Discuss Site Upgrade Here

[rawTOP]

As you can probably see, there was a big upgrade to the site today. For those of you who know a bit about the web, the underlying software has gone from IP.Board v3.x to IP.Board v4.1. v4 was a complete rewrite, so the code is now much more modern (which is a good thing  – means fewer problems down the road). The theme (which controls a lot of the look and feel) was also changed.

You can change the background image with the little paintbrush icon in the nav bar just under the main nav bar. If the opacity of the page is a problem for you visually, or you're on a low-bandwidth connection, there are solid color options. There's also another theme available if you go to the bottom of the page that doesn't have opacity – just choose "Villain" from the theme drop down instead of Chameleon Dark. (Please say if you prefer that other theme – I probably won't renew the license when it expires in 6 months since the solid color options in this theme are probably sufficient).

Please be patient today (Wednesday October 26). The upgrade is designed to let the site to get back and running as quickly as possible, which means a lot of the little stuff has been deferred and now a whole bunch of background processes are running to actually complete the upgrade. So you'll see a number of problems if you look closely, but by the end of the day they should be resolved.

If you're having problems logging in and were one of the few users who had their user names changed, login with your "display name" not your original user name.

Also, let me know what you guys think of the new chat room feature. It's limited to 5 users right now, but if you like it I'll buy more licenses.

If you have questions about anything, feel free to post them here. Just remember that the upgrade isn't completely done until later today.

[rawTOP]

Hmmm… 4 hours in an you guys are quiet about the upgrade. Hope that means you like it.

I know the background image looks like crap on mobile. I recommend clicking the paintbrush icon and choosing a solid color background. I'll try to make that the default for mobile tomorrow.

I'm drawing a blank on other things to fix, but I'm sure I'll come across them again soon.… But gonna stop for tonight and resume in the morning.

Oh yeah, the background processes are still completing the upgrade. I'll let you know when they're done (if they're done before I go to sleep). At that point anything you see that's bugs you, let me know and I'll see if it's an easy fix.

[horny4bb]

I have to say I find to very confusing.  I liked the old version it was so easy to navigate. This looks way to complicated. I am sorry I do not like

[rawTOP]

27 minutes ago, horny4bb said:

I have to say I find to very confusing.  I liked the old version it was so easy to navigate. This looks way to complicated. I am sorry I do not like

Every time there's an upgrade I get comments like that from a small percentage of the users. On the whole, everything you're used to is there, it might just look a little different.

If you have a particular issue that's confusing you, let me know.

[medicchris12]

is there still going to be a new contect button , the old site when you went to forums you had the new function?

[BlindRawFucker]

As my name says, I am blind.

 

It is definitely more difficult to navigate the site now.

 

One of the things I can't find, is where it says to "sign in" on the home page.

 

Also, I can't find the "friends'" link.

Thanks for any help.

[rawTOP]

The background processes are complete. So any odd data issues should be taken care of now.

Oh, and I've also remembered that Login with Twitter isn't working. I'll work on that tomorrow as well.

 

1 hour ago, BlindRawFucker said:

As my name says, I am blind.

It is definitely more difficult to navigate the site now.

Using the icon that looks like a paint brush near the top of the screen, choose a solid background – there are currently three to choose from, though I'm considering replacing the blue background with an image background. There's one that's almost black that should work well for you since it's high contrast. That should make things a lot clearer for you. If that's not clear enough, at the bottom of the page there's a drop down on the word "Theme". Click it and choose the Villain theme. It has no transparency, so should be more readable. You can also choose a solid background through a similar process there, but it won't have much of an effect since the text is on solid colors.

Please let me know what works for you. I bought the Villain theme just for folks like you since you contacted me last time with similar issues. But then I saw that this theme (Chameleon) has solid backgrounds, so I was thinking Villain may not be necessary.

1 hour ago, BlindRawFucker said:

One of the things I can't find, is where it says to "sign in" on the home page.

Also, I can't find the "friends'" link.

On the desktop version Sign In is just below the logo. On mobile, you click the hamburger icon (three horizontal lines) in the upper right corner, and it's the first item in the panel that shows up.

I'll have to investigate friends. I know this version works differently and during the upgrade process I was asked if I should create "follows" for all friend relationships. They recommended against it since there are implications to following someone and apparently people tend to react badly when it's done. Tomorrow I'll find out whether friends were preserved or dumped in the upgrade process.

[rawTOP]

1 hour ago, medicchris12 said:

is there still going to be a new contect button , the old site when you went to forums you had the new function?

You lost me. I'm not sure what feature you're referring to. Not sure what you mean by "contect" - content? contact? Are you talking about the "+ Create" feature near the top of the page above (on the sub nav bar near your user name)?

[punaman]

I like it once I did the solid color background.  Too distracting and irritating the pictures.  What's the chat thing though? Has a red number and every time I click it says chat full.  Didn't notice a chat function before. 
Over all, good job!

[jimazoid04]

Chat is something i love doing! If there is a way to expand it for many users and maybe an Instant Message feature, it would be great.

 

Change the background to a solid color since the picture is just too busy for me. 

 

So far its a better layout for my tastes. Hope to see more!

[cheatingjock]

I love the new look/software!  It is much more modern.

Also I think the "new content" button that one of the posters above was talking about was a button near the old logo that would show new posts/blog posts etc. You can go to Activity at the right (on desktop) then unread for a similar (or possibly same - I've just started looking around) feature.

These are my initial thoughts.  Will give more after I've had some time to look around. Thanks for spending all the time to keep this running/updated etc!

[cboycam]

is there a last visits available?

[horny4bb]

I will give it a few days to see.  But I think you lost me as a member.  I can't see my friends or any of my conversations. nothing looks easy

[cheatingjock]

The conversations (as in messages?) are in the toolbar at the top left next to your name.  looks like an inbox.

If you mean stuff you've posted it's under Activity in the top bar on the right.  

I do have a questions about friends.  Looks like it's been changed for a following function? Need to re add people? 

It seems to me a lot of people are making a quick judgement of "this is different so I don't like it." Seems nicer/more modern to me, is quicker to load (at least on desktop which is all I've used so far), and some features have moved but there is new stuff too. So far I love it.

[cheatingjock]

10 minutes ago, cboycam said:

is there a last visits available?

Do you mean people who visited your profile? That's under your profile view...just scroll down and it's on the left.

If you mean users online thats under Other top right.

Edited October 27, 2016 by cheatingjock