The NEW Forums : Are We Ready?

[Keith Lawrence]

A poll and a discussion : Are we ready to switch over yet?

When we agree "yes" I will post to all existing forums inviting people to come on over here and start using this one, a day or so later I will announce that the old forums are closing, two or three days after that I will switch off the current www site and we will become the new www.bsacforum.co.uk site.

Me feeling? We're very nearly there. All of the basic functionality is working, we can do on here already far more than the existing forums, the problems are in the ancillaries like the Gallery, we haven't configured the Links properly, things like the forum names and desciptions and the navbar need sorting. I need to tweak the Members bit and move that to HQ onto the live database. So my vote is 'Give it a few days', I would hope that by Sunday eve we can announce the migration.

Your thoughts?

Keith L

[IainC]

My (admittedly newbie) opinion - it is nearly there.

I'm a software engineer so odd niggles don't bother me (in the sense that I know they are beign worked on and I can at least guess as to why somethign is broken), but I know just how much they affect non-tekkie people, so as many 'little' issues sorted as possible will make is smooth for everyone coming over, otherwise there will be an avalanch of 'little' complaints ;-)

Don't be afraid to delay a few days 'till you are happy.

Iain.

[Adrian Kelland]

Yep, nearly there. I want to try out Tristans suggestions for Navbar when registered.

Has anyone looked at layout when on 800x600 or 1024x768?

I think the banner makes the Nav bar messy...

Adrian

[Keith Lawrence]

Yep, nearly there. I want to try out Tristans suggestions for Navbar when registered.

Has anyone looked at layout when on 800x600 or 1024x768?

I think the banner makes the Nav bar messy...
Adrian

I think this subject is worth a thread of its own Adrian - be my guest. I have tried it on 800x600, it kind of fits, but so few people use that now I'm not convinced that tailoring for the minority whilst inflicting huge amounts of wasted space on the majority is the way to go. It's fine on 1024x768. I'll see if there's an easy way of gathering stats on browser resolution, we've got webalizer running on the site.

I'm not sure about he banner there either, the problem is it takes up vertical real estate if you put it above there in the header - but that's what other sites do and people are OK with it. Those banners and buttons on the home page are projected to bring in vital revenue for the club, they've got to go somewhere.

Tell you what, here's the deal... I'll do the geeky stuff, the buttons are done but the banner is still a To Do. The way we need them to work is that they are controlled by another web site on this server that will be providing the adverts for all of the BSAC sites. That means geeking around with PHP, Plug-In's, SSI and all type of anorak stuff.

BUT... I have been described as CSS Dyslexic and a Style Vandal by several people, the trouble is I have no choice but to agree with them as they're absolutely right ! :) So I'll handle the geek side (help would be appreciated) and give the vB Style admins a nice simple "put in this command and you get the adverts" type of interface. Then I will leave it to those who have a clue about such things to sort out the layout, colours etc. Whoever does that will be doing the BSAC a massive favour - it will mean that the members no longer have to put up with me trying to do something I'm useless at :rolleyes:

Clone these posts to another thread Adrian and see what people think?

Keith L

[Dave Sydenham]

A poll and a discussion : Are we ready to switch over yet?

When we agree "yes" I will post to all existing forums inviting people to come on over here and start using this one, a day or so later I will announce that the old forums are closing, two or three days after that I will switch off the current www site and we will become the new www.bsacforum.co.uk site.

Me feeling? We're very nearly there. All of the basic functionality is working, we can do on here already far more than the existing forums, the problems are in the ancillaries like the Gallery, we haven't configured the Links properly, things like the forum names and desciptions and the navbar need sorting. I need to tweak the Members bit and move that to HQ onto the live database. So my vote is 'Give it a few days', I would hope that by Sunday eve we can announce the migration.

Your thoughts?

Keith L

I think it looks great. Obviously a heck of a lot of work gone into this, so a big thanks to you and all your team, Keith. Nice one!

As soon as you think it's ready go for it!

Cheers!

Dave
:)

[Tristan Green]

Are we ready to switch over yet?

... the problems are in the ancillaries like the Gallery, we haven't configured the Links properly, things like the forum names and desciptions and the navbar need sorting.

Your thoughts?
Keith,

My feeling is that we are nearly there. Everything I have tried to do on here seems to work just fine (except for the gallery, but I know you are working on that; oh and the links verification stuff which you know about).

I would like to see the layout tweaked with the new navbars done, the names of the forums finalised and maybe the advert banner sorted out before this site goes live. There is nothing worse than launching a new product and then changing the way the whole thing looks within a couple of days because everyone comments on it. I suspect you'll have to deal with a large dose of "Where's the flipping button gone that took me there?" type posts if this happens.

How about you give us a heads up when you have finished all the visual tweaks you are working on? Then we can give our last round of comments on what we do and don't like about the appearance of the site.

I wouldn't bust your gut to get this live on Sunday night (unless you've really got nothing better to do this weekend :D ). After all we've been waiting some time to get this far - a couple more days won't hurt. But at the end of the day if you feel you've gone about as far as you can and anything changed from now on will be site "maintenance" rather than "set-up" then let's get on with it - Publish and be damned!

As you can see I'm sitting on the fence on this one. Where's the option for "keel-haul the webmaster?" :eek:

Cheers,
Tristan

ps - remember that not all of us maximise our windows so we appreciate web design that doesn't require 1024x768.

[MattS]

I am in rough agreement with the others. The forum functionality is pretty much there but the UI/presentation is still a bit rough in places. I would suggest that we set a finalise date (say next Friday) and a launch date (say next Sunday). After Friday we stop the admins fiddling with the UI leaving a couple days of sanity check for final tweaks before launching.

The forum titles really do need agreement and fixing prior to launch. The Nav bar looks horrible on my Powerbook and I don't think it is adding anything. Exactly how many different ways do we need to navigate? Less is more and all that.

[Andy Wade]

A small point.
Could the links with drop down lists be changed to show the DDL on mousehover?
As a dial up user, I've noticed that I'm a bit wary of a link because if I click on it, then find I didn't really want it, I sometimes have to wait ages for the original page to load again (I know it 'should' be cached, but for some inexplicable reason it often takes ages to build the page again).
My other option is to right click and select 'open in new window', but I think this defeats the object of a DDL.
Might I also suggest that 'Quick actions' is changed to 'Options' as it's a more commonly used term.

[Adrian Kelland]

What do you mean by DDL Andy?

Give an example?

[Keith Lawrence]

What do you mean by DDL Andy?

The menu expands (Drop Down List) when you move the mouse over it. It's normally done client side in JavaScript by using the OnMouseOver (or something like that) event of the control. Might be a lot of effort for not much gain, not sure how vB handles non script enabled browsers.

K

[Adrian Kelland]

Right, who said wait a few weeks? :)

[Keith Lawrence]

Right, who said wait a few weeks? :)
I could look it up on the database. As long as people are aware that I can track down who voted for what if I need to, especially if anybody votes for either of the last two options :rolleyes:

K

[Nigel Hewitt]

I could look it up on the database. As long as people are aware that I can track down who voted for what if I need to, especially if anybody votes for either of the last two options :rolleyes:
You do know how to push my buttons don't you?

It will be sad when this goes live and the traffic drops back to normal levels.

[Adrian Kelland]

You do know how to push my buttons don't you?

It will be sad when this goes live and the traffic drops back to normal levels.
I had been thinking similarly.

Perhaps things might change.

[Nigel Hewitt]

Perhaps things might change.Is it just me?

I wouldn't feel quite happy posting a thread like
http://www.yorkshire-divers.co.uk/forums/showthread.php?t=27372
to the BSAC forum. I feel I ought to toe the 'on topic' line a bit more.

No it's more than that. I think of BSAC as a bit stuffy. I'm quite happy to feed somebody some rope to see if they will put their head through the loop at the end but not unless it's a BSAC rope. Diving rope goes elsewhere.

I'd rather Keith didn't have to end up moderating the bear-pit Divernet has degenerated into but I'd like to feel more able to just post general diving stuff. At least here I wouldn't feel I had to hold the line against the DIR press gangs.

[Andy Wade]

Is it just me?

I wouldn't feel quite happy posting a thread like
http://www.yorkshire-divers.co.uk/forums/showthread.php?t=27372
to the BSAC forum. I feel I ought to toe the 'on topic' line a bit more.

Huh?
It's kind of diving related - and damned interesting.
Excellent stuff.
Loved the piccies, and I think that you showed great resourcefulness in removing the ball from the bore.
Now you can show this sort of thing on this great new forum, why not?


No it's more than that. I think of BSAC as a bit stuffy. I'm quite happy to feed somebody some rope to see if they will put their head through the loop at the end but not unless it's a BSAC rope. Diving rope goes elsewhere.


I don't think BSAC is actually stuffy, just a few people in BSAC who talk louder than others. It goes with the territory, IMO this is not indicative of stuffiness.
For example, I sometimes sound like a prat, but actually I'm a really nice person:D
Honest.

[Adrian Kelland]

I think it is down to us.

Perhaps we should try to use the forums for things we previously did not or felt unable to. The only way to make it happen.

With us moderating it leaves Keith to run the IT at HQ and not spend time looking at posts unless we feel we have to pass the buck.

Adrian

[Rick]

i think that is a great thread also

I hope traffic takes off here, potentially it could be just as good as YD but open up the 'club' feel of BSAC on a national level - which can only help newbies think about local clubs/BSAC in general if they find the forums via random google searches

How many members are there on the old forums and do their current login/passwords cross over??

[Adrian Kelland]

How many members are there on the old forums and do their current login/passwords cross over??

Sadly not.

It could have been technically possible to copy over the existing user names, but it was decided to start with a clean sheet.

The threads from the existing fora will be available in an archive, but will not be 'live'. The original posters name will appear, but even if the name is the same, will not be related to the new user names.

Adrian

[Rick]

cheers Adrian

Another quick question since your here - will the old thread carry over in VB style?

ie nice new and friendly and replyable or will they all be old style and locked

[Rick]

It could have been technically possible to copy over the existing user names, but it was decided to start with a clean sheet.


as part of the change over process there should be a counting down period say a week where the old forums are still live with a sticky (if that is possible) in each seperate forum saying for members to register on the new forum

I also think HQ e-mailing all the members who have e-mail in HQ records will be a good idea

Just to give it the best possible chance of getting traffic from day 1

apologies if this has been covered

[Keith Lawrence]

I'll answer that one if I may. Ideally you need to speak to Dave about this, he's the one who has actually done it some time ago on our test system. But basically it will be in vB presentation style but it will be locked to Read Only. Far easier will be for people just to create a new thread on the new forums with a simple copy 'n paste, but if there's anything that we really, really want to carry on with it might be possible for the admins to copy the thread out into a live forum. We don't know - we haven't tried it :D

When we start the cut-over process (real soon now we hope) people over on old will have plenty of warning and can come over here and start any new threads. But we are in uncharted territory here, we've never done it before, we're making this up as we go along to a large extent! If it does all go t*ts up then at least you've got somebody to blame - it's all the fault of the IT Team Leader as it was his mad idea to start this lark in the first place.

HTH

Keith L

p.s. I've closed this poll, thank you all, it did the job.

[Andy Wade]

as part of the change over process there should be a counting down period say a week where the old forums are still live with a sticky (if that is possible) in each seperate forum saying for members to register on the new forum


If it can't be made into a sticky, it should be possible to just type a message in the old forum navbar below the forum links, with a link to the new forums.
Edit: In fact there's a nice block available on each old forum page, which will become unnecessary when they are closed off, where it says:

"Click on a topic to reply to a message, to add your own point of view, or to answer a query.
Anonymous postings and false names are not welcome on this Forum."

I also think HQ e-mailing all the members who have e-mail in HQ records will be a good idea

Just to give it the best possible chance of getting traffic from day 1

apologies if this has been covered

Yes, good idea.:)

[Adrian Kelland]

Mention it on YD and other forums too. I have checked with YD so far that this is OK.