New Forum Software

[jough]

Hey kids,

I'm getting to know the new system just as you are.  Hopefully Simple Machines Forum here will work out better than phpBB once the dust settles.

Let me know if anything seems truly broken or if you have any questions.  Click the "help" icon above for some tips on how to do stuff.

[antioch]

 I keep clicking the TOUAMB logo to take me back to the main page, but it isn't linked. I can adapt. I mean, it's not too far from the "back" button on my browser, but I thought I'd bring this to your attention anyhow.

[Lister]

So far the only thing I miss is some way to go to the next page of a topic instead of clicking on the page number, but that's like way overly internet nitpicky of me.  I like what I've seen of it a lot, and there seem to be many new shiny buttons to push.  I will push them now:

  This internet web page is under construction!!!!!! LOL!Button?
Button!

Buttons are fun.

Edit: Do I see my IP address because it's mine, or because everyone can see it?  I hope it's just me...

Edit again: Oh, hey, it explains it right there.  It's just me.  I am e-shamed.

[wombat]

Ooooohhhhh....  This is just as traumatic as I thought it would be.

I miss the 'location' under the avatar pictures.  Any way to put that back?  Also, I think I lost an unread PM in the switch.

Oh!  And what happened to my title?  It's still on the messages that came from the old board but it's not showing on this one.

[andalucia]

It's cold and I'm afraid.  A bunch of yellow faces are lined up in a row above what I am typing.  Some, their little faces are moving.  This will take quite a lot of adjustment.

Edit 1: Also, I am no longer Morrissey's Pompadour, but I have apparently earned some stars.

Edit 2:  Do we... do we really need that Karma feature?

[wombat]

Speaking as the oldest and most decrepit board member, I am finding the font much less comfortable to read than the old board.   Do we have any choices?

[slink]

I'm vaguely scared, but I can adapt I'm sure.
Likewise I think I am anti-the karma feature, though it would be funny to see Jough amass all the bad karma over the next three weeks.

[CortJstr]

I also found the logo not being linked confusing.

Are you still setting up mods? I'm not seeing things that I think I should be.

Does "glow" not show up right for anybody else in the help page?

What's with the stars/karma/smite? I didn't see anything in the help section.

Is it possible to reword quotes back to "Jough wrote"?

Can I permanently set "don't use :)s" like on the old board?

Do we still have ninja edit?

The "insert quote" buttons underneath the compose box are awesome.

Thank you for not using the nested folder style for the path at the top of each screen.

Any idea what the idle time is? Like if I just leave the board open in a background tab for an hour then refresh will it update the "since last visit" stuff? I know on the old board it was an hour for a while, then it was two.

Edit 1: Also, I am no longer Morrissey's Pompadour, but I have apparently earned some stars.

I think your title is only replace by "moderator" in fora that you are actually a mod. If you were to post in the main Achewood forum you'd still be all Morrissey'ed up.

edit: It's going to take me forever to get used to double-spacing after a quote.

[Choop]

Why are the threads backwards (newest->oldest)? Found it:  "Show most recent posts at the top" option in the profile.

Where's the something to click to take me to the first post in the thread that I haven't yet read?

I liked the keyboard-friendly formatting (alt+b for bold) in phpBB. Any way to get that back?

[wombat]

Do we still have ninja edit?

We had Ninja Edit?  I have no idea what that is, but I want it back desperately.

Non-ninja edit:  Anyone else getting something weird with the formatiing here?  I'm getting my message smooshed into the end of Choop's when I load the whole page - it's fixed only if I click on my own message individually.

[jough]

Okay, lots of questions.

* I'm still trying to figure out everything here myself. 

* All of the styling is in CSS, so yes, I will probably make this board look more like the old one between now and Christmas. 

* I haven't even gotten started on the header templates yet, so yes, the logo will link back to the home page of the board, don't worry.

* I don't know about keyboard friendly formatting, but there are a number of "packages" (hacks/mods for this board) that are meant for phpBB migration.  I'll look into them later today.  I know you can hit alt+s to submit/post or alt+p to preview, and I think there are some others.  I'll have to check out the help.

* I liked the Karma idea, but it's easily turned off if people don't want to see it.

* Most of the new features, like the Calendar, Birthdays listed on the home page, and Karma and stuff, I turned on just to try out all of the new stuff.  I expect we'll find a lot of it useless and can get rid of it later.

* For some reason this board handles user ranks that aren't tied to post counts as user groups.  It's a little maddening.

So some people have titles/groups and others don't.  It'll list every title/group that you have under your name.  I'll be slowly and manually re-adding people's custom titles to their profiles soon.

OR

There's an option to let people choose their custom title in their profile.  Is this something we want people changing at will?

* The "new" icon in the thread sections will take you to the posts you haven't read yet.  I don't know how long it leaves things unread, and can't seem to find any options here regarding this.

* I'm still figuring out user groups, and am not sure how this board handles mods and such.  As far as I know, it should work.  But it's all tied to the user groups and there are a LOT of permissions that can be set for each group, including the mods group.  Like, 100 different things that admins can let mods or users do in each forum and stuff.  I like the added controls but maybe the defaults are a little too restrictive.  I mean, is there ever a reason to NOT let someone edit their own posts?  Or not edit them after XX number of minutes?

* I could probably re-word any board messages by editing the english language file.  No problem there.  I like "___ wrote" better than "Posted by: ____" too.

* The stars I don't really get - it's supposed to be tied to rank more than the title is.  I didn't see a way to turn them off completely, but I think I can apply zero stars to everyone at once if I needed to turn them off (the admin section is AMAZING).

* I think you can turn off smilies in your profile.

* I don't know what "ninja edit" means.

* The nested folder thing was an option and I immediately hated it.  I almost reverted back to the old board before I found a way to do in-line links there.

* Editing the footer was a real chore as it was stuck/hidden in some PHP file for the source code of the board, and not part of the template.  I know they want people to keep the copyright notice, but shit, don't they think people may want/need to add their own stuff in the footer?

* Idle time right now is an hour.  You'll have to let me know if it resets read posts on you or not.  I can pretty much make idle time up to 999 minutes, but that messes with the "Who's Online" option.

* Do we like or dislike the showing of who's online on the bottom of the forum home page?

* Does the spell check work?

* Do we like smilies?  I do, but I can actually turn them off completely if we need/want to.

[CortJstr]

Can you explain what the karma is? I'm guessing that more=better and that people with high karma can do things that might otherwise seem giraffey (like posting several messages within a few minutes)

"ninja edit" means that if you edit your own post before somebody replies to it and before X minutes have passed that the "last edited" flag won't appear. Mainly useful for when you hit post and realize you messed up some formatting or spelled Teodor wrong or something.

I just don't get the system with the stars. Why are mine the same as slink's when I'm closer to Jough in post-count. I'm not saying that they're bad I just don't get it. Or are they connected to applaud/smite?

Also: *****s with no ##### fuck*ng

[jough]

Well, I can't tell if SMF allows for ninja edits or not, but this mobile version of the board ROCKS.

I posted this from my CELL PHONE, bitches!

[wombat]

The edit function does seem to work that way.  I quickly edited a typo in my second message above and it doesn't have any 'edited' comments added to it.

[slink]

How was the migration by the way?
I am about to move a phpbb board over to a new host, and have been having the odd niggle with it (it's a forum that currently isn't getting nearly the traffic this one is, but may be at some point) but might make the switch to something that sounds very css based. I love css, and if everything I am working with and used to can be themed with css I am one happy bunny.

Also, might want to do something about avatar size. It got quite strict, which was probably a good thing, but I would have to redo yet another better compressed version of mine...