Forum upgrade - please report any bugs here

[HHhuntitall]

Just surfing around, I happened to notice, really long forum names bleed over into the heading in the topic area above written messages in threads..... I noticed it on this thread... . https://www.turbodieselregister.com/forums/showthread.php?233455-Onboard-air The first user name bleeds over into the topic line..... just an example. I know you have more than enough to work on... ... . I'm starting to get the hang of it.....

 

[EMAC2]

Okay, figured out the tablet issue. If I stay logged on here (PC), then my tablet (as I'm going about the day) will not be allowed to "save" my log-in and I have to log-in each time I use my tablet. Previously I did not ( I could stay logged on at the PC and stay logged on with the tablet). Does the new software not allow one user to be saved at multiple devices (so I don't have to log-out on the PC and then log-in on the tablet)? I have cleared all cookies on the tablet and flushed the cache as well. Still no worky.....

 

[JSchuh]

When I try to use the search feature, the drop down box opens behind the black header and I'm unable to see what I'm typing.

 

[Deleted member 995608]

Is there anyway to change the skin, color or fonts on the new forum? With my eyes, everything sort of runs together on the new version

 

[Motorhead]

Is there anyway to change the skin, color or fonts on the new forum? With my eyes, everything sort of runs together on the new version

With no disrespect to you Steve AND the countless hours you put into this... ... . Why did we have to change to the new format? The new format seems not as "matter of fact" as the old format was. The old format was a lot easier to read. I can't stand the pink and blue envelopes at the front of the forum topics. Just my $0. 02. With the new format, I DON'T want to spend the time I used to spend on the forums. I am a steady 12-13 year paying member.

 

[Grizzly]

I agree with Motorhead. My dad always said, if it ain't broke, don't fix it!

 

[seafish]

With no disrespect to you Steve AND the countless hours you put into this... ... . Why did we have to change to the new format? The new format seems not as "matter of fact" as the old format was. The old format was a lot easier to read. I can't stand the pink and blue envelopes at the front of the forum topics. Just my $0. 02. With the new format, I DON'T want to spend the time I used to spend on the forums. I am a steady 12-13 year paying member.

I agree with Motorhead. My dad always said, if it ain't broke, don't fix it!

POST #35... .

07-22-2012, 02:18 PM #35
Steve St. Laurent

Join Date
Oct 1999
Posts
5,667
Originally Posted by KrisKringle
What was wrong with the old site? It worked... do not mess with a working system.
The old version of vBulletin is soon to be non supported - as it is it is only getting very minimal support at this time. Over time hackers learn how to exploit old versions of software and the developers after a time stop supporting upgrades for old versions to deal with that. So if you want a site to continue to live you have no choice but to upgrade periodically to newer versions of the software. Otherwise some day you may come to the site to find that malware has taken the site down and have it be non recoverable or down for significant periods of time (as in months) while it is restored and upgraded to newer versions of the software.

Also, if you want the site to continue to live we have to bring in new members on a regular basis - if we didn't the site would die. New members expect new features and for a site to be up to date. This question has been asked every time we've upgraded the software. To give you an idea of what the site would look like had we not upgraded take a look here: http://web.archive.org/web/200003010...b/Ultimate.cgi and here http://web.archive.org/web/200003010...lregister.com/ . That's what the site looked like in March of 2000 and when we upgraded it from that we had the same questions - why did you upgrade something that was working well? Take a look there and ask if someone coming to the site today if they saw a site that looked like that if they'd use it or move on (or if the site had looked like that when you came would you have stayed)? We have to move with the times in order to keep the site alive and productive for the members - both new and old.

 

[HHhuntitall]

... . and then you have manufacturers that change operating systems, such as Windows. They've gone to Windows 7, as so many hackers have found so many ways to breach the operating system's security protocols. Many of those changes require completely new programming language, sometimes for security reasons, and sometimes they've actually found a better way to write it so it will function quicker and more reliably. That's why computers keep getting faster and faster in what they do. I don't think you could load TDR on dial-up very easily, as the amount of code it takes to make it visible is exorbitant. And the site has to be kept up to date with security features to keep hackers out or they'll take over the site and shut it down. And if it's not reliable or a safe place to be without causing harm to your computer, no one would want to be here. It's crackin' me up that he's on vacation and working on it..... WTH? :-laf My wife would be livid..... I can imagine him in the bathroom, hiding from the wife, with his laptop in his lap, typin' like hell. Every 2-3 hours he comes back to his laptop to check on his work and start a new process... ... I know someone else like that. If you don't like the new look, it might can be worked on in the future, it just takes time. Especially when you're on vacation. I'm just glad I've got a place to go play and vent, even if it's only in numbers... ...



I used to talk on the phone a lot. Now all my friends have caller-ID... ... :-laf

 

[mwilson]

... . and then you have manufacturers that change operating systems, such as Windows. They've gone to Windows 7, as so many hackers have found so many ways to breach the operating system's security protocols. Many of those changes require completely new programming language, sometimes for security reasons, and sometimes they've actually found a better way to write it so it will function quicker and more reliably. That's why computers keep getting faster and faster in what they do. I don't think you could load TDR on dial-up very easily, as the amount of code it takes to make it visible is exorbitant. And the site has to be kept up to date with security features to keep hackers out or they'll take over the site and shut it down. And if it's not reliable or a safe place to be without causing harm to your computer, no one would want to be here. It's crackin' me up that he's on vacation and working on it..... WTH? :-laf My wife would be livid..... I can imagine him in the bathroom, hiding from the wife, with his laptop in his lap, typin' like hell. Every 2-3 hours he comes back to his laptop to check on his work and start a new process... ... I know someone else like that. If you don't like the new look, it might can be worked on in the future, it just takes time. Especially when you're on vacation. I'm just glad I've got a place to go play and vent, even if it's only in numbers... ...



I used to talk on the phone a lot. Now all my friends have caller-ID... ... :-laf

Exactly, you either have to update or get out of the game. We face it here everyday trying to interface with OEM systems. I am the system administrator for all 4 stores and there are days when a career working the drive thru at McDonalds looks far easier.

I spent 3 hours the other day with a balky laptop in the sales department trying to get Specpro to load so that the saleman could see his deals... .



It is a constant battle, I can't even begin to get my head wrapped around the notion of trying to maintain and update a whole entire forum such as this...



Steve, you da' man!!!



Mike.

 

[TRich]

The search feature does not work. It doesn't even recognize Smarty. Also, what the hell is "vBulletin"?

I believe this site is overly busy and harder to use than older version. Will turn users off.

 

[mwilson]

The search feature does not work. It doesn't even recognize Smarty. Also, what the hell is "vBulletin"?

I believe this site is overly busy and harder to use than older version. Will turn users off.

TRich,

Steve mentions on the first page that he has to rebuild the search database by hand and will not get to it until this weekend. That is why the searches are not returning reliable results. I think he has to create custom fields for us to use to further refine a search.



As far as the look I have been surfing TDI forums this week and most of them share the same features and look as this upgrade does. I am getting used to it and look forward to the finished product. It is a long way from complete at this time. Be patient. It is a huge project and it will act funky for a couple of weeks.



Mike.

 

[MARK JAQUITH]

The remember feature does not work--have to login every time

 

[mwilson]

The remember feature does not work--have to login every time

Mark



The next time that you log in there is box below your password that says "Remember me?". Check that box and you will be good to go.



I just tried it on one of our servers and it worked.



Mike.

 

[DavidC]

Any body else have to go thru this ritual ?

I start out at turbodieselregister.com, click on view new posts which then takes me to the log in page which already shows the user name and password then I click on log in then it takes me to the new posts page. If I click on register at the top of the page it say's I am already registered. I never had to go thru all of this with the old system. So why does the system not remember your log in at the turbodieselregister.com page like it use to and directly to view new posts with out the added grief ?.

Dave

 

[Steve St.Laurent]

Just surfing around, I happened to notice, really long forum names bleed over into the heading in the topic area above written messages in threads..... I noticed it on this thread... . https://www.turbodieselregister.com/forums/showthread.php?233455-Onboard-air The first user name bleeds over into the topic line..... just an example. I know you have more than enough to work on... ... . I'm starting to get the hang of it.....

What browser and version are you running? I've looked at a ton of different browsers and haven't been able to replicate this.

 

[Steve St.Laurent]

The search feature does not work. It doesn't even recognize Smarty. Also, what the hell is "vBulletin"?
I believe this site is overly busy and harder to use than older version. Will turn users off.

I just did a search on Smarty and got 500 returns (which is the maximum) - I did this through the search that's right on the forum page and through the advanced search which you can reach from the drop down "discussion forums" menu. Did you click maybe click on "Search Thread" when inside a thread? That lets you search inside of a thread - but doesn't search any other threads. If not where did you get to the search because I can't replicate that.

The search reindex is finished, btw - so everyone should be getting full results now.

vBulletin is the forum software that we use. We were on version 3. 8. 7 previously - now we are on version 4. 2. 0 (the latest). Give it a little time and I think you'll find that it really isn't much busier than the old version - there's more features but with time I'm pretty sure you'll find them very useful. As I posted earlier (and seafish reposted above - thanks) there comes a point when we have to move to a new version because the older version stops being supported. If the site got hacked and your computer got taken over because of it you'd be far more upset than getting used to a new version of the software. Time change and we need to keep up otherwise the site will die. Take a look at the links I put in post #35 and you'll see what the site was like in the past - and when we upgraded the site from that to the next version people complained about that too - and I'm pretty sure you wouldn't be here if the site still looked and functioned like it did then.

 

[Steve St.Laurent]

Is there anyway to change the skin, color or fonts on the new forum? With my eyes, everything sort of runs together on the new version

Right now there isn't - I would have to setup another skin in order to do that and that would be up to Robin. It's not as easy as downloading a skin and installing it - we have a lot of customization that needs to be done to any off the shelf skin. I looked at literally 100's of different skins for this version of vB and this was the most neutral that I could find. We ran it by a bunch of folks and everyone we asked about it was happy with it.

The old skin we used was not available for this version of vB and it would have taken literally months for me to recode that skin to work with this version of vB - we're talking 10's of thousands of lines of code.

 

[Steve St.Laurent]

The remember feature does not work--have to login every time

Any body else have to go thru this ritual ?

I start out at turbodieselregister.com, click on view new posts which then takes me to the log in page which already shows the user name and password then I click on log in then it takes me to the new posts page. If I click on register at the top of the page it say's I am already registered. I never had to go thru all of this with the old system. So why does the system not remember your log in at the turbodieselregister.com page like it use to and directly to view new posts with out the added grief ?.

Dave

There is a sticky here in the website forum titled "Having trouble staying logged in?" - here is the link: https://www.turbodieselregister.com/forums/showthread.php?108976-Having-trouble-staying-logged-in . That explains what to do when you have this issue. Sometimes PC's have trouble letting go of old cookies. This version of vB has a more robust encryption on the password saved in your cookie and if your PC won't let go of the old one you'll have this issue. Go through the steps in that thread and that should resolve it.

 

[HHhuntitall]

What browser and version are you running? I've looked at a ton of different browsers and haven't been able to replicate this.

I've got an old system, but Internet Explorer 8. Could it be Windows XP? It really doesn't bother me, but I was just politely pointing out problems I see as I go along..... I checked, and it still appears that way. Username TimelessconstructionLLC appears, running over into the Onboard Air thread topic. The last "C" is on top of the "O" in Onboard..... Don't know if that causes a problem, or if the problem is on my end..... I'm sure it's not that big a deal, either way. If it's on my end, it'll just have to be that way, as I'm not spending the money on a new PC until this one dies..... again.

 

[GooseHunter]

Steve,



When I use the dropdown menus the menu is behind the search box. See attached screen shot. I am using Firefox Mac 14. 0. 1 on an iMac running Mac 10. 7. 4 operating system.