# Renamed: Upgrade Discussion Thread



## Changed

Let me air my grievances: 

-The old theme was much smaller and less graphic-dense. I use a netbook with a 10" screen and minimal processing power-- this supposed update to improve performance actually makes BL _virtually unusable_.

-Opening more than one tab of BL results in me being logged out of my account on all tabs.

-Viewing the list of forums now means I have to scroll down ten times to see all the information. Even on the main page, I have to scroll down three times to see all the information on the page.

Grievance 1 and 3 raise the question: when will we be able to pick from a list of themes that fit our preferences?


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## dokomo

The old theme was not available for this version of vBulletin. Many people are not aware, but these themes aren't free, they have to be purchased.

The forums are loading a bit slow for a lot of people right now as many people re-enter the site. We'll be troubleshooting issues as they come up, but thanks for letting us know that you're getting logged out when opening multiple tabs.


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## ocean

Have you tried clicking the "Remember Me" box?
This _should_ solve you logging out issue with multiple tabs.


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## TALLY 2.0

Changed said:


> Let me air my grievances:
> 
> -The old theme was much smaller and less graphic-dense. I use a netbook with a 10" screen and minimal processing power-- this supposed update to improve performance actually makes BL _virtually unusable_.
> 
> -Opening more than one tab of BL results in me being logged out of my account on all tabs.
> 
> -Viewing the list of forums now means I have to scroll down ten times to see all the information. Even on the main page, I have to scroll down three times to see all the information on the page.
> 
> Grievance 1 and 3 raise the question: when will we be able to pick from a list of themes that fit our preferences?



So you think that they should accommodate the way that bluelight looks, because you have a shitty little computer? Guess what? Not everyone has a 2 dollar computer they got in a happy meal from mcdonalds. 


I like the theme. The only things I dont like is that yall took away the shortcuts at the bottom of the screen. Now I have to scrool back to the top to get out of the thread.

Also, there seems to be no text wrap in the quick reply window. Like instead of going to a new line it will just cut the word in half. Its kind of weird.

Everything else is straight, tho. Good work.


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## Cane2theLeft

Changed said:


> Let me air my grievances:
> 
> -The old theme was much smaller and less graphic-dense. I use a netbook with a 10" screen and minimal processing power-- this supposed update to improve performance actually makes BL _virtually unusable_.



The themes that I saw for this version of vBulletin all seemed similar in this regard so I'm not sure we had a whole lot of choice here. If you find a skin that you think is more suitable, let us know and we'll consider it if we have the available funds or you'd like to foot the bill 

We'll be working on the mobile version more in coming days as well so that's another option for a more stripped-down version for users will less processing power. 



Changed said:


> -Opening more than one tab of BL results in me being logged out of my account on all tabs.



This doesn't seem to be the case for anyone else I've talked to so I'm guessing this is a setting or some other issues unique to your browser or something, hopefully someone will be able to help you with that one.



Changed said:


> -Viewing the list of forums now means I have to scroll down ten times to see all the information. Even on the main page, I have to scroll down three times to see all the information on the page.
> 
> Grievance 1 and 3 raise the question: when will we be able to pick from a list of themes that fit our preferences?



As mentioned, the themes cost money and given that BL exists on a shoestring budget because we don't subject users to a barrage of ads or membership fees, we can't buy a number of themes to cater to user preferences.


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## skillet

I thought it was a bit bulky too, but if you zoom out once or twice in firefox it helps.


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## xbloodwhipx

*Why is it so slow*

God its taking forever to load, and by "it" i mean BDD


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## Swerlz

the site just came back up.. everyone is coming back in massives

you should expect it to be a little sluggish while the adjustment period is going on.. it wont be like this for long.. be patient, the site JUST came back up


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## xstayfadedx

The whole site is loading slow.  Just wait it's only been up for a little bit and if you really want to complain about it make a thread in support.


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## Cane2theLeft

^ yep. 

Please direct this type of discussion to support in the future. 



BDD>>>>>Support


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## leojay

i dont care for the new logo weew!!!


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## dokomo

^Know a good graphics designer who'll work for free?


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## xbloodwhipx

dokomo said:


> ^Know a good graphics designer who'll work for free?


 
Lol Good luck finding one


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## samm2

"This doesn't seem to be the case for anyone else I've talked to so I'm guessing this is a setting or some other issues unique to your browser or something, hopefully someone will be able to help you with that one"

It does the same thing with me too....but the "remember me" button takes care of it...using a netbook also, attwifi network. Other than that seems O.K.


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## Cane2theLeft

^ I'm glad using 'remember me' fixes it! 

Also feel free to quote someone by hitting the 
	

	
	
		
		

		
			
		
		
	


	




 button next to 
	

	
	
		
		

		
		
	


	




. If you only want to quote a portion of someone's post, you can always hit quote, then edit out the extraneous text.


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## dunwich

*Search function not working properly?*

Hey i cannot get search to work right. Searching, for example, for "4-mec" i get no results when there are ofcourse many. Too short a term, or what?
As help and for some harm reduction could someone please link to the 4-MEC megathread?
I did try searching for megathread but that did not work either.

Also, is there any way to search by category/prefix (eg opiates, RC's, etc) with the new board?

thanks in advance !


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## Cane2theLeft

^ it seems searching with tags has not been incorporated yet and yes, 4-mec is likely too short so we'll add it shortly - we maintain a list of drug abbreviations and such that override the minimum limits in the search but unfortunately our engineers aren't versed on all the RC's en vogue at the moment.


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## dokomo

xbloodwhipx said:


> Lol Good luck finding one



My point exactly.

And as to the original complaint of this thread - the forum has been up for a few hours and we're still tweaking things under the load of new users. There will be faster and slower times during the next few days.


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## dunwich

alrighty.

any reason why separate searches for "megathread" and "mega" in titles yielded a fraction of the threads that should have come up, not including the 4-mec thread im looking for? What i mean is, is this probably just because BL just got back? 
Sometimes in the past threads i know exist have failed to show up in searches that would definitely give em as results in a perfect world, was hoping with all the updating that wouldnt happen anymore.


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## Korn3x

i also agree. i can't stop puking from the new theme, and i've straight up left forums before because the new format they switched it too was so unappealing. part of the reason why i came to BL the most was because the forum was so crisp looking, uncluttered, and the dark shade of blue was nice and easy on the eyes. the old BL literally had the perfect theme enabled.

i used to hate the way the opiophile forum looked, but as of now the opiophile forum looks better than this one.

sorry to dish out so much hate, but i honestly can't stand the way it looks now. everything is too "big" and cluttered now, and if you zoom out it's slightly too small.

please please please, do something about trying to get the old theme back, or the one that matches it the best. honestly i think the forum shouldn't have been updated at all, if that's the only option that allows us to get the way things back to where they used to be. something has to be done.

also that annoying yellow "auto saved" annoys the fuck out of me too when i'm thinking during my posts.

fuckin A... it's always a matter of time before a good forum tries to change something to "upgrade" it, that ultimately makes it unappealing and repulsive. i loathe the new look so much i'll definitely not be stopping by as often.


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## jpgrdnr

Awesome update guys! I didn't know where to put the: "nice job!" So here it goes. Thanks again! I should donate!


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## D's

*errors related to the new patch.*

hey there, i've noticed a few time the "quick reply" box at the bottom of each thread was a darker shade of grey and wouldn't let me post to the thread. (I wasn't in a closed thread, just browsing in the lounge.)

and secondly the  button there in the toolbar doesn't recognized my pictures. they are .jpg format. (things from tinypic, etc). soo what I had to do to be able to post my pictures is I have to do the oldschool .[img&/img] style.


only two things i've ran into at the moment.. 
other then that the site looks great, gj chr1 and the others<3


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## tambourine-man

I've had a few quick reply problems.  Often gives a pop-up asking if i wish to navigate away from the page.


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## dropthatpickle

I'm on  a mobile and saw you're still working on the skin. The device worked  w/o skin before, but now I repeatedly get error messages - 'insufficient memory', 'malformed url' - I can go virtually nowhere. It will be a miracle if I can get this to post.  I can log in, but am told 'you are not logged in' when attempting to read and post. My trusty CP is missimg, too. ( Anyway, you've gotta be swamped with Qs. Whenever you get a chance to respond, any help you can would be much appreciated!   )


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## xbloodwhipx

dokomo said:


> My point exactly.
> 
> And as to the original complaint of this thread - the forum has been up for a few hours and we're still tweaking things under the load of new users. There will be faster and slower times during the next few days.


K thx


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## SKL

Ugly as sin and slow, too.

WTF?

The mind boggles 8( 

The old setup wasn't broke

Why fix it?

I wasn't around very much, and this is really likely to make me come around even less.

Sad day for the forum.

The alleged "improvements" listed on the front page aren't much either, given the disadvantages.

Just because a allegedly slick but actually quite hideous Web 2.0-ish update existed from vBulletin doesn't mean it should have been actually implemented ... much less it was actually paid for? Sickening and makes me regret having donated money. I hope that the response is quick and swift and we get our old forum back.


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## Cane2theLeft

dtp - for now at least, 'settings' will take you to the user CP (it's the same address though). My stored links to User CP work fine (where I am on mobile right now as well as on my computer). We should be able to put another link to the User CP where it used to be. You're probably getting logged out because you didn't check 'remember me'.

See you later, Korn  If you find and purchase another skin, we can probably accomodate but c'est la vie, kid. No matter what, some people aren't going to like whatever changes happen but most would rather have this than constant lags, timeouts, etc. 

We're still working out kinks (many we couldn't foresee prior to the site going live) and very shortly the site should be running wonderfully. 

A number of people (primarily hoptis, Chr1.5 and TheLoveBandit) spent COUNTLESS hours over the last week trying to make BL better and still people just whine about the look not being to their tastes. If you want a pretty forum, there are plenty out there - BL focuses on bring harm reduction information.


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## Survived Abortion

I'd just like to say firstly thank you very much to the high eschalons of the Bluelight staff for all the hard work they put in upgrading Bluelight 

I have noticed that the text is a bit wonky is some places. Like this:





Uploaded with ImageShack.us

I don't know if it's just my browser  Anyway I'm sure you'll get it all ironed out soon enough!


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## TALLY 2.0

Korn3x said:


> i also agree. i can't stop puking from the new theme, and i've straight up left forums before because the new format they switched it too was so unappealing. part of the reason why i came to BL the most was because the forum was so crisp looking, uncluttered, and the dark shade of blue was nice and easy on the eyes. the old BL literally had the perfect theme enabled.
> 
> i used to hate the way the opiophile forum looked, but as of now the opiophile forum looks better than this one.
> 
> sorry to dish out so much hate, but i honestly can't stand the way it looks now. everything is too "big" and cluttered now, and if you zoom out it's slightly too small.
> 
> please please please, do something about trying to get the old theme back, or the one that matches it the best. honestly i think the forum shouldn't have been updated at all, if that's the only option that allows us to get the way things back to where they used to be. something has to be done.
> 
> also that annoying yellow "auto saved" annoys the fuck out of me too when i'm thinking during my posts.
> 
> fuckin A... it's always a matter of time before a good forum tries to change something to "upgrade" it, that ultimately makes it unappealing and repulsive. i loathe the new look so much i'll definitely not be stopping by as often.



Awesome. Bluelight gets a new look and we get rid of a douchebag at the same time. That weeks wait was worth it.


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## Korn3x

^^
ok, so i apologize for my comments maybe being slightly harsh, but considering what a lot of people post on the internet, my post was pretty mild. No unappreciation was meant towards the people who spent the time trying to make everything run more smoothly. I was only referring to the site's new appearance.

also, to straight up call me a douchebag when you don't even know me is uncalled for. 99% of my posts on BL are geared towards harm-reduction in OD or BDD and i've done nothing but try to share knowledge and try to help others while learning all that I can here.

and Cane2theleft, i hope you really don't wish me not coming around as much. we've had a few good PM's during my time here, and I hope my initial, harsh feelings for the way the site looks doesn't change your opinion of me for the worse.


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## chinky

someones butt hurt


im not feeling the white background..the set up and everything else im not feeling but this is the first day i suppose it will grow on me once i get used to it but i would really like to have a choice on the color of my background like we did on the old version..

also like tally said you cant just click the go button to go back to the main page  on the forum...the whole having to scroll threw the list everytime just to ge to the main page is getting old and lame already

also im not feeling the timestamp at the top of every post, like its part of the post...put it back to the corner above our names like the old ones...theres space for it 

other then that though i havent noticed anything but ive been on this for 30mins so far


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## Keaton

I liked having the Blacklight skin, but that's about the only thing I miss. 
Good work guys.



@TALLY:
The quick navigation is still at the bottom of the screen, look below the right had corner of the last post.


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## SKL

FWIW, it's working a lot faster than it was an hour or two ago.

But still, I don't get why this was done. I find the new layout to be awkward, more cluttered (particularly in the text editor), more difficult to navigate, a greater strain on the eyes, most of all less elegant ... and I don't see what the benefits of the change are.

Hey, I'll put my money where my mouth is and offer cash money as a donation if a theme which is less bandwidth-heavy, more elegant, and more like the old one is on offer.

But really, honestly, I don't think the old system was broken ... I don't get why it was fixed. Newer is not necessarily better.


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## dokomo

Korn3x said:


> please please please, do something about trying to get the old theme back, or the one that matches it the best. honestly i think the forum shouldn't have been updated at all, if that's the only option that allows us to get the way things back to where they used to be. something has to be done.



What part of "the told skin does not exist for this version of vBulletin" do you not understand? If you'd like to employ a team of graphics designers and engineers familiar with vBulletin and port it to our version, that would be fantastic. Otherwise, theres nothing than can be done about it.



> fuckin A... it's always a matter of time before a good forum tries to change something to "upgrade" it, that ultimately makes it unappealing and repulsive. i loathe the new look so much i'll definitely not be stopping by as often.



Upgrading the version of vBulletin (among other things) was absolutely necessary to keep the forum and its members secure. We don't control (or even necessarily like) some of the changes vBulletin puts in their new releases, but thats what we're left with. As has been said repeatedly, if you find another compatible skin that you'd like to purchase for Bluelight, get back with us. Otherwise, its just going to take some acclimation.



dropthatpickle said:


> I'm on  a mobile and saw you're still working on the skin. The device worked  w/o skin before, but now I repeatedly get error messages - 'insufficient memory', 'malformed url' - I can go virtually nowhere. It will be a miracle if I can get this to post.  I can log in, but am told 'you are not logged in' when attempting to read and post. My trusty CP is missimg, too. ( Anyway, you've gotta be swamped with Qs. Whenever you get a chance to respond, any help you can would be much appreciated!   )


 
The User CP is still there, vBulletin just changed the name to "Settings" instead. Its right at the top of your page. The mobile skin/version is high on the list of features we intend to implement.



SKL said:


> Ugly as sin and slow, too.
> 
> WTF?
> 
> The mind boggles 8(
> 
> The old setup wasn't broke
> 
> Why fix it?
> 
> I wasn't around very much, and this is really likely to make me come around even less.
> 
> Sad day for the forum.
> 
> The alleged "improvements" listed on the front page aren't much either, given the disadvantages.
> 
> Just because a allegedly slick but actually quite hideous Web 2.0-ish update existed from vBulletin doesn't mean it should have been actually implemented ... much less it was actually paid for? Sickening and makes me regret having donated money. I hope that the response is quick and swift and we get our old forum back.



Its hard to even respond to a message like this - you obviously know nothing about the "setup" we had before nor the "setup" we have now. We were running an old, out of date version of vBulletin (among other things) and the upgrade was absolutely necessary to ensure the security of the site and its members. There was a lot that was "broke" and a lot that is now fixed. 

You can bet that our engineers will be putting in countless more hours into correcting issues and improving user experience as much as possible within the new version of vB. I'd like to remind you that our engineers are professionals and volunteers, spending countless hours behind the scenes to make this place work. The value of their labor alone is tremendous and we all owe them a debt of gratitude for what they've done and are committed to continue doing. 



jpgrdnr said:


> Awesome update guys! I didn't know where to put the: "nice job!" So here it goes. Thanks again! I should donate!



Thanks so much for the  :D Most of the thanks is owed to hoptis and chr1.5 and the vast amount of time, money, and effort they expended to make this happen.


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## Survived Abortion

Whilst I am very appreciative of the time and effort that hoptis, chr1.5, and thelovebandit have spent upgrading to a new server with faster disks etc, I have to somewhat agree with what people are saying about the new application's skin being a tad cartooney, but that is only minor issue of preference. Cane, if anything this new look seems more 'pretty' so to speak than it was, which is probably the basis for the complaints, since the old app was very fast and slick in it's aesthetic and operational simplicity. I'm not trying to knock what the guys have done either, I appreciate that there wasn't the option to install the old interface on the new app. Maybe we'll have the option in the future to upgrade or retrograde the interface though. Maybe it's just a comfort thing of getting used to a new pair of shoes. I'm sure the bug-fixes will iron out most of the sluggishness and other faults. 



TALLY 2.0 said:


> So you think that they should accommodate the way that bluelight looks, because you have a shitty little computer? Guess what? Not everyone has a 2 dollar computer they got in a happy meal from mcdonalds.



You've got it wrong though I believe, things should actually be catered to people with the least power under their hood. It's actually a case of "not everone has a core Sandy Bridge with 4GB of DDR3 2113mhz RAM and an SSD hard drive". I don't believe people should be left in the dust because they are working on netbooks and other smaller devices, especially with a forum such as this where accessibility is key.

I'm already getting used to the new apllication though, so all in all I really like it  Anyhow, big thank yous are very much in order to the staff. I'm sure everything will settle in soon enough!



By the way:



> TALLY 2.0 said:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> I like the theme. The only things I dont like is that yall took away the shortcuts at the bottom of the screen. Now I have to scrool back to the top to get out of the thread.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> chinky said:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> also im not feeling the timestamp at the top of every post, like its part of the post...put it back to the corner above our names like the old ones...theres space for it
> 
> Click to expand...
Click to expand...


I just thought I'd mention that you can click the "Top" button at the bottom of the thread to take you immediately to the top, there is no scrolling involved.


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## dokomo

Survived Abortion said:


> I'd just like to say firstly thank you very much to the high eschalons of the Bluelight staff for all the hard work they put in upgrading Bluelight
> 
> I have noticed that the text is a bit wonky is some places. Like this:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Uploaded with ImageShack.us
> 
> I don't know if it's just my browser  Anyway I'm sure you'll get it all ironed out soon enough!


 
It must be the way IE is handling the new vB software... I'm using Chrome and this is what the same screen looks like to me:


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## dokomo

the IMG problem using the button is definitely an issue, and I will make sure its escalated and added to the list of things to fix


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## SKL

> Its hard to even respond to a message like this - you obviously know nothing about the "setup" we had before nor the "setup" we have now. We were running an old, out of date version of vBulletin (among other things) and the upgrade was absolutely necessary to ensure the security of the site and its members. There was a lot that was "broke" and a lot that is now fixed.



As far as security goes, correct me if I'm wrong, but don't patches correcting security problems come out for older versions of vBulletin? I too run a forum, albeit a phpBB one, and one that is an order of magnitude smaller than Bluelight, and honestly it's kind of the dead these days, but hey, I'm not exactly entirely ignorant of such matters. Perhaps an explanation of what, exactly, has been improved might make this bitter pill a bit easier to swallow on the part of your users? The announcement of "Welcome to the new Bluelight" doesn't have much substance to it with regard to what benefits are actually afforded to the users other than a few mostly cosmetic changes. If there are serious security issues that are addressable only by the upgrade, then so be it; it's a necessary thing, but if not, then why is it necessary? Who really benefits? Was this honestly the best use of the valuable time of the engineering staff--who's work I'm not knocking, but who's aesthetic preferences I can't deny that I take serious issue with. 



			
				Survived  Abortion said:
			
		

> You've got it wrong though I believe, things should actually be catered to people with the least power under their hood. It's actually a case of "not everone has a core Sandy Bridge with 4GB of DDR3 2113mhz RAM and an SSD hard drive". I don't believe people should be left in the dust because they are working on netbooks and other smaller devices, especially with a forum such as this where accessibility is key.


^this...

Furthermore, this isn't just a matter of not digging the color scheme; not everyone is working with a top of the line machine or a great deal of bandwidth. And one of the things that I always really liked about the site was the clean and elegant interface, a notable contrast to a number of sites in our genre, and now it's gone, although at least we haven't gone the way of garish colors and black background. Of course, the most important thing is the content, and not the aesthetics; but honestly, it's important, especially if now it becomes an issue of the forum being difficult to use for some. 

Frankly the new look gives me a headache, it is distracting, and makes it more difficult for me to read the discussion that is going on. It is just way too busy, which leads it to be harder to navigate, which detracts from the ability of people to interact with the forum in a natural way, which is the core of having a successful community.

Is this all petty? Maybe. I still have love for the admins here, but really, I think the change, unless totally mandated by security needs or something of the like, was a bad one, and I think "New Coke" is a succinct and accurate comparison.


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## dokomo

Just an update - things should be running fairly quickly now. We coordinated with our host and optimized some settings to get things moving along better.


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## Cane2theLeft

SKL and former-fetus, thank you for the thoughts and civility. I appreciate the sentiment, tally but keep it in the lounge  

Korn, I certainly hope you don't leave - I was playing around (hence the tongue-sticking-out face). 

To everyone who has any glitches, complaints, etc. - please let us know! Some of these things we can tweak, adjust and address. Many of these issues we knew about but decided that it was more important to go live sooner with a few wrinkles we could iron out later rather than delay the site going live even longer in a futile attempt to achieve perfection.


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## voxmystic

Thanks, crew! 

What do the different colored dots beside everyone's names mean!


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## dokomo

> If there are serious security issues that are addressable only by the upgrade, then so be it; it's a necessary thing but if not, then why is it necessary? Who really benefits? Was this honestly the best use of the valuable time of the engineering staff--who's work I'm not knocking, but who's aesthetic preferences I can't deny that I take serious issue with.



This was _exactly_ the situation. We don't spend hundreds of hours and (not to mention euros, pounds, and dollars) and shut the forum down for a week in order to have a new theme that many of *US* (staff) don't even like. Its not a matter of our aesthetic preferences, its a matter of how vBulletin 4 is designed and the choices we were left with at this point.

I understand that you don't like the new appearance and certain new features, but suggesting that we should leave the entire forum and userbase at serious security risk for purely aesthetic purposes is just unrealistic. We'll always protect our users as best we can, and thats what we've done in this case. 

As has been said before, if you've some magical way to conjure up the old skin in a compatible form for vB 4, please present it. Likewise, if you'd like to purchase a skin you feel is better, we can forward that to the engineers. Otherwise, it is what it is. 



> Furthermore, this isn't just a matter of not digging the color scheme; not everyone is working with a top of the line machine or a great deal of bandwidth. And one of the things that I always really liked about the site was the clean and elegant interface, a notable contrast to a number of sites in our genre, and now it's gone, although at least we haven't gone the way of garish colors and black background. Of course, the most important thing is the content, and not the aesthetics; but honestly, it's important, especially if now it becomes an issue of the forum being difficult to use for some.
> 
> Frankly the new look gives me a headache, it is distracting, and makes it more difficult for me to read the discussion that is going on. It is just way too busy, which leads it to be harder to navigate, which detracts from the ability of people to interact with the forum in a natural way, which is the core of having a successful community.
> 
> Is this all petty? Maybe. I still have love for the admins here, but really, I think the change, unless totally mandated by security needs or something of the like, was a bad one, and I think "New Coke" is a succinct and accurate comparison.



The slowness described by the original poster was likely related to other issues corrected earlier today (and addressed in another thread in this forum.) Usability should not be an issue.


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## Cane2theLeft

voxmystic said:


> Thanks, crew!
> 
> What do the different colored dots beside everyone's names mean!



Whether a user is online and visible or not.


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## chasing_s

to all the skin complainers.  Once you choose a forum's software there really isn't any way to escape the fact you have to take what comes when it comes to upgrades.  the other option which isn't particularly secure either is to keep the old forum locked and start from scratch but then good info gets lost to the old board.  it took another board I use a good while to get back to the skin that had had previously for phpBB after upgrading and that's an open source one that anyone can grab and play with though I think they did their skin themselves which may have been the issue.  so while I think this skin is a bit mickey mouse I'm not going to complain too much.

edit: for some reason I got logged out during posting this reply.  maybe the remaining logged in time out is set too short or something.


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## purple_cloud

Hey guys, instead of complaining about the new look, start playing around with features and tell us what the annoying little glitches are. 

The report button is on the upper right by the way, it's a disadvantage that this is slightly less obvious now, since using the report button for inappropriate posts IS very encouraged. So, just tossing it out there that that's where it is now.


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## n3ophy7e

^^ Good call hun, thank you  

Just so everyone knows, the Report Post button is the little piece of notepaper icon in the top ^^ right hand corner of your post.



SKL said:


> The old setup wasn't broke


As dokomo has also said, we had to upgrade to a more recent version of vBulletin, on which the old skin was no longer available. 
This new skin was by far the best out of all the choices we had, by the way! :D 



			
				skillet said:
			
		

> I thought it was a bit bulky too, but if you zoom out once or twice in firefox it helps.


Good idea! How would one go about doing this? I've only _just_ changed my brower to firefox and I can't see where to zoom out.


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## TALLY 2.0

Keaton said:


> @TALLY:
> The quick navigation is still at the bottom of the screen, look below the right had corner of the last post.



Fuck yeah, dude. Thats a good improvement over the old one too. Its not so big. Thanks for pointing it out for me, too. I know it wouldve taken me atleast 6 months to realize it was there.


----------



## purple_cloud

n3ophy7e said:


> Good idea! How would one go about doing this? I've only _just_ changed my brower to firefox and I can't see where to zoom out.



I use firefox and I'm on a Mac, but for me it's Command and either the - or + key for out and in. I noticed that if I don't zoom out to the point it's not easy to read it sorta chops off part of thread titles also, but I'm not sure if this is a "you're on a mac and have everything set larger than most people do in the first place" sort of thing or an actual issue...


----------



## mikemikenj

Wow, I zoomed out in safari and it really made a difference in the bulkiness. Now I have no complaints.


----------



## malakaix

Thanks for the update guys, i didn't realize just how expensive vBulletin was not to mention the prices of skins! It's still a bit slow in navigating the forum, but it's the first day so im expecting while people flood back to the forum it'll be a little choppy.



skillet said:


> I thought it was a bit bulky too, but if you zoom out once or twice in firefox it helps.



Awesome, thanks for the tip! I just zoomed out twice and it brings the text and layout format more or less back to the size the old forum skin was using.


----------



## Cane2theLeft

purple_cloud said:


> I use firefox and I'm on a Mac, but for me it's Command and either the - or + key for out and in.



It should be the same on a PC except ctrl and + or -


----------



## alasdairm

*contact list is broken*

http://www.bluelight.ru/vb/contactlist.php

alasdair


----------



## TALLY 2.0

^You can also hold ctrl and scroll up or down on your mouse and it will do it too.

Hey, with the quick navigation it seems that I have to scroll to the lounge when I try to use it instead of just clicking it. Maybe I am doing it wrong but is that how its gonna be now?


----------



## Korn3x

Sorry Cane2theLeft, i misinterpreted your emoticon.

also, some varying ways to adjust the zoom: for firefox users you can also click "view" at the top of your browser, and then click on "zoom" and adjust the controls there.

i have a fairly new laptop, and doing that thing with your fingers as you would on an itouch or iphone to adjust the zoom also works on the touchpad for adjusting zoom as well.



purple_cloud said:


> Hey guys, instead of complaining about the new look, start playing around with features and tell us what the annoying little glitches are.



this.

looks like we're stuck with what we got for now, so might as well spend some time trying to find the bugs we can fix.

also, is there even a way to view the way the old forum looked, so that if one were to go about trying to make a skin they could use it as a reference?


----------



## n3ophy7e

Cane2theLeft said:


> It should be the same on a PC except ctrl and + or -


YES!! Perfect. 
Thanks skillet, p_c and Cane!


----------



## D's

everytime i try to upload any picture i get that. (when trying to use the toolbar image loader)
I can still post pictures but like i said earlir I have to use the [.img]picture.jpg[./img] style.


----------



## TheLoveBandit

purple_cloud said:


> Hey guys, instead of complaining about the new look, start playing around with features and tell us what the annoying little glitches are.



This.  Very much this.

The 'look' isn't want it used to be, basic fact of the upgrade.  Sorry we have to pull you kicking and screaming from something over 5 yrs old (and no longer supported).  The fact of the matter is that for the site's stability (ie, searches that don't time out, server crashes HUGELY reduced, etc) and security (patches stop being offered if your base s/w is too old, and the exploits become very commonly known)  - for site stability and security we HAD to do this upgrade.  Mission one was to get the upgrade in place, and get us to a point where we could make the site available to you members again ASAP.

Making it pretty is not the primary goal (obviously).  Making nifty skins that still look retro, or trying to keep doo-dads in the same locations you're used to looking for them, these things were not the primary goal.  They aren't ignored, but they also aren't critical to getting this site available to the public.  We very much want to get to these kinds of things, but we can't as yet.  I'll point to Chr1.5 and hoptis as having done far beyond what anyone else has on this site for the past several years in terms of trying to ensure BL remains online and functioning for the public.  It took a whole freaking week and then some just to make the site function.  Not look pretty, just function.

At this point we need to keep our focus on functionality - does this work, is that broke, etc.  At some point, we'll be able to look into making things 'pretty' or more like we used to be in terms of appearance, feel, etc.  But for now, you'll all have to accept the look has changed to what comes out of the box, while we get used to the changed (added, modified, deleted) functionality and any odd quirks we have in our set up.  PLEASE, help us find the bugs so we can get the 'functionality' where it needs to be, so that we can _then_ take a look at the feel of the site.  Thank you.


----------



## TheLoveBandit

As for functionality of getting back to your forum listing when you're done reading a thread....does the BACKSPACE key not do this?



and while I just railed against 'it looks icky' remarks, I will state the new forum jump at the bottom right of each thread annoys the funk out of me.  Moreson on mobile   But I'll live with it (for now), because it works.  But I don't like a lot of things about the new look, just like you guys.


----------



## Changed

The forum _is _now moving faster... Also, zooming out looks to be the best alternative to the bulky theme.

A few other things: there must be a way to edit the color and location of the Report Posts button? I bet you'll see a big decrease in the amount of reported posts based on its discreet color. Also, I don't see why it isn't down where it was before, as there is clearly room for it. As it is, the Reply/Quote... buttons being spread out is unnecessary and ugly.

Otherwise, I think this update is generally a success.

Oh, except for the yellow auto-save thing, which is very annoying. Can you turn off the notification but keep the feature?


----------



## Changed

The way the text wraps in the box vs hyphenating or moving the word down to the next line is also annoying. There is no option to change this in Settings...


----------



## ocean

I merged all the Upgrade threads and renamed it.
If things are mix matched, this is why 
Let's keep our focus on the Upgrade and things you are noticing that are in need of attention rather than "I don't like the look" . The look is different and will take time for some to get used to but I'm sure you all will.


----------



## modern buddha

Upon zooming out (on Failfox), the theme looks a little bit better. I mean, after seeing the responses from admins, I can't expect anything more than a working, up to date forum with vBulletin running the show. It almost makes me sad that no one can have a website without paying some bookoo bucks. However, it's the world we live in.

Thank you, everyone, for keeping this place stable and working for mostly all of us, minus a few that will simply have to adjust the settings themselves. Yeah, it's not pretty. Yeah, I absolutely loved the old look. But if we can't have it any more, we can't have it any more. No need to get angry and upset over spilled milk. Clean it up and keep the conversations running.


----------



## TALLY 2.0

Ok, maybe I am doing it wrong, but i cant get the nsfw button to work. When I hit the button the text is wrapped with   instead of NSFW. I had to physically type it in there to make it work.


----------



## Stay.Blazed.420

How do i change the theme? Oh god this default is horrible


----------



## malakaix

I was wondering, why on earth the legend for unread forum posts wasn't displaying properly.. but as i understand it on the front page of the forums the 'white circle' legend indicates unread forum posts, while the blue circle legend indicates no unread forums posts. Am i the only one that find's this confusing, i'm so use to it been the other way around on other forums.. i'm sure i'll adjust to it in a few days


----------



## Korn3x

is there a setting to make it easier to see if someone has made a new post in a thread i've looked at? i find the colors to be very similar looking between threads that have been updated vs. those that are in the same state since i last visited them, and if there were a way to make the threads that had new posts in them to be more "bold" looking, that would help me out a lot.


----------



## Infinite Jest

Stay.Blazed.420 said:


> How do i change the theme? Oh god this default is horrible



Unforunately themes cost money so we're stuck with the default for now. Please see TheLoveBandit's post on this page for more.


----------



## ColtDan

preferred the old look and layout.


----------



## Infinite Jest

Good job guys . I'm working on a software upgrade at work, and it's incredibly time-consuming, even with paid developers working on it full time. So I really appreciate you guys, especially Chr1.5 and Hoptis, doing this for free in your spare time 

One question: is there a mobile theme, or are we (as I suspect) using the default theme on mobiles too, for reasons of $$?


----------



## xstayfadedx

I have to admit at first I was like ew when I saw the upgrade but that's how I am for every site when I see it changed.  It's just looks so different to you that you think wow I really don't like it but of course after you get use to it then it looks great/normal.  Anyways now that I've been on it a little more today I actually like it a lot... the zooming out also helped make it look a lot less bulky and better as well.  So all I can say thanks guys for the upgrade...even though there are a few glitches that others have mentioned I'm not too worried since I know they will be fixed eventually.


----------



## Infinite Jest

ColtDan said:


> preferred the old look and layout.



But we had to upgrade because the backend was out of date and no longer supported. See TheLoveBandit's post (#57)


----------



## tambourine-man

SKL said:


> Perhaps an explanation of what, exactly, has been improved might make this bitter pill a bit easier to swallow on the part of your users?


Calling it a bitter pill is hardly appropriate.  Yes, the skin is perhaps lacking, but that can be tackled at any time.

You said yourself that you're hardly around, so perhaps you haven't experienced the myriad of problems that the board has been experiencing for the past 6-12 months: crazy time outs, delayed log-ins, random slow downs... blah, blah, blah.  The more regular users will, no doubt, appreciate the performance improvement... even if it does come at the expense of the cherished aesthetics and with the introduction of some fairly esoteric 'features'.

Movement to a new provider/server alone may well have tackled the performance problems... but it'd be crazy not to upgrade the site during that window of opportunity.  If you've run a board yourself, you should know that older versions of software are only supported for so long.  Yes, Jelsoft still issue security updates for the old version (I have a vBulletin license and I still get them), but I'm happy that Bluelight is at least in a position where it can take advantage of the newest releases.

Maybe we should commission a competition to design a skin or associated artwork?


----------



## tambourine-man

*GLITCH*

The stars on the F&T polls aren't displaying.

example: http://www.bluelight.ru/vb/threads/454669-FILM-Tron-Legacy


----------



## tambourine-man

*GLITCH*

People's profiles have a link to 'articles'.

I assume 'articles' could be things that people contribute to the Front page, but under how BL works, articles are actually an admin-only privilege for making announcements?

Hoptis appears to be the only one with an 'article': http://www.bluelight.ru/vb/list/author/32490-hoptis

Oh, and if you remove the author's ID number in the url: http://www.bluelight.ru/vb/list/author/

...it displays user no.1: Flakoz! :D


----------



## chuchu

The fact that bl is up and running again exceeds the dislike that i have for the skin. Thanks to everyone who worked towards this plus the site is now much faster than when i logged in yesterday.


----------



## addictivepersona

Clicked *Thread Tools > Mark This Forum Read*.  Waited.  Waited.  Clicked again.  Nothing happened.  Originally tried in the Reported Posts forum but repeated in Healthy Living.

I have the new default theme obviously, but it's _zoomed in_--I have had issues with certain websites when they're zoomed in, with different buttons not working as they should.  I'm using Firefox 5.0.  Cannot figure out how to tell what percentage I'm zoomed in at, but I know it's two or three times.


----------



## addictivepersona

Kept getting this error when I was trying to navigate anywhere a few minutes ago:








Also, is there a way to tab out of the quick reply box?  Used to be able to hit tab and be taken to "post."  Not sure if it just requires holding down shift or if there's no way to get this "feature" back.


----------



## tambourine-man

addictivepersona said:


> Also, is there a way to tab out of the quick reply box?  Used to be able to hit tab and be taken to "post."  Not sure if it just requires holding down shift or if there's no way to get this "feature" back.


Middle mouse button (in firefox)


----------



## hoptis

Hey guys in the next hour I have to take the board offline for an emergency fix, nothing major but you'll have to look at the status screen again, won't be more than 30 mins. Sorry!


----------



## addictivepersona

tambourine-man said:


> Middle mouse button (in firefox)


I'm on a laptop, so that doesn't help--But thanks!  



hoptis said:


> Hey guys in the next hour I have to take the board offline for an emergency fix, nothing major but you'll have to look at the status screen again, won't be more than 30 mins. Sorry!


Not a problem, hoptis.  Thank you (and everyone else involved!) for keeping this forum alive.  :)


----------



## hoptis

tambourine-man said:


> *GLITCH*
> 
> The stars on the F&T polls aren't displaying.
> 
> example: http://www.bluelight.ru/vb/threads/454669-FILM-Tron-Legacy


 
Nice spot, throw it on the list.


----------



## hoptis

tambourine-man said:


> *GLITCH*
> 
> People's profiles have a link to 'articles'.
> 
> I assume 'articles' could be things that people contribute to the Front page, but under how BL works, articles are actually an admin-only privilege for making announcements?
> 
> Hoptis appears to be the only one with an 'article': http://www.bluelight.ru/vb/list/author/32490-hoptis
> 
> Oh, and if you remove the author's ID number in the url: http://www.bluelight.ru/vb/list/author/
> 
> ...it displays user no.1: Flakoz! :D


 
(I hate you already)

Yes, correct to all, will be removed. Throw it on the list.


----------



## Korn3x

^^
do you mean by being able to submit a post? if you place your cursor over where it says "post quick reply" it shows you that you can also push "ALT + S" to quickly make your post. (make sure it's a capital S, so you'll have to really do "alt + shift + s")


----------



## hoptis

TALLY 2.0 said:


> Ok, maybe I am doing it wrong, but i cant get the nsfw button to work. When I hit the button the text is wrapped with   instead of NSFW. I had to physically type it in there to make it work.


 
Removed, that's what I meant in the announcement about the new editor playing up badly. The 
*NSFW*: 



 icon still works in-editor but the button died in the ass with the upgrade. I'm sure we don't want to let ali's icon go to waste though so... throw it on the list :D


----------



## Swerlz

testing buttons and such


----------



## swmo

*like the new format*

but my last date visited is wrong.


----------



## Stay.Blazed.420

Ugh other than the skin i have no real problems... the skin is just so ugly and confusing.. but im sure that will be fixed with multiple options eventually


----------



## addictivepersona

Korn3x said:


> ^^
> do you mean by being able to submit a post? if you place your cursor over where it says "post quick reply" it shows you that you can also push "ALT + S" to quickly make your post. (make sure it's a capital S, so you'll have to really do "alt + shift + s")



That never used to work for me for some reason.  ALT+S brings up a drop down of my history in Firefox and ALT+SHIFT+S.......apparently works!  *THANK YOU!*



Stay.Blazed.420 said:


> Ugh other than the skin i have no real problems... the skin is just so ugly and confusing.. but im sure that will be fixed with multiple options eventually


As it's been said elsewhere in the thread, *skins are not free*.  So unless you want to buy one for the site, it looks as though this is what we're stuck with--And on that note, I've seen way worse skins for forums.  This one isn't half bad in comparison.


----------



## Korn3x

^^
ya no problem lol. the same thing kept happening to me and i was like, wtf? then it finally dawned on me that the s was capitalized.

looks like we're all helping each other get through this update together lol.


----------



## skillet

PM's from greenlighters? Not that I mind in this case, the guy's really nice, but I thought it was limited to bluelighters, not sure if you know about it.

Congrats on the new site btw., got used to it pretty quick, though, like I said, I have to *zoom out twice in firefox otherwise it's HUGE!
*
\/ I second the confusion with the edit window, it's when you 'Go Advanced'... lol at the sparkly buttons :D

And I have some little 'up arrow' thing at the top of my screen, regardless of how far down a page I am, and about 3/4 of the way to the right that appears to do nothing but be annoying.


----------



## jancrow

dokomo said:


> ^Know a good graphics designer who'll work for free?


 
Yes, PM me.

Also, can anything be done about the width of the column with username / avatar / join date etc in it? It takes up a freakish amount of space at the mo (running Chrome).

Other gripes:

Word wrap in post editor not working.

Old skin used alternating colours for previous posts so that when posting you could tell where posts started and stopped in the list below the edit window... can that be changed? It's well confusing as it stands.

Quote / reply buttons ugly as sin. The shine is distracting for drug users. Can they go non-graphical like the submit / previews ? Or see my first line.

Good things:

Speed

Auto Save

It's back!


----------



## Cane2theLeft

^ excellent post, thank you. Did you try zooming out regarding the column width? 

I too dislike the way it formats the previous posts summary - if you want to reply to multiple posts, you can quote multiple ones and if you don't want those quotes in your post for some reason you can delete them. Also when you click reply, it allows you to reply right below the post you're replying to so this is helping if you want to refer back to while typing but obviously it doesn't help in the advanced option. 

Hopefully the engineers will be able to address these issues but given what they have to address, I'm not sure shiny buttons will take priority  I'm definitely with you regarding the previous post formatting though.


----------



## jancrow

Cane2theLeft said:


> ^ excellent post, thank you. Did you try zooming out regarding the column width?.



I did indeed, the proportions are maintained and the text gets smaller as expected... I guess the class "userinfo" can probably have its width changed to something less majestic in the css somewhere. As for the shiny buttons, fuckit, I can knock some without shine to those dimensions in about ten minutes if you want.

What purpose does vbcat_middle serve? Just seems to be an unnecessary gradient on top of another gradient.


----------



## felix

OMFG the old shade of pastel blue has been replaced by a very slightly different shade of pastel blue which suks balls, I can't believe what you guys have done here, I'm leaving bluelight now and if I die thanks to a bizarre drugs overdose & masturbation combo in my momma's basement it'll be YOUR FAULT, WAH WAH WAH. pls give me a refund.


----------



## modern buddha

felix said:


> OMFG the old shade of pastel blue has been replaced by a very slightly different shade of pastel blue which is beautiful, I can't believe what you guys have done here, I'm staying on bluelight forever now and if I die thanks to a bizarre 72 hour sleepless period in my bedroom it'll be MY FAULT, WHOOP WHOOP WHOOP. pls give me a hug.


----------



## Cane2theLeft

I can't express how much I've missed you, felix.

jancrow, unfortunately you're going to have to wait for one of the admins/engineers who understand what you're saying to come on. I was only promoted to this role because I look good in a bikini


----------



## hydroazuanacaine

even after i view a thread, it leaves it as having unread posts. you have to look at every page before it will mark a thread as read?


----------



## Survived Abortion

What happened to the search function at the middle-top of every forum? I only ever used that Google powered search because the built-in search doesn't like terms such as "2C-E". Can this possibly be restored? I'm guessing it's just a plug-in; it would definitely be handy to have it re-installed at some point.

The site is running much smoother today, I like it. I like the new 'Blog Entries' link in the user info column. I've also adjusted to the new look which is good. Zoom makes things worse for me in IE, I'd rather view it as it is.


----------



## addictivepersona

hydroazuanacaine said:


> even after i view a thread, it leaves it as having unread posts. you have to look at every page before it will mark a thread as read?


I think it's always been that way... At least with having to look at _every page that has new posts_.


----------



## hydroazuanacaine

^im 99% sure this is incorrect. it used to be that if you clicked a thread it was marked as read until there was a new post. even if you were joining in on the thread on page 22, you did not have to go back and click on every page to make it read. wouldn't swear my life on this, but it is too significant now for me to believe i did not notice it before.


----------



## thugpassion

I like the old site better..... everyones already pointed out the reasons. Looks too big kinnda clutered compared to the last format, it dosent seem like you can fit the large amount of text on the screen like before.


----------



## hydroazuanacaine

i just clicked through every page of a thread i wanted marked as read. it still has the red "unread" mark. i did not scroll down over each post on each page.


----------



## addictivepersona

Hydro, I wouldn't place money on what I said before, that that is how it's always been, but I am pretty sure that is how it's always been.  However, having to scroll through each page instead of just clicking on it is excessive and it has not always been that way, at least in my experience.  Dumb question, but have you refreshed the page since viewing the thread?


----------



## Cane2theLeft

hydro, what red mark? The only red mark I know of is the one that says if there are deleted posts in thread (and I believe only staff can see this). Scroll over the mark and see what it says. It might just display differently on this end.

When a thread is unread, generally the link is bold and once you'd read it, this disappears. I tested this with a thread on this page just opening the last page and it un-bolded the link when I went back to the forum indicating the thread was 'read'.


----------



## hydroazuanacaine

ooo, i did not notice how they were bold and then unbold. problem solved, far as i am concerned. thank you much, Cane. and addictivepersona, for answering. 

but i was talking about what the icon legend is trying to tell me:





guess it's more orange than red.


----------



## Cane2theLeft

^ ahhhh, I gotcha. I forgot about that because it's tiny!

I'm glad the bold thing helps


----------



## Survived Abortion

^You're correct, hydro, the actual icon with the orangey-red thing in it is displaying wrong for read threads. I just checked this by refreshing the support forum and checking this thread title, which had turned from bold to un-bold but the icon still labeled it as a "hot thread with unread posts".


----------



## TheLoveBandit

addictivepersona said:


> Clicked *Thread Tools > Mark This Forum Read*.  Waited.  Waited.  Clicked again.  Nothing happened.  Originally tried in the Reported Posts forum but repeated in Healthy Living.




Noted.  For the record, there are two such links, one works.  We'll have to sort why the other doesn't.  However, the one that does, will pop up a window basically asking 'are you sure?'.


----------



## Korn3x

hydroazuanacaine said:


> ^im 99% sure this is incorrect. it used to be that if you clicked a thread it was marked as read until there was a new post. even if you were joining in on the thread on page 22, you did not have to go back and click on every page to make it read. wouldn't swear my life on this, but it is too significant now for me to believe i did not notice it before.



how are you returning to the previous page? if you're hitting the back button, then it will display it as if you never visited the thread. if you click back on the forum subsection you're in at the top of the page, then it should make it so that it has been marked as read, and should be unbold now.

the problem i find is that the difference between bold and unbold is very subtle, and since i have the site zoomed out it makes it almost impossible to tell the difference sometimes without straining my eyes significantly. is there anyway to make the bold more bold???

edit: i see you already figured it out nvm.


----------



## hoptis

Shit I didn't even notice that yet. Thank god they made a legend for people like us.



felix said:


> OMFG the old shade of pastel blue has been replaced by a very slightly different shade of pastel blue which suks balls, I can't believe what you guys have done here, I'm leaving bluelight now and if I die thanks to a bizarre drugs overdose & masturbation combo in my momma's basement it'll be YOUR FAULT, WAH WAH WAH. pls give me a refund.



I want to turn on post rating so I can give you five stars lol...


----------



## hoptis

jancrow said:


> Yes, PM me.
> 
> Also, can anything be done about the width of the column with username / avatar / join date etc in it? It takes up a freakish amount of space at the mo (running Chrome).
> 
> ...



Replied over here

Hey guys, can we keep all discussion about the skin/design over in the other thread. Please use this one to report issues unrelated to the look/design of the site.


----------



## addictivepersona

TheLoveBandit said:


> Noted.  For the record, there are two such links, one works.  We'll have to sort why the other doesn't.  However, the one that does, will pop up a window basically asking 'are you sure?'.


The second one actually _does_ work, upon a hard refresh of the page.  It just doesn't show up instantaneously like it used to...

(BTW, David the gnome, LOL!)


----------



## Infinite Jest

Survived Abortion said:


> What happened to the search function at the middle-top of every forum? I only ever used that Google powered search because the built-in search doesn't like terms such as "2C-E". Can this possibly be restored? I'm guessing it's just a plug-in; it would definitely be handy to have it re-installed at some point.



If I remember right, it's just a bit of HTML that's either hand-coded into each individual forum, or into a template for all the forums. Not hard to replicate, but will probably take a bit of time to do. In the meantime, there's a workaround for searches like 2-CE. Add an asterisk to the end of the search, so 2-CE*. The board software won't allow searches of 3 characters or less, but will let you use the asterisk as a wildcard .


----------



## Survived Abortion

^It was actually there when I logged in earlier today to my suprise, but then it was gone again several minutes later. I thought one of the elves must have read my post and fixed it, but it looks like they're chasing bugs with it. Thanks for the tip for searches in the meantime!


----------



## Korn3x

i've been having trouble using the advanced search. i used to be able to search my username, and choose the option for posts from a week ago and newer, and then it would show me a list of threads i had posted in, and then i could tell if someone replied to them or not.

i keep getting the message saying there's been no results. am i doing something wrong here?


----------



## Cane2theLeft

^ have you clicked 'settings'? In the User CP it will update whenever ANY thread you post in has new posts. If you want it to stop updating one of these threads, just hit unsubscribe. You can subscribe to other threads as well that you want to follow but not post in (such as the nudie thread of course).


----------



## Pegasus

If we're putting a reply button on each post, would it be possible to also add some kind of indicator at the beginning of the post that indicates to whom the post is directed?  I'm noticing already that people are clicking the "Reply" button and not mentioning who they are replying to (since it appears to them that the post is directly above or linked somehow), leaving confusing responses.  Something like @Cane2theLeft at the beginning of the post if I was replying to the post above by clicking the reply button on the post would work well.  The "Post Reply" button or Quick Reply options would be the only things that would give a blank text box for responding to a thread in this case.


----------



## animal_cookie

birthday PMs?

i am pretty sure in the past BL used to automatically send you a birthday greeting. i am sure this is not high on all your lists of things to investigate but i thought i would mention it


----------



## hoptis

animal_cookie said:


> birthday PMs?
> 
> i am pretty sure in the past BL used to automatically send you a birthday greeting. i am sure this is not high on all your lists of things to investigate but i thought i would mention it



Just checked the logs, these _seem_ to be sending. Can you tell me who didn't get one? I think they're important.


----------



## Jabberwocky

dunno if this has been mentioned but i saw it asked in ausdd.



Divine Moments said:


> Where's the report button gone?


----------



## Korn3x

Pegasus said:


> If we're putting a reply button on each post, would it be possible to also add some kind of indicator at the beginning of the post that indicates to whom the post is directed?  I'm noticing already that people are clicking the "Reply" button and not mentioning who they are replying to (since it appears to them that the post is directly above or linked somehow), leaving confusing responses.  Something like @Cane2theLeft at the beginning of the post if I was replying to the post above by clicking the reply button on the post would work well.  The "Post Reply" button or Quick Reply options would be the only things that would give a blank text box for responding to a thread in this case.



ya good point, although i'm not for the @"enter username" idea, as then the people have to scroll up and try to find the post. that's one of the most frustrating things about the youtube comments lol. the way it's set up i think people just get confused/forget that they aren't actually the next post underneath the person above them, since the reply box opens up directly under the post for convenience. hopefully with time people will start to recognize their mistakes, but if not i think maybe the reply button should somehow be removed? or is there maybe a way to add another button to distinguish between the reply options? (i.e., one would just say "reply" and clicking it would bring you to a new page, and then another button could say "post-comparison reply" (of course something that means the same thing but much shorter. its late and cant think atm)).


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## Christ!

Hello thar Bluelight admins/mods/techies and users. 

Love the look of the new site but having a couple problems. 

With advanced search I can't specify which sub-forum I'd like to search in. Am I missing something obvious or are you guys still working on integrating this? Noticed the same exact thing on another forum today. 

In chrome the 'quote' button doesn't seem to work all the time and I'm also unable to edit my posts in chrome. I'm sure these bugs be figured out eventually just wanted to bring it to your attention.  

Thanks for all the hard work and it's good to have bluelight back


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## Christ!

Sorry for the double post. 

Hit the edit button and it does actually open the editable text window, however clicking on 'save' and 'go advanced' does not work.

edit: Ok awesome just tried it on firefox and no problems whatsoever with editing my posts. 

Might be a good idea to keep threads on each individual issue open in the help forum. Looked like two of the threads may have answered my problem but they had been merged into this thread (I think) Don't have time to read the whole 5 pages (probably 10 pages before too long) so just read the first page and last page and didn't see anything related. 

Cheers  

ps. Love the auto-save when I'm typing a post...will save many headaches in the future.


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## OrAnGePoPsIcLe

I miss the tab that would tell you when someone posted something new into a thread that you subscribed to.
I'm having a hard to time to find "my subscriptions"... and its anoying that it lists all of my subscribed threads not just the ones that have new posts.
I also preferred the smaller text, this new bluelight seems very bulky, which is unnecessary. 
I'm happy that this site is being updated with new changes and work is being put in it, it is a home to a lot of us, and I will be patient with the new changes.
The autosave in the comment box deserves a thumbs up! Love it.


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## Crack4Lyfe

I cant find the button to my user control panel.


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## Cane2theLeft

^ it's titled 'settings' now in the top right corner but same as UserCP.


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## tambourine-man

Try top-right of screen.

It's now called 'settings', next to 'log out'.


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## Cane2theLeft

^ ninja'd, bitch


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## tambourine-man

You owe me one ball of psychic energy.

Thief.


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## Cane2theLeft

^ I don't owe you shit but I _am_ a thief... I actually just stole a ball of psychic energy from you. I guess I DO owe you that now


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## animal_cookie

hoptis said:


> Just checked the logs, these _seem_ to be sending. Can you tell me who didn't get one? I think they're important.



me


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## CoffeeDrinker

Is it just me or does this new set-up get the "servers are too busy check back later" error message WAY more frequently now than ever before. 
I very rarely remember that happening before, but now it's slower and it seems to get overwhelmed much quicker. 
I don't care how it looks, per se, but how it functions, and it's noticeably slower and laggier. 
Maybe this is just the growing pains or something, and it'll all get fixed up. 
But what's the explanation for the increased frequency of the servers getting too busy?
Is it just that everyone came back on right around the same time, and it would've happened on any forum with similar amounts of people suddenly joining? 
And the text wrap thing is weird. lol


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## Tommyboy

^ It isn't slower for me, but I do get the same "servers are too busy" messages.


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## Care

Site tells me I have a "bad url" when i post pics from photobucket


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## addictivepersona

Tommyboy said:


> ^ It isn't slower for me, but I do get the same "servers are too busy" messages.


Same here.

Came here to ask if anyone else, when they click "quote" or "reply" are shown the spinning "loading" icon the entire time after hitting the button?  Not sure if it's a bug or if that's just the way the site is now.  Kind of annoying, but there are bigger fish _potatoes _to fry.


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## Care

"the servers are too busy at the moment, please try again later"

FUUUUUU


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## dokomo

Just wanted to let everyone know that we are aware of the issue causing the "server is too busy at the moment error" and are working to get it fixed as quickly as possible. Thanks for reporting on it here :D


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## cocoabud

except for the issue for a bit with the busy signal i've found response much improved. thank you for the improvements.


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## TheAzo

Glad BL is back - aside from the errors last night, it seems to be performing a lot better than it was. 

I'm not very happy with the new theme, as a lot of others have said. I have a 1080p screen, and I still feel like I can't get enough on the screen, because there's so much padding between messages in a thread. This trend towards wasted screenspace (which almost every software company is guilty of) is getting really frustrating. It's as if developers think that screen size has grown like CPU speed (until this winter, I had fewer pixels on my screen than I did in 2001),  when available screenspace is static in the horizontal and shrinking in the vertical (back in the early 2000's, everyone I knew ran 1200x1024, now 1376x768 and 1440x900 is more common - and yet, vertical screen space is wasted, everywhere). 

There 15-20 pixels of deadspace between posts, then a 20-30 pixel tab that only has 1 button on the far right to minimize the post, then another 20-30 pixels with just a number and a tiny icon on the left, then another 10 pixels or so on the bottom just to give a curve. That's like 80 pixels. The three elements of content could fit in a 20 pixel bar, or even on the same line as the date/time of the post, with 5-10 px of padding between posts. Zooming out helps, but it makes the text too small to read before it fits as much content as used to fit on the screen. 
I'm imagining something like this - we don't need full on graphic design, we just need the padding hacked off. 




Also, why is there no word wrap in the quick reply box? Before, if a word went off the edge of the quick reply text area, the whole word would appear on the next line. Now, only the letters that would go past the end of the line do. This makes editing/proofreading posts kinda hard... Is this just me? I'm running Chrome - but chrome rarely has browser-specific bugs.


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## Swerlz

It word wraps for me just fine


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## dokomo

TheAzo said:


> Glad BL is back - aside from the errors last night, it seems to be performing a lot better than it was.
> 
> I'm not very happy with the new theme, as a lot of others have said. I have a 1080p screen, and I still feel like I can't get enough on the screen, because there's so much padding between messages in a thread. This trend towards wasted screenspace (which almost every software company is guilty of) is getting really frustrating. It's as if developers think that screen size has grown like CPU speed (until this winter, I had fewer pixels on my screen than I did in 2001),  when available screenspace is static in the horizontal and shrinking in the vertical (back in the early 2000's, everyone I knew ran 1200x1024, now 1376x768 and 1440x900 is more common - and yet, vertical screen space is wasted, everywhere).
> 
> There 15-20 pixels of deadspace between posts, then a 20-30 pixel tab that only has 1 button on the far right to minimize the post, then another 20-30 pixels with just a number and a tiny icon on the left, then another 10 pixels or so on the bottom just to give a curve. That's like 80 pixels. The three elements of content could fit in a 20 pixel bar, or even on the same line as the date/time of the post, with 5-10 px of padding between posts. Zooming out helps, but it makes the text too small to read before it fits as much content as used to fit on the screen.
> I'm imagining something like this - we don't need full on graphic design, we just need the padding hacked off.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Also, why is there no word wrap in the quick reply box? Before, if a word went off the edge of the quick reply text area, the whole word would appear on the next line. Now, only the letters that would go past the end of the line do. This makes editing/proofreading posts kinda hard... Is this just me? I'm running Chrome - but chrome rarely has browser-specific bugs.



The post editor was ENTIRELY replaced in this version of vBulletin (one of its most controversial and bemoaned changes) and the word-wrapping issue is a result of this change. The new editor is different, still sort of buggy, and not at all within our control. I also run chrome and it also does not word wrap for me. Annoying? Yes. Something we can do much about right at this minute? No. 

Likewise, this theme is just a theme. Its a package deal. The old one was not available, this was the closest one we could find that was still blue. I agree with a lot of what you're saying, but much of it is outside our control unless we have a better theme. Feel free to track some down for us that are blue and closer to the old one that are vB4 compatible (and keep in mind, each one of these skins come at a licensing price and we're entirely supported by donations.)


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## Josh

leojay said:


> i dont care for the new logo weew!!!



I was bored last night so I had a stab at updating the logo to match the new skin a bit better...






Here's what it looks like as a favicon: 
	

	
	
		
		

		
		
	


	




An example of how it would look on the site: 


The files you'd need to use it as-is (without hotlinking from my domain, natch) are here:



I appreciate it still needs a lot of work, particularly the text, but if anyone else fancies improving it the .psd is here:


P.S. Probably mentioned elsewhere but in writing this post I notice that no matter what URL I stick into the tool to add an image to a post, it says the url is invalid.


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## Care

Despite recent frustrations id like to thank everyone who is working on making BL a better forum. Im sure you guys put in alot of time and effort.


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## Josh

dokomo said:


> Words cannot describe how much I appreciate you doing this man!! :D BL is all about community and shared contribution and I truly thank you for making these! I'll link them to our engineer and hopefully get them updated and sorted out shortly.
> 
> The image button on the editor is one of those buggy features I mentioned earlier :/ Good 'ol  tags work, but the image button tries to do something else with them. It will require a manual modification of the editor code and is definitely on the to-do list of things to fix.
> 
> 
> 
> Thanks man! :)[/QUOTE]
> 
> No problem! PM me if you need anything fixing or want anything changing. I've gotten so much (sometimes potentially life saving) information out of BL in my 5+ years as a lurker, so it's great to be able to give something back.
> 
> That said I'm sure there are plenty of other creative talents here so if anyone has any suggestions or wants to take the idea further be more than happy :)


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## addictivepersona

Clicking "post reply" at the top or at the bottom of the thread seems to do nothing but give me the spinning loading icon...


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## Korn3x

is it just me or did the reply button disappear for a day or a couple hours either yesterday or a few days ago? i could have sworn it went away for a little bit.


----------



## amapola

addictivepersona said:


> Clicking "post reply" at the top or at the bottom of the thread seems to do nothing but give me the spinning loading icon...


It selects the quick reply box for me


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## Pegasus

I got a PM from a greenlighter saying they got the "do not have permission to view" page when trying to view my profile...  I gave them the direct link to my profile and they still got it.  Figured I'd bring it up here.

Edit- I guess I misunderstood, she was trying to view my Blog, which I made unavailable.


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## addictivepersona

amapola said:


> It selects the quick reply box for me


I just tried it again and it does that now as well.  Weird that it didn't work the other day.  8(


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## Survived Abortion

I've figured out that the google-powered search feature is only available now before you log in - i.e. when you are logged out, as are the links at the top of the forums (faq, index links etc.). I'd love to see this feature re-enabled if at all humanly possible . I know I can create another tab and search in actual google, but it's better when it's done from Bluelight.


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## Tommyboy

I can't seem to figure out the source code.  I know that it wasn't used much, but it was a way to have a link to the source appear as a superscript saying "source" after a quote.  It was done using  tags.  When I tried it, it automatically inserted  tags around the source.  Here is h...till.  I was quoting a wikipedia page before.


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## lucifer1306217

Hey, with the quick navigation it seems that I have to scroll to the lounge when I try to use it instead of just clicking it. Maybe I am doing it wrong but is that how its gonna be now?


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## Up And DOWN

the speed of the new forum is great. just have to figure out where everything is.


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## addictivepersona

*Is the auto-save feature available for when you click "quote" or did I just find a bug?*

(Had a rather long reply typed out in a quote reply box and clicked somewhere by mistake and poof! reply gone.)


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## tambourine-man

addictivepersona said:


> *Is the auto-save feature available for when you click "quote" or did I just find a bug?*
> 
> (Had a rather long reply typed out in a quote reply box and clicked somewhere by mistake and poof! reply gone.)


I've noticed some peculiarities with this feature as well.

http://www.bluelight.ru/vb/threads/585348-Autobots...-let-s-ride!?p=9868768#post9868768

(work in progress)


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## addictivepersona

tambourine-man said:


> I've noticed some peculiarities with this feature as well.
> 
> http://www.bluelight.ru/vb/threads/585348-Autobots...-let-s-ride!?p=9868768#post9868768
> 
> (work in progress)


Huh--Rather amusing (but highly beneficial) that you tested all of that out!  I think the issue with me was that I clicked something outside of BL to navigate away from the page.  But who knows.


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## felix

In my opinion, the new 'Closed Thread' icon sucks dead weasels through a hosepipe.






OK then. :D


----------



## Survived Abortion

Yippee! Someone put the google search back on the forums


----------



## Jesusgreen

The mod names under forum categories often overlap the description text, in a way that makes the forum look a complete mess, other than that the theme is much nicer, however that itself is a rather big issue.

I suspect the issue is use of HTML5, which my browser does not support. Unfortunately me and many others can't use HTML5 supporting browsers because: We use Firefox for many addons that we need, aside from HTML5 - Firefox 4 and 5 are huge downgrades from 3.6.

Edit: I took a look in Firebug and I'm thinking it's more likely the CSS.


----------



## felix

Jesusgreen said:


> The mod names under forum categories often overlap the description text, in a way that makes the forum look a complete mess, other than that the theme is much nicer, however that itself is a rather big issue.


it's not clear where exactly you're seeing that - URL???


----------



## Mander

Jesusgreen said:


> The mod names under forum categories often overlap the description text, in a way that makes the forum look a complete mess, other than that the theme is much nicer, however that itself is a rather big issue.
> 
> I suspect the issue is use of HTML5, which my browser does not support. Unfortunately me and many others can't use HTML5 supporting browsers because: We use Firefox for many addons that we need, aside from HTML5 - Firefox 4 and 5 are huge downgrades from 3.6.
> 
> Edit: I took a look in Firebug and I'm thinking it's more likely the CSS.


vbulletin does not use html5. Firefox supports html5 just fine. vbulletin4 has a mass of css bugs.


----------



## hydroazuanacaine

is bluelight now smarter about images? what i mean is...

it used to be that if you posted an image that was too big, bluelight would resize it. if there were a bunch of pictures on the thread page, this would make things freak out for a moment and take a while to load. so if a pic was big, people nsfw it so that doesn't happen. since the upgrade, it seems like they are already resized when you open the page, and nothing freaks out or takes forever to load. 

but also just got a new computer. is it bluelight making things run smoother? and if it is bluelight, and no ones computers freak out anymore, is there still reason to put bigger pics in nsfw tags when posting in post-pictures threads? 

thanks!


----------



## felix

let's see with this 1600 × 1200 one.







edit: well now, something's changed. technically, BL didn't used to resize large images, it only resized the _display _of them to a max width of 700px. then you could click on it to view it full size if you wished.

looks like that's gone, and it's a matter on which I have no opinion. works fast though!


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## hydroazuanacaine

^i think it's a big improvement. and you can still see full size version by opening the image in another window.


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## felix

ah yes - in firefox, right-click/view image. nice one.


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