Jump to content

Forum Upgrade


epp_b

Recommended Posts

  • Replies 70
  • Created
  • Last Reply

Top Posters In This Topic

  • havnblast

    14

  • Scot

    13

  • James M. Fisher

    7

  • Neil P

    6

A common problem in forums, I'm told. :w00t:
ahhh yea, but it makes a difference when you buy a product and are suppose to get tech support with it. I could see if they were still free, but now that they charge for everything, changes everything.
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Guest LilBambi
An RSS reader like Sage would probably just require you to drag the link and drop it into the Sage window, but I haven't used it in a while, so I'm not 100% sure on that.
Yep...that's exactly how it works with Sage. :)
Link to comment
Share on other sites

3. even though I checked cookies to see that session ID was saved, when I return (closed browser to clear cache and cookies) everything on the main page appears as if there are new posts in each section; after I open that section, there may not be any new posts
I've got the same problem. Every section appears as having new posts.
Link to comment
Share on other sites

I've tested the problem with the "unread" icons on threads and I don't have that behavior. It doesn't appear to be a universal problem. Are you allowing cookies with the forum? I assume you are from what you wrote, but what you describe actually sounds like you are not. Is it possible a security program of some sort is not allowing cookies with the forum?Deleting your cookies would force the board to display all threads as unread. The only way the board would know you've read something is because a cookie on your system contains that information.Please proivde any added details I may be missing or misunderstanding to help us figure this out.-- Scot

Link to comment
Share on other sites

About the Options drop down, it seems pretty clear to me that we're probably going to have to rebuild our main skin under 2.1. This is IPB's great weakness. There are too many interrelated visual components in this board software. What it needs is a complete skin module that can manage these changes. And IPB needs to stop messing with the images and CSS every single time it makes a change to the system.I had not planned on facing this level of skinning problem in a .1 release, and I'm frankly disgusted with both the communication and support provided by IPB.There are many customizations to this board that I didn't do myself, as many of you know. However, I don't think this is rocket science. I can figure it out; I just don't have a lot of spare cycles to devote to it at the moment.Also, for the foreseeable future, we are going to have only one skin for Scot's Newsletter. For all the many regulars who miss Sage or any of the many other very nice skins Arena built for us, my apologies. I miss them too. To be honest, though, the many skins we had made upgrading the forums an utter nightmare every time. We were delaying on software upgrades because of the hours and hours of work updating multiple skins meant.Someday the IPB software will become more mature, and will probably not break skins with every "point" release. When that day arrives, I will either build or commission the building of a nice set of skins, and perhaps even involve everyone in what kinds of skins we might like to create.Thanks for your patience.The good news is that we haven't had a large number of problems with the upgrade.-- Scot

Link to comment
Share on other sites

James M. Fisher
Also, for the foreseeable future, we are going to have only one skin for Scot's Newsletter. For all the many regulars who miss Sage or any of the many other very nice skins Arena built for us, my apologies. I miss them too. To be honest, though, the many skins we had made upgrading the forums an utter nightmare every time. We were delaying on software upgrades because of the hours and hours of work updating multiple skins meant.-- Scot
I do miss sage, but blue is fine. Thanks for letting us know!
Link to comment
Share on other sites

I guess I'm having a hard time seeing what's with the skin. 2.0 version came out and we've only had the default skin, what changes were done besides the google adsense??If it's just the google adsense that is really easy to add thru the ACP - Skin Manager. Usually skins are a pain in the butt when you got a ton of mods installed.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Havnblast, we do have a lot more than just a couple mods. I agree they aren't major, though. The issue for me is that I don't know what changes we have, since Arena made changes to the CSS and other things very quietly on his own -- without documenting what he did. The main logo bar is one thing he changed. And I like it for the most part, especially the gradient. There are customized menus. There's a long list of very small changes.I'm heading down this path of updating the default 2.1 skin to make it look like the 2.0 and prior skin. If anyone recalls specific mods they requested that got done, it would be helpful to post them here.-- Scot

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Scot, unless you want to repeat this upgrade experience I strongly suggest you document all changes. Purpose of change, what modules, by whom, when, what parms, their original values and their new values. Plus a backup of the original module/file where possible. Ensure procedures are in place to prevent undocumented changes going forward. Keep two copies of the Changes Log book, one for your personal use and one for the auditors. oops, sorry, carry over from work experience. :hmm:

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Good news. All known problems are fixed. We're running with a fully 2.1 skin now. It only took me about 3 hours to convert because of I was able to edit the CSS in a creative way to solve problems (one of the reasons I love CSS). I *think* we're good to go. And I've set the default to the new skin.If, however, there are problems, the old skin is available to us all from the skin selector at the bottom of the every page.Also, there's a brand new set of RSS feeds, which we should consider to be "beta." I have built and tested them, but they might need some tweaking -- and I'm open to suggestion. Also, I have no idea whether there might be some load issues. I can tell you that building these feeds threw off some database errors.To access the new RSS feeds, click the RSS button right next to the skin selector, bottom right of every page.Please post any issues, problems, sugestions here.Thanks,-- Scot

Link to comment
Share on other sites

hmmmm as far as I know Scott, since 2.0 ran here, we had nothing done to the skin as it has always looked like the default skin. The changes Arena did, I see them as being done thru the ACP.Once we went 2.0 we lost skins and any sort of customization, as Arena posted that there would be no changes to the source code. CSS wise it has been the default as far as I can tell. That's why I ask, what was ever done to the 2.0 besides the google ad sense? Is Arena even still around?I know my memory is bad, but I didn't think it was that bad.It's good to see the options working! Thanks for fixing that.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

James M. Fisher
Also, there's a brand new set of RSS feeds, which we should consider to be "beta." I have built and tested them, but they might need some tweaking -- and I'm open to suggestion. Also, I have no idea whether there might be some load issues. I can tell you that building these feeds threw off some database errors.To access the new RSS feeds, click the RSS button right next to the skin selector, bottom right of every page.Please post any issues, problems, sugestions here.Thanks,-- Scot
The RSS feeds work fine in Opera 8, Scot. Nicely done with titles and everything. :thumbup:
Link to comment
Share on other sites

I looked over my Scot's Forum cookies and 1 "topics read" wasn't protected so I protected that. I closed down FF re-opened, came back here and it still shows all sections as having new posts. :) :blink: Well forget the rest of my babbling. Because the options dropdown box now works, I'll be able to mark entire sections as read. That should fix the problem where everything appears as having new posts.Thanks for fixing it! :thumbup:

Edited by zlim
Link to comment
Share on other sites

No problem, Liz. I'm still interested in the problem you're having with threads not being marked as read. So let me know if you come across any other symptoms or clues. Since I haven't been able to reproduce it, and have in fact seen the opposite, it's tough a tough one to diagnose.Thanks for the kind words, James.Havnblast, there were some custom things done to the skin, mostly having to do with the logo area, and also a few other spots throughout. Many of these things would be barely noticeable. As I said, it was 3 hours worth of work while I watched baseball on TV. Nothing really all that taxing. The only hard part was figuring out how the previous minor customizations differed from the changes in 2.1 and then essentially remaking them to suit 2.1. But it was all basic HTML work, which I'm very comfortable with. Since I didn't have to commission new artwork or go in and mess with images myself, it ended up being easier than expected.90% of what made our previous custom skins, like Sage, Lilac, etc., wasn't code, it was bitmaps. And that's what Arena toiled away at, images, for the most part. Literally scores of them when you consider all the skins we once had. The trouble between major versions of IPB has been that sometimes those image dimensions have changed. When they change, you have to go through and edit each image. Some image size changes did occur with 2.1, but they were minor. The CSS is highly flexible, so it was easy to use that to adjust image calls to make 2.1 look like 2.0. In once case, I just eliminated an image call and filled the space with HTML color. Since our skin customization is very minor, so was the conversion. But there is some customization.I'll probably introduce some more customization in the future. Now that I'm managing this myself, work will progress slowly, and less ambitiously, but there are some things we can do over time.-- Scot

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I looked over my Scot's Forum cookies and 1 "topics read" wasn't protected so I protected that. I closed down FF re-opened, came back here and it still shows all sections as having new posts. :blink: :blink: Well forget the rest of my babbling. Because the options dropdown box now works, I'll be able to mark entire sections as read. That should fix the problem where everything appears as having new posts.Thanks for fixing it! :)
I had that same issue on the first visit, but clearing the cache after I hit the link on the main page mark all forums read and than logging out of the site. I closed out FF came back to the site and logged in and everything has been fine since than. Odd how that works for some, but not others.Scott I have seen a lot of people frustrated with IPB on other forums, they are tired of seeing their board break with every update. There isn't too many boards out there that don't have their own customization to it in some form or another. Some are even vowing to stay with 2.0.4 and say the heck with 2.1. Guess that would be ok if IPB planned on supporting it when exploits are found and need fixing. I can not see them doing that as I find the staff there very unfriendly. That is the major reason I will not purchase from them, I have seen how they treat people.Personally I like the default skin, doesn't bother me to just have this one. :thumbup:
Link to comment
Share on other sites

I get problems with posts being marked read (I don't know if it's still happening, or if it's been fixed by the upgrade...). I usually keep up with B&E Central, so when there are new posts, it's usually just one or two (by comparison, ATL usually has pages of new posts each time I check :D ). When I click on the "goto last unread" button and read the thread, I'll go back to the B&E central index. After doing that for all new posts, I'll go back to the main index, and the blue IPB logo (is that a book?) will still be active, as if there were new posts. So, I'll either have to go back to into B&E central, or click on that logo to really mark the threads as read. Once I go back in and come back to the index, they're shown as read. It's always confused me.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

The board is working properly, on my end, as far as read posts and new posts. It was the combo of guarding 1 cookie and using the options to mark as read when I was done in a section reading what I wanted.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Guest LilBambi
Good news. All known problems are fixed. We're running with a fully 2.1 skin now. It only took me about 3 hours to convert because of I was able to edit the CSS in a creative way to solve problems (one of the reasons I love CSS). I *think* we're good to go. And I've set the default to the new skin.If, however, there are problems, the old skin is available to us all from the skin selector at the bottom of the every page.Also, there's a brand new set of RSS feeds, which we should consider to be "beta." I have built and tested them, but they might need some tweaking -- and I'm open to suggestion. Also, I have no idea whether there might be some load issues. I can tell you that building these feeds threw off some database errors.To access the new RSS feeds, click the RSS button right next to the skin selector, bottom right of every page.Please post any issues, problems, sugestions here.Thanks,-- Scot
Actually, Thank You! For doing such a great job on the upgrade and for giving us all a place to hang our hats! ;)
Link to comment
Share on other sites

There's been an upgrade? Never even noticed it! Now that's how things are supposed to work! :D
Transparent to the user. Yes this was the way to do it. Kudo's to everyone invilved. ;)
Link to comment
Share on other sites

and you cleared all the cookies/cache and logged out and logged back in?
Yep. I haven't particularly noticed it since the upgrade, but I'll still keep an eye out for it.
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.


×
×
  • Create New...