*** New Site Questions And Comments Thread ***

[Reality]

If you have any questions or comments about the new site, feel free to post them in this thread. The new software behind the site is similar in some ways to the old site's software, but also different in many ways. It's a learning process for all of us!

I encourage everyone to like the replies of users in this thread who contribute good posts in this thread! Let them know you appreciate it!

/reality

 

[burmafrd]

two things: how can you make an old thread so that you know there has not been any more posts there since your last visit

and do we once again have a setting for 40 posts to a page instead of 20

 

[Reality]

two things: how can you make an old thread so that you know there has not been any more posts there since your last visit

If you view the last page of a thread, it will mark it as read. The easiest way to do this is to click on the date in the Last Message column that's below the last poster's username.

and do we once again have a setting for 40 posts to a page instead of 20

There are no user settings available for thread/post count per page. The site uses SEO friendly URLs which have page numbers in them. If users had different post/thread settings, then those URLs would point to the wrong pages depending on whether or not the user sharing the URL has the same settings as the users reading and clicking on the links. I will keep looking into it, but it is not something built-in to the software.

/reality

 

[Sportsbabe]

Why the change? I almost had a heart attack when I couldn't initially get into the site.

 

[Reality]

Why the change? I almost had a heart attack when I couldn't initially get into the site.

After 9 years running old software, it was time to upgrade to something new and more modern. I almost upgraded two years ago to different software going so far as to make a new CZ theme for it and run a test conversion which took 24 hours. The software was so slow and bloated though that I ultimately decided against it. I then came real close to upgrading the site last off-season to this software, but it had not been out long at that time and was missing several features that both the users and the staff would not have liked. This off-season was a perfect time to make that change and most people seem to like it so that's a good sign!

/reality

 

[Sportsbabe]

After 9 years running old software, it was time to upgrade to something new and more modern. I almost upgrading two years ago to different software going so far as to make a new CZ theme for it and run a test conversion which took 24 hours. The software was so slow and bloated though that I ultimately decided against it. I then came real close to upgrading the site like off-season to this software, but it had not been out long at that time and was missing several features that both the users and the staff would not have liked. This off-season was a perfect time to make that change and most people seem to like it so that's a good sign!

/reality

Is there any way to change the color scheme. I liked the Dark Blue and White of the old forum. Much easier to read.

 

[Reality]

Is there any way to change the color scheme. I liked the Dark Blue and White of the old forum. Much easier to read.

This site has the same dark blue background from the old site and the forums are white just like the old site as well. I heavily modified the theme of this site to look as much like the old site as possible while retaining the more modern look it needs to support today's features and uses.

Like any change, it will take time to get used to some things. Just give it a little time and I'm sure the new theme will become as comfortable for you, if not more so, than the old one and the old one will seem out of place

/reality

 

[Venger]

Blah, I hate change, but the performance seems good, so, can't complain about that. Hope the new layout grows on me. Prefer a more spartan appearance normally to the visual diarrhea that too many forum software turn into - witness AVSForum, whose redesign killed my desire to ever go there again. Only concern is the text seems so damn thin and delicate - light text is readability anthrax. Not so much in post body but buttons and such - I am too young to be squinting at stuff round here...

Good job on the migration though, a busy forum like this is not easy to forklift into a new design... I see posts and my login works, that's 90% of the battle...

 

[NuttyRex]

Is there a way to get rid of signatures and avatar pictures. Some of these are too large and I honestly can't stand queen latifah. I mainly use iPad and during games I like to just refresh and scroll. Seems there's less space on a page now?

 

[tupperware]

What made you decide XenForo over something like IPB? Are there any specific reasons? I've swapped two sites so far from vBulletin 3 and 4 to IPB and it's just miles ahead. Was there something about IPB that turned you off or a certain feature that was missing? If so I'd be curious to know what it was.

 

[tupperware]

Is there a way to get rid of signatures and avatar pictures. Some of these are too large and I honestly can't stand queen latifah. I mainly use iPad and during games I like to just refresh and scroll. Seems there's less space on a page now?

Signatures: http://cowboyszone.com/account/preferences

 

[Reality]

Blah, I hate change, but the performance seems good, so, can't complain about that. Hope the new layout grows on me. Prefer a more spartan appearance normally to the visual diarrhea that too many forum software turn into - witness AVSForum, whose redesign killed my desire to ever go there again. Only concern is the text seems so damn thin and delicate - light text is readability anthrax. Not so much in post body but buttons and such - I am too young to be squinting at stuff round here...

Good job on the migration though, a busy forum like this is not easy to forklift into a new design... I see posts and my login works, that's 90% of the battle...

Thanks! I am still tweaking the theme a little, so some things may or may not change.

/reality

 

[NuttyRex]

Signatures: http://cowboyszone.com/account/preferences

Thanks. It's already a lot cleaner.

 

[Reality]

Is there a way to get rid of signatures and avatar pictures. Some of these are too large and I honestly can't stand queen latifah. I mainly use iPad and during games I like to just refresh and scroll. Seems there's less space on a page now?

You can turn off signatures (I always do that on forums) by going to your user profile and clicking on "Preferences". There's an option to not show signatures if you uncheck it. Right now, I do not believe there's a way to disable avatars though.

/reality

 

[Reality]

What made you decide XenForo over something like IPB? Are there any specific reasons? I've swapped two sites so far from vBulletin 3 and 4 to IPB and it's just miles ahead. Was there something about IPB that turned you off or a certain feature that was missing? If so I'd be curious to know what it was.

I bought IPB a couple of years ago and that was the software I came very close to switching to then. IPB looks nice, but it's not very well designed at all. It's extremely bloated underneath. It's quite common on IPB pages to have 90+ database queries on a single page. They try to compensate by caching the data, but that only works if the data is not updating frequently. If you have a high traffic site or at least a site that has a ton of pageviews in a short time frame such as game day threads, the site would come to a crawl via the database bottleneck caused. Another thing that irked me about IPB was that it was built with the 'prototype' ajax framework which is very slow and not nearly as versatile as jQuery. IPB is working on their next major release (hopefully from scratch) and I am sure they will likely use jQuery and work to reduce a lot of the bloat.

For non-high traffic sites, I think IPB is a decent solution. I have even recommended it in the last year to a couple of people because it is a solid package in the right situation. vBulletin 4 was a nightmare filled with bugs until they hit 4.2 and just as they started getting it stable, they ditch it and focus on vBulletin 5 which very few admins seem to like. Most high traffic sites running vBulletin stayed on vB3 because it is by far the fastest and most reliable version. I never considered using vB4 at all.

/reality

 

[HoustonSucks]

I love it! Especially the Like option! I only miss where it says when you joined under your username. I may not post much but I'm an oldie but goodie...lol

 

[tupperware]

I bought IPB a couple of years ago and that was the software I came very close to switching to then. IPB looks nice, but it's not very well designed at all. It's extremely bloated underneath. It's quite common on IPB pages to have 90+ database queries on a single page. They try to compensate by caching the data, but that only works if the data is not updating frequently. If you have a high traffic site or at least a site that has a ton of pageviews in a short time frame such as game day threads, the site would come to a crawl via the database bottleneck caused. Another thing that irked me about IPB was that it was built with the 'prototype' ajax framework which is very slow and not nearly as versatile as jQuery. IPB is working on their next major release (hopefully from scratch) and I am sure they will likely use jQuery and work to reduce a lot of the bloat.

For non-high traffic sites, I think IPB is a decent solution. I have even recommended it in the last year to a couple of people because it is a solid package in the right situation. vBulletin 4 was a nightmare filled with bugs until they hit 4.2 and just as they started getting it stable, they ditch it and focus on vBulletin 5 which very few admins seem to like. Most high traffic sites running vBulletin stayed on vB3 because it is by far the fastest and most reliable version. I never considered using vB4 at all.

/reality

Yeah the jQuery thing sucks a bit. They're swapping to that in 4.0 I believe. XenForo isn't bad by any means, I was considering it until the devs and legal trouble surfaced. It looks like that is starting to clear out somewhat but at the time I made the decision a lot of things were still up in the air. I'm positive you're using something like APC/xcache already but what about mod_pagespeed and something like Lazy Loader? I just turned on debug mode on a very active thread we have:

Most threads are between 10-20 queries.

 

[Tabascocat]

Is there a way to mark a whole forum marked "as read" without having to click every thread in that forum? We used to be able to double click the icon for a particular forum but not now.

 

[Muhast]

Can we embed "Vines" yet? They are basically 6-10 second clips, similar to Youtube or a .gif?

 

[Reality]

Is there a way to mark a whole forum marked "as read" without having to click every thread in that forum? We used to be able to double click the icon for a particular forum but not now.

If you are inside the forum, there is a "Mark Forums Read" button at the top just below the menu bar. If you are inside the forum, it will give the option of marking all forums read or the one you are in at that moment.

/reality