RailRoadFan.com

You know that good 'ol saying of "don't fix it if it's not broke?" Well, sorry, I can't live by that rule. Have a good 'ol big idea to add a 3rd section to this site (1st was photo gallery, 2nd was message board), but I'll annouce that when that time comes. In preparation for it, some upgrading needs to take place. The message board runs on a version of phpbb called 2.0.19. I'll be taking it up to 3.0.2 soon(maybe Thursday night even)

During this time, there should only be short times that the site won't be available, but should be back up within 30 minutes. The message board is getting a facelift... the current theme with the dark purple background will likely not work with the new site, and I'm thinking a return to something with a lighter background/dark text would let most of us read this site easier. The shoutbox is also probably going to get a change.

For this process, here's the rough plan of action...
Backup all message board/gallery files.
Upgrade message board.
Install new theme for the message board.
Bridge the message board to the gallery so your logins will work there(as they currently do)
Install shoutbox.
Create new menu links, images at top, etc.....

After all this is working and things are humming along, we'll work on that 3rd section and see if I can get that to be a go... main reason for this upgrade is because this new section won't work with our current message board format. Here's a sample of the theme that railroadfan.com will be working on: http://www.phpbb.com/styles/demo/3.0/in ... ?style=155

Please either PM me, or email me at zack@railroadfan.com with any questions.

I'll try to give some warning before the downtime or changes, but most of the board/gallery should still be available during this.

Not bad Zack. Change is good and I don't mean Obama's change.

Alrighty guys, taking the board down at 8:45pm, hoping to have it at least back online by 9:15pm
Shoutbox will probably not be working yet tonight, maybe tomorrow though.

Looks weird but oh well... It will get better over time. I MISS THE SHOUTBOX!!!!!

Shoutbox should be back soon.... right now upgrading the gallery and then will try to bridge the gallery to the message board.
Would have been so nice to have a separate server, make sure everything works exactly was I want, then cut over...but well, I just have the one server to play with, so I upgrade and turn on bit by bit as I can

WHERE'S THE SHOUTBOX.????????????????

PAT.C wrote:WHERE'S THE SHOUTBOX.????????????????

It went 88 mph and went back in time!

Test chat room...working on getting this on the front page:
chat/

Shoutbox is now up and running...gonna do some tweaking to the shoutbox Friday night I believe. Nothing else for a while should cause downtime, but I'll be redoing the menus at the top, some font changes, logos, etc...

If you have any suggestions, please let me know... PM me, or email at zack@railroadfan.com
Thanks for your patience, I'll continue working on this as much as I can until everything is functioning correctly.
Right now, the photo gallery is still there, but isn't allowing anyone to log into it to upload more photos...working on a resolve for that still.

WOW! I knew that Obama promised "change", but I was caught "off-guard" on this one... Seriously though, it looks good, I'll just have to get used to it. Thanks for providing this great site Zack.

Todd

Ummmm different, are we going to get other options for main page color like the shoutbox options?
subblack2 is my preferance

So far so good

POO POOP...POO POOP ...POO POOP...POO POOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOP.!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
PULL MY FINGER.!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

THIS IS A TEST OF THE EMERGENCY BROADCASTING POO POOP NETWORK.
THIS IS ONLY A TEST.

I'll second Scott's idea for an option for different colors. This is harder to read than the old style IMO.

So the blue is no more?
That's cool. At least there's more color than simple black and white...

So here's a few things accomplished today:

Gallery is now online, able to upload files.
Menu links are sorta in place on both the message board and gallery to get back and forth between each other.(photo gallery link in upper right corner for now)
Changed new topic and new forum post color from pale yellow to a nice red color.
Added an image within the threads to see when a particular poster is online.
Updated the search tool so you can see more information about each post that you are searching for.
Increased width of message board so pictures should now be viewable (please let me know if train pictures are being cut off in size)

Still need to work on the menu system at the top and rework some of the shoutbox appearance and sounds.

Is there a way to read the chat history? I didn't use the shoutbox very often but reading it was quite entertaining at times

Well Zack, I guess us 'Old Dudes' will just have to accept the fact we are no longer Hippies of the sixties, and adjust to the coming of the new. We'll muddle our way through one way or the other. Give us your blessing. Times change; so does the scenery except for a beautiful pair of legs. (That was said with a smile.) Cap'n CAPS and I will just have to learn to adjust. Darn! how the internet changes from day to day.

Few more updates today...been hanging with my brother and my fiancee most of the day.

Shoutbox now shows the last 30 lines by default, and have figured out how to let you search logs for the past two weeks of posts, need to create a link somewhere for it though.
Turned off sounds in the shoutbox by default, but you can turn them on I believe.
Changed the forum width so everything should be inline now, and large pictures in posts get scaled down on the screen to fit in the forum instead of having to scroll left or right.
Either Sunday or monday, i'll be working on a menu system for the top to link to the gallery easier and the chatroom.

Zack,

Can the forum software be set to take us to the last post rather than page one? I know on other forums that can be done, and it makes things simpler.