SlowCo
1 MW
Although I'm too dumb to understand most of how this all works, I'm very grateful for all the hard work and dedication Neptronics and others put into this forum for us to use and enjoy!
Xenforo conversion thread
- Thread starter neptronix
- Start date
Update from the ES Dev team 
We are experimenting with a forum sorting option that gives our forum format sorting abilities like Reddit.
This will allow you to easily identify the most epic content and this can truly improve the experience for new members just wrapping their heads around the idea of a DIY EBike.
.
It is a shame that it isn't easy to search as subforum as it was in phpBB:
We are going to see if we can add the above though, but no guarantees.
More later!
We are experimenting with a forum sorting option that gives our forum format sorting abilities like Reddit.
This will allow you to easily identify the most epic content and this can truly improve the experience for new members just wrapping their heads around the idea of a DIY EBike.
.
It is a shame that it isn't easy to search as subforum as it was in phpBB:
We are going to see if we can add the above though, but no guarantees.
More later!
nicobie
100 MW
I shudder every time I see the word reddit.
JRP3
1 kW
Did something change in the software? Today I got an email notification of a reply to a thread but the link in the email took me to the ES Graveyard version of it Nanjing far driver controllers - Page 21 - ES 1.0 Graveyard
This is a quote of the two posts that were made there just so future readers wont' have to go there to find them:
SamRich post_id=1749385 time=1697659119 user_id=35824 said:
Oops...that was supposed to go in the *current* version of that thread, so I've copied it over there. 
It turns out we can fit a subforum search bar into the sub-menu per forum while we are in the area, and get that feature back from PHPBB.
The reddit-like subforum sorting feature is completely working. Needs a little CSS work and we're ready to deploy this bad boy pretty soon
Quick demo:
The reddit-like subforum sorting feature is completely working. Needs a little CSS work and we're ready to deploy this bad boy pretty soon
Quick demo:
nicobie
100 MW
That looks useful.
It's pretty awesome especially if you are new to the forum.
That feature is just about finished and looks like it's getting deployed this week.
Next up, in roughly this order:
Infrastructure round
- Xenforo upgrade & move to newest PHP ver, should improve Performance & SEO
- Round of server surgery to bring down costs
- Fix the image optimizer ( will result in massively faster loading of photos in threads, and save hosting costs )
User goodies round
- New knowledgebase system pitch to the forum
- Old content fix user testing
- Port light theme improvements to dark mode
- Xensifter forum recategorization tool introduction and call for volunteers
- User & Moderator functionality requests
That feature is just about finished and looks like it's getting deployed this week.
Next up, in roughly this order:
Infrastructure round
- Xenforo upgrade & move to newest PHP ver, should improve Performance & SEO
- Round of server surgery to bring down costs
- Fix the image optimizer ( will result in massively faster loading of photos in threads, and save hosting costs )
User goodies round
- New knowledgebase system pitch to the forum
- Old content fix user testing
- Port light theme improvements to dark mode
- Xensifter forum recategorization tool introduction and call for volunteers
- User & Moderator functionality requests
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We've got the forum sorting functionality and in-forum search deployed, check it out!
Also needs a little UI improvement because the top of the page looks rather crowded but that can come later.
We just noticed that these cool sorting options can also be added to search, and also, we can set the default to search by recency instead of 'relevance', which is how PHPBB worked.
Now working on an upgrade to this upgrade ^_^
Also needs a little UI improvement because the top of the page looks rather crowded but that can come later.
We just noticed that these cool sorting options can also be added to search, and also, we can set the default to search by recency instead of 'relevance', which is how PHPBB worked.
Now working on an upgrade to this upgrade ^_^
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We've deployed V2 of changes to search/sort:
- Icons more consistent / better order
- Some non-useful sorts removed to clean up the look
- Force search bar to the right
- You can now sort search results also ^_^
- Default sort for search is now newest first, emulating what you expected from PHPBB ( this makes the most sense for our forum ).
- QA sections get their own special sorting bar
One new speed bump as a result of these improvements is how Xenforo handles when search results are empty.. always kicks you into a separate page, so you gotta use the back button to revise your search which is an unnecessary extra step.
Seeing if we can fix that! ( it might be hard )
Hoping that once the giant forum recategorization is done, these features will stand out further.
- Icons more consistent / better order
- Some non-useful sorts removed to clean up the look
- Force search bar to the right
- You can now sort search results also ^_^
- Default sort for search is now newest first, emulating what you expected from PHPBB ( this makes the most sense for our forum ).
- QA sections get their own special sorting bar
One new speed bump as a result of these improvements is how Xenforo handles when search results are empty.. always kicks you into a separate page, so you gotta use the back button to revise your search which is an unnecessary extra step.
Seeing if we can fix that! ( it might be hard )
Hoping that once the giant forum recategorization is done, these features will stand out further.
It doesn't appear to be defaulting to the by-date version yet.
I dont' see any way to sort results yet.
Don't know what you mean by "forcing search bar to the right"; it's always been in the upper right corner?
Don't know what you mean by "non useful sorts" since there aren't any sorting options (never were any that I know of besides date or relevance, and that has to be chosen before searching instead of being like a normal search and doing it *after* you see the results).
But it does respond to a quoted phrase by actually showing things that have the entire phrase in it....but it still *also* searches for things that do not have that exact phrase, which makes it hard to find certain things that have very common terms in them.
I dont' see any way to sort results yet.
Don't know what you mean by "forcing search bar to the right"; it's always been in the upper right corner?
Don't know what you mean by "non useful sorts" since there aren't any sorting options (never were any that I know of besides date or relevance, and that has to be chosen before searching instead of being like a normal search and doing it *after* you see the results).
But it does respond to a quoted phrase by actually showing things that have the entire phrase in it....but it still *also* searches for things that do not have that exact phrase, which makes it hard to find certain things that have very common terms in them.
If you mean searching within subforums, I don't see any way to do that at all. It has a box to type into above them but this is a place to type a title for a new thread....
Ok, it's there in "Use Default ES2.0" skin, (and in the within-a-forum search), and appears to have the described functions but:
--searching the results doesn't work, if that's what the search box on the right is supposed to be for (that seems implied by it's existence within search results, as starting a new search should be done by clicking the search again at the top right, or the Search link to the right of Home near the top left, etc; a whole box just to bring up a new search doesn't seem like it would be useful, just a waste of screen space?).
Sorting options are limited to Date, relevance, and Most Replies. Could we add to sort by thread starter/author, subforum, (had somethiung esle in mind too but was distracted by the JellyBean needing a bellyrub).
--searching the results doesn't work, if that's what the search box on the right is supposed to be for (that seems implied by it's existence within search results, as starting a new search should be done by clicking the search again at the top right, or the Search link to the right of Home near the top left, etc; a whole box just to bring up a new search doesn't seem like it would be useful, just a waste of screen space?).
Sorting options are limited to Date, relevance, and Most Replies. Could we add to sort by thread starter/author, subforum, (had somethiung esle in mind too but was distracted by the JellyBean needing a bellyrub).
But it does respond to a quoted phrase by actually showing things that have the entire phrase in it....but it still *also* searches for things that do not have that exact phrase, which makes it hard to find certain things that have very common terms in them.
Yeah, that's not addressed yet.
You can't search within a search in this system. The box is there to search a subforum, sort, or revise the search for that subforum search; saves you a click. It's an addon for convenience and was fast to add.
It's meant to reproduce this feature from PHPBB ( minus the shortcut to advanced search button )
For the other search options you want.. they exist in Search threads if you need to do a very specific search.
AFAIK 'sort by thread starter/author' doesn't exist in Xenforo
ps - this plugin is the best candidate for returning the phrase search, aka "battery size" should return what you expected; we don't know if it would have a negative impact on search performance which is already stressed, so it needs testing first:
Search Improvements
So we've got an issue with darkmode missing all the features and visual tweaks we've added.
Next version of Xenforo has some kind of built in darkmode apparently. So the existing darkmode theme may be replaced with native xenforo functionality. Xenforo v3.0 is the next release.. it may also include a huge change to themeing also.. and break many of our modifications. :/
With the ground about to move under our feet so much, i'm going to put the project of moving these enhancements to dark mode on the shelf for now, so we don't end up doing a lot of duplicate work.
Sorry, darkmode enjoyers. Promise we will give you your due, but not now.
Next version of Xenforo has some kind of built in darkmode apparently. So the existing darkmode theme may be replaced with native xenforo functionality. Xenforo v3.0 is the next release.. it may also include a huge change to themeing also.. and break many of our modifications. :/
With the ground about to move under our feet so much, i'm going to put the project of moving these enhancements to dark mode on the shelf for now, so we don't end up doing a lot of duplicate work.
Sorry, darkmode enjoyers. Promise we will give you your due, but not now.
afzal
100 W
From the moment it was available, have been exclusively roaming in the dark room, eagerly waiting for v3
afzal
100 W
Thanks for that hint, 'Dark Mode' add-on page says it is not actively monitored for security by Mozilla, so tried 'Dark Reader' add-on, seems okay, though I felt Xenforo dark mode better (Firefox 119.0.1)
My design sensibilities are offended, however, if you're happy with it, i am!
Update from here..
We tested a big round of Xenforo and PHP upgrades on the dev server and it was basically uneventful. We're surprised that it was so easy - PHPBB was a nightmare to upgrade on the regular. Xenforo seems to be quality software all around.
We should be rolling out the updated setup early next week.
Next up should be fixing the image processor
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Except for whoever decided how things work was...less capable and thoughtful than one could hope for.
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