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Updated IPB software


Jeff Wexler

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A week or so ago I updated the core software that runs this site  ---  everything went smoothly, there have been quite a few changes "under the hood" as they say, performance improvements and stability. Like so many other updates, there were consequences unforeseen  ---  the long running theme and customizations got corrupted and there were some incompatibilities. What you have been seeing the last few days is the result of cobbling together a theme that works while I have been doing a total redesign of the site. Quite soon I will be changing everyone over to the new theme. Anyone experiencing any difficulties, please let me know using the Contact Us form, a Private Message, or email directly:  <jw@jwsoundgroup.net>. 

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Wow.  Yes some changes indeed.

 

If you need a second set of eyes (and maybe not), at the very bottom of every page, the Facebook icon seems to cover up some verbiage about you being the webmaster.

 

My only other unsolicited thought would be that the bright white page is just a bit too bright white for my eyes.  May just be me but I really appreciate a bit of grey in the background.

 

I could change my mind if the smoke around here continues to block out the sun.  :)

 

D.

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Thanks, Doug. I did notice the Facebook icon and site info in the footer is all bunched up  ---  I will deal with that when I get back into the CSS editor. As far as too much white, you might be riight but I'm not sure what I can do about it. The post container now does hasve a light grey background but the general site background is a bright white.

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Great work, Jeff! I'm missing one function.. On the top of each forum there used to be a button saying Mark Read, which does what it says, marks all the topics in the forum you're currently reading as read. Right now there's a button in the same position as the old one saying "mark site as read " which also does what it says, IE marks the whole site and all the forums and topics as read. 

 

I might have missed something in the new design, or I'm just too early in pointing this out, but that mark forum as read button is missing for me. Edit: there's actually a mark forum as read button on the bottom of each forum, but it used to be both at the top and the bottom of each forum. 

 

And also not a very big deal. If I'm in a forum that I want to mark read I can just back out to the forum list and click the speech bubble beside the forum to mark that forum as read, so really not a big deal. 

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1 hour ago, Olle Sjostrom said:

And also not a very big deal. If I'm in a forum that I want to mark read I can just back out to the forum list and click the speech bubble beside the forum to mark that forum as read, so really not a big deal. 

There should be displayed a "Unread Content" and "Mark site read" in the header area (to the right, above the ad banner) and also, as you point out, in the footer area. My standard practice is to sign in then click on "Unread Content", then after reading everything, or reading nothing, I click on "Mark site read". You can also fine-tune all of this by going to the "Activity" tab in the header. If all else fails, doing what you're doing works also: clicking on the speech bubble next to the forum section name.

 

UPDATE: I just noticed that with the new design, the "Unread Content" and "Mark site read" buttons do seem to go missing from their usual locations. I will look into this. Thanks for the heads up!

 

-below is screenshot of "Unread Content" and "Mark site read" in the header area.

 

Screen Shot 2020-09-12 at 2.46.11 PM.jpg

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That's what I am seeing as well, Jeff. 

 

Also - I found the "Theme" drop-down menu, which allows me to choose between "Haze", "IPS Default 4.2", and "IPS Support-4.2". The "Support" theme has some  blue colors. The other two themes are black/white/grey themes, with differences in their layout. "Haze" is the only one of the three themes with the FB icon appearing on top of the other text.

Personally, on latest version of MacOS/Safari, it looks like "IPS Default 4.2" seems to be working best overall IMHO.

 

Screen Shot 2020-09-12 at 2.59.19 PM.png

Screen Shot 2020-09-12 at 3.00.33 PM.png

Screen Shot 2020-09-12 at 3.06.24 PM.png

Screen Shot 2020-09-12 at 3.06.50 PM.png

Screen Shot 2020-09-12 at 3.07.11 PM.png

 

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I left the other themes available to members (this was not always the case) as I was updating and re-designing. I really want to stick with Haze and re-fine it as we go along  ---  I'm fairly sure it will ultimately be the best. I would discourage members from choosing any of the other themes  --- actually, I will probably go back to having none of the other themes available to members so that we can all be "on the same page".

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24 minutes ago, Matthias Richter said:

I just noticed that I have to deactivate my ad-blocker. Otherwise I‘ll get no content when opening any thread.

Well, that's weird...  and annoying! I have no idea how any of the ad blockers work but it's quite odd that it would see normal posts as ads that need  to be blocked. The overall core structure of the site has not changed as far as I know, the only change was the change to a different theme. If you would, Matthias, if you have time you could change the theme you are using (o to the bottom of the footer and look for "Theme" dropdown)  ---  then with the old theme, see if ad blocker behaves the same. If so, the change may have come from the update I did on the core software that runs this site.

 

Additionally, are you able to set your ad blocker to whitelist a site?

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Now I think I know what the trouble is.. 

 

So my way of reading is just going through the forums. Usually I’m on my iPhone using safari, which was the case when I wrote the post. Now on my iPad I can see the buttons clear as day, but they’re not on my iPhone. Don’t know if that helps. The first image is from the iPhone and the second is from the iPad. 

 

 

784EE7C8-56DD-4871-9656-4823EC09F46F.png

42CD6B95-2620-4331-B7BE-13572BA09F42.png

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I apologize to all, I hadn't even looked into how things look on mobile devices. I will look into this and try and get the mobile access (small screens) to work as well as it can. I think I just forgot that lots of our members access the site on their iPhones, iPads, etc. (but I almost never do  ---  that's the problem!).

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Looking at the site on my iPhone (via iOS Safari browser) it initially looks like there is no MENU (usually with mobile you see the 4 horizontal lines/box which is the icon for menu operation). We need this menu, of course, to sign into the site and other things. Well, it's there but it is very faint, sitting to the right of the jwsoundgroup title. I will tryt and work on why this is so light  --- with other themes it is white color and quite easy to spot.

mobile header.jpg

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Final update (for now): I have tweaked one of the themes, now set as default, that displays properly on mobile. The MENU icon (the 4 horizontal lines/box) is visible now which is where you can sign in, sign out, show Activity (Recent posts, Unread posts, etc.) and it all should work. Thanks to all for help is sorting this all out.

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10 hours ago, Jeff Wexler said:

Well, that's weird...  and annoying! I have no idea how any of the ad blockers work but it's quite odd that it would see normal posts as ads that need  to be blocked. The overall core structure of the site has not changed as far as I know, the only change was the change to a different theme. If you would, Matthias, if you have time you could change the theme you are using (o to the bottom of the footer and look for "Theme" dropdown)  ---  then with the old theme, see if ad blocker behaves the same. If so, the change may have come from the update I did on the core software that runs this site.

 

Additionally, are you able to set your ad blocker to whitelist a site?

Using Haze as the theme doesn’t make any difference here. 
I will try and see which of my ad-blockers is causing the blocking and put jws on it’s white list. Using several ones - so it needs some testing.

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