Positives:
I really like the banner.
The new look is clean
Everything seems to work
It's refreshing that John, the new owner, is willing to put in the time to move the game forward and to make major upgrades.

Negatives:
Change is always a challenge and it multiplies with age.  It will take some getting used to and I hope members will give it a chance.
 I helped a vision impaired  friend this week  and he was very comfortable within his usual surroundings which he had committed to memory.  He was also very reluctant to leave this "safety zone" of things well known.  Seeing this new forum site reminded me that I am also in a new and less comfortable surrounding - I'll try to be patient.

There was some red on black text in a game report that was hard to see due to lack of contrast.  I'll try to find it again and reply within the link.

    

The red letter on black back ground has an example in wacky wizard Valhalla thread. Its very difficult to read.

I just now noticed that all of my private messages are gone.

Just an observation made while exploring. Not a request to try and find them.

The color is the biggest issue for some of us. Black background instead of white is hard to read. I bet if you change just that aspect for now, it may make people more comfortable. I would like to attach a pic of the color red being difficult to read on this background, but this new forum won't let me attach a JPG file (or any attachment).

---

Also, where is the "secret" administrator-only section? Our special place to plot and foil others...

(06-03-2023, 07:27 PM)unclemike Wrote: Also, where is the "secret" administrator-only section? Our special place to plot and foil others...

It's there. Look again.

I did a little experimenting, and tried duplicating two different themes that are already installed, ad renamed them, each in turn, as a new theme called Experimental.

All of my efforts to edit the color scheme failed. It was as if the changes weren't saving, even though they were. I've fiddled with editing themes countless times over the years. Not sure why the colors of the theme sections that I tried to change didn't change colors. So, I deleted these two test themes, and went back to Square One.

Odd. I didn't want to mess with the new theme that John installed. It's possible that there's a setting that I've forgotten about. Not sure. It was worth a try, though.

I tried another experiment, just now, using the Emrald theme.

I changed the background color of it to white, and saved the change - and that theme accepted the change.

Then, I decided to change it back to it's original color, both using the reset option and by manually tying in the HTML color code, and saving it, and saving it more than once, yielded no further change to it - leaving that theme stuck with a white background.

From my perspective, it was bizarre! Go figure.

So, that theme can be deleted, redownloaded from the main MyBB website, and reinstalled, if desired.

Sorry for any unintended headaches caused. In past years, I've probably changed colors in various parts of MyBB themes hundreds of times. It really shouldn't be a big deal to change the colors of various parts of any theme, nor to change the colors as many times as you want to. I wish that I had a good explanation for why it's being problematic, but I don't. If anyone else has any insight, feel free to enlighten me.

Clicking on the Forum Statistics link on the main page using the Default forum theme yields the following message:

Sorry, but there is not enough information on this board to generate statistics. Before statistics can be generated this board needs to contain at least 1 member and 1 thread.

(06-04-2023, 01:18 AM)Maximus Dominus Wrote: Clicking on the Forum Statistics link on the main page using the Default forum theme yields the following message:

Sorry, but there is not enough information on this board to generate statistics. Before statistics can be generated this board needs to contain at least 1 member and 1 thread.

Well, glad to know this software version is bug-free :>

(06-04-2023, 10:48 AM)unclemike Wrote:

(06-04-2023, 01:18 AM)Maximus Dominus Wrote: Clicking on the Forum Statistics link on the main page using the Default forum theme yields the following message:

Sorry, but there is not enough information on this board to generate statistics. Before statistics can be generated this board needs to contain at least 1 member and 1 thread.

Well, glad to know this software version is bug-free :>

It's not a software issue, per se, as I've checked the same Forum Statistics option on two other forums running the exact, same software. Nor is it a software version problem.

Rather, the problem likely emanates from trying to update software that wasn't updated for years on end. I offered on multiple occasions in recent years to update the forum software in use here, but I was never given the go ahead. I probably issued a half dozen or so different warnings about not updating the software over a span of time that stretched years.

MyBB is actually fairly reliable forum software. It's one of the most reliable forum software products that I have encountered and used over a period of time that stretches back a good many years.

Furthermore, I'm not aware of any forum software product that is 100% bug free. Here, this issue (and others) emanate from neglect, which is a human trait, not a software trait. Even when I did a quick fix a while back, to enable registered forum users to be able to stay logged in, that created at least one problem in a different area. But long before that problem with staying logged in manifested itself, forum software updates here hadn't been done in years, as in multiple years. It's not as though users weren't able to use the MyBB forum in place here for a long time, before that particular problem ever manifested itself.

Whether you do a fresh install of forum software, and import a database into it from an existing forum installation, or whether you perform just update to the latest software version of an existing forum, you run the risk of certain problems or issues being retained or imported. This can be the case with a variety of different forum software products.

The Alamaze and Fall of Rome forums have not always used MyBB forum software. The original forum software in use by Rick, if memory serves me correctly, was vBulletin. Tons forum messages were lost, when vBulletin encountered major problems and the forum postings were lost. vBulletin is a product that you purchase, and which you pay a yearly fee to to continue to use, if memory serves me correctly. MyBB is free. I had used it for a while, elsewhere, and I encouraged Rick to go with it, instead of vBulletin, after the vBulletin massacre of the forum postings, back then. MyBB has actually served the Alamaze and fall of Rome communities well over a period of many years.

Try running an automobile for years on end, Mike, but never maintaining it. It wouldn't last as long as the MyBB forum software here has lasted.

The Forum Statistics option isn't a vital feature. In fact, I doubt that most forum users here have ever even clicked on it, at all. I just report the problem, because I found it.

Separate from the above, I did advise on doing a fresh installation of the forum software, and just using the existing forum as a read-only option. That way, you start fresh, and you don't have to worry about importing any problems. So, it's really a juggling act or a balancing act. On the one hand, you want to retain the large quantities of old forum postings, as there's a substantial amount of good advice or history attached to those postings. On the other hand, you don't want to carry any of the old problems forward with you. So, hard choices are what one invariably ends up facing. If a different forum software product had been in use, and if upgrades to that other forum software product were neglected for years on end, you could end up with the same or equivalent problem.

The reason why the forum software upgrades were neglected was because people don't always listen. And no forum software product nor software version upgrade can solve that kind of problem.