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Ralph Barker
13-May-2006, 06:48
Welcome to the new incarnation of the Large Format Photography Forum.

Although we all liked the simplicity of the interface provided by the old software, it was due for a major re-write in order to provide both additional user and administrative features we needed. As a re-write wasn't possible, we elected to use a popular and commercially-supported forum package, vBulletin, which would allow us to import the valuable archives from the old forum.

The "new" forum is organized into various topic-related sub-forums, similar to the "categories" under the old forum. You can view threads through the sub-forum interface, or you can choose to use the "unified" view, which displays the posts of the last 30-days in the most-recently modified sequence (similar to the "recent responses" view on the old forum).

The new software provides a number of features, including:

1. the categories of the old forum have been condensed and are now more apparent as sections or sub-forums under the main forum index page. The sub-forum structure also allows you to ignore areas in which you have no personal interest. Classification of topics still depends on the original poster choosing the appropriate sub-forum, but we can now more easily move
topics at the admin level.

The sub-forum structure also allows us to be slightly more tolerant of posts in certain sections that might be considered "commercial" in nature, without subjecting everyone to those posts. The same non-commercial philosophy still holds true in most sections, however. (Note: if you use the "unified" view, you'll see all posts, regardless of the sub-forum.)

2. the new software does a better job of tracking what you have read. If you want to view topics posted since your last visit, for example, just click on the "New Posts" item in the menu bar near the top of the page. Recently modified topics still float to the top of the display, as they did with the "New Responses" link on the old forum.

3. Your individual view of the forum topics can be tailored to your individual preferences through your user profile. Click on "Quick Links" in the menu bar to access those features. In addition to telling other members about yourself, you can, for example, put other individuals on your "Ignore List", so you don't see their posts.

E-mail notifications of new posts are substantially different for the new forum. Essentially, one subscribes to individual threads or individual sub-forums. Notices are only sent for the first update after a user's last visit to the forum. Please see the FAQ for details, if interested.

4. formatting within posts is now more convenient, as is including links, inserting images, etc. HTML is not allowed, but the posting interface includes various formatting options, along with the ability to manage attachments. These features work in much the same way as most word processing software.

5. the new software allows individual sections or sub-forums to be "moderated" (in the sense of the old Usenet forums) - that is, posts to some sections need to be approved by a moderator or admin before they will appear.

While we are anticipating we'll have a "learning curve" with the new software, and will need to fine tune some of the configuration parameters, the admins are enthusiastic about the capabilities the new software provides. Obviously, we're hoping you'll be enthusiastic, too, once you've used it a bit. The core philosophies of the forum remain the same and true to Tuan's original vision for the forum.

paul stimac
13-May-2006, 06:59
Will there be a :eek: classifieds section?:D :rolleyes:

tim atherton
13-May-2006, 07:02
Frank's already posted stuff for sale....:eek:

Tom Westbrook
13-May-2006, 07:03
See Wanted/For Sale under Community.

Ralph Barker
13-May-2006, 07:03
You're just soooooo expressive this morning, Paul. ;)

Yes. Look in the "Community" section, and you'll find the "For Sale/Wanted" sub-forum. Please be sure to read the FAQ about this, though. There ain't no warranties, expressed, implied, or even hinted at. ;)

Tom Westbrook
13-May-2006, 07:14
FYI: Everyone accessing the site via the old URL will be redirected to the "Unified View". To see the "real" front page, just clcik on the top banner image.

The official home page of the forum is now
http://www.largeformatphotography.info/forum

The old one was
http://www.largeformatphotography.info/lfforum

matthew blais
13-May-2006, 07:15
Good job guys...(pat on back)

Frank Petronio
13-May-2006, 07:23
Hey, howcome I'm a senior member and Paul isn't?

Ralph Barker
13-May-2006, 07:27
Hey, howcome I'm a senior member and Paul isn't?

The "status" designations assigned by the software is based on post counts, I believe.

Joe Forks
13-May-2006, 07:31
I'm in. Quick and easy. Thanks for all the hard work everyone!

Best
Joe Forks

Claude Eichel
13-May-2006, 07:35
Good job !

Claude

Ralph Barker
13-May-2006, 07:54
Joe, Claude - thanks for your comments.

Hiro
13-May-2006, 07:56
Easy to set up, and I like the look and feel from a quick look around.
Many thanks for all your efforts.

Hiro

Eduardo Aigner
13-May-2006, 08:04
Nice! Like the change.

Ralph Barker
13-May-2006, 08:11
Hiro, Eduardo - thanks for your comments.

Ken Lee
13-May-2006, 08:14
Testing testing....

Harley Goldman
13-May-2006, 08:30
Great job. Appreciate the effort by all involved!!!!!!!!!

Harley

Amund BLix Aaeng
13-May-2006, 08:31
Looks great :)

Ralph Barker
13-May-2006, 08:36
Cool. Glad it's working for everyone so far. Let us know if you have any suggestions.

Mike Boden
13-May-2006, 09:18
Congratulations on the new forum. I'm so happy that you made the change, because I really like the layout and how it's broken into different categories.

Ole Tjugen
13-May-2006, 11:26
The "status" designations assigned by the software is based on post counts, I believe.
I don't feel very "senior"...

And some with lots of posts have no status at all. Is that because they haven't logged on to the new forum yet?

darr
13-May-2006, 11:37
Great job guys!

Tom Westbrook
13-May-2006, 11:45
And some with lots of posts have no status at all. Is that because they haven't logged on to the new forum yet?

Yes, that's the reason. We're looking into this Senior/Junior thing. Seems silly to me: more that 100 posts and you're a Senior!

Bruce Watson
13-May-2006, 11:57
Feels a lot like the APUG forum. Same software?

Ralph Barker
13-May-2006, 12:14
Feels a lot like the APUG forum. Same software?
Yes, although we're likely on different versions.

Oren Grad
13-May-2006, 12:28
Transition worked flawlessly for me - thanks to Tom and all for a stellar job, and for the incredible service you provide to the community.

Ralph Barker
13-May-2006, 12:41
Glad to hear that, Oren. Thanks for your comments.

Paul Coppin
13-May-2006, 12:54
I had some difficulty and wound up re-registering (hate to have to give up 5 years of "seniority" :). Mods have been notified. I believe Vbulletin can auto-resize for different monitors on entering the browser- this feature is useful if this version supports it. Other forums using Vbulletin are able to do it. For example, I use a laptop with 800x600 screen mostly for casual web work - this forum is somewhat wide, something I don't experience on other Vbulletin forums I regularly use. Resizing feature available on this one?

Tom Westbrook
13-May-2006, 13:09
I'll check for your merge request.

As for the screen width, we can look into narrowing it, but I don't think it will do it dynamically--the width setting only allows percentage of browser width (which is very annoying IMHO) or an absolute width. It's at 810 px wide now, so we could probably loose a few pixles--it's still going to be pretty close to full screen width for you.

Charles Carstensen
13-May-2006, 13:21
Thanks for a terrific upgrade.

Paul Coppin
13-May-2006, 13:37
810 is the problem (Firefox measures it at 808)- It should be set to percentage I believe. Text size can be adjusted then by the browser viewer controls. My understanding is you set it to fixed pixels when you want it to stay within a discrete window. Problem with setting it to pixels is that the amount of screen overhead varies from computer to computer, so you would have to set somewhere under the screen of the smallest user. This might be a no win - How many guys here are using BIG monitors (maybe quite a few, which makes percentage resizing a problematic). I can email the mods of a couple of other forums I use frequently to see what they do. I know if you get it right it behaves for most normal screen sizes. As it is, its not intolerable.

Something else I've noticed - if you go to the advanced mode reply editor, the screen width is a gazillion pixels - took me a while to find the post button :)

Oren Grad
13-May-2006, 13:42
Just ran into a screen-width bug myself - tried to send an email message to another member, but couldn't find the "send" button - until I noticed the scroll bar at the bottom of the screen, and scrolled way over through acres of empty real estate to find it.

FWIW, my display is set for 1280x1024.

Tom Westbrook
13-May-2006, 13:50
I suppose we could just create another 'skin' with the percentage option and let users choose the one they want--it's not that hard to do, but would take me a couple days to create.

Tom Westbrook
13-May-2006, 13:55
Just ran into a screen-width bug myself

Yeah, I fat-fingered one f the settings while investigating the width issue--it got set to 7400 pixels! It's all better now.

Bruce Watson
13-May-2006, 14:35
It seems to be mighty quick to log you out. If you spend just a few minutes writing a post, you find yourself having to log in again. Just an observation. I'm sure y'all are going to be tuning things for a while ;-)

Tom Westbrook
13-May-2006, 15:14
I think it's set for 300 seconds, which is a bit short. I'll increase the timeout.

Capocheny
14-May-2006, 19:19
Greetings Tom, Ralph,

What a tremendous amount of work and effort it must have taken to transition from the old edition into this new, sleek, sexy version!

Congratulations on a very successful outcome. IMHO, it's terrific and genuinely reflects the dedication of all the folks involved.

Thank you!

Cheers

Leigh Perry
15-May-2006, 01:14
Tom, can the RSS engine support notification of new messages within existing threads, as it used to in the old site? Currently it seems to only advise of creation of new threads, like photo.net does.

Tom Westbrook
15-May-2006, 05:43
Leigh, I can look into it, but I can't guarantee I can fix it, depending on what the internals are.

Leigh Perry
15-May-2006, 06:02
Tom, thanks for all your hard work. A busy time for you, no doubt :-)

Leigh Perry
17-May-2006, 19:53
Tom, RSS seems now to be advising per-message. Thanks.

A small nit: the <author> text is always preceded by 'example@example.com', for instance 'example@example.com (Kerry L. Thalmann)'. Can this be inhibited? Thanks.

Leigh Perry
17-May-2006, 19:56
I've also just noticed that the <author> is always the thread creator, not the poster.

Tom Westbrook
18-May-2006, 03:43
Funny you should mention the RSS stuff. Been working on changing it back to what it used to do in the old forum. More on that today sometime.

The "example@example.com" is to conform to standard. I asked the vBulletin people about it a while ago. The standard says an email is necessary, but in the age of spam, they just put in a bogus one. Yeah, pedantic, I know, but they have to more concerned about that kind of thing (though in this case I doubt anyone would care if they strayed a bit).

Leigh Perry
18-May-2006, 06:09
Thanks for all your hard work. Here's hoping time for some photography returns for you soon... :-)

Mick Noordewier
21-May-2006, 20:33
Ok, I'm also "thrilled" with the new software/format/etc....

HOWEVER!!!!!!

I can't use it! The beauty of the old site was the ability to search through years of posts and find Frank, Kerry, Steve and Henry's gems. The current search function seems to confuse me (lots of things confuse me, of course). I have been starting from the search on the original home page, then looking at google's cached pages to view the original thread.

Does the new search function allow the same keyword versatility as before? (conjunctive keywords, disjunctions in parentheses, excluded words with "-", etc.)

Am I hopelessly incompetent? Maybe it's like learning a new editor. When I moved from vi to emacs years ago it cost me weeks of productivity...

Mick

Ralph Barker
21-May-2006, 21:55
Mick - if you're using the Google search from the lf.info home page, I think you'll encounter snags. Those results will likely refer to the URLs in the old forum, which no longer exists.

Try the Search item in the blue menu bar, or the advanced search in that pop-up.

QT Luong
21-May-2006, 22:09
I have been starting from the search on the original home page, then looking at google's cached pages to view the original thread.

Does the new search function allow the same keyword versatility as before? (conjunctive keywords, disjunctions in parentheses, excluded words with "-", etc.)



The "old search function" was Google, no more no less. The forum pages have moved, and Google hasn't reindexed the site yet. When they are done doing so (probably in a month), you will be able to use the old search function again.

lee\c
22-May-2006, 05:03
Guys,

I have a question. I seem to have signed up twice. I would like to remove one of the names seen in the members list. How do I do that or do you guys need to do that? Thanks,

lee\c

Tom Westbrook
22-May-2006, 05:38
Lee/c you can contact the mods to merge them, just list all your accounts and be sure the specify the one account that you want to keep--the others will be merged into it.

lee\c
22-May-2006, 11:05
pm sent Tom.

lee\c

Sirius Glass
21-Aug-2010, 06:04
Feels a lot like the APUG forum. Same software?

Yes, although we're likely on different versions.

Now that APUG rehosted to stop spammers, to prevent hacking and to add new features, can we expect Large Format Photography to rehost soon? :confused:

Steve

Wade D
25-Aug-2010, 21:32
New software and upgrades are a fact of life with computers as I'm sure you know.
However upgrading a site of this size is a major project and will cost a lot of money.
I've been on here for a few years now and it seems fine to me. The moderators do a great job of keeping it clean and civil.:)

jp
26-Aug-2010, 07:30
My work involves, among other things, managing a room full of Internet servers.

I suspect APUG had to redo their software for security and maintenance reasons. The fancier and popular content management and bulletin board systems come with constant security patching due to their complexity. The back end software (like databases and software tools and libraries) can also be complex and require updating for various security reasons as well. Typically, it's all a big disparate patchwork of software from all over the world cobbled together.

If the software here is working fine and not facing any big security risk in the manner which it is deployed, I see no good reason to upgrade.

Bruce Watson
26-Aug-2010, 11:16
We're reopening this four year old thread... why?

Sirius Glass
26-Aug-2010, 18:08
Now that APUG rehosted to stop spammers, to prevent hacking and to add new features, can we expect Large Format Photography to rehost soon? :confused:

Steve

Since APUG recently rehosted, I have not seen any great improvement in my photographic skills. Please advise! :eek:

Steve

cdholden
26-Aug-2010, 20:56
Steve,
APUG and this forum are two unrelated web sites.
If you want to improve your photography skills, you'll need to buy some of the Ansel gear that's going around. Everyone knows that silver bullet will make your vision admired by all. See the classified section after you've been a member for 30 days.
Chris

Sirius Glass
28-Aug-2010, 19:08
Chris,

It was a joke. How would rehosting a website improve someone's photography?

Paul Kierstead
28-Aug-2010, 19:39
Steve, you really should be checking out the classified section for the Ansel gear.

Sirius Glass
29-Aug-2010, 15:16
Steve, you really should be checking out the classified section for the Ansel gear.

Oh, I thought I was supposed to by the Ansel negatives! :eek: Thanks for setting me straight!

dwross
29-Sep-2010, 06:38
Since APUG recently rehosted, I have not seen any great improvement in my photographic skills. Please advise! :eek:

Steve

A member for only a month and 90 posts? Well, I'm sure everyone else's photographic skills have been improved by your postings.

D. Bryant
29-Sep-2010, 08:18
A member for only a month and 90 posts? Well, I'm sure everyone else's photographic skills have been improved by your postings.

Ah - No.