New GPWA Site Features and Navigation

[MichaelCorfman]

I'm pleased to announce a major upgrade to the GPWA website.

First, we've integrated many social networking features into the site. There is a new "community" item in the top navigation bar that includes features like identifying GPWA members as your contacts and friends, establishing and joining different social groups within the GPWA, and uploading pictures into photo albums you can share with other members. These are all features of the new version of vBulletin 3.7 that was recently released.

Second, we've add a whole new tool set for managing software development projects. We're about to release a variety of new features for facebook, and the project tool will provide a new way for members to make suggestions and report issues and problems in an environment that is designed to do a better job of that then regular forum posts. The new project tools are available through the new "project" submenu item under "forums" in the top navigation bar. We'll be providing information about how to use this new section when we release our facebook application later this month.

Third, we've rearranged the top navigation bar, and added a number of new items in addition to those mentioned above. We've created a new top navigation item labeled "My Account" that provides easy access to edit your profile information. We've also added some new menu items in the forum section. The new "GPWA Times" section includes both our newsletter, and also a new page about the GPWA Times magazine with links to past issues.

Finally, we've extended the concept of being logged into the GPWA site so the whole site is covered, and not just the forum pages. You'll notice that a welcome message, and the ability to login and logout is now provided on the home page of the GPWA site. This project is a prelude to our adding a number of new features exclusively for GPWA members.

Also, I want to apologize for the brief periods of disruption that occured earlier today as we installed all of these new features.

Michael

[chalkoutline]

Those sound like some good mods. I will go and take a look at the new community stuff. Thanks to the CC team for getting this sorted.

[GamTrak]

Very nice additions Michael. I'm going to check them out now.

[thepokerkeep]

Excellent stuff!! Lots of changes!
Will have to spend some time exploring... if I don't come back in a couple hours... send out the search party...

[Chips]

Onward and Upward! GPWA gets better and better all the time! Good job techs and glad I am off tomorrow so I can explore! Terry, Please don't eat my bread crumb trail I don't wanna get lost.

[TheGooner]

Michael - there appears to be some sort of password glitch in intergrating these new features.

Now when I visit the forum I am always logged out.
OK only 2 out of 2 - but I've been logged in for months and had to scrabble about to actually find my password ..


So when I try to login I get an error message saying that it's been a password error - (failure 1 of 5) ...

But the top right hand corner says "Welcome TheGooner"
and of course I can post messages under my ID.

So I think that I'm logged in - but only half logged in.
Have you got the cookies correct?

[Doolally]

Looks like some great changes and additions to the site! I'm exploring them like a kid in a sweet shop now.

Thanks.

[CityGuard]

Thank you for reporting the error. I'm sending this to the development team to be checked into. We tested the login function in a number of situations so there may be some additional questions in order to help us replicate the problem you experienced.

Michael - there appears to be some sort of password glitch in intergrating these new features.

Now when I visit the forum I am always logged out.
OK only 2 out of 2 - but I've been logged in for months and had to scrabble about to actually find my password ..


So when I try to login I get an error message saying that it's been a password error - (failure 1 of 5) ...

But the top right hand corner says "Welcome TheGooner"
and of course I can post messages under my ID.

So I think that I'm logged in - but only half logged in.
Have you got the cookies correct?

[aksana]

Cool! Added several friends to my list!

[Paolino]

That's a great improvement, congratulations! Thanks Aksana for adding me to your friends list!

[alexpratt]

Thank you for reporting the error. I'm sending this to the development team to be checked into. We tested the login function in a number of situations so there may be some additional questions in order to help us replicate the problem you experienced.

Any development with this - Not a massive deal just annoying I have to log in each time - I think it maybe because I log in at home and then log in at work - Maybe it logs out the other computer????

[TheGooner]

I've worked out that it's just the front page that doesn't seem to recognise the cookies and you can get around it ... by simply ignoring it ...


Eg.

- Front Page says "Hello Guest please login or sign up"
- Choose Forum - New posts
- New page correctly recognises me "Welcome, TheGooner"

[CityGuard]

I'll bring this bug up with the development team again when I am back in the office on Monday.

[masontech]

Thanks, taking a look right now..

[Nandakishore]

These are really big improvements, increasing the productivity of interacting members significantly. But I have also one slight criticism. I found in the NEWS section under INDUSTRY NEWS and WEBMASTER NEWS the latest entries going back to June 2006. Since this section is accessible to the public, it doesn't leave a very good impression about the GPWA. Why not bring there the latest news from the Industry Buzz etc.?

[MichaelCorfman]

These are really big improvements, increasing the productivity of interacting members significantly. But I have also one slight criticism. I found in the NEWS section under INDUSTRY NEWS and WEBMASTER NEWS the latest entries going back to June 2006. Since this section is accessible to the public, it doesn't leave a very good impression about the GPWA. Why not bring there the latest news from the Industry Buzz etc.?

We actually debated about temporarily removing the news from the navigation until we fixed the situation. However, we decided to leave it since we do plan to fix the news issue in the very near future, so didn't want to remove the navigation just to add it back in again.

Michael

[MichaelCorfman]

I've worked out that it's just the front page that doesn't seem to recognise the cookies and you can get around it ... by simply ignoring it ...

There have been a lot of complications here because of the different way that different browsers handle cookies. We believe right now that it is generally working the way we intend with Internet Explorer as the browser, and that it sometimes does not with Mozilla Firefox as the browser.

However, even in those situations where being logged in outside the forums is not working properly, being logged in within the forums does seem to continue to work fine.

Michael