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Come and see the new forum software and discuss the theme


Pleeb

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So I thought it was time for an update.  We have bought Invision Power Board and the linked accounts plugin.  We've purchased the test VM and have been starting to create the new site.  Last week I imported a snapshot of our database into the new software and ran all of the required background tasks to convert everything.  Most things carried over (signatures, profiles, posts, attachments not embedded into posts) while other things certainly did not ( attachments embedded as images in post, avatars, account links).

 

You can test it right now, but it will require adding a few entries to your computer's host file.  I'll show you how to do that at the bottom of the post, but if you'd rather just see some screenshots, have at it: https://imgur.com/a/ViwhGSv

 

A few notes/bugs in the theme/forum:

* The dev server is using a self-signed certificate, which means that if you visit in any browser, you'll be told it's unsecure. Usually clicking on "Advanced" and "Continue anyway" works, but you may be asked every single time depending on your browser. In FireFox I was able to add that certificate as an exception.

* I'm really hoping to get feedback on the theme / new themes more than anything else.

* Email doesn't work at the moment.  It might by the time you try using it, but right now it certainly doesn't.

* The author's name in a post's title's color is messed up.  I can't seem to figure out how to override that, but if you can do it using purely CSS without breaking the color on the rest of the links, please let me know!

* Avatars seem to still exist in the system, they made it over, they're just not attached to accounts anymore?  It's very strange...

* Linked accounts will certainly need to be re-linked.  It's just because we're going from one 3rd party linked accounts plugin to another.

* I didn't add in the member icons, because we're rewriting it anyway.  Just imagine the gat has nyancats

* There's weird artifacts in the theme, if you catch them, tell me where they are and post screenshots

 

On the subject of themes

To switch between the default forum theme and IPB's vanilla theme, scroll to the bottom of the page and click on Themes:

M9Pg8fa.png

 

The current theme is basically a re-color using only CSS, and yeah, it's not the best recolor in the world.  I tried to make it the closest I could to the current forums, but I'm no master at CSS.

If you would like to try your luck at re-skinning the theme, simply switch to the IPB ("Default") theme and use a plugin to add CSS overrides.  If you know what this means you're probably qualified to give it a try.

 

I want to stay as vanilla as possible

In a perfect world, Invision Community would actually have their own vanilla dark theme instead of the blinding white one.  Apparently I'm not alone in wanting this.

 

Until that happens though, I'm actually looking at purchasing a premium theme instead of maintaining the CSS recolor.  I can keep what I have right now, but I've found some of these other themes to look and feel more modern and speed up the site.

 

One such theme I was looking at was Surface Dark, which you can test by going HERE and setting that theme at the bottom of the page.  Considering this theme has been maintained with practically daily updates since 2016 (and they charge $10 every 6 months to keep it), I have faith it'll be around at least until Invision Community comes up with their own "Dark Mode". Others I was looking at were Dreadnought and Veizor.

 

Vote on what theme you'd be interested in here:: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1SFefvDMc7Sotdlr-AEVwgPRO3nZIr5QqD4kYqLyLJ7A/viewform?edit_requested=true

 

Some other notes...

IPB has a new Q&A system

I added a test board called New Format Q&A Test. Feel free to shoot the idea down if you don't like it.

 

What next?

 

I'm hoping either next week or the week after to properly migrate everything over, and that will require bringing the community down for approx. two days.  I'll keep you posted on when that will actually happen, it may depend on the responses / backlash of the dev site.

 

How to access the dev site

This is the weird part.  You'll have to edit your hosts file and add our custom DNS entry.  After doing this, you'll lose access to the 'production version' of tulpa.info until you remove the host file entries, but you'll be able to view the DEV site.

 

I only recommend doing this if you really know what you're doing, as messing with system files could have damaging affects if you mess up. Make a backup of your host file first even if it means just copying it to your desktop.  If you run into any problems, I'm sure one of us can help you in the Discord channel with fixing things.

 

There are some very good instructions on how to edit your host file here: https://support.rackspace.com/how-to/modify-your-hosts-file/

 

When you finally edit this hosts file, these are the changes that you want to make.  Add this line to the file:

45.33.70.92 community.tulpa.info

 

If you do this, you then want to open community.tulpa.info in a new browser.  If you see the old forums, press shift+refresh and it should take you into the new community.

 

Want to get back to the real forums?  Just re-edit, and remove that line.

 

I'm re-creating this topic on the new forums just in case you need to access those posts again.  You can also comment to this topic on either forum, I'm monitoring them both, just know anything newly posted on the dev forum will be replaced with an up-to-date version of the community forums when we make the real switch.

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I edited the hosts file, and I got this...

 

soMuchForTesting.thumb.png.698da8ac703ee9b101a224a7ef25dbb2.png

 

Edge and Chrome won't let me near the site.

Meow. You may see my headmates call me Gray or sometimes Cat.

I used to speak in pink and Ranger used to speak in blue (if it's unmarked and colored assume it's Ranger). She loves to chat.

 

Our system account

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I edited the hosts file, and I got this...

 

 

 

Edge and Chrome won't let me near the site.

 

Yeah... Basically, the server uses a self-signed certificate, which means browsers will NOT like it. If you click on "Details" is there an option to "Continue Anyway"? In FireFox, I'm able to add it as an exception (as Chrome keeps asking me on every page refresh)

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Editing our host file? easy, we've done that plenty to block some ad domains/popup stuff

 

- wait, I can look at the themes first at least

 

Surface Dark (this one has ads that look like the heckin Steam store at the top, it looks like this but I'm sure we wouldn't have all that nonsense)

Dreadnought Dark

Veizor Dark

 

as long as there's not actually tons of stuff bloating up the area above the actual thread, Surface Dark seems fine to me (but I feel like I'd have to see them on a real forum to tell for sure, those ads and stuff...)

 

 

Okay, I'm taking a deep breath and going in, see you on the other side maybe!


well lots of stuff seems broken, is that intended? I wrote a post but it was all empty (every time I hit enter the line disappeared) and it showed nothing in preview or when I posted, but then my Profile showed it

 

but also my profile is missing its bio, and I think that's a major loss to the site if we can't carry those over https://i.imgur.com/QeNWLHe.png

I think it'd be better to test this out once we've settled on a theme too, anyways

 

EDIT: OH and it deleted the privacy settings for showing people's birthdays! You don't wanna show every user's birthday that they've set to private! (yes I logged out to check this)

Hi, I'm one of Lumi's tulpas! I like rain and dancing and dancing in the rain and if there's frogs there too that's bonus points.

I think being happy and having fun makes life worth living, so spreading happiness is my number one goal!

Talk to us? https://community.tulpa.info/thread-ask-lumi-s-tulpas

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well lots of stuff seems broken, is that intended? I wrote a post but it was all empty (every time I hit enter the line disappeared) and it showed nothing in preview or when I posted, but then my Profile showed it

 

but also my profile is missing its bio, and I think that's a major loss to the site if we can't carry those over https://i.imgur.com/CWTAQZw.png

I think it'd be better to test this out once we've settled on a theme too, anyways

Could you try changing the theme in the new site to the default Invision Power Board theme, and see if the preview is still missing like that? I do wonder if it's a background thing....

 

I'll look into the bio, it's definately supposed to have carried over.

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https://i.imgur.com/V6AOSPo.png

and profile still showing no bio/showing birthdate when it should be hidden (I think you're gonna have a lot of stuff to fix during this transition...)

Hi, I'm one of Lumi's tulpas! I like rain and dancing and dancing in the rain and if there's frogs there too that's bonus points.

I think being happy and having fun makes life worth living, so spreading happiness is my number one goal!

Talk to us? https://community.tulpa.info/thread-ask-lumi-s-tulpas

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https://i.imgur.com/V6AOSPo.png

and profile still showing no bio/showing birthdate when it should be hidden (I think you're gonna have a lot of stuff to fix during this transition...)

 

The birthdate was my bad -- it should be hidden by default now. As for the bio... I'll have to see why it didn't migrate over, or where it's hiding in the database if it did. When I imported the data, I imported it into an existing profile field ("About me"); perhaps importing it into a new one will work. I'll keep you posted.

 

As for that picture, huh, it doesn't even look like the post made it... this is what you're supposed to see (on chrome or firefox at least): https://imgur.com/a/Oijx7Qt

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https://i.imgur.com/trggpri.png :\

 

I know it could just be a problem on our end but we almost never have any weird problems with the forum compared to other people... (using chrome btw)


weird, it's.. just adblock (specifically uBlock Origin) that breaks the contents of all posts, usually like Disconnect might break something (but we have tulpa.info whitelisted on that)

 

I have no idea why it would do that, that's not the sort of problem we ever, ever run into with adblock

Hi, I'm one of Lumi's tulpas! I like rain and dancing and dancing in the rain and if there's frogs there too that's bonus points.

I think being happy and having fun makes life worth living, so spreading happiness is my number one goal!

Talk to us? https://community.tulpa.info/thread-ask-lumi-s-tulpas

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Do you have any special filters / rules on ublock? I know there's a context menu to block certain elements in ublock, I wonder if it got caught up in that.

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apparently that was it, it was one of these but you can probably guess which lol, idk why we made it (the anon one is the nyan cat banner I think)

 

! 2/11/2018, 10:17:08 PM https://community.tulpa.info/search.php?action=results&sid=e54be60f089b8f55f7d1dec7185b8aef
||community.tulpa.info/bad.php?name=anon$image

! 2/11/2018, 10:17:33 PM https://community.tulpa.info/search.php?action=results&sid=e54be60f089b8f55f7d1dec7185b8aef
community.tulpa.info##p
 

 

well the dev forum works for me now! but I have no interest in a theme that you have to manually update all the time forever, I don't want the forum to just break some-year when it's been dead for a while if we can help it

Hi, I'm one of Lumi's tulpas! I like rain and dancing and dancing in the rain and if there's frogs there too that's bonus points.

I think being happy and having fun makes life worth living, so spreading happiness is my number one goal!

Talk to us? https://community.tulpa.info/thread-ask-lumi-s-tulpas

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