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We're getting closer

Mike

Well-Known Member
OK, apologies for this just being a teaser photo, but I've set up a test site with Invision Power Board 3.2.0 Beta 1.

tbtest2.png


The other applications we use on this live site are not yet upgraded to be used with the new forum software, so no, it won't be installed here for a while. It's just been released as a Beta test version, which means I cannot run it on a live site. I've allowed the moderators access to the site, so they can start getting a feel for it. And with them testing things on their own, we've a better chance of uncovering bugs. As I've explained to them, the more bugs we uncover, the sooner Invision can squash them and move this project closer to a public release.

Nearly everything is different in this new version. Which means we're going to lose some of our custom skins for a while. And that means what you are seeing above is what we'll be using for a while. As soon as we get it running in the live environment with the Library app and the Gallery app running properly, I'll dive into the code and start editing some new skins for us. Since the new skin is already close to our Aztech Blue, I doubt I'll re-code that one. But we'll get red and green as soon as I can crank them out. I suspect the CleanCut skin will get updated fairly quickly, so we'll bring that one back, as well.

I know there will be some grumping and griping about the new software, but as completely different as it is, nearly all the functions you use on a day-to-day basis are found in the same places. You'll see some differences when you add images or links, because those functions all appear in lightboxes, but other than that, the regular users will be able to adapt in a matter of minutes. The backside of it is where everything is located in a different place. And even at that, I was already getting comfortable with it inside an hour's time. When I set up the first new forum section, I was lost. When I did the second one, I was tickled to see how simple and easy the process really is. Keep an open mind and you'll be comfortable before you know it.

Like i said, it's just a teaser peek, but with Bruce, Jim and Todd helping me test things, we'll help get this one into a public release as soon as possible.
 
I like when people post pics. I know it has improvements, but every time an upgrade happens the way you have to post pics changes then it takes a while for people to figure it out . Some I think give up trying.And pics are worth a thousand words.
JMO
 
Well, some of us have had a busy afternoon.

:wolf:

artbtest1.png




artbtest2.png



artbtest3.png



artbtest4.png


I realized I hadn't tested the ad codes, so I inserted them real quickly and grabbed that last screenshot, showing the sponsors ads.

I'm sure there will still be some cleaning up and straightening away of the red style, but for the biggest part, it is finished! :hooray:

Now if some numpty doesn't forget to copy the CSS file from the test site, before upgrading to the next version, we'll be alright. If you copy the one CSS file into a word processor, it is *only* 69 pages in length. :faint: My fingers are worn to mere nubs after all the typing.

Code:
                    	#branding {
background: #918F8F url(http://www.XXXXXXXXXXX.XXX/public/style_images/XXXXXXXXXX/branding_bg.png) repeat-x;
border-bottom: 1px solid #918F8F;
min-height: 100px;
}

#logo { display: inline; }

#primary_nav {
background: #800000;
font-size: 13px;
padding: 4px 0 0 0;
}

#primary_nav li { margin: 0px 3px 0 0; position: relative; }

#primary_nav a {
color: #FFFFFF;
background: #630E0E;
display: block;
padding: 6px 15px 8px;
text-shadow: 0px 1px 1px rgba(0,0,0,0.5);
}

And, as you can see, colors are as simple as red, dark red, light red, etc. They are all expressed as hexadecimal code. For instance, #800000 is the dark red that makes up the NavBar in the style, #FFFFFF is white and #000000 is black. So when you run into a code expressed as #E4EBF2, what color is that? And if it is one of the original blues (it is), what shade of red do you need to use to replace the blue (#F2E4E7)? :wall:

The good part is going back through to set up the green skin will be a lot easier and will take a lot less time. This one took me about 4 hours, the green will likely only take 2 1/2 hours.
 
There are some minor differences that some Invision customers are turning into major obstacles.

artbtest3.png


If you look at the post divider, there is an icon next to my name to indicate if I'm online or off. If you look at the image above, you'll see IPB 3.2 does not have that icon.

If you look in the postbit (the area to the left of the post content), you see my avatar, my usergroup, my post count, my join date and my location. If you look at the image above, you will see IPB 3.2 is displaying my profile picture (avatars are gone and profile pictures replace them), my user group and my post count. Join date and location information is now going to be available in each user's profile page.

As for avatars being gone, most users do not use profile pictures, so it's a simple matter of your profile picture being your avatar. I think this issue is going to bring about Armageddon on the Invision site, but I don't see how it's a real sticking point for us. If you use your profile picture to display an avatar, you will be able to create an album to show pictures of yourself in the Gallery, so it's really a moot point.

Topic descriptions are now gone. No real loss, as most people do not use them. They have been replaced with tags. And when we upgrade to 3.2, I'm going to be encouraging each one of you to tag your posts. Tags are keywords from your posts. If I was going to write a topic about having a cook-out on the 4th of July and grilling brats on my new Weber gas grill, some tag examples would be "ccok-out", "4th of July", "brats", "Weber" and "gas grill". The new software is going to take tag information and store it in a searchable format. So if you come to the forum and wonder if anyone knows anything about Weber grills, you could do a search on that tag, which would take you to my topic. Another big benefit is that search engines love tags. It gets keywords all lined up for the search engine spiders and bots to digest. Tag clouds and tag pages are like smorgasbord buffets for spiders.

So there are some changes you may not have noticed in earlier screenshots. Todd and I have been banging around on the test site quite a bit and we're finding it is much cleaner and more simpler to use. Bruce has registered over there, but hasn't been doing much posting. We're still trying to lure Jim over to check things out. When the next Beta is released, I'll pull the Beta 1 site down and install a fresh board, so we will be able to see what's been fixed and updated. And we'll keep all of you updated, as well.

If anyone has any questions about IPB 3.2, don't hesitate to ask. It looks very different, but don't let that make you nervous, because things are pretty much located in the same places. If something has been moved, I've generally found it was moved to make the overall forum experience a bit better. When i had my first look of the Admin Control Panel, I was pretty shocked. But within a few minutes time, I was really liking how it has been laid out and how it functions. The front end of the forum is the same way.
 
OK, do you want to see what IPB 3.2.0 looks like for yourselves?

This is a very quiet release of the package to the Beta testers. Invision has yet to make a public announcement about this one. But I do have it running on one of my live sites. I upgraded a small site, so I wouldn't have a huge hassle if the upgrade crashed. There's something flaky about the CSS styling in the code driving the Library, but as I type this I think I may have a solution for it.

Anyway, take a look at the Clann Alba Forums and you can see what it is like.
 
I'm hoping we are only a few days away from being able to upgrade the site.

I am waiting on two scripts to be updated and made compatible with IP.Board 3.2.0. When I have them in hand, I will be able to get everything moving forward. This might seem to be a simple point upgrade, but it is actually going to be a major overhaul of the entire site.

We are going to be saying good-bye to several functions, as the Portal, the Calendar, the Classifieds, and the CleanCut skin will be going away for good. The Classifieds script is already closed to new listings, but I have re-opened the Classifieds forum.

Two of the Aztech skins, Red and Green will be taking a brief leave of absence, until the knucklehead that designed them gets a chance to get them all upgraded. And we all know how that character works (or doesn't work, which is more accurate :drowsy:). The Aztech Blue skin is likely not going to make a return, as the new, default skin is actually close to it. It's also rather close to the CleanCut skin, so hopefully no one will miss CleanCut much. Red will be back within a couple weeks and Green will follow shortly after. Bruce likes the Green and by golly, he's going to get Green. It just takes time to slog from one end of the CSS coding to the other. Some design elements have to be modified, as well, but rest assured I will get them working as soon as possible.

On the scheduled day of the upgrade, I will leave the site open as I start removing things. The sliding, quick log-in will be removed, but will be replaced by IPB 3.2.0's native log-in script that works along the same lines. The members online today and the member groups legend that appear on the forum index page will be removed, but upgraded to their new versions after the forum is upgraded. I will then remove the custom sidebar modules, the Member Map, the Support Tracker the Gallery and the Tech Library.

Once all of those functions are away, it will be time to shut down the forum. There are some 3,100+ files to be uploaded, after which a script is run to upgrade the database. And the time to run the script is a PITA. In a fit of incompetence, someone at Invision decided to do away with avatars, since there are profile pictures. As you might imagine, that was about as popular as a turd in the punch bowl. So the upgrade removes the avatars and then turns right around and re-installs them, if the admins so desires. And I do so desire. So every member account that has designated an avatar is edited to not have an avatar and then is edited a second time, to re-insert the avatar. :wall: A script that improves some of the site's SEO functions and generates a search engine sitemap will then be uploaded and upgraded. Once that upgrade script has run, I will re-open the forums. But you will have to be patient, because there is still a ton of work to be accomplished after that.

The Gallery consists of some 500+ files that will need to be uploaded and an upgrade script run against the database. Once that script is upgraded, I will re-open it. Then there are some 700+ files in the Content script to be uploaded and upgraded. Once that has happened, the Tech Library will come back, but I fully expect it to be broken. Sorry to say, but it is what it is.

I upgraded one of my small sites a couple days back and thought everything was hunky-dory.

content1.png


Notice how the article blocks are alternately floating left and right? In addition, clicking on one of the articles, to open it up resulted in a software error. Not a user error being displayed, it was an error that would crash the entire site. After spending several hours trying to sort the problem, I had an Invision dev look at it. After several more hours, he discovered the solution. The Content script relies on two layers of templates and two layers of CSS coding to generate the Library pages. Makes no sense, does it? Yeah, to me either. And it gets better. When the upgrade script gets run on Content, one layer of templates is upgraded to the new file system. The second layer is not upgraded. And the second layer of templates had been modified by your's truly, to make the display appear as it does. The edits to those templates were incompatible with the coding of the templates in the first layer. I had to set up a fresh test site, install Content on it and then copy all the second layer templates from it to copy onto the upgraded site. :wall:

I finished all that and the articles would finally open, but the article blocks were still floating left and right on me, at resolutions of 1280 pixels wide and lower. On my 1680 X 1050 monitor, everything looked as it should, but was askew in lower resolutions. I rooted around in the code and after about 45 minutes, discovered where block widths were being set with CSS code, making them a percentage of total script width. I reduced the percentage by one and everything lined back up.

content2.png


And imagine, I griped to get this kind of layout in earlier versions of Content, but that was out of the question. I edit a bunch of templates to get that appearance. Then those edits are incompatible with the new version of Content. Because it now comes out of the tin, designed to look the way I initially wanted it to look in the first place.

Of course, that was when I realized there was no archive link to display any articles older than the latest ten articles in the category views. I figured I had missed a permission setting in the Admin control panel and looked high and low to find it. No hope. So, it was back into the templates. I opened the template editor up on this site and identified the code that generates the archive link on the categories. I went to the upgraded site and was able to discover that code was omitted from the new Content files. :suicide: I've no idea if this was merely an oversight or was intentional, but I got the code inserted and working in the new templates and finally have that site's Library working as it should.

So, as you can see, getting the Tech Library back up and running as it should is going to be something akin to root canal or, closer yet, colonoscopy.

I will then upgrade the custom sidebar modules, the Member Map, the Support Tracker and get them all replaced. I will add the hooks back in to get the users online today display back, as well as the member group legend. In native form, IP.Board 3.2.0 does not have an Online/Offline indication in the postbit, but I have a hook to replace that function.

At that time, assuming I've not lost it completely, I will turn my attention back to the Tech Library and will get it repaired.

If things go well, maybe four hours, from get-go to gone. With about 45 - 60 minutes of forum shut down time, to upgrade the actual forum. If things do not go well... :shrug2: The forum is the actual core of the site, so I will get it opened back up as quickly as possible. And being realistic, it will likely be closer to 6 or 8 hours to get everything back to 100%.

I will try to give everyone as much notice as possible, prior to running the upgrades. The forum has a panel that is displayed when the forum is closed, so be sure to read the message on that panel. If something unusual happens (maybe that should say "when" rather than "if"), I will upgrade that panel with pertinent information. As a general rule of thumb, if you ever arrive and find the site is closed, give it 45 minutes to an hour and check back. Barring thermonuclear melt-down, the site should be up and running within that time frame.
 
At least one of us has been keeping busy.

ipb32red1.png


ipb32red2.png


Not only have I managed to code the AztechRed skin for the new forums, but I've added a top menu. And the menu also uses javascript, so it will allow dropdown functions.

Currently, we have those links in a custom sidebar module. But I think I can move some of that to the top menu and clean up the sidebar a bit more. The tags module you see will end up growing, so it will be taking up a lot of room on its own.

Now that the red skin is out of the way, I can start working on Bruce's green. And much sooner than I had planned.

EDIT - To the Mods, you know the address, if you want to play with the public release a bit more. It is a fresh install, so you will have to re-register. Flag me up and I'll get your permissions changed.
 
OK, boys and girls, it's a wrap.

Out of the tin, IP.Board Blue

ipb32bluefinal.png



Back to our tradition, with AztechRed 3.2.0 -

ipb32redfinal.png



And because I know Bruce likes it, AztechGreen 3.2.0 -

ipb32greenfinal.png



As soon as I can things upgraded to 3.2.0, the skins are all ready to upload and install.
 
Grumble, mumble, gripe, piss, moan...

ipb32azbluefinal.png


I just couldn't leave well enough alone. Welcome to AztechBlue 3.2.0. I fought with the NavBar for a couple hours. I was going to try to use the maintitle gradient that is used in the category headers for the NavBar, but trying to get the CSS tabs to look right on the gradient was just not working. Then I couldn't settle on the colors to use for the bar and for the tabs. But I finally got it looking good enough for the girls I used to go out with.

With the exception of CleanCut, we'll have all the skins we have on this version.
 

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