New Forum Update Status - please read

[JohnCh]

The youtube issue should now be fixed. It turns out that the code was using http when after switching to the new hoster we finally added an SSL certificate and it needed that changed to https.

Although power didn't go out yesterday as feared, it did go out for a while this morning while I was working with the hoster on a few items including the above. We're tentative for migrating next Sunday, but I won't be able to confirm until later in the week.

-John

[JohnCh]

When planning a release, the disadvantage of full disclosure along the way is slips become very public and can foster a lack of confidence. Well, I'm fostering more of that today

After experiencing random issues the past few weeks, we opted to purchase a second account with our hoster. This second account allows us to build a separate environment with PHP 7.1 and test the migration process to Invision without impacting our vBulletin forum. That's proven valuable and exposed few gotchas over the past several days. Gotchas that would have paused the production migration and taken the site down for longer than planned. Nothing major, but annoying nonetheless.

Another issue arose Wednesday that is preventing us from completing that test. It's minor, but requires the hoster to move our second environment to another server. Although this is straightforward, vacations on their end means this is taking longer than expected. Rather than roll the dice and hope the server move happens in time for us to complete testing prior to this Sunday's planned migration, we're delaying the full move to next Sunday the 28th. This should give us enough time to reach test complete, identify the new gotchas, and have a smoother migration. Thanks again for your patience.

-John

[JohnCh]

After the new test account changed servers this morning, I was able to complete the test migration. It went well and has inspired confidence for next Sunday's move. Thus far, testing has only revealed a couple of very minor issues. I'll follow up with Invision support on those and will continue testing over the next few days to see what else turns up, but this is a good sign. Two pleasant surprises:

• given the site is still going through the indexing process: the search is already leagues ahead of what we have with vBulletin. It actually works!
• The lovely feature that started appearing randomly about 2 months ago where thumbnails the size of the image are automatically embedded (see blow) has self healed in Invision.

Here are a few teasers of the new interface using real data. The first two images show one of the Activity Streams (it includes several by default and you can create your own). The first view has the Condensed button selected which just shows one line per thread. The second is the Expanded view that gives a preview of each thread.







This next screenshot shows a thread view. When a thread reaches a certain length, the box on the top right is displayed which shows summary thread statistics, including # of replies, top posters, the most active days, and up to 4 photos included within the body of the thread. I hadn't seen this in the demo environment, so need to dig into it more, but there is value for multi-page threads.



-John

[Vovchandr]

After the new test account changed servers this morning, I was able to complete the test migration. It went well and has inspired confidence for next Sunday's move. Thus far, testing has only revealed a couple of very minor issues. I'll follow up with Invision support on those and will continue testing over the next few days to see what else turns up, but this is a good sign. Two pleasant surprises:

• given the site is still going through the indexing process: the search is already leagues ahead of what we have with vBulletin. It actually works!
• The lovely feature that started appearing randomly about 2 months ago where thumbnails the size of the image are automatically embedded (see blow) has self healed in Invision.

Here are a few teasers of the new interface using real data. The first two images show one of the Activity Streams (it includes several by default and you can create your own). The first view has the Condensed button selected which just shows one line per thread. The second is the Expanded view that gives a preview of each thread.



This next screenshot shows a thread view. When a thread reaches a certain length, the box on the top right is displayed which shows summary thread statistics, including # of replies, top posters, the most active days, and up to 4 photos included within the body of the thread. I hadn't seen this in the demo environment, so need to dig into it more, but there is value for multi-page threads.


-John

Very cool and exciting

[SENC]

Agree!

Thanks for all of the updates!

[JohnCh]

Testing continues to go well and has uncovered a few little items that are easy to fix now that I know what they are and where the settings are hidden. I've confirmed with our hosting provider they can help Sunday morning with a few backend changes necessary to perform the migration. As a result, we are on track for a Sunday move starting at 7am PT. Between site build out and time for all the data to move over, it's about 6-8 hours of work. Provided things go smoothly, we should be back up in time for Sunday evening cocktails.

-John