• NEW! LOWEST RATES EVER -- SUPPORT THE SHOW AND ENJOY THE VERY BEST PREMIUM PARACAST EXPERIENCE! Welcome to The Paracast+, eight years young! For a low subscription fee, you can download the ad-free version of The Paracast and the exclusive, member-only, After The Paracast bonus podcast, featuring color commentary, exclusive interviews, the continuation of interviews that began on the main episode of The Paracast. We also offer lifetime memberships! Flash! Take advantage of our lowest rates ever! Act now! It's easier than ever to susbcribe! You can sign up right here!

    Subscribe to The Paracast Newsletter!

Our New Message Board

Forums New posts
Gene Steinberg

Gene Steinberg

Forum Super Hero
Staff member
On Monday morning, January 11, 2010, we updated our forums to vBulletin 4. This is not a trivial issue in the way previous upgrades have been. We actually had to rebuild all the styles and layout from scratch, and for that we have to thank Dustin Lawrence and Perceval McElhearn for their great work to make everything function as well as possible.

There will be ongoing glitches to resolve over the next few days. What's more, some of the options that worked with the previous software won't be restored until those modifications are updated. This will take a little time but I think we're at the 98% point right now.

If you encounter any problems, let us know.
 
With the quick interactions I've had with the recently updated forums, I'd like to say that I think the upgrades are great!! Thanks for all the work you guys put into not only the show, but also by providing an awesome forum with which to interact with other listeners...
 
superjudge said:
With the quick interactions I've had with the recently updated forums, I'd like to say that I think the upgrades are great!! Thanks for all the work you guys put into not only the show, but also by providing an awesome forum with which to interact with other listeners...
Click to expand...

Thanks. We're still fine-tuning, as you can see.

One feature we've just added is a "Share" button, on the navigation bar at the top of a thread. That lets you post the link to the thread on Facebook and write as Tweet about it. We'll be expanding that share capability as we progress, and there will be further fine tuning over the next few days.
 
methshin said:
It'll take some time to get used to, but I like it so far.

Had problems looking at my past posts.
Click to expand...

Everything is there. You may have to search a bit differently, but we rebuild the search and all the back-end stats, so it should all come together soon.
 
Gene Steinberg said:
We actually had to rebuild all the styles and layout from scratch, and for that we have to thank Dustin Lawrence and Perceval McElhearn for their great work to make everything function as well as possible.
Click to expand...

Glad to help! Boy, vBulletin sure doesn't make things easy on the Admins, eh? :p
 
aNorthernSoul said:
Glad to help! Boy, vBulletin sure doesn't make things easy on the Admins, eh? :p
Click to expand...

What they did was totally revamp the style/template system and provided no way to translate. So to upgrade, everyone has to rebuild their forum styles from scratch and recreate their themes. Thank heavens our changes are actually fairly minor compared to some. Backgrounds, text sizes and odds and ends. Some people built all new artwork, and I don't envy what they have to do to make their forums work.

Worse, vBulletin totally threw out the license setup, so people with current support contracts have to pay for a full version upgrade when those support deals expire. The ones we have expire beginning late spring and summer of this year, after which we have to pay the piper. :(
 
I'm happy to know that whatever you guys are doing is some effort to make the site better I presume. Being deathly afraid of change though I would ask "why". The last forum, after I got used to it, seemed to be great.

What it is about the new forum that makes it better, faster, or whatever?? Just wondering.
 
TClaeys said:
I'm happy to know that whatever you guys are doing is some effort to make the site better I presume. Being deathly afraid of change though I would ask "why". The last forum, after I got used to it, seemed to be great.

What it is about the new forum that makes it better, faster, or whatever?? Just wondering.
Click to expand...

vBulletin's programmers did lots and lots of revisions to the codebase. Remember, we aren't switching to new software, just upgrading to a new version of what we had. The downside was that we had to rebuild the styles (theme) from scratch based on their default design. But I think that it's in some respects better than the predecessor.

When you go to a new forum system, translation is never, ever perfect, and the pain and agony would have been far worse for us. Right now, I just have to begin to set aside the funds for the license renewals beginning in June (there are three, a month apart), but going to any other forum system would have cost roughly the same, and would involve lots more work.
 
Siani said:
Really like the new forum. It looks great, and works a lot faster for me.
Click to expand...

Part of the speed increase is due to the fact that they optimized the code, and also what we did to make the theme work involves less graphic downloads to your computer. This is still a first official release of the software, and there will be another update in the next day or so, but nothing that will change what you see. It'll just be bug fixes.
 
Hi Gene,

Very slick! :)

One question: I can't seem to thank anybody else in threads where I'm the thread starter, bug or intended behavior?

Cheers,
+L
 
We do have a confirmed bug now. Seems when a member has enabled the Visitor Messages feature, the About Me and Friends tabs produce blank displays when you check a member profile. I'm in touch with vBulletin support and our helpers for a solution. It'll be there soon, but meantime I wanted to let you know what's what.

Also, it appears that the text entry windows are shorter when you use Apple's Safari browser.
 
Hi Gene,
I am having problems accessing the sound file of Dean Fagerstrom's music. I am sure it is just a glitch with the new upgrade. Here is the link:
Digitized music from Dean Fagerstrom

The new upgrade looks pretty slick, hopefully the glitches will be minor as you continue to work through the upgrade.
 
Back
Top