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Issues with PhpBB Spyderco Forums

Posted: Fri Aug 29, 2014 11:43 am
by RamZar
I'm transferring the issues I encountered last night.

First of all this Tech Support forum is not visible if you click on Board Index > Spyderco Forums.
http://www.spyderco.com/forumII/viewforum.php?f=1
It's visible only from: http://www.spyderco.com/forumII/index.php

Outside searches are not linked and may take Google a while to catch up. For instance, my old thread is below with the new PhpBB one below it:

http://www.spyderco.com/forums/showthre ... -amp-Later

http://www.spyderco.com/forumII/viewtop ... =2&t=64718

I wish I could turn off the scrolling Hot Topic icons since they're a bit annoying!

Image

Signatures with SIZE codes will need to be edited. Now, it seems, SIZE is just a percentage number with 100% being normal.
User control panel > Profile > Edit signature


I cannot edit some of my previous posts!
This may be a rights issue within phpBB

After conversion, my forum clock was off by an hour. Go to:
User Control Panel > Board Preferences > Edit Global Settings
Click on Summer Time/DST is in effect: Yes
Click on Submit

After conversion, my Attach my signature by default was turned off. Go to:
User Control Panel > Edit Posting Defaults
Click on Attach my signature by default: Yes
Click on Submit

Re: Issues with PhpBB Spyderco Forums

Posted: Fri Aug 29, 2014 2:54 pm
by RamZar
On the Spyderco website (not the forum) when you click FORUMS > FORUMS HOME it works fine.

However, the following have the old links:

FORUMS > GENERAL DISCUSSION
FORUMS > OFF-TOPIC
FORUMS > PICTURE GALLERY

Re: Issues with PhpBB Spyderco Forums

Posted: Fri Aug 29, 2014 7:21 pm
by RamZar
Another issue is that a lot of the BB Formatting Codes are different!

Re: Issues with PhpBB Spyderco Forums

Posted: Fri Aug 29, 2014 8:39 pm
by RamZar
Seems like Admin can address add-in issues like video embed, inability to edit posts, text editor formatting, etc. by consulting phpBB forum.

https://www.phpbb.com/support/forums/?from=submenu

Re: Issues with PhpBB Spyderco Forums

Posted: Fri Aug 29, 2014 10:52 pm
by RamZar
The Edit button is now showing up and I was able to successfully edit a post from the old forum.

Re: Issues with PhpBB Spyderco Forums

Posted: Sat Aug 30, 2014 6:46 am
by The Deacon
May just be that this new forum software doesn't have a special category for Announcements" like vBulletin had and that Kristi hasn't had a chance to figure out where best to put it here, but the "Forum Guidelines" thread seems to be MIA.

Re: Issues with PhpBB Spyderco Forums

Posted: Sat Aug 30, 2014 5:49 pm
by TazKristi
Hi RamZar,
First, I'm going to ask for a little patience. Please keep in mind that the software is new to us too. We have a vast number of resources at our disposal. Thankfully phpBB is a very robust software and it is stable (compared to vBulletin which became anything but stable). Yes, many of the minor issues being reported could have been corrected before we made the forum live again, but I thought it best to get it live and available for everyone sooner rather than later knowing that there would be several tweaks to do. Some changes are still to come and some may not be possible. This is not vBulletin so some time to adjust to the new environment is to be expected.

The file conversion - moving the data from the old forum to the new forum - took over 4 hours. Then we spent another 4 hours making adjustments and setting permissions. A majority of the default settings would not have worked for us. There were literally hundreds of default settings that we changed. Some of those settings still need to be tweaked and we'll continue to do that.

Let's see if I can address some of the issues you've noted.
RamZar wrote:I'm transferring the issues I encountered last night.

First of all this Tech Support forum is not visible if you click on Board Index > Spyderco Forums.
http://www.spyderco.com/forumII/viewforum.php?f=1
It's visible only from: http://www.spyderco.com/forumII/index.php
The Tech Support forum isn't visible there because it is not under the Spyderco Forums area - it never has been and that's intentional. It is in it's own area under the main board index.
RamZar wrote:Outside searches are not linked and may take Google a while to catch up. For instance, my old thread is below with the new PhpBB one below it:

http://www.spyderco.com/forums/showthre ... -amp-Later

http://www.spyderco.com/forumII/viewtop ... =2&t=64718
This isn't something we can control but with time all the search engines will catch up to the new url for the forum. Google, in particular, is fairly fast at accomplishing this so it shouldn't take too long.

RamZar wrote:I wish I could turn off the scrolling Hot Topic icons since they're a bit annoying!
I've turned off the "Hot Topic" feature. You might need to refresh (F5) to see the difference, but it's done.
RamZar wrote:I cannot edit some of my previous posts!
This may be a rights issue within phpBB
It wasn't a rights issue, but rather a setting that we had to adjust. I addressed this issue last night with a change to the settings.

Again, as we find things or as issues are reported we'll continue to improve and refine the forum. Please just keep in mind that this is something I do as time allows within (or outside of) my "day job" for Spyderco. Hang in there... it will be worth the wait. Like all things Spyderco. :D

Kristi

Re: Issues with PhpBB Spyderco Forums

Posted: Sat Aug 30, 2014 5:55 pm
by TazKristi
RamZar wrote:On the Spyderco website (not the forum) when you click FORUMS > FORUMS HOME it works fine.

However, the following have the old links:

FORUMS > GENERAL DISCUSSION
FORUMS > OFF-TOPIC
FORUMS > PICTURE GALLERY
This was reported by others as well and it was fixed this afternoon.

Thanks.

Re: Issues with PhpBB Spyderco Forums

Posted: Sat Aug 30, 2014 6:00 pm
by TazKristi
RamZar wrote:Another issue is that a lot of the BB Formatting Codes are different!
There will be a lot of things that will be different than what everyone was accustomed to in vBulletin. Unfortunately, not all of them can be "fixed" as they aren't really issues, just differences. I believe in time, we will all adjust and settle in to our new home. Overall the conversion went really well. At least everyone's "Joined" date wasn't changed to the conversion date (that occurred with the last major conversion in 2004 - you'll see a lot of our longtime members with the identical join date of 24 Sep 2004). ;)

Re: Issues with PhpBB Spyderco Forums

Posted: Sat Aug 30, 2014 6:02 pm
by RamZar
Kristi,

I understand and this dude will patiently abide.

No worries and thanks a whole bunch for your excellent efforts.

I know it's not easy nor will it all be accomplished overnight.

Thanks again,
Ram

Re: Issues with PhpBB Spyderco Forums

Posted: Sat Aug 30, 2014 6:04 pm
by TazKristi
RamZar wrote:Seems like Admin can address add-in issues like video embed, inability to edit posts, text editor formatting, etc. by consulting phpBB forum.

https://www.phpbb.com/support/forums/?from=submenu
As I mentioned in an earlier reply there is a vast amount of information at our disposal regarding phpBB software (a much larger resource than was available to us in vBulletin). I made the choice to make the forums live after an 8 hour outage and a majority of issues resolved rather than leave it down longer as we perfected the settings for our purposes. We will continue to refine the forum settings as time allows and that will be an ongoing process. CQI applies to the forum too. :)

Thanks for hanging in there with us.

Re: Issues with PhpBB Spyderco Forums

Posted: Sat Aug 30, 2014 6:09 pm
by RamZar
The editor definitely needs some souping up. Video embedding and more automated coding for lists, IMG, URL, etc.

Re: Issues with PhpBB Spyderco Forums

Posted: Sat Aug 30, 2014 8:05 pm
by jabba359
Thanks for all your hard work Kristi, getting this up and running. I know it is no easy task for you and wanted to let you know that I appreciate all your hard work!
RamZar wrote:The editor definitely needs some souping up. Video embedding and more automated coding for lists, IMG, URL, etc.
I'd like to see this as well, especially the restoration of video embedding.

Re: Issues with PhpBB Spyderco Forums

Posted: Sat Aug 30, 2014 8:45 pm
by RamZar
On the "Topic reply notification" emails can we get a portion of the actual latest post included like we used to under vBulletin?

Re: Issues with PhpBB Spyderco Forums

Posted: Sat Aug 30, 2014 10:26 pm
by RamZar
TazKristi wrote:
RamZar wrote:Outside searches are not linked and may take Google a while to catch up. For instance, my old thread is below with the new PhpBB one below it:

http://www.spyderco.com/forums/showthre ... -amp-Later

http://www.spyderco.com/forumII/viewtop ... =2&t=64718
This isn't something we can control but with time all the search engines will catch up to the new url for the forum. Google, in particular, is fairly fast at accomplishing this so it shouldn't take too long.
Kristi
I've noticed the Google [Bot] and Bing [Bot] as active users on the main forum page quite a bit so it's a good sign.

The problem with links is not isolated to outside search engines. Any post that has a link to another Spyderco Forums post/thread does not work. So, there'll be a lot of dead links within old posts.

Re: Issues with PhpBB Spyderco Forums

Posted: Sat Aug 30, 2014 10:29 pm
by RamZar
Someone asked to see Today instead of a date on recent posts and the answer is:
3rdGenRigger wrote:
I'd like posts from "Today" to say such as opposed to the current date like they used to...just makes it a little faster to identify posts made "Today".
Go to:

User control panel (top left hand corner of main screen)
Board preferences
Edit global settings
My date format
Change it to one of the two "less than a minute ago..." Options

Re: Issues with PhpBB Spyderco Forums

Posted: Mon Sep 01, 2014 5:45 pm
by RamZar
The number of search engine bots to index the new forum keeps increasing:
  • Bing [Bot]
  • Google [Bot]
  • Majestic-12 [Bot]
  • Yahoo [Bot]
Internally, the Spyderco Forums server needs to perform a dynamic URL substitution when an old forum link comes in. There are many sources including perhaps http://www.phpbb-seo.com/en/