Pagoda SL Group
W113 Pagoda SL Group => About this site => Topic started by: Peter van Es on January 12, 2016, 22:37:30
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Some of you may remember that we will need to update our software. We suffered a hack-attack back in November which was caused by us running old versions of system software. The reason we ran these old versions, is because our forum software could not cope with later versions.
Upgrading our forum software was hard, because of the additions made to the software. These additions have served us very well for the last 8 years in allowing us to run the membership system for the Group. Additionally it has kept us largely spam free.
The Board and I (as the lowly sysadmin and system developer) had to bite the bullet. We decided to move to a newer version of our forum software, and re-implement the useful additions I had made over the years. That work is now nearing completion.
- We decided to re-implement our Full Member subscription system into version 2.0.11 of Simple Machines Forum. This allowed us to move up to the latest versions of Linux, PHP and MySQL;
- The server was moved to our existing hoster, but is now physically located in the US, closer to most of our membership;
- We moved all of the membership information that was previously in the Contao system (at the Home tab) to the Technical Manual, where it is easier to maintain (check http://sl113.org/wiki/About/Start and http://sl113.org/wiki/Main/Video for example)
- Contao was dropped and replaced with a Static website generator (https://gohugo.io) which now just provides the front end
- the front end part of the website is just that, a front end. It is designed to advertise our group, and membership. All the real content is in the forums or on the wiki
- the front end is responsive... that means that it works on small screens, big screens, phones and iPads (try it by changing your window size and see what happens)
The look and feel of the forum has also been cleaned up and simplified. That allows better usage on e.g. tablets. Enclosed a couple of examples of the look and feel.
The board and I are currently testing the new forums. When we are done, all information from this system will be transferred to the new system: all pictures, posts, messages, memberships. The system will be inaccessible for a short while when we do the transfer. Full members will receive an e-mail ahead of us taking down the system, and when the new one is back up.
Remember, change is good!
Peter
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Very nice. I like the more contemporary look of the home page. Great work guys!
John
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A big thank you to you Peter, and to the board, for doing the massive job of performing this upgrade, no doubt countless hours of your volunteer effort on behalf of the community. The changes look great and I look forward to them 'going live'. Thanks again!
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I can only echo Cees!
Well done and THANK YOU!
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It looks very professional and polished. Great work! I am in IT and know how the devil is in the details and can be frustrating development work.
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Beautiful job! Much appreciated.
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From just what little I know about my company's website, I can only imagine the amazing amount of time and effort that goes into this.
A million thank yous Peter!
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Looks awesome!
Very modern
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Looks good and no problem navigating for this old duffer :) Thanks Peter!
John
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Very nice, displays well on my iPad. Thank you.
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Well done on the new site - look and feel is great PLUS the change over was well managed - opened the site and I was still logged on from the old - even that carried over. Well done Peter
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Very nicely done.
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Thanks and well done on the change over to the new site.
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Very nice new site. Congratulations for the quick and troublefree change!
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Thanks for all the positive comments. The transfer might have been quick but I've been working on it most evenings since Christmas... I've been running a parallel system since then, testing etc. To transfer the system, the database needs to be "frozen", all the files transferred (I have been running jobs automatically, moving all the uploads and wiki changes to the new system every night). Then the database needs to be transferred, reloaded and then changed for the new forum. I've done the transfer in "testing" 2x.
Yesterday (thinking I had it all prepared for a trouble free transfer) I obviously encountered some hiccups, making me tear my hair out. But I managed to get it going within the 24 hour window... and then I discovered I couldn't test the PayPal system... so I needed some details from our Treasurer, and with these could get PayPal to work with the new system too...
So, I'm glad it seems to have gone well. And that you like the new look. I'll keep monitoring for errors and problems and resolve these. Then I hope this system will also last us another 8 years or so. It should, as this works much better on mobile devices. After those 8 years, someone else can pick up this job!
Peter
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Agreed, fanntastic job and a great new look. Well done!
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I've been away for awhile with work and travel, etc. This may be old news for many but, the new site look and feel is incredible. My thanks and congratulations!
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Nice Work. Thanks to all of you for putting in the extra work to keep this going!
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Very nicely done, I like the landing page a lot. It's been a while that I was here and this was a pleasant surprise.
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Very nice job on the new site/appearance. Thank you!