Happier Abroad Forum Community

Hi all,
We are going to upgrade the forum platform soon to the latest version, phpbb 3.2. During the upgrade, the board will be disabled and you will see a message in red letters at the top announcing it. Hopefully it will be a smooth process.

Here is a list of features of the latest phpbb version:
https://www.phpbb.com/about/features/

Hopefully, this will solve the problem of the forum lagging and timing out and crashing, as well as the database corruption and crashing problems, which seem unsolvable with this version. It seems to be the only solution.

The forum theme will look the same, but a lot of buttons and icons will be different, which you can figure out and get used to eventually.

Hey check out this new extension for the latest version of this forum that we can install here. Cool! It will be just like on Facebook. We can mention each other and the person will receive a notification that they've been mentioned!

https://www.phpbb.com/customise/db/exte ... _mentions/

This extensions add support for mentioning a user by starting to type a @ in the posting field.
Once you select a user from the dropdown, the [mention] BBCode will be inserted and after submitting the post it will create a notification to that user.

Please note this extension require phpBB 3.2 and will not work on phpBB 3.1.

This Facebook stuff is annoying. I hope it doesn't compromise privacy. I only use Facebook for business and obviously I don't want that account associated with my account here.

Cornfed wrote:This Facebook stuff is annoying. I hope it doesn't compromise privacy. I only use Facebook for business and obviously I don't want that account associated with my account here.

No you misunderstood. It won't show your real name. It will just tag your forum name if someone does this in their post: @Cornfed

I said it's similar to Facebook in that it will tag your username here so you'll know if someone mentions you. As either an insult or compliment. lol

What do you think?

Winston wrote:

Cornfed wrote:This Facebook stuff is annoying. I hope it doesn't compromise privacy. I only use Facebook for business and obviously I don't want that account associated with my account here.

No you misunderstood. It won't show your real name. It will just tag your forum name if someone does this in their post: @Cornfed

I said it's similar to Facebook in that it will tag your username here so you'll know if someone mentions you. As either an insult or compliment. lol

What do you think?

That's OK, but it would be good if the current annoying Facebook stuff ended.

Here's another cool extension. Wow these extensions are easy. You just upload them and activate them in the admin panel. No manipulation of code is needed. This one will play and embed media from many different sites.

https://www.phpbb.com/customise/db/exte ... ediaembed/

An official phpBB extension that allows video and audio content from lots of 3rd-party sites to be embedded in forum posts and PMs, using a [media] BBCode, or from simply posting a supported URL in plain text.

Features:
Parse raw URLs from media sites.
Parse URLs from media sites using the [media] BBCode.
Embedded content is responsive / mobile device friendly.
BBCode FAQ page has help for embedding media content in posts.
An ACP panel where admins can enable/disable the supported sites, giving them control over which sites can show embedded content.
An ACP option to display the [media] BBCode button in posting editors or not.
An ACP option to enable/disable parsing links in user signatures.
List of supported sites.

In case anyone's interested here is my discussion with phpbb support staff about the new features of phpbb 3.2.

https://www.phpbb.com/community/viewtop ... &t=2446631

Here is a list of extensions for phpbb 3.2 that we can add here. They are easy to install, unlike mods. You just upload them into the directory and activate them in the admin panel. If any of you want to have any of these, let me know.

https://www.phpbb.com/customise/db/extensions-36

Btw the new forum will be responsive to mobile devices so no mobile theme will be needed. It will automatically adjust to fit the screen of your mobile device.

Just to let you guys know, when the forum is upgraded, the profiles and avatars will be showing on the RIGHT side of the posts, not the left side like now. Will that be ok with you all? Or do you prefer them to remain on the left side? There is an extension that can change this.

https://www.phpbb.com/customise/db/exte ... e_switcher

Also, the latest 100 topics page may not work anymore after the upgrade, unless the code works with the new version. I mean this one:

latesttopics.php

If it doesn't work, I'll have to find another code that works. Too bad though, because that's actually the most visited page on this forum, according to Google Analytics. More people visit that then the Active Topic page. So that will be something important to try to keep.

Whew! The upgrade is finally done! It took a while because the database update kept timing out, so I had to redo it many times. I didn't know if it would ever get completed. Man that was crazy and exhausting! Hope you guys appreciate my effort. . We should all celebrate with a glass of champagne.

Anyway, welcome to the new upgraded phpbb 3.2 forum. Hope you all like it. Please take a moment to explore the new forum and its features. It's a bit different than the last one. The buttons and icons are different too. For example, to quote a post and reply to it, click the icon in the post that looks like quotation marks, like this: " If you want to know what a button or icon does, hold your mouse cursor over it and a message telling you what it does will appear.

Also, if you look in the top left corner, you'll notice that there is a Quick Links thing that will open a menu with some links to view unread posts and stuff.

If there are any questions, problems or issues, feel free to post them in this thread. I will be adding some extensions that give us new more features soon, and as I do, I'll update you all on it and announce it here in this thread. I'll also try to figure out how to get the color theme back to the way it was too.

Thanks for your patience during the upgrade process. Hope you all enjoy the upgraded forum. Let me know what you think too.

Thanks,
Winston

Cornfed wrote: ↑

November 18th, 2017, 2:36 pm

This Facebook stuff is annoying. I hope it doesn't compromise privacy. I only use Facebook for business and obviously I don't want that account associated with my account here.

Cornfed makes a very good point here. FB will be able to connect your identity with your HA identity because they have the ip address(es) that you logged into FB with. So if you click the Infolinks text link or even hover over the text link they will be able to connect the two. All this info is being recorded behind the scenes.

The top logo is borked, it just says HAPPIE.

TruthSeeker wrote: ↑

November 22nd, 2017, 12:39 am

Cornfed wrote: ↑

November 18th, 2017, 2:36 pm

This Facebook stuff is annoying. I hope it doesn't compromise privacy. I only use Facebook for business and obviously I don't want that account associated with my account here.

Cornfed makes a very good point here. FB will be able to connect your identity with your HA identity because they have the ip address(es) that you logged into FB with. So if you click the Infolinks text link or even hover over the text link they will be able to connect the two. All this info is being recorded behind the scenes.

It is not a good point. Because its not relevant. The extension to mention others here is not connected to FB in any way. I already explained that. Didnt you see? Its a phpbb extention. I posted the link to it above. I said it works similar to FB in that you can mention others and have them notified by it.

Also FB is not our enemy. We are a threat to man hating feminists only. Not the US government. The US government has no issues witb us. Its only liberals and man hating women that do.

Btw how do you all like the new upgraded forum? I worked hard on this upgrade project. You guys should at least say thanks and give some feedback.

xiongmao wrote: ↑

November 22nd, 2017, 2:13 am

The top logo is borked, it just says HAPPIE.

Yeah i know. I resized it long ago. But I forgot how i did it. I'll have to research the phpbb support archives to figure it out. There are lots of things to tweak and adjust. Like the color theme here which is too bright and the banner ads which are not responsive on mobile device screens. New stuff always requires adjustments. That's why i was reluctant to upgrade for a long time.