Forums are back up!

Feb 22 2009 | 12:37 am

Hi Folks

Well, it took about 24 hours, but we're pleased to announce that the forums are back up. Let's get this out of the way first: yes, we're aware that there are a lot of little CSS things that make the forum somewhat ugly. Since the forum software upgrade was a major upgrade, there wound up being a lot more CSS inconsistencies in the forum templates than we had last time. We'll be working on these in the months ahead to make the forums look a little bit nicer. Feel free to email me suggestions if you have any on how we can improve the way things look.

The forum software was upgraded from 2.7.3, last released in 2005, to 2.8.0RC2, last released a couple of days ago. There have been a TON of improvements to the forum software during this time. Hopefully, for one, we'll stop seeing those double-posting errors. However, since I haven't seen the new SW under load yet, I'm not sure if this will happen. One thing is for sure -- unless you've actually read most of the messages on this forum, clicking any of the unread messages links on the main page is likely to generate an error. I don't know how to get around that, and will likely disable those links in the future.

A couple things to note...

for one, you should be able to edit your posts up to a day after the fact.
Another new thing is, we've turned on FUDcode for formatting your forum posts with. This is a safe alternative to HTML, and is similar to other forum markup languages you might have seen.
If you look closely at the bottom of topic listings, you should see a "rate this topic" drop-down. This could come in handy when a thread gets particularly trollish (wink-wink, nudge-nudge).
Also, note that if you need to get in touch with another forum member, you can click on their profile, then click on a link to send them an email. We feel this is probably a better alternative than maintaining a forum messaging system.
You'll also notice that you can now change your email yourself. Now that we've stripped out all the custom mailing list enhancements, this very annoying "feature" of the old forum has been fixed.
Another neat new feature is the ability to collapse and expand messages in a thread view. This is what the plus/minus icon to the left of the message does.

There are probably a ton of other smaller things I forgot to mention, and some things might be broken too. However, if you do find something broken, please tell us about it, politely. Note that this particular thread is not intended to be a soapbox for your feelings about how inferior the forum is to the old mailing list. Trolling posts of this nature, or similarly non-constructive posts will be removed, or at least moved. If you need to complain about the forum, please do so in another thread.

Thanks everyone for your patience, both while the forum was down and while we work on improving it in the weeks and months ahead.

cheers

Feb 22 2009 | 5:05 am
bkshepard
When I try to create a new topic, I get the following error message:
Fatal error: Call to undefined function: stripos() in /web/cycling74.com/htdocs/forums/theme/default/post.php on line 1153
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Feb 22 2009 | 5:08 am
wallace winfrey
Try now. This should be fixed.
I posted about this elsewhere, but essentially, when I rebuild the forum templates, occasionally it tickles the post.php file and puts in the wrong function. If you get this error, just wait a minute and reload the page. You won't double-post, and it simply means I've been rebuilding templates.
I'll report this error to the FudForum folks.
cheers
w
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Feb 22 2009 | 11:22 am
roger.carruthers
I'm not getting attachment links in NNW. I'm fairly new to this RSS business (greetings from the Pre-Cambrian!), but didn't this work with the old forum? cheers Roger
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Feb 22 2009 | 1:55 pm
jln
roger.carruthers wrote on Sun, 22 February 2009 12:22 I'm not getting attachment links in NNW. I'm fairly new to this RSS business (greetings from the Pre-Cambrian!), but didn't this work with the old forum?
Neither do I with Mail.app.
Best, Julien
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Feb 22 2009 | 7:05 pm
wallace winfrey
Honestly, I don't remember if the attachments showed up or not. I'll look into placing them, as well as a "quote this message" link, in each feed item (along with fixing the minor validation errors that seem to cause some folks problems).
w
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Feb 23 2009 | 4:54 pm
Peter Castine
Is it just me, or are .signatures gone?
I checked my profile/control panel, "Include Signature" seems to be selected (and is certainly ticked on this page), but I don't see the sig anywhere. Least of all in posts.
Does somebody not like them?
-- P.
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Feb 23 2009 | 5:57 pm
wallace winfrey
Peter Castine wrote on Mon, 23 February 2009 09:54Is it just me, or are .signatures gone?
I checked my profile/control panel, "Include Signature" seems to be selected (and is certainly ticked on this page), but I don't see the sig anywhere. Least of all in posts.
Does somebody not like them?
Nope, appears to be a CSS display bug. I'll fix it next chance I get. Thanks for letting us know.
w
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Feb 24 2009 | 11:36 am
AlexHarker
Hi,
A couple of small issues.
Emails from subscribed topics seem to contain invalid URLs, the links at the bottom of the email just don't do anything for me (not even open a browser window from Mail).
Smilies also don't work in the email versions (I get a ? instead of a picture)
Finally in Safari I get the text of the source, rather than a proper forum page quite a lot of the time. Reloading works, and this is not a new problem (I got this with the old forum too), but now it happens a lot more. I'm on OS X.4.11 in case that's relevant.
Cheers,
Alex
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Feb 24 2009 | 4:02 pm
wallace winfrey
AlexHarker wrote on Tue, 24 February 2009 04:36 Emails from subscribed topics seem to contain invalid URLs, the links at the bottom of the email just don't do anything for me (not even open a browser window from Mail).
Could you please provide an example?
Quote: Smilies also don't work in the email versions (I get a ? instead of a picture)
We're turning those off as soon as we figure out how, so this is probably a non-issue.
Quote: Finally in Safari I get the text of the source, rather than a proper forum page quite a lot of the time. Reloading works, and this is not a new problem (I got this with the old forum too), but now it happens a lot more. I'm on OS X.4.11 in case that's relevant.
I have no idea what causes this, I never see these issues with Firefox (in fact, I've never seen them with Safari). I'll fix it when I get a spare moment. In the meantime, you might want to try Firefox (and for those who are all huffy about their web browsers, no I'm not demanding you switch over to Firefox just for our web site. I'm simply suggesting that if any Safari users have issues with the forums, they can use Firefox until we can get those problems fixed.)
w
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Feb 24 2009 | 4:09 pm
AlexHarker
wallace winfrey wrote on Tue, 24 February 2009 09:02AlexHarker wrote on Tue, 24 February 2009 04:36 Emails from subscribed topics seem to contain invalid URLs, the links at the bottom of the email just don't do anything for me (not even open a browser window from Mail).
Could you please provide an example?
Normally I respond by clicking on "View Topic/Message" at the bottom of the email - this used to work, but since the forum update it has stopped. The links appear and seem to be valid hyperlinks, but I think the linked URLs are just messed up. For the "View Topic/Message" link I get this URL
xmsg://4/a%22https://cycling74.com/forums/a%22https://cycling74.com/forums/index.php?t=rview&goto=166415#msg_166415 https://cycling74.com/forums/a%22https://cycling74.com/forums/index.php?t=rview&goto=166415#msg_166415
Which doesn't seem right. I click it, and nothing happens....
Thanks
Alex
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Feb 24 2009 | 6:37 pm

AlexHarker wrote on Tue, 24 February 2009 09:09 Which doesn't seem right. I click it, and nothing happens....

I'm not quite sure why Mail.app (I assume you're using Mail.app?) is choosing to format the links this way. The URL you've posted is definitely not how it's sent. I don't know if Mail.app provides a method to "view source" on the message, but if it did, you'd see that the notification emails that are sent out are sent out with this structure:

First, the message is identified as MIME type 'multipart/mixed', and a "boundary", or content delimiter is set:

Content-Type: multipart/alternative;
  boundary="------------303913054185047738315463809462070483821"

Then, the first part is the email formatted with "format=flowed":

--------------303913054185047738315463809462070483821
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=utf-8; format=flowed
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit

This is essentially a plain-text encoding but with support for the excerpt bars one sees in quoted email replies these days. It contains no tags, just the body of the message.

The second part of the email is formatted as "text/html":

--------------303913054185047738315463809462070483821
Content-Type: text/html; charset=utf-8
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit

and it is delivered like so, with the final boundary delimiter following:





Cycling '74







Subject: Re: Forums are back up! Author: AlexHarkerDate: Tue, 24 February 2009 09:09

	[quote title=wallace winfrey wrote on Tue, 24 February 2009 09:02]AlexHarker wrote on Tue, 24 February 2009 04:36
Emails from subscribed topics seem to contain invalid URLs, the links at the bottom of the email just don't do anything for me (not even open a browser window from Mail).



Could you please provide an example?

Normally I respond by clicking on "View Topic/Message" at the bottom of the email - this used to work, but since the forum update it has stopped. The links appear and seem to be valid hyperlinks, but I think the linked URLs are just messed up. For the "View Topic/Message" link I get this URL

xmsg://4/a%22https://cycling74.com/forums/a%22https://cycling74.com/forums/index.php?t=rview&goto=166415#msg_166415

Which doesn't seem right. I click it, and nothing happens....

Thanks

Alex

	
	[ Reply ][ Quote ][ View Topic/Message ][ Unsubscribe from this topichttps://cycling74.com/forums/a%22https://cycling74.com/forums/index.php?t=rview&goto=166415#msg_166415

Which doesn't seem right. I click it, and nothing happens....

Thanks

Alex

	
	[ Reply ][ Quote ][ View Topic/Message ][ Unsubscribe from this topic ]
	

--------------303913054185047738315463809462070483821--

As you can see, the HTML code is valid. However, I think the reason the links are giving you trouble is because Mail.app is not correctly parsing the

part of the message. Mail.app is definitely inserting the

xmsg://4/a%2

part, and the part right after that,

https://cycling74.com/forums/a%22

appears to be the same URL string that Safari gets confused by when a user attempts to use the password function.

The use of "base href" to generate the URL is definitely something added with the forum upgrade. Thunderbird seems to have an issue with it too, but I dunno why. I'll bet that web-based email clients such as Gmail likely have no issues.

I will send these bugs to FudForum support, and hopefully we can get them resolved quickly. Thanks in the meantime for your patience.

While you wait for this bug to be addressed, you can employ this workaround: copy and paste the URL into your browser, and strip out everything before the final http:// string, so that:

xmsg://4/a%22https://cycling74.com/forums/a%22https://cycling74.com/forums/index.php?t=rview&goto=166415#msg_166415

becomes

https://cycling74.com/forums/index.php?t=rview&goto=166415#msg_166415

Hope this helps,

Feb 24 2009 | 8:10 pm
AlexHarker
wallace winfrey wrote on Tue, 24 February 2009 11:37 The use of "base href" to generate the URL is definitely something added with the forum upgrade. Thunderbird seems to have an issue with it too, but I dunno why. I'll bet that web-based email clients such as Gmail likely have no issues.
Thanks for the detailed info and the workaround.
I've checked in gmail, and the links don't work for me though the web-based gmail client either, with either Safari or Firefox. In fact gmail doesn't seem to even think they are links....
Alex
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Feb 24 2009 | 9:21 pm
wallace winfrey
AlexHarker wrote on Tue, 24 February 2009 13:10 I've checked in gmail, and the links don't work for me though the web-based gmail client either, with either Safari or Firefox. In fact gmail doesn't seem to even think they are links....
Ah. They're working in SquirrelMail, which is the only web-based email client I checked with. I'm not sure what the issue is, the HTML is formatted properly.
w
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Feb 24 2009 | 9:31 pm
yghartsyrt
what i find rather irritating, is that the font of the name of the original poster is larger than the topic, when browsing the forum. i always wonder about weird topic-headline until i realize, that this is the name of the one posting a topic
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Feb 24 2009 | 9:39 pm
wallace winfrey
yghartsyrt wrote on Tue, 24 February 2009 14:31what i find rather irritating, is that the font of the name of the original poster is larger than the topic, when browsing the forum. i always wonder about weird topic-headline until i realize, that this is the name of the one posting a topic
To me they look about the same, but like I said, there are lots of minor CSS issues all over the place.
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Feb 24 2009 | 10:06 pm
wallace winfrey
OK, the password change is definitely fixed, and the URL links should be fixed. I won't know until somebody posts a reply to this thread so I can check my email.
I also have noticed that using Safari under OS X, the post form goes over the right-hand border, and when using Safari under Windows, both post form and thread view go over the border. This also happens with Chrome, K-Meleon & IE. This does not happen with Firefox or Opera.
Also, using Safari, I can see why the topic looks smaller than the author. Of course, it all renders fine in Firefox & Opera.
These issues are duly noted and will be fixed as soon as I have a spare moment.
w
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Feb 25 2009 | 12:09 am
AlexHarker
wallace winfrey wrote on Tue, 24 February 2009 15:06OK, the password change is definitely fixed, and the URL links should be fixed. I won't know until somebody posts a reply to this thread so I can check my email. w
URLs are fixed for me, and also the email is back to old style formatting (greyish background etc.)
Thanks!
Alex
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Feb 25 2009 | 4:59 am
yghartsyrt
wallace winfrey wrote on Tue, 24 February 2009 15:06
I also have noticed that using Safari under OS X, the post form goes over the right-hand border, and when using Safari under Windows, both post form and thread view go over the border. This also happens with Chrome, K-Meleon & IE. This does not happen with Firefox or Opera.
Also, using Safari, I can see why the topic looks smaller than the author. Of course, it all renders fine in Firefox & Opera.
w
yup firefox renders everything like it should.
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Feb 26 2009 | 3:57 pm
Peter Castine
One other thing about Mail.app: when I subscribe to the RSS link for one of the forums and turn on View|Organize by Threads, the "Threads" are organized by the Send date of the mail, rather than Subject headers (or anything similarly helpful).
Is there a way that I can change this? Whether I use the Web interface or RSS, I want to be able to follow Threads based on content/subject. Date isn't very helpful.
Thanks.
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Feb 26 2009 | 4:22 pm
pdelges
Peter Castine wrote on Thu, 26 February 2009 16:57One other thing about Mail.app: when I subscribe to the RSS link for one of the forums and turn on View|Organize by Threads, the "Threads" are organized by the Send date of the mail, rather than Subject headers (or anything similarly helpful).
Peter,
the only software I found for OSX that do correct threading is Thunderbird. I run it now only for the Cycling RSS feeds. I don't know yet wether it is really reliable as the MaxMSP feed didn't refresh yesterday and this wasn't a cycling74 problem (see another recent thread initiated by f.e, and called "disconnected").
p
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Feb 28 2009 | 8:14 am
stefantiedje
I use Thunderbird to read the rss feeds. Though I have a thread view, the following of post is completely out of order. And I am missing posts. To find the missing posts I would have to go to the forum. To find them there is just a pain... (each page to build is about 20 seconds, in Thunderbird its instantanious...)
My question to Wallace: I like the reply link in the mail, is it possible to have an additional link for just reading the thread in thread view on the forum? Then I could find missing posts easier...
The other point of course, what could be the reason that I don't receive all posts? The post which concretely didn't come in was message #166247, I did get the reply to that message #166314. Though in the forum it says its a reply to #166217, which is the beginning of the thread. Threading means something else, it looks as if threading in the forum doesn't work either...
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