First of all, I appreciate the upgrade to the newer version of vBulletin.
However, I feel that the new format that has come along with the upgrade leaves a bit to be desired. If the current format is just temporary, and the administration plans to make improvement, I will hold off on discussing myobjections to the format while adjustments are made.
If not, I think some reviews of the new format in the Pit will be in order.
I think we have a winner in the newest “jump to conclusions” department.
The upgrade is vanilla vB without any of our modifications. That’s always how this situation goes starting out, and some patience and forebearance on everyone’s part will be greatly appreciated.
We will tweak and modify and add in and change as we go here, like we always do.
I think it’s only fair to also tell you that there will doubtless be some as-yet-undiscovered bugs in this process as well. You will find them and will we fix them and we’ll stagger on down this road.
I am also informed that the techs are re-indexing the search engine, a process that may well take several hours to several days. As that happens, the search engine will become more and more functional, but in these early hours it may well not work for you at al or only partially. Can’t do anything about it except wait for the fullness of time and the reindex.
In the meantime, bear with us.
your humble TubaDiva
Administrator
Thanks, TubaDiva.
I sorta thought I was asking the question, not jumping to the conclusion, but in any event, it’s all good.
Do you want suggestions for format improvements now, or should we hold off for a while?
Excellent. When the modifications are complete I’m sure it’ll be like buttah. BUTTAH!
Esprix
I don’t know if this is jumping the gun or not, but I’m not exactly a shrinking violet here.
The most obvious weakness of the current (and hopefully temporary) page format, compared to its predecessor, is the amount of scrolling required to read what used to be visible in one screen shot.
For instance, in the forum pages, one can now only read about 10 thread titles at once. Not sure how many it used to be, only that it was noticeably more. The difference is having the OP’s name underneath (and in the same box as) the thread title, rather than in a box to its right.
And the same is true for the threads, just for different reasons.
Having said that, I’ll let the Powers That Be do what they do.
I don’t mean to necessarily jump to conclusions, though i’m sure that’s what this will sound like, but wouldn’t it have been a better investment upgrading the hardware to make the server faster than upgrading the software?
Also, with the new thread format, less text can fit on a screen thanks to the placement of usernames above each post (and in a rather gigantic fontsize, to boot 
). The old board had usernames placed to the side, which had the added benefit of making the reading of threads more streamlined- there were no extra “blocks” between each post to break the reader’s concentration.
Oddly enough, the “Topic Review” that appears on the new Reply page is formatted in the old way, and to me feels easier to read than the thread page itself!
TubaDiva, you might wanna make your previous comments part of the Announcement at top… just a suggestion…
Two things:
This is a free message board that probably costs the Chicago Reader a considerable amount of money and bandwidth to run already.
Take a wild guess as to which of the following is vastly more expensive:
a) Upgrading the hardware, including servers and dedicated lines.
b) Upgrading to the latest version of VBulletin.
That’s the point i was trying to make mhendo. It IS more expensive for the hardware so why not save a little more to get better service? Of course the software is cheaper but did we really need this new Vanilla “flavor” of vBulletin? Not that my opinion matters but in the back of my mind i was hoping that some day the server would be able to rival something along the lines of a Target or Walmart internet server.
My only complaint is the number of database errors I’ve gotten today (mostly this morning) while trying to read the boards. I assume it has to do with the basic install trying to do too much, or maybe the fact that TPTB installed what is essentially a beta version of the software (“release candidate 2”). But since nobody else has mentioned it I figured I’d better bring it up, in case it’s hitting someone else too.
What I don’t understand is why an upgrade of the vBulletin software (or any other message boards software) has to deliver permanent changes. Those changes must be an option and not an imposition.
May I explain.
I want to think that having the thread name and the original poster in the same box rather than in a box apart, is optional. You run the software and then you see if that improvement is that, an improvement. If not, you just turn the new feature off and theorically you may make the new board look exactly as the old one, but with new features depending on your taste (or, obviously, the users’ taste).
Am I wrong, Tuba Diva? Or am I right? For example: I like now the option to turn the font types and styles on any part of the text, but I don’t like that option to shown my sig be the default. And I think most of us miss the location feature.
On the other hand, it’s cool to have a bunch of new features to explore, so I think it’s a matter of time we’ll be comfortable. As we say in Mexico, “en el camino se acomodan las naranjas” *****.
***** “Oranges will fit themselves in the road”.
What you see currently is the default out-of-the-box version. The look, feel and functionality will be customized shortly. It is not yet clear what features will or won’t be restored to the way we liked them, but what is clear is that changes will be made to the current setup.
[Customer Support Voice]That’s not a bug, that’s a feature![/CSV]
You get the database error because the boards are taken down intermittently for testing and configuration. You may continue to experience these outages over the next few days. Please bear with us until the transition from the old to the new is complete.
If I can humbly offer a suggesstion based upon modifications of my own board after upgrading to vB3:
Dropping the font size on the username in the postbit template from 14pt to 10pt is considerably easier for reading posts.
The primary consideration is the stability and performance of the boards. Yes, these features are optional, but the decision to make them so depends on the Chicago Reader staff and, to some extent, the admins/mods of the SDMB. What this means is that even if most of the members would like a certain feature one way, and the CR staff believes that the other way is better for stability or performance, they will go the other way.
Ofcourse, we appreciate your inputs and will certainly take them into consideration, but we hope you understand the reasons they may not be implemented in certain cases.
We depend on the support of our members to point out bugs and anomalies in the system. If you believe you have discovered a bug, please report it to us. We will deal with it on a priority basis. There is a thread in ATMB for this purpose.
Because of the way vB is laid out, especially vB3 which made some MAJOR database modifications some things are pretty much permanent. Every page that you see consists of, in the very least, 4 or 5 different templates that are put together by the php scripts so, when mdifying a single template you not only have to make it behave the way you want to (sometimes requiring a complete rewrite) but also have to check it against every template it might interact with since once the script compiles the page the browser renders it exactly as given, including any erros that template interaction might cause.
I guess what I’m saying is that little things like the quick-reply box or the smiley’s don’t have to be permanent changes. Other things, like the current layout, while they don’t have to be permanent, also cannot simply be turned on and off but would have to be re-written and tested rather painstakingly.
…which, as I understand it, the staff avoids, because such modifications can void VBulletin’s warranty, leaving us hung out to dry if something crashes. Kinda like how your laptop maker doesn’t want you opening the case, because they don’t want to fix your screwups, even if you thought you were doing good.
It’s not a matter of a software upgrade costing a little bit compared to hardware. The software upgrade is free when you already own a license. Therefore, avoiding a software upgrade does not save you any pennies to be put towards any future hardware upgrade.
As has been explained, this flavor is what comes “out of the box”. It is temporary.
TubaDiva that’s all the majority of us needed to hear.
The rest will moan one way or the other.
Cheers
Hopefully it works out.