ElectroMaster
Administrator
We recently upgraded the software which powers this web site to the latest version of vbulletin Which is 4.0.1
Why
The new vbulletin system has a new CMS (content management system) to handle content in the form of articles, this will benefit ETO greatly because it will be perfect for the current electronic theory articles, and the electronic projects. At the moment they are all just lumped into a forum which is messy and confuses new members. This will allow articles to have their own dedicated place.
The new software is also supposed to use the most modern markup language (css) to display the forum which should be faster and more efficient. It should also allow better modification to add new features. Additionally the software was meant to be backwards compatible with older browsers.
The Problem
Deciding on upgrading was clear, wait until the software was a final release, and had passed the vbulletin's quality guidelines. I waited until vBulletin 4.0 Gold was released to the public. Paid my money and started testing. The database transfered okay and everything worked on my development server. So I went ahead and upgraded the main forum.
Within half a day problems started arising. Firstly there were several bugs spotted, features from the older version of vbulletin that were commonly used by members had disapeared. And on top of that, older browsers ceased to display the site correctly.
I feel that vbulletin has massifly dropped the ball and is border line criminal for releasing a product to the public with so many known bugs. But more importantly, I dropped the ball. I do feel extremely bad for regular members who visit to this site day in and day out helping out others, and for it to be broken. That sucks. I appologize and will be working very hard over the next few weeks to bring ETO back up to standard.
Known Issues
There are some known issues still..
Since the upgrade there have been over 100 posts which I have just cleaned up (they have either been fixed or are now in the list above) so please when posting an issue please ALWAYS state your browser, screen resolution, operating system and as many details as possible (like what page it happened on). This will allow me to replicate it and then finding a fix.
Thank you all for your patience, I do apologize for the inconvenience to everyone.
Regards,
EM
Why
The new vbulletin system has a new CMS (content management system) to handle content in the form of articles, this will benefit ETO greatly because it will be perfect for the current electronic theory articles, and the electronic projects. At the moment they are all just lumped into a forum which is messy and confuses new members. This will allow articles to have their own dedicated place.
The new software is also supposed to use the most modern markup language (css) to display the forum which should be faster and more efficient. It should also allow better modification to add new features. Additionally the software was meant to be backwards compatible with older browsers.
The Problem
Deciding on upgrading was clear, wait until the software was a final release, and had passed the vbulletin's quality guidelines. I waited until vBulletin 4.0 Gold was released to the public. Paid my money and started testing. The database transfered okay and everything worked on my development server. So I went ahead and upgraded the main forum.
Within half a day problems started arising. Firstly there were several bugs spotted, features from the older version of vbulletin that were commonly used by members had disapeared. And on top of that, older browsers ceased to display the site correctly.
I feel that vbulletin has massifly dropped the ball and is border line criminal for releasing a product to the public with so many known bugs. But more importantly, I dropped the ball. I do feel extremely bad for regular members who visit to this site day in and day out helping out others, and for it to be broken. That sucks. I appologize and will be working very hard over the next few weeks to bring ETO back up to standard.
Known Issues
There are some known issues still..
- Sidebar: covers the forum on smaller resolutions
- Sidebar: hide button does not work on older browsers
- Search: Missing Subscription icons
- Search: missing main icon for some content types
- Search (Advanced): Cannot search users posts - it only shows threads started.
- Posts: Some monitors display the post crammed to the left side (semi fixed)
- Posts: Insert Code size issue (semi fixed)
- Reply With Quote: On some browsers the reply gets squashed to the right..
- Forum Display: Mark As Read drop down option doesn't work correctly.
- Blog: Attachments are missing for older posts.
Since the upgrade there have been over 100 posts which I have just cleaned up (they have either been fixed or are now in the list above) so please when posting an issue please ALWAYS state your browser, screen resolution, operating system and as many details as possible (like what page it happened on). This will allow me to replicate it and then finding a fix.
Thank you all for your patience, I do apologize for the inconvenience to everyone.
Regards,
EM
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