Forum Upgraded to phpBB 3.2!

[Hujio]

EXTRA ADMIN NOTE - AS EXPLAINED BELOW:
"In the meantime, as we sort out some other back-end issues, forum registrations will remain closed."

-------------

Well, we survived! As many of you have already noticed, this last weekend the forum software was upgraded to the most current version of phpBB. Unfortunately time did not allow for me to put together a post detailing the upgrade, nor really to prepare too much for the upgrade itself. I truly appreciate everyone's patience with this process, especially as we continue to work through a few things to make the forum experience the best we can for all.

The forum's last significant upgrade (from 3.0 to 3.1) was in July 2016, so it was certainly overdue as much has changed since then. The largest and most time consuming portion (~4 hours) of the upgrade was merely backing up and updating our massively large forum database to be compatible with phpBB 3.2. For some perspective, when we launched Kanzenshuu in 2012 the forum database imported from Daizenshuu EX was a little over one gigabyte. Today it sits at almost 4.5 gigs. I think it's fair to say our growth has not slowed down.

As always, despite being a minor stage release, this upgrade was a rather significant jump in terms of functionality and scripting. Unfortunately, similar to the previous upgrade, upgrading to phpBB 3.2 renders previously installed modifications and styles unusable. Therefore, we have created (as you've undoubtedly noticed) a new forum layout that is compatible with the upgrade, in addition to updating our previous modifications. As many were quick to point out, some of the layout changes were not up to snuff at the time of the upgrade, and I am in complete agreement. The layout was certainly not 100% where I wanted it to be either, but I had an opening in my schedule to perform the upgrade so I took it while I had the chance. Regardless, there will be additional changes coming to the layout in the coming days, some of which you may have already noticed.

In addition to the default "light" layout, we do now also offer a "dark" version of the layout for those of you that have been requesting it. At the moment the layout tweaks will hit the light version first and then be carried over to the dark version once everything has been finalized. In the meantime, as we sort out some other back-end issues, forum registrations will remain closed.

Finally, as of today the site has SSL (Secure Sockets Layer) support! All traffic will now be directed to HTTPS, ensuring all user information sent to and from our servers is encrypted and secure. Some users' avatars may no longer work if hosted on an unsecure server, so please update their URLs accordingly, move them to a different image hosting provider that supports secure content, or select from our gallery of avatars.

Be sure to keep an eye on this thread for any additional updates and details. If anyone has any comments, suggestions, or constructive criticisms, please post them here as well. I will do my best to respond as I can!

[Skar]

Thank you guys for all your hard work!

[JulieYBM]

Awesome work! I love the new Night Mode skin. I do wish the posts stretched to fill the full screen like they did before the upgrade, though...

I don't suppose it'll be easier to change my user name now, right?

[KBABZ]

Looks great! Thanks for being flexible with design changes, and I'm glad spoiler tags are working again!

The only thing that caught me off-guard was, as I mentioned elsewhere, the lack of a link back to the main site, but the link chain actually has that! So that's something to get used to, haha. I also mentioned the forum icons, and that's been addressed too.

[Luso Saiyan]

Here's a suggestion/question: is it possible to add 'watched topics' as an option on the side menu shown below?

[PFM18]

Would it be possible to implement "quick quotes" now? As in, give it the functionality to highlight something of another person's quote and just quote that? It's not really a big issue, but it's much more convenient than what we have now.

[Hujio]

I do wish the posts stretched to fill the full screen like they did before the upgrade, though...

I debated about that myself. The layout is fixed width, but only for larger resolution displays. As the resolution reduces, the content adjusts with it. My thought process on using a fixed width for larger resolutions was that having everything closer to the center of the screen makes it a little easier to read, as each text line of a post will be shorter. It's one of the reasons the main site is still fixed width. I'm hoping it'll grow on people. I swear, I do put some forethought into these changes, whether they're good changes or not. As for the name change, that's never gonna be easy, but we may be able to swing that at some point. Shoot me a PM and we can discuss it further.

Thanks for being flexible with design changes, and I'm glad spoiler tags are working again!

I do what I can! The spoiler tag thing was a weird situation. Technically they worked, but only if you gave them a title. For some reason it dropped support of non-named spoiler tags. It was an easy fix, just a really weird one, which seems to be the norm with these upgrades.

...the lack of a link back to the main site, but the link chain actually has that! So that's something to get used to, haha.

This is nothing personal (I swear), but I feel like sometimes people don't pay attention. A link to the main website has always been in the breadcrumbs (link chain), but it was previously just titled "Home". I only recently renamed it to "Main Website" after it became unfeasible to include by the logo. But yes, it'll take some getting used to.

Here's a suggestion/question: is it possible to add 'watched topics' as an option on the side menu shown below?

Do you just want that for easier access? I guess how often do you actually check that page?

Would it be possible to implement "quick quotes" now?

We actually already have something similar to that, depending on how you look at it. If you reply to a topic it will display all of the posts at the bottom of the page in a "Topic Review" section. You can select any portion of someone's post in this section and then click the quote button on that respective post. It will take the text you selected and insert it in your response as a quote. You can do that for as many quotes as you want. It's actually what I did to respond to all these post.

[KBABZ]

...the lack of a link back to the main site, but the link chain actually has that! So that's something to get used to, haha.

This is nothing personal (I swear), but I feel like sometimes people don't pay attention. A link to the main website has always been in the breadcrumbs (link chain), but it was previously just titled "Home". I only recently renamed it to "Main Website" after it became unfeasible to include by the logo. But yes, it'll take some getting used to.

Calling it Main Website definitely makes it clearer what the link is for, so that's a great change IMO as it also clears up the upper banner.

I debated about that myself. The layout is fixed width, but only for larger resolution displays. As the resolution reduces, the content adjusts with it. My thought process on using a fixed width for larger resolutions was that having everything closer to the center of the screen makes it a little easier to read, as each text line of a post will be shorter. It's one of the reasons the main site is still fixed width. I'm hoping it'll grow on people. I swear, I do put some forethought into these changes, whether they're good changes or not. As for the name change, that's never gonna be easy, but we may be able to swing that at some point. Shoot me a PM and we can discuss it further.

I agree with this decision, because at a certain point you do a lot of horizontal movement and that can make it tricky to move to the next line all the way on the other side of the screen. Plus it screws with the appearance of how large a paragraph may seem, which when making posts will mess with how much one can say in a single paragraph and make them more long-winded (because that's all we need around here!).

Also, just did the selective quote feature. What a cool idea!

[PFM18]

We actually already have something similar to that, depending on how you look at it. If you reply to a topic it will display all of the posts at the bottom of the page in a "Topic Review" section. You can select any portion of someone's post in this section and then click the quote button on that respective post. It will take the text you selected and insert it in your response as a quote. You can do that for as many quotes as you want. It's actually what I did to respond to all these post.

Oh okay, I'm sorry. To some extent the functionality already exists.

[Hujio]

Oh okay, I'm sorry. To some extent the functionality alreaady exists.

No need to be sorry. I don't think it's a feature that most people are really aware of.

[Luso Saiyan]

Here's a suggestion/question: is it possible to add 'watched topics' as an option on the side menu shown below?

Do you just want that for easier access? I guess how often do you actually check that page?

Yes, it's mostly for easier access. Personally, I do check it relatively often, but I don't know about everyone else.

[KBABZ]

I feel like links do make the justified text spacing look a bit odd.

[JulieYBM]

I do wish the posts stretched to fill the full screen like they did before the upgrade, though...

I debated about that myself. The layout is fixed width, but only for larger resolution displays. As the resolution reduces, the content adjusts with it. My thought process on using a fixed width for larger resolutions was that having everything closer to the center of the screen makes it a little easier to read, as each text line of a post will be shorter. It's one of the reasons the main site is still fixed width. I'm hoping it'll grow on people. I swear, I do put some forethought into these changes, whether they're good changes or not. As for the name change, that's never gonna be easy, but we may be able to swing that at some point. Shoot me a PM and we can discuss it further

Aha, gotcha. I imagined it was something like that but just wanted to make sure.

[Hujio]

I feel like links do make the justified text spacing look a bit odd.

Yeah, that's a valid point. I'm still experimenting with a few things, so I'll revisit it.

[majinwarman]

Well, we survived! As many of you have already noticed, this last weekend the forum software was upgraded to the most current version of phpBB. Unfortunately time did not allow for me to put together a post detailing the upgrade, nor really to prepare too much for the upgrade itself. I truly appreciate everyone's patience with this process, especially as we continue to work through a few things to make the forum experience the best we can for all.

The forum's last significant upgrade (from 3.0 to 3.1) was in July 2016, so it was certainly overdue as much has changed since then. The largest and most time consuming portion (~4 hours) of the upgrade was merely backing up and updating our massively large forum database to be compatible with phpBB 3.2. For some perspective, when we launched Kanzenshuu in 2012 the forum database imported from Daizenshuu EX was a little over one gigabyte. Today it sits at almost 4.5 gigs. I think it's fair to say our growth has not slowed down.

As always, despite being a minor stage release, this upgrade was a rather significant jump in terms of functionality and scripting. Unfortunately, similar to the previous upgrade, upgrading to phpBB 3.2 renders previously installed modifications and styles unusable. Therefore, we have created (as you've undoubtedly noticed) a new forum layout that is compatible with the upgrade, in addition to updating our previous modifications. As many were quick to point out, some of the layout changes were not up to snuff at the time of the upgrade, and I am in complete agreement. The layout was certainly not 100% where I wanted it to be either, but I had an opening in my schedule to perform the upgrade so I took it while I had the chance. Regardless, there will be additional changes coming to the layout in the coming days, some of which you may have already noticed.

In addition to the default "light" layout, we do now also offer a "dark" version of the layout for those of you that have been requesting it. At the moment the layout tweaks will hit the light version first and then be carried over to the dark version once everything has been finalized. In the meantime, as we sort out some other back-end issues, forum registrations will remain closed.

Finally, as of today the site has SSL (Secure Sockets Layer) support! All traffic will now be directed to HTTPS, ensuring all user information sent to and from our servers is encrypted and secure. Some users' avatars may no longer work if hosted on an unsecure server, so please update their URLs accordingly, move them to a different image hosting provider that supports secure content, or select from our gallery of avatars.

Be sure to keep an eye on this thread for any additional updates and details. If anyone has any comments, suggestions, or constructive criticisms, please post them here as well. I will do my best to respond as I can!

Nice work!

[JulieYBM]

Oh, hey, I have tits now.

[KBABZ]

Oh, hey, I have tits now.

Congratulations!

[Shiyonasan]

This looks great! The dark option is a huge plus for me.

Keep up the good work Kanzenshuu staff.

[Hujio]

Alright, I believe I've finished with all of my planned tweaks, or at least the more major ones. I appreciate all the feedback we've gotten so far, so if anyone has any other requests or comments, now is the time to throw 'em out for consideration.

[Luso Saiyan]

Thanks for the 'Subscribed topics' quick link.