Forum Upgrade and Future

Mike Barrio · 22/01/2025 at 13:23

We will experience some disruption to the forum over the coming days/weeks I'm afraid.
(1) The forum needs to be moved to a new server.
(2) The forum software needs some serious upgrading, I simply can't keep patching it up to keep it going, at some point something will break!

What does this mean?
(1) The forum might possibly be down for a day or two while I try my best to achieve the above.
(2) The forum will look different afterwards, as the current theme and layout probably won't work on the upgraded software.
(3) The forum PM system will be different on the upgraded software, so we will probably lose any currently saved PM messages I'm afraid.
(4) The way that we add images to posts will probably need to be different too.

As always, I will do my best to ensure that we can keep this great little community going ..............

Cheers
Mike

James Laraway · 22/01/2025 at 20:51

Thanks Mike, much appreciated

Jeff Donovan · 22/01/2025 at 22:51

So good of you to inform us Mike, hope all goes well during this transition. Have faith...

Mike Barrio · 22/01/2025 at 23:10

Thanks guys

Mike Barrio · 23/01/2025 at 15:02

Software upgraded, that's one thing done

Uploading photos in posts probably won't work as it did on the old system.

For the time being, if you want to include a photo: Go to the Gallery, upload your photo, open your photo in the gallery, copy the 'Image linking code' under the photo and then paste that image linking code in your post.

I will try to improve the photo posting process as soon as I can ..... everything will be a work in progress for a while.

Cheers
Mike

Mike Barrio · 24/01/2025 at 11:21

How are you finding the upgrade? Any feedback?

Seems to work well on mobile .....

Robert MacDonald-Lewis · 24/01/2025 at 15:41

Seems to be working well. Similar to the old Wild Fishing Forum, assume it is the same or similar software. I quite like the look.

Very slightly fiddly to post a picture, but not too bad. Just need to keep an eye on the file size.

Mike Barrio · 24/01/2025 at 15:59

Quote from: Robert MacDonald-Lewis on 24/01/2025 at 15:41Seems to be working well. Similar to the old Wild Fishing Forum, assume it is the same or similar software. I quite like the look.

Very slightly fiddly to post a picture, but not too bad. Just need to keep an eye on the file size.

Thanks for the feedback Robert

Kevin McPherson · 25/01/2025 at 11:01

Hi Mike made a post as others have said bit fiddly to add a pic but once I got the order of things ie add pic first rather than starting post and loosing writing when then adding pic , I found it okay, Question :- is this open source software or was it yourself that wrote it from scratch Regards Kev

Robert MacDonald-Lewis · 25/01/2025 at 13:48

When posting a photo I found it easier to work in two tabs. One for the gallery and one for the post you want to add the photo to. That way you don't have to worry about losing text and clip board centents when loading up pages.

Mike Barrio · 25/01/2025 at 14:40

Quote from: Kevin McPherson on 25/01/2025 at 11:01Hi Mike made a post as others have said bit fiddly to add a pic but once I got the order of things ie add pic first rather than starting post and loosing writing when then adding pic , I found it okay, Question :- is this open source software or was it yourself that wrote it from scratch Regards Kev

Hi Kevin

Yes, SMF is open source software (although I have always modified it quite a bit to suit our needs) we've been running on SMF for about 20 years.

I have a lot on my plate over the next couple of weeks and will not have time to tweak anything, but will do my best to iron out any issues after that

Cheers
Mike

Mike Barrio · 26/01/2025 at 00:02

Quote from: Robert MacDonald-Lewis on 25/01/2025 at 13:48When posting a photo I found it easier to work in two tabs. One for the gallery and one for the post you want to add the photo to. That way you don't have to worry about losing text and clip board centents when loading up pages.

Yes, that's how I do it as well Robert

Mike Barrio · 04/02/2025 at 11:07

I tweaked the forum gallery this morning to fix the distorted photos issue when viewing the gallery on a mobile.

I will hold off doing any further tweaks to the forum until we have moved it to the new server.

The move will happen over the coming days - so don't be surprised if the forum is down for a while, this is necessary when carrying out the move.

As always, I will do my best to ensure that we can keep this great little community going ..............

Cheers
Mike

Mike Barrio · 04/02/2025 at 18:17

Chuffed to let you know that we are now running on the new server

Cheers
Mike

Mike (testing) · 05/02/2025 at 12:16

Testing the new 'Add image to post and upload to gallery' button.

All seems to be working well now, so any posting of photos issues have been resolved

Mike Barrio · 05/02/2025 at 20:22

I have enabled the forum 'Likes' feature, so you can see how it works.

Please let me know if you think this is a useful feature, or not? I can can always disable it again.

Mike Barrio · 09/02/2025 at 16:43

All done, I think I have everything in place and the upgrade is complete.

I hope you like it - and as always, this is your forum, so any feedback/suggestions would be very welcome and much appreciated.

Enjoy

Mike

Hamish Young · 11/02/2025 at 06:28

Looking good Mr B

Allan Liddle · 13/02/2025 at 16:26

Like the new look Mike.

Mike Barrio · 15/02/2025 at 14:55

I have added a little floating 'Go Up' button to the bottom right hand corner of the screen.

It's not a big feature, but sometimes the small stuff can be the most useful

When you scroll down a long page, you no longer have to scroll all the way back up again, just click on that wee 'Go Up' button and you're there!