Haven't been here for a while

[Bart Leetch]

Sometimes changes are NOT improvements.

[Clifford Mescher]

Sometimes changes are NOT improvements.
I liked the old format better, but that may be because I usually resist change. Time will tell.

[Tim Morton]

i usually love change...but i liked the old format better too....this GUI just seems to sterile.

[Bart Leetch]

There is an old saying "It it works don't try to fix it."

[Brian Elfert]

My understanding is that Sawmill Creek management choose to keep the default theme in the new version of vBulletin which is different than the old default theme. You have to upgrade things at some point and the new version may be easier on the administrators.

I did see a post from Keith saying the colors may change.

[Bruce Page]

Gee Bart, it's good to see you too.
Aaron is in the process of fine tuning the new software but give it some time. I think you will like the change!

[Jim Koepke]

It seems that every time my mind settles on the changes, someone else will decide it is time to change it all again.

It is kind of like pining for DOS in a world of Chrome.

jtk

[Keith Outten]

Bart,

Maybe you could take a few minutes to look at what has been done here before you judge our upgrade based on colors and a few icon changes. Every aspect of the vBulletin software has been changed and there are a host of new features. There are also major changes you can't see that provide a framework for services that keep things rolling along and provide the support for new features to come.

We are considering a change to the colors here but it ain't about a paint job and you can bet we would not have invested money and precious time to install this particular upgrade if it was just a new paint job. Shortly Aaron will bring the new publishing side of SawMill Creek online and a new main page we hope will make more features easy for people to access. We can embed videos now and there is a new attachment upload feature that allows people to select graphics that they have already uploaded so they can use them again. I could go on and on but that would probably be pointless.

Is anyone out there still running Windows 3.1 with trumpet winsock, no I guess not :)

We have to keep up with the changing times..........
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[Bart Leetch]

Keith

One of the problems I've run into is I sometimes need to CRL+ to make the print big enough to read in whats new & I lose 1/2 of the height of the print. I'm using a notebook so the monitor isn't huge.

[Todd Willhoit]

Keith,
I've been a member of the forum for quite a while. I may not post much, but I view posts nearly every day, and I spread the word with woodworker friends. As many have said through the years, this is a wonderful community, with value beyond that which is seen.

I've made a few comments below. Observations from a regular guy. Food for thought maybe - although I am sure your cup runneth over. All due respect is intended.



Maybe you could take a few minutes to look...before you judge our upgrade based on colors and a few icon changes.


Quite a fair statement. Maybe you can tell by his login date/time how many minutes Bart has spent looking around. I can't. Maybe he looked around for an hour. Maybe he became frustrated. I doubt he can look "under the hood" to see the administrative improvements, and aside from the short list of unreleased features, the main thing anyone has to look at is "colors and a few icon changes".



Every aspect of the vBulletin software has been changed and there are a host of new features. There are also major changes you can't see that provide a framework for services that keep things rolling along and provide the support for new features to come.


We'll all have to take you for granted on that one. We don't see the software. Aside from the interest a few of the web or programmer types would have, the vast majority of the community just "want it to work". We all see and use the GUI. Any features, old or new, are accessed through the GUI.



...it ain't about a paint job...


I don't for a moment believe that anyone here has that perception.



...new publishing side...new main page...more features easy for people to access. We can embed videos now and there is a new attachment upload feature that allows people to select graphics that they have already uploaded so they can use them again.


New features are great, and I am sure they will be of great value in the long term. It is also great if the old features, like scanning posts, remain easy for people to use. My first thought with the new color scheme/layout was, "I'm glad I am not color blind." Sure enough, a few days later a thread addresses that very issue. The old columnar layout of the main page was much easier to scan than the new version. Huge envelope icons consuming screen real estate don't add value in my view...especially when they all look the same at first glance. Hot Threads are not of particular value either, if the topic isn't of interest to the reader. What would be of great value to all is the implementation of some code prohibit links to photo sharing sites so that we don't have to look at red Xs and posts without pictures.

We all understand that, with any software product, you get what the vendor gives you, and one thing that I know from my experience with product development, is that sometimes what the designer thinks is a great idea is not useful to the end user. At least with this product, you have the ability to customize it to suit your needs. Another advantage is that a product designer has had weeks, months, or years to develop whatever it is that they toss over the fence to the customer to use. You are getting beta test feedback on the new software.

As Bart so eloquently summarized, "Sometimes changes are NOT improvements." He didn't state ALL changes are NOT improvements.



I could go on and on but that would probably be pointless. We have to keep up with the changing times..........

Well, you could give the community the benefit of the doubt. They are still here posting and not running off to another site, and they are offering opinions about the one feature that everyone here uses: the GUI. As far as changing times goes, paper and ink have been around for thousands of years. Yet, one thing has held constant; black ink on white paper make for a good combination.

Viva la Creek!

Respectfully,
Todd

[Bill Edwards(2)]

Website hosting companies try very hard to stay current with various support
features. For example the latest operating version of PHP or SQL, etc.
The big issue with PC/Mac?internet based operating software's is they do not
always maintain backward compatibility. In other words if it was written for
version 3 it may not run well or not run at all in version 4. vBulletin tries to
stay current in that regard. So if you have a website using an older version
of a software like vBulletin and as busy as SMC you'll find your hoster quick
to blame you for all of their woes, because you have not kept current.
Now I personally think changing the design and function of a popular product
in the name of “New and improved” is foolish. (Again, in my opinion).
I find it hard to believe that other users of the previous version's “style”
haven't written something similar for the new version. Being resistant to
change is common human characteristic.

:confused::confused::confused:

[Matt Meiser]

All the look and feel things people keep...um..complaining, yeah, lets go with that word...about are out of the box formatting provided by the software vendor. Go take a look at vBulletin's own forum at http://www.vbulletin.com/forum/forum.php. It looks exactly the same At some point SMC was going to have to go to the new version. Yes Aaron has the ability to customize it but there are a lot of other more important things to do. As soon as he does 20 people are going to...complain...about the those changes. People are...complaining...about other features Aaron has yet to have tiem to port over like the Google search, FOC (which I see he got working over the weekend), new posts filte etc. Keith posted that he has to work on the advertising system which is of critical importance to pay the bills. All of this is detailed in the support forum.


Is anyone out there still running Windows 3.1 with trumpet winsock, no I guess not :)

Actually I am and the forum isn't formatting right in Mosaic. I demand you fix it for me right now. :)

[Jim Becker]

Website hosting companies try very hard to stay current with various support features. For example the latest operating version of PHP or SQL, etc...{snip}...So if you have a website using an older version of a software like vBulletin and as busy as SMC you'll find your hoster quick to blame you for all of their woes, because you have not kept current..

Bill, FYI, SMC is running on private servers owned by Keith and housed at his physical location, so there is no issue with dealing with any kind of hosting service in this case. Outside of that, it's absolutely true that staying current is expected by many hosting services.

[Todd Willhoit]

All the look and feel things people keep...um..complaining, yeah, lets go with that word...
I'll play the devil's advocate again. If commenting about the forum readablilty based on one's color blindness or other visual issues is...um...compalining...then there must be quite a few "complainers" who's lives are made far too easy through the Americans with Disabilities Act. It might be useful to read the other threads and consider the "complaints" from the perspective of the other person.

Our society is aging. Our membership is aging.

We have 60% percent more active users and 75% of the post count compared to the vBulletin forum. I have no data, but I suspect their membership is, on average, two decades younger...and they don't like the style either.

http://www.vbulletin.com/forum/showthread.php?329876-vB-4-looks-ugly/page2

[Matt Meiser]

And Keith over and over and over has said they'll get to it. One only needs to take a quick look in the support forum to see that. Or suggestions on how to temporarily work around it. The new software has been here just over a week. There's higher priority issues with non-working functionality. Traffic here obviously isn't hurting because of the color scheme.

[Bill Edwards(2)]

Bill, FYI, SMC is running on private servers owned by Keith and housed at his physical location, so there is no issue with dealing with any kind of hosting service in this case. Outside of that, it's absolutely true that staying current is expected by many hosting services.

OK! So much for my self justification to tolerate the changes.

http://www.unclebill.us/bigs/dubious.gif

[Keith Outten]

Bill,

In the early years when we told people that we were running our own server many chastised us because it was the most expensive route and there was very cheap web hosting available. Part of the reason we started out with our own server was that we knew we had to be able to maintain all of the support software to keep vBulletin operating. Another reason was that we knew that database access was expensive and as we grew it would not be cost effective for us to host with a commercial company. In spite of the beating we took in those days we held our ground and it is paying off now that we are the largest woodworking forum on the Net.

BTW it took Aaron over a month to setup the new server and install/configure all of support software before we moved SawMill Creek and did the vBulletin upgrade. Aaron spent a lot of time setting up the new mail server, this was a task that few will ever know how much effort is involved.

[Keith Outten]

Concerning the color scheme here we will try to find an alternative that fits our needs ASAP. The list of things that have to done right away have been so long we had to come up with a priority list and stick to it. Aaron has had to rework all of his programming to make everything work, this is a daunting task given the scope of work that must be done....all because the underlying vBulletin programming has changed. Additionally all of the templates and how they function changed which meant features like Aaron's custom New Posts search has to be revised, the Friends of The Creek Directory and a whole list of other projects had to be revised which added up to more work than Aaron has had time to accomplish in one week.

Most of his work, although it has been on foundation projects the majority will never see, involved areas that support our advertisers such as the banner rotation system and its upload menu. These are important even though they don't involve Forum threads and woodworking posts. The Friends of the Creek Directory still needs some work and although Aaron has been working on his list as much as possible there is still a long way to go. I hope that Aaron will be able to find some time during the Christmas break to get some of the other major tasks finished so he can spend some time on the front side of The Creek.

There have been several threads started concerning various issues that involve recent changes here. What many don't see is that we have been receiving a lot of Private Messages and email as well. At 59 years old my eyes aren't what they used to be so i can appreciate the severity of the problem for some here but we are trying our best to get everything functioning before we start making improvements.

We've been though this before, the seas will subside in time and all will be well again :)

A personal note:
Aaron had a deadline he had to make this week on a paper for his Doctorate.
I had two teeth pulled last Wednesday and I am still under the weather.
My Private Message Box is full with 400 messages so i have more work to do this evening.
.

[Keith Outten]

One more topic.....upgrades.

All of you have seen web sites that look terrible and lack new functions you have come to expect. This is what happens when you stand still.

Recently Aaron converted the ShopBot Forum from older software to vBulletin. The members of the ShopBot Community complained for three years about the old software they were running, ShopBot wanted to upgrade but the conversion became a monumental task when you started considering what had to be done. Things like converting all of the data, then the pictures and last but not least saving all of the search engine links. The costs involved are commensurate with the level of expertise one must have to accomplish such a task. As a member of the ShopBot Forum I saw many people offer to convert their web site...not one of them was able to get it done in three years.

There is a growing number of people here who want cell phone access to The Creek, they have been asking me for months about adding the capability. Aaron refused to install mobile device software because of security issues that involve our server and vBulletin. Now there is a native vBulletin version 4 app for mobile access that we will install soon. Note that vBulletin will be responsible for the security issues and will take them into account in future upgrades.

This is our time to work for you......give us some time and we will get it done.
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