Forum Upgrade Problems, Queries And Requests

[Vetinari]

Hi everybody. This is a thread for you to post any information regarding the forum upgrade which you feel needs addressing. Obviously there is a lot for HoL to work through at the moment, and it may be that some of the items will need some investigation/contact with the forum hosts, so thank you in advance for your patience. Ideally this thread should become a list of items which need addressing so that they are brought to HoL's attention.

HoL will be along very shortly to explain what he is currently working on.

[tma]

The only thing for me personally is something that I *Know* that HoL knows about, I'm sure is working on- and realises that people love- = chat.

*However* That being said- there is NO pressure. Absence will either make the heart grow fonder- or everyone will Completely forget who I am.

PS- I *just* noticed the FB, Twitter, etc that people were talking about ( I'm slow ). But again- I *know* that HoL is Well aware of that concern and I am Very Very confident that this a priority.

I'm looking forward to whatever news he has with things.

[Jorm]

I suspect you guys are already aware of most of the technical issues like the emoticons not working, avatar issues, no chatroom, and so on, so I'll skip those (aside, obviously, from the ones I just listed lol) and say that my only real concerns are the layout, the share buttons, and the occasional presence of Yahoo and Google in the active members list.

Layout - The arrangement of the layout isn't terrible, I'm quickly getting used to that, but as a few other people have mentioned I find it physically painful to look at for more than a few minutes for some reason. I have no idea why, but it hurts my eyes and starts to give me a headache. I feel like I sound terribly whiny saying that lol but I'm beginning to find it a problem. Point being, if at some point some other skin options could be made available to choose from that would be awesome!

Share buttons - As has been voiced by numerous other people, the fact that there are share buttons for facebook, twitter, etc at the bottom of every page makes me very nervous about the privacy of the board. I know it's a public board and everything, but it makes me paranoid to think that someone might choose to click one of those share buttons and we might end up with another Something Awful fiasco. As it is now anyone CAN see the forum, but very few are going to find it if they don't go looking for it whereas if things start getting "shared" our name could end up (theoretically) all over the place.

Yahoo and Google - What even does it mean that they show up in the active users list? Again, this makes me paranoid about security and privacy issues.

[High on Lullabies]

Vetinari - many thanks for posting this topic

Okay, so here's what currently on my radar as issues to work on (in no particular order):

- Live Chat (See Announcement here!)

- Blogs

- Gallery

- Calendar

- Topic Descriptions

- Avatars/Personal Photo Issues

- Ability of 'Pending' Members to edit their profile

- Default Forum Appearance/Skin

- Ability of members to choose which skin they wish to use

- Removal of Facebook,Twitter, Digg, etc link icons at the bottom of topics/posts

- Restoration of Emoticons

- Restoration of Rank Icons

- Addition of customised 'Permission Denied' notices for Adult Board, Trading Post, etc

- Addition of topic 'tags' for easy searching as per Mercury's post in Web Support.

- Checking all User Groups have their correct permissions

- Checking/Setting/Updating Moderator permissions

- Checking Registration Process is correctly functioning

- Alter maximum number of emoticons per post

- Mark 'All New Posts as Read' feature

- Restoration of Posting box on IP.mobile skin

- Restoration of Members' ability to change their own display name

So, what else would you like me to look into? I can't guarantee any kind of success but, I'll certainly do my best

[Pilgrim]

Hm, so everything on that list is all the stuff we had before the change and then lost (I like it!) I imagine that most people won't really know how they feel about other stuff until baseline functionality is restored. Once people have had time to toy around with the new extras along with all the cool stuff from before I think we'll have a better idea of what else needs improving or what bugs come up when maybe those things bump into each other? The only other thing I would suggest adding to that list for the time being is maybe some instructions on how to use the new features/old features once they're put in, or where to find them.

[Jorm]

Vetinari - many thanks for posting this topic

Okay, so here's what currently on my radar as issues to work on (in no particular order):

- Live Chat

- Blogs

- Gallery

- Topic Descriptions

- Avatars/Personal Photo Issues

- Ability of 'Pending' Members to edit their profile

- Default Forum Appearance/Skin

- Ability of members to choose which skin they wish to use

- Removal of Facebook,Twitter, Digg, etc link icons at the bottom of topics/posts

- Restoration of Emoticons

So, what else would you like me to look into? I can't guarantee any kind of success but, I'll certainly do my best

I think that's more than enough for you to put on your plate to start with! And I think we all really appreciate the amount of work you're doing to address all of our concerns, I know I certainly do!

[High on Lullabies]

Okay, the emoticons should all now work again

[VoOs]

Okay, the emoticons should all now work again

;)

[Jorm]

It's a miracle! ... What? I'll take any excuse to use the pope smiley!

[High on Lullabies]

...and those evil link sharing buttons e.g. Facebook, Twitter, Digg, etc should all have disappeared too. Please let me know if you see any of the pesky blighters hanging around!

[tma]

There is Chat!!! ;)

errr.... Thanks!

[High on Lullabies]

Erm, that probably should be there *was* chat The chat room has been re-installed successfully, but I've disabled it for now as the Forum isn't allowing me to set-up the correct preferences for everyone, meaning that right now anyone (except guests) could access it. Hopefully it will be fully active in a day or two, once I've cleared up with the hosts why I can't edit any user groups preferences.

[gryffin]

I know this is just nit-picking, but the old lay-out felt so much better for some reason. First, as Ouroboros pointed out, that almost uniform lovely blue background was much less tiresome to the eye than this shiny-white thing. Secondly, it looks like there's so much wasted space now! These big square boxes with just a little writing in the middle... Every page has become twice as long for the same amount of information. The old lay-out had a good taste and a distinct personality that this one lacks altogether. And, let's face it, it's just ugly.

...Now that I've given free rein to the old Tory inside me, I appreciate that there's little if anything that you can do, and that you've done an amazing job already so thanks so much for dealing with this!

[count tiszula]

But Hol[mes], this is marvellous! So many things dealt with so quickly. What a star you are, sir!

Regarding the unnerving whiteness, I can only say " Bring on the skins!" [but without going too far and making the background black.....]

PS Have you unsquashed the avatars [or as you young people would say unsquished]? Mine still looks all funny; but this is really curiosity; not anything alarming....

[polychrome]

Make the "report" button easier to see. Not that I have ever clicked it, but when I felt a sudden urge earlier it took me a while to find it (and then I didn't click it anyway because the post had obviously been seen already).

[Lynne]

yeah... I'd like the whole forum to go back to the way it was? Thanks...

Oh wait...

*blush*

Yes, I hate it. I should be available all weekend to help you work on fixing it though I feel bad that I've been working too much to be of any help so far! (other than to bitch about how much I hate it LOL)

[allergyboy2001]

The old format had a link that let a person go directly to their list of "friends"', rather than a list of all members. Something nice to have.

[Chanel_no5]

Thank you SO MUCH for removing the "share"-buttons!! <3

I have noticed that for some members, the avatar change resulted in them having their personal photo shown as avatar - meaning everyone can see it, including guests. Just a heads up for those it happened to, so you're aware of it.

[TheCakeIsAlive]

I just noticed that apparently the default smiley limit per post is 5 right now. Is it possible to get that back to the previous limit? (For those of us who like to spam their posts with way too many smileys )

[vote_for_pedro]

Is there an option to have profile pictures now? Chanel's post about avatars turning into personal photos got me curious, and when I looked at my own profile I didn't even see a picture anymore. Nor did I see a place to add one. I was actually going to take the old one down until we were assured that all the member permission settings were fixed. It would seem that isn't even a problem? Unless I'm just too stupid to figure this new one out. There's a button in there to change your picture, but it seems to be for avatars rather than profile pics.

[sneezes]

dont like the layout, but will get over it lol

but dont like the fact, that we can see google and yahoo on the active users list...

[High on Lullabies]

Lynne - Thank you lots!

Sigrith - Yes I'm sure that's possible. I'll look at it tonight (I think the limit before was 20 or something like that? ). Thanks for letting me know

VFP - As I attempted (but may not have done a very good job ) to explain in Poptropical's thread. Avatars basically now don't exist. There is now only a space for a 'picture' which displays where your avatar used to be. I wasn't aware it didn't also display in your profile though. I was sure I'd seen it when I was viewing mine, but I could well be wrong!

Either way restoring a seperate avatar and personal photo is on my to do list

sneezes - Haven't seen either of those in the active users list on the forum so far. I'll keep an eye out though.

Allergyboy - I'll see what I can do. In case you weren't already aware, your friends list should be visible on the right-hand side of your profile.

[TheCakeIsAlive]

Sigrith - Yes I'm sure that's possible. I'll look at it tonight (I think the limit before was 20 or something like that? ). Thanks for letting me know

Yup, it used to be 20.

[Joal 555]

I used to be able to "mark all new posts as read" (so that when I next searched for new posts, they didn't come up again)

Don't know if that is still possible?

:?

[count tiszula]

Hello. chaps. Now reopening a subject about the YouTube thread is totally alien to my way of being , but it seems that links to YouTube are now automatically embedded or something, so if you link they just appear here. Does this mean that the forum is now more apparent to the YouTube author and indeed other YT members than was the case before?

I won't even bother to repeat yet again my suggestion that what should be posted is the title and channel identifying the clip, because \i know no one likes the idea.

Ps and I've just realised that this change means that there is no clue to the title or author, so you can't find it or any related vids and indeed can't even tell eg the sex of the sneezer without watching the vid....