Forum tweaks ?

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UBT - Timbo
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Forum tweaks ?

Post by UBT - Timbo »

Hi all,

As you can see, the forum has been imported.

There's a couple of things that I need to do, (for instance the smilies are not quite installed correctly and the Team "banner" logo needs to be installed) but overall, the relocation has happened and all the 9 years worth of postings have been salvaged.

On the test forum, I asked the question about how to set up the new forum. As that test forum was deleted, when the old forum was installed, so I'll ask again and we can get a consensus on how the new forum should look.

So, any thoughts or feedback would be appreciated.

regards
Tim
Janos
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Re: Forum tweaks ?

Post by Janos »

Hi guys,

There are probably going to be some bugs in the forum. Please let me know if you see anything strange.

For example, I have just noticed a few forum threads which have no title. I will look into this just now.

Cheers
Janos
"Happiness can be defined as: a geek with non-work related code to write, no distractions and no deadline." - Janos
Janos
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Re: Forum tweaks ?

Post by Janos »

Janos wrote:For example, I have just noticed a few forum threads which have no title. I will look into this just now.
There were not very many so I have manually set them to match the old forums. The affected threads were:

viewtopic.php?t=1609
viewtopic.php?t=2340
viewtopic.php?t=4355
viewtopic.php?t=4548
viewtopic.php?t=4671
viewtopic.php?t=4917
viewtopic.php?t=4928
viewtopic.php?t=4966
viewtopic.php?t=5086

Cheers
Janos
"Happiness can be defined as: a geek with non-work related code to write, no distractions and no deadline." - Janos
UBT - Timbo
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Re: Forum tweaks ?

Post by UBT - Timbo »

Janos wrote:Hi guys,

There are probably going to be some bugs in the forum. Please let me know if you see anything strange.

For example, I have just noticed a few forum threads which have no title. I will look into this just now.

Cheers
Janos
Hi Janos,

Thanks for that.

I fixed the smilies (as the original files for some hadn't been copied to the /smilies directory) and I installed a few others, though it needs a bit of tidying up :)

re: threads
OK - I'd not spotted anything yet, though TBH, I hadn't been looking hard ;)

regards
Tim
Janos
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Re: Forum tweaks ?

Post by Janos »

UBT - Timbo wrote:I fixed the smilies (as the original files for some hadn't been copied to the /smilies directory) and I installed a few others, though it needs a bit of tidying up :)
Looking great Tim :)
"Happiness can be defined as: a geek with non-work related code to write, no distractions and no deadline." - Janos
UBT - Timbo
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Re: Forum tweaks ?

Post by UBT - Timbo »

Hi all,

I've now been able to restore the original team logo at the top of the forum. It's a little bit smaller than the original, but it fits in quite nicely with the "prosilver" style.

In time, I'll add perhaps one or two other "styles", so people have a choice...but I'm not going to be adding loads of things - as I just don't want the forum to break as a result of any weird "extras" added to it.

If I can find a nice Xmassy-based style, then I'd be happy to install that 8)

PS - those with a keen eye might have noticed that the number of "views" for ALL the threads on this new forum, were reset back to "0", when the forum was converted. Those "counts" are now increasing quite rapidly, mainly due to Google and other spider bots, re-indexing the new forum... :)

regards
Tim
Kieron J. Barr
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Re: Forum tweaks ?

Post by Kieron J. Barr »

Any chance that we could get a 'quick reply' mode added to the forums, like it is on other boards? :)
Janos
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Re: Forum tweaks ?

Post by Janos »

I quite like this feature as well. Saves time.
"Happiness can be defined as: a geek with non-work related code to write, no distractions and no deadline." - Janos
UBT - Timbo
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Re: Forum tweaks ?

Post by UBT - Timbo »

Kieron J. Barr wrote:Any chance that we could get a 'quick reply' mode added to the forums, like it is on other boards? :)
Hi Kieron,

There is a setting in the admin section to enable "Quick Replies" and I did enable it....but it seems to have vanished. :(

Let me see if I can get it working again....I know there is an Extension that phpBB have available, so maybe I need to install that ?

regards
Tim
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Re: Forum tweaks ?

Post by UBT - Timbo »

...hehehehhe

And now it's back again ;)

regards
Tim
Woodles
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Re: Forum tweaks ?

Post by Woodles »

Ah, but does it work? :P
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Re: Forum tweaks ?

Post by Woodles »

Guess that's a 'Yes' :D
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UBT - Timbo
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Re: Forum tweaks ?

Post by UBT - Timbo »

Woodles wrote:Ah, but does it work? :P
Oh ye of little faith !! :character-grommit:

Of course it works... :angelic-blueglow:
Kieron J. Barr
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Re: Forum tweaks ?

Post by Kieron J. Barr »

Excellent....nice one Tim! :)
UBT - Mikee
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Re: Forum tweaks ?

Post by UBT - Mikee »

Oh - this is cool - no faffing with quotes and fings

Mike
UBT - Mikee
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Re: Forum tweaks ?

Post by UBT - Mikee »

I wonder if I can swear and curse now? ...
UBT - Timbo
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Re: Forum tweaks ?

Post by UBT - Timbo »

UBT - Mikee wrote:I wonder if I can swear and curse now? ...
Hi Mikee,

Errr......why don't you give it a try......?? 8)

(Though if you do, please edit out anything "offensive" afterwards).

I have set up a word censor, but currently, it is only being used to fix typos - ie commonly mis-spelt words, which exist on the forum, but there's too many for me to individually correct.

regards
Tim
Woodles
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Re: Forum tweaks ?

Post by Woodles »

UBT - Timbo wrote:
Woodles wrote:Ah, but does it work? :P
Oh ye of little faith !! :character-grommit:

Of course it works... :angelic-blueglow:
But for how long :lol:
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UBT - Timbo
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Re: Forum tweaks ?

Post by UBT - Timbo »

Woodles wrote:But for how long :lol:
Maybe until I get bored :violin: and switch it off again :whistle: just to annoy people and get their backs up :tap: :violence-instagib:
Woodles
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Re: Forum tweaks ?

Post by Woodles »

Is it just me or does everyone else have their posts rejected the first time?

Every post I make comes up with "The submitted form was invalid. Try submitting again." but works when I try again. Same for previewing.

It may be me as I've only been posting recently from my Linux machine using Firefox instead of the Usual Windows/Chrome combination so it may be set up differently but thought I'd check.

Edit: And this one went through correctly first time :lol:

Maybe it's only with quotes in?
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UBT - Timbo
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Re: Forum tweaks ?

Post by UBT - Timbo »

Woodles wrote:Is it just me or does everyone else have their posts rejected the first time?

Every post I make comes up with "The submitted form was invalid. Try submitting again." but works when I try again. Same for previewing.

It may be me as I've only been posting recently from my Linux machine using Firefox instead of the Usual Windows/Chrome combination so it may be set up differently but thought I'd check.

Edit: And this one went through correctly first time :lol:

Maybe it's only with quotes in?
Hi Mark,

No, it's not "just you"...I've seen this a few times. :( And like yourself, if you re-submit, it works.

I have no idea as to why...I've done a web search and found a few phpBB related queries...and some date back ages to much earlier versions of phpBB.

I'll put a query on the phpBB forum and see what happens.

regards
Tim
UBT - Timbo
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Re: Forum tweaks ?

Post by UBT - Timbo »

This is via "Quick Reply" to test if the error occurs using this function...

I'll edit it with the result. :)

EDIT: No problems with this post - and there weren't any with my previous one either...and that included a "quote" section too.

regards
Tim
UBT - Timbo
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Re: Forum tweaks ?

Post by UBT - Timbo »

UPDATE:

I found this thread:

http://www.rsbandb.com/forums/viewtopic ... 27&t=61658

And they had a comment that said:
Ha! I figured it out! Don't press submit until the page loads completely.
So, it could be that one needs to wait a second or two, having composed the message, for phpBB to fully load the page (in the browser) at which point if you hit "Submit", it works straight away...

At least that's my guess.

Anyone else want to go a google search and see what they can find ?

regards
Tim
Woodles
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Re: Forum tweaks ?

Post by Woodles »

Just replied in a different thread with quotes and everything and it worked with no problems.

How long does it take a page to load, I'm not that fast a typist :lol:
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Re: Forum tweaks ?

Post by UBT - Timbo »

Woodles wrote:Just replied in a different thread with quotes and everything and it worked with no problems.

How long does it take a page to load, I'm not that fast a typist :lol:
I don't know how long it takes :( So, guesswork will have to play a part until we can be enlightened ;)

One issue could be related to how each page is loaded by the browser, before it is "ready" to be submitted....

Another could be some sort of "back office" issue as the forum software is on one server and the actual database is on another...albeit, within the same hosting complex (or so I'm lead to believe).

Either way, we'll just have to monitor it and see if it either settles down, stays the same or gets worse.

regards
Tim
UBT - Mikee
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Re: Forum tweaks ?

Post by UBT - Mikee »

Hi

Reckon it just doesn't like you two! Never had that problem! :-)

Mike
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Re: Forum tweaks ?

Post by UBT - Timbo »

UBT - Mikee wrote:Hi

Reckon it just doesn't like you two! Never had that problem! :-)

Mike
Hi Mikee,

I think you're just saying that :twocents-mytwocents:

regards
Tim
Woodles
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Re: Forum tweaks ?

Post by Woodles »

UBT - Mikee wrote:Hi

Reckon it just doesn't like you two! Never had that problem! :-)

Mike
Ha! I figured it out! Don't press submit until the page loads completely.
Maybe you just type really slooooooooooooooooooooow? :-D
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UBT - Mikee
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Re: Forum tweaks ?

Post by UBT - Mikee »

If i typd relaly quicj i tend too make speling misteaks so i am maybe that eksplains it!
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Re: Forum tweaks ?

Post by UBT - Timbo »

UBT - Mikee wrote:If i typd relaly quicj i tend too make speling misteaks so i am maybe that eksplains it!
Yup - I seem to remember that spell checkers were optional on steam-driven computers :techie-typing: ...or maybe Mikee has leapt into the 19th century and has a Remington typewriter, connected via a bit of string and and 3 match-sticks holding the cables in place :) :techie-eureka:

regards
Tim
UBT - Timbo
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Re: Forum tweaks ?

Post by UBT - Timbo »

Hi all,

I've tweaked the forum a little bit this afternoon and I've deleted 2 sections, both of which had only 1 or 3 sub-forums within them and I've merged said sub-forums into what was called the "Welcome to UBT" section...but I've renamed this to the "UBT Main Section" - as this is where most people post !!

I have an idea to merge all the project sub-forums into one large section...as we don't really need to have them split up into the different disciplines...but I'll leave that be for now and await any feedback from members ;)

regards and apologies for any inconvenience !!
Tim
UBT - Timbo
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Re: Forum tweaks ?

Post by UBT - Timbo »

Hi all,

Another little bit of forum tweaking this afternoon.

I figured how I had wrongly configured the "Guest Area" section so that's been fixed though for the time being, it is locked.

I've removed the "on open view" descriptions from some of the section headings plus I've removed the words "UK BOINC TEAM" from the "Main Forum" title...as it's obviously our forum, so no need to keep saying it !!

regards
Tim
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