New Forum Software

[Admin]

Sorry for the outages today which some of you may have noticed. I finally found a bit of time and installed the latest forum software. It did take a lot longer than I expected, partly due to the patchy internet here on Koh Tao.

This was a necessity for a few reasons. The old forum software was originally installed back in 2008 and web browsing has come quite a long way since then. This new version should work much better especially on mobile devices which are completely different to what they were like when I first installed it. I've just been testing this new forum out on my phone and it works really well, scales to the screen size so you don't have to keep zooming in and out.

There were a few major bugs with the old version and we were getting quite a few emails about it. Mainly to do with resetting passwords or re-enabling disabled accounts. This new version should have all of that sorted.

On the old software I spent about a week customising the theme to fit in with the Laser Page site, and some of those customisations themselves caused problems due to the age of the code I took from the Laser Page site. When I get a bit of time I'll work on the new theme to make it fit in with the Laser Page whilst still looking modern.

If you find any issues with the new site please leave a comment on this thread.

-Beakster

[andyd]

That explains it many thanks

Andy D

[Big Mike]

Looking good to me Beakster!

Loads and loads better on the iPhone now too, which was a real pain tbh!

Very happy thanks, Happy New Year

Mike

[Beakster]

Loads and loads better on the iPhone now too, which was a real pain tbh!

Thanks for the feedback Mike, glad to hear it's working well for you

[-JC-]

What the goddamn hell? This is weird and confusing and I hate it!!!!

Ok in all seriousness I will get used to it but it confused the hell out of me - I tend to leave a whole bunch of tabs open in my browser, including 7 different forums. One looking different was very disorienting - I had to check the URL to see if I was still in Kansas or not.

[Tamworthbay]

Looks brilliant, and much easier on my phone.

[-JC-]

Awesome, there's a "quick links" button (top left) where you can view useful things like "new posts" and "active posts" etc. I love this feature on other forums, am glad we have it too!

[80s kid]

I don't like change lol.

[Andrew 2.8i]

Hi Beakster,
Great changes, I love it! Seems to work well on Android phones too, which is just as well because I can't afford an iPhone!
Andrew.

[fordperv]

its looking good

[Fordoholic Nick]

Hi Beakster

This is fantastic mate. So much better ! I can do so much more on my android now than before so much much easier to keep in touch on the go ! Thanks for doing this fella. Looks really cool too. Its brilliant.

Just need to get used to the new format....

All the best

Nick

[damajin]

Good work Beakster, it's down to the efforts of people like yourself we get to share in this community of oddballs with a common interest.

Thanks for all the time you put in!

[brooky]

Look and feel is much better on my tablet, much easier to navigate as well. Thanks for taking the time to get this done, well worth it.

[pbar]

I'm sorry but I hate the changes. Looks ordinary and is hard on the eyes. It was great before.

[Peter-S]

Certainly not up to much on my old laptop

[stevemarl]

Sadly I have to agree. I can see how it would be clearer on a small screen, but as it displays on my laptop it just seems bland and actually less easy to navigate. Having said that, I`m sure I`ll get used to it.

[atomic4]

Nice one. Much appreciated.

[MS Injection]

Just a new layout. Will take a bit of getting used to, and as Beakster said, he will tweak it more in tune with the main site. Personally, now I've seen it a few times I'm fine with it!

[-JC-]

Like beakster said, it's just the basics at the moment. Will be better once he gets some templates set up.

Hi Beakster,
Great changes, I love it! Seems to work well on Android phones too, which is just as well because I can't afford an iPhone!
Andrew.

Android is better anyway, iPhones are just for posers.

[Andrew 2.8i]

Awesome, there's a "quick links" button (top left) where you can view useful things like "new posts" and "active posts" etc. I love this feature on other forums, am glad we have it too!

JC,
You appear to have a thorough knowledge of all things forum related. On the main forum pages, for example Rant and Rave, what are the significance of the different icons (some are red, some are scrolling, some have stars) on the left hand side of each post? I can't find any reference to these to say what they mean. That's the only part of the new-look forum that I don't understand yet, and needless to say, it's annoying me and I need to know!
Thanks,
Andrew.

Edit:
I now understand that if the icon is red it means that there are posts that I haven't read, but what about the scrolling and the stars? Anyone know?