New forum software!

[nilsjohan]

I have now updated the forum software to a more modern PHP/MySQL solution. This will make the forum faster but also allow for adding some new features.
I have tried to keep the forum look, layout and features quite similar to the old forum not to make you more confused than necessary.

Please click around on buttons and links to find out about the changes and to see if there are any problems.

All comments and error reports are very welcome in this thread!

/Johan

[mound]

wow. SO MUCH FASTER! Nice

[mound]

Johan - how are your PHP scripting skills? Any chance you could put up a redirector page that would accept bookmarks to threads in the old version, and redirect them to the appropriate page in this version? I have a lot of threads I've bookmarked, and unfortunately none of them are accessible any longer.

thanks!

-Paul

[Egghead]

Hi Johan,

yes it's nice, fast and seems to work.  
Just three questions:

• how are the old pf-internal http-links going to work?
  Http-links are used to quote/refer to previous threads! They appear to be absolute rather than relative.
  Especially given Bernhards propensity to quote previous threads to concentrate material, there are many important threads that are now referred to incorrectly, it seems.
  
  I clicked on a few examples and could not get them to work.
  Please let me know if I am just missing something!
  
• I just tried to use SEARCH and that failed on me as well.
[/color]

• As you may have guessed already: the content of my PM-OUTBOX has disappeared. Inbox is fine. Any chances of resurrection?

Other observations:

• Johan, you have gone all red on the main page. 
• The member statistics are creepy: it shows when you eat (or practice, or sleep, or stand your head)! 
• I already find the "topic-you-have-posted-in"-flag useful
• Due to the (nice) wide lay-out for the post-text, people with long user-names have the ends of their names cut off... Anyone insulted by this yet? ("BrokenEggheadMess" would reduce to "BrokenEggheadMe" or similar). 

Kind regards and at this opportunity a big THANKYOU for running this forum!
Egghead

[mound]

Http-links are used to quote/refer to previous threads! They appear to be absolute rather than relative.
...
Especially given Bernhards propensity to quote previous threads to concentrate material, there are many important threads that are now referred to incorrectly, it seems

yeah - same issue as my bookmarked threads.. A redirector page acting as the index at the "old location" should do the trick. This of course is assuming all the old content has the same ID values, which I'm assuming it does, since you so easilly ported over all the old content.

[donjuan]

I dont know if I like this....It may take some getting used to.  I like the options you cant have in personal settings.  I dont know if it's my imagination, but I am not receiving email notifications for new posts to threads like I was before.  I dunno.. Ill stay with this for a while and if I am right, Ill come back here to say some stuff.
donjuan

[Antnee]

Aside from a few of the bugs, like the old link thing... I quite like the change!!

[faulty_damper]

I don't like the box text.  Especiallt the icons.  It's difficult to see.  It also looks less sophisticated and more like what children would prefer.   I prefer the old text because it is easier to see.

I don't know if this is for the best.  It's starting to look like the YABB generic forum that Chopin Files was using.

[donjuan]

I agree with faulty.  also, in the thread "Fall" in the anything section, whenever i go to post, this thing pops up:
"The last posting from your IP was less than 30 seconds ago. Please try again later."
In fact, it was the first post I had tried to make since..well...a long time ago (well, earlier this evening anyway)

nils, what is going on?
donjuan 

[Spatula]

Finally I can say something nice to Nils...

Good job, it'd take me normally 30 secs to post a sentence.

[Spatula]

Hey nils I noticed when I see my own personal profile, I see these folders with exclamation marks in the gen statistics...does this mean I spam most there or something...(gulp)

oh and I never knew I could change the time on the forum to my own time zone how cool is that?!

Do I have some piano forum email account?

[Spatula]

Hey nils...I'm trying to change my email because I'm using a university server and my email account will be deleted soon because I go to another campus now.

I want it changed and put my password in but the email shows up as red... can you help?

[Tash]

wow this freaked me out at first, but it's cool, nice and speedy yay. but i don't like the font for the little things at the top- home/help/search/profile/logout, it's just a bit agh can't focus on reading them properly. but other than that minor thing it's bril! good work!

[nilsjohan]

Thanks for your input!

OK, except for the changes in layout and look there are three main issues with the new setup:

1. The old internal links are not working.
The topic ID:s are totally changed because of the conversion to the new software so it is not even possible to write a script that redirects to the topic on the new board. I am afraid the links have to be changed by hand and they are about 400...

2. All topic notifications are cleared.
If you would like to recieve notifications you have to set them up again. Please note that there are some new options in the profile regarding how to automatically handle notifications.

3. IM Outboxes are cleared.
Although your Instant Message inboxes remain intact all old messages in the outboxes are deleted. Also note that you have to change the default setting in the profile if you would like to automatically save sent messages in the outbox.
If someone has an urgent need of the content in your old outbox, send me an email (must be from your registered email address!) or IM and I can dig it up and send you your outbox as a textlile.



Post more comments (and error reports) please!

[janice]

Hey Johan,
The thing that I first noticed, and it really bugs me, is that when I quote someone, the part I quote is not in yellow.  It's all in white.  That maked it hard to glance thru the posts--it slows me down.  Any chance of changing that?
                                                                 Janice

[allchopin]

Heh, the statistics is like a personality test - pretty nifty.

[Spatula]

Thanks for your input!

OK, except for the changes in layout and look there are three main issues with the new setup:


3. IM Outboxes are cleared.
Although your Instant Message inboxes remain intact all old messages in the outboxes are deleted. Also note that you have to change the default setting in the profile if you would like to automatically save sent messages in the outbox.
If someone has an urgent need of the content in your old outbox, send me an email (must be from your registered email address!) or IM and I can dig it up and send you your outbox as a textlile.



Post more comments (and error reports) please!

How do you know when you've sent an IM then? because I replied to you about my email thing and I checked to see if it was sent...but the IM outbox was empty even AFTER the forum renovations.  Maybe I should check my settings and configurations like you said......

[nilsjohan]

Make sure you check the "Save a copy in my outbox" under the "Send Message" button before sending off the message. If this options is not checked your message will be sent but not saved in your outbox.
You can also set this option to always be checked. Just go to Profile>Personal Message Options and check the "Save a copy of each Personal Message in my outbox by default."

[kaff]

Hi Nilsjohan

It looks nice, but I'm having problems accessing the posts via my AOL browser.   Only one line of each post appears, and the rest can only be viewed by using a scroll bar which appears at the side.  Unfortunately, many of the scroll bars aren't functioning so I can't read those posts.  Do you know anything about why this is?  Is it because I'm using a Macintosh computer rather than a PC?

Kathryn

[mound]

I forget how Search worked before, but if I do a search and have a bunch of results, if I click one and then use the back button, I get a "page has expired warning" message. Is there anyway to turn that off?

[Spatula]

How do you post pics and flash images using those buttons on the top bar? 

[Spatula]

And just for curiousity sake, can there be some sort of counter that updates which members have the most amount of posts?  Like some top 10 list updated and refreshed on the main page....that would be nice.

It's not for competition or anything...just to feed those curious minds.

[Egghead]

this is a test of the new quote facilities- how many layers can you get

this is a test of the new quote facilities

this is a test of the

this is

Hey Johan,
The thing that I first noticed, and it really bugs me, is that when I quote someone, the part I quote is not in yellow.  It's all in white.  That maked it hard to glance thru the posts--it slows me down.  Any chance of changing that?
                                                                 Janice

a test of the new quote facilities

new quote facilities

-how many layers can you get

BTW- I agree with Janice. The yellow was (and would be) useful. Johan, what is your opinion - could it be done (other than by hand)?

[nilsjohan]

BTW- I agree with Janice. The yellow was (and would be) useful. Johan, what is your opinion - could it be done (other than by hand)?

I think the old yellow was a bit ugly but I agree it was functional. How about the new blue?

[Saturn]

Nils:

Every now and then, when I go to view a board or a thread, I get errors that look like this:

Fatal error: session_start(): Failed to initialize storage module. in /home/u1155/web/smf/Sources/Load.php on line 1192

Seems to be a random occurrence.  Anyone else getting this?

[Spatula]

Nils:

Every now and then, when I go to view a board or a thread, I get errors that look like this:

Fatal error: session_start(): Failed to initialize storage module. in /home/u1155/web/smf/Sources/Load.php on line 1192

Seems to be a random occurrence.  Anyone else getting this?

Yeah I did get that once, it did scare the hell out of me when I was trying to change  some stuff on my profile and I thought that I'd lost my username and account.   

[nilsjohan]

Every now and then, when I go to view a board or a thread, I get errors that look like this:
Fatal error: session_start(): Failed to initialize storage module. in /home/u1155/web/smf/Sources/Load.php on line 1192
Seems to be a random occurrence. Anyone else getting this?

I am aware of that problem but luckily it does not happen very often.
If you get that error, just hit the reload button. If you get it when clicking "Post" or "Send Message" etc where you risk loosing something you just have written it would be safest to click the back button in your browser and then try again.

And just for curiousity sake, can there be some sort of counter that updates which members have the most amount of posts? Like some top 10 list updated and refreshed on the main page....that would be nice.
It's not for competition or anything...just to feed those curious minds.

Click the icon under "Forum Stats" at the bottom of the main page and you will get a surprise!

How do you post pics and flash images using those buttons on the top bar?

Click that button and insert the URL (link) to the content between the tags.

I forget how Search worked before, but if I do a search and have a bunch of results, if I click one and then use the back button, I get a "page has expired warning" message. Is there anyway to turn that off?

This has now been fixed by not forcing the pages to reload when using the browser's back button. The small disadvantage is that you get an old version of the page when clicking back so you should not use the back button for normal navigation around the forum - use the links and buttons.

It looks nice, but I'm having problems accessing the posts via my AOL browser. Only one line of each post appears, and the rest can only be viewed by using a scroll bar which appears at the side. Unfortunately, many of the scroll bars aren't functioning so I can't read those posts. Do you know anything about why this is? Is it because I'm using a Macintosh computer rather than a PC?

I don't know why this happen but I guess it is because of the AOL browser and not because you are using Mac. I have tried with Internet Explorer on Mac and that works fine.

[thomas_williams]

I just noticed the changes when visiting the forum last night.  I suppose some things will just take a little getting used to, but I was annoyed upon seeing my username cut short by the wide format (Thomas_Williams made to look something like Thomas_Williar).  I also noticed another name cut short.  I also experieced the "fatal error" thing a couple of times when trying to log out.  I have not fully checked all the new features out yet but perhaps I will post again here after I have.

[nilsjohan]

I have increased the space to the left of the posts so there are room for longer usernames.

[Spatula]

Click the icon under "Forum Stats" at the bottom of the main page and you will get a surprise!

W0oT ALL YOUR POSTERS ARE BELONG TO US!  man that lists totally roxxors

[Spatula]

Hey so are these like all new features of this new YABB?  I didn't even know I had a piano forum email for like the last 6 months since joining....

[FST2]

 
 Much faster !  i can really see the difference with my slow connection.
 Tried a couple of searches, they seemed quicker, too.

 i like the newer look with the wider aspect.

 The only niggle is i would prefer a slightly heavier font for the Thread names

 Well Done

[nilsjohan]

I just set up a temporary solutions for the "old link" issue.
Click the link and exchange the word "display" to "print" and you will get it!
This way you will (of course) also see the topic name and in which board the topic is. Then by going to the new forum and sorting that board by letter (by clicking the "Subject" header in the topic list page) you can quite easily find the topic in this new forum.
(Unfortunately the search feature does currently not work well for searching in topic subjects.)

Those of you who feel like updating some of the links you have posted can use this method to find the topics on the new forum and then click "modify" on that post to update the links.
 

[thomas_williams]

This is better-- now I can see my entire username. 

I, like FTS2, think I would like the thread names to be a little bolder.

[Spatula]

Hmmm the internal links still don't work. 

I don't blame nils because its probably impossibe to fix every single link and get a new line for each.... oh well

[xvimbi]

I like the new look-and-feel.

However...

The text in the ocre (light-golden-brown) bars is difficult to see, when it is white or light-golden-brown. Particularly, when I look at the most recent posts, the line: "Started by luda888 | Last post by Thracozaag" is almost impossible to read. Similar when composing a post (as I do right now) and looking at the list of posts in the thread (below the composition pane), the white text in the light-golden-brown bars is almost invisible.

I think, no one has complained about this before, so could it be just me?

[nilsjohan]

The text on the light brown background ("Started by" and "Last post") should be black and the background for the white and golden text ("luda888", "Thracozaag" etc) should be black.
It sounds like your browser does not interpret the stylesheet as intended. What browser and operating system do you use?

[xvimbi]

The text on the light brown background ("Started by" and "Last post") should be black and the background for the white and golden text ("luda888", "Thracozaag" etc) should be black.
It sounds like your browser does not interpret the stylesheet as intended. What browser and operating system do you use?

I am using Safari 1.2.3 under Mac OS X 10.3.5

I just checked with Microsoft Explorer, which looks fine. So, it may indeed be the stylesheet interpretation.

(I'll rather ruin my eyes than use Explorer...)

[Tash]

ok so i look at my general stats and it says i haven't created any polls. and at this i was like OMG i can make a poll, so then attempted to try and find how to make one and i don't know how! nils how do i make a poll i really want one!!!!!

[Spatula]

what poll? 

[thomas_williams]

nils how do i make a poll i really want one!!!!!

So do I!
Can we now create polls?
I want to use this feature!

[Tash]

what poll?

i don't know! just A poll cos they're the coolest and it's suggesting that i can make one!

[Spatula]

D'oh!!!

Man creating polls???!

That's wootsaurus to the nth degree man! 

[Spatula]

Hey Nils...can you make a code for the text to move the the right
this is LEFT:

TEXT GOING LEFT 

So can you make one that goes ----->

[kaff]

It looks nice, but I'm having problems accessing the posts via my AOL browser. Only one line of each post appears, and the rest can only be viewed by using a scroll bar which appears at the side. Unfortunately, many of the scroll bars aren't functioning so I can't read those posts. Do you know anything about why this is? Is it because I'm using a Macintosh computer rather than a PC?

I don't know why this happen but I guess it is because of the AOL browser and not because you are using Mac. I have tried with Internet Explorer on Mac and that works fine.

I don't get the scroll bars with Internet Explorer, but what I do get is the whole thing crashing every time I use the search facility.  Every time.  So now I'm using Safari, which seems to be okay.

Kathryn

[bernhard]

I waited to get used to the new software before giving some feedback.

Overall I think it was a good improvement and I am generally happy with it. Well done, Nils.

There are two small things I am unhappy about:

1.   The old threads do not work anymore. For new posts this is not a problem, since they have the new addresses. But it is a bit of a drag to go to an old post and not be able to click in the references there.

2.   I seem to be getting notifications for about 30% of the threads I asked to be notified about. I’ve read Nils answer to Bob on that matter, but I do not think I have any active spam filters.

Otherwise this was a good and worthwhile upgrade. Thanks.

Best wishes,
Bernhard.

[Bob]

Ditto Bernhard on the notifications.

They seem to be on the random side.

I took off my Yahoo filter and I don't notice anything different -- still only a few, and I keep going to threads with more posts, but I didn't get any notification.

I like the forum statistics though.  I don't know if that's new, or if I just never saw it before.  They're interesting.

[Bob]

I just checked out the forum member part.

I like how it sorts the members out by "title"  like newby, full/junior/senior members.  You can tell which posters are the "regulars" and find out a little more about them.

[Bob]

Is it possible the problem of the notification is this...

If you don't access the pf site through the notification email, the site thinks you haven't checked the page and doesn't send anymore notifications unless you would use the email access?

So, if I go through the pf site myself and read the thread, the pf site doesn't think I looked at the changed thread because I didn't use the email notification.

[bernhard]

Is it possible the problem of the notification is this...

If you don't access the pf site through the notification email, the site thinks you haven't checked the page and doesn't send anymore notifications unless you would use the email access?

So, if I go through the pf site myself and read the thread, the pf site doesn't think I looked at the changed thread because I didn't use the email notification.

I am definitely not being notified. I have paid special attention to it during this week. I have also thought it might have been because I was not using the email access, but this week I did, and nothing seemed to change.

Best wishes,
Bernhard.