Let's get your feedback - upgrading the system to phpbb3.2.x

[neptronix]

Hi all. We are running a version phpbb that is 10 years old.. It's well past time to upgrade our system!

Me and gammaray have put together a test copy of the latest version of phpbb. It has better mobile support, and probably scads of other features we're not even aware of.

A couple things are currently missing:
1) endless sphere logo and a few themes.
2) the ability to keep/track edit history ( we'll figure that out later )
3) tapatalk is not installed - we are hoping that mobile works well enough that we don't have to.

If you notice some other functionality missing, please let us know about that.

But in particular, i'm wondering how this new phpbb works on your mobile devices.. is it better.. worse..?

PS, you can trash up the test forum as much as you want. It's running on a separate database. Whatever you do there won't affect the main ES.

http://52.40.19.214/forums/

[linkdown]

Way better on mobile

[cal3thousand]

Mobile is certainly better in this version, but I really enjoy Tapatalk for the ease of posting images. Part of the reason why ESFB is popular is the relative ease at which we can post photos vs using MOW or a full browser.

[neptronix]

Mobile is certainly better in this version, but I really enjoy Tapatalk for the ease of posting images. Part of the reason why ESFB is popular is the relative ease at which we can post photos vs using MOW or a full browser.

I'll have to play with tapatalk then and see what makes it better.
Thanks for pointing it out.

[amberwolf]

Can you put up the subsilver2 theme so I can at least start testing it out?

Whatever theme it has now isn't very friendly to me or my eyes (at least it's in blue shades like subsilver2...).

[marty]

Looks good from here. One difference I notice that phpbb3.2.x don't fill the whole screen side to side. Viewing with Windows 7 desktop and Mozilla Firefox 54.0.1 Not a problem because I always hit Ctrl and + button to make text bigger. At 120% forum fills the whole screen perfect. If I am viewing my computer settings correctly? My monitor resolution is 1920 x 1080.

[cal3thousand]

Looks good from here. One difference I notice that phpbb3.2.x don't fill the whole screen side to side. Viewing with Windows 7 desktop and Mozilla Firefox 54.0.1 Not a problem because I always hit Ctrl and + button to make text bigger. At 120% forum fills the whole screen perfect. If I am viewing my computer settings correctly? My monitor resolution is 1920 x 1080.

I'm running the same resolution as well and welcome the change. On a 24" monitor, I have to do a good deal of horizontal and neck eye scrolling to read through a block of text as the forum sits now. With phpbb3.2.x, It's located centrally on about 8" of width, making it feel more like paper to read.

[zackclark70]

just swap it and see what people complain about far bigger problems in life to care about

[nicobie]

Looks good on my 12" Samsung tablet.

Nick

[greyphantom]

Mobile is certainly better in this version, but I really enjoy Tapatalk for the ease of posting images. Part of the reason why ESFB is popular is the relative ease at which we can post photos vs using MOW or a full browser.

I'll have to play with tapatalk then and see what makes it better.
Thanks for pointing it out.

Please do not add tapatalk if that means getting that nauseating popup shoved in my face every time I visit the site. (which is quite often) There is no need to add tapatalk, if anyone wants it they can get the app from the playstore. I HATE tapatalk with a passion, it is riddled with ads and snoops, also I refuse to have anything to do with any service that uses rude militant-like tactics (years of annoying popups). If I ran my business like that, I wouldn't have any business. Please do not ruin my experience here with the dreaded TP.

On another note, (and the most important), GOOD job. The site looks TIGHT. You must have read my mind, as I spent a good portion of yesterday trying to see if I could solve the unreadabilty problem on my Galaxy phone (no regular home computer) I use my phone for all internet, and Samsung lacks the size to fit feature that I once enjoyed on my HTC Droid.

Thanks for all your hard work and time invested in this project, now I can really get on here and plow through mountains of info, unimpeded

[amberwolf]

Any news on this?

I checked and it's still just like it was before, AFAICT, making it difficult to test.

Can you put up the subsilver2 theme so I can at least start testing it out?

Whatever theme it has now isn't very friendly to me or my eyes (at least it's in blue shades like subsilver2...). it also has all the avatar/etc stuff swapped to the wrong (righthand) side, and buttons in the wrong places, etc.

[cal3thousand]

Mobile is certainly better in this version, but I really enjoy Tapatalk for the ease of posting images. Part of the reason why ESFB is popular is the relative ease at which we can post photos vs using MOW or a full browser.

I'll have to play with tapatalk then and see what makes it better.
Thanks for pointing it out.

Please do not add tapatalk if that means getting that nauseating popup shoved in my face every time I visit the site. (which is quite often) There is no need to add tapatalk, if anyone wants it they can get the app from the playstore. I HATE tapatalk with a passion, it is riddled with ads and snoops, also I refuse to have anything to do with any service that uses rude militant-like tactics (years of annoying popups). If I ran my business like that, I wouldn't have any business. Please do not ruin my experience here with the dreaded TP.

On another note, (and the most important), GOOD job. The site looks TIGHT. You must have read my mind, as I spent a good portion of yesterday trying to see if I could solve the unreadabilty problem on my Galaxy phone (no regular home computer) I use my phone for all internet, and Samsung lacks the size to fit feature that I once enjoyed on my HTC Droid.

Thanks for all your hard work and time invested in this project, now I can really get on here and plow through mountains of info, unimpeded

ES doesn't do that annoying stuff. Maybe talk to your other forum admins to fix that. Tapatalk works just fine right now on ES and there is no pop up asking you to use Tapatalk.

[Dauntless]

ES doesn't do that annoying stuff. Maybe talk to your other forum admins to fix that.

That's right, its the trolls doing the annoying stuff. I'm using my 2014 droid, never had phone issues here that weren't the phone itself. Don't use tapatalk, I assume that's now the built in application I have that keeps turning itself on. I can't think of a request to make. But it looked fine when I just tried it out. But I do get tregular internet mode rather than a mobile version. So that's the best.

[neptronix]

Any news on this?

I checked and it's still just like it was before, AFAICT, making it difficult to test.

Can you put up the subsilver2 theme so I can at least start testing it out?

Yes, we have some news. We've tried several other forum softwares and found them to not work as well as we'd like. Either portability of our content.. big bugs or future support burdens.. or a user experience that would so different that existing users would probably sour on it were all big barriers. The current thinking that we just stick to the idea of jumping 2 big versions ahead of phpbb.

Fact of the matter is this.. we DID give it our best try.

Whatever theme it has now isn't very friendly to me or my eyes (at least it's in blue shades like subsilver2...). it also has all the avatar/etc stuff swapped to the wrong (righthand) side, and buttons in the wrong places, etc.

Sorry, i missed your post amongst the noise of the internet. Just spent 2 months slaving away in the code mines and didn't have much time to focus on ES work. Anyway, i use subsilver 2 also and the sad thing is that it's not present in the new phpbb.. :/

We have not sorted out what to do with themes just yet, but here is a current idea that at least 2 of us like, so far..
give the user a selection of 3 different themes:
+ the classic look: the standard phpbb theme you see in the test.
+ the upgraded choice: a version of SE Square that i will hack some modern features into: https://www.phpbb.com/customise/db/style/se_square/
+ the modern look: some kind of eye candy modern flat theme.. like this: https://themeforest.net/item/milk-multi ... e/16119149

Upon login, the user would get the choice on which type of theme they like. Of course, that could be changed at any time.

As for the comments on tapatalk.. i've never seen those popups before.. but really, i hate to have to install external software for little benefit. It's be better to install a plugin that helps upload images easier if that's the only benefit of tapatalk on the new version of phpbb.

[grindz145]

Bummer, I used Subsilver 2 as well. Back to Subsilver and it's OK, but it will take some getting used to.

The problem with some of the other themes is that they're just crazy laggy and slow! I didn't expect that.

Anyway, I'm sure we'll all get used to it either way, thanks for your work and diligence.

[Vanarian]

Well my own theme never was standard on screen when browsing E-S (I got it all blackened out with only white and soft blue letters to make it more comfortable to read).

I noticed a bug : when posting while already connected, I have to reconnect anyway. Apart from that I like the new look !

[motomech]

What happened to the member profiles???

[amberwolf]

Click on the username to see their profile.

click on members in the quicklinks for the memberlist

[motomech]

I tried that,....nothing.

[amberwolf]

At a guess, based on what others have posted in this and the other PHPBB thread, either the theme you're using didn't bother to implement basic stuff like that (where the SE Square Left does), or it does it in some unobvious way, or it's there in the desktop version (which is what I see) and not in the mobile one (if that's what you see).

Seems to be a fair bit of inconsistency between the desktop and mobile versions, which is wierd because if it's supposed to be all mobile-oriented, I'd expect them to be the same, since the desktop version is screwed up with "features" that only make sense for mobile usage. :/

[tomjasz]

"New Posts" limited to 3 pages, 144?

[amberwolf]

I use "unread posts"; that way I don't have to look thru stuff that I've already read. But it also doesn't reset unless I manually choose to mark all posts read, or individually click the links to them.

"New posts" *should* show whatever's been posted since you last visited the board; on some forums it resets everytime you close the last tab with that forum on it, and some it resets only if you log out and back in--I don't know which one this forum does.

So it might not be "limited" but rather might be only displaying posts since you last visited or logged in?

[neptronix]

"New Posts" limited to 3 pages, 144?

I see that number is increasing. It might have to do with the number of posts that have been made since we upgraded the board.
Nonetheless there are no settings for controlling the amount, unfortunately.

Seems to be a fair bit of inconsistency between the desktop and mobile versions, which is wierd because if it's supposed to be all mobile-oriented, I'd expect them to be the same, since the desktop version is screwed up with "features" that only make sense for mobile usage. :/

I'm not sure what you mean ( other than the fact that some elements disappear in mobile, which is completely normal ), but if you have some specific things to point out, do talk about it on the other thread.

What happened to the member profiles???

They still seem to be there.. send me a screenshot in PM if you're seeing something weird.

I am locking this thread because this is not the right place to discuss differences. This thread was intended for sorting out all the issues before the transition. Issues after the transition should be discussed here:
viewtopic.php?f=1&t=91553