Latest changes to the forum & its features

[Mervi]

If you have bookmarks or links to 

http://forums.theplenty.net please update them to  

https://theplenty.net/forums 

Right now, if you type in the old address (or click on a link somewhere) it redirects you to the new one. That redirect is in place for now, but will NOT work forever, so please don't rely on it but instead change your links. 

Thank you!    

That's the tl;dr version, look below for more details. 

In order to make the site more modern+safe+efficient, we're now 

• saying goodbye to subdomains (they were sooo much fun back in the day, eh?)
  
• using secure connections (kinda nice when you have login forms even when you're not submitting high-risk information). 
  

While you're browsing theplenty.net, you should now see a lock/green text/that stuff your browser shows you in the address bar when you visit your bank's website. I'm still fixing some things, so I'm not saying "all the time". But 99% of the time. 


If your browser displays the secure symbol alongside with some warnings it's because there might still be "mixed content" around - typically an image that has been linked from an outside source using the traditional "http" instead of "https" here at the forums. If you come across these, it would be SUPER helpful if you can report it to me (just leave a comment here or drop me a line thru social media/email). The "movie snapshot game" topic is an example of where you'll see these warnings at the moment.

Related to above: if your user image/avatar doesn't work, check if you're linking it from an outside source in your profile settings. This is no longer allowed, but you can either re-link to it using a secure connection or use the upload function. If you're using a gravatar, don't worry - there's a fix already in place and you don't have to do anything. 

In other news, I've been testing the forums on 3 different browsers over the last few days and while things mostly look more or less the way they did before, there's at least one functional problem that I know of. When you're logged in and you try to access pages through the "quick access" dropdown menu under your username, you end up with "file doesn't exist" errors. Those pages are still there, as is your profile info, and you can access and modify it normally through your user control panel. This is an issue with a new feature that shortens the addresses on this forum to make them more user-friendly and accessible for search engines that conflicts with the current style. I've added it to my well-fed "to do" list, but it's not the highest priority at the moment (finalising the secure stuff is). This has been fixed as of 31st of Oct, if you still come across it, please try clearing your browser's cache/refreshing the page!

//ETA: If you get an error about nonsecure content/script that could not be loaded on the forum, please try clearing your browser's cache and/or reloading the page. It's a font thing in the theme's template and I've fixed it days ago, but some browsers are more clingy than others *cough crough megh cough*

As always, if you come across any errors or other issues, please do let me know!

Happy (and safer) browsing!