Welcome to the new look forums

[Ashley]

 

Welcome to the new look forums.

Firstly let me apologise for the extended downtime. I will try and explain why this happened. Unlike previous upgrades which is just a few files being updated, this one as you can see is a complete rewrite of the forum software by the developers, including the database coding.    Whilst I had planned ahead in creating a test forum installation prior to starting the upgrade,   and editing the OCD-UK skin, what I had not realised was that the upgrade meant a full database conversion.   What this meant was that our very large forum (with over 10-years of posts) and 800mb of database space became 1600mb during the database conversion.  This put us over our size allowance with our website hosts.  So then I had to move our entire website to a brand new host.  This meant downloading 1600mb of data from the old host, and uploading 1600mb of data to the new host and starting the process again.   

 

The non technical summary, the forums had to move house which meant packing everything up, moving and unpacking.  The WWW then had to catch up with our move of address, so even after I had unpacked, the ‘change of address’ card had not fully reached the WWW.

 

Then, once that was resolved I had a problem where the secure SSL certificate was locked to the forums, meaning I could not login to the site myself, so I had to wait 12-hours for that to be fixed. The non technical summary of that is our website front door had been locked shut locking us all out, and we had to wait for the lock key to be repaired to let us all back in again!

 

So whilst I can only apologise for the downtime, I hope my explanation goes someway to explaining what happened.  For what it is worth I have spent all Friday night and entire weekend sat in front of the PC trying to get this fixed, both eating and watching TV from my office desk whilst working on the PC. So rest assured we were trying to get the forum back online as quickly as possible.

 

But, here we are a fully rebuilt forums. A few new features and a slightly different layout but generally not too dissimilar, but it is now fully responsive which means it should work seamlessly across all devices.  We have streamlined some of the forums too, and in the coming weeks we will be recruiting volunteers and training them to increase the level of support being offered through the forums.

 

 I will use this thread to post about new features, new buttons and to help answer any questions that you may have, and to troubleshoot problems that may occur.

 

Finally, I would like to thank my moderators and volunteer team for spending considerable time last week in helping us test the new software and features before I started the full upgrade process.

 

Finally, thank you for your patience during the downtime, and I hope you will enjoy the new forum experience.

 

Ashley.

[Ashley]

New Feature

If you browse our forums on a PC or Laptop, when looking at the list of topics in a forum,  you can view the first few lines of any topic by hovering your cursor over the topic title.

[Ashley]

New Feature

At the menu bar at the top of the forum it is now far easier to find your own content using the Forum Activity > My Activity Stream.

[Ashley]

New Feature

OCD-UK members have the ability to upload a profile cover photo.  Click my profile to see me cycling across a bridge over the far northern Atlantic last summer near Tongue in Scotland.

[Ashley]

Updated

We know that people would like to be able to edit their posts, but because of past experience of users going back to edit their content and context we removed the ability to edit posts beyond the first 15 minutes.  I know sometimes I can post, then get distracted by a call and only much later notice typos.  So we have extended the edit period to 45 minutes for typo edits.

[Ashley]

Updated

I think I have fixed the ability to search back more than the recent years.

[Ashley]

New Feature

When creating a new topic, users have the ability to select the most appropriate Tag/s.  For now we are just using a few selected tags to see if it helps users quickly find topics that may be relevant for their form of OCD.  If it's a feature which does not work, or users simply click every tag available we may disable this.  Feedback welcomed (and no, we won't be using 'those' acronyms!)

[Ashley]

New Feature

It is easier to add similes on the forum now, with the system making good use of your previously used similes (or also called emoticons).   I have also tidied them up a little and placed into the following categories:

• Commonly Used
• Flags and Placards
• Christmas
• Miscellaneous others

[Ashley]

 

New Feature

Easier quote ability.  For those using a PC to browse the forums you can now quote sections of a post much easier by simply highlighting the sentence/section you wish to quote, and shortly after a 'quote this' link appears, simply click that and it opens a new reply window with that quote appearing for you. (see screenshot).

 

I have created a guide for new users on how to use the quote features -

 

[Ashley]

I just want to thank Snowbear, Gingerbreadgirl, Gemma7 and Caramoole for their help and advice when testing the software last week. 

 

[Em24]

I did feel for you when I checked in over the weekend and saw how long it was taking! 

[Cmck43]

Hi, thankyou to all involved in upgradex

[Ashley]

2 hours ago, Em24 said:

I did feel for you when I checked in over the weekend and saw how long it was taking! 

Had it all gone according to plan it should have only taken 3 or 4 hours!  

 

[Ashley]

Quick question for you all. I am tinkering a little with the forum width over the next couple of days, and I am unsure if we should use a static width that is a medium for most devices (but leaves lots of blank space on large screens above 17"), or if we should use a fluid width which stretched to X% of your screen size (set at 91% at moment).

So if you all know, could you post your usual screen size please.   For example I have my work screen which is 17" and a smaller travel laptop which is 12".

[Handy]

I went through the reset PW process & read your rules list & clicked on SAVE, but it just hung at that point, although it did seem to process okay as I'm logged in.

[Em24]

I use my phone which is 5" x

[snowbear]

13 inch laptop (I thought it was 14 inches but that's the width of the laptop, not the screen.) 

[taurean]

My smartphone has 5 inch width when in wide-screen mode ,  with the screen taking up the majority of that. 

But caution - many phones have smaller screens I think. I took this one because, having very large hands, I can cope with its size and weight. 

And many modern laptops seem built for ease of transport so have small size bulk and screen. 

Edited May 25, 2016 by taurean

[Gemma7]

My screen is 4.6''. What's the advantage of a set screen size, having a fluid one sounds better. 

[Ashley]

I don't think it matters with mobiles, the system will automatically detect the small screen size and present the mobile view.   The fluid width is causing some issues, so I have switched back to static view for now (which I think most websites use). 

[Guest]

I'm using an 18' monitor and there is a lot of space on either side.

Edited May 25, 2016 by lightning
Added in monitor instead of PC.

[Ashley]

Too much space Lighning?   Would you rather the forum stretch closer to 90% of your screen width?

[Guest]

15 hours ago, Ashley said:

Too much space Lighning?   Would you rather the forum stretch closer to 90% of your screen width?

Definitely! Yeah, there is a lot of grey on either side of my screen as the forum size is a bit small for my 18' monitor.

[Ashley]

Thanks, is it possible you can take a screenshot for me please?   (CTRL and PRT SC at same time).

[Guest]

http://tinypic.com/r/34858hh/9

Edited May 26, 2016 by lightning
Link