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Major Upgrade


Lazarus

Forum Upgrade  

7 members have voted

  1. 1. This forum was recently upgraded, adding more belle and whistles. How do you feel about it?

    • I'm not sure. Wasn't it OK before?
      1
    • I like it.
      6
    • I don't like it.
      0


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A major software upgrade was performed on the forums today. We're putting together an effort to make these forum are little more contemporary and hip by taking advantage of all the latest technologies.

 

I'm looking forward to putting some additional energy into this place and maybe - just maybe - have it become a lively place again.

 

I'll be posting more details tomorrow - as it is kind of late in my part of the world. :-)

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Alright. So, after a much required upgrade, here's what is different.

  • New interface - Looks spiffy and modern!
  • A mobile interface - Full access to the forums from your smart phone or tablet.
  • Spam deterrents - Keeping out spammers is a high priority. 
  • Link Sharing - easily share links from these forums to Facebook, Twitter and more..
  • Topic preview - preview the first few lines of a topic without loading the entire topic.
  • Media embedding - easier to post YouTube movies and other media into posts.
  • Social media integration.
  • Profile customization - new features designed to make your profile page more interactive.
  • Best Answer - This feature enables the topic starter (when allowed) and moderators to mark a post as the best answer.

 

Things we lost.

The individual forum skins. We'll have to work on developing things from scratch now.

It appears that some Greek text hasn't made it over.

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Great work Lazarus, I think the new design is awesome!  I like the new interface and the avatars.

 

Is there any way to change the skin, the current one is a bit bland and all the text is the same which makes it a bit difficult to read.  It would be nice if you could bold the titles of each forum, that would help distinguish one section from the other.

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Sure, the skins can change to reflect each forum's idiosynchracies. However, it's a time consuming process and I have no help on the matter.  So, it will have to wait until we ensure that everything else is running smoothly. Unless some member volunteer knows how to work things and offers to help with the process.

 

In terms of forum titles, I'm afraid I need a little more clarification. Which view? Index or Forum view? Can you give me a link so I have a point of reference? Just to clarify. Forum titles become bold when there are unread posts in the particular forum (that's a new feature). If you hover on the icon to the left of a bold forum title, you will see that you can mark a particular forum as 'read'. Doing so turns the forum title into plain (non-bold) text. Also, a topic title is bold when it contains an upread post. Clicking on the icon on the left or the title takes you to the first unread post. One can preview a topic by selecting the 'preview button' that appears when one hover over the white space are between the topic title and number of replies. Then, one gets to preview the first and last posts of the topic.

 

On the same subject, an additional feature that we can examine is using colored topic titles. Take a look here what I mean: Topic - Bonehead Plays. My only problem with that would be the forum becoming too colorful, at the point where it borderlines ugly. It is something to talk about. Let's get the other mods in on this.

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In terms of forum titles, I'm afraid I need a little more clarification. Which view? Index or Forum view? Can you give me a link so I have a

point of reference?

 

I am referring to the index view (http://forums.phantis.com/), the one that lists all the forums.  When you view this page, without having logged in, the text is all plain.  When you login, the forum titles are all bolded which makes it much easier to distinguish between sections.  Its not really a major problem just something I noticed that makes viewing the forum (at least for me) a bit frustrating.  Perhaps its the font that is the problem, I have no problems reading the text on the main Phantis page- is that the same font type as the one used on the forum?!

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I would also like to say great work! The new forum look is very nice. The only thing I would suggest is maybe a bit more differentiation between the pinned topics and the rest of the topics. Maybe a bold line under the last pinned topic? Right now they sort of jumble together. It is not a big issue though.

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The new forum look is very nice. The only thing I would suggest is maybe a bit more differentiation between the pinned topics and the rest of the topics. Maybe a bold line under the last pinned topic? Right now they sort of jumble together.

There is a sort option on the top bar of the forum list. I am including a screen capture of what I see - just to make sure we're looking at the same list.

The pinned topics have a green icon with the word "PINNED". In my view (the one I uploaded) they are sorted by "Recently Updated". The other options are "Start Date", Most Replies", "Most Viewed", "Custom", "Show un/answered"

I would sincerely hope using one of these options would be good enough for sorting. I believe that way it is now is that topics than contain unread posts should normally appear with a bold headline.

post-1-0-99850700-1361197461_thumb.jpg

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If you are having problems with the site not retaining your log in information over a period of time, try clearing your cookies. And I'm not talking about those chocolate chip cookies stashed in your cupboard (second from the right).  :) Remove all cookies with site  'clubs.phantis.com' and 'forums.phantis.com' and try logging in again.

 

In terms of the 'sign in' button. It seems that all registered users are able to find it...  :o  Not everything can be big and bold. Maybe you're getting older Athinaios and your eyesight is failing you??  :whistle:  Seriously now. The login/logout button does not need to be prominent. It's a one time thing. Once you see where it is, it becomes a secondary element. Anything bigger would make it a distraction - and for no reason.

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First, I try to replenish those cookies, because how can a man work without coffee and snacks??
I use Firefox and set to clear cookies after closing the browser. I'll do a manual clear again.
Anyway, these are not big problems. I see a lot better functionality with the new look.
 
Now, did you tell the mods about the new rule?....
....
 
Hats are now part of the required attire before they're given the keys to the dungeon (or, whereever you keep the stashed goodies)...

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  • 8 months later...

Haven't pinpointed to exact problems yet.  Troubleshooting different areas, ranging from Denial of Service (DoS) attacks to moving the database to a different MySQL server (this was the most recent attempt to fix). We'll see how it goes.....

 

I'm sorry to inconvenience you, but unfortunately our resources are limited. We have to go one step at a time.

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