Forum Upgraded

Started by yC, Jun 20, 2011, 02:46 AM

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yC

Finally, after many years our forum software is upgraded and it is now using SMF 2.0 Final.  As you can see, together with this upgrade there is now a new theme to the forum.  No more nearly out-of-the-box SMF default theme which Riotblade told me it was modified by him (barely ... >_>).  I am not going to say this theme is much better, since it is based off another theme but I'd say it's acceptable and somewhat reminds me of the color of any IPB board lol.

I apologize that I have to take the forum down for a whole day to do the upgrading.  This is because many custom mods that did not cause me problem during my test install did came up with little problems here and there when I am doing the real upgrade.  Otherwise it would take no more than half a day to finish.

Onto the functionality, well it's a forum so expect the usual posting and more posting? 

There you see we have the old shout box back again (we used this version previously if you remember it!).  That's because the one we had doesn't have an updated version to work with this version of the forum.  After some modification I made it as close to the one we had as possible.  Except you will need a little time to get used to the "reserve" shouting from the bottom (more like irc/msn isn't that great?).

Anti-Spam

I turned on many new options to fight spam in this upgrade, these options are useful to have in our case but weren't available in the old version of the forum.   If you find them annoying as a regular user then let me know I'll try to turn them down a little.  Some of the measures put in places are:

- A minimum of 10 seconds must have past before the same IP can make a new post from his/her last post
- Most of the boards are set to require at least 7 words in a post to consider as a "passing" post, with the exception of the off-topic boards.  The requirement is lower.  A word is counted only if it is 3 letters or more.
- New sign up users with no post count will be shown a captcha to verify they are not a bot when posting.
- New sign up users with no post count cannot have an avatar and signature and they are not allowed to send out private message.  Lately, there are plenty of users simply sign up and put an ad in their signature then never come back (I mean unrelated as from furniture to funeral shop ads...).
- For the server seeker boards, users with fewer than 10 posts can still post recommendation but their posts will only show up when approved by a staff.  If this turns out to be bad, it'll go back to the old way.
- For the Paid Section, new topic will only show up when approved by a staff.

Because I have to open the forum again, there are a few things that are left to be done later on.

Gallery:

- The good news is it will come back with more functionality.  I think it's more of a media center now if I can configure it correctly for everyone to use.
- Right now I am hiding it from view until the setup is ready.
- But you can enjoy its auto-embed function already.  Just try paste a youtube, megavideo or any popular video site url link in your post box and preview it.  The url will turn into an embedded video box.  Don't try it reply here, I recommend using the off-topic > multimedia section or Ragnarok Online > RO Graphic, Coding & Media section for RO related videos.

Arcade:

- Again I need time to sort the list of games again and see which one is junk or won't submit score.  It'll come back later, in the mean you can play the few that are there.  Or let me know which game used to be your favorite and I'll process it first.

Shop:

- The bad news is ... I can't save your items.  So your inventory is wiped.  Since we all played some RO servers this shouldn't be hard to handle anyway. Actually the items available in the shop are either too abusive that I have to delete them or too useless that won't serve much joy.  I am having a hard time seeing what could be the use of the shop. 
- The good news is ... your Zeny is still there!  If you have anything to suggest to the shop, please let me know.

Other settings:

- During the upgrade I found the location setting of the server was set so awfully wrong and everyone kind of have to use the time offset to fix themselves including me.  So I put in the right value for the right timezone this time.  However, that means you most likely have to change your time offset again to set the forum time display like your local time.  That's at Profile > Modify Profile > Look and Layout.
- You should also explore other possible settings that are new to your profile while you are there.
- The custom profile fields are now a built-in feature to the forum.  I am afraid those have to be re-rentered.  There are now 4 custom profiles fields:  Current Server, Other Online Game Interest, Rates Interested, Server History.  All editable under your Profile > Modify Profile > Forum Profile and Current Server will show up under your avatar in every post you make.
- Just noticed the topic description field is a custom and that isn't with us anymore.


So I hope you like this new forum setting.  There are still a lot of things to be done, some of which are not mentioned up there.  Please be patient on the currently missing features.  As always, if you experience any error or have a suggestion to make then post it here.

/sleep

deusro

the new forum layout is rockin' YC ! nice job ... i will miss the old one though..brings back so much memories ^_^

DarkDevine

Good job, yC

This was needed

Thanks

(There are not enough words in this post. - so here are some more)
TotalRO - 10x/10x

ChemicalW

It looks really great. Was wondering what all the downtime was about but it was definitely worth it.

Yukino

The new theme does look a lot better as it matches up with the main RMS website more xD. Good job with the updates!
I thought a new theme might clutter up sections and make the board look less appealing as a search/community forum... but I stand corrected.

If possible, maybe the ultimate profile mod can be edited and added =D. I also found that the top banner looks really nice, though the profile avatar gets shifted to the right and doesn't look as nice positioned like that (but I guess that can't be helped?). I suggest adding in the editing colour/style of our board names. I really liked that shop mod.
Friends are special flowers that bloom from trust.

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Impulse

Looks great yC! I like the new RMS logo.


www.gothamro.com - Ragnarok for the Dedicated.

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Server Opened on May 26.

Signify

#6
Regarding the shop: I liked the name styling scroll. It would be great if you could add that back YC
Another idea would be a name changing scroll.

:)

Kyroki

It looks really cool!

PETER09


yC

Change display name is one of the abusive item that I removed a long time ago in the old forum.  I am going look for the other custom add-on items used to be in the shop, but can only add them if they are compatible.

Lucian

New theme looks great, good job yC.  :)

Gaypuff

I like it. It's a little more compact than the previous one, so that's good. One question though: I can't seem to modify my first post in my SpriteTemp thread over in the Paid Services section. I couldn't find anything about that--a bug? Or is this something I have to wait for until it's available again?

xyuki

Absolutely love the new design. It looks a lot more inviting! :3

Quote from: yC on Jun 21, 2011, 12:17 PM
Change display name is one of the abusive item that I removed a long time ago in the old forum.  I am going look for the other custom add-on items used to be in the shop, but can only add them if they are compatible.

If that is wanted bad might make it a once a month buyable thing or something like that.
I, personally, wouldn't care, though xD Just one opinion of many.

yC

I put a time limit to how long after posted you can edit the post, now I see it's not a good idea due to our forum's usage.  You should be able to edit now.

Gaypuff

#14
Ah, hah yes that would've prevented me (and quite a few other people) from keeping the topics up to date. Thanks for changing it!