FMForums Upgrade

[Ocean West]

So, I finally took the plunge and upgraded the site to the new forum engine. I am planning to work the weekend to restore site features that are currently disabled. 

There may be times when the site goes unresponsive or generates an error. 

I already have a few trouble tickets pending with the site developers to provide a remedy. 

I wish to thank the Site Advertisers for making this possible, but do please forgive the irony as I don't have all the ad spaces working just yet and I hope to restore them as soon as possible. - Having to crash course some html/php/css logic. Think I'll need another cuppa 

I hope to have some site instructions as things have changed a bit. 

One thing you may have noticed is that before we had usernames and Display Names the site only allowed one so we elected Display Names as they were already public facing - so you will need to login using your Display Name or your email address, or if already configured Facebook or Twitter (hope to include other oAuth login methods in the future ) 

I'll post more in this topic when there is something you should know. 

 

[Lee Smith]

Hey Stephen, I like the new look.

Where are your chili dancers, I wanted to a little jig 

Thanks for your hard work. 

[Sky Willmott]

New forum system looking good :-) Works well on mobile, nice clean modern theme - makes the FM Forums logo banner look dated though! ;-) 

[LaRetta]

Hi Stephen,

I tried posting earlier but was unable to do so no matter which browser ... good to see I can now!  I wanted to thank you for one of the new features I've noticed which is the ability to Follow someone.  There are many times that I can't read every post in every thread but I don't want to miss posts by some of my favorite humans and by Following them, I am more secure that I won't miss their posts!  Thank you!

It also appears that adding an attachment will be easier although I haven't tried that yet.  Anyway, thanks for a great forum!!  :-)

Oh, and I also like the ability to rate someone and undo it I made a mistake!!

Edited April 13, 2015 by LaRetta

[Ocean West]

Thanks LaRetta,

there was a change between having Friends to Followers, however one issue from having followers is that it can get excessive with being notified when ever someone you follow adds content. 

I didn't choose to convert the friends to followers as it would have overwhelmed too with emails. 

The feature is still being refined, we hope to have more granular controls as to notification settings, to user preferences. 

 

[Ocean West]

just fyi attachments may appear missing for the next few hours the system is moving them to a different directory and updating the relevant references in the database.

[Rick Whitelaw]

Great job so far OW.

[LaRetta]

I know you are still tweaking things ... do you wish us just to be patient and assume everything will be back or do you wish to know about them?  Items like ... a person's version & platform no longer appear?  :-)

The new software is very zippy also!  I like it!!

Edited April 14, 2015 by LaRetta

[Ocean West]

I was hoping to be a bit further along, this weekend - even after the multiple venti ad-shot coffee.

But the conversion process took a lot longer then I had anticipated. And had some technical issues with a browser that set me back. 

I turned off the platform and version since many people forget to update them and they don't often reflect the post they are currently making.

I plan to have a way to reset everyone's and force them to set it on login - at least once very 90 days.

But i didn't want to add any custom modifications until the background processes are actually complete.

 

[Mark Scott]

Stephen,

The site is looking great — very clean UI!  Thanks for your continuing hard work on this invaluable resource that we all depend on daily!  

I turned off the platform and version since many people forget to update them and they don't often reflect the post they are currently making.

I plan to have a way to reset everyone's and force them to set it on login - at least once very 90 days.

Looking forward to what ever you come up with for this.  I notice that Lee is looking rather "contemplative" in his new avatar.  Perhaps he's contemplating what life would be like (for better or worse) if he no longer had the privilege/onus of gently admonishing posters to update their profiles.

Anyway, keep up the great work, and know that we all appreciate it!

[Lee Smith]

Hi Mark, 

Perhaps he's contemplating what life would be like (for better or worse) if he no longer had the privilege/onus of gently admonishing posters to update their profiles.

Couldn’t have said it better myself. 

[datalink]

Its looking great.

Some older file links that I'd like to take a look at seem to be broken.  Does it look like these will eventually be restored?

I was looking specifically for the files that were part of this thread:

Is there any hope that these file links might be restored?

Thanks and all the best!

 

[LaRetta]

I happen to have this one!

1213550734-MovePortalRow.fp7.zip

[datalink]

Thank you so much, LaRetta!  I really appreciate it!

[eos]

Stephen, thank you for switching back to “replies”, rather than “comments”, in the message count display; that's a much more intuitive wording to immediately recognize if something has happened in a thread beyond its initial post. 

(I was about to suggest it, but then my inherent shyness won the day .) 

While I'm on a roll; any way to bring the line spacing back to its old setting; and provide a button that formats a selected snippet as code?

[Ocean West]

The editor does't recognize selected text to encode it via the Editor, at this time - looking in to it.

Line spacing - is this during the typing or after it is rendered?

 

[eos]

Line spacing - is this during the typing or after it is rendered?

Both.

[comment]

 any way to bring the line spacing back to its old setting;

​Apparently a return signifies a new paragraph. You can enter shift-return to get a forced line break within the same para.

As an example, I am now,
moving to a new line, without the space,
between lines being increased.

Yes, it's a haiku.

Edited April 25, 2015 by comment

[Ocean West]

it may be a css setting somewhere to adjust the <p>  attributes for height, will put it on the list of things to look at.

 

[eos]

​Apparently a return signifies a new paragraph. You can enter shift-return to get a forced line break within the same para.

…

Yes, it's a haiku.

​Thanks for the info and the haiku – which (the word haiku) always makes me think of the opening scene of “Cryptonomicon” …

[beverly]

it may be a css setting somewhere to adjust the <p>  attributes for height, will put it on the list of things to look at.

 

​Along with the shift-return option, you can edit the HTML if you are so inclined. I wouldn't mess with the CSS on para setting (height).

[LaRetta]

Hi Stephen,

I know you are still working on the forum and I'm pleased with the changes.  Here's another one I hope you will consider ... we can no longer (that I can see) reference a post number in the thread.  This means that, if I wish to reference a prior post, I must count and so must the person trying to find the post I mention.  With long threads, this is PIB and prone to error.

Making text such a light grey that it is almost unreadable means one must search in a squinting manner to try to find things.  It may be fashionable but it is quite frustrating.  I DO understand the design concept of having lesser-important text lighter so as not to clutter, but there is such a thing as TOO LIGHT and many websites overuse the concept (not necessarily here).  On this site, there are two lighter grey texts; I'm not complaining about them but really ... if 'report a post' were used anywhere else by itself (as I've seen on other websites), it would be lost to my eyes so it is possible that the post number is also that lighter grey and I simply can't find it.

Thank you for such a great forum!

I see now that 'report a post' highlights when one hovers the post so that was not a good example but you get my drift, I think.  :-)

Edited April 25, 2015 by LaRetta

[Ocean West]

To reference a prior post you can click the little share icon   in the top right corner of the post. copy the text and pasted int in to the editor like i did above here. 

quoting is also a good reference just hit the quote button on the thread you wish to quote and then remove content from that quote that you need to - like so.

Thank you for such a great forum!​

you can also @ tag someone by typing their name @LaRetta and choose from the pop up list. (may take a second to generate)

 

 

Edited April 25, 2015 by Ocean West

[Ocean West]

we will eventually ad more themes that address spacing, fonts, styles colors etc that will give most people an alternative choice to the defaults. There are some code changes and things still rolling out so didn't want to make any adjustments, trying to keep it even keel first. 

 

 

 

[LaRetta]

I knew about the share link option of a post but not the @ tag!  

I found that using the post # was  easier to reference when discussing a post within a thread but I can live with it.  We had that functionality before and it was handy so I thought you'd want to replace it at some point.

In all, the update is a hit!  Thanks again.

[comment]

​Along with the shift-return option, you can edit the HTML if you are so inclined.

​How exactly can you do that? I don't see any such option.

OTOH, I have noticed that at least some markdown tags take effect: typing [, b, ], in succession:   results in all following text being bold (but you will see this only after posting).

[beverly]

This current editor does not have HTML (or source) editing.
I stand corrected.
The use of the square brackets have been the way to add formatting without the use of the editor.

[comment]

The use of the square brackets have been the way to add formatting without the use of the editor.

​Well, stand corrected again, because this is not how it used to work until now. I used to be able to divide my sentence into a series of labeled points like this: [a] my first point, [b ] my second point, and [c] my last point. Now if I remove the extra space between "b" and "]", it will become: [a] my first point, my second point, and [c] my last point.

If you wonder why I don't use regular brackets, it's because then I would get: (a) my first point, (b) my second point, and (c) my last point. Hm. That's strange. Just a little while ago, this would cause a smiley to appear instead of b).

 

Edited April 26, 2015 by comment

[Ocean West]

@beverly at one point HTML posting was allowed for moderators - however I had turned off this feature because it's recommend that it's not on as a security precaution. 

The old bbcode that had been around for the most of the site's existence has been replaced with this CKEditor, there are a lot of configurations and customizations that can be done with it but have not had the time to delve in more with all it has to offer... http://ckeditor.com if you see something that you think might be advantageous to add, let me know. 

[LaRetta]

Hey Stephen, when I try to use code <>, it produces this:

#
# GO TO INVOICES
Go to Layout [ “Invoices” (Invoices) ]
If [ Get ( TotalRecordCount ) < $maxCount ]
Loop
New Record/Request
Exit Loop If [ Get ( TotalRecordCount ) ≥ $maxCount ]
End Loop End If
#
Go to Layout [ “Dashboard” (Dashboard) ]
#
Refresh Window
[ Flush cached join results ]
# #

And do we no longer have the ability to preview our posts before posting them?

Thank you - I know you are busy but this is script which has always worked in the past when I paste it.  Is there some new trick to make it work right?  I tried all the options in the code and they all produced this ran-together text.  :-)

Edited May 5, 2015 by LaRetta

[LaRetta]

Oh great.  It posts properly but looks all scrunched and ran together when entering it.  If we could preview, I probably would have noticed it fixes itself, LOL. 

[LaRetta]

Here is what I see.  It makes it difficult to fine-tune it.  

[Lee Smith]

Test of code. 

Let ( 

     [ 

     seconds = If( IsEmpty(tsEnd) ; "" ; tsEnd- tsStart) ;
     minutes = seconds/60 ; 
     hours = minutes/60 ; 
     days = hours/24;
     months = days/30;
     years = months/12;
     sc = Mod( seconds ; 60);
     mn = Int( Mod( minutes; 60));
     hr = Int( Mod( hours ; 24));
     dy = Int( Mod( days; 30));
     mo = Int( Mod( months; 12)); 
     yr = Int( Div( months; 12))

     ];

Case(

    IsEmpty(tsEnd); "" ; 
		Case( yr; yr & " Year "    & Case( yr > 1; "") & Case(mo or dy or hr or mn or sc ; ", ")) &
		Case( mo; mo & " Month "   & Case( mo > 1; "") & Case(      dy or hr or mn or sc ; ", ")) &
		Case( dy; dy & " Day "     & Case( dy > 1; "") & Case(            hr or mn or sc ; ", ")) &
		Case( hr; hr & " Hour "    & Case( hr > 1; "") & Case(                  mn or sc ; ", ")) &
		Case( mn; mn & " Minute "  & Case( mn > 1; "") & Case(                        sc ; ", ")) &
		Case( sc; sc & " Second "  & Case( sc > 1; "")

     )

))

This is just a test, so I didn’t give credit to the original author.

When I posted this, it was like I posted styled text (i.e. it looked like crap). However, when I Command + Z it changed to to what appears to be unstyled. 

Edited May 5, 2015 by Lee Smith

[LaRetta]

Thanks for helping, Lee.  When it comes as email, your post is all scrunched up again.  I'm sure Stephen will do some tweaking on it for us! :-)

[LaRetta]

It might be because Stephen turned off HTML code as he indicated in the post above.