New message board software

[Bill Kiene semi-retired]

Thanks Gregg for getting us on this new, safer software.

[Gregg Machel]

You are most welcome Bill! I have wanted to upgrade this for a while now.

Everyone's account/passwords, and messages should have been transfered to this new messageboard. We are now on a new, MORE RELIABLE server, and we also changed the messageboard software from PHPBB to vBulletin.

We will be updating the look of the messageboard shortly, but as it is now, it is fully functional. I am sure we will have a few kinks to work out, but should not be a problem. This messageboard software is fully supported and has a great reputation. I also use this same software on a site that gets over 1 million hits a day, so it's rock solid.

If anyone has any problems with their account, please let me know directly at gcmachel@comcast.net. I will do my best to get you back up and running as soon as possible.

[Charlie Gonzales]

Wow what a difference! Thanks for all your hard work Gregg.

[Bill Kiene semi-retired]

We will be working on the "look" of the message board more soon.

[Anne Vitale]

Gregg and Bill, thanks for upgrading the Board. I was surprised when I logged on this morning that the Board would not let me post until I entered my name and password. I am glad to see that that was a one time only requirement. I think the look of the Board is going to take some getting used to. I also noticed that avatars are not currently supported. Not that they are very important but I kinda liked mine.

Photos--I see posting photos is different now. Let me give it a try. Here is a shot of Gary Anderson, Steve Godsall and moi on the Rogue taking a lunch break from a hard morning of fishing. The shot was taken by Donna O'Sullivan.

[Flycanoe]

I've used this BB software on another fishing board and my thoughts as a user are that it works OK, but always seemed slow to me, and the look and feel was plan vanilla, nothing special.

Still, you guys have to do what's necessary to keep things running, but just keep in mind that new software is not always a benefit. Just look at NCFFB, that board has declined significantly as a result of their upgrade last year.

[aaron]

Board looks pretty much the same to me? Same forums, same users and what not. Same software as the speypages it looks like. Only complaint is the PM capacity is only 50. Props to Gregg for doing what it takes to keep the site up and spammers out.
I think the "other" board's decline had much more to do with other issues besides software.
My 2 cents. Thanks Gregg!

[Gregg Machel]

I will update the PM to 100 in a few minutes, hopefully that will work better. Keep the feedback coming, I will make any adjustments needed (within reason).

Gregg

[Darian]

I recognize that it's early in the transition and the change was necessary.... But, I'd like to point out a couple of features that maybe need to be added or changed, etc. First, there're a very limited choice and number of emoticons available and their use is limited (one choice per post). Second, the "Forum Jump" button appears at the very bottom of the page. Why not have this button appear on top the page as well as the bottom to assist in navigation???

In spite of the new look, this version is plain vanilla and, so far, lacks the features of the previous software.

Probably won't affect my usage tho. :-)

[Gregg Machel]

Thanks Darian, comments noted, I will work on this shortly. There are a lot of little setting that need to be tweaked and I added yours to the list.

A new look is on the way, just wanted to get the "mechanics" working first.

[Flycanoe]

FYI, the pages are taking longer to load with the new software, and many times I'm getting blank pages that require one or more refreshes to load it. So anything to improve the speed would be good.

[Gregg Machel]

Gregg and Bill, thanks for upgrading the Board. I was surprised when I logged on this morning that the Board would not let me post until I entered my name and password. I am glad to see that that was a one time only requirement. I think the look of the Board is going to take some getting used to. I also noticed that avatars are not currently supported. Not that they are very important but I kinda liked mine.

Photos--I see posting photos is different now. Let me give it a try. Here is a shot of Gary Anderson, Steve Godsall and moi on the Rogue taking a lunch break from a hard morning of fishing. The shot was taken by Donna O'Sullivan.

Anne,
You were actually the first to upload a picture and post it. This is a feature that was not availble in the old version. I think you can still use the [ IMG ] [ /IMG ] tags to post pictures the "old way" too.

Old Way Test:
http://kiene.com/images/billkiene-small.jpg

[Gregg Machel]

FYI, the pages are taking longer to load with the new software, and many times I'm getting blank pages that require one or more refreshes to load it. So anything to improve the speed would be good.

I noticed this too, but only from work where my connection is not so good. I'll look into this more, I am sure there is something I can do about it. Thanks!

[Flycanoe]

Also, the default time for everyone is GMT. If you can change the default to PST, then everyone won't have to go in and change it themselves (which many might not do).

[SF fly fisher]

Love the new look very much!

Only problem that I have found so far is that I can't find a public access to photo albums. I started an album today and the only way that I could view it from the main menu was to log in and go to my profile and click the link there to view images that I posted.

Also it would be nice to be able to batch up-load all the images in one go from my harddrive by select shift clicking all the images in the file that I want to use. As it is now you can only select one at a time and then open the file again and then selecting another image and going through the directory to select another, etc until you have the three that the program allows you to upload. As you can see this is very time consuming.

[Gregg Machel]

Also, the default time for everyone is GMT. If you can change the default to PST, then everyone won't have to go in and change it themselves (which many might not do).


Thanks, completly missed that one, default time is now PST and set to recognize daylights savings time too.


I just noticed the time still is not PST, I will research this some more.

[Flycanoe]

Might want to consider changing default display option to be consistent with last software. That is display most recent thread with most recent post on top (descending). I had to change my setting to get this mode set the way it used to be.

[Gregg Machel]

FYI, the pages are taking longer to load with the new software, and many times I'm getting blank pages that require one or more refreshes to load it. So anything to improve the speed would be good.

So far I am only having this problem in IE 6. In firefox and later versions of IE, I haven't seen this yet. I am still looking into it though, it's really annoying.

Gregg

[Adam Grace]

Wow, a different look but I'm excited.

Thanks for all your work Gregg!

[Scott V]

So far I am only having this problem in IE 6. In firefox and later versions of IE, I haven't seen this yet. I am still looking into it though, it's really annoying.

Gregg

I am having this problem with Firefox. It hasn't been happening as much as it was at first, but every now and then.

Other than that keep up the hard work Gregg, it is truly appreciated.

[Phil Synhorst]

Thanks for all the hard work Gregg!!

Better get those emoticons up quick for Darian's sake. He has to feel like Rush after they took his OxyContin.

Sorry Darian......I couldn't resist. :)

[Gregg Machel]

FYI, the pages are taking longer to load with the new software, and many times I'm getting blank pages that require one or more refreshes to load it. So anything to improve the speed would be good.

I have a trouble ticket in with the Messageboard Support Team (something our old softare didn't have). They made a few suggestions for me to try and I made a number of changes to the messageboard configuration. Hopefully these blank page errors go away.

Please post back here if you see this continute, I will also continue hammering away to see if I can get it to break again.

[Gregg Machel]

Thanks for all the hard work Gregg!!

Better get those emoticons up quick for Darian's sake. He has to feel like Rush after they took his OxyContin.

Sorry Darian......I couldn't resist. :)


It turns out smilies are enabled, but there isn't a browse function to click on them to insert them. You can look in the lower left corner of the page (click on smilies) to view what smilies are available and the code that will display them.

Here are a few familiar faces:

:fish: :-({|= :fish2:

[Gregg Machel]

First, there're a very limited choice and number of emoticons available and their use is limited (one choice per post).

This can be done, here is how.

1. Log into the User CP (upper left corner)
2. Go all the way to the bottom to the box titled "Message Editor Interface"
3. Enable "Enhanced Interface - WYSIWYG Editing

You will have smilies next time you reply to a message.

[Gregg Machel]

Still having issues with the pages refreshing. I am working with the vBulletin support on this and hope to have this resolved soon.

If you pull up a page and get a white screen or an error, just refresh your browser and it should work. If you are posting, it might be a good idea to copy your text (ctrl-c) just in case you get one of these screens, then you can paste it (ctrl-v) into a new reply if it didn't go through.

Please hang in there until we get this figured out.

[john]

Just a comment: I was having trouble loading the site from my "favorites" tab. Often it wouldn't load at all. I went into the site via a google search, reset my favorites to the new board and no more issues.

[Gregg Machel]

Just a comment: I was having trouble loading the site from my "favorites" tab. Often it wouldn't load at all. I went into the site via a google search, reset my favorites to the new board and no more issues.

We actually changed the path from http://kiene.com/messageboard to http://kiene.com/forums

I put code into the old page to re-direct from the old to the new, so perhaps the re-direct is causing issues with some browser configurations.

Bottom line: Do what you did and just re-set your favorite :)

Thanks for the comment, if you are experiencing this, I am sure others are too