03/27/2011 Upgrade - Known Issues

[kgasso]

Hi everyone,

I've completed an upgrade of the forum to a different software package. The main reason for the change was that the old software (phpBB) was becoming unmaintainable with the modifications we used; upgrades to the software would consistently break, since the mods required changes to the core software code. Upgrades were becoming a nightmare due to having to manually merge changes to many core files in the phpBB codebase. This is, unfortunately, just the way that phpBB works. The new software (MyBB) actually supports plugin hooks, so the modifications are completely separate from the main codebase. This means upgrades don't break the mods, and even if they do, the forum still works -- just without the modification.

The old themes and templates from phpBB don't work with MyBB, which is why things look different. I'd like to hear your thoughts on any display issues so I can work them out.

This is the list of currently known issues; I'll keep it updated as things are worked on:

• FIXED: Some avatars and profile fields haven't been migrated or migrated incorrectly (birthdates, locations, interests, etc.)
  
• Some of the imported posts have inconsistent formatting (YouTube videos, broken links/images, broken lists).
  
• FIXED, NEEDS REFINEMENT: Some of the per-forum "Rules" (for the on-topic/serious discussion areas) aren't formatted correctly. Also should appear in a more noticeable font.
  
• FIXED: Time zone settings may not be correct, which makes the time appear off.
  
• FIXED: Multiple replies by the same person (when nobody else has replied) are posting as edits to the same message.
  
• FIXED: A lot of peoples' PM statuses got set back to "unread".
  
• FIXED: Some people with special characters in their usernames are having login problems.
  
• FIXED:Some people are having display issues with the right side of the forum being cut off in their browsers.
  
• FIXED: The mobile theme on iPhone isn't displaying threads.
  
• FIXED: Search pages, posting pages, etc. have an annoying "friendly" redirection page.
  
• FIXED: Some people have saved links/bookmarks to the old forum display pages or "new posts" page. We've redirected /viewtopic.php and /viewforum.php, but limitations in Apache mod_rewrite won't let us redirect based off of the /search.php?search_id=newposts query string.
  
• FIXED: Post "quick edit" option may not be working for some people.
  
• FIXED, NEEDS REFINEMENT: Nested quotes are hard to read, should be different colors.
  
• FIXED, NEEDS REFINEMENT: Popup windows when clicking buttons in the post editor generate a warning in IE and don't let URLs be dragged into them. Also, some are pre-populated with "http://", and it's difficult to see if additional spaces have been pasted into the dialog box.
  
• FIXED: The Black/White color scheme is kind of harsh on the eyes. Looking into a way to mellow it out a bit.
  
• FIXED: When a thread was one post away from rolling over to additional page, the additional page link would show up due to an import error.
  
• FIXED: We lost our "textual confirmation" setup in the upgrade. This is an extremely effective anti-spam mechanism. Installed a new version, defined new question/answer pairs, installed further protections against automated registrations
  
• FIXED: Link at the bottom of pages which goes back to the homepage is gone. Need to re-add.
  
• FIXED: Everyone's "online visibility" status was set to "invisible" by default. Need to re-import this data from the old database.
  
• TOS/Contact links at the bottom are themes differently from the rest of the site (delayed until after theme modifications are completed)
  
• FIXED: Add tagline back into TITLE of homepage
  
• FIXED: Add site name back into TITLE of thread pages
  

If you notice anything else, please drop a line in this thread and I'll take a look.

Thanks!

-Kameron

[rainylady]

Why is there a star by me name in Who's Online when no one else has it?

[chuerta]

Why is there a star by me name in Who's Online when no one else has it?

Think it means your in hidden status.

[kgasso]

Why is there a star by me name in Who's Online when no one else has it?

Think it means your in hidden status.

Correct, it means that in your profile you've set your online status to be invisible (meaning only you and site admins see your name in the online users list).

[rainylady]

Why is there a star by me name in Who's Online when no one else has it?

Think it means your in hidden status.

Correct, it means that in your profile you've set your online status to be invisible (meaning only you and site admins see your name in the online users list).

OK, that was weird I wasn't in hidden on the old forum. It must of changed over.

[PonderThis]

I don't see a button ("img" I think it was) to post pictures from the web now, are you trying to discourage that? I see it still works if you manually code in [img]webaddress.jpg[/img] though.

[Valuesize]

I don't see a button ("img" I think it was) to post pictures from the web now, are you trying to discourage that? I see it still works if you manually code in [img]webaddress.jpg[/img] though.

Insert image button is the little square with mountains and sun on it.

[bbqboy]

I've got an image button, but the video button overrides everything and won't let me insert a URL.

[PonderThis]

It just occurred to me, I had to change my bookmarked page to find the new forum, because I didn't have the "front" page bookmarked, but one of the others instead (that doesn't exist anymore). If RL hadn't have emailed me that the forum worked again but I had to reenter the website manually, I might still be trying to find it, figuring Kgasso was having bigtime troubles with the update (or worse, just said to hell with it all). So, I might recommend forwarding pages from the other index pages that used to show up but don't anymore - sorry, I deleted my specific example I used already.

[GoCometsGo]

I don't see a button ("img" I think it was) to post pictures from the web now, are you trying to discourage that? I see it still works if you manually code in [img]webaddress.jpg[/img] though.

I'm not an expert but I think it's frowned upon to upload a photo directly from another web address. Unless I'm mistaken it's considered to be "bandwidth theft" and it's not the preferred way to post a photo. I believe it's much better to copy/paste the photo to your desktop and then upload it from there to here. Even then there can be copyright issues... but, personally, I don't worry too much about that.

Someone correct me if I'm mistaken... I am no expert.

[bbqboy]

[bbqboy]

ok. you have to click the box, then insert the url into the post body as before.

[cletus1]

I see the photo talkers discovered how to post photos. Damn I thought you guys were going to have to use words to communicate for a minute.

[bbqboy]

words are so 20th century.

[tvguy]

I don't see a button ("img" I think it was) to post pictures from the web now, are you trying to discourage that? I see it still works if you manually code in [img]webaddress.jpg[/img] though.

I'm not an expert but I think it's frowned upon to upload a photo directly from another web address. Unless I'm mistaken it's considered to be "bandwidth theft" and it's not the preferred way to post a photo. I believe it's much better to copy/paste the photo to your desktop and then upload it from there to here. Even then there can be copyright issues... but, personally, I don't worry too much about that.

Someone correct me if I'm mistaken... I am no expert.

I'm no expert either but I think you are correct about everything you said. I think although I could be wrong that people can easily prevent their images from being hot linked.
So I wonder if those people who don't block hot linking really care if I hot link their image?
I'm not the only one here who has been hot linking photos here for a LONG time. You would think that if it was bothering people Kgasso would have been informed a long time ago?

I would not hot link photos at all but it's a lot less work then saving the image and then using your own host. Although I guess maybe I shouldn't.

It's a little ironic that right below your post BBQ hot linked several pictures

[kgasso]

The only thing you have watch with hotlinked photos is the source can change the pic. For example, if someone notices a ton of their pics being hotlinked, they might end up changing those photos to something more... interesting.

[bbqboy]

Hey K, thanks for all the changes. Things seem to be working smoothly now, except I still can't use the insert boxes.

[tvguy]

The only thing you have watch with hotlinked photos is the source can change the pic. For example, if someone notices a ton of their pics being hotlinked, they might end up changing those photos to something more... interesting.

Yeah that's why you should never use a hot linked pic on ebay or CL. OR for your avatar.
But out of the thousands of hot linked images posted here I have never seen the person who is being hot linked do the old switcheroo. Nor would I care if they did

[kgasso]

Hey K, thanks for all the changes. Things seem to be working smoothly now, except I still can't use the insert boxes.

What browser are you using?

If you're using IE, do you end up getting a popup ("Information Bar") at the top asking about scripted windows? It looks like this:

[bbqboy]

Hey K, thanks for all the changes. Things seem to be working smoothly now, except I still can't use the insert boxes.

What browser are you using?

If you're using IE, do you end up getting a popup ("Information Bar") at the top asking about scripted windows? It looks like this:

Chrome. When I want to insert a video or pic, a box comes up that asks for a remote url, but I can't click any other page to drag it there. I've figured out to click it blank and it will insert into the post field. Then I can drag the URL in. The box seems to override everything.
override everything.