Message Board Upgrade

The site needs to be upgraded, to make it more up to date, a bit more spam proof and much more secure, so I’m going to make a start today.

It will be converted to a knew system entirely, Joomla for the content, with vBulletin for the message board, which is quite a big job so might take all day today and a bit of tomorrow to fully complete – though I will try to keep normal service interruption to a minimum.

The current site runs on PHPNuke with PHPBB for the message board, which is kind of created by this one Brazilian guy and has to be patched up enormously by willing supporters every time he releases an update. It’s quite difficult to keep up with.

Anyway, everyone’s posts and all the threads will still be here, as will all the articles that people have added to the main site – it will just work more efficiently.

The journals (blogs) wont be ported across immediately but their content will be saved from the current database and can be added to the new blog system that will be installed.

The games data will probably be lost, but the games themselves should return – possibly with some new ones too.

Members may have to redo their avatars after the change, I don’t think they can be ported across.

Private messages will most likely not be ported across either. If there is any important info in them it will be possible to dig it out of the old database in future though if anyone really needs to.

The main thing, I think, is that the message board will all be there (no posts will be lost) and fully functional, just like it is now only much better.

The actual swapping over wont take place until late tonight (GMT) or early tomorrow morning, which is hopefully okay with everyone.

Good idea, I've made a shout and will try the mass email, but I never tried that before so don't know how well it works.

Thanks, Mal! I hope it all goes smoothly.

Blimey, that avatar makes my arms cringe.

P.S. I'm backing everything up, which takes ages, so a lot of the avatars and other images will be saved somewhere - all the ones that were uploaded to the site, and those in folders etc.

Blame KK!

If threads contain embedded images that are hosted on this site, will they stop working?

No, they might if they were in that members' gallery, but they never worked properly anyway I think when trying to show them in the forums? The ones that were uploaded to folders specificly should still be the same.

That email things worked, it seems.
And everything is still running smoothly despite all the changes going on! Cool. (I am somewhat naive when it comes to such things, and I expected the online equivalent of a three miles long construction site on a highway.)
Thanks for all the work.

Heh, well I haven't actually done anything to this site yet. I've been preparing the new site program all day.

Sometime tomorrow morning the site will go off for a while then, hopefully, rise like a pigeon from the ashes.

Right, I think all posts, users etc are transfered. There's still some things to sort out and we'll have to test stuff.

Need to re do moderators for one, and we'll have to see what people think of the colours - if they're easy to read or not. I can't tell after looking at it for a day and a half.

Oh, and I just noticed we all joined today... not sure if I can fix that, or if it matters?

Can you tell me where you mean?

I see what you mean now, it's all the bbcode that isn't right - quotes, italics, image tags etc.

::whimpers::

I can't tell which posts are new and which aren't. But I think that might be because they're all marked as new. And I keep pressing on the wrong things by accident.

But it all looks much more smart. I'm going to see if I can add an avatar now. Thanks for all your hard work, Mal, I'm sure this is going to be very good.

Edit: Avatars are currently disabled, I see!

Only Mal currently has mod powers, Ben.

Yeah, I'm still tweaking away. I thought all the bbcode was buggered, but looking through some threads it seems that some links etc are okay and some are not. I've asked at vBulletin if it's possible to fix this, but it might not be. For me it's incredible that everything seems to be here (I had to port everything through two different message board systems to get it from PHPNuke to VBulletin).

I'll redo the moderators next and we can have a look for those missing stickies. For the recent threads, like the photo competitions and such, I guess we can simply edit our own posts and delete those silly numbers from the img tags and url tags etc for now. Worst case scenario we'll have to change our posts now and again as we see ones with garbled code in, if it can't be fixed with some codey trickery, or just leave them as they are.

Can you check to see if you can moderate all the forums now?

You will need to alter your offical threads thread links too. I have to install something first though that will make all the addresses more user friendly. I'll tell you when I've done it.

Ok, I did it.

I can indeed moderate all forums. I notice the Temple is still missing - presumably that's coming?

Also, minor thing for when more important stuff is dealt with - I still get a new post indicator icon on the Boardania forum even when I've read all new posts within it.

Edit: I note the Temple is back, and I can moderate everything in the Sweeper section.

I think I've done all the moderators now. Those graphics on the main pages are almost identical when there's a new post, I'll add back some of the graphics from the previous site when I get time as they were nice and clear.

I'm not sure about it still showing new posts when you've read them all, I think sometimes there's one that you missed right down the page somewhere. Or it could be that we're all treated as if we've read none of them or something and will sort itself out after a few days.

One cool thing we can do now is merge threads as well as split them so, like the other day, when someone posts an almost identical thread we can merge the two together.

That could indeed prove handy! And adding back the old graphics would be brilliant, thank you.

I've restuck the official thread list and tidied up the tags on it.

Because i'm public minded. Not cause i'm bored. Oh no.

I meant to add that I'd stickied this thread. And Doors, if you're bored, look at the "Baby Photos Competition II: The Cutening" thread.

Edit: And I'm currently going through threads fixing broken code.

Quick note: I am starting to delete size tags on sight, as what were previously tags to reduce the normal size are now producing giant writing when left in.

I can't find alot of the threads has the order been messed up during the move or something?

Also, the quick reply isn't working for me. I'm outraged!

The Quick Reply box contains the instructions for using it - did you read them, Rinso? You have to click on the button in the bottom right of someone's post (hover over them to see which one).

Mal, I've just spent about an hour editing the tags in The Jackal's Ultimate Guide thread, only to find that the board won't accept it as the character count is more than twice the limit! Is there anything that can be done about this?

Laugh?

As a side note, it wouldnt let me post that cause it was below a minimum character length.

IRONY.

Right.And the result of this conversation was...?

Read the flipping thread, you lazy sod!

Across the top of the forum are various column headings: Thread/Thread Starter, Rating, Last Post, Replies etc. Clicking on any of these will sort threads by that criterion. So if you click on 'Last Post', the board will automatically sort the threads into the normal order for you. Presumably, Mal will soon make this the default.

Okay the posts are listed normally again, newest at the top hoefully.

P.S. That quote thing's ace, the little curved arrow takes you to the original post. I guess I'm the last one to spot that...

The postings in this thread, on the previous page especially, are some of the funniest I've read in ages - very sort of Unseen University.

Who is Malemperor? :-o

I had to invent a name before I imported the users otherwise I would have deleted myself as administrator, and I sometimes log in with that name by accident and even make a post before I realise what the fiend has been up to!

The limits have been changed up to 100,000 characters instead of 10,000 - and the lower limit is now 5 characters so Doors can simply laugh.