Snow for Elkarte

Last Update: Nov 24, 2020

This addon is 100% hooks based requiring no source edits to install.

Works with ElkArte: 1.0-1.1

Introduction

This addon adds a snow storm effect to your site.

Snowstorm can eat up a lot of CPU, even on modern computers, because of the number of elements being moved around the screen at once. Consider raising the animation interval, and lowering the amount of snowflakes (active and max) to help reduce CPU use.

Where supported, Snowstorm will attempt to use GPU-based hardware acceleration to draw and animate the snow. Having GPU acceleration can help in reducing CPU load.

By default, mobile devices are excluded from the snow effect to be nice to their CPUs (and batteries.)

The snow effect is also disabled in the Admin panel

This addon utilizes Scott Schiller Snowstorm javascript, BSD license, Snowstorm, it does all the work the addon is simply a wrapper.

Features

  • Master setting to enable or disable the snow storm
  • Set Theoretical “milliseconds per frame” measurement
  • Set the maximum number of snowflakes that can exist on the screen at any given time
  • Set the limit of “falling” snowflakes (ie. moving on the screen, thus considered to be active.)
  • Allows snow to move dynamically with the “wind”, relative to the mouse's X (left/right) coordinates
  • Ability to stop the snow effect when the browser window goes out of focus. Saves CPU, nicer to user.
  • Set the color of the snowflakes to adjust for theme backgrounds.
  • Set the snowflake character, changing it may require flakeWidth/flakeHeight changes.
  • Set Max pixel width/height reserved for snow element (for above).
  • Allows the snow to “stick” to the bottom of the window.
  • When recycling fallen snow off the bottom, have it “melt” and fade out (if browser supports it)
  • Allow snow to randomly “flicker” in and out of view while falling
  • Defines maximum X/Y velocities for the storm

Installation:

Download a package by URL

  • Download a package by URL is a quick way to download a package from the web to your forum. Using (Package Manager -> Download Package) enter the below link under the “Download a package by url” field and select Download. This will save the package to your server where you can install it.

Upload a Package

  • Alternatively, download the package using the below link and then using (Package Manager -> Upload Package) browse to where you saved the package on your computer and upload it to the server. You may also FTP the downloaded file directly to your packages directory.

License:

This ElkArte Addon is subject to the terms of the Mozilla Public License version 1.1 (the “License”). You can obtain a copy of the License at https://www.mozilla.org/MPL/1.1/