phpBB v3.1

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avij
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phpBB v3.1

Post by avij »

If all goes well during the upgrade, we will be using phpBB v3.1.6 tomorrow morning.

As I mentioned in the announcement, support for Czech, Greek, Lithuanian, Slovak and Slovenian languages will unfortunately be dropped because of the upgrade.

Please use this topic if you think the upgrade broke something.
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Re: phpBB v3.1

Post by avij »

OK, so here we are now. As a technical detail, previous phpBB version had something called "mods", which were essentially code modifications. These were a serious pain in the rear every time a new version of phpBB needed to be installed, because the modifications needed to be redone for each phpBB version. Sometimes the automation worked, sometimes not. The new phpBB focuses on "extensions", which should survive updates better.

The Netiquette link in the header used to be one of those mods, ie. a change to phpBB code that I made myself. Now that functionality is provided by an official phpBB extension called Pages -- one less thing for me to worry the next time the forum needs to be updated. We also wanted the links (all the hit reports etc) in posts to open in a new window by default. That also used to be a mod, now it's handled by an extension. That extension isn't quite perfect for our needs, though. By default it opens all *.eurobilltracker.com links in the same window, and links to other sites in new windows. However, modifying that extension to open all links to a new window regardless of the destination was a one line change, so it made my life a bit easier anyway.

The link at the top of the page to https://www.eurobilltracker.com is still handled by a local modification. There wasn't a suitable extension for that purpose.

There is a TL;DR changelog that lists all the changes to phpBB between 3.0.12 and 3.1.6. One thing that I noticed is that the new version works much better with mobile devices, such as my phone.
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Re: phpBB v3.1

Post by Crazy Bob »

For what it's worth, the "new" forum looks great!
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Re: phpBB v3.1

Post by eddydevries »

I'll have to get acquainted with the new looks and the functions at another spot.

I used to work with the previous layout ("subsilver" as I remember), but can't find that option anymore.
Am I correct, you can't choose the layout anymore?
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Re: phpBB v3.1

Post by Kleman »

Same question ! :wink:
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Re: phpBB v3.1

Post by avij »

Correct, the old subsilver2 theme is gone and it's not coming back. Sorry. You will get used to the new theme in no time at all.
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Re: phpBB v3.1

Post by avij »

avij wrote:We also wanted the links (all the hit reports etc) in posts to open in a new window by default.
Oh, looks like this feature can be enabled or disabled on a per-user basis. If you go to your board preferences, there is an option named "Open External Links in New Window" which controls this behaviour.
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Re: phpBB v3.1

Post by Petri6 »

avij wrote:Correct, the old subsilver2 theme is gone and it's not coming back. Sorry. You will get used to the new theme in no time at all.
Is this because it's technically not possible? Or really hard to do?

I mean that's the first thing people were asking for in here and probably a lot more are wondering and wanting, so if it's possible to do I think it would be worth doing (or at least asking people if they want it or not). If it's not possible, then it can't be helped of course, and we'll just have to live with it.
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Re: phpBB v3.1

Post by avij »

Apparently phpBB talks about "styles" nowdays instead of "themes", so let's use that term. Briefly:
  • The 3.0 to 3.1 upgrade instructions says you have to remove everything else except database settings, avatars and attachments from your previous forum installation, then install the 3.1 files. Any old modifications or styles will get removed in the upgrade process. So it was a case of "oh, the old style disappeared" and not "let's get rid of the old style now". Restoring the old style would mean extra work.
  • The forum is now much more usable on mobile devices. See a screenshot. The mobile usability tweaks are a feature of the new updated prosilver style. You would not get such enhanced mobile user experience with the subsilver2 style.
  • Any modifications we have to do to phpBB code would need to be done for all installed styles, and I try to avoid such extra work.
  • Language packs would need to contain support for all the installed styles. Estonian, Finnish, French, Polish and Spanish language packs do not have image sets for the old subsilver2 style.
  • When you get over the fact that the poster's user information is now on the right side of the screen, the difference between prosilver (the current style) and subsilver2 is primarily in the colours that are used. The colours are just a matter of taste. Some people like the current colours, some people liked the previous colours. That is life.
  • I prefer to spend my time and effort on issues that affect most of the users. Unfortunately I can't always fulfill all the wishes of the minority.
  • The old style would have needed to be dropped at some point anyway, when it stops getting updated for new phpBB versions. It's not a good idea to postpone the inevitable.
  • phpBB developers concentrate on improving the current prosilver style. Any problems found in the old style will get less attention (see the mobile version example above).
  • Most of us have been using the new style for more than seven years now.
The old style served us well during the phpBB v2.x days, but now it's time to move on to a more modern style.
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Re: phpBB v3.1

Post by Petri6 »

avij wrote:Apparently phpBB talks about "styles" nowdays instead of "themes", so let's use that term. Briefly:
  • The 3.0 to 3.1 upgrade instructions says you have to remove everything else except database settings, avatars and attachments from your previous forum installation, then install the 3.1 files. Any old modifications or styles will get removed in the upgrade process. So it was a case of "oh, the old style disappeared" and not "let's get rid of the old style now". Restoring the old style would mean extra work.
  • When you get over the fact that the poster's user information is now on the right side of the screen, the difference between prosilver (the current style) and subsilver2 is primarily in the colours that are used. The colours are just a matter of taste. Some people like the current colours, some people liked the previous colours. That is life.
  • I prefer to spend my time and effort on issues that affect most of the users. Unfortunately I can't always fulfill all the wishes of the minority.
Well, this was pretty much the first and only question asked about the update, that for me, would indicate it's not just the minority. And it's not only a question about taste, it's also about the readability of the forum (it's not the brightest idea to have both the links and the backround to be the same color).
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Re: phpBB3

Post by androl »

Suddenly, the board style has changed :?
rakoon wrote:The people who dislikes de new visual style can change it in "User control panel" --> "Board preferences" --> "My board style" and change it to "Subsilver2".
I can't find the menu "My board style" any more. Has the subsilver style been deleted?

... ah well, I have read the other topic.
So that's life. Why do designers make working things suddenly so totally different? Then they give the users the possibility to make it look like before, so these users won't complain any more and won't ask them to make the new look a bit more user friendly any more, and meanwhile they only develop the new look, which will be unnoticed by the users with the old style. And finally, the old style will be outdated or incompatible and the users who had changed back will get the experience the second time.
It's also the current tendency of the internet to optimize everything for mobile devices, because PC users are dying out...

Don't know if this is new in 3.1, I think it was different in 3.0: these icons "/", "!", """ for edit/reply buttons instead of text buttons aren't my favourite feature. Having to wait a second for each icon to tell me its action by tooltip doesn't get a high usability rating from me, and I will need some time to connect such one-character captions to the meaning of the buttons. On second look, I see the "/" is a pencil, that's a tiny bit of help.
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Re: phpBB v3.1

Post by avij »

I moved the above message to this topic from the older topic.

Yes, the icons have changed between 3.0 and 3.1. They used to be [EDIT], [!] and ["QUOTE]. Presumably one of the reasons why this change was made is that the new icons don't need to be translated for the various languages.

The other reason was probably the desire to save screen space. Moderators will see a few more buttons for each message:
phpbb31-buttons.png
phpbb31-buttons.png (5.56 KiB) Viewed 3391 times
The buttons are: edit, delete, report, warn user, information, quote.
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Re: phpBB v3.1

Post by MDeen »

I hadn't even noticed the new phpBB version. It has gone much more smootly here than on other forums I visit. And I usually am the first to complain. I have the same view as Androl: why do developers have to make a new version so radically different from old versions that you have to adapt. Change does not equal better. Lots of times you choose to use something because of the way it looks and when they change it, well why use something you don't like the looks of?

The only thing I noticed this morning was that the usual links for "new posts" and "unread posts" were gone. The last one for me is the most useful link on a phpBB forum.
I still think it's strange that these links are grouped in a pull-down menu but the link for "Mark forums read" is remains above the forum categories.
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Re: phpBB v3.1

Post by eddydevries »

avij wrote:A quick update to the above. phpBB v3.1 improved the logging a bit. Now it displays this in the log:
Disapproved topic “testing post approval” written by “spam_test_user” for the following reason
» The reported message has the only purpose to advertise for a website or another product.
I'm using the Dutch language as setting for the forum.
There these logs give a typo.
I don't know if the translation is handled by "us" or by phpBB, but maybe you can pass on this to them if they have to fix it?
In Dutch the log translate written by “spam_test_user” into gechreven door “spam_test_user”, while it should be geschreven door “spam_test_user”.
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Re: phpBB v3.1

Post by avij »

You're right. Even I understand enough Dutch to see that there's a problem. I have now fixed the translation for us.

Generally speaking, if you guys see errors in the forum translations, it is recommended to report those to phpBB so that any improvements will end up not only here on EBTF, but to all phpBB forums globally. If you find an error and report it upstream, there is no need to write about those errors on this forum. The updated language packs will eventually find their way to our forum as well. The language packs can be updated independently of phpBB versions, but I tend to update the language packs at the same time when I update phpBB to a new version.

This specific issue has now been reported here, so the next version of the language pack most probably won't have this problem.
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