Questions, concerns and problems with the new vftt.org

[RoySwkr]

Two things I notice:

* Page load seems slower

* Colors of bars etc. seem much bolder and tend to drown out content - can they be dialed back down?

[roadtripper]

Can I convince you guys to BOLD all thread topics? They need to stand out more within each of the forums.

[bikehikeskifish]

Looking good so far!
If you try to log into vftt.org/forums instead of www.vftt.org/forums, you get a vBulletin "Invalid Redirect" error.
Is it correct to say that "What's New" and "New Posts" are exactly the same?
Banner photo is quite the perspective.

I fixed the first item by redirecting "vftt.org" => "www.vftt.org".

The second item is true for this install, but if you purchase the full CMS (not just forums), "What's New" gives you new things not in the forums.

Great new look for the site -- kudos! On my iMac, all is good. However, on my iPad, individual threads have

• a tiny font display,
• multiple copies of the image of a certain furry black dog and his owner added above the individual posters' avatars, and
• the panoramic header photo is inserted in each post after the first line of text.

All non-VFTT web sites are displaying fine.

I got your screen shots. I will need some help with this - might have to wait for MichaelJ.

I notice some Black on Blue fonts i.e. in Groups Uncategorized Snow Play

Default sort for the Snow Play social group has changed to ascending date so we don't see latest contribution right away. Instead we got to go to the last page of the conversation.

Item 1 - I fixed the dark blue backgrounds to light grey.

Item 2 - This is a "feature" of vBulletin - it now presents them in the same way the forums are presented, oldest to newest. There is a feature request to offer customization, but it is not done yet.

We have no "favicon" for bookmarks, tabs, etc.

Tim, if you have an icon you want to use, just point me to it or email it to me, and I can create all the necessary formats and resolutions as well as provide you with the REL tags to put in the HEAD section so that mobile devices, web browsers, etc. can all pick it up, and the traditional favicon.ico to put in the server's DocumentRoot.

Fixed - we now have the green backpacker icon from the old domain.

Two things I notice:

* Page load seems slower

* Colors of bars etc. seem much bolder and tend to drown out content - can they be dialed back down?

We are now on a shared server. Much like sharing your broadband cable modem bandwidth with your neighbors, we are sharing our web server and database server with other customers. During periods of peak usage, everybody will slow down somewhat. If performance is regularly horrible, and donations are high enough, we can upgrade to a more expensive plan. But, unless we have a $600/year sugar daddy ("Darren"), it's what we can do for now.

I am personally quite happy with the performance - I had feared we would be much slower than we are.

Tim

[Mohamed Ellozy]

But, unless we have a $600/year sugar daddy ("Darren"), it's what we can do for now.

IMHO this is hardly sugar daddy territory.

$600 = $10×60 or even perhaps $20×30. How much do most of those living outside the WMNF spend on gas per trip?

I think that it is essential that you get a feel for the amount of community support you can expect as early as possible in the planning process.

[bikehikeskifish]

We'll see how much support we get and what the performance is like. I had to sign up for a plan before asking for donations, don't forget. So far, support has been very good. Even non-members have contacted me.

Tim

[sardog1]

Thanks to a suggestion from MichaelJ, all my iPad issues are solved. Clearing my Safari history took care of the problem.

The site has a very nice appearance on an iPad. Thanks guys!

[bikehikeskifish]

With that (Thanks MJ!) I believe all the issues above have been resolved. Please report any new (or ongoing) issues.

Yes, there are some style "warts" which I may get around to at some point.

Tim

[hikingmaineac]

Tim, wondered where the current banner came from...Really nice.

I agree - very nice photo!

[TrishandAlex]

Tim and company, nice job all around. Thanks for all the hard work!

As for financial support, it's good to hear that so many are contributing. I'm assuming that most (if not all) of us can afford $10 a year to keep this site going.

[Chip]

Not a problem, just curious; When I go to 'Insert Image' 'From URL', if I don't uncheck the 'Retrieve Remote file and reference locally' box and upload I get 'error: Remote file is too large'. When I uncheck that, the pic loads fine. What is that 'Retrieve Remote file and reference locally' trying to do ?

[bikehikeskifish]

Not a problem, just curious; When I go to 'Insert Image' 'From URL', if I don't uncheck the 'Retrieve Remote file and reference locally' box and upload I get 'error: Remote file is too large'. When I uncheck that, the pic loads fine. What is that 'Retrieve Remote file and reference locally' trying to do ?

You have the option of downloading the file from the remote URL (Picasa, Webshots, Facebook, etc.) and storing it within vftt.org. Then, when someone loads you post, they get the photo from vftt.org, not from Picasa, et. Al. This of course duplicates the files and uses up space on vftt.org, so there is a limit of how big a file you can do this with.

Personally I think you should link to the remote site via standard [img]insert-link-to-photo.jpg[/img].

Tim

[Kevin Rooney]

Below is the link contained in the "New Posts" on the second line of the "Forum" webpage. I replaced my old VFTT bookmark with it so that it will bring me to current and unread threads quickly.

http://www.vftt.org/forums/search.ph...e=vBForum_Post

[Chip]

Personally I think you should link to the remote site via standard [img]insert-link-to-photo.jpg[/img].

Tim

Thanks. Yeah, that's what happens when you uncheck the box, just saves the extra typing.

[Tom Rankin]

With that (Thanks MJ!) I believe all the issues above have been resolved. Please report any new (or ongoing) issues.

I did a simple search for viewsfromthetop and there are still 500 hits for links to the old forum. (I suspect it stopped searching at that point).

Also, my PMs have such links as well.

[bikehikeskifish]

I did a simple search for viewsfromthetop and there are still 500 hits for links to the old forum. (I suspect it stopped searching at that point).

Also, my PMs have such links as well.

I can make another attempt to convert these, but it will require site downtime. As you pointed out, 296 did seem low.

Tim