Forum Test

[Solar]

The second: did you ever actually try to get something properly working? Something remotely advanced in content?

Can't say that I have, because I don't fancy myself a web developer. I write static HTML (no JS, no CSS) by hand, that's about it.

I think you're mainly advocating IE compatibility because it hits YOU. You're going to be struck if you can't check the forum when using something you can't choose not to. Don't let your personal feelings take the upper hand when reasoning for a group.

I won't deny it hits me. But it is also true that there are many websites out there that work only for IE, it is the browser Windows users get to use with the minimum amount of hassle, and there are also people around who still use DJGPP...

Chase brought it to the point, I think. Writing your own forum software because phpBB got hacked on you? That is a) security through obscurity, b) assuming you can do better in a couple of months than several teams of a dozen developers with hundreds of testers each did over the last few years, c) inviting those rendering issues with browser XYZ you weren't aware of because you didn't test with it.

I'll say that I consider it a bad choice, one more time, and then shut up on this. k?

[Colonel Kernel]

I must say I'm disappointed by the anti-user sentiments brought up in this thread. IMO, users have the right to use whatever browser they please, whether web developers like it or not. I use Firefox, so I don't take anti-IE sentiments personally, but it behooves those running public web sites to respect their users... After all, without users, why have a site in the first place?

I also agree that running home-grown forum software is a Bad Idea. Although I appreciate the efforts of those at osdever.net, I think the Mega-Tokyo OS forums are too valuable a resource to subject to such "guinea pig" testing.

[Guest]

Since the original deadline hasn't been achieved, when is it expected for the forum to be fully moved? A month, two months, six? Just curious.

[Guest]

@Chris Chromer: some computer manufacturers already do preinstall an alternative web-browser.

And yes, I also agree that IE compatibility is a must. Simply, too many people use it for it to simply be ignored.

[osm]

I must say I'm disappointed by the anti-user sentiments brought up in this thread. IMO, users have the right to use whatever browser they please, whether web developers like it or not. I use Firefox, so I don't take anti-IE sentiments personally, but it behooves those running public web sites to respect their users... After all, without users, why have a site in the first place?

xsism was having a bad day there, having been hunting IE bugs for the past couple of days.

As I already said, IE 6 will be supported by the forums at a minimum. I'd like to have stuff playing nice with IE 5 and 5.5 as well.

I also agree that running home-grown forum software is a Bad Idea. Although I appreciate the efforts of those at osdever.net, I think the Mega-Tokyo OS forums are too valuable a resource to subject to such "guinea pig" testing.

I'm keeping this in mind along with what Chris posted.

You all won't be guinea pigs. We did that mistake that once, it won't be happening again.

This thing is going to be solid, secure, well-tested, and look right before the forums move over to it.

So... at this point in time, we don't have a move date set. We are hoping to be moved by the end of August, but that could change. If this keeps dragging, we will use pre-made forum software for the intermitent period.

===============

For the curious, a couple of reasons we decided to make a homebrewed forum:
- really bad experiences with phpBB
- don't want to deal with the bloat of vB (anyone else poked through it? it's amazing...)
- we could find no pre-existing forum that was easily integrated with a website; not without incredible understanding of it's internals, something hard to get since all (at least most) forums lack any documentation outside of semi-cryptic code comments
- various strategic reasons related to our jobs that let us pay bills and keep ourselves from becoming anorexic

======

Thanks for all the bug reports folks.

Those of you who have provided screenshots of display problems, please keep those coming. They help greatly as we have been diagnosing and fixing display problems these past few days.

[mr. xsism]

Osm made all the points that I feel matter concerning undertaking this project.

Now if anyone deserves to burn for the amount of time it has taken for us to get near to having any sort of forums, it is me.

Sure we got hacked, so what? 3 times? who cares. I should have had backups, but didn't. We should have installed phpbb2 or w/e the latest was, but I did not. I do regret that, but I have continued to do my best at balancing my free time with osdever.net, paying its server bills and domain as well as upkeeping and adding new small features and replying to emails. But I digress...

All flames should be sent to /dev/null/xsism. I am sincerely regretful at the way things have happened, but please keep in mind no one pays us to be here, and it isnt easy to continue to be here when we get comments that are at least in the form of CONSTRUCTIVE criticism.

Like Osm said, thanks for ALL the feedback, please keep it coming, we're getting ever so close to finishing this beast.

Much love to you guys, even the flamers

[Solar]

I hope my criticism didn't strike you as a flame.

osm gave the one reason that makes me feel OK with your decision for homegrown forum software - the "strategic reasons" related to how you earn your pay. I can certainly understand those.

[Kemp]

I personally still don't understand your approach. You don't want to use pre-made software because you got hacked several times and hadn't bothered to make backups or install the latest version of the forum software (the latest major release if I'm reading right), so instead of taking these steps you instead are writing your own software, which will take an immensely longer amount of time and won't be able to hit the level of security or features available in other packages (unless your team is a lot bigger than I think and you've spent a lot more time on it than it appears).

Surely if you all only have just enough time to share between keeping the server running and doing your real jobs then a big undertaking such as this isn't the best option?

[Solar]

...unless it directly affects your business skills, i.e. builds expertise you could turn into cash during your day job, which is how I understood osm.

[Kemp]

Hmmm... but doesn't that lead back to us being guinea pigs

I'm not intending these comments as flames btw, just a discussion on the general philosophy behind the decisions.

[mr. xsism]

it was updated to the latest major release kemp...but that's that

solar, not flames, thanks

also, yes business skills and development experience. You aren't guinea pigs. We want to make sure everything is working great for the users. Any feature requests can be added easilly, any mods can be coded quickly, integration into osdever.net's frontpage will also be simple.

This is all as opposed to a pre-developed forum phpBB.

[AGI1122]

For the curious, a couple of reasons we decided to make a homebrewed forum:
- really bad experiences with phpBB
- don't want to deal with the bloat of vB (anyone else poked through it? it's amazing...)
- we could find no pre-existing forum that was easily integrated with a website; not without incredible understanding of it's internals, something hard to get since all (at least most) forums lack any documentation outside of semi-cryptic code comments
- various strategic reasons related to our jobs that let us pay bills and keep ourselves from becoming anorexic

You should check out simplemachines forums. Very good software, very secure, and easy to integrate into web sites, tons of easy to install modifications easily at hand, and easy/powerfull themeing.
http://www.simplemachines.org

[chasetec]

I'm not trying to start a my forum software is better than yours thread here, just trying to share some information.

integration into osdever.net's frontpage will also be simple.

we could find no pre-existing forum that was easily integrated with a website; not without incredible understanding of it's internals, something hard to get since all (at least most) forums lack any documentation outside of semi-cryptic code comments

There is a really cool phpBB mod that I found just today that does exactly what you guys are talking about(I think). I might try it myself soon. Seems to require zero modification to the actual copy of phpbb. Demo is http://www.phpbbfetchall.com/phpBB2/mod ... portal.php You can see how easy it is http://www.phpbbfetchall.com/docs/synopsis/

You should check out simplemachines forums. Very good software, very secure.....

It's still got some issues that need fixing, look through the results of http://www.google.com/search?safe=off&q ... n+Ford+smf

[osm]

k, spent a few hours today hashing out cross browser issues in the "modern"/horizontal display style. It looks fine for me in FireFox, IE6, Safari, and Opera 8.
If those of you who have been suffering from IE issues, would give it a quick look, I'd appreciate it:
http://osdever.net/forum_tests/forum_boiler.htm
http://osdever.net/forum_tests/correct.png (screenie of it)

I'm gonna over the "classic"/vertical style over the weekend; so look for a test of that no later than Monday.

Chase: we actually used the phpbbfetchall gizmo when we first ran a forum. At the time, it had some security issues, I imagine those have been fixed by now. It still lacks some functionality that we need.

Regardless, we are quite committed to a forum made in-house. As I mentioned earlier, we have some job-related reasons for coding it and its uses stretch beyond osdever.net .
Thanks for all the info guys on other forums and mods and stuff; it is appreciated. But we simply won't be using it.

[chasetec]

k, spent a few hours today hashing out cross browser issues in the "modern"/horizontal display style. It looks fine for me in FireFox, IE6, Safari, and Opera 8.
If those of you who have been suffering from IE issues, would give it a quick look, I'd appreciate it:

I'm gonna over the "classic"/vertical style over the weekend; so look for a test of that no later than Monday.

Is the fixed modern/horizontal on the current osdever forum or just the test? Test looks ok, forums are almost right except the quick reply and who's online boxes are wider than the post boxes. Doesn't do it with the classic theme. (Personally I hate the modern, wastes too much screen space on my widescreen lcd but as long as you don't force people I guess it doesn't hurt)

Not sure if you're planning but it'd be nice to not have to look at the quick reply box on any page when I select another reply type in my profile.

On a "it'd be really cool" feature request side of things....I think it'd be a killer feature if the reply box and the profile editing was done as a hidable/draggable/floating div box with drop shadows. Leave in the seperate page version for unsupported browsers and people that set other preferences but if you're going to make AJAX forum software you might as well throw in some AJAX eye-candy. I know you guys are busy but if you added these features you could probably release this as an open source project and have it take off. What are your plans for the forum software itself?

To get an idea what I'm talking about take a look at some of the demos here http://nextapp.com/platform/echo2/echo/demo/ . The software there is created with some really cool Java(not javascript) stuff but everything in the browser is just AJAX.