Site Upgrade & Feedback 2016

[trilobyte]

I'm sorry for the short notice, folks, but we are most likely looking at tonight for a lengthy site outage in order to upgrade the site's software.

Ideally I would have liked to give people more advance notice, but with the upcoming Main Sale the message board will likely have much heavier traffic for weeks and months to come.

The update has been installed and tested quite a bit on another server, so we should hopefully have eliminated (or at least minimized) any surprises. The upgrade could be done in as little as 6 hours, but I'm giving us plenty of room at 12 hours to allow for the site's databases to update and re-index.

I appreciate your patience, and hopefully we'll have a pretty amazing new site to show you tomorrow.

[Raoul]

Thanks for all your time and hard work on this, Trilo. Fingers crossed that it goes as smoothly as a software upgrade can go.

[trilobyte]

Thanks, I hope so too!

[trilobyte]

And... we're back! I'm very sorry about the extended downtime, a few of the pieces of the puzzle took a little longer than expected to bang into place.

Please feel free to send me a PM or post a reply in this thread with any hiccups or issues you encounter.

One thing that jumps right out to me is the placement of the pretty new toolbar. I'm working on getting that fixed asap.

[trilobyte]

You will notice that there is no longer a button for embedding videos... that's because you should not need to use a bbcode for that. Just paste your youtube, vimeo, etc URL and the site will handle all the legwork for you.

I'll post more about features and functions after I finish getting some of the stuff sorted out, and maybe get a little sleep

[Skuzzy61]

Phew! Was having withdrawl!

[JohnEBGud]

Looks good so far. Having myself migrated platforms and moved BBSs between servers, I appreciate the hard work and effort. Thanks!

[Elliot]

Your efforts are majorly appreciated, Sir Trilobyte!
I have failed to find a link to the main website, such as used to be in the top left corner of ePlaya. Am I looking in the wrong spot, or is it still in the works?

[trilobyte]

Thank you very much, I had some really great support.

The toolbar issue has been resolved, no more giant gap between the pretty buttons and where you type in your messages.

[trilobyte]

Good catch, Elliot...

[mudpuppy000]

Looks pretty nice. Is there a way to change the font/background colors? Grey font on grey background gives me a headache.

[Elliot]

What is "atomicfireball". I received one notification for that, as opposed to the regular ePlaya, and I had to sign in -- which did take me to the thread in question.

[Papa Bear]

Looks pretty nice. Is there a way to change the font/background colors? Grey font on grey background gives me a headache.

I second that question - for whatever reason (presumably contrast), I'm finding text in the new look to be more difficult to read.

Looks great otherwise, though!

[Skuzzy61]

Kind of hard to tell where one post ends and the other starts. Guess I am used to alternating colors for each post. It could be the color scheme exacerbating it.

Kudos to the team though. I know how nerve racking moves like this can be.

[Jackass]

It's kinda bright in here...The two tone beige was a bit easier on the eyes. Nice work with the new look. (change is always a challenge)

[Skuzzy61]

Ahhh, that is what it is. The background color is too light, or the foreground color (post panel) is too light. Damn, that sounds stupid. How about there seems to be a lack of contrast between the post panels and the background color? Yeah,...that sounds like I might have engaged my brain before typing.

[trilobyte]

Thanks for the feedback. This is actually higher contrast (between bgnd and text) than the old site (with its darker background), but we'll take a look at some of the background shading when we get a chance, as well as alternating backgrounds in each post.

[Jackass]

At first glance I had read the thread title as Site Outrage, as if it was being scheduled...lol, funny

[Elliot]

I agree the gray on gray is difficult to read. It may be so that the previous edition was "better" by some standard, but human eyes are finickier than any man-made stuff.

And I agree the posts all seem to run together. Granted, a big colorful signature like mine solves the problem, but it is not reasonable to expect all ePlayans to set up such a thing.

[Just_Joe]

Can you add "go to last post of thread" capability in the mobile view?
It's available in the desktop view with a little box.

[Eric]

I also agree on the need for darker text & better separation of posts, but overall I'm really liking this. It's all fresh & new without destroying the ePlaya we love (I still remember the bitching from the then current crop of "old timers" because of the switch to this format in '03, which happened the week before I joined)

A temp fix on the color issue - anyone can change your text color when you post. Just like we can do when we switch it to red or blue, we can switch to black (I know, not a real fix, but I don't know when fixing the issue is going to fall with the main sale coming up) - just type out your post, when you're finished you highlight it all, choose the "font color" button (to the left of the little box that says "normal") and choose black in the upper left corner.

[Raoul]

Can you add "go to last post of thread" capability in the mobile view?

That functionality is there. It's just on the left hand side of the thread title instead of the right.

ePlaya Mobile.jpg

[Patsh]

Looking good, Trilo! It'll take a bit of getting-used-to, as most things new.

Still can't locate my old 'subscribed' topics, though... I'll keep looking.

[Ratty]

I lovin it Trilo. Of course I'm totally lost but it will all become clear in time. I'll spare you all the fun effects available on the toolbar. They are calling to me. Must resist.

[Elderberry]

Definitely worth the wait! Job well done Trilo.

[Raoul]

Yeah, upgrade looks and works great! Maybe it's my display, but the contrast looks fine to me. Very easy to read, and I find the lighter background to be a bit easier on the eyes than the previous version. Thanks again for all the time and effort you put into this!

[trilobyte]

Nice spot, Raoul. It works when you're logged in (if you haven't, the site doesn't know what you've read and what you haven't), and the icon only shows up if you've read at least some of the posts in that thread.

When I get a chance I'll start posting some threads showing off some of the features, functions, and changes. In the meantime, keep playing around and check out some of the goodies. Currently I'm digging the notification system the most, it lets you know when posts are made in subscribed topics, and even when somebody quotes you in a post (you can change your notification settings in the User Control Panel).

[Ratty]

Just testing the font color.

Trilo, some of your posts are in black font.

Hummm. I put one sentence in black font and the entire post came out in black instead of grey.


This is typed within the brackets.

This is NOT.

[trilobyte]

Thats' generally how the font colors/bbcode thing works, Ratty. That has not changed from the previous version of the site.

I've made a minor adjustment to the font color, making it a little darker.

[Jackass]

There are a lot of nice, new features for making snazzier,eyecatching posts...playtime!