Improvements

[Josh]

I will use this thread for announcing improvements to the site.

For now I have added a few new styles you can choose from. I will be modifying the styles soon to look nicer, so make a point of checking back every so often. You can change your style by using the drop down menu at the bottom-left of all pages.

[Josh]

Sorry about the downtime over the last 20 minutes; the server was being upgraded in order to get the Facebook SDK working. Users can now register with Facebook and you can connect your Facebook profile in your account settings.

Page loads and responsiveness has also been improved because of the upgrade :)

[Kephryn]

I too have to say I am sorry for this.

Josh convinced me that I should update PHP, in doing so I also updated Apache. Apache 2.2 is not forward compatible with Apache 2.4 I was aware of this but did not notice I was installing a new version of Apache. What that meant was I had to rewrite all of the configs and install missing modules that have since moved from the core PHP package to their own modules.

Moral of the story: Never listen to Josh.

[Josh]

I too have to say I am sorry for this.

Josh convinced me that I should update PHP, in doing so I also updated Apache. Apache 2.2 is not forward compatible with Apache 2.4 I was aware of this but did not notice I was installing a new version of Apache. What that meant was I had to rewrite all of the configs and install missing modules that have since moved from the core PHP package to their own modules.

Moral of the story: Never listen to Josh.

But Facebook works now..! Don't you love Facebook? :rolleyes:

[Kephryn]

You mean that little like button in the corner of posts? Really? I had to rebuild all of my configs and who knows what else I broke to get a FB Like button? WOW totally worth it. Hey, even I think I didn't suffer enough to get that working.

Let me update MySQL while I'm at it...

[Josh]

You mean that little like button in the corner of posts? Really? I had to rebuild all of my configs and who knows what else I broke to get a FB Like button? WOW totally worth it. Hey, even I think I didn't suffer enough to get that working.

Let me update MySQL while I'm at it...

No, that button was already there. It's a built-in vBulletin reputation system. You have to turn on notifications for users liking your posts in your control panel -- I've already liked a couple of yours. The Facebook Connect feature allows new users to register with Facebook and also allows you to publish posts/threads and eventually blogs/articles to your Facebook feed.

[Josh]

There is a new trivia app for the site. It can be found by clicking "Trivia" in the top navigation, or by simply navigating to: http://forum.highonhockey.com/trivia

I also condensed the Movies, Music, TV Shows, and Video Games forums into one forum, "Entertainment".

[Josh]

I've made a lot of back-end improvements to the site in the last few days. For one thing, everyone should notice a marked increase in the speed at which pages load. We are now running the most current version of vBulletin (5.1.9). I've added user ranks that are based on post counts and are hockey themed, I've taken down the unused reputation system and cleaned up the postbit (the part of each post that contains the user's information) to show only their avatar, username, rank, join date, post count, and online status. Online status now also actually works instead of showing everyone as online. I'm working on several new custom themes as well. All of the previous issues with uploads and hot-linking should all be solved - NHL.com and YouTube videos should embed flawlessly, uploading and hot-linking images in threads should always work, and there should no longer be any issue whatsoever with either uploading or hot-linking avatars. Signatures have been turned off for the moment as I modify and re-implement the module, but I'll be bringing them back better than before soon. Blogs are coming soon, and the full-on CMS system is coming soon too.

Don't hesitate to let me know if you experience ANY problems with the site or have any suggestions!

[Josh]

How do you all like the re-designed logo?

[matchesmalone]

Pretty cool.

[Josh]

All new users have their posts placed into moderation before they become visible now. Once a post is approved, the user no longer has this restriction.

No more spam :)

[Dean Ambrose]

What about for profile comments? I get so many from spam.

[Josh]

What about for profile comments? I get so many from spam.

Visitor messages should also be placed into a moderation queue. Let me know if you notice any issues with it though.

[Jasmine]

Good move :-)

I do have a question in regards to Spammers.........how do they always end up in the Flames section??

[Josh]

Good move :-)

I do have a question in regards to Spammers.........how do they always end up in the Flames section??

I have no idea. They would also often post visitor messages to Mike's profile. Only Mike.. no idea why.