Hi,

As you can see, we've overhauled the forums. There are a ton of new features and enhancements. Here is a quick summary...

• AJAX is used in a number of places, most notably when you are previewing a post or using the Quick Quote option. This means that you can preview and submit your post without having to wait for the page to reload one or more times.
• There are topic previews when you hover over forum topics.
• A "shout box" for live chat between forum users (this is a real-time chat window that anyone who is viewing the forums can see, and any forum member can use
• Most Recent topics section allows you to quickly and easily view recent posts, threads, and unanswered posts within a certain time period that you specify (last 24 hrs/48 hrs/7 days/30 days).
• There is a new file manager for uploading avatars, images, and attachments with your post.
• The layout is fluid, and adapts very well to both high and low screen resolutions.
• GUI is improved, making first-time registration, logging in, navigation through the forum, etc. much more intuitive.
• Markup panel is improved, allowing easier formatting of posts. e.g. highlight text and press Bold button.
• Right-hand sidepanels include interesting information such as a Shout box, Top Posters list, Forum Stats, PG Music News, and Calender of events. This can be disabled in your user profile settings.
• Images can be posted without having to host them on another website.
• Forum search feature is improved. Full Text indexing on search data.
• Ability to watch topics/forums and be notified by email when there is a new post.
• Private messages have become Private Topics so the whole history of the conversation can be viewed.
• There can be introduction blocks at the top of each forum.
• Youtube videos can be embedded in posts (media button in the markup panel)

Enjoy!

Great job on the new forum Andrew!

WOW, what an upgrade! This is great. Just gotta get used to all the new features.

Cool! Nice job Andrew! Thanks!

Looks great guys.

This is soooo much better. Well done Andrew and Peter.

BTW - nice to see your avatar Peter!


Kevin

I like it! Thanks.

Some of us are used to the old view. However, the new features make it worthwhile to get used to the new view. Thanks for the improvements.

Stan

Now, to learn all the new features! Later, Ray

Awesome job, folks. This is NICE

Blame me for that. During BETA I jokingly asked Peter where his Avatar was.So...........you do know that's not him?Or is it?????????

Looks like Neal Patrick Harris!

Hi Andrew and Peter,

I like these new forums. They seem intuitive and a fun place to be

Regards,
Noel

nice Andrew, nice!
Dr. Gannon, let him "solo" more often!

Wonderful forum upgrade! Got to be the best looking forum on the internet. Wonderful job Andrew!

Andrew really did do a terrific job here.

During beta testing of the new forum software, he responded immediately, fixed every concern we had with great speed, and was very creative in experimenting with the settings. There is a lot to like with the new software.

Yes he did!



Matt that may be the understatement of the year!

I think it's significant to note that there haven't been complaints "BECAUSE IT'S DIFFERENT" Usually after any change, that's the first objection you deal with.

The fact that those complaints have not surfaced is a testimony to the seamless integration of the update.

Good Job!

I can totally agree that this new layout is superb.

@Pat Marr, you want to see a complaint?
OK, this wasn't done soon enough, the old forum was awful.

I would like to compliment those responsible on the functionality of the changes. Another forum on which I am active just underwent a major overhaul, but the emphasis was on emulating and integrating with social media. A lot of functionality was lost. It can't even be read with Internet Explorer 7. Considering that it's a medical transcription forum which until now I accessed on my work PC (which I am not allowed to upgrade beyond IE 7), that's a fairly significant loss.

Beyond responding to the negative, I feel like I have lost nothing here and gained much. I still have much to figure out but I am confident that everything is in place for me to do so. So again, congratulations on an apparently seamless and positive change to this, my favorite online community.

Richard

Yeah, what Josie said! Beautiful Andrew! Thank you (or Canadian equivalent, eh?) I'll be testing oot stuff for a few days. All-in-all I am very impressed.

Wow! And we get to actually see Dr. Peter Gannon, not just his left hand on YouTube while playing bass for his son. Very dignified looking gentleman, Peter.

Hi Andrew,
is there any way I can turn OFF the topic preview?

I find it quite distracting...

Interesting question. No one asked that in the beta. I looked again and do not see an option to do that.

even if it can't be turned off, the preview is only generated when your cursor enters the cell containing the thread title. So if it bugs you, the simplest workaround is to consciously position your cursor on the 60% of screen real estate that DOESN'T generate the preview

I haven't seen it posted anywhere yet, but for the benefit of those who haven't noticed that some of the users' avatars have gotten larger... it's because the new forum allows a 120 x 120 resolution picture (previously it was 80x80)

I think the difference in quality is noticeable. And the procedure for uploading your photo is very easy now. I mention this for the benefit of anyone who may want to change their avatar

other differences:


OLD FORUM:
When you clicked on the users name as shown above the avatar, the embedded link took you directly to their profile

NEW FORUM:
now when clicking on this same name, you get a list of options (one of which is to view their profile)




OLD FORUM:
If you clicked the name of the last poster (as shown to the RIGHT of the thread) it used to link to the last post made by that person

NEW FORUM:
Now if you click on the name of the last poster, it takes you to their profile. If you want to jump to the last post, click the DATE above the name.

Pat,is that you in the pic? I would have never guessed. hehe

Thanks for all the feedback!



At the moment there isn't a setting for it, however we should be able to add one.

Sadly, yes

Funny how we tend to project an image of what people must look like based on the scant evidence available in their forum interaction.

I'll probably go back to a GIF of my instruments later, but the most recent avatar is outdated. It doesn't include my Morgan Monroe Rocky Top banjo or my Taylor 314ce acoustic guitar

I really like your new avatar Pat. Hope you keep it.

The new bigger pictures of all you guys are great.

Thanks Andrew, that would be be most welcome.

I know Pat mentioned about hovering the mouse elsewhere, but the thing still appears everytime I want to click a link... Thanks, Pat, for your suggestion and it is what I do, but as stated...

Patrick (good Oyrish noyme, by the by), is that your new Taylor 314ce in the pic? Can't see enough to ID it.

I think you look great, amigo. Very dignified.

I have a recent pic with Dynavox and power wheelchair but I don't want to lose my dancing chicken. I've had that same avatar for nearly twenty years in several iterations.

I agree with Sundance. It's good to put faces with names.

see, this is why everybody loves you, Josie! You say nice things to people!

no, I just got the Taylor today (I'm becoming a craig's listoholic).
The guitar in the pic is a Takamine classical


I must say, those aren't words I hear very often when people look at my picture. It's usually something more like "yes, that's the one officer..."


I've noticed that when viewing the forum from a cell phone, the chicken don't dance (and I bet his daddy don't rock & roll either.

But, having said that, your avatar is my favorite one on the forum, and I hope you never change it.

I seem to recall a thread about that very topic not too long ago Bob, and that's the reason why I made this photo. I'm too homely to show much face, hence the dark glasses indoors... but at least now if anybody ever needs to kill me, they'll have a fair idea of who they're tracking down.

Google maps street view will help to narrow the search.

Me too. I started that thread asking forum members to post pics of them playing and then posted a pic of my son and I playing at our capitol in WV.

A couple of folks posted pics and then someone mentioned on the thread that a member had sent out a few PM’s suggesting that wasn’t a good idea!

I guess they didn’t have a pic! LOL!

maybe now that pictures can be a bit larger and it's easier to post them more people will change their avatars to real photos of themselves. But whether or not people are comfortable with the idea of making themsleves more identifiable online is something that must be decided individually.

Andrew, someome mentioned in another thread that it seems the number of new posters has declined and maybe it's because the main forum headers are spaced further apart than they used to be. You have to scroll down to find the Biab forum. That may be a good point, when you click on the Forum box in the main header line at the very top of the PG website it opens to General Discussions first. I think it should open to PG Music Product Discussions first and put everything else below that. Most new folks with questions will be looking for the Biab or RB forums initially.

Bob

I like the new format well enough, but there is one small problem I found. When you go to the User Showcase list of songs posted (http://www.pgmusic.com/user-showcase/?genre=jazz), clicking on a title used to take you to the song. Now it returns you to the main forum.

Definitely a bug and clearly not intended based on the URL.

Hi,



We've added a setting in the Preferences turn disable the "tooltip style" topic previews



Yes, we're aware of this and it should be fixed within a couple of days.

Thank you, thank you - <insert smilie paying homage here>

Andrew, when I comment on a thread then tick "Add this thread to my Watched Topics." I don't think it follows. I assumed that I would be notified of any subsequent activity on the thread. Am I wrong?

Hi Don,

There is a setting to be emailed on watched topics in the User Preferences. Is that set to Yes?

Thanks, Andrew. I didn't find that option earlier. With the old format, I'd start my day by checking my email for any forum activity in the topics I had been following. This will be way kewl!

Btw, Majorgeeks dot com has a nice feature on their forums that you may wish to explore - When you enter your title for a new topic it does a dynamic filtering/search and looks across ALL of their forums to see if that specific question/topic has been asked/discussed previously. Then a drop down appears showing the 5 or 6 nearest matches. Clicking on a suggested match takes you directly to the desired thread thus eliminating duplicate topics. I find that very convenient, especially when you don't remember exactly where (what forum) a topic was located.

Thanks, we could consider adding a feature like that in the future.

Andrew, unfortunately, something is still wrong. I am still not being notified on new comments to threads I want to follow. The little magnifying glass icon appears next to my name on "followed" topics but I am not being notified of new comments by email. Does it work correctly for others or is it that dreaded "Irish Factor" again?

I don't know what other settings or prefs to change.

TIA

I just noticed that embedded links to forum threads (pre-update) are now broken. Links made AFTER the forum upgrade work.

Here's a current link to a thread. This link should work. However, the thread contains older links that don't work anymore.

http://www.pgmusic.com/forums/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=202960&#Post202960


(scroll up from the last message to see the older links that are broken)

Andrew, might i ask, how long is a thread kept on the forum for?

Cy

I think I've finally got it setup correctly. Excellent Andrew!

Hi Andrew,
umm, something doesn't seem quite right to me...

On the old forum, and all the other fora I frequent, if I went into an area and checked for unread posts, I'd get a highlight to show which threads I needed to visit. I'd maybe visit some of the threads with a view to coming back for the others I was interested in if time was a bit short and it would all be OK.

But, on this new forum it seems (and I stand to be corrected because I haven't yet absolutely confirmed it) that if I come back to the forum to read the posts I hadn't seen on my last visit, they are no longer listed as unread...

Can this be confirmed, and if possible corrected, please?

Lawrie

Just found another problem, dunno if there's something strange at my end or if there's something to look for...

I'm using Win7 Pro and IE8 at the moment - normally I'm on XP and FireFox but today I must use my Win7 box.

Anyhow, I can't seem to see any of the buttons in posts. E.G. when I go to post this message I have to watch the cursor and wait for it to change to a hand before I know I'm over a button - there are no outlines or text - I gotta guess which button I'm over.

I found the right one by by accident on my last post...

I've changed themes (various aero, high contrast, Win7 standard and so on) to no avail. Checked colour settings, calibrated the display and other stuff - still no buttons - is this a coding problem related to IE or am I still looking for something at my end.

For what it's worth, I probably won't be using this computer again for a while after today but I'd still like to get it sorted.

Lawrie

Bit more information - I realised I noticed it when I would check some threads on one computer and then go to another, perhaps at my office instead of my home, and the unread posts would be missing... Are you using cookies to track instead of a database at your end perhaps?

There is no particular expiration date for threads.

This should now be working. I.E. links to specific topics within the forum that were posted before the upgrade should now be redirecting to the correct topics.

Let me know if you find any issues with old links not redirecting properly.

Hi Lawrie,

Thank you for your input...



The way it currently works is this:

On the main forum list, the forum icons are grey if the forum is 'unread' or yellow if the forum is 'read'. There are two ways to make a forum 'read'.

Either...
1. Open the forum.
2. Double-click on the icon.

A forum becomes 'unread' again if there are new posts in it since the last time you read it.

(Note: If you enter a 'yellow' forum, and then use your browser's back button to return to the forum list, the forum will still be yellow - this is because you are viewing the previous page that your browser has cached, rather than submitting new information to the forum. If you use the Index button to return, or refresh your browser than it turns grey.)

Within a forum, 'new topics' or 'topics with new posts' have a yellow folder icon and a bold font. A "New" topic is defined as one that is "New since your last visit to the forum board".

This is basically the same way that the old forum worked, except that the old forum had light bulb icons. The old forum also used purple text for "visited" links - this isn't something that is stored in the forum database, but is a 'browser thing' (i.e. clearing your browser history will turn the purple links back to blue). It tended to look a bit messy. We could implement that easily though.

Perhaps you could post in links to other forums that work the way you want, and we could take a look at them...?




Hmmm.... that's very strange, and I don't know what the explanation is. Can you post a screenshot of what you're seeing? One thing - you say that you are using IE 8 on Windows 7, and I don't think that is possible, has to be IE 9 or 10.

One thing you should try is pressing Ctrl+F5 (force refresh). By itself, F5 is a refresh (reloads the page), however Ctrl+F5 also re-loads any linked files that may be cached by your browser.

Let us know what you find.

I need to recheck a things - after I posted it seemed that the behavior had changed from what I remembered. I'll keep an eye on things and if there's still a problem in my mind I'll follow up.


Not near that machine at the moment and maybe not for a while. It's definitely IE8 (as shipped - I've had it for a few years but I never use it on Win7 - the machine dual boots to XP and that is what I usually use on it.

Can't give a screen print for the moment, but basically there are no buttons or icons/text where the buttons belong, though the"hand" appears when you mouse over where the buttons are supposed to be. Done all the different refresh's etc. but will try again - probably next Wednesday when I'm next in tat office.

Lawrie

WooHoo! It works!
Andrew, you da MAN!
(seriously, thanks for applying your amazing smartness to the forum)

Andrew, I'm ticked! I've been patiently waiting for the joke thread counter to blow up when it hit 99,999 but, no, you went ahead, lifted your stick off the ice, and gave it another digit. Foul! I cry! That's three years in the penalty box, my friend!

Whelp, we'll just hafta wait until 999,999 now and it's all your fault! Eh? It's your basic wee Oyrish div'lment in me. Can't hep me wee Oyrish self

Don,

CONGRATULATIONS!!!

That is an INCREDIBLE accomplishment. Was there champagne? (There should have been).

You are... THE MAN!

floyd

No, Andrew offered a consolation prize of one pee-warm Molson's Canadian and a ice-cold Canadian Bacon pizza (microwave at that) served up by hot and cold running Eskimo squaws.

Hi Andrew,


Hmm it seems to be OK now. Did you fix anything or was I somehow having myself on?



OK, back on the box and it is definitely IE8. I will upgrade at some point but I'm currently trying to recover the XP partition which became corrupted when the stupid Intel on board array controller stuffed up the array - I knew better than to use it but I was experimenting - stupid of me I know

OK, I now have all the icons and buttons that were missing. Hooray! I guess you found something and fixed it because nothing has changed at this end since last week.

One thing I have had to do is use compatibility mode or the text in the edit box jumps all over the place. That may have been due to the length of the quote I made...

considering the global userbase and the fact that this website has separate forums for many Different languages, this is the perfect environment for a built-in web translation engine.

I've seen sites where at the side of the screen there's a button that says TRANSLATE THIS PAGE, along with a dropdown listbox of many languages.

The user showcase recently received a submission from Japan. The artist is clearly using some kind of translation tool. I suppose we could all avail ourselves to finding and using one individually, but to have one built-in to the web site
would
be
totally
awesome!

here's one:
http://www.worldlingo.com/en/websites/url_translator.html

whether or not it could be incorporated seamlessly into this environment is the million dollar question

Andrew, here's an observation. It's not serious but I think it might be a step backward.

I alternate reading the forum with my iPhone and my desktop. If I recall correctly, after I had read a post on one, it appeared as having been read on the other. Now, in the new forum, posts that I already read on my desktop appear as UNread on my phone, and vice versa.

Might this be a switch to be set on your server, or perhaps a browser problem? If it will help, I could take more precise notes and run some tests to try to define the problem better.

Andrew,

Since this OP was almost 2 months ago, could it please be removed from being pinned to the top now?

Hi, Mahmud -

Welcome to the forum. I presume by BD you mean Bangladesh. We have folks from all over the world here, so join right in.

Re: Mahmud Alam



I am assuming that it was a bot.

R.

Welcome Eric.

Andrew, if this has already been asked, I apologize.

Am I correct that the new Private Messages area has a greatly expanded limit? I used to be told routinely that people couldn't PM me because my area was full. That hasn't happened with the new forum software, even though I haven't done any housekeeping, and in fact I now see older PMs going way back.

Thanks if you did increase the available space/limit.

Andrew, is there a limit as to the number of topics/threads I can track? I don't seem to receive email notification on topics that I want to follow. Perhaps I am following too many?