Big upgrade on March 8th & the aftermath conversation ;)

[Mervi]

I will be upgrading the forum script next Tuesday March the 8th starting at 3PM (GMT+2, convert to your local time) and I expect it will take several hours because there's lots of plugins I need to go through and update as well. The forum will be down for that time, and when it comes back, things might look a bit weird (refreshing the page usually helps to clear your browser's cache) and some features might even be missing (depending on how well the plugin updating will go).

Additionally, IF everything goes smoothly, I might also challenge the beast that is mediawiki, but I will make that announcement here separately. While the forum is up and running, this topic is where you'll find all related info & can ask for help if you have problems. I will also be updating theplentynet twitter account to announce when the downtime starts and ends.
(BTW, that's a page you might want to bookmark if you're not a twitter user and following us already - if there's ever unexpected downtime for the whole site that's where I'll be posting about it too - since I hate facebook. )

['thul]

hating facebook is just harsh... not caring to use it, and having no intention of creating any account there, now thats more like it... (these beings fit that category)

[Farseer]

Tuesday, March 8th, at 3pm in Helsinki converts to Tuesday, March 8th, at 11pm in Brisbane. Hopefully I'll be snoozing by then anyway!

I don't tweet or is that 'Tweet' (??) and my FB dramas are -worthy, so I'm happy sticking with here...thanks for the heads-up, Mervi!

[Mervi]

I would usually agree and say that dislike is a better word than hate. But facebook? Nope. Definitely hate.

['thul]

The most important thing is not to create an account there. And to make sure one does not enter its pages willingly.

[Nuytsia]

Good luck with all the changes! Hope you don't have any major headaches.....

[Mervi]

Okay. The forum is back online. However, I have not yet upgraded the wiki which means that the user integration problem we had (new accounts can't login at the wiki) still exists. I think I'm going to take a lunch break and continue after that.

Some notes about the changes:

IF THINGS LOOK WONKY OR YOU DON'T SEE NEW FEATURES AS LISTED BELOW REFRESH THE PAGE AND/OR CLEAN YOUR BROWSER'S CACHE. (Google how to do it if you don't know. )

- I know the dragon's footing is broken in some browsers/pages, I'll fix it someday.

- some pop-up windows look weird because they grab the site's header template (the main navigation and the dragon) and try to use it. This is on my "to be fixed list".


- You can now choose to use your universal gravatar as your avatar here - check your avatar settings in your user control panel.

- talking of avatars: there's a bunch of new ones to choose from besides the dreadful default images that come with the forum software. They're in two categories: Hobb and Fantasy/Sci-fi. All made by me over the years (based on screen captures, promotional images and cover art) so no need to go looking for permission to use. The Hobb gallery is rather small, but there's of course more in the goodies section of the main site.

- As you've probable noticed, we have a new "theme" (the colours & layout of the forum) - I had to change it since the old one wasn't compatible. Again, if things look weird: clean cache and refresh the page. (There are still some minor details like font colours etc I might change later - feedback is appreciated!)

- I've forced a "classic" view for our new theme which means poster's info will be on the left side of their post, not on the top. This used to be something you could choose yourself in your personal settings. Yes, I'm evil.

- The Google "inline translation" that was previously included in each post is temporarily deactivated. I try to remember to bring it back once I fix a problem with the image files it needs.

- I've set an automatic pruning for new member accounts that have been created but not activated within 90 days. (In case someone keeps an eye on our member count and wonders why it will start to flunctuate a bit.)

- There's a new page on the user control panel in the miscellaneous section called "social sites" - you can use this to post information about your various profiles so others can come and visit. I can add more sites to it so if anyone has any suggestions, feel free to tell me. This also means I've removed the old "twitter" boxes from the profiles, so if you want to keep advertising them please update your profiles. My apologies for the inconvenience, but this new system is easier to manage.

- At the bottom of every thread there is now a section of "share/bookmark" links. Again, if you'd like to see some other sites included, please let me know.

- I've added a system that will post a new thread to the "Upcoming books & other RH news" room every time the main page (theplenty.net) is updated. I haven't tested it yet, so we'll see how it works. (Edit: looks like it works nicely, though I'll probably have to manually delete unnecessary threads once in awhile. It does not seem to post links that were included in the original news piece, but it does post a link to the original news post so it's pretty easy to click that to access the links.)

- I've also added a plugin that should warn you when you're typing a reply and someone else has posted to the same thread before you hit the "send" button. Haven't seen that one ~in action~ yet either, so I'm curious to hear any reports about it. (Edited to add: seems to warn you when you're editing your own posts lol).

- Some older, defunct plugins (link to myspace videos, cell phone forum style etc) have been removed either because there are new features replacing them or they never worked properly in the first place. The two most important added codes, the [ [ wiki ] ] links and the spoiler codes should work just like before.

- Oh, and I won't be able to check things on a PC until tomorrow evening (I know the majority of visitors still use Internet Exploder as their browser). Mac browsers (Opera, Firefox, Safari, Flock) seem to be doing quite ok with the new layout.



Any comments, questions etc?

['thul]

Hmm... Just a couple... You can add in the BBcode thingies to the bar at the top of the preview post page... that will make using spoilers a lot easier for everyone...

There are also plenty of other useful BBcodes that you can add in... Seeing that the forum now uses phpBB3 rather than the previous system...

This setting should be possible to enable in the ACP under the specific BBcode, in the field labeled "Settings".
There should be a checkbox beside the text: "Display on posting page"

These beings can supply a few extra BBcodes if you want some recommended ones... On the forum these beings also manage, there are active BBcodes like:
superscript
subscript
strikethrough
three different types of spoilers
a really annoying thing that causes the text to circle up in the middle of the page
an off topic function that tags and colors text that is off topic
etcetera etcetera...

Anyways, the upgrade looks nice (once 'thul switched to another easier-to-use skin...)

It looks like the skin "N. Design 1.4 (1.2)" duplicates the bar on the top with all the links and the banner... but thats only a minor thingy...

[Mervi]

Thanks for the suggestions, 'thul!

It's not phpBB3 by the way, just a newer version of MyBB which is what we've been using from the start.

I need to look into the spoiler code thing - we used to have one that had a button but it hasn't worked in years. The current plugin doesn't seem to have an option for that, which is a pity.

Aww, good old N.Design! It seems to work quite nicely with the new version of the software too although not 100% - the write a post box seems to sit halfway on top of the smilies for example. I do like it's colour scheme more, it's much cleaner looking. (BTW "Slate Blue" will be gone soon, won't even try to get that one to work right now). I'll try to remember to edit N.Designs templates so it doesn't call for the header that's already there. done!

['thul]

Its the color scheme that made 'thul choose N.Design... It was the cleanest-looking of the three...

anyways, 'thul do not know much about myBB code system, or how many are available, but they do know that there's a lot available for phpBB, and they are easily converted...
They did find a page guiding how to go about that... http://mybbsource.com/thread-3654.html

The best solution to fixing spoilers would probably be to find some new version of the spoiler code that has such box setting and uses the same code tags... which should be easy... especially since you obviously know more about coding than 'thul do.