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Welcome to the new forum!! Comments please!

Posted: Sat Apr 05, 2008 6:24 pm
by Jason Pipes
Welcome to the new version of the Feldgrau online forum. As you can see things are very different. Not so different as to be totally foreign, but certainly different enough.

We are going to cycle through a number of different forum styles and layouts in the next few days and as we do so we would appreciate your comments and feedback on what works and what doesn't. There are also dozens of new and powerful features for you to use, all of which will be present regardless of what the forum looks like.

Re: Welcome to the new forum!! Comments please!

Posted: Sat Apr 05, 2008 7:59 pm
by Brendan Hunt
I like the basic layout, but I'd definately like to see something similiar to the original forum. It'd be interesting to see what we see next!

*The one suggestion I can think of now is to keep the boarders white like in the last one, so that our avatars blend in.

Keep up the good work!
-B

Re: Welcome to the new forum!! Comments please!

Posted: Sat Apr 05, 2008 8:20 pm
by Jason Pipes
Thanks for the comments! I'm working on that for sure as I agree, they look much better on a white background.

Re: Welcome to the new forum!! Comments please!

Posted: Sun Apr 06, 2008 1:49 am
by Leo Niehorster
Hey great!
Now for the "Gey/Gray/(Feld-)Grau" look.

Cheers
Leo

Re: Welcome to the new forum!! Comments please!

Posted: Sun Apr 06, 2008 4:33 am
by Waleed Y. Majeed
Nice change! Will need a slight "getting used to" though... colors for starters!

I agree with Brendan, keep the avatars on white background. I would like to see the "poster/avatar/statistics"
on the left side again, moving the "Thread header" and posts to the right.
Here's how it would look:

waleed

Re: Welcome to the new forum!! Comments please!

Posted: Sun Apr 06, 2008 5:34 am
by Brendan Hunt
Is this the same setup that the Axis History Forum is using? Its quite similiar.

-B

Re: Welcome to the new forum!! Comments please!

Posted: Sun Apr 06, 2008 5:45 am
by phylo_roadking
Waleed, AFAIK version three of the software puts the avatar/stats panel over to the right, its not a "user defined" option :(

Re: Welcome to the new forum!! Comments please!

Posted: Sun Apr 06, 2008 7:45 am
by Waleed Y. Majeed
Well Philo, guess I'll have to live with them being on the right.

Posting images!? The image posted earlier was an attachment uploaded directly from my HD.
Does this mean image hosting servers are no longer needed? If so GREAT!


waleed

Re: Welcome to the new forum!! Comments please!

Posted: Sun Apr 06, 2008 10:31 am
by Jason Pipes
Image posting/uploading is now enabled, that is correct.

Keep in mind folks that the color scheme, layout, and look and feel of the new forum are all going to change dramatically in the next few days! It will with any luck look like the old forum very soon.

Yes, this is the same basic forum software that AHF is using (phpBB3 - we were also both using v2.0 earlier) as it is the new gold standard for forum software. Version 2.0 was no longer going to be fully supported and had lots little issues, especially when I moved to a new web server with the latest versions of PHP on it. The old software didn't work well with it at all. The new features on this forum release are stunning.

Re: Welcome to the new forum!! Comments please!

Posted: Sun Apr 06, 2008 11:13 am
by Brendan Hunt
Well the content certainly looks amazing! Can't wait to see the finished product.

*Is it just me, or do the avatars seem a little fuzzy/distorted?

-B

Re: Welcome to the new forum!! Comments please!

Posted: Sun Apr 06, 2008 11:30 am
by phylo_roadking
Brendan, there's more space now for each avatar, display space as well as storage - so like icons and gifs, when stretched into a bigger slot, you see how low a resolution they really are.

Re: Welcome to the new forum!! Comments please!

Posted: Sun Apr 06, 2008 12:12 pm
by michael kenny
My links to threads from the old Forum no longer work.

Re: Welcome to the new forum!! Comments please!

Posted: Sun Apr 06, 2008 12:31 pm
by Jason Pipes
That's probably because the old forum is no longer open with the transfer to this new forum. The server won't change for many years now so you can set new links and be assured they will be safe for sometime.

Re: Welcome to the new forum!! Comments please!

Posted: Sun Apr 06, 2008 3:40 pm
by David W
Why can't you just leave things alone!

If it isn't broken, don't fix it!

Tanks in WWII just changed their forum, and the new one is crap, I hardly post their at all nowerdays.

I've left AHF Forum & DAK forum, because of needless change, I hope Feldgrau won't end up going the same way.

Re: Welcome to the new forum!! Comments please!

Posted: Sun Apr 06, 2008 4:00 pm
by Jason Pipes
The changes we've made aren't changes for the sake of change. We had to move to a newer, faster and more secure server. Our old server was 7+ years old and was running on very old and outdated web server software. With the move to a new server came an upgrade to the latest versions of Apache, PHP and mysql. The old version of the forum didn't work properly on these latest versions so it needed to be updated. In addition this version of the forum contains numerous security and user enhancements that aren't just change for the sake of change. I've spent the past 4-5 days hammering away on this new forum and the new server and trust me, I'm not doing it just for the hell of it. This forum when set up completely will be a much improved research tool than what we had before. I'm sorry if you don't see it that way, but change is sometimes a part of life. In this case it's for the better. We aren't done with our changes yet but hope to be done in the next few days.