Forum Software Update

[Bennoz]

Guys you may have noticed a brief offline period a minute ago, I've just updated the forum software (phpBB) from V3.0.10 to 3.0.11

There's nothing fancy about it, just a maintenance update with a bunch of bug fixes.

Complete change register can be seen here

Also, Nighthawk has been kind enough to do us a new skin. I've been testing it for the last few weeks. Its still not yet finalised, I have a number of changes I need to make to it, but I'd like a few volunteers to test & get feedback from as well. You can flick over to the new skin by going into your profile -> Board Preferences -> and changing 'My Board Style' from FTOAustralia to FTOAustraliaV3.

I'll start a new thread for skin tester feedback

Cheers,
Bennoz!

[Kustom]

[ObsidianRadio]

The new skin looks awesome mate!! I reckon the top banner needs an FTO on the right hand side as well though, I'm a fan of symmetry


But seriously... AWESOME JOB.

[Kustom]

2 second points I found.

- Clicking on banner up to should take us home... or give us a home button, appart from the the board index button
- Also when searching for new posts or your posts is it possible to also have the relevant section under the result?

But apart from that, its great and top job Nighthawk! Love your work mate hope you don't take my points as offence!

EDIT: Feel free to move this to your new thread ben, that you havn't created yet.

[bjk]

Ooh, I like the new Quick Reply thing.

Looks alright, some things moved about to get used to. Personally I'd like the "view new posts" to replace the "view your posts" permanent button underneath the banner as I use it more often.

And agree with Kustom re: the banner being a home button. Took me a moment to realise "board index" was home.

[Technikhaus]

I had an issue on my mobile, that the DPs went into the post, and under the text
And what happened to the button that takes you to the last unread post?
Also, Images no longer resize to the window size, they add scroll bars to the post....

[bjk]

Also, Images no longer resize to the window size, they add scroll bars to the post....

Think it might just be for attachments from a PC, but agreed it's a bit iffy.

Clogging up the wrong thread already!

[Technikhaus]

Nah, linked photo's don't fit anymore either, just check in my build thread :/

[-Nighthawk-]

Thanks for the feedback. Yep still got to finish the banner, fix a bug with the avatars, top menu and some tweaks here and there to get it working properly.

Bennoz has all the files but otherwise I can finish the development in November after exams

[Kustom]

Sounds good! Thanks man!

[Bennoz]

Sorry for the outages folks, just doing a few quick updates.

Will post more details shortly.

[Bennoz]

Hey guys, quick summary of what's been updated.

I've installed 'AutoMOD' which is a utility that allows me to very quick add MODX modifications packages for phpBB. Things like chat rooms & galleries & stuff like that I can now look into doing. It was just too fiddly the manual way & it made the board almost impossible to port between hosts if we needed to move it again. More details here if anyone is interested: https://www.phpbb.com/mods/automod/

This is all in preparation for the move to phpBB 3.1 - which is coming out soon & has some fairly major changes. I've also requested our host upgrade the version of php on theirs servers as phpbb3.1 will not run on anything less the php version 5.3.2 (host is currently using 5.2.17) More info here if interested: https://www.phpbb.com/community/viewtop ... &t=2152375

Also, I've updated the Tapatalk plugin to version from version 3.2.0 to 3.5.0. Again, its a fairly large upgrade and to utilise all of its new features, I had to install the full package using the new AutoMOD system.
Full changelog details here if interested: http://support.tapatalk.com/threads/tap ... 691/page-3
Also, make sure your version of the phone app is up to date to use all new features.

Finally, -Nighthawk- has tweaked the new skin up. List of changes as follows
- Updated the main banner (FTO added to right etc.)
- Banner is now clickable to go to the home page
- Added "View New Posts" to the main menu
- Fixed the Avatar issue when window is re-sized
- Fixed the top menu, now layers properly underneath
- Fixed the image re-sizing (new tool installed into forum)
- Removed the popular topic icon, replaced with standard images
- Added a button to go to the board index at the bottom of the topic

So, if I could have some more volunteers to test the skin, that would be great!

You can flick over to the new skin by going into your profile -> Board Preferences -> and changing 'My Board Style' from FTOAustralia to FTOAustraliaV3.

[Bennoz]

Oh & also fixed the noobies icon

[-Nighthawk-]

There's a few issues with the current build, in particular signatures, I'll be fixing up all of them tonight

[PHIL069]

I have had a play with the new version. Great work Nighthawk

Likes...
-Overall look of forum
-Smaller pics on thread pages with zoom function
-"Search this topic" bar on top of each thread page
-Date that the thread was created beside Authors name
-Noobs icon

Idea...
-Changing FTO pic's on Main banner, maybe pics change each time you log on or change each hour or change each day/week or members enter pics of their FTO's for a monthly change.

Dislikes...
-Main page/Forum topics page/New posts page now has Statistics column with Replies + Views counts stacked on top of one another. Much prefer individual Replies + Views columns, makes it easier to compare/watch numbers.
-Hard to determine start/end of each post. Would prefer a darker (black) dividing line.
-In "Post Reply" "Upload attachment" the Browse button is not showing as a correct button. It does not change the pointer to a hand and does not change to red when hovering over the button.
-The line spacing in multable stacked quotes. In the following attachment you can see that I have quotes from Vectose, then bjk (this quote is too close to Vectoses' quote), then Daniel has placed a smilie in his quote (the spacing that the smilie has created is much prefered for all stacked quotes)

Edit: I have adjusted my screen and different posts are now easier to determine from each other
Edit 2: I cannot right click on "Post reply" and open in new tab?
Edit 3: In "New Posts Screen" It does not state which Forum/Section the post belongs to/comes from.

[SchumieFan]

I'll be the c**t that says its less iPhone friendly (safari) but ill get used to it.

Better tell Aza the 'mark forums read' is at the top right now too, used to be top left, then bottom, now top right... It's like an Atari game keeping us on our toes!!!

[SchumieFan]

And lol @ your 1 warning

[-Nighthawk-]

Ok just finished fixing up a few of the bugs. Changes include:

- Signatures now fit in properly
- Topic header is now properly aligned
- Overall forum width extended slightly
- Posts are now separate from each other, separated by white space
- Adjusted quote spacing

@Phil:
- The new topics / new posts are embedded into PHPBB, I have no control over how that function works.
- The post reply works normally, try clearing your cache
- You can right click Post Reply and put it in a new tab.

I'll be tweaking the theme here and there as I find little things, but I think overall it now functions properly

[aza013]

I'll be the c**t that says its less iPhone friendly (safari) but ill get used to it.

Better tell Aza the 'mark forums read' is at the top right now too, used to be top left, then bottom, now top right... It's like an Atari game keeping us on our toes!!!

Well that's good news about the forum read button has been moved , I won't hit it instead of the refresh button .

[Astron_Boy]

-Date that the thread was created beside Authors name

Thank f**k.

That was my only gripe with the current one.

I'll be the c**t that says its less iPhone friendly (safari) but ill get used to it.

Hmm, just found my next gripe then.