Development news: Forum upgrade

Read and comment on the latest community news and site updates.
User avatar
Unas
Admin / Site programmer
Posts: 8854
Joined: Tue Jul 10, 2007 4:43 pm
Gender: Male
Spoken languages: Français, English, Español
Contact:

Development news: Forum upgrade

Post by Unas »

Development news
Forum upgrade
Following the AAOkube migration last week, lots of you had noticed issues on the forums.
To resolve them, I just performed a long due upgrade of the forum software.

As a result of the upgrade, your experience on the forums will change slightly.
I tried to reproduce a very similar layout to make it easy for everyone - I hope you'll enjoy it. Feel free to report anything you dislike and we'll see if that can be improved.


Unfortunately, as you may have noticed, the transition didn't go smoothly : the website was offline for most of the day today... and I've been forced to restore a backup of the database dating to this Monday 2020-10-12 06:28:37 GMT. Any post or conversation, and any work done on a trial since that date has disappeared.
I'm really sorry for that problem - but given the trouble I've gone through today, I'm already relieved to get everything back online now !
ImageImageImage
If knowledge can create problems, it is not through ignorance that we can solve them.
Si le savoir peut créer des problèmes, ce n'est pas l'ignorance qui les résoudra. ( Isaac Asimov )
User avatar
ThePaSch
Moderator
Posts: 1270
Joined: Sun Jun 13, 2010 5:56 pm
Gender: Male
Spoken languages: English, German (native)
Location: Germany

Re: Development news: Forum upgrade

Post by ThePaSch »

Looks snazzy! A couple CSS glitches here and there, and the forum doesn't automatically switch to your browser/OS language anymore when you're not logged in - it's French by default. Also, it looks like there's a problem with formatting on the frontpage (at least in the German version). And all user avatars seem to have disappeared?

Other than that, it's not a big departure from the old UI, and I think the updated theme looks pretty great. Good to see the reduced trial manager is still with us!
User avatar
Enthalpy
Community Manager
Posts: 5186
Joined: Wed Jan 04, 2012 4:40 am
Gender: Male
Spoken languages: English, limited Spanish

Re: Development news: Forum upgrade

Post by Enthalpy »

Here's hoping this is the end of the upgrade, and that it serves AAO well for some time.

Is there a way for us to see the new CSS, so those of us with some technical skill can help with the changes?
[D]isordered speech is not so much injury to the lips that give it forth, as to the disproportion and incoherence of things in themselves, so negligently expressed. ~ Ben Jonson
User avatar
Jofe
Posts: 14415
Joined: Fri Jun 10, 2011 1:44 am
Gender: Male
Spoken languages: Français [100%], English [70%]

Re: Development news: Forum upgrade

Post by Jofe »

the forum doesn't automatically switch to your browser/OS language anymore when you're not logged in - it's French by default.
Funny, because I'm french and it's English by default when I'm not logged in. x) (and it was like that before the update already).
Image Image Image Image Image
User avatar
Unas
Admin / Site programmer
Posts: 8854
Joined: Tue Jul 10, 2007 4:43 pm
Gender: Male
Spoken languages: Français, English, Español
Contact:

Re: Development news: Forum upgrade

Post by Unas »

Ah, good point regarding the language. I've just changed it to default to English instead, and I'll have to look into the language switching based on browser : I think it's a change I had made on the old forum by hand. I'll have to see if that can be implemented in the new one in a better fashion so it doesn't disappear in future updates.

For the CSS, it's part of a new forum style I wrote in the last 3 days and published here, open for contributions : https://bitbucket.org/AceAttorneyOnline ... rc/master/
Currently it's CSS only, just overriding the default phpBB theme to look more like the old style.
It could also replace some of the HTML code of the default style, but I'd rather avoid it and keep using the standard as much as possible. (The more files we override, the more files we'll have to maintain for future upgrades.)

As for the reduced trial manager, it's still here thanks to the other thing I worked on these last 3 days : https://bitbucket.org/AceAttorneyOnline ... rc/master/
Since phpBB3.3 includes a well designed extension mechanism (until now we were on 3.0 which didn't - and I had developed my own extension system to replace it but it made updates even more painful), I rewrote the reduced manager into that standard format. This, also, should make future forum upgrades a lot easier.

Once I release the docker-based AAOkube development environment, it'll become very easy to test it locally on your machine :-)


Regarding avatars, indeed, it was a setting in the new forum version to disable remote images. I just re-enabled it.
ImageImageImage
If knowledge can create problems, it is not through ignorance that we can solve them.
Si le savoir peut créer des problèmes, ce n'est pas l'ignorance qui les résoudra. ( Isaac Asimov )
User avatar
SuperAj3
Posts: 1348
Joined: Wed Sep 01, 2010 11:19 am
Spoken languages: English, 日本語(少しだけ)
Location: on the Flip Side

Re: Development news: Forum upgrade

Post by SuperAj3 »

Thanks for the upgrade! I have one little comment, if you don't mind:
I find it difficult to see the page numbers in white font, on a light grey background. Is it possible to change the colours? (I might see if the older themes are still available and see if that fixes it.)
Image
EDIT: Welp, this was already shared.
ImageImageImageImage
User avatar
ThePaSch
Moderator
Posts: 1270
Joined: Sun Jun 13, 2010 5:56 pm
Gender: Male
Spoken languages: English, German (native)
Location: Germany

Re: Development news: Forum upgrade

Post by ThePaSch »

Posts on the front page still seem like a mess of BBcode. Do you have any idea what could be causing that, Unas?
User avatar
Unas
Admin / Site programmer
Posts: 8854
Joined: Tue Jul 10, 2007 4:43 pm
Gender: Male
Spoken languages: Français, English, Español
Contact:

Re: Development news: Forum upgrade

Post by Unas »

I noticed that too, I don't know what's the cause yet but that shouldn't be too hard to fix once I get a serious look at it.

Right now I'm focused on a more urgent issue : the site cannot send any mail, which prevents users from signing up :-)
ImageImageImage
If knowledge can create problems, it is not through ignorance that we can solve them.
Si le savoir peut créer des problèmes, ce n'est pas l'ignorance qui les résoudra. ( Isaac Asimov )
User avatar
Unas
Admin / Site programmer
Posts: 8854
Joined: Tue Jul 10, 2007 4:43 pm
Gender: Male
Spoken languages: Français, English, Español
Contact:

Re: Development news: Forum upgrade

Post by Unas »

I've just pushed an update that fixes most of these issues, plus a few other details.

The only big problem remaining is regarding emails : after my work of tonight, the emails are sent... but are rejected immediately by GMail (and probably other mail providers) because I'm missing some configuration to prove that AAO is not spamming, basically.
So, I've still got some work left !
ImageImageImage
If knowledge can create problems, it is not through ignorance that we can solve them.
Si le savoir peut créer des problèmes, ce n'est pas l'ignorance qui les résoudra. ( Isaac Asimov )
User avatar
Enthalpy
Community Manager
Posts: 5186
Joined: Wed Jan 04, 2012 4:40 am
Gender: Male
Spoken languages: English, limited Spanish

Re: Development news: Forum upgrade

Post by Enthalpy »

The CSS changes look good.

Good luck on the email fixes.
[D]isordered speech is not so much injury to the lips that give it forth, as to the disproportion and incoherence of things in themselves, so negligently expressed. ~ Ben Jonson
User avatar
Unas
Admin / Site programmer
Posts: 8854
Joined: Tue Jul 10, 2007 4:43 pm
Gender: Male
Spoken languages: Français, English, Español
Contact:

Re: Development news: Forum upgrade

Post by Unas »

Well, so far I couldn't find a way to make emails work properly in a reasonable amount of time, so I've decided to remove the setting that required an activation email, as that was the main blocking point - people will be free to log in immediately after sign up.
I've upgraded the captcha mechanism though, to try to protect against bots signing up...
ImageImageImage
If knowledge can create problems, it is not through ignorance that we can solve them.
Si le savoir peut créer des problèmes, ce n'est pas l'ignorance qui les résoudra. ( Isaac Asimov )
User avatar
Enthalpy
Community Manager
Posts: 5186
Joined: Wed Jan 04, 2012 4:40 am
Gender: Male
Spoken languages: English, limited Spanish

Re: Development news: Forum upgrade

Post by Enthalpy »

Is there any news about getting emails working again? I'm still getting used to not having an email when I get a PM I need to respond to. I completely understand if this isn't a priority given the rest of the upgrade.
[D]isordered speech is not so much injury to the lips that give it forth, as to the disproportion and incoherence of things in themselves, so negligently expressed. ~ Ben Jonson
User avatar
Unas
Admin / Site programmer
Posts: 8854
Joined: Tue Jul 10, 2007 4:43 pm
Gender: Male
Spoken languages: Français, English, Español
Contact:

Re: Development news: Forum upgrade

Post by Unas »

Not yet, sorry !
I took a break from AAO stuff these last few days, to catch up after working overtime the previous days. :-P
ImageImageImage
If knowledge can create problems, it is not through ignorance that we can solve them.
Si le savoir peut créer des problèmes, ce n'est pas l'ignorance qui les résoudra. ( Isaac Asimov )
AceAttorneyMaster111
Posts: 468
Joined: Sat Sep 27, 2014 6:46 pm
Gender: Male
Spoken languages: English, français, un poco de español, עברית
Location: USA

Re: Development news: Forum upgrade

Post by AceAttorneyMaster111 »

Any updates on emails?
User avatar
Unas
Admin / Site programmer
Posts: 8854
Joined: Tue Jul 10, 2007 4:43 pm
Gender: Male
Spoken languages: Français, English, Español
Contact:

Re: Development news: Forum upgrade

Post by Unas »

Well, I know I'm answering more than 2 months later, but I've finally found the time to dig into the email configuration and set everything up.

In october, I had managed to get the AAO IP blacklisted because emails sent were failing spam filter checks...
This weekend, I finally took the time to move to a new IP address, set everything up properly with all the security stuff to authenticate mails (including FCrDNS IP + SPF and DMARC DNS records... yeah, that's obscure technical stuff, that is particularly hard to get right when everything is deployed in a dynamic cloud environment like now).

The point being, now the forums should be able to send you email notifications just fine :-)
ImageImageImage
If knowledge can create problems, it is not through ignorance that we can solve them.
Si le savoir peut créer des problèmes, ce n'est pas l'ignorance qui les résoudra. ( Isaac Asimov )
Locked