Quick tour of the new website

Thanks you for your patience!

We've installed new server software, and much has changed for the better at LiveModern. Here the top ten highlights that you'll notice right away:

1. Speed is better, though we are still tweaking the server to optimize everything. PERFORMANCE WILL INCREASE AS WE TWEAK OVER THE NEXT WEEK OR TWO! In the meantime, you should not longer get blank pages, error messages, unexpected foreign languages, or the like that were associated with the old software. Of course, if you do get one of these errors, please provide details. The site has also been simplified so that it can be faster. We've removed some functions (more on that below) and simplified the structure. Poke around and you'll see what I mean.

2. The forums are completely new, now based on Ploneboard. LiveModern is the first major Plone site to install Ploneboard, thanks to the support many members provided earlier this year. As promised, it does not have all the whistles and bells of some other forum software. Rather, I think it's really elegant software, and I hope you agree (see my presentation—especially Slides 4 and 5, I know there's a bug here—to the Plone Conference in Seattle in October about Ploneboard). We are hosting 49 forums comprised of over 3,000 topics (now called conversations) and over 50,000 comments. I'm sure you will give Ploneboard a really good maiden voyage!

The forums are pretty straightforward to use (the user interface was designed in large part by someone who works on UI for Google), and will be much faster than before (especially once we tweak the caches). Being v1.0 software, however, there are some known bugs, only one of which I consider serious (it is more a nuisance, so hopefully will be fixed this winter). We're also working on indexing the listing of the conversations in each forum so that they actually appear in the right sort order (this is a major UI problem, will be quite confusing for a little while). The best way to overcome this UI bug is to start a new conversation. We can always link to a legacy conversation, something I am happy to do until this bug is fixed.

Another bug is that it's hard to put the forums in any rational order, most evident in the Geographic forums listing. One missing feature is that there are no more email subscriptions to conversations. This feature will likely come this spring. In the meantime, each forum has an RSS feed which you can subscribe to (we'll also have a "recent comments" portlet by the end of the year). Otherwise, Ploneboard is ready to use!

3. Your full name, instead of your user name, is now displayed on content that you author (like forum comments). Please take a moment now to log in and ensure that your full name and email address are correctly entered in your preferences (please no pseudonyms, per our Terms of Use). While you are in your preferences, you can also update your location (city and state/province/region) and tell us a little bit about yourself in your Biography. Finally, upload a portrait (or an avatar that will pass for one). Don't be shy!

4. We've removed most of the portlets in the left column. Gone are the following portlets (and what happened to them):

• newsletters—We're looking for a new newsletter product, compatible with the new software, to make it much easier to manage your subscription to the LiveModern News.
  
• log in—Small as this portlet was, it took up too much room. Instead, you can now log in using the link in the blue personal bar at the top right of the page. The login form now properly remembers your user name if you check the box (and your password if you let your browser do that for you).
  
• what do you think?—We're looking for a new poll product, compatible with the new software. The old product mostly works, but not quite. We do have an archive of the polls.
  
• now logged in (logged in)—This was a nice feature, but really taxing on the server. It's gone.
  
• messages (logged in)—Private messages to other members are now simply emails. You can contact other members by clicking on their name associated with any content they have authored. You will go to their author page, on which is a simple email form. When using this feature, please be sure to respect each other's "right to be left alone."
  
• my favorites (logged in)—Almost no one used these. We'll be introducing a tag function soon, so we encourage you to establish a  del.icio.us account to track your favorites (that icon is on every page, click on it to add a page to your del.icio.us account). If you need to find your favorites, go to your folder. There is a Favorites folder in there. (While you're there in your member folder, notice that you now have a Personal Items folder that is in the "public draft" state. If you want it to be private, change its state by clicking on public draft (it's kind of hart to see, green text on slightly darker green background) and choosing "make private" from the drop down menu. Public draft (and published) items show up in the navigation portlet and search results; private items can only be seen by you. We'll probably make the Personal Items folder private for everyone by default automatically, but it's an improvement among many on a long list...)
  

5. We've added two new portlets in the left column:

• navigation—This portlet will help you keep track of where you are on LiveModern, and move quickly to other parts of the site.
  
• recent changes (logged in)—This is very similar to the recent items that used to be in the right column. Notice now that the RSS feed works properly: subscribe/bookmark to it so that you don't have to log in to see the most recent content on LiveModern. In fact, the only time you need to log in is to add or edit content on LiveModern. If you are not logged in, you will still be able to read anything published on LiveModern.

Otherwise, the blogs, news and events portlets in the right column are the same. We'll add a forums portlet soon, hopefully before the end of the year.

6. The navigation tabs at the top of every page are pretty much the same. We've removed the chat function (no one ever went there) and the resources tab (we'll replace that with a new and much more flexible resources function, probably after January of next year). The new events tab is just like the news tab, giving you the upcoming events (expanded from the portlet view). When you are logged in, you'll no longer see the members tab (if you need to search for a member, the link is on the login form). Nor will you see the site search tab (everything is indexed by Google). The support tab is still there, but the content still needs to be updated for this specific software. This simplified tab structure best reflects the structure of the site and what you can do here.

7. We've adopted the standard Plone editor, kupu, to replace Epoz. When you edit a document (forum comment, blog entry, etc.) in most browsers, you'll notice a green tool bar above the editing box providing you with several formatting and input options. The buttons in the tool bars are clearly marked as to function (do a mouse over to reveal them). Kupu works the same for every browser—except Safari on the Mac. It's a problem with Safari, not kupu, and will be resolved when Apple updates Safari in Mac OS X 10.5 (Leopard). In the meantime, we recommend Firefox for Mac users. Also, kupu acts a bit differently in the forums than with other types of content. In essence, Ploneboard uses a stripped down feature set of the standard kupu. We'll introduce the "insert image" button in Ploneboard's kupu soon.

8. Speaking of images, they should be much simpler in the new site. No more FS Image, FS Photo, CMF Photo, etc. options to confuse you. To add an image, to which you can link from any document, go to your member folder (use the "my folder" link in the blue personal bar once you are logged in). Click on the add item drop down menu to add an image there (if you want to add a lot of images, you might want to add an folder first—called myimages—and then add all images there).

When you link to an image, the URL will be http://livemodern.com/Members/[myimages]/yourusername/filenameofimage.jpg (don't forget the extension) The "internal" or relative link will be /Members/yourusername/[myimages]/filenameofimage.jpg if you are linking the image to LiveModern content. Practice on a test page in your member folder as I think this will probably be the hardest adjustment for many users of the new site. Even though it takes a bit of getting used to, it's much simplified from how images were handled before.

Image Tip: I've often found it easiest to use the external link tool to reference an image link on LiveModern. Just don't include http://livemodern.com in the URL. Always precede the relative URL with / and be sure to use capital letters if they are actually in the URL. After you enter the URL, hit return, and the URL will be checked to confirm it is correct.

Before you upload your image, please use your own software to optimize it for the web: 72 dpi, 500 pixels wide and 150Kb maximum (our resizing software will be working before the end of the year).

9. The text resizing options (above the search box) have been replaced with others. the most useful for most people will be the site map. But you can also contact the website administration using the contact link. (Resizing your browser text is now a feature of almost all browsers.)

10. Sorting of content by date in some contexts (forums list, recent items list) will look a bit odd the next few days. This is a minor artifact of the content migration process. It will be confusing for a little while, so please bear with us.

There are a few other minor changes: the "undo" option is no longer in your personal bar once logged in (everyone found that too confusing); there is no longer a "link" content type (you'll be able to do that in the new resources directory once that is implemented); content attributed to the LiveModern Webmaster is almost always originally authored by someone who's account has been deleted, usually at their request; and a few other minor changes that I'm sure you'll find. I know there are a few broken links as well and I'll be crawling the site soon to find and repair them.

If you find a problem with the site, please let me know. We think we have everything migrated properly, but your eyes are needed to be sure. If you find some of your content missing, we have a complete archive of the former site which we can provide access to.

Of course, if you need help using the new site, that's what this website forum is for.

Enjoy!

We've rediscovered a bug on the site. Thought we'd had it solved last week, but apparently not.

There is some bit of content on the site that when accessed/edited causes a low level gak. The practical effect for you is that your browser will spin and never access a page. I suspect it is an FS Image (we deprecated your ability to add a new one, but they are all still there) as this was what was causing the problem last week. But it could be something else. We're on it, but it may take a while to isolate. In the meantime, the site will be occasionally unresponsive. Once we discover it (we have a service monitoring the site for this), we restart and then the server will be back up.

There are over 1100 FS Images on the site, so if this is the problem we'll convert them all. But we're not there yet, as we have not finished investigating the source of the bug.

On the forum order, it's going to have to be this way for the next little while. There is another bug, that will be resolved, that becomes quite apparent with the traditional sort order. As soon as that bug is fixed, we can revert to the default.

Marshall

Previously Gregory La Vardera wrote:

Marshall - I've got dozens of FS images in my blog. I hope you can salvage this object because I don't relish the thought of going through all my entries to convert them!

I notice that forums are new at top, old moving to the bottom (I call that blog style). Is this something we will do for now on? While I'm sure we can get used to it, the format is contrary to most messsageboards I frequent.

Are you in your blog when you try to add a blog entry? I assume you are, so that is a problem that can easily be fixed. Please confirm.

Marshall

Previously Gregory La Vardera wrote:

Marshall, I tried to add a new blog entry today and the drop down menu does not have "blog entry" as an option. There is "file", "image", and "folder". I tried file, but it is a generic document without the proper fields - primarily there was no text body field. It appeared to be an option for uploading a computer document of any format, but not for composing an entry in the blog.

I'm not sure if something is missing or if I am misunderstanding the new interface.

We will turn on the ability to edit your own comments when the site is stabilized.

Marshall

Previously Gregory La Vardera wrote:

Ok - more clues: I went to an existing blog entry and chose the edit tab. This opens up a document editing page very similar to the old version, and that does include a field for body text, yet none of the text from the entry is present. Something is disconnected there.

Speaking of editing, it would be very nice to be able to edit forum entries. Right now they are more like blog commenting which you usually can't touch once posted. I don't know if that is in the cards, but I wanted to throw it out there.

Previously Marshall Mayer wrote:

Are you in your blog when you try to add a blog entry? I assume you are, so that is a problem that can easily be fixed. Please confirm.

Marshall

OK, I'll flag this as a bug for my programmer to fix ASAP (probably tomorrow). We'll let you know.

Marshall

Previously Gregory La Vardera wrote:

Yes, I am in my blog.

When I try to add a new entry I am at the main page for my blog, so you see all the current entries, and I am logged in so I have the drop down menus in the top bar, and the edit, view, and contents tabs.


When I try to edit an existing entry I am on the individual page for that entry, so you see only that entry, and I am logged in so I have the drop down menus in the top bar, and the edit, view, and contents tabs.

Previously Marshall Mayer wrote:

Are you in your blog when you try to add a blog entry? I assume you are, so that is a problem that can easily be fixed. Please confirm.

Marshall

I've replaced the Google Search (top right of all pages) with the default site search (new and improved). I could not get Google to work for us as it did. If you don't complain, it's their loss.

Marshall

We are close to solving the bug that stops the site. At least we think so .

The priority this week is to dramatically increase site speed. None of the caches have been set so that is the main strategy to increase site speed. You'll notice a difference soon.

Marshall

Turns out the reason the site was so slow over the weekend and yesterday was a DOS (denial of service) attack. A couple of nefarious websites decided to flood ours with page requests. As soon as we determined who they were, we filtered out their requests and are now more or less back to normal.

Normal is still slow, however. We are working on caching this afternoon...

Jim,

This sort order is unfortunately an artifact of the migration from CMFBoard to Ploneboard. New comments produce the results you desire, but legacy comments will be sorted by the migration process. So, as more comments are added, the problem will go away . Unfortunately, in the meantime, it will appear a bit confusing.

MArshall

Previously Jim Meehan wrote:

I've noticed that threads are now sorted by creation date within each forum.  Under the old software, they were sorted by date of most recent reply.  The result is that old threads with recent replies are buried several pages back in the forums.  Is there a place to change that setting, or maybe something that can be changed globally?

Well, we think we've stopped the Denial of Service (DoS) attacks, or at least filtered out the offenders so that they do not affect site performance. Now the problem is some bit of content on the site that once viewed/edited brings the server to a halt. It's like looking for a needle in a haystack, however. We have a trace set up to see if we can find that needle, but it may take some time. In the meantime, the site will be up and down (at night it may be down for a while).

Marshall

Latest update: apparently some of the offending content was in the blogs, specifically recent blog entries that were clearly visible in the blogs portlet. We initiated a fix of the content (it's not done yet, so don't click on those blog entries just yet!) and that is what is slowing down the server now (it's chugging away on the fix). We'll probably have to check other content types to be sure there are no other bugs, so the server could be pretty slow today while we are doing that. The good news is that once we check a content type, the offending content is fixed and no more server hangs because of it.

Marshall

P.S. When content is fixed, it may show up with a new date, and show up in the recent changes portlet a bit out of context. Again, and unavoidable byproduct.

What a week. Well, 10 days since we flipped the site from the old software to the new.

I really appreciate your patience. You know the site has had it's problems , and yet you don't complain because you know we are working hard to fix them. Thank you!

I'm sure you've noticed that the site is much faster today, if you are not logged in (more on that later). We finally figured out the cache trick. Not all of the site is cached, but most of it. If you hit a page that takes a moment to load, it just means that no one has visited that page in the last hour. Otherwise, the site should be very, very fast.

If you are logged in (remember, you only need to log in if you are adding/editing content), the site will still be slow. We hope to get that resolved this weekend/early next week. It's just a matter of tweaking some settings, but finding the right settings may take a while. If you are logged in, you'll also probably be kicked out while we are fixing this problem. Note that if you keep navigating, you will hop in and out of being logged in. When you are kicked out, you are simply hitting a page that has been cached. We are working on this problem, and should have it solved soon.

If you are blogging, more on that in the next post...

Marshall

Blogging.

We do not have blogging turned on yet. You can read them (mostly), but not add or edit your own yet. The main problem with the migration from the old site to the new has not been the forum software, ironically, but the blog software. We have not yet been able to migrate all of the content in a format that will not cause other problems on the site. You'll notice in some blog entries that there is no body text. Some blog entries had body text that did not make the rest of the site happy. We have it, of course, on the legacy site. We just need to understand why it a problem and then fix it before we migrate it. We'll do this ASAP, now that we've figured out the cache problem, and then turn the blog tools on again.

Marshall

Yes, we were able to save the content. There may still be a few minor problems (please report them!), but the original content is back.

We'll work on the blog entry problem on Monday. We know it's off. We need to figure out how to turn it on! It;s not hard, but I actually don't know how to do it. Ill have to have the "admin" helping me do it.

Marshall

Previously Gregory La Vardera wrote:

Today my blog entries where body text was not showing up are displaying properly again - good news. And I saw a blog entry in the new documents search, but it appears to be an edit of a past entry. I checked my blog and there is still not a choice for adding a new entry. The generic add "file" choice is still there.

I'm sure Admin knows this, but I'm just checking in.

OK, the site is faster, but not fast enough. If you are not logged in, most of the site is really fast. Some functionalities, while you are logged in, are very fast, but others not. We will try another caching scheme later this week. In the meantime, site performance is not great but good enough, and we are working today and tomorrow on other function issues.

Prime among these is restoring the ability to add a blog and blog entry. We are pretty sure we've resolved the bug, and performance issues, so we can turn it back on. I hope later today.

We've also documented a bug in displaying images in some but not all blog entries. It's related to FSImage, but does not affect all FSImages. So we're also fixing that this week.

Marshall

Please read the entire thread, especially the first post.

The point of having a username is the same on any other site. For log in purposes. But for security reasons, you might not want someone to know your user name. Hence full name is displayed on some content, and this is the direction we will be moving in the future.

Marshall

Previously darrel wrote:

I just noticed that my real name is being attached to the posts rather than my username.

I'm fine with that, but what's the point of having usernames in that case?

What is this referring to? Nothing has changed with regards to passwords.

Previously darrel wrote:

...double-password scheme...

Blogs are back! If you publish a blog on LiveModern, you can now add a blog entry (please let me know if there are any problems). If you want to start a blog on LiveModern, you can now go to your members folder (click on "my folder" in the blue personal bar, top of any page when you are logged in) and select "blog" from the "add to folder" menu. Sorry for the delay in this function.

Now on to more caching...

MArshall

Previously Marshall Mayer wrote:

What is this referring to? Nothing has changed with regards to passwords.

From the "when it rains it pours" department...

We've know it for about a month, but we are changing our ISP connection in the middle of the upgrade. The cut over will  happen starting at about 4 am MDT Wednesday morning, and should be finished relatively quickly. So hopefully not too many people will notice. But the best laid plans always have a way of stretching themselves out. So if you cannot access the site tomorrow, that's the reason. We'll be back up ASAP.

Marshall