Downtime / Upgrade

[roddy]

I'm planning at some point this week to upgrade the site to the latest version of the software it runs on. This will mean a certain amount of downtime - not sure how long, hopefully no more than an hour or two, but could be more if things go . . . interesting.

For anyone that is interested, here's a list of some of the new features. I'm not yet sure which of these we'll be using, but if you have any thoughts, speak up.

* Inline spam management & prevention

* Thread tagging

* Search cloud / tag cloud

* Thread prefixes

* Reciprocal friendships between users

* Public visitor messaging on profile pages with 'conversation' feature

* User picture galleries with user comment facility

* User-created social groups with invite only and moderated membership options

* Extended member profile pages

* Customizable member profile pages with admin-controlled styling abilities

* Inline editing of custom user profile fields

* Lightbox viewer for attached images

* Viewable and comparable history maintained for post edits

* Extended re-authentication for inline moderation actions

* Notices system for navigation bar

* Multiple human-verification systems including reCAPTCHA, image verification and Q/A

* User change history

* Social bookmarking integration

[Senzhi]

Whas it you today or China Telecom?

[ipsi()]

I think that we're to small to want private groups. Thread tagging would be wonderful if people used it. . The rest of them seem kinda cool, but aren't really big things for me.

[roddy]

Ok, going to start this in the next hour or two (assuming nothing interesting starts on telly). I know it's been more than a week, but on the plus side some new bug fixes have been released, so . . .

test

Edited July 14, 2008 at 09:41 PM by roddy

[roddy]

Ok, that's the upgrade finished. Hopefully. All seemed to go smoothly

Everything should work as before, more or less. Some changes you may notice:

There's now a tagging system, so you can add tags (ie 'hsk', 'NPCR', 'Chinese rap') to threads. This will let people browse all topics with one tag, and there will be a 'tag cloud' showing the most popular tags. Not sure where it is though.

Inline editing is now activated - click on the edit button on one of your posts. However that just seems to be timing out for me, anyone else? Ah no, the changes are being registered - it just looks like it's timing out.

There are now Social Groups. Not too sure how these work and if we need them - feel free to play with them if you want. Also your friend / contacts are more functional.

Profiles also have new toys on, so visit mine and have a look if you want . . .

The Wikis no longer have wiki functionality - as I've said, I'm not sure what's happening there. Speak up if you have an opinion.

Think that's all. Any questions or noticed problems, raise them here please.

Edited July 14, 2008 at 10:48 PM by roddy

[atitarev]

Thanks, Roddy.

Just quickly on friends in your control panel. I noticed I have 2 options for friends. One list has people the other one is empty. Do we need 2 and what's difference?

[roddy]

I'm not entirely sure, but this might make it clearer. As far as I can see, adding as a friend also means they get an invitation to add you, whereas adding as a contact isn't reciprocal.

Not sure what I reckon about all these new things. Good to see we've got our first Social Group though

[ipsi()]

It would nice if we could add tags of less than three characters. I'd like to be able to tag threads involving a particular author with that authors name, for example. i.e. 废名 is too short, so it would would be good if you could reduce the limit to two characters.

[muyongshi]

I've noticed a few things the 论坛 link is 版面 and the unanswered link is gone. Any idea if that link will come back?

My one disappointment (especially after seeing the 论坛 ->版面 change) is that it is still called 悄悄话.

I agree with the tagging thing however I don't know that that is something that the admins have power to change.

Also just curious what the calendar will be used for by us here?

[simonlaing]

Also how does the Calender option work?

This for online study sessions or meet ups?

it says I don't have the authority... I am easily confused.

the User CP is ok, but similar to the subscribed threads under quick links.

I will play with the picture loading thing later.

Way to keep up the site Roddy.

have fun,

simon:)

[roddy]

Ok, two character tags are now possible (please don't tag all threads as 'hi!' ）

However, one issue with tags - do we tag 王小波 or wang xiaobo? Beishida or BNU or 北师大, etc.

论坛 is back in place of 版面

Unanswered post link is back.

VBulletin has a calendar function, but I never really thought it would get much use, hence I never bothered using it. Forgot to remove the navbar link after the upgrade yesterday, have deleted it now. However if anyone can see how it would be useful, say so.

[imron]

Unanswered and 查看新帖 are now in the opposite position. Don't supposed you'd care to swap 'em back?

[ipsi()]

I'd go with tagging 王小波 and Wang Xiaobo for now, and only removing one if more tags are needed, as it means people are more likely to find it. I've been tagging threads (well, one thread) as both 文言 and Classical, as I think it makes it more accessible. But that's just me.

[roddy]

Swopped those links round.

[roddy]

Is the inline editing function working for anyone? For me, when you click save it never seems to finish - although the changes are actually saved.

Edited July 15, 2008 at 04:24 PM by gougou

[muyongshi]

Same for me...

Edited July 15, 2008 at 03:37 PM by roddy

[imron]

I didn't notice whether the changes were being made, but it's definitely taking ages and not going back to the thread proper.

[roddy]

Yeah, spent some time trying to figure out what was going on, to no effect. Have just set it back to the old method.

[renzhe]

While you're fixing things, I notice that the TV Series forum is now under "Film and Television", but on the main page (index.php), it shows up under "Resources and Study Issues", which is sort of confusing.

[roddy]

Where do you think it should be