New Website and Forum

[Loren]

Man Loren, you're putting in WORK!

It's long overdue, and if I'm going to do it, I want to do it right. Besides, I've got time right now, will be looking for work soon, and this is a good project to add to my portfolio! (anybody need any website work done?)

What I was working on last night, aside from a couple of random quick styling fixes, was getting automated database backups working. I'm a firm believer in backups... but far too lazy to do them manually on a regular basis!

[Loren]

Bill Flowers mentioned to me that links in posts were opening in the same window (navigating away from the forum) instead of opening in a new window. We both thought that kinda sucked, so I found the hack to fix it. This is a test of that.

Blindly typed link:
http://drivefast.org" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Tagged link:
Website

EDIT: Seems to be working. Lemme know if it's not.

Re-EDIT: This only affects new or edited posts. Links in old posts will still open in the same window.

[WAFlowers]

I like it! Thanks Loren.

[Loren]

I never liked the default "egg-shaped" smilies that came with this latest version of PHPBB (our forum software), so I changed them all last night. "Classic" round smilies, as they should be. Plus a whole bunch of fun ones. Too many, actually, I'll probably go in and delete some of them.

Also noticed last night that the photo upload widget on the website doesn't seem to handle large files... worse yet, it fails with NO notification to either the uploader or me. So, if you've been uploading full-res photos from your camera and wondering why they're not showing up on the website, it's not because I hate you. (my hate for you has nothing to do with it) Gonna look into that sometime this weekend and see if it can be fixed.

PS:

[Native]

Leave 'em. Let the People choose...
but yes, please, see if you can fix the photo thing.

And thanks again for the work - the site is great.

[Loren]

Photo uploads are fixed. There was a 2mb file limit on the server. It's been raised to 25mb, so your typical 3-5mb image from your fancy new camera should have no trouble.

If you tried to upload anything larger than that before today, it didn't fly. Please upload it again. Thanks!

[Native]

AWOL photo gave us 4 pics to post - Jamie chose 'em. They're sitting in my inbox. I'll try to load 'em later.

[Loren]

AWOL photo gave us 4 pics to post - Jamie chose 'em. They're sitting in my inbox. I'll try to load 'em later.

Nope, I got those and uploaded them already. (that was what tipped me off to the size limit problem) Upload something else!

[WAFlowers]

Smilies! Lots and lots and LOTS of smilies!

Good grief! There are 3 more PAGES of smilies?!?!?

[Loren]

Smilies! Lots and lots and LOTS of smilies!

Good grief! There are 3 more PAGES of smilies?!?!?

Sometimes you need just the right smiley. And no other smiley will do.

[WAFlowers]

Indeed. Thank you.

[jreid1000]

So many smilies. I just can't choose. What will I do now?

[Loren]

Just set up some caching on the website. Lemme know if it seems like it's loading pages faster or not. (this should affect only the main website, not the forum)

[Loren]

The forum now uses a simplified mobile format on mobile devices that should be way easier to read and use. (I am posting from it now) It of not perfect, but it should work okay.

Let me know if you see significant issues with it.

[Native]

Much faster without the "frills."
Is there a setting that will tell you which sections have new posts? As it is it doens't look like there's anyway to tell without going through each subsection?

[Loren]

Much faster without the "frills."
Is there a setting that will tell you which sections have new posts? As it is it doens't look like there's anyway to tell without going through each subsection?

I was surprised to find that feature missing, but happy to find a ready-made "plug-in" that handled detecting mobile devices and switching to the stripped-down theme. That's something that I intend to add. I'll also be cleaning up the login page, as it's a mess.

But reading and replying to messages is very nice, I thought. No more zooming and scrolling, it's just "there".

Gonna look at doing something similar with the website to make it more mobile-friendly.

[Loren]

The no-frills theme really sucked, so I made a new one. Started with the main web theme and just started stripping it down and optimizing it for a smaller screen. I have all of the major navigation stuff done, looks pretty slick. Will try to clean up the message edit and PM screens later this week.

[Loren]

Okay, I think I've got things stable and at least usable on the mobile front for now. The goal here is to get the website and the forum to a state that they are easy to use on the typical smart phone without a lot of unnecessary side-scrolling, without a bunch of screen clutter, and with minimal data transfer for shorter load times.

If you're one of those people who liked the website the way it was on your phone, simply scroll to the bottom of the page (on the home page, not the forum) and click the "Switch to our desktop site" link. (likewise, you can view the mobile site on your PC by doing the same)

I still have a lot of work to do to get the website sub-pages to show on a menu in a usable way, but it's getting there. The main content pages all come up and are very readable.

The mobile forum is working well. There's a forum link on the top menu of the mobile website to take you there. Login is in the upper right corner. From there, you're just looking at a slightly stripped-down version of the standard forum. But, all of the usual post icons and things that you're used to seeing should be there. There is more polishing to be done, but it is usable.

I've found that things seem to look better in the mobile Opera Mini browser. They work in Dolphin, but the scaling is different for some reason.

Unfortunately, I'm going to be racing this weekend and won't be able to continue development on the mobile stuff until I get back.

[buddy bodean]

Unfortunately???

[Loren]

Unfortunately???

Well, not unfortunate for me.