# vpsboard software getting even more annoying



## willie (Oct 30, 2015)

Seems like the IPB software was downgraded to a newer version recently.  The activity feed https://vpsboard.com/activity/ stopped working although there's now https://vpsboard.com/discover/ which is similar but different and more JS dependent. The editing box has a bug where it doesn't stop underlining after you paste a link, unless you type a newline and back up over it.  The much more useful "show which threads have been updated recently" function is long gone in favor of the pseudo-Facebook feeds.  Meanwhile posts to the site seem to have slowed down a lot in the past few weeks, to the point where I'm even resorting to looking at LET (the real dregs, man) to get my fix of VPS news.  I can't help wondering if the software degradations have something to do with that.  I decided to post when someone completely independent of me griped on the IRC channel about how IPB is getting worse and worse.  LET has a far worse community but its board software is a lot cleaner and less annoying in my opinion. 


Is there some chance of turning off some of the IPB bells and whistles, or switching to simpler software, or at least stopping installing the latest downgrades when they are released?


Thanks.  (Not sure which subforum to put this in, but "industry news" seems as good as any).


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## MannDude (Oct 30, 2015)

I've reported the bug to IPB, I imagine it'll be fixed shortly.


Regarding the link change, I honestly do prefer the new content discovery setup than the old one but do wish the URL structure would have remained the same. The old URL is nowhere present on the forum and I would imagine only those who notice that it is gone are those who have the old one bookmarked. You may wish to bookmark the new URL if that is the case.


I update the forum software when it is recommended to do so, I don't wish to run an outdated forum with known security flaws. I understand that changes made aren't always well received but it is what it is. I've reviewed other platforms in the past and honestly am not certain any of them would be 'better' for vpsB than IPB is. Switching platforms is a guaranteed method of aggravating even more members who have new URL structures to deal with, new features, old features missing that they are used to using and a headache for myself as well.


As far as performance goes, 4.1.X actually had noticeable performance increases for me. Site seems to certainly be faster and snappier on my end. Some common annoyances I had in 4.0.X seemed to be gone as well.


Full list of updates here:






> The next major release for IPS Community Suite 4 is now in the final stages of development. We have added dozens of new features, enhancements to existing features, fixed the majority of 4.0 bugs, and made large performance gains. See our blog entry for full information.
> 
> 
> Changes and New Features Include:
> ...


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## coreyman (Oct 30, 2015)

Tried to use vpsboard to reply to some pms on mobile the other day, was pretty much unusable.


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## joepie91 (Oct 30, 2015)

MannDude said:


> I've reported the bug to IPB, I imagine it'll be fixed shortly.
> 
> 
> Regarding the link change, I honestly do prefer the new content discovery setup than the old one but do wish the URL structure would have remained the same. The old URL is nowhere present on the forum and I would imagine only those who notice that it is gone are those who have the old one bookmarked. You may wish to bookmark the new URL if that is the case.
> ...



I honestly can't stand the new "Unread content" view. Complete information overload. Near impossible to keep track of what I've looked at, and what interests me.


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## KuJoe (Oct 30, 2015)

It would be really nice if forum developers released security patches separate from their design updates to let their clients remain secure without changing the user experience. Requiring forum owners to change the design/layout in order to be secure is kind of messed up but I think this mentality is limited to the paid forum options from what I've seen (Vanilla and MyBB rarely change the user experience except for maybe major releases every few years). IPB seems to make changes more frequently than vB in that sense also.


EDIT: What's funny is this thread wasn't listed under "Unread Content", I found it under "vpsBoard Discussions" instead so if new threads like this aren't appearing on the "Discover" page I foresee much less activity because threads will get missed by a lot of us who use it.


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## eva2000 (Oct 30, 2015)

took me like 20 seconds to load this thread via the discover page listing !


edit: and 35 seconds for the post to go through !


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## drmike (Oct 30, 2015)

eva2000 said:


> took me like 20 seconds to load this thread via the discover page listing !
> 
> 
> edit: and 35 seconds for the post to go through !



I'll bet you a cheesburger it was :00-02 of the hour.


I think something fires on the start of the hour that locks up tables or eats up disk IO... been a long term issue I often get punted by and laugh at the reminder....


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## MannDude (Oct 30, 2015)

eva2000 said:


> took me like 20 seconds to load this thread via the discover page listing !






drmike said:


> I'll bet you a cheesburger it was :00-02 of the hour.





Backups run at the top of the hour and I've never figured out how to get them to run without impacting site performance for a few minutes... Looking at the time of his post would line up with the time backups ran.


The site performs better for me than it did last week.


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## drmike (Oct 30, 2015)

Willing to chip in on that backup job to get it behaving and cap it to play friendly... Others probably have a bunch of ideas too... We should kick its ass once and for all


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## TheLinuxBug (Oct 30, 2015)

My problem is the 'Unread content' link is not intuitive at all, it may look pretty, but it makes skimming what has been happening in the forum quite hard.  Previously you could just scan down the page as you go, now  its all in bubbles and originally only display part of the content.. and it doesn't provide the flow you would want when reviewing topics.  To be blunt, to me it seems cheesy and doesn't provide as much usability as the old setup did, by far.  Sadly it makes the whole Vpsboard experience pretty much crap for me.


Don't get me wrong, usually I am pretty happy to adapt and work with new stuff, the problem is this isn't even the same thing.  It doesn't provide information in a way that can be easily consumed.  One thing it may do is cause people to linger longer on the page and those who don't block ads may get more exposure to the ads, but from a usability point of view its a huge downgrade.


Edit: I only now looked at it on mobile and actually it looks better on mobile than it does on a computer.  Mobile is almost usable.  On a computer with a 27"+ screen, it looks like crap.


my 2 cents.


Cheers!


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## willie (Oct 31, 2015)

Thanks, MannDude.  I don't mean to be giving you a hard time about this, just IPB.  Agreed, I have no idea how switching software would go over with other users.  I just know I prefer very simple, old-school designs like Craigslist or Hacker News if it's up to me.


Re the backup slowdown: I thought the usual way to do this was have ongoing database replication to another server, and then run the backups (and occasional long running queries) from the secondary server.  I think the db for this site would be small and low-traffic enough to run the secondary on a cheap VPS, maybe a donated one.


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## HalfEatenPie (Oct 31, 2015)

Honestly, It's a love-hate relationship for me.  I'd like to think most of us realized how difficult IPB is to work with after we've already invested so much time and resources into working with it.  The same thing could happen with another system such as Xenforo, vBulletin, Vanilla, etc.  I know for a fact I wouldn't touch Discourse with a thousand foot pole. 


With the uncertainty of how many people would like moving from IPB to another forum software vs the amount of time and risk it'd take to move from one forum software to another might not be the most optimal solution.  


For those people who requests we use an open source software, I have some worries about that as well.  Open Source softwares are great, but when support is needed most of the time it isn't there/available.  Either that or you get people who just say "code this".  Or you get (and I'm looking at you zPanel/Sentora) developers who are absolutely arrogant and tell you to "code it yourself and contribute to the software".  In the end, when all you want is a working piece of software with as little hassle as possible, going with a paid solution gives us an easier solution of handing over the risks and needs to the company we paid for the software to fix.  


In the end, I'd suggest we give the new update a chance.  Who knows, there has to be a purpose the developers phased out the old system and implemented the new one.  I'm fairly certain no-one really wakes up to say "muahahah.  I'm going to code something that people will absolutely hate!"  Especially since this piece of software is the livelihood of those developers.


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## HalfEatenPie (Oct 31, 2015)

As a PSA, remember to edit the Stream on the Unread Contents page (filter available right under the "Unread Contents" on the top left) to show all content, not just unread content.  The default configuration has it set to hide threads that you have read.  For those of you who may have suggested its missing threads, please double check to make sure your configuration isn't set to do this.


Thanks!


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## Hxxx (Oct 31, 2015)

HEY look at that! the unread content menu IS BACK , now the forum will be useful again. Thank you... ""


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## Dylan (Oct 31, 2015)

I'm not entirely sold on the new unread content page either, though it's much more tolerable if you switch it to condensed view (see the pic).


@MannDude I don't know if you can make condensed the default but that might stem a lot of complaints.


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## joepie91 (Oct 31, 2015)

HalfEatenPie said:


> Who knows, there has to be a purpose the developers phased out the old system and implemented the new one.  I'm fairly certain no-one really wakes up to say "muahahah.  I'm going to code something that people will absolutely hate!"  Especially since this piece of software is the livelihood of those developers.



That's not a hard one to answer: hype. Making everything "mobile first" and looking like Facebook is a great way to market and sell your product, even if the end result is utterly unusable.


There's a reason that "building the next Facebook" is a running gag on freelancing sites.


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## wlanboy (Nov 1, 2015)

Some format option are missing if you create a new post. E.g. the cite and tabbed text are missing.


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## HalfEatenPie (Nov 2, 2015)

Dylan said:


> I'm not entirely sold on the new unread content page either, though it's much more tolerable if you switch it to condensed view (see the pic).
> 
> 
> @MannDude I don't know if you can make condensed the default but that might stem a lot of complaints.



Heya man.  Do you happen to know how you did the mention right there?  I've been using the (member="Dylan") for a while (replace parenthesis with brackets), but how did you get it all blue and cushy and all like that?  


It's not because I don't know.  pfft get out of here.  I'm simply asking for a friend.


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## bauhaus (Nov 2, 2015)

@HalfEatenPie Your friend can use the @ [at]+[username] with super cow powers to do that.


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## HalfEatenPie (Nov 2, 2015)

@bauhaus.  WTF.  THIS WASN'T WORKING EARLIER FOR ME.  NOW IT DOES.


Thanks @bauhaus.  My friend is very thankful for your help.  He wishes you well and hopes you win the lottery very soon.


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## HN-Matt (Nov 4, 2015)

So IPB and SolusVM have merged into some sort of unholy IP allocation alliance?


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## willie (Nov 5, 2015)

HN-Matt said:


> So IPB and SolusVM have merged into some sort of unholy IP allocation alliance?



Um what?


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## HalfEatenPie (Nov 5, 2015)

Isn't that how just bootstrap works?


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## HN-Matt (Nov 5, 2015)

willie said:


> Um what?



Thought it was amusing/bizarre that the IPB '@ mention' was seemingly styled to look exactly like the 'IP Blocks' buttons in SVM, then made an unfunny joke about it.


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## willie (Nov 5, 2015)

I didn't understand what








was supposed to mean, and I see something even weirder now, it's apparently some kind of image of hex numbers, rather than a text string.  More IPB annoying weirdness I guess.


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## Licensecart (Nov 5, 2015)

he's talking about the bootstrap style labels which anyone can use...


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## HN-Matt (Nov 5, 2015)

Not a web designer / wasn't immediately aware of the non-annoying ubiquity of the little blue bootstrap labels, lol...


[quietly prays for the return of the 'bb code editor' while slowly backing out of thread]


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## MannDude (Nov 7, 2015)

HN-Matt said:


> Not a web designer / wasn't immediately aware of the non-annoying ubiquity of the little blue bootstrap labels, lol...
> 
> 
> [quietly prays for the return of the 'bb code editor' while slowly backing out of thread]



You can still use BB code. 


But yes, I miss the BB code editor too. But sadly if I want to keep the forum up to date on security patches I have to upgrade the software when new releases are made. This unfortunately means having new features forced on us like the wysiwyg editor.


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## wlanboy (Nov 9, 2015)

Maybe you can add an redirect from https://vpsboard.com/new-content/ to https://vpsboard.com/discover/unread/


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## drmike (Nov 9, 2015)

wlanboy said:


> Maybe you can add an redirect from https://vpsboard.com/new-content/ to https://vpsboard.com/discover/unread/



farking IPB, you'd think they would put something like that in release notes so guys didn't irritate their readers and shed viewers... nope.


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## MannDude (Nov 9, 2015)

wlanboy said:


> Maybe you can add an redirect from https://vpsboard.com/new-content/ to https://vpsboard.com/discover/unread/



Just got home, will do this shortly


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## willie (Nov 9, 2015)

https://vpsboard.com/discover/unread/ gets a permission error unless you are logged in when you use it.  I usually don't bother logging in unless I'm actually going to post something, rather than just reading.  So I use https://vpsboard.com/discover which seems preferable as a redirect target.  I wish it would just say which threads are updated though, instead of making an entry for every post or other action such as liking a post.


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## drmike (Nov 12, 2015)

More broken....


When NOT LOGGED IN.. and looking at the homepage...  Get a link for any thread on the left main content zone in the various forums categories:


https://vpsboard.com/topic/5153-home-network-setup/?do=getNewComment


What happens is it goes to the thread, however, it puts you at page #1.   


Add that to the list of busted non logged in users experience.. can't be positively encouraging people to join.  Simple ass stuff n00bs would even get.... IPB can again, die in a fire.  Shit company with ZERO QA testing.  


PS:  I hate IPBs new editor.. Every message I have multiple problems getting a message in.  It has become a chore so much that often I just don't bother posting.


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## clarity (Nov 12, 2015)

drmike said:


> PS:  I hate IPBs new editor.. Every message I have multiple problems getting a message in.  It has become a chore so much that often I just don't bother posting.



With you being the top poster on the forum, the sentence above is not a good thing to read. Hopefully, they will release a patch that will clear up some of the issues pretty quickly.


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## drmike (Nov 12, 2015)

clarity said:


> With you being the top poster on the forum, the sentence above is not a good thing to read. Hopefully, they will release a patch that will clear up some of the issues pretty quickly.



It's tough, I like the forum, the folks here and especially @MannDude.  So shit talking this matter is a self punch in the mouth.  Just reached that level of necessary.


I know software paints folks into corners --- paid and upgrade happy insanity like IPB has become.


Reminds me of what Ebay did recently with their Android app--- totally redoing it to look all modern and bare and annoying...  Breaking every other feature and mass pissing off their customers.  Mass insurrection, people leaving Ebay.. Really people finally leaving Ebay....  The comments on their app are freaking non stop gold.


I know I won't ever be recommending IPB or anything else the folks over there end up making in the future unless they get their heads out of their asses and make the next turn without crashing.


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## drmike (Nov 13, 2015)

Reminder about the hourly backup job @MannDude


It's taking 1 minute 9 seconds currently for that to run.  During this time, pages cease to load.


So the site is offline effectively for up to 1.9% of every hour... Just saying...


PS: I note it cause I tend to check things around start of the hour too much... and every time I get this, I freak out that the site is down and go look and test things...  yeah...


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## DomainBop (Nov 13, 2015)

drmike said:


> Reminder about the hourly backup job @MannDude
> 
> 
> It's taking 1 minute 9 seconds currently for that to run.  During this time, pages cease to load.
> ...



If the DB is InnoDB tables -> adding the  --single-transaction flag to the mysqldump command  would eliminate the downtime (if you're using MyIsam you should convert to InnoDB).  


Alternatively, this script is free and opensource and works on all types of tables https://www.percona.com/software/mysql-database/percona-xtrabackup


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## MannDude (Nov 13, 2015)

I'll review this in more detail later.


Without rolling back software to outdated and insecure IPB platforms I can't do much about the new features people dislike.


Backups I'll re-review later. In the past I was working on correcting the issue with it hitting the server hard when backups start but the solutions offered to me at the time didn't work as intended. I'll review my options again shortly.


For those of you still using old URLs via bookmarks, I'll get some redirects setup in case you've not updated the bookmark already to reflect the new URL.


You have to be logged in to see some pages, that's nothing I can override. That's more of IPB's wonderful decision making. I'll figure out how to remove some links from guest view because they don't work and will not work. So if you don't want to login to view that page I'll work on making it so you don't even know that page exists in the first place. That's about the only compromise I have available at this time for some stuff.


Yay.


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## MannDude (Nov 14, 2015)

wlanboy said:


> Maybe you can add an redirect from https://vpsboard.com/new-content/ to https://vpsboard.com/discover/unread/



Sorry for the delay. This is fixed.



willie said:


> https://vpsboard.com/discover/unread/ gets a permission error unless you are logged in when you use it.  I usually don't bother logging in unless I'm actually going to post something, rather than just reading.  So I use https://vpsboard.com/discover which seems preferable as a redirect target.  I wish it would just say which threads are updated though, instead of making an entry for every post or other action such as liking a post.



That's not something I can fix. It doesn't know what you read and what you have not read unless you're logged in as a member. IPB has it setup like that and it's not something I can turn on/off. I'll figure out some random work around but IPB just really sucks.


https://vpsboard.com/discover should work for you when not logged in. Are you having issue with getting logged out? Any reason you're viewing the site as a guest? You and @drmike have commented about issues when viewing as a guest. Unsure if you two are not staying logged in due to personal preference, being logged out by the system for some reason or something else.



drmike said:


> More broken....
> 
> 
> When NOT LOGGED IN.. and looking at the homepage...  Get a link for any thread on the left main content zone in the various forums categories:
> ...



When not logged in, IPB doesn't know what you have and have not read as far as I know. So when not logged in you're not going to go to the last thing you read in a thread as the URL may suggest. It works fine when logged in. I'm not certain this is anything I can 'fix', the best I could do is probably just update their code so if you're logged in as a guest you just never see "?do-getNewComment" anywhere in any URL.


And yeah, the editor sucks. If I could just make the old one come back I would. I can't. IPB won't. What can I do?



drmike said:


> Reminder about the hourly backup job @MannDude
> 
> 
> It's taking 1 minute 9 seconds currently for that to run.  During this time, pages cease to load.
> ...



Fixed(ish).


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## MannDude (Nov 14, 2015)

I've logged a complaint / tame rant on IPB's forums... let's see if it stays: https://community.invisionpower.com/topic/422943-community-members-dont-like-all-the-ipb-changes/


I have a feeling vpsBoard can't be the only forum feeling the hurt from all these changes.


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## drmike (Nov 14, 2015)

MannDude said:


> I've logged a complaint / tame rant on IPB's forums... let's see if it stays: https://community.invisionpower.com/topic/422943-community-members-dont-like-all-the-ipb-changes/
> 
> 
> I have a feeling vpsBoard can't be the only forum feeling the hurt from all these changes.



I didn't drive you posting that, nor to drinking in the past X months with their upgrades.... 


Problem I have with the editor is that it just sucks.  Literally every copy and paste turns out horrendous...  Often I am in editor and BLAMO, nothing works, can't edit any further.... so I copy the message or try to and reload the page and paste it in. 


Unsure if they fixed the quoting others bugs we saw last version, but I've scaled back on trying to even quote people, just winging it and text copying the quote and at'ing the person usual in the response.


The lack of URL re-writes / changing URLs is the cardinal sin if I had to pick one though...  I don't use such, but many do and yeah, old habits die hard.


That homepage, I almost feel the homepage of the site should be this:
https://vpsboard.com/discover/


Cause that works when not logged in and doesn't toss them into the mass of subforums to try to figure things out.  It's also more modern noise type active view or lens as I call it of the data.  Discover Content is kind of blah, it's like Recent Activity or Recent Stream or Timeline View.


Big picture I think IPB is getting pinched like more structured forum software is as more people juggle 15 seconds of time and ADHD.  The web and this Reddit + Twitter + Facebook + ahh Pinterest approach seems to be the fashion for many... It's a bad pursuit.  Reason why?  Competing for lesser use time and people that are less inclined to read or generally care.  It's very same fatal flaw that chasing 59 cent VPS income and soon to be free is.  The bottom side of folks on cash and interest are just going to exit the marketplace and go back to be the drooling couch loungers full time like their folks were.  Only so many years of that expensive cell bill and data that costs more than a mortgage people are going to stomach... Not much to show for it except they were there during some phase.. been there and done that hipster fashion of virtual.


But WTF do I know?  I still prefer to read on an actual computer with a screen bigger than my head...  and I read... and I buy books, paper ones...


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## AuroraZero (Nov 14, 2015)

drmike said:


> I didn't drive you posting that, nor to drinking in the past X months with their upgrades....
> 
> 
> Problem I have with the editor is that it just sucks.  Literally every copy and paste turns out horrendous...  Often I am in editor and BLAMO, nothing works, can't edit any further.... so I copy the message or try to and reload the page and paste it in.
> ...



WTH do any of us know? All we like is buttons with the right names and functions. Not a gear button for making links, or the link button for aligning things right. At least BB code we could understand and it wasn't all f'd up like this, but what do we know we only use this software well we used to anyways.


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## RLT (Nov 15, 2015)

But you'll never get them to admit it with all of the fanbois on there trolling.


I'll have to admit this upgrade is totally disgusting and has me ready to drop the site.


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## willie (Nov 16, 2015)

MannDude said:


> https://vpsboard.com/discover should work for you when not logged in.



Yes, it works as the implementer intended, I changed my bookmark, that's no big deal.  It just displays way too much crap.  I'd prefer something like this: https://www.reddit.com/r/haskell/new/ i.e. just show a list of threads in order of most recently updated first, so I can catch up on the threads of interest.  I don't need to see every bit of activity on each thread (posts, likes, etc) when most of them are about services that I don't use, etc.



> Are you having issue with getting logged out? Any reason you're viewing the site as a guest? You and @drmike have commented about issues when viewing as a guest. Unsure if you two are not staying logged in due to personal preference, being logged out by the system for some reason or something else.



Mostly it's just laziness.  I check VPSboard fairly often (several times a day) but post much less often, and I clear my browser cookies all the time, so I'm logged out unless I go to the trouble of logging back in.  As a general matter I'm uncomfortable with software keeping track of which posts I've read (frankly would rather just have an RSS feed with everything) but in VPSboard's case I'm not too worried.  It bugs me much more when commercial media sites do it.



> When not logged in, IPB doesn't know what you have and have not... "?do-getNewComment"



I would have expected getNewComment to just go to the thread's newest comment whether I'm logged in or not, so then I could page backward if I wanted to see older comments.  That's what I'd want anyway.  It didn't occur to me that it kept track of read vs unread comments.  Reddit is infinitely simpler and more usable IMHO.


Thanks for your post on the IPB forum and I guess I can deal with the changes but I think the developers are trying to be too clever for their own good.


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## HN-Matt (Nov 16, 2015)

MannDude said:


> I've logged a complaint / tame rant on IPB's forums... let's see if it stays: https://community.invisionpower.com/topic/422943-community-members-dont-like-all-the-ipb-changes/
> 
> 
> I have a feeling vpsBoard can't be the only forum feeling the hurt from all these changes.



Strange response re: 'BBCode is a fossil'. Not necessarily untrue, but on the other hand it's better than nothing. If they're going to do away with it, at least replace it with something 'better'.
 



> Don't be ridiculous, HTML is a programming language for developing/designing web pages. BBCode is not. BBCode is a relic of editors used by end-users for posting online content, due to the lack of WYSIWYG editor functionality.



Kind of a silly thing to say. BBcode is only a relic to the extent that HTML is a relic in that its little more than a simple HTML interpreter. For anyone who edits websites, I don't see why they wouldn't want something like BBcode in forums software.
 



> WYSIWYG, when it works properly, does not require the use of BBCode.



Guess they have a bit of a ways to go, then.

WYSIWYG and BBcode are two different ways of formatting text in a context of forums software and HTML. Can't say I understand why they would want to remove the choice of how to edit in that context.


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## HN-Matt (Nov 16, 2015)

I read a bit more of https://community.invisionpower.com/topic/422943-community-members-dont-like-all-the-ipb-changes/ 
 



> The concern about antiquated technologies like the bbcode editor . . .



The effort to portray BBcode as a relic or 'antiquated technology' is bizarre misdirection on the part of the developers. BBcode simply formats HTML, so unless they're claiming HTML is a relic, it's like saying everything should be reduced to a GUI, or that source code shouldn't be viewable/editable. Why?


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## willie (Nov 16, 2015)

It also seems to me that the wysiwyg editor on stack exchange works really well and I think it's FOSS, so I don't see why they're trying to write yet another one.  I've seen a few other ones that work too.  And BBcode was fine with me too--I didn't realize it was gone . 


One thought (maybe over-paranoid) that I have is that Facebook is engineered to make people spend as much time on the site as possible, for the obvious evil reasons.  They sell fewer ads if people can just check on items of interest efficiently and then get on with their other stuff.  IPB then tries to make their software look like Facebook due to some cargo cult illusion, that they'll also become zillionaires like Zuckerberg if IPB forums work like Facebook, i.e. waste people's time the same way (they might not think of it like that).  I think it's best to present the info in a simple and streamlined way that lets people choose what they want to see at the topic level rather than fine grained updates in all topics.


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## HN-Matt (Nov 16, 2015)

Whatever it is, I would be curious to know what is 'not antiquated' about the new editability deficit.

For example, are there any contemporary image hosts that no longer format the share link in BBcode? Seems that imgur still does, at the very least.


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## drmike (Nov 20, 2015)

Unread Content - when logged in - seems to be malfunctioning...


I use that page/link routinely.  Noticed on thread I posted, there were replies, but such was apparent to me the 20x I looked in there.  So thusly, I missed the comments...  


Could be blindness, but I doubt it.  Others experienced the same lately?


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## RosenHost (Nov 20, 2015)

To be honest, I never liked the new message board softwares. Good old phpBB 2 with some of the newer features of vB and IPB would be enough for me


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## trewq (Nov 26, 2015)

Honestly since the link changed to view the new content (a while ago now) I have been A LOT less active on here. If it sound like I'm whining, that's because I am. I know there is a like for it now but it's just not the same. The old way of listing new content was 100% better on mobile and displayed all the information right there. That's my little rant over.


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## eva2000 (Nov 26, 2015)

trewq said:


> Honestly since the link changed to view the new content (a while ago now) I have been A LOT less active on here. If it sound like I'm whining, that's because I am. I know there is a like for it now but it's just not the same. The old way of listing new content was 100% better on mobile and displayed all the information right there. That's my little rant over.



+1 .. i rarely visit this forum now as i usually come via the unread threads link..


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## Amitz (Nov 26, 2015)

Come on. Let's collect some money for a Xenforo license, build a nice vanillaforums-like theme for it and finally be *the better* LET. Everything else is just meeeh. ;-)


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## Hsin (Nov 28, 2015)

@MannDude ugh  please don't go Xenforo lol.


1. Go WBB if you MUST change....$80 or so dollars and it looks like Xenforo but has IPB features you may be used to already. Perfect Mix-UP


OR


2. Do what my friend did. His community hated IPB4.1.....Use Mybb to convert VPSboard to Mybb and then convert back to IPB3.


(Takes time of course, but also saves you cash, potentially fixes the issue with dislike for IPB4 on VPSboard and gives you time to form a better game plan).


I am an IPB customer/user but we've done Xenforo and it sucks really. Granted our forums are in two totally different niches.


The usergroup setup as well as the permission sets for add-on is ridiculous. ON IPB3/4, you have Primary and Secodnary groups(which exist on Xenforo as well). Xenforo fans claim it is more sensible to have EVERYONE(including admins) in the Registered Members group. Which to an extent is true...this way when you add features, it's universal. The issue with Xenforo's method comes when you have users who are in multiple groups...you have to set up priority to make sure they accurately reflect the perms. So my default group is members, my secondary group is Admin....but if you mess up on priority it has you listed in the incorrect group. It sounds confusing and it is confusing. I get it but in all honesty, there is no reason for users to be stuck in multiple secondary groups IMO. I'm the owner, I don't need to be in the same primary group as average joe who joins.

 Trust me, the grass is not always greener...Even if the XF fanboys try to praise XF as if it is the best script, it really is not in the least. It does have some plusses but it is not anything revolutionary.


Personally, I dislike the fact that Xenforo as a software is really unattractive and they generally look the same. Also there is a high dependence on add-ons and the prices are insane/ridiculous imo. Keep in mind, you are having to pay for add-ons for things that are already features on competing platforms. If in 2016, Xenforo is a $140 software  is announcing features that free software like mybb and phpbb have had for years that is sad.


Example: Thread Tags *JUST came to Xenforo in the last big update.... *IPB has long since had this, Mybb has had it since 1.6 as have other *FREE PRODUCTS. *


https://xenforo.com/community/threads/thread-tagging.100267/

*OOH...you can now 'like' comments on profiles and *GASP* delete them on Xenforo*


https://xenforo.com/community/threads/profile-post-comment-improvements.99548/


Most of the features they announce are just weak, catch up or nothing special with the rare gem. Honestly not worth the hype its fans try to make.


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## HN-Matt (Nov 28, 2015)

Amitz said:


> Come on. Let's collect some money for a Xenforo license, build a nice vanillaforums-like theme for it and finally be *the better* LET. Everything else is just meeeh. ;-)



#FormFollowsFunction2016


I own http://lowendtalk.space and can donate it to the cause if you choose to take Amitz's advice.


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