Forum update to v2.0 in progress

Robin Reeve

The Swiss Moron
Staff member
Moderator
Joined
Jul 26, 2003
Messages
19,595
Reaction score
5,557
Location
St-Légier
First name
Robin
Country
llSwitzerland
Colours are back - at least a blue theme.
 

footsteps

Just visiting
Joined
Oct 19, 2007
Messages
7,379
Reaction score
3,532
Location
Ontario
Country
llCanada
If you were a fully-paid up Zirconium member, you would have received the special Decoder 3000X 4-D Glasses that allow you to enjoy all the new features of this upgrade. It's quite the trip.
 

Robin Reeve

The Swiss Moron
Staff member
Moderator
Joined
Jul 26, 2003
Messages
19,595
Reaction score
5,557
Location
St-Légier
First name
Robin
Country
llSwitzerland
There is a new "New posts" feature, which lists all the new posts...
 

wsrt

Recruit
Joined
May 4, 2007
Messages
13
Reaction score
6
Location
Livingston
Country
ll
And so far I have not found the function that allows you to jump to the last unread post in a given thread (but instead only to the last page of that thread).
That is now implicit rather than explicit. Just click on the thread title and it will automatically open at the last unread post ... at least that is what happens for me!
 

Michael R

Minor Hero
Staff member
Moderator
Joined
Feb 4, 2003
Messages
4,622
Reaction score
4,162
Location
La Belle Province
First name
Michael
Country
llCanada
There are a few features that have disappeared.
  • "Mark forums read" is an all or nothing, before in most cases you could mark just one forum or fora tree as being read.
If you are not in a thread, you can see TWO buttons for marking a forum as read. The button on the right does the current forum instead of all forums.
 

Paul M. Weir

Forum Guru
Staff member
Moderator
Joined
Apr 3, 2004
Messages
8,706
Reaction score
3,732
Location
Dublin
First name
Paul
Country
llIreland
If you are not in a thread, you can see TWO buttons for marking a forum as read. The button on the right does the current forum instead of all forums.
Thank you for that.

While I might not be a fan of blue, it far, far more readable than the grey.
 

Dr Zaius

Chief Defender of the Faith
Joined
May 1, 2001
Messages
8,902
Reaction score
408
Location
The Forbidden Zone
First name
Don
Country
llUnited States
I'm getting a lot of questions, so I will attempt to answer some of them here.

We've been having a hell of a time combating the spammers, and the volunteer mod team has run themselves ragged trying to keep up with it. So as part of the effort to deal with that issue, the forums needed to be updated to the latest version of Xenforo so we have access to the newest tools and security updates.

I know you guys don't like change (nor do I like dealing with the issues it creates), but the forum hadn't been updated since early 2016 and was way out of date. If we don't update it regularly, it becomes vulnerable to hackers and creates maintenance issues. And there's no way around it, the updates introduce changes. Just like new operating systems for Windows or Mac or your smartphone, you're not always going to love the way something was changed in the software. But understand these are changes made by the software developers, not by us.

Part of this updated necessitated migrating the whole forum over to a new server, as the one GS has been on for years was very old and the server o/s software was about 8 years out of date. There are always some growing pains moving to a new server.

Yes, I am aware the forums are a bit bland at the moment. Previously, we were using a third party add-on theme I purchased for Xenforo 1.0. But we can't continue to use that with Xenforo 2.0, and using those third party custom themes is A) expensive, B) adds another layer of functionality which has to updated and maintained with periodic version changes.

So right now what you are seeing is the default Xenforo 2.0 theme. It's kind of bland, but we're stilling working on getting a few technical issues ironed out with the new server, so I haven't had a chance to make any tweaks. If I have to, I'll create a custom theme to make the site look better. But I'm hoping to just tweak the default theme a bit as that's the easiest, most stable choice.

There are still a couple little things which are not quite working right:

  • Default theme (this means the forum is fixed width)
  • File uploads not working
  • Media gallery not showing
If you encounter more bugs, post them here.
 
Last edited:

Dr Zaius

Chief Defender of the Faith
Joined
May 1, 2001
Messages
8,902
Reaction score
408
Location
The Forbidden Zone
First name
Don
Country
llUnited States
I will also mention that Xenforo 2.0 isn't just an update of Xenforo 1.0, it was a complete forum re-write. The entire forum software was re-coded from scratch using much more modern coding techniques, which should make it significantly more efficient and stable.

Along with that you're going to notice some things work a little differently than they used to. If you can't figure out how something works, post in here and together we should be able to figure it out.
 

footsteps

Just visiting
Joined
Oct 19, 2007
Messages
7,379
Reaction score
3,532
Location
Ontario
Country
llCanada
On a lighter note, I miss the M1A3E7 Rhino graphic on the page header. ;)

If you could recover, or post, that graphic, that would be awesome.
 
Last edited:

Paul M. Weir

Forum Guru
Staff member
Moderator
Joined
Apr 3, 2004
Messages
8,706
Reaction score
3,732
Location
Dublin
First name
Paul
Country
llIreland
One minor (very minor) bug is that if I have a spelling mistake and rather than use the right click and pick a choice, I manually attempt to correct, the whole post/paragraph is marked incorrect. The last time that happened and I right clicked on one of the marked words, GS hung Firefox for about 10-15 seconds.

I'm using Firefox v58.0.2 (64-bit). There may be a clash between my Firefox default language (UK English) and dictionaries and GS's choices. Not a major problem, but it happened about 6 times, including when I was typing this. :)

The Blue scheme, while not my preference, is far easier on my eyes than the first grey one, so thanks for that. The main downside to my mind is the fixed width limit which can stretch long posts vertically. It's really just an aesthetic thing because of the large vacant space each side.

As and ex-software person, I can really appreciate you getting it up and working at all, so transitional issues and formats are minor things to me.
 

Dr Zaius

Chief Defender of the Faith
Joined
May 1, 2001
Messages
8,902
Reaction score
408
Location
The Forbidden Zone
First name
Don
Country
llUnited States
The fixed width setting will definitely be going away. Right now we're running into a php server error which is preventing me from customizing the theme, which is aggravating. Hopefully, that will be sorted pretty soon.

As for the GS battle rhino, he'll be back soon as well.
 

jrv

Forum Guru
Joined
May 25, 2005
Messages
21,998
Reaction score
6,206
Location
Teutoburger Wald
Country
llIceland
There used to be two buttons for "mark forum read," one to mark just the current sub-forum, and one for all forums site-wide. Right now I only see one button that marks the entire site as read. It would be nice to have the other again as well.

JR
 

Dr Zaius

Chief Defender of the Faith
Joined
May 1, 2001
Messages
8,902
Reaction score
408
Location
The Forbidden Zone
First name
Don
Country
llUnited States
There used to be two buttons for "mark forum read," one to mark just the current sub-forum, and one for all forums site-wide. Right now I only see one button that marks the entire site as read. It would be nice to have the other again as well.

JR
There are still two.

There's one at the top which says Mark Forums Read, and another just above the R/H side when you're reading a thread which says Mark Read. One does the whole forum while the other just does the subforum you're reading.
 

jrv

Forum Guru
Joined
May 25, 2005
Messages
21,998
Reaction score
6,206
Location
Teutoburger Wald
Country
llIceland
There are still two.

There's one at the top which says Mark Forums Read, and another just above the R/H side when you're reading a thread which says Mark Read. One does the whole forum while the other just does the subforum you're reading.
You are right. I missed it because it is styled differently. Thanks.

JR
 

Paul M. Weir

Forum Guru
Staff member
Moderator
Joined
Apr 3, 2004
Messages
8,706
Reaction score
3,732
Location
Dublin
First name
Paul
Country
llIreland
I must say things are coming along quite nicely. Every time I check something has improved. The drop down list for sub-fora has been replaced by overt displays. While I would like a Green version the Red Blue stretchy version is a definite improvement.
 

Dr Zaius

Chief Defender of the Faith
Joined
May 1, 2001
Messages
8,902
Reaction score
408
Location
The Forbidden Zone
First name
Don
Country
llUnited States
I've been interupted 300 times today by real life issues, but I'm slowly getting the theme done. If I can get a couple of hours I should have it presentable.
 

footsteps

Just visiting
Joined
Oct 19, 2007
Messages
7,379
Reaction score
3,532
Location
Ontario
Country
llCanada
I found the rhino! :jig:

Yes, I like the simple pleasures.
 
Top