OpenGL forum upgrade April 25th at 4AM PST

Hello,

After many weeks of preparation and testing, and with lots of help from some of our OpenGL moderators, we will be upgrading the OpenGL forums.

Once the upgrade is complete, the OpenGL forums will be running on vBulletin. We have put a lot of research and effort into ensuring we’ve made the best choice for the OpenGL community as a whole.

Due to the amount of data we are moving, the forums will need to be offline for several hours during the upgrade and post upgrade testing. We have taken special care to ensure that all old links to posts will continue to work and that no information will be lost. As well, the new forums will feature a cleaner, easier to use layout, and a mobile theme for smartphones.

Please note: On the new forums, there is no longer a distinction between username and display name. We had to make a tough decision on which one to keep. In the end, it made the most sense to keep the display name, since that is what everyone knows you by, and what the forum quotes refer too. Therefore, when you login to the new forums, you will be using your current display name as your username. For example, my current username is khronos23, and my current display name is ‘Khronos Webmaster’. When I login to the new forums, I will be logging in with ‘Khronos Webmaster’ as my username, and my current password will continue to work.

We’ve scheduled the upgrade for Wedensday April 25th at 4AM PST.

We thank you in advance for your patience during this transition.

Please post issues you may find with the new forums here. I’ll work as fast as possible to correct any problems.

Known Issues:

  • The Index rebuild might not have indexed all posts. We are going to re-run the index tonight. In the meantime, there “might” be some posts that will not appear in searches.
  • On the new forums, there is no longer a distinction between username and display name. We had to make a tough decision on which one to keep. In the end, it made the most sense to keep the display name, since that is what everyone knows you by, and what the forum quotes refer too. Therefore, when you login to the new forums, you will be using your current display name as your username. For example, my current username is khronos23, and my current display name is ‘Khronos Webmaster’. When I login to the new forums, I will be logging in with ‘Khronos Webmaster’ as my username, and my current password will continue to work.

Maybe this will be fixed after the re-indexing:
I am missing my watched threads list, it should be converted to the subscribed threads in my profile.

Regards
-chris

Thanks to James (our Webmaster), Dark Photon, Groovounet, ZbuffeR and others on working hard on this transition to a new, modern, forum. Great job, thank you!

Barthold
(with my ARB hat on)

PS If I missed your name and helped flush out bugs, let James or myself know.

Chris, the import didn’t allow for the watch threads to be imported, but I am trying to work out a script to grab those as we speak.

Thanks, and also a big Thank You for the new forums! :wink:

-chris

You’re more than welcome! Can you do me a favour and check your subscribed list now. Let me know if it is close to what you would expect?

I’m a little bit disappointed with this upgrade. :frowning:

Probably this is better, or will be better (after fixing some minor problems), but certainly I’ll spend less time on the forum from now on. There are several reasons for this:

  1. There is no indication if there are some new posts inside some of the subforums/groups. We have to open them to take a look.

  2. Even after opening some subforum/group icons representing unread posts (open envelope) do not differ much from read ones (closed envelope). The color indicates actuality of the posts, but it would be much better to draw attention to unread posts.

  3. I have just opened two browsers on the same computer. In one it is indicated that I have read post (and that is true), while on the other “the envelope is opened”. I really don’t have time to open the same posts several times just to find I have already read them. I used to open the forum several times during the day from my computer at work, from smartphone, notebook and netbook at home. If I have no indication whether I have already opened some forum/thread and there is no new posts, it will dramatically reduce the frequency of accessing the forum.

  4. What is “advanced” in writing reply using “Go Advanced” button. The interface is really Spartan.

  5. I have problem to login on the smartphone, and also many images are missing (just placeholders with “imag” text appears). I’m using Opera Mobile. The site looks completely different than on a desktop, but … Since I cannot login I cannot try anything.

Gamedev, in my humble opinion, was ruined with the new interface some time ago. I hope this forum will not be doomed by the same faith.
Hopefully, at least, the response time will be much shorter now…

I beg moderators to list the benefits of the new interface.

Hi,

Sorry to hear you are not happy with the upgrade. First things first: You wrote: “Since I cannot login I cannot try anything.” What is hte issue with logging in?

Hey, it works now! :slight_smile:
It didn’t when I tried it half an hour ago.
And the images appeared.
Thanks for the fix!

P.S. Still some images don’t appear (like “You are subscribed to this…”, avatars, smilies, etc.). By the way, why am I automatically subscribed to any thread I have posted something?

Resize is not possible. Pages are with fix size in Opera Mobile. Earlier, the text was initially small, but it could be resized. Maybe this is better for non-multitouch screens. Now I understand what you meant by alleviating access from the phones.

For the other points you make, I’ll do my best to answer your concerns:

  1. There is no indication if there are some new posts inside some of the subforums/groups. We have to open them to take a look.

The forums are highlighted with a different colour icon if there are new posts since you last visited. I do agree that the colouring is slight and vague and doesn’t really make it obvious there are new posts. We will update the icons to better display forums with and without unread posts. Thank you for pointing this out.

  1. Even after opening some subforum/group icons representing unread posts (open envelope) do not differ much from read ones (closed envelope). The color indicates actuality of the posts, but it would be much better to draw attention to unread posts.

If I understand again, this is an issue of unclear icons beside the posts. We can fix that! Also, unread posts have a button to take you directly to the first unread post, which might help.

  1. I have just opened two browsers on the same computer. In one it is indicated that I have read post (and that is true), while on the other “the envelope is opened”.

From your comment further down, you are not logged in, so there is no way for the browsers to know what you have or have not read. Once you login, this issue should be moot. Let me know if I missed the point.

  1. What is “advanced” in writing reply using “Go Advanced” button. The interface is really Spartan.

Yes, I agree with you on this. The reply form needs some attention. I’ll get to that right away and see what can be done to make the advanced form more useful.

  1. I have problem to login on the smartphone, and also many images are missing (just placeholders with “imag” text appears). I’m using Opera Mobile. The site looks completely different than on a desktop, but … Since I cannot login I cannot try anything.

You can switch to the full theme if you prefer that on the smart phone, down at the bottom there is a link for “Full Site”. When you arrive on the site with your smartphone, can you tell me which images are broken? I’m not seeing what you are seeing. I’ve also tried several times to login and had no issues from a smart phone. Which is your phone make and model, and do you have a different browser you can try from the smart phone.

We’ll keep working to improve the “default” icons and features to make the forums better than they ever were.

Thank you for the feedback.

Thanks,
this is almost what i was looking for. In the old forums i ‘subscribed’ to threads is did not post in, these were the watched threads which i am still missing. I sadly can not remember all threads i had on this list, but it was always a good way to keep up to date with these topics…

-chris

By the way, why am I automatically subscribed to any thread I have posted something?

Fixed this issue. It was on by default on the new forums.

Unfortunately, the only watched threads for you I found are what I imported to your account. You should have about 16 watched threads.

[QUOTE=Aleksandar;1236780]1. There is no indication if there are some new posts inside some of the subforums/groups. We have to open them to take a look.
[/QUOTE]

According to the “Icon Legend”, the color is different if subforum “Contains unread forum posts” or “Contains no unread forum posts”.
I that what you mean ?

Otherwise, I find the “New posts” link useful :

Thanks for the work on the update!

Would it be possible to get a “Preview” button for the quick reply box? I’ve almost never used the full reply screen in the old forums, but very much like to see a preview of a post to make sure tags are balanced, etc.

I realized that also after the first posting. The colors are blue and gray (but very similar shades). It is hard to notice on the first glance. I’ll be grateful if you can change this.

I’m sill unaware of that. Maybe you could post what are the main features of the new interface. That was what I asked for.

Nope. Those were two instances on the desktop (Opera and Internet Explorer). The problem with logging was on the mobile phone (Android/Opera Mobile). I was logged on both Opera and IE (Windows), but the view was not the same. I can carry out the experiment again.

I discovered the “Full Theme” myself. Yes, that’s what I needed. I have to experiment with the new interface more.
In “Full Theme” there are no issues (at least thus far). Most of the images in the first (restricted) theme are missing. But how can I return to simplified theme?

Thank you very much for the answers!
Maybe some short “user guide” for the new site would be useful. :slight_smile:

Thank you again!

I’ve updated the icons to a somewhat easier to understand set. Not set in stone, but it does help a bit. For a guide, I just need some time to get to that, which seems the only limiting factor right now. Understandably a new forum can be jarring for any user, and I appreciate your patience.

I discovered the “Full Theme” myself. Yes, that’s what I needed. I have to experiment with the new interface more.
In “Full Theme” there are no issues (at least thus far). Most of the images in the first (restricted) theme are missing. But how can I return to simplified theme?

At the bottom of the forum, there is a drop down menu to choose the them you wish to use. I notice there are two mobile themes, one which seems to come and go depending on the page you are on. That is most likely what is causing the issue, as we have only installed on mobile theme. A bug we will fix!

Another vote for it. Really useful feature.

I haven’t noticed it. Well, yes, but I need a selective search. For example, I don’t need new posts for Linux or MacOS. Just making icons more apparent will be much useful.

Also just noticed “Go to first new post” icon. Can be useful. On the old site it was automatically done by clicking on the thread’s link.

What does the “Sticky” mark mean?

Sticky mark is for threads that are set to be sticky, which means they will stay at the top until sticky is turned off. A way for moderators to keep important posts at the top.