So a new look.....wtf Ray.....no warning?

[Tumbler]

Did anyone else notice things look different around town?

Some things are good but I've found some that are a PITA.

Just sayin....would have been good to have a heads up on something like this!!!

Then we can look at it, how it works, what it can do, & things like that.  Just sayin'. :-)

Not just be ambushed by it on a dreary Tues morn!!

[Greg]

I like having the big man (who shall remain nameless) back on the home page schooling that BMW! 

[Tumbler]

LOL...it has nothing to do with that because that's cool!  I just miss where a lot of other shit was.  Now to do some common tasks we got used to we have to re-learn.  Oh well.....if it makes the forum rum better then we'll learn.

[Ray916MN]

Back in June when the site was upgraded, the upgrade broke a bunch of functionality, which I finally restored last night. The restored functionality also has changed a bit from the way it was before the June upgrade. This means some of the stuff doesn't quite work the way it used too and in at least one case I think the functionality is broken.  There is also some added functionality has also become available. The June upgrade was done to address security issues with the previous version of the forum application.

With respect to getting a heads up on upcoming changes and getting feedback from people on changes before they are made, I don't think this is really possible without building a complete test site. This is the way change would be done were this a commercial professional site. All changes would be implemented in a test site and tested and vetted before being implemented in the production site. This would more than double the amount of work and hosting resources required to implement the site, since you have to run two sites in parallel and figure out how to emulate user activity both in terms of action, volume and configuration in the test site.

The site is made of 5 different applications which have been implemented together, on a server operating system and database which interact with a variety of users through different browsers. When one changes, it is not possible to foresee how it will impact the other applications except to implement the change and see what the impact is. The number of combinations and permutations between the underlying applications and the feature functionality of each application and different browsers make it unrealistic to think that the impact of changes can be described before being implemented. It is much simpler and effective to just implement changes and see how they go. If they go poorly they can "always" (that is if I do them correctly) be reversed.

I've been playing with the site a bit while trying to understand and add some more functionality that became possible with both upgrades so if anyone has any feedback let's hear it. I won't promise to be able to address things or add things, but it will give me some ideas of what people like and don't like about the site. If you provide feedback, please let me know what browser you're using so I can try to see the problem or functionality you're talking about as you see it.

[pkpk]

I like the new format.  That's a bonus considering that this site is FREE.

[Chris]

I like the new format.  That's a bonus considering that this site is FREE.

what it's free for you?, Ray has been charging me 20.00 per month

[Joel S]

heads up??? for what, it is what it is. it can't be that hard to click on a few things can it??   

thanks for the effort Ray 

[Elk]

Ray, it looks and works well.

Make it work for you and we will adjust.