UPDATING SITE THIS WEEKEND-ALL READ

[vbhoutex]

We will finally be doing our PhpBB site upgrade this Saturday Jan. 9 between 1am and 5am. This is a window we are working with to make sure all goes well. The actual changeover will take a lot less time unless there are any problems. We do not expect any problems since we have been testing for a few weeks and haven't run into anything. You should not have to do anything different to log onto the site.

IF you should run into any problems with the site after the changeover or have any questions about the changeove please post them in this thread so that all staff and the SC5 person directing this can see it and respond as needed.

The site will have a completely new look to it since the template we are on is not supported by the updated PhpBB versions. After we are on the updated version we will also be making some noticeable changes by deleting some old forums and threads, possibly adding some new ones and other various changes. If there is something you would like to see on the updated site please let one of the admins or mods know and we will look into it and determine if it can be done.

[lurkey]

What timezone? 1 am - 5am Central time or Eastern time? I am only asking because you are in Central Time zone and I know we have a lot of folks in Eastern time zone... plus this was a question among the regulars in chat ......

[Cyclenall]

The site will have a completely new look to it since the template we are on is not supported by the updated PhpBB versions. After we are on the updated version we will also be making some noticeable changes by deleting some old forums and threads, possibly adding some new ones and other various changes. If there is something you would like to see on the updated site please let one of the admins or mods know and we will look into it and determine if it can be done.

The words I've been dreading, from an appearance/usability standpoint its completely perfect and the best on any forum I've seen, a new look has a very high probability of being less intuitive and clean. Yeah compared to something like vBulletin which I loathe its amazing but still I cuss under my breath every time I get word of an overhaul on any forums I frequent. The next part about the changes to sub-forums and threads is more gut-wrenching; if its all stashed away in an accessible archive that's fine by me but hidden or deleting scares since there might be info I might need later on or have a hard worked content-line. Can you specify which ones so I can begin archiving anything I think is important?

The only new feature I'd look into would be an auto-save post which periodically saves what you have written in a reply field to your drafts folder. When you submit it, it's removed from drafts.

We will finally be doing our PhpBB site upgrade this Saturday Jan. 9 between 1am and 5am.

Besides the capcha issues when people register, why is it being upgraded? I've been very happy the phpbb version has remained the same (2007) since the resources it takes is quite low on web browsers and has no memory leaks. Other updated message boards bloat up the RAM allocation and makes it less enjoyable and hard to manage on older systems. Its also the most responsive board software but I haven't used many of the up to date phpbb versions to see the comparison.

PS: Don't do this.

[vbhoutex]

What timezone? 1 am - 5am Central time or Eastern time? I am only asking because you are in Central Time zone and I know we have a lot of folks in Eastern time zone... plus this was a question among the regulars in chat ......

CST since the server is in Dallas. Remember, this will hopefully take less than 15 minutes to complete.

[vbhoutex]

The site will have a completely new look to it since the template we are on is not supported by the updated PhpBB versions. After we are on the updated version we will also be making some noticeable changes by deleting some old forums and threads, possibly adding some new ones and other various changes. If there is something you would like to see on the updated site please let one of the admins or mods know and we will look into it and determine if it can be done.

The words I've been dreading, from an appearance/usability standpoint its completely perfect and the best on any forum I've seen, a new look has a very high probability of being less intuitive and clean. Yeah compared to something like vBulletin which I loathe its amazing but still I cuss under my breath every time I get word of an overhaul on any forums I frequent. The next part about the changes to sub-forums and threads is more gut-wrenching; if its all stashed away in an accessible archive that's fine by me but hidden or deleting scares since there might be info I might need later on or have a hard worked content-line. Can you specify which ones so I can begin archiving anything I think is important?

The only new feature I'd look into would be an auto-save post which periodically saves what you have written in a reply field to your drafts folder. When you submit it, it's removed from drafts.

We will finally be doing our PhpBB site upgrade this Saturday Jan. 9 between 1am and 5am.

Besides the capcha issues when people register, why is it being upgraded? I've been very happy the phpbb version has remained the same (2007) since the resources it takes is quite low on web browsers and has no memory leaks. Other updated message boards bloat up the RAM allocation and makes it less enjoyable and hard to manage on older systems. Its also the most responsive board software but I haven't used many of the up to date phpbb versions to see the comparison.

PS: Don't do this.

As far as the appearance/usability standpoint I think everyone will be happy with it. We have been testing behind the scenes and no one has had a problem yet.

When I say we will be removing threads/forums I am not talking about anything on the weather side. We have threads and forums that haven't been used literally in years. Those are the ones we will be looking at and/or archiving/deleting. If you have specific threads or forums you want us to address please post them in here and we can check out if there is anything we need to look at further. No decisions have been made at this time. This will happen after we are up and running on the upgrade.
As to why we are doing the upgrade the current PhpBB version we are using is almost 10 years out of date. The newer versions have taken care of some issues the older ones have and makes it much more easy to adjust the captcha and control it. The admins and some staff have been slammed with hundreds of spammer registration attempts per day which we have to wade through and determine if they are legitimate, as we have literally missed legitimate registrations in the mire, so it is one of the main reasons for the upgrade. It has been taking me alone hours per day to deal with this.
It is unfortunate we can't use the same design, but it will not be compatible with the upgrade. Once we are upgraded it will be easier to make changes to enhance the boards looks and usability.

[1900hurricane]

Have the updates now been put into effect? Everything still seems mostly the same to me.

[WeatherGuesser]

Have the updates now been put into effect? Everything still seems mostly the same to me.

Maybe they mean the other Saturday between 1 and 5AM -- the one after midnight.

[Cyclenall]

Maybe they mean the other Saturday between 1 and 5AM -- the one after midnight.

We will finally be doing our PhpBB site upgrade this Saturday Jan. 9...

[1900hurricane]

Yep, it is Saturday, January 9th right now (CST) and we've already passed 1-5 am. The next 1-5 am will be Sunday, January 10th.

[cipher]

The maintenance is actually scheduled for tonight, between the 1AM - 5AM window. Just some date confusion on my part. Sorry!

[WeatherGuesser]

Told ya it was the other Saturday overnight!

[cipher]

Just a reminder that I will be performing a maintenance beginning at 1AM CDT. There shouldn't be any forum or website outages experienced (Only when we make the transition live, which won't take too long), but while I do backups and duplicating data.. you guys might see some degraded performance when browsing the forum.

[cipher]

The conversion has been performed. There are several minor issues that I am currently working on. If you encounter any issues, please update this thread with the issue, time it was encountered and the error message (if any). Thank you.

[TheAustinMan]

The conversion has been performed. There are several minor issues that I am currently working on. If you encounter any issues, please update this thread with the issue, time it was encountered and the error message (if any). Thank you.

It appears that the "Global announcements" threads (like this one) have been placed in the Winter Weather forum. Is that intentional?

[panamatropicwatch]

There Active topics page is empty. Time is now.

[wxman57]

In addition to the "Active Topics" link not working, is there any way to include images in posts without first uploading the images to a web server? What about the ability to upload my avatar when I update my profile? I lost my ability to upload images to Comcast a few months back and can't post any images here.

[grentz7721]

New look is okay to me.

[AnnularCane]

Can you put the link to the chat room back up? I don't see it anywhere.

[NDG]

I like that this is finally mobile friendly version

[grentz7721]

You can now link your online hangouts like Facebook to your profile by just adding your username you use on Facebook and Twitter.