The forums are scheduled for an update!!

This may cause the Veritaserum look to disappear and/or cause items to stop working.

Please bare with us; we hope to get everything back to normal as soon as possible.

Ok, all back and looking very blue.

We'll get to work on making the place look like VTM again as soon as possible

Thanks for the update - I totally thought that it was just me being technologically illiterate why it wouldn't work for me.

I was wondering if you could please tell me how to get an avatar to work, I've tried and tried to get a sirius black one, using the url bit and the brwse my picture folders bit (both jpeg and gif or whatever) but its probably ...

...

again

sorry and thanks for any help/advice

EDIT: I think I've managed it but not sure as it said that I may be able to see it but others not - it also said that I could use it but then said something about no direct linking - so I'm not entirely sure if I have accidently just stolen it or whether I have done it right - once again I am sorry for being such a pain

woah, so im guessing this is what your talking about when you say that its time for an update? Will it be staying like this for a while, or will we get our old VTM back?! Becuase I personally like the other one better, but o well, I have no part in it anyways so dont mind me!! just wondering...

I like both! I'm the type of person that likes new things.I like it.
I think it looks very nice. If you were to ask me which I preferred,
that would be hard. I like the other one, becuase it had the link to
the forums on the bottom of the page. But I like this too, becuase
it' new and I like all the colors!

Whoa it's blue and white lol.
I'm a little confused, is this temporary? Or is it an update in the forum look? I like it, but the white isn't exactly what I would go for, although I think it's great VTM is always updating and making their site better <3 teehee.
Anyways, is this permanent?

It is a lot of work to get all of the icons, fonts, backgrounds and other bits and peices for a custom skin working, but I am sure the guys will get VTM back to looking like it used to soon, don't worry.

It can be a real pain when you apply updates to the core software only to find all the alterations you previously made to make your forum look better have to be redone, one at a time. It can also be very time consuming as well, so I am just glad they managed to get something up and running so soon after the update.

whoa!!! What happened here? Is this an update? The whole red/silver/blue thing?
I leave for a week and my beloved Veritaserum receives an extreme makeover.
Looks great though! Going to take some getting used to. nice wotk guys.

Yes bajab, you're right. Not that I know anything about what makes this place tick. But yeah, that sounds about what I remember someone else saying.

Over the next few weeks you will see subtle changes on the forums. Things will look different, new things added, some old things taken away. Just be patient and wait until the Powers That Be announce completion. Because right now they are hunched over keyboards, typing away, working harder for a better VTM. (That's in Darren's signature for cryin' out loud...)

Just hold off on the negative feedback until all is done. Then, feel free to respectfully voice your opinions. But right now, sit back and watch VTM go through a wonderful change. But I got to tell you guys, none of you are alone in getting adjusted to new controls, buttons and pretty thingys I have no idea what to do with. In time, all will be made clear. With practice, we will know how to use things. I like the new buttons though. Like I said before, easier on the eyes. We really are so lucky we have Admin who are willing to jump into action when it is needed. VTM rocks....

bajab's hit the nail on the head. It's taking ages... but i've got busy couple of days over this weekend so, sorry any problems will have to remain for the moment. Like why on earth is the site gone 1 inch to the right?!?!?!

Thanks for all your support Snapelover, I know you were hit hard by the attack last week and I'm glad to see that you are still with us

I know why its gone one inch to th left....its becaue it not aligned right

Thank you The Only Harry Potter. I think that's agreeable. But what Darren is asking is why the site moved 1 inch to the right. Not how.

Darren I just want to help out, but if you're interested in hearing my thoughts, please reffer to my post here.

Sorry if I seem to be sort of intruding on the way you run the site. I don't mean to be. Just trying to help aid "an even better Veritaserum experience".

Ok, sorry but the reason why is because the code is wrong and whoever made it isnt very good ( no offence to whoever made it)

The Only Harry Potter- Ok, first of all I know nothing about coding or websites and have nothing to do with any of the layout here. I'm sure most people here would know more about layout stuff etc than what I do.

But really- without wanting to sound like a total cow- give it a rest. You've offered your criticism and assistance in the other thread, you really don't need to turn this thread into also insulting the people who work so hard and spend so much time on this stuff- voluntary time I might add.

So unless there is something constructive and helpful to say, then I'm sure the Admin team have enough pressure on their hands without being insulted on top of it all as well.

Respectfully submitted
~Pix

Thank you Pix.

The Only Harry Potter. I have teamed up with Darren to resolve our little forum issue. And I can tell you that the layout CSS was created by another admin and also by Darren himself. I think that they both did a magnificent job.

I have just spent well over 3 hours speaking to Darren and we have both agreed to a conclusion. In fact, it has only a little bit to do with full-fledged coding. It's not the HTML Body of the board that off, it's the board's wrappers.

I can tell also tell you that Darren is exhausted. So out of respect, I think that you owe him an apology. Other than that, I would follow Pix's advice.

I'll echo Phoenix here, The Only Harry Potter. There's a lot of volunteer work that goes into this site to make it what it is. I'll emphasize that it is volunteer. You're very fortunate that it's only your wand that has been broken, and after your condescending comments and arrogant tone directed at people who have given quite a bit of themselves with very little personal reward, you may find it difficult to return to people's good graces, but if you have any sense of decency, I suggest you try with all you've got--starting with but not limited to a sincere apology.

Okay everyone. It seems that our precious VTM skin is almost back to normal. There a a few bit and pieces around the forums that aren't quite 'up-to-speed' yet. An example being the reply posting screen.

Darren and myself are trying our best to get everything back to normal. But seeing as we're working on different sowftware than the 'old' VTM, some things don't fit and have to be edited step by step.

You may notice some changes while you're logged on, (if you haven't already). It's absolutely normal, everything will be back to the way it was soon.

Thanks for you patience.
Jordan (on behlaf of Darren)

And THANK YOU to both you Jordan and Darren. While it may not seem like it at times, but we really do appreciate all of the time that you all spend on here trying to make things right and better.

Kudos to both of you and everyone else who has been helping out!

I have not properly expressed on the forums my feelings about the new look. Well, I do not consider making comments to myself very "proper," at least.

WOW. They are looking excellent! I love the new options, such as the "Quick Edit Mode." It is very convenient, and it only takes a few seconds if, say, you misspelled one word. I like the new shape of the text boxes and drop-down boxes...it is much better than the old buttons!

Well, a final thank you to both Darren and Jordan, as well as anybody else who is involved in the remodelling process of the VTM Forums! Keep up the fantastic work!




_daviD

I love theforums and any improvement it great. I think that if even I can navigate my way around it then anyone can (even though I do get a little panicky when things go wrong - I have absolitely no idea about IT, seriously when my laptop started turning itself off, I just ran away and forced andi in the room to fix it so when the forums started changed I was like 'oh dear what have I done'), so thankyou for your efforts in making it even easier for us. I too love the quick edi button (owing to slep deprivation I am using this a lot at the moment )

thankyou

I'm really happy for the update, especially as you are using your precious freetime to it. But if I could make the tiniest complaiment,I miss the arealist in bottom of page, which allowed you to switch between arenas, for exaple from Book 6 to Book 7. It was really usefull.

Hi there Marire. Thanks for your compliment to Darren and I. It is really appreciated. I am currently working on the forum drop down list (being able to switch from different categories). It somewhow was disabled and removed when the new server went up. I'll get to it ASAP.

Darren is taking some personal days off (finally! ) and without him some things might take a bit longer to accomplish. But in any case, thanks for your patience guys! All will be back to normal soon enough.

Hey Jordan- Congrats on your appointment to Staff The place is looking great at the moment!

Just to let people know that things may be a little slow getting done for the next couple of days with people away and taking a much deserved break!

Please try and be patient

WOW! Jordan and Darren, you guys are geniuses! It's looking so good now, well much better than the invision blue skin. I've always loved the VTM parchment, so i'm very happy it's back! Well done guys,you did a great job!

Jordan- Congratualtions on promotion to the VTM team, what an honour? You must now be one of the most influential admin in fandom! Don't forget about LB and TD though, but i understand your priorities lie with VTm at the moment! Congratulations and good luck!

Bingo mate. Thanks for your kind praises. But in all reality, it's Darren who's doing much of the work. I'm just in the game aiding him on certain things. I agree, I like this skin much better than the bland Invision Blue one. However, our beloved parchment skin does contain a heckload cookies, which in effect, slows down the sites' info loading/recieving process.

But alas! It's worth taking a few seconds to later admire a beautiful template, huh.

Whoever is revamping the forums may i say that they are doing an excellent job. The buttons are much easier to use and the forums are easier to navigate. Keep up the good work

i know [u]ve updated the site and stuff just adding that i think that maybe [u]ve got all the threads too close together because its sometimes hard to tell the differnce between each thread and title and stuff.

MOD EDIT: Watch it there mate. You have a bit of netspeak up there. (In the brackets). "uve" should be "you've". Please be careful next time.

I'm not quite sure I follow you. You're having trouble telling threads apart in the topic list, is that what you mean?

I haven't had a problem like that personally - the 'last post by' is beneath the thread title and they look pretty separated to me. You can tell them apart because the titles mark where the next topic is as well as the symbols beside the titles telling you which topics are most active and so on.

The threads are as spaced out now as they have ever been, the only thing that's been changed is some of the columns, but overall, there have been no big changes there.

So sorry about that, but no one else has had similar problems at the moment, and as such I doubt there's much that will be done about it now. But I'll let Darren comment on this one if he feels the need to and for now, just thank you for your comments.

I'm going to echo Michelle on this one. The threads are much more spaced out than the old layout. It gives the sites' cookies more response time to refresh.

When Darren adjusted the tables containing the categories and such, the thread links got all messed up. I don't know if you noticed before, but when we changed the forum width, every detail on the page moved to the right. (Including the site itself at one point).

The 'last post by: -- ' text has an absolute position on the page. Which means that when you change one text (ie: the topic title) the rest changes as well. You can not only tell them apart by the icon on the left side of the topic title, but the 'last -- ' text is slightly indented.

I'll let Darren have his say, but I think that Louise is right on when she says that there's not much that can be done now. (Without altering something else on the site. Therefore creating the domino-effect).

I haven't said it yet - but the new Vtm is great! I can just imagine what a major effort it must be, so good job guys!

Anyway, I don't know if it has anything to do with the update, but the Pre-Book six Section seems to have disappeared... I can get into the "Who has pre-ordered their copy of HBP?" all right, but if I click on the Pre-Book Six heading there are no threads there. When I clicked on the new vote only polls section the other day an error message came up saying that there were no threads, but if I go to the Pre-Book Six one, it goes in fine, but there's nothing there.

Is it just me being a techno-putz?

Uh. That's odd. I haven't even noticed that. You're absolutely right, the Pre-Book 6 forum threads have completely vanished. As you are probably aware, that forum has been classified as and 'Archived Read-Only' forum since the release of HBP. Meaning that no posts can be added, therefore making all topics 'dead'.

I'll have a go and check it out, but the reason you see no topics there is most likely because the 'active topic cut-off' date has expired. Just like you don't see the topics from 2004 in the 'First Five Books' forum. I think that you are still able to access the 'dead' topics via URL but that's about it. (Unless the cut-off date is elongated...)

I'll go check it out and edit this to tell you what happened.

EDIT: Alrighty. Just altered the forums' settings. The topics and the posts all show now. The 'viewing' option must've been toggled during the update.

Ah cool! Thanks Jordan, I was wondering if I were imagining things... wouldn't have been surprised at all.

Anyway, thanks for the great job you and Darren have done, I can't even remember how I managed without some of the new features, like the quick edit option, for instance!

I, too, just wanna say that I think you guys have done a great job with the forums. I really like the new look and the practicality of the setup. Keep up the good work guys.

I have one quick question...I do not know if it has been addressed as of yet, or possibly in the beginning of the day, but here it is:

When I go to view my recent posts (by way of clicking on my username --> Profile Options --> Find member's posts), all I get is one post per page. Usually, there are about 20 posts on each page, so you can see which recent posts that you have made received replies, rather than scanning the entire list of new replies on the entire forums for familiar topic titles.

I was wondering if Darren, Jordan, and the rest are aware of this, and if so, planning on changing it back?

Thanks!




_daviD

I only noticed this myself yesterday, I'll look into it. Though I am not sure why its so.

It looks as if the posts should be there on the page, because when you go to the next page it shows a post from further back, and the ones in between are missing. (fortunately, they are still there in the Forums, he he)

Darren and Jordan, thank you for a super job. The new editor is wonderful -- it now accepts pasted formatting instead of me having to paintakingly add the italics etc. that had been lost -- and is it my imagination, or do the pages really load faster? Fact is that I have been able to spend more time on VTM thanks to its new speed. Thanks for this and the many small touches that have made the site better than it has ever been before!

Hmm, it looks like the signatures have disappeared. No rush on putting them back in, though--I don't really miss them.

*ducks*

Okay, I know they're fun and can be useful for posting links (especially for those who keep this place running smoothly), but I think it's just so nice to be able to read from one post to the next without having to skip too much unrelated information.

Anyways, I'm sure they'll be back up soon, but I'll enjoy it while it lasts.

David, thanks for pointing that out. It is currently a mystery to us (well to Darren and I, in any case). I'm sure the solution is just a button's click away though.

Bumble, the forum does seem to be loading a bit faster than what we were previously aware of. I honsestly am stumped as to why that it. The board's technology and security upgrade would be our best bet.

Sam, the signatures have been removed in certain forums because they aren't really necessary. They will show up in every forum exempt a few. It's really not that big of a hassle. All the forums where the signatures aren't allowed are where the signature links for staff aren't necessary. An example being the Rules forum and the Polls - Vote Only forum.

I see -- but that means we have to be a bit more careful with saying things like "see the link in my signature" . . . lol

My signature has just flat out disappeared.
I would love for it to come back....i liked it. Maybe it ran away...

Yep Aubrey. Look at my post above. It explains that everyone's signatures have been removed from certain forums. (All forums under the 'Site Stuff' category, and the Polls - Vote Only forum).

It's still with ya. If it ran away, we would have caught it.

Wait...no, it's gone from everywhere. It is gone in Site Stuff, gone in the Lounge, gone in Post book 6...I read everyones posts and I thought that's what it was, but it has gone away everywhere. I checked my Profile options and it is still there, however, I can't see it on the forums.

Erm... Really?

It's visible everywhere else, through my computer. You sure?
It may have to do with the forum masks. I doubt it, though, no harm in making sure.

Yeah. Looking in the Post book 6 forum, I can't see mine, but I can see Louise's and another person's and....erm...wait a minute...I can see it on one post in the same thread, but not another...I usually have my signature enabled so it shows, but it has been off my most recent posts. Hold on...it's visible on a June 4 post, but not on a June 5 post...I'm really puzzled. (Those were seen in the Ships thread, by the way...) Can you see them on any of the posts I've made today?
Gah!! I am so confused...I found a post from yesterday that does have my signature there...

Ehmm...If it helps, guys, I have seen the signatures on most of the threads I have read/replied in today. I just posted in the Trivia Duelling thread and they were all there...

BUT, I cannot see them on this thread at all. Does anybody see the siggies on this thread? Or is it just me?




_daviD

Aubrey. I have no idea what's going on myself to be honest. I'm sure Darren does, however. In any case, the signatures have been globaly disabled in certain forums. If you updated your signature recently it will have to pass through a newly installed 'signature filter'. It will verify that your signature does not exceed the forum standard. The filter may have alreayd been activated. (Of that I'm not aware of).

David, I will repeat this yet again. The signatures of ALL members have been disabled in this forum category, which includes the following forums: Rules, Updates, Newbies Central, Discuss Columns, and Support. This thread, as being a child of the Updates forum, does not have signatures enabled.
_______________________

Update: The signature system has been modified. It will only display one signature per member on the thread page. This means that if Darren, I or any other member were to post multiple times on one thread page, the FIRST one of our posts would display our signatures. The rest of the replies below would be stripped of their signatures.

Please keep in mind that it will not be uncommon to see a lone signature in a post halfway down the page. If a member has not yet posted on that particular thread page then his/her signature will appear.

In the event that something unusual presents itself, post the issue here. It is unlikely that something will go askew. Bear in mind the information I posted above. It's a waste of time having to sift through already-answered questions.

If I find out how, I will correct this to display signatures multiple times in one thread.

[EDIT]
OK, they are shown multiple times now.

Sorry to be the one adding criticism to what has otherwise been a fantastic job, and this is by no means intended as an attempt to rush you, but what about the username --> Profile Options --> Find member's posts problem that Felix and I mentioned earlier? On each page, only the first post is visible, and all the others that should have been on the same page can not be seen at all. That is definitely not right . . .

We are looking in to it. Might have to make direct contact with Invision though, as I haven't got a scoobies.

Can anyone tell me whether this hs always been a problem since the new Forums have been installed or just of very recently?

Someone else will have to answer that. I didn't notice it until this week, but I've been away for a while and only recently came back, and I'm only slowly getting acquainted with the new functions as I go along.

Thanks for looking into it, though! The Find member's posts option is really handy to keep track of things, as Felix said. It's definitely worth keeping.