Firstly, apologies for the forum downtime. As some of you know, I had to transfer the whole website from my old host (Aplus) to my new one (Dreamhost). Hopefully this will improve the forum so that users will experience less internal server errors, which plagued the forum under Aplus. Let’s see how it goes. At the same time, I took the opportunity to upgrade the forum from phpBB 2.0 to phpBB 3.0. This adds certain new features such as attachments and so forth, and generally makes things a lot prettier. There are certain mods I had running on the old forum that I haven’t yet had chance to install on the new one, though, so please do be patient - I thought it best just to get things back online.
Note that the transfer has come at the cost of some of the old posts getting a little corrupted. Basically, differences in the way the SQL database (the forum database) stored text on the old server and on the new server mean that you will sometimes see special characters being rendered as gibberish in old posts, and also some old posts being truncated. This shouldn’t affect new posts, though.
Many thanks for Amber and Jaysen for their help and support during the transition.
phpBB does support RSS, but as Keith noted there are still some things that he is working on. I know that the new look and feel was very important (and very well done) which took a bit more time than I think KB wanted it too. There were also some issues with the DB and indexing which also ate a pile of time. I would suspect the RSS is a module that will be enabled in the near future.
Has any one else noted how much faster this server is than the old one? It is going to be hard to stop forum surfing without those pesky errors reminding me to go and to some real work…
Seriously, Keith worked quite a bit over his holiday to get this all working for us. I know that I missed the forums, but the improvements have been well worth it. We all should give Keith a hand and answer a few of the easy questions so he can make it up to the family.
Or we could all just keep vic-k at bay. You know how much trouble he is.
It looks like there might be a few lingering forum “bugs”. If you notice that the smilies are missing to the right of message box, and the phrase “BBCode is OFF” is there, you will not be able to use smilies or other BBCode tags. I have only noticed it on this thread, but don’t be surprised if it shows up elsewhere.
I have already sent a message to KB so no need to bother him.
Yes, the new forum looks great. It must have been a huge amount of work, and I can see that there are still a few appearance glitches like the opening " on the quote button, but it’s really good to have it back.
Mark
Hmm … our posts crossed, Jaysen or else you answered so promptly that phBB is recommending that I might like to modify my post. There’s also the “A” with its up and down arrows in the top right corner … I have no idea what that’s meant to mean …
I believe that the single " is part of the button graphic and is supposed to be that way. At least that is how it showed up when I installed phpBB on my server here to check it. KB might have created his own graphics, but it would be weird for me to have it as well since I am too lazy to create graphics. Yes, I am a computer nerd.
The A is to allow you to change your view font size. It impacts your view of THIS forum exclusively and is stored in a local cookie. Then you wont need to change the font size when you visit other sites. You don’t visit other sites do you?
On the cookie front, to remove all the cookies for this forum you only need to go to the bottom of the page and click the link that says “Delete all board cookies”
That will reset your default view and log you out. Note that it will not set your PROFILE to default. To do that go to the “User Control Panel” in under the bread crumbs (lower left in the header). There is no magic default button, but you can guess them pretty easy when they are not marked.
Hmm … I’d picked you for a computer nerd long ago from following the forum
As I think I said on a different thread some time ago, I am not one to get hung up over button graphics and interface elements as long as things are clear … I am bemused by the acres of posts on the OmniWeb forum about “I don’t like these buttons, they look so 10.4 and inappropriate to 10.5” or the reverse … and I couldn’t care less that Adobe put a couple of curlicues at the bottom of the panels in LightRoom or that it tells you you’re using LightRoom at the top left hand corner.
But I must confess that I really dislike this one … I think it’s the single opening quote without the closing quote that grates on me, 'cos it looks like a coding problem rather than part of a graphic.
But I use OmniWeb, which allows you to set all sorts of site specific preferences if you want to. But the way this comes up is fine by me … apart from the quote button and a rather inexplicable A with its arrows. That’s so un-Mac-like that again it looks like the output of some fragment of code that has got left in by accident!
But to use the expression which seems to have become ubiquitous, these things are not “a deal breaker for me”. More important is the current lack of a “Next new post” button.
And, mea culpa, I do visit other forums … the Nisus forum, the OmniGroup forum, Adobe LightRoom forum … but the Lit&Lat forum is the one I spend most time in and where I come for fun and enlightenment!
Glad the forum is restored. At least on my monitor, it’s now less cluttered, more inviting. Might be nice to have RSS, but as that’s essentially a truncated form of a communication system which is already a truncated form of dialogue, maybe we’re better off without – it if winds up as an IM forum, I may have to plow my playtime back into serious work.
KB wrote:
“you will sometimes see special characters being rendered as gibberish in old posts, and also some old posts being truncated.”
If I remember correctly, gibberish was a substantial component in the old posts, no matter how they were rendered, and truncation, more often than not, improves the writing.
I agree, we (mac users) are spoiled. On my desk are 8 different cpus. Once you add up the VM i have 16 OS installations consisting of Winblows, Linux and Solaris. Out of all of them the only one that is “consistent” across user base and installs is … none of them. Only Mac has the level of consistency that allow us to make statements like “un-mac like” (not quoting you but others when discussing look and feel). While I understand the arguments that other make I kind of laugh at them at the same time. Kind of like laughing at the guy who complains because the Honda doesn’t ride like a Bentley.
What is my point? phpBB isn’t a Mac app, but a web app that is developed for multiple platforms. As such the defaults are, being gentle again, disgusting. KB put more effort into setting up the look and feel than “I” thought was necessary, but he is the consummate customer focused support team and he loves his users. So we have the current theme.
I am sure he will look into the quote button. He is nice like that.
On the “nerd” front, is there still a large need for IT specialists in the remote areas over there?
Actually Jaysen, I do appreciate that phpBB is not a Mac app … and I do know what you mean about people who complain that their Honda doesn’t ride like a Bentley … I’ve met plenty of them. Keith needn’t do anything about it for me … only if he wants to do something about it 'cos it gets on his nerves. As I say, it’s not a major thing for me, I suppose they just stick out 'cos everything else about Scrivener and the forum is so elegant. And I don’t let such things get in my way … after all I do use NeoOffice from time to time and I’d like to say you can hardly get less-mac-like than that but I guess that OpenOffice for one would beat it to that post.
As for nerds needed in remote areas here … I would advise leaving the remote areas to the Chinese nerds! But there is a pretty big demand for “foreign experts” in various fields to teach in universities, but you have to be prepared to live on a pretty paltry income. It’s fine for meeting the cost of living here, unless you have a taste for real luxury or insist on living the way you do back home including eating only western food. But it’s not enough to meet any expenses you may continue to have back home. My salary – with a number of extras that I get for various reasons – works out at around USD800 per month. I’m entitled to send 30% of that home per year, which, with the cost of living in London being what it is, would put food on the table for a couple of weeks only!
Prolixity and gibberish are widespread, damn near universal. M. le D is no more guilty than the rest of us, and his posts do contribute charm and humor.
[Vic-k: If you do not mean to be charming and humorous, I apologize.]
You and I are often in agreement, but not on the issue of an RSS feed. To me, it’s crucial. I set it up so I may see all the new posts, in their order of entry. Then I skim the headlines and only open the posts that are of interest. Once open, they are full-text, not truncated. Otherwise, I have to examine each forum topic on the main page and guess which ones may be useful. Invariably, I will waste time and miss something important. For example, I rely on forum members to tell me of new software that’s useful to writers and researchers. Such mentions don’t always appear in the “software by others” section. Bottom line: if we don’t get RSS feed soon, I can’t use the Scriv forum much longer. Which some may welcome! (Quiet, Vic.)
Once you login (check the “Always login” box and you only need to do it every couple of days) and thing click the New Posts crumb just above the forum listing. This will list any threads that have been updated since your last logged in visit. I actually go direct to this link by book marking the page.
Not quite as easy as RSS, but pretty close. You have the added advantage of seeing who the last poster was.
