banner that says, "Oekaki BBS/Paper Biscuit." Click that and you're at my Oekaki board.

Some of you are having trouble posting. It may be a glitch somewhere but before we hunt around for those let's eliminate the possibility that it may just be a procedure confusion. It's not difficult, really, but the Java applet UI labels may confuse some.

After the masterpiece is done and ready to post on the board take a look at the three buttons on the top left that says, "SAVE." It's written above "AUTO," "PNG" and "JPG." I use either of the last two since those formats are browser friendly. I don't know what happens with "AUTO" so write me if you find out. After that a box appears asking you, "Save OK?" and buttons to choose. And after that it just confirms that you've saved. Then viola! Go back to the main board and check out your drawing. Reload if you used the "Back" button on your browser.



Write me if the problem of not being able to post persists. I'll try my best to ask the kind folks from Japan who run these boards for a fix. Happy drawing and posting.


Update: Found a tutorial for Oekaki BBS here.

_____

UPDATE on posting trouble. Soraya Saga investigated the trouble for me and found out what is causing it.

According to Oekaki FAQ, following versions of JAVA seem to cause problems of painting/uploading.

JAVA1.4.1Update 1 (Mac)
JAVA1.4.2Update 2 (Mac)
JAVAUpDatefor10.3.9 (Mac)

SunJAVA1.4.2_6 (XP)
SunJAVA1.4.2_7 (XP)

Also it says that posting via proxy server is likely be denied occasionally.
I hope it works. :)


Those of you having trouble check your Java versions. Like most updates it can wreak havoc with programs in the far flung edges. Knowing is good but I don't have a solution--other than reverting to an earlier version of Java. I hope this helps and I'm hoping that OK BBS releases an update themselves that puts all this to rest.

Meantime, here's a list of configurations of operating systems, browsers and Java versions that have managed to post on the board.

Mozilla/4.0 (Mac OS X 10.4.5) Java/1.4.2_09 (lagging response)
Mozilla/4.0 (Mac OS X 10.3.9) Java/1.4.2_09
Java 1.3.1_16
Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 6.0; Windows NT 5.1; en) Opera 8.50
Mozilla/4.0 (Windows XP 5.1) Java/1.4.2_03
Opera/8.51 (Windows NT 5.1; U; en)
Mozilla/4.0 (Windows XP 5.1) Java/1.5.0
Mozilla/4.0 (Mac OS X 10.4.4) Java/1.4.2_09 (lagging response)
Mozilla/4.0 (Windows XP 5.1) Java/1.5.0_06
Java 1.1
Mozilla/4.0 (Windows XP 5.1) Java/1.5.0_04
Opera/8.5 (Macintosh; PPC Mac OS X; U; en)
Mozilla/4.0 (Windows XP 5.1) Java/1.4.2


________

Soraya Saga is an illustrator, designer and a video game story writer. After years of working as an employee of Squaresoft (Square Enix Co., Ltd.). She started working as a writer/designer on freelance basis to manage work and motherhood. Soraya Saga is a pen name. Also known as Kaori Tanaka (birth name. Unrelated to any other Tanaka artists in the production of Final Fantasy V, VI and Xenogears). Family: Spouse (Tetsuya, married in 1995) and two kids. Currently living in Tokyo, Japan.

________

UPDATE March 11, 2005. The awesome Soraya Saga trolled the OK-BBS faqs and sent us some that address the posting problem (it's in the comments to this post and I'm posting it up front here).

This problem has been frequently reported among technical support boards, some are caused by PC environments, some are caused by server error of the OK BBS itself.

Shown below are most recent questions picked up from the oekaki FAQ board.

Q: The drawing window doesn't work.
A: Try a proper version of JAVA.

Q: It freezed up after I clicked the save button.
A: Some security softwares and pop-up blockers conflict with the OK BBS.

Q: A transfer error occurred after clicking the save button.
A: It could be a) the internet connection error. b) the OK BBS server error.

Q: The drawing was successfully saved but not appeared.
A: Clear the browser's cache and reload the board.

I'll continue to search for a good solution for the problem. :)


A tremendous thank you to Sora. This helps us troubleshoot on our end. Hopefully these new clues correct some of the problems some of you are having with posting. Heck, I hope it's an OK BBS server problem to begin with and that they've fixed it. And if not, I hope that all the above posted fixes and clues fix the rest.







Labels: , ,

18 Comments:

Blogger Amelia Lorenz said...

Hey Ronnie, I tried out the OK-BBS and I could paint some stuff, but when I tried to save it, it didn't work...I tried all three ways to save it. Maybe its just my computer?

a

5:13 PM

 
Blogger Ronnie said...

Thanks for testing that out, Amelia. Haven't had that happen to me yet. Can't figure that. What browswer where you using? PC or Mac? OS?

I've used Both Safari and Firefox for this and haven't had a problem.

Those of you who can't post, could you give me an answer on those questions as well.

It might be the browser, or Java. I'm not much of a tech but maybe I can ask around for answers.

Thanks,

R.

8:39 PM

 
Blogger Amelia Lorenz said...

I'm on a PC using Firefox. Its probably just me!

a

10:14 AM

 
Blogger Ronnie said...

There are others who've had trouble posting. Now, that we've found out it's not about any posting confusion, we can look further.

Don Shank's had trouble with just drawing on it. The line lags so far behind the drawing stroke. Knocks the fun out of it. Is that the Java? The browser? He even downloaded Firefox to be sure. No deal.

He was on a Mac with current versions of everything. So am I. Between our two machines there really shouldn't be any difference.

I'll try one from home.

Thanks for helping out, Amelia.

R.

11:18 AM

 
Anonymous Anonymous said...

According to Oekaki FAQ, following versions of JAVA seem to cause problems of painting/uploading.

JAVA1.4.1Update 1 (Mac)
JAVA1.4.2Update 2 (Mac)
JAVAUpDatefor10.3.9 (Mac)

SunJAVA1.4.2_6 (XP)
SunJAVA1.4.2_7 (XP)

Also it says that posting via proxy server is likely be denied occasionally.
I hope it works. :)

8:25 PM

 
Blogger Ronnie said...

Sora! Thank you for that info. I was looking at the Java versions people post with and just starting to figure out which correlated to be the problematic versions.

Awesome assist. Thanks for watching out for me.

Sora, for all of you who don't know, joins us all the way from Japan:

Soraya Saga is an illustrator, a designer and a video game story writer.
After years of working as an employee of Squaresoft (Square Enix Co., Ltd.), Saga started woking as a writer/designer on freelance basis to manage work and motherhood. Soraya Saga is the pen name. Also known as Kaori Tanaka (the birth name, unrelated to any other Tanaka artists) in the production of Final Fantasy V, VI and Xenogears. Family: Spouse (Tetsuya, married in 1995) and two kids. Currently living in Tokyo, Japan."


Her website.Soraya Saga

9:07 PM

 
Anonymous Anonymous said...

You're welcome.
I had the same trouble uploading to my own Oekaki Board when I used iBook before.

7:40 AM

 
Blogger Unknown said...

NEATO!

1:32 PM

 
Blogger Jenny Lerew said...

Hi Ronnie--I too couldn't save, using any of the buttons; I get as far as the first popup, then when I hit "OK" I get a popup that says "data transfer error". : (

This happened to me a couple of weeks ago as well. Odd, because I used it before and it worked, many moons ago, from the same computer. I'm running IE 6.0.a million other numbers. ; )
It's a PC as well...I have a mac at home, but no Cintiq, alas,
so any drawings I produce would be terrible; maybe I'll try a simple one just to see if I can get it to function.

3:40 PM

 
Anonymous Anonymous said...

I can't upload anymore, using Opera or Mozilla. I'm not really willing to downgrade Java as 1.4 has some serious security issues. It's strange because just a couple of weeks ago I could post images fine.

7:27 AM

 
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Sweet lavander drawing of Nina. Tetsuya Nomura rehashes too many of the thing he draws for Final Fantasy; He is not as creative as you or the the artist from Vagrant Story and Final Fantasy XII for originality.

8:06 PM

 
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Even if Nomura is a great artrist his is work is not my cup of tea.

8:13 PM

 
Blogger Paul Tuller said...

COOL!! You have posted so much great stuff! I fell a bit behind in the ole' blogger world - but I'm slowly catching up. I'm excited to try out the OK-BBS!!! ...right after I study for my science test that is

11:40 AM

 
Blogger Jenny Lerew said...

Okay, I played with my Java settings, but still no go. : (
Just out of pique--and to prove I really did try, here's a screen cap of what I was trying to save-it lives! LOL.
http://static.flickr.com/42/109800559_c7b74aaa8f_b.jpg

1:43 PM

 
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Amelia, Jenny, sorry I couldn't be of help.
I had exactly same problem using the Oekaki BBS (being able to drawing but not abele to submitting) before.
This problem has been frequently reported among technical support boards, some are caused by PC environments, some are caused by server error of the OK BBS itself.
Shown below are most recent questions picked up from the oekaki FAQ board.

Q: The drawing window doesn't work.
A: Try a proper version of JAVA.

Q: It freezed up after I clicked the save button.
A: Some security softwares and pop-up blockers conflict with the OK BBS.

Q: A transfer error occurred after clicking the save button.
A: It could be a) the internet connection error. b) the OK BBS server error.

Q: The drawing was successfully saved but not appeared.
A: Clear the browser's cache and reload the board.

I'll continue to search for a good solution for the problem. :)

8:06 PM

 
Blogger IAN Del CARMEN said...

WOW! This is another great site from you! Nice job! ;-)

11:04 AM

 
Blogger Ronnie said...

Jenny--thanks for trying it out and I'm sorry that the trouble is persisting. Don't change any more Java setting on your end. Not worth it, I think. And thanks for that awesome Nina sketch. I'll keep it!

Alina--give it a try?

Paul--how's that newly painted room? Hello to Dong-yi.

Anonymous--I'm not familiar with Tetsuya's work. I should look it up, huh? We're all entitled to our preferences. Thanks for posting and drop by again.

Sora--Oh, thank you so much for putting in the time to hunt down for some answers to this dilemma. Very helpful to us who are just guessing--and hoping it fixes itself.

Ian--you have an interesting last name.
Where are you from? Besides that, thanks for stopping by.

10:58 AM

 
Blogger Jeff Pidgeon said...

Hi Ronnie,

I couldn't find the banner with your link at the Wikipedia site. Sounds interesting, though!

J.

4:22 PM

 

Post a Comment

<< Home