405th Community Software Update!

[Art Andrews]

Welcome the new 405th!

This software update has been a long time in the making and taken a lot of hard work from many of our members (and we still have a long way to go!) For years, the community has run on software that was clunky, outdated and not very well supported. We have been trying for a number of years to move but one thing after another has held us back... but we are finally here! This new software is much more user-friendly, much faster, and a lot less antiquated so we hope you enjoy it!

With that being said, there are a number of things that we are still working on. There is a TREMENDOUS amount of cleanup that will be going on for the next few months, as we work to tidy up a lot of left-over coding from yester-year. The other thing we are revamping is the Downloads area (now known as "Resources." Our Librarian, Chernobyl has generously offered to do a complete cleanup of the old file system, but that is going to take both time and effort, so please be patient.

If you notice issues or have questions, please post them in the Site Support forum and we will address them as quickly as possible.

 

[FANGS]

Thank you for the update, Art!

 

[rundown]

Can't wait what the new forum will hold. Hope the pep files will be up soon again!

 

[BlazedStarbon]

This is certainly different visually from the old website, and nice to be back online!

 

[mblackwell1002]

Oooh, I like the new forum. It's all shiny and new, like getting a new car.

Thanks for the update! and as BlazedStarbon said, It IS nice to be back online.
It's a nice-looking site.

 

[whereisdanielle]

Ok, brace yourselves here comes the unpopular opinions.

Visually we've stepped back to 2005. Usability wise, I literally cant read anything because grey front on a glaringly white background is the worst thing you could ever do in web design. Same goes for the light blue. Especially when youre working with back-lit screens.
The page now has SO much wasted space on the sides making me need to scroll more than I would have to if you widened it inline with the old site.
I cant find anything I need too because everything is just harder to navigate. I'm looking at you drop-downs.
I keep getting signed out all the time and its really infuriating.
I can no longer easily find anything because none of the old sites stuff link through to the new versions on here, so everything I've been hording for reference etc is just gone and I will likely never find again unless I spend another 40+ hours on top of the original time I spent finding them.
The file archive. I'm not even going to expand on that because I'm sure you're working on it, but launching without it is not a great choice.
Also not leaving the old site up as a read only type thing for a short amount of time so people could find exactly what they had saved previous on the old site and fe locate it on the new site, sucks. Big time.

I'm sure I'll find more that I want to add as I continue to use the site. But so far all impressions are unfortunately negative.

EDIT: Also tacking on the fact that now that the webpage is www.405th.com/forums that makes finding the site and linking the site and everything to do with navigating to the home page of the site 10x more annoying for everyone especially people new to the 405th or looking to join the halo costuming world. Websites shouldnt be forwardslash anything unless youre going to a specific part of a website. Another negative from me.

 

[B1ondeange1]

I look forward to seeing how this new forum set up goes It looks a lot newer and refreshed than the old forum did.

 

[Reclaimara]

Ok, brace yourselves here comes the unpopular opinions.

Visually we've stepped back to 2005. Usability wise, I literally cant read anything because grey front on a glaringly white background is the worst thing you could ever do in web design. Same goes for the light blue. Especially when youre working with back-lit screens.
The page now has SO much wasted space on the sides making me need to scroll more than I would have to if you widened it inline with the old site.
I cant find anything I need too because everything is just harder to navigate. I'l looking at you drop-downs.
I keep getting signed out all the time and its really infuriating.
I can no longer easily find anything because none of the old sites stuff link through to the new versions on here, so everything I've been hording for reference etc is just gone and I will likely never find again unless I spend another 40+ hours ontop of the original time I spent finding them.
The file archive. I'm not even going to expand on that because I'm sure you're working on it, but launching without it is not a great choice.
Also not leaving the old site up as a read only type thing for a short amount of time so people could find exactly what they had saved previous on the new site and refind it sucks.

I'm sure I'll find more that I want to add as I continue to use the site. But so far all impressions are unfortunately negative.

Agree with pretty much everything.
It's very bright and overaly, a lot worse. Very disorienting, since it's more narrow, so harder to navigate and all...
Also, a solution to logging out - it redirected you to 'www.405th...', change the URL to '405th...' without the 'www'. It will stop.

 

[Crimmson]

Thank you, i like it.

What are the trophies for?(i can guess)
How many ranks or titles are available i.e recruit - brute(tee hee , i am brute)
Is a mobile friendly coming out? Maybe i havent seen found it yet.
Is a command list available? What i mean is for the replies and such, i.e embedding links, videos etc.
I ask because of the software change and i am not an internet ninja.
Any new rules or rule changes?

Thank you once again.

Edit: will we able to show our gamertags under our avatar?

 

[whereisdanielle]

Agree with pretty much everything.
It's very bright and overaly, a lot worse. Very disorienting, since it's more narrow, so harder to navigate and all...
Also, a solution to logging out - it redirected you to 'www.405th...', change the URL to '405th...' without the 'www'. It will stop.

The log out issue I'm faced with is an internal thing, when I navigate the site I will be logged out when I navigate to a new page of the site eg, opening a thread. Also at random the page will refresh and log me out.

 

[Chernobyl]

The file archive. I'm not even going to expand on that because I'm sure you're working on it, but launching without it is not a great choice.

We didn't have much of a choice. Our options were either 'ship the new site and rebuild the Archive from scratch' or 'delay the launch until the old Archive format could be made to work with the new system'. Given how long it's taken for us to get this much-needed upgrade, personally I'd say that it's a small price to pay. Considering also that the Archive needed an extensive overhaul as it is, I'm pretty glad that I now have the chance to get things set up in the format I'd wanted from the Archive to begin with. Take it from me - dealing with a few bumps now is going to be better than having to roll down a rocky road for several months. The Archive is my domain and I have some big plans for making sure our content is accessible and relevant. Mind our dust as we get it sorted, it won't be long before we're back up and running in full fashion.

If you have any other critique I'd ask that you frame it a little more constructively and offer solutions instead of simply slamming the work that's gone into the new format. We've needed this upgrade for a while, and there are bound to be some hitches - let's try to work with Art instead of simply complaining that the new isn't exactly like the old but with some new bells and whistles.

Otherwise - I wouldn't mind the text contrast being set up a little better, and the window itself being widened to fit the screen a little more nicely. But that's the only critique I have for the new format, everything else is simply a case of having to break several years of conditioned habit from the old site format.

 

[whereisdanielle]

We didn't have much of a choice. Our options were either 'ship the new site and rebuild the Archive from scratch' or 'delay the launch until the old Archive format could be made to work with the new system'. Given how long it's taken for us to get this much-needed upgrade, personally I'd say that it's a small price to pay. Considering also that the Archive needed an extensive overhaul as it is, I'm pretty glad that I now have the chance to get things set up in the format I'd wanted from the Archive to begin with. Take it from me - dealing with a few bumps now is going to be better than having to roll down a rocky road for several months. The Archive is my domain and I have some big plans for making sure our content is accessible and relevant. Mind our dust as we get it sorted, it won't be long before we're back up and running in full fashion.

This bit goes back to the end of my post. Leaving the old site up as a read only so we didnt just lose everything suddenly would have been the best outcome. That way when you were ready you could turn the new one on and the old one off and then there is no real disruption.

If you have any other critique I'd ask that you frame it a little more constructively and offer solutions instead of simply slamming the work that's gone into the new format. We've needed this upgrade for a while, and there are bound to be some hitches - let's try to work with Art instead of simply complaining that the new isn't exactly like the old but with some new bells and whistles.

I didnt think my feedback needed a solution laid out there. For example I said the white is blinding and I cant read the grey and blue on it. I would have thought one would gather that changing the white to a more grey/darker tone would solve the blinding issue. I will try and specifically lay it out there next time rather than assume.

I also do agree that we've all got to break some conditioned habit from the old site, and if the site were to change again we'd be breaking habit from this new site. We will adjust. Its not the end of the world luckily.

 

[combinestrider]

Has ups and downs but so far liking it a lot more than the old setup.

 

[Reclaimara]

We will adjust. Its not the end of the world luckily.

^ this

The new forum has ups and downs, surely. But, we'll adjust.
Most important is for it to work.

 

[Jerverant]

Honestly, I miss the other site :'(

 

[ODST Stryder]

[Insert Unpopular Opinion Puffin Meme Here]
I found some bugs with a recent post, the image URL link is broken so I resulted to BB Code, no big deal. However, this has also impacted on old posts.
It's always unlikely to have a fully functional site upon it's first launch, this is reality. There will always be bugs and matters to improve on. No hate, Chernobyl.

 

[Art Andrews]

Is a mobile friendly coming out? Maybe i havent seen found it yet.

Still working on this, but yes... it should be!

Is a command list available? What i mean is for the replies and such, i.e embedding links, videos etc.
I ask because of the software change and i am not an internet ninja.

BB Codes can be found here: http://405th.com/forums/help/bb-codes

Any new rules or rule changes?

No specific rule changes as our Community Guidelines are universal for all of our sites. However, there will be a few different approaches we will be taking to various parts of the site. FANGS will address those.

Edit: will we able to show our gamertags under our avatar?

Looking into that now.

 

[Art Andrews]

The log out issue I'm faced with is an internal thing, when I navigate the site I will be logged out when I navigate to a new page of the site eg, opening a thread. Also at random the page will refresh and log me out.

Chances are good that this is a cookie/caching issue. If you delete your cookies for this domain, it should stop.

 

[Art Andrews]

Crimmson the mobile issue should be addressed and the page should automatically resize for mobile appropriately now. While I was at it, we increased the max width to 80% which should give the content a bit more room on desktops.

 

[Art Andrews]

I found some bugs with a recent post, the image URL link is broken so I resulted to BB Code, no big deal. However, this has also impacted on old posts.

Can you be more specific? We have made some MASSIVE changes to the how images are handled here on the site and I am very excited about it, but, sadly, there are almost 20,000 externally linked images that members have posted over the years that are no longer valid. This is not an issue from the migration, but simply the long-time issue of external links becoming invalid. Not a lot we can do about that retroactively, but we have you covered for the future.