boostdemon
03-30-2004, 09:53 AM
In an attempt to not only answer many of your questions/concerns but to also keep a list of things that I believe need to change, let me go ahead and share what I plan on doing.
Unfortunately for you all, this time around you get to see all the steps and hours of work it takes to bring a stock board up to what you all had been used to with the old one. One thing after another until its "just right", but you're going to have to put up with the random stuff as we go.
On a positive note, I had spent probably 60+ hours on the old board getting it to look and operate much like this board is stock (phpbb is free, this one costs money). So, you'll notice that even with the stock install, its got the preview hover thing, the messages your written in have different icons, the search options, profile options, etc... heck we even had Phil's suggestion of not being able to delete your posts and only able to edit them within a certain amount of time (im sure someone will hate this, but trust me, its a good thing).
So let get this up, its going to be a work in progress since I probably wont remember everything in this post:
Database - Im working with vBulletin support to try and find the best way to import the members "saved box, and inbox" from the private messaging system as well as the users who didnt show up in the conversion. They're also looking for a way we can go back and set "Allow PM's" and set the "COPPA User" settings to none so the board doesn't think theres 3700 users under 13.
Board settings - Most of these I'll get from you guys out of the comments/bugs/errors thread, but so far we've changed the number of threads per page, the default settings for "new" members, who can view what (OT and classifieds for registered users, guests for everything else). We're looking at saving some bandwidth with the gzip function enabled on this board, so theres a strong possibility we'll be able to do image attachments uploaded to the board. Theres lots of settings here, I've been digging around for literally days and still haven't found them all.
Board layout/design - this is where its going to take some time. First thing we'll do is load in a new style/theme and start hacking it apart. Now, you'll be able to stay on this "stock" version while im testing and changing the "real" one so you don't have to see it in progress. But that's up to you, it will be a setting in your User CP. The list for things I want done is extremely long so I wont go into the nitty gritty and just clear up some questions. The smilies will be rearranged (pissing me off even now as im typing this), the board will be non fixed so those with small screens can still view the whole page w/o horizontal scrolling... The color scheme will be completely redone (I hate this sissy lavender color as well as the layout), it will be all new icons and bar colors to match the new site. The thread layout especially needs some work, going to move lots of things off the left by default and make them things you can see if you want by going into the users profile. The username on the left is waaaay too big so that will be smaller and have some style to it I think, yes lots of the font sizes seem backwards to me and will be changed with the new style (like the crumb links at the top are size 1 where as the username is like size 5). One thought is to have the threads show only 1 signature per user... their first post in the thread (theres also already the option to turn off sigs and avatars in your CP - by default!). Im still not sold on the post icons, maybe if we change a few to be relevant to certain discussions and ditch the rest. I'll let you guys figure that out.
So theres some stuff for a start, you have to understand its not just a sit down and an hour later its all done... it takes a LOT of work to go through and not only learn all the new stuff, but to find out what works and what doesn't when you change things. Hopefully you all are happy enough for now with basically all the stock features/functions that the old board had after many hours of hacking it and we can keep rolling. I'll start a new Update thread and try to keep you guys informed to each little task that's completed... its just a bit overwhelming right now so I've prioritized all the areas that need work, and I'll just have to tell folks sorry I'll get to it when I can. Hopefully you all can except that for now until it get back up to the level you're used to. Once its done, pimped out, blazing fast(er), and you've gotten used to it and all the awesome features... im sure you'll love it.
Thanks guys,
-Dana
Unfortunately for you all, this time around you get to see all the steps and hours of work it takes to bring a stock board up to what you all had been used to with the old one. One thing after another until its "just right", but you're going to have to put up with the random stuff as we go.
On a positive note, I had spent probably 60+ hours on the old board getting it to look and operate much like this board is stock (phpbb is free, this one costs money). So, you'll notice that even with the stock install, its got the preview hover thing, the messages your written in have different icons, the search options, profile options, etc... heck we even had Phil's suggestion of not being able to delete your posts and only able to edit them within a certain amount of time (im sure someone will hate this, but trust me, its a good thing).
So let get this up, its going to be a work in progress since I probably wont remember everything in this post:
Database - Im working with vBulletin support to try and find the best way to import the members "saved box, and inbox" from the private messaging system as well as the users who didnt show up in the conversion. They're also looking for a way we can go back and set "Allow PM's" and set the "COPPA User" settings to none so the board doesn't think theres 3700 users under 13.
Board settings - Most of these I'll get from you guys out of the comments/bugs/errors thread, but so far we've changed the number of threads per page, the default settings for "new" members, who can view what (OT and classifieds for registered users, guests for everything else). We're looking at saving some bandwidth with the gzip function enabled on this board, so theres a strong possibility we'll be able to do image attachments uploaded to the board. Theres lots of settings here, I've been digging around for literally days and still haven't found them all.
Board layout/design - this is where its going to take some time. First thing we'll do is load in a new style/theme and start hacking it apart. Now, you'll be able to stay on this "stock" version while im testing and changing the "real" one so you don't have to see it in progress. But that's up to you, it will be a setting in your User CP. The list for things I want done is extremely long so I wont go into the nitty gritty and just clear up some questions. The smilies will be rearranged (pissing me off even now as im typing this), the board will be non fixed so those with small screens can still view the whole page w/o horizontal scrolling... The color scheme will be completely redone (I hate this sissy lavender color as well as the layout), it will be all new icons and bar colors to match the new site. The thread layout especially needs some work, going to move lots of things off the left by default and make them things you can see if you want by going into the users profile. The username on the left is waaaay too big so that will be smaller and have some style to it I think, yes lots of the font sizes seem backwards to me and will be changed with the new style (like the crumb links at the top are size 1 where as the username is like size 5). One thought is to have the threads show only 1 signature per user... their first post in the thread (theres also already the option to turn off sigs and avatars in your CP - by default!). Im still not sold on the post icons, maybe if we change a few to be relevant to certain discussions and ditch the rest. I'll let you guys figure that out.
So theres some stuff for a start, you have to understand its not just a sit down and an hour later its all done... it takes a LOT of work to go through and not only learn all the new stuff, but to find out what works and what doesn't when you change things. Hopefully you all are happy enough for now with basically all the stock features/functions that the old board had after many hours of hacking it and we can keep rolling. I'll start a new Update thread and try to keep you guys informed to each little task that's completed... its just a bit overwhelming right now so I've prioritized all the areas that need work, and I'll just have to tell folks sorry I'll get to it when I can. Hopefully you all can except that for now until it get back up to the level you're used to. Once its done, pimped out, blazing fast(er), and you've gotten used to it and all the awesome features... im sure you'll love it.
Thanks guys,
-Dana