Foggy's Progress - a record of improvements to the forum

[Foggy]

OK, I got rid of our first batch of spammers. And I think I enforced the 3 posts for Newly Registered people, we'll have to see. I'll take known members out of Newly Registered as fast as I can.

I added some extensions and a style to get us going, I'll add more styles tomorrow, there are other priorities. There WILL be a dark style or two.

I'm adding new forums, but for some reason I can't see them myself for a while. Still working on that.

Your avatars can now be 125 x 125 pixels. If you go to User Control Panel --> Profile tab --> Edit Avatar and choose "Gallery Avatar" I think I managed to save everyone's avatars, but you may need to tweak them to get them the right size (and it may take a while to find yours).

Gravatar avatars are DISABLED, please send me a PM if you can't get your avatar back.

This thread is LOCKED because I have enough to do right now and I need to work on priorities, I will unlock it when I get enough done.

Still on the list -- Links to Active topics at top and bottom of the pages. A Fogbow logo at the top of the forum. Other stuff as I get there.

Please be patient and thanks for your support.

[Foggy]

Deleting maybenaut1, keeping Maybenaut.

[Foggy]

kate520 is green.

[Foggy]

Added all the smilies from before, I still have to activate them. That will be tomorrow.

[Foggy]

It looks like everyone who registered so far is a member of Registered Users, which means you can post. I was AFK for hours today - unavoidable - and I'll get a lot more done on this tomorrow. For tonight I'm going to try to catch up on what y'all have posted so far today. I wouldn't even know that SCOTUS approved release of That Asshole's tax returns, except ol' Wifehorn told me about it this morning.

We already have 96 members, and that's after I deleted a bunch of people from Russia and so forth. There are a few names that aren't obvious proven spammers (yet), those I removed from Registered Users so they're only Newly Registered, which means they have to get 3 posts past me in order to be able to post on their own.

I saw the CAPTCHA, and I solved it so all of you did, too. I added a security question as an anti-bot-spammer measure.

This is very much a work in progress, and more will be done in the coming days. For tonight, I'm done working, starting to read posts.

[Foggy]

Fixed the logo (prosilver theme only).

Restored the links at top and bottom of every page for Active Topics.

Deleted another 25 Russian spammers, and set registration to Admin must approve (that's me).

[Foggy]

It's INFRASTRUCTURE WEEK!!

[Foggy]

Yeah, I forgotted I had an eye doctor appointment this morning. I think the dilation might recede someday. Also have to make dinner for my fambly on Tuesdays. And run the Virtual Meetup tonight. Yikes!

[Foggy]

Dang, somebody notified a Russian troll farm. I'm fending them off as fast as I can!

[Foggy]

OK, got a basic index of various forums, subject to refinement as we move forward.

Built a Virtual Drunk Tank, critical infrastructure.

Moved some topics around. Taking a break.

[Foggy]

OMG, I finally caught up with the forum, I've read every post, except maybe I skimmed some of the long ones.

Now I'm gonna do Musical Asskicking for a couple hours, then I have some chores and honeydews, then next I will work on the smilies. You have to put them in one by one, and decide which ones should be on the post editing page and which ones you have to click "More Smilies" to see them. So it's going to take a few hours to get them right.

Then some other refinements, like hiding the Sportsball forum from people who don't want to see the sportsball threads and restoring the usergroups like Grumpy People and Gadflies and so forth.

It's still Infrastructure Week on Born Again Fogbow!

[Foggy]

!	Message from: Foggy
	I added the extension "External links open in new window (or tab, as the case may be). You can change the setting in User Control Panel --> Board Preferences (at the bottom of the page).

[Foggy]

Oh, man ... long day, I can't concentrate enough to get the smilies right. I'll have to do it mañana. I got some headway today, and fended off at least 40 more Russian spammers.

It's still INFRASTRUCTURE WEEK.

[Foggy]

Well, I just spent an hour trying to upload smilies, but they're not working for me. I have submitted a request for support with the phpBB support team. I'll keep working on this.

[Foggy]

I have a sudden major project I must do for ol' Wifehorn and her elk. My presence here will be spotty for a week or so.

Still no word on what is preventing me from working on the smilies. phpBB support hasn't responded, but I'll check again soon.

[Foggy]

Changed the setting for number of posts on a page from 10 to 25. Removed the small-text "time the post was last edited" thingy.

[Foggy]

!	Message from: Foggy
	Announcing two more board styles - Carbon and Graand New. Apparently, only a few board styles have been authorized for this version of phpBB.

[Foggy]

OK, some good news.

I managed to add a few smilies. By creating a *.pak file, with the following info:

filename (of the smilie), width, height, whether to display it on the posting page (1 for yes, 0 for no), name of the emotion, smilie code

... each one surrounded by single quotation marks, followed by a comma, and the whole thing ends with a blank line.

If I mess any of that up, it will screw up the smilies. So I have a ton of work to get them all back, but it can be done. I'll work on that as I get time over the next few days, and then we'll have all our smilies back, yay.

[Foggy]

OK, slowly but surely I'm bringing the smilies back. Then I'll try to put them in some sort of logical order.

Taking a break, might do more tonight or tomorrow. They're a lot of work!

[Foggy]

Added some more smilies; gotta go help an old lady neighbor fix her computer and cell phone. More later.

I had forgotten I had over 200 smilies. I can't use all of them, but most ...

[Foggy]

OK, I have most of the smilies in, but not in the best order. I'll work on that tomorrow.

Now it's time to ZOOM.

[Foggy]

Oops, I enabled Post Numbers but I didn't configure the extension to actually show the post numbers. I think I corrected that this morning.

[Foggy]

Probably missed a few things I've done since the last time I posted here, but anyway ...

Today I added two new board styles - Clean Silver, which is supposed to be great for those who use their phones to access the forum, and Orange BBEs, which is orange. Yeah.

They still need customization, like logos and Active Topics links and stuff, so look for them to improve, further on down the road.

To change board styles, go to User Control Panel --> Board Preferences --> My board style, and check out the alternatives. You can even suggest a new board style if you find one at https://www.phpbb.com/customise/db/styles-2/3.3

NOTE: Do not suggest a board style unless it's already compliant with phpbb version 3.3.5, which is what we're running (the latest).

And I'm looking at an extension called Scheduled Maintenance, although everybody knows I do scheduled maintenance at 6:00 a.m. Eastern time on Sunday mornings, if I get up and actually do it. Also I have a backup program at my new hosting company which is sworn to protect my database so I never have another disaster. I'm almost over the last one. Gimme another century or so, I'll probably forget all about it. We're doing pretty good today, and tomorrow is a new year.

[Foggy]

Oh yeah, and I unlocked the topic so y'all can make suggestions and crab at me and stuff.

[bill_g]

No complaints or suggestions. Just a hearty thank you.