Beta testing new web site, it's here!

redlinederby Tuesday, 4/8/2014
Site manager

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I honestly had my doubts but the new Redline Derby web site is almost ready! All it needs now is a good once over from you good people. I put up a beta test site with the new design and imported some topics and posts so you can see things in context.

this thread.

You'll notice things missing and some things will work differently. Regardless what you see (or don't see) I want your feedback. If you have a question please ask. The new web site will get new features quickly after the first launch so your feedback is critical.

Existing accounts were also copied over but all the passwords had to be changed so if you want to login (and please do) you'll need to click the "Forgot my password" link and reset your password, then you can login and play around even more.

Everything on the beta site is TEMPORARY. It will all be erased before the final launch at the end of the month so don't get to attached to anything over there. Until I post otherwise, this forum will be the main forum and web site.

I'm excited for this as it's been a LONG time coming. Change is always difficult but if everyone is honest and commits to helping me debug the beta site, things will go much smoother when we launch for real.

And last disclaimer - the beta site is being actively worked on my me almost daily so you'll see things change often, sometimes maybe going down entirely...it's all part of the process. But with that, don't assume an error or problem you experience is expected - when in doubt, shout it out!

Thanks everyone!


Discussion

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Milton-Fox 4/9/14

Brian,

I went over and clicked on the "forgot my password" The screen that came up asked for my email address and indicated an email will be sent to me. I am understanding that this will reset my password at the new site only, but wanted to make sure before I submitted the request...

There maybe some younger members who go "Who is PAC MAN?" If it is avoiding spammers - would changing that question to "What color is Hot Wheels orange track? - be as effective?

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model40fan 4/9/14

pac man jones ? ... troubled NFL football player

I am forced to use only IE 7 at work. The formatting is very bad compared to what I expect to see at home.

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redlinederby 4/9/14
Site manager

@Milton - The password reset on the beta is only for the beta site. No accounts or data on this forum is impacted. I guess I'll think about the spam question

@Iowa - Oh dear, IE7 - yeah...that might look wonky. Ideally things should still work but layout might be screwy. I honestly didn't check the site on IE7 because I don't have any computers that old. That's 4 versions out of date and the serious minority of visitors so I probably won't be fixing any IE7-only type bugs but I'll see if I can get some tools debugging tools together to see what can be done easily.

Thanks for the feedback - keep it coming

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Milton-Fox 4/9/14

I like the colors and layout. Still looking for things. The most recent posts showing up front is nice.

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KandORacing 4/10/14

Looks good so far Brian, but I have one question. Are there going to be smilies still?

I looked at that recent finds message and the jump to bottom button wouldn't work for me on my PC or Tablet. My concern with very long posts like that, it will take forever for the most recent images to load. Most of us, that is what we are looking for--what haven't I seen. Now, we have the option to jump to the last page to avoid all of the previous ones that we have already seen. Any way to give options like that before you click one to just see the last ## posts?

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model40fan 4/10/14

wouldn't let me log in....?

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KandORacing 4/10/14

wouldn't let me log in....?

Smitty when you go onto the new site you have to click "I forgot my password". Then you have to use the new password it sends to your email.

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Milton-Fox 4/10/14

I looked at that recent finds message and the jump to bottom button wouldn't work for me on my PC or Tablet. My concern with very long posts like that, it will take forever for the most recent images to load. Most of us, that is what we are looking for--what haven't I seen. Now, we have the option to jump to the last page to avoid all of the previous ones that we have already seen. Any way to give options like that before you click one to just see the last ## posts?


I agree (although it loads pretty fast for my system) I had to make an extra click to get to the end of the thread in the beta system. Can the jump to end (last post) button be put back onto the thread list page as well. (There is a button to do that in the current listings.)

In the beta is there a way to make the "jump to" button function as a jump to the last read post? (Almost all of the other forums I am on have this option - once you are inside a thread.) if that could be made a function from the thread list page it would be even better than just a jump to last post in a thread.

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redlinederby 4/10/14
Site manager

Thanks for the responses everyone, please keep trying things and let me know what you find.
---

Good input on the jump to last post. I saw that feature on another site and thought it was quite convenient but I'll see what I can do to make it more useful. I'm not sure if I'll be able to make it jump to the last post *you* read as a user though...at least not right away. I'll have to research the best way to track that data - great idea though.

One thing about long posts is that moving forward once the new site launches, ideally the posts should be less long with help from the Thumbs Up comments and just better content management by me.

However, this means that migrated data and old posts will suffer a bit from being *very* long, many topics have hundreds of replies - like the "Share your finds" post - there's no way to help that monster. But topics that big will eventually get locked and new topics started. The transition from old to new is going to be rough regardless...for all of us, myself included.

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redlinederby 4/10/14
Site manager

Oh...and as far as smilies are concerned, they'll be absent for the time being after the new launch. You can certainly still type the : and ) to make faces and stuff but they won't be turned into the cute little icons. That might be a feature added at a later time.

In fact...you'll see a lot of writing features missing from the new version. No more coloring of text or various text sizes. For the most part, those are luxuries anyway and don't get used much. But like the smiley faces, anything will be considered for future updates.


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