Sunday Morning Software Update

[Kerim]

Hang on to your hats, folks!

I've been pretty lax about updating the forum software over the past couple of years. They've released several new versions, and tout the improvements (of course). I'm going to give updating a try. Fingers are crossed that it goes smoothly. I'm going to do this tomorrow morning (Sunday). I'm not sure if this process will disrupt the site's functioning for any amount of time, but if anything seems unusual, that's why.

Just in case anything truly catastrophic happens, rest assured that I'll work to get the site back up as soon as I can.

If the site does go down, feel free to email me for updates at kerimjunk "at" comcast dot net.

Wish me luck!

[rapidacid]

Good luck K dog

[Kerim]

Ok, It looks like the update went more or less smoothly. Things seem to be stable and running fine. The look is a bit changed, and so it feels a bit unfamiliar. But I've got to move on with my day, so I am going to let the dust settle. Please leave any feedback here in this thread. I'll tinker some more when I have a chance.

I also installed a plugin to add a "like" system, which some folks requested a while back. I'm not going to activate it just yet, until I can tell what changes are caused by the general software update.

Thanks for your patience!

[rayray]

Nice changes, very clean looking!

[rapidacid]

First thing I notice is no blue button to show an updated thread since my last visit

[Kerim]

(11-29-2015, 01:01 PM)rapidacid Wrote: First thing I notice is no blue button to show an updated thread since my last visit

Yeah, that is a pretty big feature. Will look into how to get that back right away!

[BLTN]

Looks cleaner. Nice.

BLTN

[rapidacid]

In the grand scheme of things these are pretty minor, but my observations:

Nearly all actions on the site, including just loading it, are noticeably slower than the old version. Not prohibitively slower, just noticeably slower

The look and feel, while probably smoother, seems a lot "looser". ie. things kinda don't line up in places or just feels a bit abstract ... a lot more white /unused space .... old site was pretty rock solid but maybe I'm just used to it

[Kerim]

I agree completely, Rapid. I think what may be going on with the "loose" look and feel is that the theme the site is using is not optimized for the updated software version. I think that is why, for example, many of the things that used to be discrete buttons, such as "new reply" are only showing up as free-floating text links.

Personally, I'd like the site to look and act better than this. My next experiment will be to load up a newer theme, and see if that improves things. I'm not sure if that could also explain the slower feel, but I wouldn't rule it out. I'll dig into all of this as soon as I can. Unfortunately, just as I undertook these updates, a work crisis hit and my daughter has gotten sick.

[Dividend Watcher]

I kinda like the look. I can't tell about speed because the library connection goes up and down by the minute.

I wish you could add more smilies.    

In the meantime, I'll let you experiment while I try to get my new life organized.

[Amos]

Nice update but since then, I stopped receiving reply updates to my email, not sure if it is related though.

[Kerim]

Ok, so I really wasn't liking the look and feel of things there since the version update. I've installed the new default theme. It definitely looks different, and I'd love feedback about it. At very least it does not feel haphazard and broken, the way hte old theme has been since the update.

If there is no major uproar, I'd like to leave this up for a bit and see how people react and settle in with it.

Let me know what you think.

Thanks again for your patience!