GPWA Forum Software Upgrade and Planned Outage

[tertip]

I like the new style, maybe some changes in the font color for a better contrast.

[GCG]

I have seen many sites doing this upgrade but I have to say nothing beats the older version.

This upgrade is really a wast of time if you ask me, money and energy one could use for other things.

Sorry for being negative.

When I see the forum/ home page I just want to close the page because of all those blocks and tons of info details about posts/threads coming my way.

Really if this is a big improvement then I am with stupid.

[davenewgates]

pretty upgrade, like the new look now.. its just more clean..let's get ourselves used to the new upgrade and start posting!.

[MichaelCorfman]

Since we have now deployed fixes for a few issues I thought I should document what has been accomplished thusfar:

1. When replying to a thread using the "reply to thread" button at the top and bottom of thread pages the reply was incorrectly initialized with a quote containing the last post on the current page of the thread. This issue has been fixed and the reply area is not left blank when replying to a thread unless an explicit request was made to "Reply with Quote". Thanks to gamtrak, kwblue, and universal4 for reporting this issue.

2. In the footer at the bottom right of each post there is a "reply" function that was not working. That function is now working. Thanks to kwblue for reporting this issue.

3. On the home page of the forum we have removed all of the spurious extra instances of "Registered users currently logged in: " that were repeated before every user name. Thanks to gamtrak for reporting this issue.

4. Also, we have fixed a setting that caused signature lines include error messages rather than to display links and images when users were not logged in or when they were logged in using an account that had made fewer than ten posts.

Right now we have another eight issues in the queue that we are working to address.

Michael

[Renee]

Thanks for the update Michael..
I have to say I'm not a fan of this new look.

For a few reasons:

1 - It looks like I'm at CAP now when I login, only a different colour.
2 - I think it's too cluttered within each post. Too many buttons and too much going on.
3 - As Rick mentioned, the quotes don't stand out. While I understand this is being fixed, I actually wanted to rip my eyeballs out reading them through this thread.
4 - When you thank people, the whole page reloads and goes to the top - this is something I think is totally unnecessary and will make me think twice before thanking a post in the future.
5 - The "thanks" row under each post takes up far too much room.

There could be more reasons, I just haven't thought that hard about it yet.

I do like change and I think the only way to improve is through change, but I also think that sometimes change can take you a step back rather than a step forward.

I'm sure with all the tweaks you do we will all get used to it and it will be modified to suit as many people as you can make happy at once.

Otherwise nice one

[jarvi]

Haven't had a full look around, however, any chance of easing back on the bold text when viewing a list of posts? Not sure the topic starter and date really need to be in bold as it makes virtually the entire page bold when combined with the thread subject.

[MichaelCorfman]

I have to say I'm not a fan of this new look. For a few reasons:

1 - It looks like I'm at CAP now when I login, only a different colour.
2 - I think it's too cluttered within each post. Too many buttons and too much going on.
3 - As Rick mentioned, the quotes don't stand out. While I understand this is being fixed, I actually wanted to rip my eyeballs out reading them through this thread.
4 - When you thank people, the whole page reloads and goes to the top - this is something I think is totally unnecessary and will make me think twice before thanking a post in the future.
5 - The "thanks" row under each post takes up far too much room.

Thanks for the feedback Renee - it's appreciated. I think your first point will become less true as we customize the look and feel of the site more and I think as we customize the site more some of the clutter in your second point will be addressed. In terms of the quotes, I completely agree it is horrible right now ... stay tuned. Your fourth point will be added to development tasks to research, and I agree with your fifth point 100% and it is being added to the list of customization changes we will implement.

... any chance of easing back on the bold text when viewing a list of posts? Not sure the topic starter and date really need to be in bold as it makes virtually the entire page bold when combined with the thread subject.

I agree with you 100% and will add that to the list of formatting adjustments we will make.

Michael

[MichaelCorfman]

Many folks have commented on the upgrade from a look and feel perspective. If I put aside formatting issues we will address, some folks are happy about the changes and some question whether the changes make sense.

So, I think it is worth explaining the rationale behind the version upgrade. The rationale actually has little to do with the current new features available in vBulletin 4.0. There are some present, but that is not the main reason we performed this upgrade. The main reasons are twofold:

1. In the future there will be new features added to vBulletin 4.0 whereas the 3.8 version will not have new features added over time, so our decision to perform the migration is more about future features than features available to be rolled out now.

2. We are doing a lot of development work to add new features to the GPWA. We want to develop, deploy and support the new features we under development based on the new vBulletin platform infrastructure rather than trying to develop the features on top of an old platform infrastructure that is becoming obsolete.

Hopefully we will address most of the concerns folks have with changes in the new version over the near term to the satisfaction of everyone and then we will have a base from which we will be able to deploy some significant improvements.

As an example of one project that will be deployed over the next few months, we are replacing most of the back-end registration infrastructure in vBulletin with a much more robust registration system that handles functions like GPWA Times weekly e-mail newsletter subscriptions and GPWA Times magazine subscriptions in addition to forum registrations in a single unified system with a shared database that meets all of our requirements. Over time this new member registration and services system will become the base from which we offer a wide variety of services to GPWA members.

Michael

[ALEX777]

I don't like Vbulletin 4x because of too much bugs.

And yes, all VB4 forums looks the same

[giggles7p]

Mr. C, I have a freaking complaint! lol

I hate having the "whose online" box at the bottom of the forum! Move it back up top please....I like to see who is on so i can decide who it irritate at the time, and having to scroll allllllllllllllllllllllllllllllll the way down to the bottom of the forum sucks!!!

lol

Thank you kind Sir, now i expect this change to take place immediately!

lol

love ya
pat

[MichaelCorfman]

Both paolino and gamtrack noted that thanks were not carried over to the new system during the initial migration effort. We have now migrated that data to the new system so folks should see proper thank you counts now. We still have some additional quality assurance work to make sure the counts are accurate in all cases, but on the surface we believe the thank you count issue that was reported has been resolved.

Michael

[universal4]

Every single day I am discovering more and more issues with this version.

Today i came in to try and deal with some of the sapm, but since someone had sent me a pm, I was unable to ever read anything until such time as I deleted the pm.

I had a choice, deal with the pm, or leave the gpwa....

Any other choice gave me the pm popup, so I either had toi deal with the pm or leave the gpwa, if I chose to read a thread i had to deal with the pm or leave the gpwa.... and if I chose.... (endless loop) bytheway, reading the pm did NOT stop the popup from coming back like it was supposed to, until I let it set on the message for a few minutes..

During the process of attempting to delete the pm, I discovered another bug having to do with overlapping layers....I took a screenshot....

During the process of deleting a spam from the Dutch Forum, I discovered 2 more bugs, one of which has to do with overlapping layers....I took a screenshot....

All in all everything I do at the GPWA has doubled or tripled in the amount of time it takes and I just can't see myself spending that kind of time so I will likely have to reduce that time somehow....and the only way that happens is to reduce the amount I read and respond to here since it just takes too much time....

This version of VBulleting reduces productivity by a factor of at least 2 or 3....and I will most certainly not even begin to consider doing this to the GIA...

Rick
Universal4

[DeannaD_IA]

Huge improvement to the look of the site! Looks great

[GamblersHeaven]

I don't mind the new look of the forum, I kinda like it. It does make me feel like I'm at CAP, but I'm sure that will change in the future. I'm sure after the bugs are worked out they will get to differentiating the look of the forum somewhat.

The only issue I have noticed is I can't login to the forum through Tapatalk Pro. I enter my information and the login box just pops up again.

Anyway, good job.

[DeannaD_IA]

Has anyone else noticed that Private Messages do not display as feeds, but rather only display the most recent message? Also, my 'sent' messages are not being auto-saved. Did I click something wrong? I don't remember this being an issue prior to the upgrade. And it's not letting me insert an emoticon? Hmmmmm.....

[Renee]

I'm no longer able to Thank any posts. It tells me that I dont have sufficient privileges to access the page. It was so much better when it was a quick script running that doesn't reload the entire page

[Renee]

I'm also not able to edit my own posts.. When I do, I press save after I've edited and it just hangs..

I also noticed that I used a quote today then wrote directly underneath and although I put a few spaces under the quote, my text was written directly below making it look like it was part of the quote.

[Renee]

I also noticed that when I post a reply to a thread, once it has posted it goes back to the very start of the thread again, then reloads the page again to the post I made.

[Puma]

Its hard on the eyes
quotes look horrible.
Looked fine before and made me read and stay longer.
You can upgrade without changing the look right?

I say this because I use to change the look of my forum monthly trying to get it just right and I think you guys had it perfect before.

[Renee]

I'm no longer able to Thank any posts. It tells me that I dont have sufficient privileges to access the page. It was so much better when it was a quick script running that doesn't reload the entire page

Looks like this has now been fixed, and the page no longer reloads when Thanks is clicked.

Thanks Michael! I owe you a drink!