We have just carried out a series of major forum software upgrades. These included updates to our vBulletin software, major plugins, and some new Facebook and Google+1 buttons and integration.
The Facebook connect had been a problem for some time as vBulletin had issues with this, so we'd disconnected it. It should now work OK.
The buttons were slowing us down a bit so we re-worked how they connect, and things should be better now.
The new vB version had an issue with the mobile skin - it was locking iPhone and Android users into the mobile template and users could not choose the other skins. This has been fixed. There were screams of agony about this, which turned to sighs of relief when we fixed it...
Our new vB Support Admin, Harry, is working hard on several ECF projects now. Apart from the usual glitch fixes, and ongoing upgrades and patches where needed, he will be fixing the Social Groups - we hope. Fingers crossed on that one - vB3 was great with SGs but the new vB4 version had lost that functionality. It's there, but severely hamstrung. So Harry's going to recode a lot of it and hopefully we'll get back to where we were before. Two steps forward, one step back
After that, we're going to look at the Classifieds. Ideally we want to make the Classifieds section the best we possibly can - maybe the best on the web, at least for forum-based classifieds. So, if you know of a site or a forum with a really good classifieds section that we could learn something from, then please let us know - post in the Site Feedback forum, please.
We will be returning to the main forum index as the front page soon, as the InfoPages are not working as well as we'd hoped as the website front end. It was worth trying though. The InfoPages section will still be there, but on a link from the forum front page. It will stay the same as it is now. Once it is changed around, we have big plans to expand it with a magazine section, campaigning, health, technical sections and more.
The Facebook connect had been a problem for some time as vBulletin had issues with this, so we'd disconnected it. It should now work OK.
The buttons were slowing us down a bit so we re-worked how they connect, and things should be better now.
The new vB version had an issue with the mobile skin - it was locking iPhone and Android users into the mobile template and users could not choose the other skins. This has been fixed. There were screams of agony about this, which turned to sighs of relief when we fixed it...
Our new vB Support Admin, Harry, is working hard on several ECF projects now. Apart from the usual glitch fixes, and ongoing upgrades and patches where needed, he will be fixing the Social Groups - we hope. Fingers crossed on that one - vB3 was great with SGs but the new vB4 version had lost that functionality. It's there, but severely hamstrung. So Harry's going to recode a lot of it and hopefully we'll get back to where we were before. Two steps forward, one step back
After that, we're going to look at the Classifieds. Ideally we want to make the Classifieds section the best we possibly can - maybe the best on the web, at least for forum-based classifieds. So, if you know of a site or a forum with a really good classifieds section that we could learn something from, then please let us know - post in the Site Feedback forum, please.
We will be returning to the main forum index as the front page soon, as the InfoPages are not working as well as we'd hoped as the website front end. It was worth trying though. The InfoPages section will still be there, but on a link from the forum front page. It will stay the same as it is now. Once it is changed around, we have big plans to expand it with a magazine section, campaigning, health, technical sections and more.
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