--> Test the NEW vBulletin 4 Forum <--

[pete]

Just because I could, I set the default theme on the new forum to "Gray Folio Red."

[pete]

Oh. Note to self: change either the "Distinguished Member" or "Administrator" name color to something else. Red and orange just look too simular.

[kevgermany]

Was this a belated Halloween idea?

[Gandalfe]

I keep coming back to the new mean green profile which I actually prefer over the old one. Yes, I'm fickle that way. Good job Pete.

[pete]

I keep coming back to the new mean green profile which I actually prefer over the old one. Yes, I'm fickle that way. Good job Pete.

Kewl. I'll have to remember to export it.

[pete]

OK, folks, here's teh schedule!

* I'm going to do some full forum/website backups today
* Tomorrow (Monday, Dec. 12) I'll start the full upgrade, barring any unforseen circumstances

In setting up the test forum, it took four hours from zero to complete install. It'll hopefully take a little less the second go-round.

Note that if I have to go to the backup, some posts from today may disappear.

[kevgermany]

OK, folks, here's teh schedule!

* I'm going to do some full forum/website backups today
* Tomorrow (Monday, Dec. 12) I'll start the full upgrade, barring any unforseen circumstances

In setting up the test forum, it took four hours from zero to complete install. It'll hopefully take a little less the second go-round.

Note that if I have to go to the backup, some posts from today may disappear.

Monday, Dec. 12?????

Do you mean Mon Dec 10, or Wed Dec 12? I get so confuesed with Us dates, so I may have misread you.

Hope it goes well, whenever you do it.

[pete]

Sorry. Looked at the wrong page in my calendar.

Going offline for updates ... in just a minute.

[pete]

We're all updatey! More in a few.

[pete]

Sorry 'bout that. Had to get the mail.

If you have any problems with something, please post here. Note that there is a FAQ for changing the colors and fonts HERE.

[Jacques5646]

Swell, good job. Congratulations.
J

[pete]

Thanks. I appreciate that.

[SOTSDO]

...that the new layout looks more consistent than the old one. However, buttons have been shifted around and my confused old mind has yet to adapt

So, I give you many points for asthetics, but dock you for the same amount on user interface.

[pete]

FWIW,

Another forum I'm a member of runs a piece of forum software called "Vanilla Forums." "Vanilla" essentially means "plain," in this instance. You can have a "post" button and a "reply" button and that's about it. You can add a couple more features, but nowhere near the amount that's in our forum software. I don't necessarily think that vBulletin is better because of these features, tho.

If I could, I'd turn off a lot of things here, on vBulletin 4, or hide them behind a button. For instance, I'm obviously posting right now. I've got this ginormous block of text below the post that's called "Additional Options." It's got a whole bunch of options that I have no need of, at the moment, and really use maybe 10% of the time. Let me reclaim some screen real estate and save Ed the bandwidth cost and just create a button called "Additional Options." Smilies? I have a button over the post box and a list of smilies to the right. I really don't need both -- although, if you haven't been on this forum before, it's nice to see that we have music notation smilies.

Anyhow, I feel your pain, Terry!

A related question might be, "What do you like most about the new forum software?" I haven't really decided, yet. There are a couple kewl spreadsheet/table things available in the "advanced editor" and some folks had asked for that. I really do like the sidebar on the main page (that's currently, the Tag Cloud and The World's Most Important Links). I've even got three or four Styles/Themes that I really like. The inline admin/mod tools look pretty kewl, too, but they're a bit different, so there's a bit of a learning curve. I am enjoying playing with it, even though it took a long time to a) test all of this and b) install this new version -- well, install it (probably) correctly and not do something like delete all the post attachments ....

[pete]

Oh. I completely forgot about our ALBUMS. I installed a new Product (the vBulletin term) to get a little linky in the top bar called "Gallery," similar to what we had on the vBulletin 3.8 forum. Enjoy!

[tictactux]

While you're redecorating, any chance you can change the favicon? The default square-root-thingy is ugly. (I'd prefer a ω or maybe a ₩)

[SOTSDO]

...could you also define what (in the context of this site) a "favicon" is?

[SOTSDO]

...while the "new look" progresses, one thing that seems to have been forced dead in the water is the musical content of this website. Food for thought...

[pete]

While you're redecorating, any chance you can change the favicon? The default square-root-thingy is ugly. (I'd prefer a ω or maybe a ₩)

...could you also define what (in the context of this site) a "favicon" is?

The thing I have "squared" in red in the attached pic. FWIW, the default is actually a "V" for "vBulletin," which is the forum software we're using. The other interesting thing is that the correct WF favicon shows up on the admin pages.

I'll look into fixing it.

[pete]

Give that a shot. I have it working in Internet Explorer 10 (yes, I have Windows 8). See attached; again, the favicons are "squared" in red. You might need to empty your cache and/or delete your cookies.

I didn't create the favicon. It's the same one we've had for awhile. I guess it just needs to be in multiple places for vBulletin 4.

FWIW, I really dislike the vBulletin 4 attachment interface.

[pete]

...while the "new look" progresses, one thing that seems to have been forced dead in the water is the musical content of this website. Food for thought...

Depends on how you look at it.

I, for one, tend to stay away from musical content, unless it's mentioning who I'm currently listening to and/or websites where you can get music, because "musical" isn't my particular focus. I like the pretty horns. I like some of the history. I'm not terribly interested in the music side because, well, I don't play anymore. Listening? I do tend to listen to a lot of music and I like a lot, but I tend not to listen to too many woodwind players, primarily because I don't listen to classical that often and I don't like the tone that 99% of saxophone players have and/or the musical style they're playing. (I'm going to write, sometime, about a couple folks I do like. A lot.)

I think Gandalfe mentioned that the forum gets a bit quiet when I'm not around. This is primarily because if I post, I generally post about a bunch of things. I haven't been able to do that lately because of some personal and professional obligations that restricted my Internet usage. Also, not to beat a dead horse, doing this vBulletin upgrade took a lot of planning and testing. I didn't want the upgrade to break stuff, as it did on SOTW. Hey, the only reason I'm posting right now is because I have a vacation day and I'm still a bit sick, so I don't want to do any heavy mental lifting that's required for some of my other projects.

Gandalfe's big focus here has been to drive folks this way, especially through our Facebook page. I do the same, because I still get folks e-mailing me questions. If you have any ideas on how to drive more traffic, I'm always interested in hearing about it. From the techie side, I'll play with some SEO (search engine optimization) stuff in the future.

FWIW, our daily # of posts and folks wanting to register is pretty consistent. It's just not extremely high.

[tictactux]

Give that a shot. I have it working in Internet Explorer 10 (yes, I have Windows 8). See attached; again, the favicons are "squared" in red. You might need to empty your cache and/or delete your cookies.

Yep, it's working now, thanks!

[pete thomas]

Just because I could, I set the default theme on the new forum to "Gray Folio Red."

Can we have a "Fifty Shades of Grey" theme?

[pete]

Can we have a "Fifty Shades of Grey" theme?

a. While I haven't read the book, I do get the reference
b. There probably is one

[kevgermany]

Good work Pete! Well done.

New posts buttons are good, would be good if we could get them slightly bigger/ clearer.