New Version Issues

In the hope that it may be helpful in sorting out things that you consider "bugs" that you want to / can fix, here is a list of things that I have found (or seen others report), and also my thoughts on things that I feel could be better

Comments about the old system are based on my memory, please correct me if I have mis-remembered.

SITE ISSUES

Smilies are breaking the layout of the (full) editor page

Some styles of links to old threads don't work. I strongly recommend that you check the 404 errors in the weblogs for the next couple of days to determine what links are failing in this way so you can fix them before losing your search engine ranking.

Attachments on old posts don't show the attachment. My attachments are listed in my Profile, but none of the ones from the old system work.

"MORE ICONs" comes up in a silly little window (they did before, can't remember if the new one is smaller/larger). Larger window would be a useful enhancement.

:gnthb: (for one) is missing.

Parts of the site have a FavIcon, other parts not (that may just be my browser) (Actually thinking about it it may just be the Gallery that has a FavIcon - I suggest having it on all pages)

The point to which each thread has been read is several days out of step. So each thread viewed scrolls to some earlier point in time. Thus there is a mix of threads which have been viewed on the new system (which correctly record where-seen-to), and threads which were last viewed under the old system (which scroll to the wrong point)

Cannot vote in photo competitions (reported by not Rhyleysgranny)

"New Posts" is present under "My Account", but given the number of messages from people trying to find it at the very least a "Hi folk, here's a list of changes and What's New" would be helpful

My Account : View Profile doesn't go anywhere

"Request read receipt" when sending a PM is the default (probably unnecessary?)

Several reports of errors when using BACK, and STACK OVERFLOW / OUT OF MEMORY type errors.

Edit2: There are some references in the CSS, and the HTML, to images on resources.rrws-readymadewebsites.com (where I note that your TEST site was hosted). If this is intentional then fine! but it might be an oversight and you would prefer to have them on the gardenerscorner.co.uk domain (otherwise if the resources.rrws-readymadewebsites.com is unavailable then it will muck up the styling)

DATA CONVERSION FROM OLD SYSTEM

Date-of-Birth has been copied across but not people's preference choice for it not to show. (I think that is likely to fall foul of the data protection act, and represents a risk of identity theft, but even if not it is annoying that every single person will have to go into the options and reset their: preferences, BIO, link to their web site, avatar, and all the rest (if they can remember what they were)

I have changed my date of birth to 01-01-1990 as, sorry, I don't feel I can trust you with that data in future.

All "Thanks" and "Reputation" not converted

All "Buddies" not converted

All my subscriptions to threads appears to have been lost (I now only have subscriptions to threads SINCE the new system went live)

Message title on the PMs SENT list no longer available
Both Message Title and Sender on the SENT ITEMS list no longer available

Someone reported that they have subscribed, but are now seeing the ""Click here to donate to remove the adverts" again

THOUGHTS

The Editor is not as convenient to use. The old editor has a simple button to increase the height of the edit box which made it easier to preview a long messages. New one has fixed height box

Its a long way down to the POST button. Some folk may not find it?

I have not found a "reason for edit" field on the "Re-edit a post" form

I find the AJAX posting of new replies more clunky than the old system.

[SOURCE] is overplayed (its fine for a computer techie forum, on the old system the button that got you to the source was more low-key and I think more appropriate)

When re-editing an existing post you have to click EDIT and THEN click a second time for Quick or Full (old system used to just give you the QUICK edit form, and an option to then switch to "ADVANCED" if you wanted it)

EDIT: May be partial solvable by un-setting the OPTION: "Show the quick reply box on the view thread page"

Attachments (on new posts) don't show any thumbnail. Added 08-Jan for attachments added on the new system, problem with attachments from the original system remains

They are also much less slick that before. In the old system clicking on an attachment opened a "LightBox", within the page, that allows Next/Previous to step through all attachments. Now they just open in a new window (and users have to realise that they have to close that window and navigate back to the original one). I thought modern sites etc had moved away from that style!

I've seen a couple of places where it implies that I can have unlimited uploads - I doubt that is the case!! (sorry,I didn't make a note of where I saw that)

Multiple posts (i.e. by the same person with no intervening post from another user) are concatenated into a single post. (I don't know if I post on a thread tomorrow, and I was also the last poster, if my new message will still be appended to the previous one, or if there is a time limit, but the option of using multiple posts to describe multiple points is not available). A diary of "What I did in my garden" for example will become a single continuous massive post (unless someone else posts in the thread). Each such concatenation causes the post to be marked with "This post was last modified ..." - well, it hasn't intentionally been modified!

The clutter of buttons around each post detracts from the readability of the post for me. For example PM and FIND - these could easily be reached from the user's PROFILE page - no need to have them on EVERY post on EVERY thread.

Smilies no longer available in Quick Reply

Blog made available with nothing in it except "test post". Looks amateur.

Likewise all the "Your Advert Here" stuff looks like it was only intended for a Mockup system. And "Click here to donate to remove the adverts" - although there aren't any adverts (yet)

"We have received a total of 0 GBP in donations towards our goal of 30 GBP" suggest that you only need 30 quid in donations (I doubt it, I know it costs a lot to run a site). And "List of donations" is pretty scary - if I donate, or if I have done, will my name be showing? (Maybe there is an option when you donate, I didn't check)

All the internal forums used by support staff were shown in the initial release ("Richard's Embassy" and the like) - which made the site conversion look amateurish

Not much sign of the Powers That Be after the rollout (until the evening). I know you have other lives to lead too, but personally I would have expected rollout to be done at a time when it was convenient for them to be "all hands on deck". Lots of support issues raised with no response for several hours and users left to fend for themselves trying to work things out.

LIKE does not allow it to be removed. Can't see any count of LIKES (like THANKS used to have). There is reputation +1 / -1 which does have a COUNT (its probably me, but I think that is a bit clunky - probably would be better if there were two separate icons for +1 / -1 - thumbs UP and thumbs DOWN perhaps). I have found that I can change, or move, a Reputation that I have given - but there is no indication on the post that I gave reputation - so it will be down to me to remember the posts where I did.

"Report a post" has no message. I used to find it convenient on the old system to be able to describe why I was reporting a post. Even if it was only "Freedloading spamming bas****s" to lighten the MODs day/load.

Languages available picklist: the only choice is "English (American)" - probably not going to be that popular for a Blighty-targetted site!

Not very obvious how to find a way to get from a gallery image in "Latest additions" to who the owner of that was / other pictures from that person

"My Account" : "New Posts" shows posts that have been read (on the old system once read a thread was no longer in the New list). On the New System they remain in the list althogh only unread items are highlighted. Actually because Read Items are still in the list I don't see any difference between "New Posts" and "Today's posts" (although "New posts" may go back further - but the fact that posts are not dropped from New Posts list after reading means that having both seems a bit superfluous)

"Posting Freak" not appropriate for the target audience to this forum

I have just rated this posting as 5-stars - probably ought not to be able to do that to my own posts? (Hardly important though ...)

 

Re: Links not working

Note that this effects links within posts which link to other posts. I have found several that don't work

They just dump you at the 404 page, which does a good search. The Google search works - i.e. it lists the relevant post but ... Google still has the original URL, so it sends you to the original URL and ... you get the 404 error page again :(

(But fixing this with the "URL Rewriter" would be the best way to solve it, as it will fix them all at one stroke)

 

Everything that will be coming from old system, has arrived, reputation/thanks etc won't be carried over.



Google format will be re-indexed shortly to new format as google crawls the site.



As for blogs, i'm not a blogger here, its not my fault nor concern that now one has placed a blog is it?



Adverts are already on the site, hidden to only certain user groups



"Advert here" is for sponsers to buy adslots, its made to nathans wishes.



The System lists all attachments as converted to new format,.



As for calling the conversion amatur, you have most likely very very
little idea what is involved with such a huge move in a very short time.



if you saw any staff forums it was because you logged in while i was
finalizing the last few changes to permissions system which due to a
fault at the Vb end didn't carry correctly.



Any change can be suggested to GC staff and i'll instruct them how to perform them.



Usertitles etc can be changed by GC staff, once nate decides what he wants they can easily change that.



I was paid to convert the system to mybb from a several glitched
vbulletin, once it was established as working correctly my job is done.



90% of the things you mention are mere configuration changes which gc staff will be sure to get to intime



As for the editor used its the only WYSIWYG available for mybb.



as for smileys again not my area, gc staff can rename any smiley codes etc to match old format via admincp



I carried out the instructions I was asked for by the site owner , in a timely and professional manner.

 

Richard, thank you for taking the time to reply; your post comes across as somewhat irritated; just to be clear I am trying to help. I know my post is entirely negative, but that is because I am only listing the things that I see that don't work / could be better or just voicing my opinion on things (and you, and the Admins, can do whatever they like with my opinion, including throwing it in the bin, I definitely do not mind - but hopefully some of my comments will be useful)

I can't see what problems you have been having behind the scenes with vBulletin, but if the site has been made easier to manage, or more robust, for the MODs then I think that is a significant benefit :thumb:.

Just so you know: I have some knowledge in this area. I am the Technical Director for a number of web companies, principle amongst those is an ecommerce company and their typical client take several thousand orders a day - so the sites are large and complex. My responsibilities are on the database side, but I am also in charge of making sure that the web team do their stuff right, and project management of the rollouts. We get new clients who transfer to our sites from other systems, so I am familiar with both the issues of data conversion and making sure that all aspects of the previous system continue to work on our system - including maintaining the Clients' search engine rankings on Google even though the URLs have changed completely, and so on.

If you are not converting significant parts of the data that's fine. But I think you (well, probably not you, but the "Admins") should have explained that to the users. The users just finding that a whole bunch of stuff is missng, and no explanation, and no "what's new" does, in my opinion, make the migration look amateur. (I also recommend a list of "We fixed / improved xxx" - its good PR after all - otherwise users just keep stumbling around in the dark. Looks like the Tumbnails have been added to messages with Attachments sometime this morning for example - I stumbled over it just now)

I do not mean to imply that you are an amateur, that is clearly not the case. But there are aspects of the rollout that appear to be amateurish - such as showing Blog on the main menu but their being nothing there. I can well understand that is not your issue, but someone should have done something about it, and the other niggling things like it, before rollout (or be rushing to do so ... but its still like that now ... or disable it until it is "ready").

I can well imagine what it costs to run a website like this, and I know that is funded purely by the goodness of one or two people. I very much doubt that the advertising revenue does anything other than reduce that cost by a tiny bit. And thus there will not be much money to pay you to spend a lot of time on it. My concern is for the goodwill of the site.

There are some points that you have made that I would like to reply to:

"Google format will be re-indexed shortly to new format as google crawls the site."

Well, yes it will, but it will take a while and it won't cure the whole problem. In my experience Google will retain the old URLs (on which its spider is now seeing a 404) for quite a while. People using Google will still be given those URLs side-by-side / intermingled with the new ones which is confusing and untidy - and the old ones will give the user a 404 error page (the search box uses Google too, so that's a vicious circle)

Google will index the new URLs - probably very soon, IME Google often does that within hours, days at worst - other search engines take much longer (typically weeks) before they respider the whole of a new site. But those spider visits won't appear in the google listings immediately, that takes a bit longer, and Google's re-Ranking is redone far less frequently, so the likelihood is that the rankings will fall in the short term (maybe for as much as three months).

OTOH if you set up a URL Rewriter to issue a 301 permanent redirect then google will change the existing link in situ, which will make a smooth transitions. That solution will ALSO work for all inbound links from things that are not going to change - other people's blogs pointing to specific posts here - heck! even the links WITHIN pages here pointing to other threads WITHIN this site (which are now broken) would be fixed by that.

(Using Google Wbemaster tools, and Site Map XML etc can also be used to speed up the process ... but that only fixes Google)

I hope you have time to look at the 404's in the Web logs and see what inbound broken links can easily be replaced with 301's

"The System lists all attachments as converted to new format,"

Yup, but they don't work

I have updated the thread where I drew this to your attention. Specifically this post has two attachments (greenhouse.jpg and top vent frame.jpg) which do indeed appear to link to new-style attachment URLs, but they don't work (I mean I don't see any image, the content is just a text representation of what the URL shows). If you want a screen-shot do please just ask.

"as for smileys again not my area, gc staff can rename any smiley codes etc to match old format via admincp"

Although they overlap the editing area at times


and even on the occasions when they don't they are so tight against the border it makes it hard to see where the cursor is (when it is at the start of a line)

 

Style on links (within the text of a post / thread) has changed today (as best as I can remember) and they now do not highlight.

Example: http://gardenerscorner.co.uk/forum/Thread-Potatoes.html?pid=404628#pid404628

There is a link on "JBA Potatoes website" - but it is not obvious on my browser as it just shows as ordinary black text (but I'm as good as certain that it was different before)

 

That's good to hear, well done all. (I recommend you do get the colour of links changed though because if they are just black like the normal text they are not easy to see - unless you wave your mouse around of course!)

If the link starts http:.//... or www... its pretty obvious, but ones like this link won't be so obvious :thumb:

 

Hi,
Can anyone tell me how to get rid of the extra info in my signature telling me what font & font size I selected.


[/font] I tried deleting the signature but this part just won't go away.

This is what shows in ClaraLou signature: Clare

Val

 

A couple of strange happenings with me this evening ...

1) I had an option to change my screen to Autumn, Spring or Summer from the Winter ... which I did yesterday. But today I am Winter and have no option ... :s

2) Just a warning when you go into Reply .. there is a link that says change User ... I was just looking and did and I was logged out ..

3) I find it strange that you can see who has looked at your Profile and when .. to the minute ... 'Track your Stalker' perhaps ... ? To those who have looked at mine, it's okay because I know you xx :th_scifD36:

4) I can see the Smilies box (and in particular Merry Christmas) across Kristen's post above .... .... is there a limit to how much you can write?

5) When I post, I go back to the top of the page and have to scroll down to see my post ... is there a read in ascending/descending order here that I have not found?

6) When I edited, my colour coding was removed and there is no way to put it back.

I am not complaining, just making observations and comments ...

 

Val, I have a suggestion:

When you got to EDIT SIGNATURE you will be on the "EDITOR" tab. Change to the "SOURCE" tab and you will see all the SIZE and FONT instructions in square brackets - some will have a "/" just after the opening square bracket

From the "SOURCE" tab delete everything between each set of square brackets - so you are left with just the raw text of your Signature.

Then switch back to the "EDITOR" tab and select a section of text that you want to format, and apply the Font / Colour / Size that you want.

I think that should enable you to sort it out. "SOURCE" mode will then show you the actual commands used (so called "VB Code") and in EDITOR mode you should see it as it will display

 

[size=xx-large]IT'S GONE!!!!!!!! [/size] Thanks so much.!!

Val

 

Thankyou Nathan

 

Thanks Nathan.

I'm pleased to see your new forum, great idea. And I'm seeing lots of things fixed too, well done too all involved.