Forum Upgrade

[Administrator]

Hi all,

As mentioned last month, I have been working on migrating East Dulwich Forum to some new forum software. This has happened overnight on 10th April 2023. 

 

As with all software, please allow some time for any problem to be ironed out! There is still some work being done in the background to convert all of the content to the new format. This should be fully complete by the end of today.

 

There are many new features to the website which I will go over in due course over the next day or two, however a quick overview of the main ones:

 

 

New Logo

The forum has some new branding: for the first time in its history, a logo. The design is inspired from Southwark borough road signs.

 

 

Classifieds Changes

The For Sale and Family Room Classifieds boards have a new layout which includes preview images. On a desktop/laptop, if you hover over the image with your cursor you can see a larger version of the image.

NOTE :  The preview images are currently not displaying. They will start showing later today on 10-Apr-2023.

 

A highly requested feature - You will notice a new 'End Listing' button which allows you to automatically close the topic when the item is no longer available, meaning nobody will be able to reply to it. It will also add a marker to the title to make it obvious its no longer available.

 

 

 

New Post Editor

When you create a new topic or reply to post, the "editor box" where you enter the message should now be easier to use. It will be familiar to anyone who has used Microsoft Word or a similar word processor. You can format text (e.g. bold) it with a click of a button and it gives you a 'live preview' of the formatting.

 

 

New Private Messaging System

The messaging system in the new forum software is far less 'clunky', especially when you are viewing the forum on phone. Sending someone a message is now similar to a chat client. Hopefully people will find this easier to use.

 

Events Calendar

This is a new Events page which allows any to submit, view and comment on upcoming events in the local area. This will be similar to the 'Whats on in East Dulwich' board, however the big difference is that you will be able to see a clear date, time, venue and overview of all events, organised in chronological order on one page.

The calendar is currently empty, however over the coming months I will encourage people to start adding events to it. Eventually it will replace the 'Whats on in East Dulwich' board once people get used to it.

 

 

[Administrator]

Current issues under investigation:

• A user has reported some of their newest private messages have gone missing. I am investigating.
• The preview images in the For Sale and Family Room Classifieds board are currently missing. They are being generated and will be ready by the end of today.

 

 

[Administrator]

Just an update r.e. private messages.

Messages sent between 3rd-9th April 2023 went missing in the migration, for a reason I haven't yet figured out. However, they are not lost and still retrievable.

If anyone is missing a message in their inbox between 3rd-9th April which they need to see, please send a message to me using the "Contact Us" link (see bottom of the page) and I will give you further instructions.

[Sephiroth]

As a general comment, so far I'm really enjoying the recent changes Admin - a fair bit of work involved I'd imagine so well done

[Sue]

Really liking the changes, and the app is great!

It all looks so much better, and I'm finding it much easier to use than it was.

Thank you for all your hard work x

[ianr]

What's happened to the links, from the forum thread indexes to the actual most recent post in each thread?

[Administrator]

@ianr if you click the last reply time to the right of the post title, it will take you to the last comment. I've attached a screenshot below for what it looks like on mobile. If you're using desktop there is a similar 'last reply time' on the left but it looks slightly different

Mobile

 

 

 

[Jenijenjen]

I may be doing something wrong but when another post is quoted in a new post there is no way of seeing who posted the post that is quoted.  If you see what I mean 

[Administrator]

3 minutes ago, Jenijenjen said:

I may be doing something wrong but when another post is quoted in a new post there is no way of seeing who posted the post that is quoted.  If you see what I mean 

For the old posts made prior to the upgrade, these won't have the quote details (this was unfortunately not possible to migrate)

However new posts will have the name and date of the quoted post. I've quoted you to give you an example.

[ianr]

On 11 April at 20:02 I wrote:

> What's happened to the links, from the forum thread indexes to the actual most recent post in each thread?

Glad to see you've now got it sorted.

[ianr]

I think I spoke too soon.   Being signed in seems to be a necessary factor at present.  If you're not, the generated link is for the head of the thread only.  I've noted at least three variants of the tail of the URL, either a basic anchor or a function call, all of which seem to work in getting you to the most recent comment, so perhaps this is still work in progress.  But none of those appear if user is not signed in.   I've checked on three different machines/OS's, and even on a smart phone.

[Joe]

On 14/04/2023 at 11:03, ianr said:

Being signed in seems to be a necessary factor at present.  If you're not, the generated link is for the head of the thread only.

Yes seems you are correct. Thanks for pointing it out.

I'll add it to my list, but its a lower priority one at the moment.