Upgrade to phpbb3 - (Emails on posts to a particular forum?)

Ben Mullin · Post by **Ben Mullin** » Sun Oct 26, 2008 7:43 pm

I'm wondering if there is an add on to the forum software to send you an email whenever a post is made in any particular forum. For example, getting an email whenever anyone makes a post to the ATM forum. Most of the "active" ATMers are not active readers of the forums and they sometimes miss meeting notices if they don't check the forums for a month or more at a time.

I know you can get emails for new posts in a particular thread, but I'm curious if there is a way to get something similar on a sub forum basis.

Ben

ashutoshl · Post by **ashutoshl** » Mon Oct 27, 2008 12:41 pm

That would be a good feature to have.

Chip · Post by **Chip** » Mon Oct 27, 2008 2:12 pm

v3 of the BBS adds features, and several new ones look to have potential for this.

Subscribe to Topics
E-Mail Topics
Track Topic Participation (to find out who's reading ATM for example and contact them?)

At bottom of page is link to BBS software webpage that has features list to look at.
...oh, if we're on v2 the upgrade to v3 may not be trivial for Mike?

---Tom

Jupiter · Post by **Jupiter** » Tue Oct 28, 2008 1:15 pm

Yes, there is a new version of the message board software available. It's phpBB3. It has a ton more features including mail subscription like Tom mentioned.

The upgrade would not be too difficult to do. It would probably only take a few hours to complete. It may take longer to make the cosmetic changes with the banner and whatnot. It would also take some time to upgrade the photo album.

We would lose the "Onan Signup" part of the message board since there is nothing available for phpBB3 yet.

Chip · Post by **Chip** » Tue Oct 28, 2008 3:17 pm

There are probably security and admin useful items in BB3 besides new features.

It doesn't seem wise to drop Onan Sign-Up outright, but I have the impression the
current version isn't working totlally perfectly in the sense that last weekend there
was apparently some confusion (which got worked out ok).

One possibility would be to take the BB3 upgrade as an opportunity to improve the
function and usefulness of Onan Sign-Up by doing that differently somehow that
would be widely agreed to be easier to use and improvement (if possible).

Just for example... Could a new Topic Area on Forums be specifically
set up as a replacement where each Thread was Only for a Specific Schedule
Date; people would sign up there simply by posting. Not fancy, but easy to
understand and use? Doubtless there are other possibilitties to examine. Since
I'm not particularly involved in O-signups, about anything is sure fine by me.

...just speculating...

---Tom

FF2Rydia · Post by **FF2Rydia** » Tue Oct 28, 2008 11:32 pm

The Onan Signup listed at the top of the forums page is actually just a place to indicate staffing for Public Nights; it is NOT the observatory reservation system. It utilizes the "Meeting" functionality of the forum system.

Chip · Post by **Chip** » Wed Oct 29, 2008 12:23 am

Kris, I don't know. I thought that's what I was referring to, but in any case, if Forum here
is locked in to a routine that has been dropped from the new BBS version then Forum
can't upgrade to new software versions, and that's not favorable either. I don't know,
someone will have to consult and figure it out, I guess...

---Tom

kibatme · Post by **kibatme** » Wed Oct 29, 2008 2:38 pm

Let me see if I can clarify things:

Technically, the Onan Reservation System is working just fine. The star parties missing on the Onan displays was the result of a bad intial load of the star party data I did at the beginning of the year.

The Onan Reservation System is just that -- a way for keyholders and outreach folks to reserve the observatory for events or personal use. The Onan Sign-up function is used by individual keyholders to volunteer for public nights. The two funtions aren't integrated.

The Onan Reservation System isn't dependent on the forums' phpBB software and wouldn't be affected by an upgrade. The Onan Sign-up system would be lost by upgrading (at least until a supported version is available.)

(Personally, I've never-much cared for the volunteer sign-up system -- I prefer having the requests and associated volunteers right in the forums (as suggested by Tom, earlier), where I see them every time I visit .)

Version 3.0 of phpBB has a host of slick features, improved security and nice admin features. It would be nice to upgrade -- but I hold off until the Onan Committee considers its options regarding the potential loss of the sign-up feature if we would proceed.

kibatme · Post by **kibatme** » Thu Oct 30, 2008 10:06 am

Had some off-line conversation with Craig re: updating the forums.

Don't expect to see anything regarding this until after Thanksgiving given our 'real life' schedules. Maybe by that time the Onan sign-up issue will be resolved with an updated add-on.

Ben Mullin · Post by **Ben Mullin** » Tue Feb 03, 2009 6:07 pm

All right slackers. Real life must be over by now. Any thoughts on an update to the forums or a resolution on the Onan sign-up issue?

Seriously though, I know it doesn't seem like my life has slowed down much since November and I could understand if others hasn't. Not to mention forum admin is a thankless job. I do think the ability to get an email on any message to a particular sub forum would be useful for the ATM folks. I could imagine it could be useful for outreach as well.

I would understand if it was still way down on the list of things to do.

Ben

Jupiter · Post by **Jupiter** » Wed Feb 04, 2009 12:52 pm

ummm..... yeah.....

Maybe I will take a look at this in the next few weeks. Here are a few things I would like to have some feedback on.

MESSAGE BOARD LAYOUT
phpbb3 has a new interface. It's called "prosilver". You can see what it looks like here: LINK Make sure you navigate in to a thread to see what it looks like. I cannot post a direct link. The one big change with this is that the profiles are on the RIGHT side.

You can also still use something more familiar called "subsilver2" which is very similar to our current user interface. You can see that here: LINK.

I actually prefer the new Prosilver interface. There are ways of using this interface and have the profiles on the LEFT but a few modifications would need to be done. What do you think?

ONAN SIGNUP
Right now, the main phpbb website is down due to being hacked. (It has nothing to do with the phpbb3 software). I don't quite recall ALL of the details when I saw this a few months ago.... BUT I do recall a new MOD that is in development that allows people to sign up for an event. I believe that it is thread related too. Meaning you would create a normal thread like you would if you were starting a new topic. But it has the added ability to allow people to sign up on a list. I think this would work well for what we need to replace the old MOD. Would this work for you guys?

PHOTO ALBUM
There is a new photo album MOD for phpbb3. Our version is so old, that there is a chance that I won't be able to bring in the old photos. If I can't make it happen... Would it be okay if we started a fresh new photo album?

Chip · Post by **Chip** » Wed Feb 04, 2009 2:42 pm

I don't mind if the photo album is re-started from scratch as far as my own stuff is concerned. I do think it is nice from the Imaging Sig viewpoint to have an album posted showing the variety and development over time of the imaging in our group as our group has it currently. ...legacy images still have some value for what they show... But we could start over.

---Tom

Jupiter · Post by **Jupiter** » Wed Feb 04, 2009 3:26 pm

Chip wrote:I don't mind if the photo album is re-started from scratch as far as my own stuff is concerned. I do think it is nice from the Imaging Sig viewpoint to have an album posted showing the variety and development over time of the imaging in our group as our group has it currently. ...legacy images still have some value for what they show... But we could start over.

---Tom

I will do my best to get the current images imported in to the new photo album... One thing that is nice is that you can put thumbnails of your uploaded image within a post. If you click the thumbnail, it will bring you to the full size image. Example.

SEmert · Post by **SEmert** » Wed Feb 04, 2009 4:05 pm

I was playing around looking at a lot of the PHPbb styles. Looks like subSilver2 is one of the few (actually the only one I found) that allows the text layout to react to how wide you make your browser's window - similar to how we can do it now. I like that. Not sure I like the fixed width of most of those styles.

None of the ones that would seem appropriate to our site appear to have variable widths - for example, proNebula. Although I like the header graphics.

Jupiter · Post by **Jupiter** » Wed Feb 04, 2009 4:21 pm

subsilver2 and prosilver both adjust to the width of the screen... What they don't tell you is that any of them can be altered to adjust to screen size with some modification.

I think most of the other styles on that site are junk. I use prosilver on my site with a modified color scheme, buttons along with the profiles on the left.

Jupiter · Post by **Jupiter** » Wed Feb 04, 2009 6:43 pm

One problem....

I do not have access to the main web admin for the MAS domain. This is where databases are created for the domain along with many other things for the MAS website. Like applications, email, domain settings..... Yada Yada Yada.... So I cannot do any upgrades.

I will talk with Mike Kibat to see what our options are for getting this done. He will either need to give me access or he will need to at least create a blank database for me to work with.

Chip · Post by **Chip** » Wed Feb 04, 2009 6:52 pm

Sure, I hope you can find a way that's reasonable to just transfer the pix files to a new album, but if that isn't feasible then maybe a simple selection of the old pix might be an option that would maintain continuity.

One thing about thumbnails: if the option exists it would be sometimes useful if we could upload our own cropped full-image-scale thumbnails for album pix. The auto downsize can make my little galaxies, etc, virtually disappear in the shrunk thumbnails <lol>, for example, as things run now. Maybe this isn't possible to change, I don't know.

Another thing: The thumbnails embedded in text feature is nice and will be useful. I'm still wondering why I can't embed an image that I have in public view albums into a thread posting message. I use the html line:

with a album pix-url and nothing seems to happen? Help?

.......thanks......

---Tom

PS: ...wonder if this works? [testing]

....Nope, I don't see a pix there either (but I see pix others seem to be posting this way...) I must be doing something wrong?

PPS: THANKS CRAIG !!! SO IT IS "BBC-ODE" THAT IS THE SECRET KEY!

...and now I understand why the link to album pix doesn't work now for me when I think I was able to use it once upon a time....

Trivia: Note that I have created a dynamic image imbed (with Craig's help) that changes hourly.

---Tom

Jupiter · Post by **Jupiter** » Wed Feb 04, 2009 7:12 pm

Well... I am pretty sure we will be able to import the current album. I just don't want to promise anything.

The reason you can't use an album image within a thread the way you want to is due to a security feature within phpbb2. The "hole" that used to allow you to do that was patched, so we can't do it here.

The new Album on phpbb3 will fix all of those problems. Basically all you need to do is enter the photo id # like this: [album]1234[/album] and that thumbnail will show up..... I was mistaken before when I said clicking the thumbnail will bring you to the photo page. What will actually happen is the full size photo will overlay on your screen. It looks very nice. I gave you the wrong example before. Go to this LINK and click the hockey images. It will show you how it will appear on the screen if you click a thumbnail. It's very slick.

We can set the thumbnail size to however big we want.

Jupiter · Post by **Jupiter** » Wed Feb 04, 2009 7:14 pm

FYI Tom..... Your image worked, but you had "DISABLE BBCODE IN THIS POST" checked within your posts. I un-clicked it and it now shows up....

It looks like you have it defaulted to disable bbcode. You can change that setting in your control panel.

Chip · Post by **Chip** » Thu Feb 05, 2009 12:19 am

Thanks, Craig, I've changed that now. I found the new link to the way the pix will be launched from thumbnails in the posts, and it's nifty!

---Tom

Jupiter · Post by **Jupiter** » Wed Feb 11, 2009 12:13 am

Jupiter wrote:ONAN SIGNUP
Right now, the main phpbb website is down due to being hacked. (It has nothing to do with the phpbb3 software). I don't quite recall ALL of the details when I saw this a few months ago.... BUT I do recall a new MOD that is in development that allows people to sign up for an event. I believe that it is thread related too. Meaning you would create a normal thread like you would if you were starting a new topic. But it has the added ability to allow people to sign up on a list. I think this would work well for what we need to replace the old MOD. Would this work for you guys?

As of right now, this MOD is a no go. It has been abandoned by the creator and no one is getting support for it. So I will try to find something else.

Steven Andersen · Post by **Steven Andersen** » Fri Feb 20, 2009 12:05 am

Hello group - Maybe I am not looking in the right place, but I cannot see wether or not the question about getting email notifications for any new posts to a forum of interest has been resolved.

Since this thread has gone into other questions about formating and albums etc, I started a new thread to find out about auto-notification

Thanks
Steve

Jupiter · Post by **Jupiter** » Fri Feb 20, 2009 11:58 am

Has anyone heard from Mike Kibat lately?

I sent him a PM and an email on upgrading the message board software, but I have not heard anything back. It looks like he has not been on this message board since November.

Jon Hickman · Post by **Jon Hickman** » Fri Feb 20, 2009 2:52 pm

I see him from time to time on Facebook, but have not had direct discussions with him since the Holidays...

Jon

Jupiter · Post by **Jupiter** » Fri Feb 20, 2009 2:57 pm

Unfortunately, I cannot do any upgrade without him. I need to be able to create a new database on the MAS domain. I just don't have the kind of access to accomplish this.

MnAstro Forums

Upgrade to phpbb3 - (Emails on posts to a particular forum?)

Upgrade to phpbb3 - (Emails on posts to a particular forum?)

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