[Chris]

The scheduled forum maintenance has been completed and the chrismoyles.net forum has been upgraded - this will look a little odd at first, but hopefully everyone will settle into the new release of the software. You will find lots of new features including the ability to report posts and attach and insert images (for a complete list, see here).

Although the software and database migration has been completed and you are free to use the new board, the server is working hard in the background reindexing the search tables so performance may not be as speedy as usual for the next few hours. During this period of reindexing searching will return incomplete results.

Everyone, on their first visit, will need to log in as any saved login sessions will have been lost. A small number of you will need to reset your passwords, but the forum should let you know if this applies and explain how to do that when you try to first connect.

A large 'thank you' must go to Console for his hard work making the site work as well as it does for you. He has been working with me over the past weeks to make sure this migration goes as smoothly as possible and - hopefully - the only differences that you will notice are positive ones.

If you have any problems, if you can't do something that you think you should be able to (or worse, if you CAN do something that you think you shouldn't be able to), then please contact either myself (mailto:chris@chrismoyles.net or PM) or Console (via PM).

[S4B]

Thank you Console. How long til we get used to it do you think? It looks like you're expecting us to post longer posts by the basic space you've given us for a single post. This is obviously asking for trouble. Gutted it's not pink tho.

[timp]

Yeah might take a while to get used to but well done console all the same

[Dickie]

Despite my eyes not having a clue where to look for anything its nice to have a change up, with new features and all. Good work team, Console you're a PHP legend.

[Quincy]

looks good i think

[Gaspode_The_Wonder_Dog]

it does look good but the whole pictures and info bit on the right I dont like.

[Gaspode_The_Wonder_Dog]

it does look good but the whole pictures and info bit on the right I dont like.

[S4B]

You feel so strongly about it you decided to double post. Lol

[Yudster]

I like it. It seems slow and clunky at the moment - and it only seems to be like that on this site, so I don't think its my connection - would that be significant? Or am I just having a clunky evening?

[S4B]

That's cos there's stuff going on in the background Yuds

[MK Chris]

Search indexing that should only take a few hours according to Mr Harris.

[Chris]

Well .. it's about half way through and it's been going for about 5 hours.

[Gaspode_The_Wonder_Dog]

woohoo thanks for the right to left thing. it really was hurting my head.

[Adam]

It looks good.

[fish heads]

I like it, although now you've changed it, the new banner doesn't really match the forum colour scheme (bar the index a little) - unless you are intending to change that as well.

Minor complaint though. Good work all round

[Yudster]

Oh thats much better, with the avatars back on the left. I wonder why it made such a difference? Did though. I'm getting there - finding where buttons are and stuff - but I love a bit of re-decorating, so thanks people, its great.

[Boboff]

Looks very good
I like the ability to do fonts and images etc in the quick post, excellent, perhaps a spell checker ?

Well done chaps

[MK Chris]

I think it comes as a plugin Charlalottie, although I'm not sure. Being an English A-level student as you are, you shouldn't need one anyway.

[Boboff]

firefox is a web browser right ? Instead of Explorer ? I don't like change !
Is it any good ? Will it mess anything up ? I am very cautious about these things, but the spell sheck would be good, thank you for you suggestion I will check it out !

[MK Chris]

It is good but I don't like pushing my preferences like that on people so I don't normally mention it much. However, it shouldn't mess anything up Boboff, if you were to install it you could still use IE even though Firefox is installed - it will ask you if you want to use it as your default browser when you first go into it, but you don't have to click yes.

Edit: apparently Firefox 2 has a built in spellchecker, but I must have it turned off as I never noticed it.

[DemonHorse]

It is good but I don't like pushing my preferences like that on people so I don't normally mention it much. However, it shouldn't mess anything up Boboff, if you were to install it you could still use IE even though Firefox is installed - it will ask you if you want to use it as your default browser when you first go into it, but you don't have to click yes.

Edit: apparently Firefox 2 has a built in spellchecker, but I must have it turned off as I never noticed it.

Yeah it has, if you go to TOOLS > OPTIONS > ADVANCED theres an option Check My Spelling As I Type, mine's set to ON but it never seems to. Maybe my spelling is perfcet.

[Boboff]

Clever horsey

[Vivienne]

It looks very nice: a lot more formal, but I like it definitely

[Chris]

It seems slow and clunky at the moment - and it only seems to be like that on this site

A note about the performance. The search indexing which was what was slowing everything down completed, or rather I should say 'stopped' when my Internet connection died last night. It had indexed about 80% of posts, but this indexing will need to be repeated when BT reconnects the cable that someone cut through. As before this will slow the forum down quite considerably, but for now you should be experiencing good speeds. I'll let you all know when it's happening.

I like it, although now you've changed it, the new banner doesn't really match the forum colour scheme (bar the index a little) - unless you are intending to change that as well

This I agree with. The forum colours were set a few weeks ago when the old banner was still in place, and it matches that much better. I haven't decided yet if I'll change the forum colours to match the banner, or change the banner to match the forum. The banner for the remainder of chrismoyles.net will stay as that does fit in well with the design.

Whilst I'm on the subject, and to answer some of the earlier discussion when I swapped it, the choice of a plain design for the site was intentional. Garish colours, I personally think, detract from the information and content. We don't need a page of wild blues and reds plastered in your face. This is supposed to be stylish .. and to some extent it is. I got a lot of pressure to stop making sites that were predominantly blue (take a look at all the old chrismoyles.net designs ...).

The cut off 'c' that some people don't like, I do.

perhaps a spell checker ?

As others have mentioned, firefox2 has an in-built spell checker, I'd suggest looking at that or learning to spell

could you darken the "new posts in here" icon, it's difficult to distinguish from the "no new posts" icon.

I did change it pretty early on after the board went live. If you don't already see what's in the image above (look at 'A') then you need to clear your cache. If you genuinely can't tell the difference between brown and quite bright orange then let me know.

Is there any chance that you may move the "number of pages" icons, closer to the thread title

If you look at 'B' above, you do know that clicking that small icon will take you to your most recent unread post .. no matter which page it's on? I'd suggest it doesn't really matter where the page icons are if you used that. It's one of these things you'll get used to - if they're on the right, you'll learn to look over there.

I don't want to too heavily customise the forum, as any forum upgrades become ever more complex to install the more customised the forum is.

Finally I'll say that phpBB (the software that runs this forum) is the most popular forum software out there - and as more sites move to this new version you will find this design becoming as familiar as the old one. Personally I like it, there's a lot which you can do which you couldn't previously (complain about posts, attach files and images without knowing how to 'host' them, embed videos, etc. ...) - and it's not as 'dull' as the old forum actually was.

[Ballbag]

Nice quote-a-thon Chris, very nice indeed.

However my problem lies in the fact that the "clear your cache" option is disabled on my work computer, and thus I can't do it. I can't see the little icon in B, and the new post icon is not as dark as the one in A. (I'm impressed with your pain skills by the way, a very neat B there).

So I guess I'll just have to live with what I've got.

Yours

Ballbag.