New Web Server, Forum Software Upgrades

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Jordan

Jordan

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As many of you noticed, there's been quite a lot of work going on around here, and if you're reading this, you are accessing the site on our brand new web server! The old hardware was having trouble keeping pace with the high load produced around GT series news, and things can only get more intense as we move towards the end of the year. All of us owe a special round of thanks to the GTPlanet Premium users who help make these investments in infrastructure possible. Without their support, the site would not be where it is today!

You may also notice some new features and functionality in our forums here. Due to some conflicting software issues I encountered while preparing the new server, I was forced to upgrade vBulletin at the last minute. As such, you may notice some rough edges and bugs that I have not got around to fixing just yet. Please let me know if anything seems out of line (and yes, I already know that custom user profiles aren't working).

With that said, here are a few handy new features you should definitely watch for:

Social Group "Discussions" (Basically, Social Groups now have their own mini sub-forum!)

  • Messages in Social Groups are now threaded into 'Social Group Discussions'.
  • Discussion are sortable by creator, replies and last post.
  • Discussions can be filtered with a simple full text search on titles.
  • Discussions can be managed with Inline Moderation to soft delete, physically remove, approve and unnapprove them.
  • Users can subscribe to discussions and receive email notifications on new messages.
  • Subscribed discussions with new posts are aggregated in the User CP.
  • Quick Edit social group messages using AJAX.
  • Users can configure their groups so that only the group owner can create new discussion threads.
  • Moderated and Deleted discussions are aggregated in the User CP where the user has moderator permissions.
  • Moderation permissions are seperated for discussions and threads, including deletion.
  • Social Group info is hidden when entering a discussion or viewing pages of results to move focus to discussions.
Social Group Changes


  • Mark All will read mark all discussions in a group via AJAX.
  • Social Groups can be subscribed to, adding group aggregation to the User CP.
  • Social Groups now belong to a category.
  • A group's category is displayed in the navigation breadcrumb, group lists and group info.
  • A new overview page displays a random group, your groups, new groups and groups that you created.
  • Groups that you created are navigatable via AJAX and display further information about the group, including pending members and moderated items.
  • A category cloud is displayed in the group overview with popularity weighting based on the number of groups.
  • Groups can be filtered by category, via the category cloud or advanced search.
  • Social Groups can now have a group icon. The icon is displayed in the group info, and a thumbnail version is used in group listings.
  • Icons are displayed on the User Profile page for groups that the user is a member of.
  • Permissions control user abilities to upload icons for their groups, including file size and the ability to upload animated icons.
  • Social Groups can now be transferred between users. The group will only be transferred if the recipient accepts the transfer.
  • Moderators with the appropriate permission can transfer any group. This is useful when a group owner becomes inactive.
Private Message Changes

  • Read receipts are automatically accepted when a PM is replied to.
  • A new Quick Reply can be used to reply to PM's.
  • A new user option is available to set the default value for 'Save Copy' which is also used with Quick Reply.
  • PM's can be ordered by Title, Date and Sender.
  • When ordered, PM's are grouped by:
    • Title - Alphabetical ranges (A-H, I-P, Q-Z, 0-9 and other) - Non ASCII chars are grouped based on transliteration where possible
    • Date - Today, Yesterday, individual day names, Last Week, 2 Weeks, Last Month, Older, etc.
    • Sender - Grouped by Sender
  • Private Messages can be filtered by Sender, Title, a given date period, and whether the message has been read or not.
  • Message selections are remembered over multiple pages for bulk actions (Move, delete, mark as read etc).
  • With the appropriate permission, users can now configure which parts of their profile is visible, and to who. The configurable components are:
    • Profile Picture
    • Visitor Messages
    • Contact Info
    • Albums
    • About Me
    • Friends
    • Recent Visitors
    • Group Memberships
    • Custom Field Blocks where the admin has allowed it
  • The components can be configured to be visible to:
    • Everyone
    • Registered Members
    • Contacts
    • Friends

  • Generally information is only hidden/displayed within the user profile page with the exception of Albums which also affects the ability to view the albums.
Albums

  • Pictures can now be moved from one album to another.
  • Album covers are regenerated when moving images if the cover is moved, or the destination album has no cover.
  • The default albums view now displays recently updated public albums.
Lightbox

  • Lightboxes can now be used to view all images in a post.
  • Next and Previous buttons can be used to navigate the attachments, and wrap when the first/last image has been reached

Other Changes and Additions

  • Deleted and Moderated items in the User CP menu have been collapsed into submenus to reduce clutter.
  • A New Items submenu is also available with the newest Visitor Messages; Group Messages; Group Discussions; Picture Comments and Album Pictures.
  • Some cleanup has been done on the User CP menu to ensure only links that the user has permission to are displayed.
  • Improved RSS filtering for RSS Feed Forums. Terms can now be quoted into phrases, and a new 'match all' option is available.
  • Notices can now be configured to be dismissible, allowing users to close notices that they have read.
  • PM Reporting.
  • Subscription folders can be emptied with one click.
  • Quick Edit is available for Visitor Messages and Picture Comments, as well as Social Group Messages.
  • New UTC and user date and time criteria for Notices.
  • Improvements to Contact List editing. Show Avatars option is now preserved.
I would also like to point out that this is not "GTPX". That refers to a major style revision - this is simply an upgrade of the underlying infrastructure and software which keeps the site running. Once again, please let me know if you find anything that's broken or out of place.
 
All the new features look great Jordan, it also seems like you fixed the profile issue, as mine and a few others I've visited look fine.

From,
Chris.
 
Great to see the site is on a constant improvement mission.:) It's a little bit to get the head around at first.👍

I noticed all the messages in The Holden Fan Club were deleted unlike other groups, I guess we've had too much discussion.:lol:
 
Paulie
I noticed all the messages in The Holden Fan Club were deleted unlike other groups, I guess we've had too much discussion.:lol:
Click to expand...
No, that wasn't lost in the upgrade. It looks like the group owner deleted the whole discussion thread which contained the old posts.
 
Paulie
Great to see the site is on a constant improvement mission.:) It's a little bit to get the head around at first.👍

I noticed all the messages in The Holden Fan Club were deleted unlike other groups, I guess we've had too much discussion.:lol:
Click to expand...

No we just don't like your kind here. :sly:

There was quite a bit of downtime though. I felt rather empty without GTP.
 
I'm getting a problem with the new-look profile tabs.

picture1wma.png

picture1obi.png
 
Last edited:
I really like the drop down menus that suggest other threads that have already been created when making a new thread. Hopefully that'll cut back on the triplicate and quintuplicate threads from the GT sections. 👍
 
Jordan
No, that wasn't lost in the upgrade. It looks like the group owner deleted the whole discussion thread which contained the old posts.
Click to expand...

Hmm, that's odd, I'll have to chase that up with him. Ah well, I suppose we'll just continue on.

For the record, since we can change ownerships now I have asked already to take helm of The Holden Fan Club.:lol: I await response from ENERGIYA.:)
 
Paulie
Hmm, that's odd, I'll have to chase that up with him. Ah well, I suppose we'll just continue on.

For the record, since we can change ownerships now I have asked already to take helm of The Holden Fan Club.:lol: I await response from ENERGIYA.:)
Click to expand...

:lol: Nice. I didn't notice that feature, but i'll be holding onto the SCR group.:p:lol:
 
I've noticed that while the main news page works, there's a 404 error when you try to access a single entry, its comments, a category (like "Gran Turismo 5" or "GT Academy"), or any older posts. Is that something you already knew and haven't been able to fix yet, or is it a surprise?
 
Is there supposed to be a 1,000 character limit on Social Group messages now?
 
Jack
Proberly put in to stop SCR spamming :p

But on a serious note, I like the new features 👍
Click to expand...

Well I was thinking more about posting press releases from Holden in The Holden Fan Club actually, but I guess I can always post a link instead.
 
Jack
Proberly put in to stop SCR spamming :p
Click to expand...

The team spamming has reduced a little due to the SCR forum, but interestingly we still post (or spam) more in our GTP group.:lol:
 
I discovered that the new 1000 character limit also applies to visitor messages. I don't like it much, but I tend to write very long messages, and I realize it would keep the profile neater.

Thanks for fixing the news page, Jordan. 👍
 
Bit slow whilst surfing through GTP now. Nothing else noted as yet.

You on 3.8.3 for vBulletin?
 
Figure I would just add to this thread.

When I try and upload a picture for my avatar from my hard drive I get an "Unable to save" message. I even tried avatar's I have had in the past and it still wouldn't work.
 
You're a new member. As a preventative measure, all new members posting messages will not appear until approved by GTPlanet staff.

Quite simple, actually.
 
I am not a new member. I've been here forever pretty much. And I have a premium subscription...or at least I should. What happened to it?
 
Where'd that last post go?

Anyway, can you or Jordan look into that for me? I should have a premium subscription.
 
That is very odd. Your message somehow ended up in the Approval Queue, even though you do have nearly 900 posts.
 
It seems to be working now. I think these are small bugs from the switchover that are slowly correcting themselves. Still not sure why my premium status has disappeared.
 
That's really odd. I checked and it said your annual was active and the dates were correct, but it didn't show on your status. A quick edit and save, and it looks like its back. Were you having issues accessing the GTPremium content and forum?
 
I don't believe so. I went into the premium and mod only forum for a couple minutes, so it was working on that end. It is just an annual membership. Looks like everything is back now. Thanks for the help.

Edit: the thread I started for this can be deleted.
 

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