Make your voice heard

[Mike]

OK, you thankless bunch of miscreants, this is your chance to make your opinions known.

As you will see in another thread, the Hot Rod Refuge is now running on a newer version of the XenForo forum software. It is a much-improved version of what we are running here and offers many new options, features and functions to users and staff, alike.

I've spent the last 3 days, hammering and banging about with the new version and have managed to get our most-used add-ons working. There are a couple of snags, however neither of them is an insurmountable obstacle. At least not to me. Your mileage may vary.

The Xen Media Gallery will not currently display images on the forum list, which is currently an option only available to the members who have donated to help keep the site alive. But the gallery is as popular as a bald-headed, freckle-faced stepchild and I am currently trying to peddle the license. So it is really a non-issue, from where I sit.

Problem number two is going to have a bit more effect and on everyone. We are currently using a Xenique style, DXF-Red, as our default style. And the style is 'broken' in the new version of XenForo. The developers of the style are aware of the problem, but they will not be addressing the issue until after XenForo 1.2 has passed through Beta and Release Candidate status. Since there is no dated roadmap for XenForo's testing releases, I cannot begin to guess how long it might be until we see Xenique updating their styles. Six weeks? Three months? I just don't know.

I posted a thread to the Hot Rod Refuge site, asking for the members of that site to tell me what they thought about using a darker style for a while. As is typical , I didn't get much response, but the response I did get was all favorable. So I am going to ask for your opinions, to see how you feel about it.

This would be what we would use, at least temporarily, as a default style. The style is called Blackend and it comes in some different flavors, Blackend-Yellow, Blackend-Blue, Blackend-Green and the Blackend-Red you see above. If you want to see the various color options, visit the Hot Rod Refuge and use the style selector in the lower-left corner, to take a look.

As you can see, I edited the test site with the logo from this one and the sponsor ads.

For those who are concerned about what the post view looks like, the panel is a gradient that quickly moves off black to a charcoal, so posts are actually pretty easy to read. Personally, I've never been a big fan of dark styles, but Blackend is starting to make a believer out of me. I guess this auld dog can learn some new tricks.

Behind Door #2 would be the standard, XenForo default style. I am not a fan of it, not even a little bit. However, it would give everyone a lighter style to use.

To re-cap -

Being forced to use these styling options will only be for as long as it takes for the Xenique devs to update our DXF-Red style.

Once I have the updated Xenique styles in hand, I would once gain make DXF-Red our default, signature style. But I would also leave the Blackend styles, for those who like using a darker style.

As for my own take on all of it - as a XenForo customer, I am tickled by the effort that has been poured into XenForo 1.2. As such, I am willing and eager to help their devs with Beta and Release Candidate testing. I've been using 1.2 on their company forums for a couple weeks and have been testing on one of my own servers for 3 or 4 days. I love the new features. I think the user side is a lot better and I can definitely state the admin side is vastly improved. I will say that as soon as I can get updated versions of the Xenique styles installed, I will likely (well, maybe) jump right back onto DXF-Red, but neither am I throwing rocks at the Blackend styles.

All of which renders down to me being ready to upgrade this site. I am sorely tempted to just upgrade and your opinions be damned. But I am not going to do that. I will only upgrade if the majority of you are ready for that to happen.

So that means you need to take the time to cast your vote and let me know your thoughts. The bottom line is if 3,000 of you absolutely hate the style options that will be temporarily available, but can't be bothered to tell me, then you are most likely going to be very disappointed to find I have upgraded things.

Speak now, or forever hold your peace. Trust me, I won't brook any negativity after the upgrade, so if you don't like the proposed options, then now is the time to tell me. Cast your vote and feel free to reply to this thread with your thoughts and ideas.

The poll is going to display votes, so I can see who is voting and who is not.

 

[Mike]

Here are some of the new toys XenForo 1.2 will bring to the table -

• F-I-N-A-L-L-Y, when a member reports a post, the reporting member will get an alert when the report is either resolved or rejected.
• bcrypt password storage, which is much more secure than the Ft. Knox-like encryption we are already using.
• The Members List will become a thing of the past. As in good-bye spam magnet!!!
• Notable members List will move in, showing members with the most posts, members with the most Likes, members with the most Trophy Points, members celebrating Today's Birthdays and online Staff Members (who are not hidden).
• Thread notification emails now have 2 unsubscribe links that do not require users to login to use them; one link stops email notifications from the thread the email was from, while the other stops them from all content.
• Usergroup and staff banners, which will display stacking banners under a user's avatar.
• Deeper spam prevention and management tools, including message content checking for new members. This is H-U-G-E!
• Users with permission to edit their posts will be able to edit thread titles.
• We will have the ability to promote members to forum staff, but allow that promotion to be stealthy, so no one will be able to identify them as staff.
• The ability to watch a forum will be added. You can now watch threads, but you will able to watch an entire forum and be notified whenever new posts appear in that forum.
• The XenForo default style will be a responsive style!! Mobile users will love this, as we will be able to bin the Tapatalk add-on. The Blackend style is also responsive.
• Signature permissions will be added, so members with permission will be able to change fonts, font colors, font formatting (bold, italics, etc) and font sizes.
• Personal Conversation Management is going to be greatly improved.
• The TinyMCE text editor will be gone, gone GONE!!! <dancing the happy dance> Redactor is the replacement.
• Pasting images into posts as attachments, rather than using the upload function.
• Drag and drop uploading, if your browser of choice will support it.
• A new smilie insertion tool
• Auto-saved drafts of forum posts. Every 60 seconds, your work will be saved for you in a draft format. No more lost posts!
• An alert will be displayed if posts have been submitted to a thread whilst you are composing a response.
• Users will be able to disable the Flash uploader, if their browser/operating system won't play nicely with Flash.
• Search engine robot identification in the online users list.
• Page nodes will be searchable. Examples of page nodes would be the forum rules, privacy policy, TOS, etc.
• User tagging, which will allow you to bring a post to the attention of a member or members.

 

[HenrysT]

I like to see the forum so it is easy on the eyes!! No dark back grounds with electric pink lettering that will burn your retinas or other contrasting colours that makes it hurt to read. I hate going to web sites that have this type of print schematics. As far as the "toys" and "whiz-bang" things ... go for it

 

[Mike J]

Thank HenrysT for meeting the donation goal.

 

[Mike]

I like to see the forum so it is easy on the eyes!! No dark back grounds with electric pink lettering that will burn your retinas or other contrasting colours that makes it hurt to read. I hate going to web sites that have this type of print schematics. As far as the "toys" and "whiz-bang" things ... go for it

OK, your vote and your post are somewhat contradictory. In spite of the fact none of the styles are using 'electric pink lettering', you vote against the upgrade process. Then you post and say I should bring in the toys. If I 'go for it', then the upgrade will be bringing in the styles I indicated in the original post, which are the styles you voted against.

 

[benT]

Mike: I'm another that's ok with upgrades, but as far as color styles, I don't like the black versions. When I logged in to the refuge site, it had changed to the blackened version, and after a bit I had to change the style back to the white background. just my opinion. What ever you do, if there is a style like the "blue" one on this forum, I'm happy.

 

[Mike]

Fair enough, Ben. We'll get to that point, but it will be a while afore it happens. As I said earlier, as soon as the Xenique devs get their styles updated for 1.2, I'll get them installed for everyone.

 

[HenrysT]

Mike, When I voted for not to change the"style" , I was thinking the "look" of the forum(s).
As far as "toys", were working on cars that their suspension designs that have been around for 100 years, I know how to turn my puter on, and to shut it off, I click start.

 

[Telman2]

I voted not to upgrade, all of the black styles and the default white/pink/light blue are all hard on my old eyes. I use the DXF style here, it's the one that doesn't seem to bother me. Who knows, maybe it's just old age refusing to accept change but I say "if it ain't broke don't fix it."

Chuck

 

[Mike]

I think I may have opened up Pandora's box, here. Because this seems to be getting harder than it really has to be.

Chuck, I like the 'don't fix it' philosophy, every bit as much as yourself. But in this case, the upgrade to 1.2 is going to fix some bugs, in addition to extending the functions of the forums. The plus to all of this is that whilst some bugs are getting squashed and new features are being added, the improved Redactor editor is the only change that is going to be forced upon our users. (And trust me, TinyMCE may not be broken, but we will all appreciate the move to Redactor.) Beyond that, absolutely nothing is going to change for anyone. The forums will be laid out the same way, the threads will be laid out the same way, individual posts will be formatted the same way, etc.

Which means the upgrade to 1.2 is inevitable. It is going to happen. We are not going to get stuck on a dead branch, particularly not when upgrades are right there for the taking. A very popular hot rod forum site ran an ancient version of vBulletin software, until a year or so back. I was always amazed at how they continued to run a package that had been replaced back on 2005 and had been End Of Life for nearly as long. When they finally upgraded the site, they upgraded to a version that is now well over 2 years old.

What people do not realize is the software used on a Web server often forces other scripts to be updated, in order to work. For instance, nearly all forum software runs on PHP, with MySQL databases. PHP has gone through 36 upgrades, since the release of the vBulletin package the other site is currently using. And they were doubtless forced into that upgrade, as PHP has been upgraded 70 times, since their original package was released. What that comes down to is spending truckloads of time, money and effort to try to keep deprecated software compatible with current Web standards.

So, we will be upgrading, to XenForo 1.2. I would rather it be sooner, rather than later. But to make that happen, I knew everyone was going to have to temporarily use one of two, completely different styles than what we have been offering. And I really didn't want to force anyone into a change without the possibility of a work-around. Mea culpa, I suppose, for trying to work with everyone. As one member of this site, who shall remain nameless, said, I should have just announced we were upgrading because of a security patch and moved forward with the upgrade <shrug>

But I have to admit, when I read over what some of you are saying about what you like and want in a forum style, I am starting to get confused. Maybe it is time for me to run a poll, asking exactly what everyone wants in a style. OK, that's a bad idea and ain't gonna happen.

I am finding there are a lot of people who like the DXF style, on this site. Which is the all-blue style. People feel that one is easier on the eyes than the DXF-Red, or the XenForo default. That's fair enough, and I promise that we will always try to make that style available for use (bearing in mind that will depend on Xenique continuing to develop the style).

But here is where I get confused.

Above are screenshots of the three styles available on this site. The top is from the XenForo default style. The center is from the DXF (blue) style. And the bottom is from the DXF-Red style.

In all sincerity, I cannot see a lick of difference between the XenForo default and the DXF styles. The post view uses the same white background, with the same powder-blue in the postbit. They are completely identical, at least to my own eye. So you see, I look at these two options and I cannot see why one is any easier on the eyes than the other. And the only difference in DXF-Red is a change from a powder-blue, in the postbit, to two shades of gray. When I read the text in the above examples, they all appear the same to me.

Please understand I've been told all my taste is in my mouth, so I am being perfectly serious when I ask for someone to point out the elemental differences that make one of the above options any easier to read than the others. What am I missing?

I will certainly agree there are some color changes on the forum view and on the forum index, but aren't we all here to read and create posts? So what area needs to work the best for us, forum index, forum view or the actual thread view?

No matter what the highlighting colors are, in order for text to be read, we have but two options. We either have dark text on a light background, or light text on a dark background. We can always style things to display medium-gray text on a mdium-gray background, so there is absolutely no contrast, but I think that might make posts a little difficult to read.

Here are some links to some of the more well-known and more-popular XenForo style designers' sites. Take the time to look through them and tell me what you think will work the best for us -

Artodia
pixelExit
Xenique
RazorThemes

And please remember, if we do move forward with the upgrade, the loss of the DXF and DXF-Red styles will only be temporary.

tem-po-rar-y - adj. - Lasting, used, serving, or enjoyed for a limited time.

 

[Telman2]

I can live with the default style on this forum if that's all we had. The two optional styles define the separation of the posts better then the default with the main difference between the two being either a red or blue banner at the top. What I did was to open 3 windows with the same forum page in each window then changed the style in each window and compared them. I found the DFX the most appealing to me.

Black backgrounds are irritating but I guess I could live with the TBF Red Style, (why is it called red style when the top banner is blue?).

Chuck

PS, OK I'll withdraw my nay vote, you have my OK to upgrade the forum software, LOL.

 

[RPM]

I like the blue style on this forum just fine. Everything else seems to be working fine.

 

[Mike]

(why is it called red style when the top banner is blue?)

You get the eagle eye award.

The TBF-Red style is one I was trying to code, so we would have a DXF-Red look-alike for XenForo 1.2. I'm five hours deep into the project and hating the effort more with each passing minute. And to be quite honest, I still do not know if I can get it all working the way I want, which means I just might be writing off a truckload of effort.

And the header is no longer blue, it is now black.



It is a tremendous fight, as I have never styled for XenForo, prior to today. And it has been doing a good job of punting me into touch. No matter how deeply I have searched, I cannot find the code that is keeping that breadcrumb a light-blue, when it should be gray. And hovering over the primary NavBar links has them changing to blue, rather than a lighter shade of red. Xenforo is some pretty clean code, but the NavBar coding is an absolute labyrinth.

My original intent was to try to get a customized red style working, then apply myself to working on duplicating the DXF blue style. But to be quite honest, I am thinking it might be time to fold my hand and wait things out. I somehow 'broke' the editor, and I've no idea what change made that happen, so I am going to be forced to start backing my way out, until I find what destroyed the editor. And then start moving forward from there. Life is too short.

 

[Telman2]

Mike,

Slow down for a minute and take a deep breath. My bucket wasn't built in a day but I accepted what I could do with what I had and I loved it. I really didn't care what anyone else thought about it, it was mine and I was proud of it. When you say life is too short I agree with you so quit trying to be the best, fastest, most viewed, or come up number 1 on what ever search engine and be proud of what you've done. I'm 70 years old still driving a bucket I built when I was 25. 45 years later it's far from the used 265 c.i. stock Chevy V-8 and mostly 40's running gear but I'd love it just as much as if it were still in it's original form. I think people today for the most part are in a pi**ing contest trying one up one another, slow down, appreciate and accept life.

Chuck

 

[Mike]

...so quit trying to be the best, fastest, most viewed, or come up number 1 on what ever search engine and be proud of what you've done.

I wish I could. I really do wish I could.

When I was still part of the race team, I quickly realized winning wasn't everything. Instead, I learned winning was the only thing. I learned to never, ever, never leave anything on the table.

When I was a wee toerag, there was always a fundamental principle pounded into my thick head.

If something is worth doing, it is worth doing well. (My own compulsive behavior escalates that to it is worth doing better than anyone else can do it.)

Just don't confuse my compulsive behavior for being OCD. I refuse to suffer OCD, at least not until they get those letters in a proper alphabetic order.

I made a couple of huge strides on the red style. If I can just get the hovered NavBar links right and get the moderator bar to be black, rather than blue, then I will have it. Heck, the header is even red, now. If I can just get over those two hurdles, then we will have our signature red style ready to launch and I will install this style (<--- what do you think about that one??) to give everyone a blue style and we will be ready to upgrade.

But relax and let someone drive around me? Nahhhh, I'm not going to make it easy for anyone.

 

[bigfrank330]

Blue looks GOOD

 

[Telman2]

As long as it's not black go for it, I think the blue looks good.

Chuck

 

[jmr122848]

SI'm easy, but that black sucks.

 

[Mike]

OK, everybody, run over to the Refuge, scroll down to the style selector and select the Social style. In my not-so-humble opinion, it looks like ass , but I think you fellows using the blue DXF style might be able to live with it. At least until I can either A) get a red style and a blue style working, or B) Xenique gets their styles upgraded.

Please remember, the Social style would only be temporary.

Your input is appreciated, so please report back.

 

[Mike]

OK, here's the deal -

I have managed to get the DXF-Red elements coded into a new, TBF-Red style, over at the Refuge site. So there is a red style that closely matches this one, with some minor NavBar changes (thanks to my pal, Lisa, from XenAdmins).

And I have installed the Social style over there, for the people who like the DXF style on this site. It's not a perfect match, but mighty darn-close.

So read this and rejoice, or weep, whatever tickles thy fancy.

I am now ready to upgrade this site to XenForo 1.2. Styles were our biggest obstacle, but I have all that remedied. (After no small amount of effort, I might add.) All of our add-ons are working with 1.2, so that is not holding us back.

Stand by for a forum upgrade, tomorrow morning. That will be Tuesday, 25 June. I will most likely close the site down around 7:15 AM, EST. I will need to remove a couple of add-ons that are no longer necessary, and from there I will be uploading all the 1.2 files and running the upgrade process. Once I am finished there, I will need to install the TBF-Red and Social styles. So, our total downtime should be less than 1 hour. No guarantees, but assuming things go as smoothly as they did over at the Refuge, we won't be closed down even that long.