Theme update and SMF 2.0 complete

[Omega]

2 July 2011:
The theme has been updated. This topic is kept only for the record. Please move any active discussion to the main Glest Board topic.


1 July 2011:

Happy Canada Day! An email from Jose revealed he was sick, but has just backed up the board and is likely to update today. The board will go offline during that time span and until I get the mods installed, it will not be 100% complete. Thank you for your understanding.


I originally planned to upgrade the board today, since I finished the theme and the mods were all tested and ready to go. Sadly, it has proven to be impossible, due to limited rights. The web install fails with a 500 because some PHP functions seem to be disabled. As well, the large install cannot be used because while I have a (very limited) method of uploading files to the server, there is no way to extract the files (not to mention that if the web install would fail, could this even succeed? Would render the board nonoperational unless the restrictions limiting the web install too were removed).

Thus, we must let the Glest team do the upgrading. I will try and contact them, and send the theme (though I could do the theme myself, once upgraded, if necessary). Mods would have to be installed after.

If anyone wants to take a look at the theme, feel free (requires a server running SMF 2.0): https://www.sugarsync.com/pf/D6983676_8815923_64554


This is a notice that the theme has been completed and I am just doing the finishing touches of gathering the mods (note: some mods are not yet compatible, so there will NOT be the activity bar, at least not until the author updates it).

The board will probably be down for around an hour or so to update the version, which will take a long time to convert all the posts, etc. As well, the update will not be finished until I get all the mods safely added in, so until I change the name (and content) of this topic, please be aware that it is not yet complete and may have bugs. Until it's 100% complete, please do not comment on them.

I do not know the exact start time of this update, but it should be whenever my snail internet finished downloading a backup.


Edit: Ooh, had a good catch there too... While testing the mods, some time after its installation, the Bad Behavior mod, which sounded so great, started crashing the forum. We won't be using that.

Edit2: And it is complete. Uploading will commence shortly. Screens:

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IMPORTANT NOTICE: The Youtube tag mod was abandoned in favor of another, however, it doesn't use a tag, but just needs the link. Thus, youtube tags will NO LONGER WORK. To embed the video, just post the bare link (no url tags), preferably on a new line for formatting. Problem solved, the old method with youtube tags will be continued, screenshot below.

[tomreyn]

Something like this can work for uploading + unzipping: http://www.3scriptz.com/snippets/unzip-on-server-using-php.html

[Omega]

Only problem is that it will have to overwrite a large number of files (pretty much every source and theme file), so it absolutely cannot go wrong, and must be able to overwrite these files properly. Sadly, the other problem is that we would need to modify the CHMOD on some of those files first, but it would appear that the board is incapable of doing so, for my CHMOD commands always fail. The webinstall is a much better, easier, and faster method, but it is hitting a 500 error, which I suspect is because of lacking permissions.

At any rate, I already contacted Jose, and hopefully he will do it when he gets the time.

Sorry if I got anyone's hopes up.


EDIT: Also, a few notes on some potential changes after we get the upgrade:

• There will be four new BBCodes available: [big], [small], [lmgtfy] (let me google that for you) and [wiki] (wiki is for Wikipedia, for example [wiki]Glest[/wiki] would make an automatic link to Wikipedia's page on Glest)
  
• Video linking will now be taken care of by Aeva, which will convert links to videos on popular sights directly to the embedded form. So just post a youtube link, or a daily motion link, or whatever video site you want. Most major sites are supported. Note that the link cannot be surrounded by BBCode then, so the old way of surrounding it with youtube tags will not work. Yes, this means existing videos will be broken, but the youtube BBCode mod was abandoned when the modder moved to Aeva, and it will not support SMF 2.0. This is not a bad thing, it's now easier to make embedded video, and you can use more sites than just youtube, though you will have to note how the old tags will not work.
• The FAQ will be moved to a button in the menu (as shown in the images above).
• Moderators will notice that they have a menu specifically for showing things like reported posts. Hopefully it won't have to be used too much, however, I hope that nobody got their hopes too high about the anti-bot abilities of 2.0. Many of the abilities will need to be "expanded". For example, my previously proposed idea of requiring the first post of all users to undergo moderator review before it shows up for everyone was decided against. 2.0 has features that will highlight these unapproved posts as well as place them in the previously mentioned moderator menu. As well, a mod has been installed to copy threads, meant to be used rather rarely, but may be of use, for example, in copying a feature request from GAE to MegaGlest and vice versa. Bear in mind it is rather heavy on system resources, so do not attempt to copy a thread with more than 3 pages.
• Admins should note that when deleting a user's account, a quickban mod will be implemented to allow them to place bans on that IP and email address at the same time, to prevent them from cropping up again in the future.
• I will also probably add an anti-spamming feature that uses a database of spammer IPs to prevent them from even signing up. However, there's a lot of them, and I haven't decided which one will be best. My first choice ended up giving a fatal error for my test board, so it will have to undergo some rigorous testing before it appears here.
• A mass deletion of all users that (1) have zero posts and have no been on their account for more than thirty days and (2) users waiting email approval after more than 14 days.
• All new members will receive a welcoming PM that will advise they check out the forum rules and FAQ.
• More default avatars will be available.
• I know we were going to use an improved timezones mod, but it's incompatible and unlikely to be updated, since the last update was in 2009. I can't remember what the issue was that we even used it in the first place, but I'm hoping that it'll be fixed in SMF 2.0 (haven't noticed anything wrong with the timezones, but that may just be me).
  
• The activity bar is also not compatible. Not a huge deal.
• Spoilers will remain intact, exactly as they are! (yay)
• Expect to see stronger limitations on signatures to prevent large images, etc. The characters allowed will be intact.

Suggestions are welcome.

EDIT:
After an email with Jose, I hear that he will be upgrading the forum for us tomorrow! Big thanks in advance to Jose!

[ultifd]

Sounds good, although the broken youtube embeds might be a problem. Thanks Jose!

[Omega]

Sounds good, although the broken youtube embeds might be a problem. Thanks Jose!

True. We may just be able to edit the posts as we see them, but I'll take a look into it myself, perhaps I may be able to port the youtube tag code enough to allow us to have a tag that parses, but isn't shown in the edit menu. Another cool thing about the posting and editing menus is that there is quick reply, a small collapsible box at the bottom of the thread to allow you to post a reply without loading a new page (at the cost that there is no toolbars, though BBCode still works). As well, there is a rich text editor (aka: WYSIWYG) that is toggleable (defaults to off, but can be set to default to on in your user preferences, which also have a revamp).

For youtube links, is the embedding code always the same (except the link to the video part)? If so, I may be able to replicate it well enough, though, there is some security stuff I'd have to be sure to take care of. It would need a very powerful regex string to ensure that only a youtube link could be placed, as it would be a huge security risk otherwise. Still, I'll look into that.

[John.d.h]

Actually, can we not have it automatically parse youtube links?  That's an awful lot of loading to be done if somebody were to post multiple videos, not to mention Flash's tendency to crash like the housing market when anything puts a strain on it.  Thus, I would prefer the current tags for that, so that posting links and embedding videos are two different things.

[Omega]

Actually, can we not have it automatically parse youtube links?  That's an awful lot of loading to be done if somebody were to post multiple videos, not to mention Flash's tendency to crash like the housing market when anything puts a strain on it.  Thus, I would prefer the current tags for that, so that posting links and embedding videos are two different things.

I agree, which is why you'll be happy to know I got it the youtube BBCode working again! I'll have to owe that one to you, for you made me try again, and managed to get it working. It does NOT work with the new, short URLs, but that should be fine, those aren't meant for forums anyway, but for things like twitter.

Preview:

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Also, a note that "today" is not necessarily accurate. When ever Jose gets time, not to mention whatever tomorrow would have meant yesterday in Spain. Man, timezones are a headache.

[ultifd]

OK, everything sounds awesome then. Jose can take his time.