A2OC Site Upgrade

ben

ben

Administrator
Ukraine
Hi folks,

Since Christmas, I've been spending my spare time working on getting our web site migrated over to the new version of our forum software. The process is nearly complete. However, I wanted to get some feedback about a potential change to our user photo features.

Our site currently has two mechanisms for you to upload user photos. The first is to use the Gallery section [http://www.a2oc.net/pictures/] and the second is by uploading photos to your personal picture album within your user profile [http://www.a2oc.net/forum/album.php]. Both mechanisms are currently used by our members.

Now, the Gallery section runs on third-party software, and was introduced long before the personal picture albums functionality was available within the core forum software that runs our site. However - being a separate piece of software - it's not very tightly integrated into our forum and duplicates much of the functionality of the forum's personal picture album functionality. This can be confusing to new members.

It does have some advantages - but our members simply aren't making that much use of them. The vast majority of new photos to the gallery are photos of their personal A2s. And these would be much better served by using the forum software's built-in photo album features.

Members are also sharing their photos through any of the large number of photo sharing web-sites (such as Flickr, Photobucket or Snapfish). Not to mention the video sharing sites. Members typically embed such media (or links to them) within their posts. This can provide context to the pictures and encourage discussion.

Given this, when we switch to the new site - I'm proposing that we remove the confusion of having the two photo systems and instead migrate all of our member's photos from the old gallery system into their personal albums. The photos would be created under personal albums that matched the current gallery categories for consistency.

Where different members wanted to share photos about a common subject or event - then their photos could be arranged into consistent album structures and indexed accordingly.

We can also hook into some of the more popular photo sharing web site groups (http://www.flickr.com/groups/a2oc/ for example).

I hope you agree that this makes sense.

Ben
 
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I'm happy to go with the flow and just appreciate all the good work you do in the background. Thanks.
 
Sounds perfect sense to me, I use the personal album function and have never explored the other options available, so streamlining with the new site sounds logical. Thanks for all your efforts Ben, and look forward to see the fruits of your hard work. :D
 
Ben, that makes sense. Hopefully, using the integrated feature, there could be less maintenance as well.
 
Hi Ben is there also going to be the option to upload more photos at once as i know some of the other members have said about this, not sure whats involved to put that sort of feature on, i use stuff like facebook and myspace and that allows alot of pics to be uploaded in one go. But i'll be happy with what ever can be done

Cheers Phil
 
humps said:
Ben, that makes sense. Hopefully, using the integrated feature, there could be less maintenance as well.
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Me too and it's a bonus if you are going to migrate all the photos from the other system.

Thanks Ben for all the work you do behind the scenes - a great job.
 
Hi

I realise it is long overdue - but we plan on updating the site to the new forum software this weekend. We chose to delay the update last year due to reported performance issues with the new software. It has since undergone many improvements - so should be ready for production use now.

If you experience any difficulty accessing the site over the next day or two, simply try again a few hours later. We'll endeavour to make the process as painless as possible.

Thanks,

Ben
 
We've completed stage 1 of the upgrade. You should be able to use for core functionality of the site. We will be upgrading all the 'extras' that we were using from the previous version over the coming days, including: gallery; upcoming events; google maps; shop; donations etc. Please bear with us whilst we migrate this functionality to the new version.

We will also be fixing up many of the minor gui issues that cropped up during the update. Hopefully things will be back to normal within a few days.

Thanks for your patience.

Ben
 
Sturdy job Ben, many thanks for your dedication and efforts to improve an ever growing and popular site, well done :)
 
That was quick Ben! This is a fresh new look. It will take a wee while to get used to - but it still feels like 'home' ;)
 
I hope to bring back some of the other styles eventually - but needed to get the basics working first.
 
Yes, i do like being able to rely in the post very flash!! i think you have done a great job ben and i would like to thank you and anyone who has been giving you a hand as i know it is not how you would ideally want to spend your weekend! I think it would be a great idea if we had the picture at the top where the a2oc logo sits change every month and we could submit photos to go there. What do you think to that?

Good luck sorting the rest out!
Chris
 
Happy to set up a monthly rolling photo of some kind - might have to think about where to put it - as the header banner only really works for wide, narrow photos - but worth trying it out I reckon.

PS - there's a new mobile theme when you access the site via a modern smartphone. I'll get this in-line with the main colour scheme when I get a chance. We also still use the Tapatalk plugin for those who prefer iOS/Droid/Blackberry apps.
 
Thanks Ben, all your hard work is greatly apeciated. You make the A2oc the great club that it is.

Cheers

David
 
hotstuff said:
excellent work Ben, your tireless efforts are appreciated, and enjoyed of course!

Tony & the gang.
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Hear Hear! Couldn't have put it better myself ;)

Having installed a content mangement system myself I know that upgrades can be nerve racking, especially if there are many mods that have been made to the base system.
 
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