Forum upgrade complete

[John Kennett]

OK, we're back with the latest new and improved version of the forum software. As usual I have kept changes to the look and feel of the forums to an absolute minimum, and only activated new features that I think are likely to be useful.


BIG changes:

Database-based thread and forum read marking
You may have noticed that if you start to catch up on the latest messages but get distracted by the kids, someone at the door, or the boss unexpectedly appearing, by the time you get back to the forums all the messages have been marked as read. No more! Unread messages stay "unread" until you actually read them or mark them as read. You can click on the "Mark Forums Read" link at the bottom of the forum home page, or mark individual sections as read by double-clicking on the status icon in the list of forums.

Auto-resize oversized image attachments
At last! No more "How do I reduce the size of my pictures?" messages. If your attach an image that is too large, the image will automatically resized to fit. Easy.


A few of the small-but-handy changes:

Improved registration image verification
Should help to cut down the number of spammers who make it far enough to actually offer us cheap mobile phones before being despatched into eternal darkness.

Quote tags link to quoted post
When quoting a post, the ID of the post is automatically included with the quote tag. When the quoted text is viewed in a thread, a small icon links back to the quoted post.

Option to receive Private Messages from Buddies only
You may now select to receive private messages only from users on your buddy list. If a non-buddy tries to send you a message, they will receive an error saying that you do not accept private messages. Administrators and moderators are automatically able to bypass this restriction.

Private Messages: Quota warning
Once you have reached 90% of your private message quota, you will receive a warning telling you that you have almost reached your quota.


Other changes while I was at it:

Search the memberlist
The "Members List" link now works, and takes you straight to the search page.

Easy links for user profiles and sending PMs
Not everyone notices that you can click on the user name to the left of each message for a drop down menu which includes things like "View public profile" and "Send a private message", so I've added a couple of icons to make this easier: to send a PM and to view the poster's profile page.

NoChex now works for automatic payments
Paid subscriptions using NoChex are now processed automatically, and your account will be upgraded immediately


There are a variety of other bits and pieces that you may or may not discover, but these are the obvious ones that you are likely to notice!

Please let me know if you have any questions, problems, requests or suggestions.

Cheers
John

[ollyit]

good work

[Nos4r2]

Is there any way to add the complete current members list to your buddylist so they can PM you John?

Cheers for the revamp though, damn good.

[John Kennett]

Originally Posted by Nos4r2

Is there any way to add the complete current members list to your buddylist so they can PM you John?

That's the default setting. It's only restricted to your buddy list if you specifically set that option in your User Control Panel. It's something that may possibly be useful for a minority of people, but I suspect that most people will want to leave it as it is.

John

[Nos4r2]

Cheers John-I should learn to RTFM more

[Alex Brown]

Hello John,

Getting an odd message when sending a private message here - it flashes up for a couple of seconds and then goes again. The message does appear in sent items, so I assume it's gone.

Warning: fsockopen() [function.fsockopen]: php_network_getaddresses: getaddrinfo failed: Name or service not known in /includes/class_mail.php on line 599

Warning: fsockopen() [function.fsockopen]: unable to connect to :25 in /includes/class_mail.php on line 599

Thanks,

-Alex

[Jimbo]

Also - is all the profile information that used to appear on the left (i.e. boat name, type etc) deliberately no longer there?

[jwalker]

JK, I couldn't get the url link feature to work when editing a post ie. [url=http...etc]linky[/url

Edit: I've left out the closing bracket to prevent it working here cos it worked when I typed it in this time! I pasted it in on the post where it didn't work.

Now I've confused myself.

[John Kennett]

Originally Posted by Jimbo

Also - is all the profile information that used to appear on the left (i.e. boat name, type etc) deliberately no longer there?

No, it's because I forgot that I need to manually add it to the page template. I've sorted it now!

John

[John Kennett]

Originally Posted by jwalker

JK, I couldn't get the url link feature to work when editing a post ie. [url=http...etc]linky[/url

What didn't work when you first tried?

John

[John Kennett]

Originally Posted by Alex Brown

Getting an odd message when sending a private message here - it flashes up for a couple of seconds and then goes again. The message does appear in sent items, so I assume it's gone.

Thanks. A couple of other people have seen that message as well. I think I've sorted it, but please let me know if you see it again!

John

[John Kennett]

Originally Posted by Nos4r2

Cheers John-I should learn to RTFM more

I've changed the wording to make it clearer!

John

[TQBoater]

Thanks for all your efforts John

[jwalker]

Originally Posted by John Kennett

What didn't work when you first tried?

This one.

[codprawn]

I take it this upgrade is whats caused all read messages to revert to unread next time I lg on? Most annoying!!! It used to be great - perfectly clear what you had read and what you hadn't - why the change?

[Louise]

Actually the 'new' forum is an improvement in that respect. Yes, the first time you log on following the upgrade everything has reverted to unread status, but once you've read the new posts, marked everything as 'read' and logged off, next time only new posts will be highlighted and will not mark themselves as read unless you have actually looked at the thread again since the new post was added - an improvement for those of us who get distracted, as detailed by John in his earlier post (see below):

Originally Posted by John Kennett

Database-based thread and forum read marking
You may have noticed that if you start to catch up on the latest messages but get distracted by the kids, someone at the door, or the boss unexpectedly appearing, by the time you get back to the forums all the messages have been marked as read. No more! Unread messages stay "unread" until you actually read them or mark them as read. You can click on the "Mark Forums Read" link at the bottom of the forum home page, or mark individual sections as read by double-clicking on the status icon in the list of forums.

[John Kennett]

Originally Posted by codprawn

I take it this upgrade is whats caused all read messages to revert to unread next time I lg on? Most annoying!!! It used to be great - perfectly clear what you had read and what you hadn't - why the change?

As Louise said, it's just the first time that you log on after the upgrade.

The new system is a vast improvement, because it actually tracks which messages you have read instead of timing them all out after a certain time.

John

[Biggles]

John.

How come the threads that I view never seem to get updated like they used to do. It seems like everytime I come back on RIBNET I am viewing threads that I have already seen.

I am using IE Explorer 32 Bit.

Regards Nick.

[Millermob]

It was very nice to recieve an email just then to say my PM box was 90% full. Top Job.

Freddie

[John Kennett]

Originally Posted by Biggles

How come the threads that I view never seem to get updated like they used to do. It seems like everytime I come back on RIBNET I am viewing threads that I have already seen.

I don't know. It's working exactly as advertised for me!

Have you tried marking all the forums as read and seeing if that sorts it out?

John