New design, website updates, forum and server upgrades underway

[Fuzz]

Hey guys! Hope everyone is well.

Just a heads up that I will be temporarily closing the site in the next few hours. It will be down for 12-24 hours depending on how smooth everything goes - which I will outline below… going to do A LOT of house cleaning, upgrades, etc…

I wanted to post this so some of you could catch it before the password protection pop-up starts showing up and you weren’t like WTF??? I will also post something on FB and Twitter about it… as I am planning on becoming more “social” haha! Going to use those more often anyways for site news, announcements, etc… Cesar, Andro and the rest of you that help are truly awesome - honestly what has kept TFF together all these years. Hopefully these new updates will help get more activity back to the site.

Some of you may or may not have known but I have been working on a new design for TFF on-and-off for about a year now. I have neglected it for far too long so it feels good to finally knock this out! It was in dire need of improvements on MANY levels... the biggest was the site wasn't mobile responsive which is ludicrous in 2016 and it is really hurting our overall SEO on search engines, especially since almost 50% of traffic is now mobile! I always stress how important mobile friendliness is at work and to my clients, so it feels good to get TFF back up to speed in that department.



The new look isn't a HUGE design change, but a much more polished version of what we have now but of course - mobile friendly. However, I took this opportunity to do quite a few other things. Since I am a sucker for bulleted lists and for anyone interested, here we go…

• All game sections have updated graphics, information, release dates, media and the sorts... I added over 30 NEW game sections of the lesser known FFs and all of the new ones that I have neglected to add since like 2013! So this just gets us back up to speed. Games are cross-linked better to related games and I fixed tons of dead links and removed inaccurate information.
• Created seven ‘Final Fantasy Game’ indexes that sort the titles by release dates, platforms, regions, etc…
• I tried to think of ways to integrate the main site more with the forums, so a few things done there, in particular to the game sections, was adding two new buttons.
  
  • Follow Game: Clicking this will either prompt the user to register/login - or - if you are already logged in, the button will just go from disabled to enabled and remain highlighted anytime you visit that particular section again. I use jQuery in the background (so no page refresh) that basically sends a query to the forum database to ‘subscribe’ the user to that game’s associated forum. So it will show up under their ‘Settings’ on the forums and they get notified on new posts, etc… Some issues with this as there are a ton of games that ‘share’ the same forum, but I got around that by searching for a keyword in the post title/body… but something I wanted to talk over with the other admins.
  • In Collection: Clicking this will again prompt the user to register or login, otherwise it will just enable the button and silently ADD that game to your forum user profile… This also works the other way around as now there are 2 new profile fields in the forums to select which FF games you own. Again, this isn’t 100% flushed out, just something to help bridge the site/forum.
  
  
• More integration into the core forum files. Notice now you can login directly from the main site to see unread messages and other user information - which we can add to.
• All of the code has been rewritten and optimized to kingdom come - although I will continue to do that after the new site goes live as I couldn't use all of my usual web development tools and auditors on the development server.
• New monthly polls
• More visible ways for users to submit content/contribute
• Updated PHP to 5.6
• Going to upgrade to latest release of vBulletin (4.2.3), which just fixes bugs and security issues, but supposed to run fast with newer versions of PHP.
• Uninstall vbSEO plugin and getting a new plugin to help manage/improve forum visibility on search engines.
• Installing 2 new mobile themes to the forums.
• Going to clean up the dark theme, update the logo and tighten things up… same with the Light theme.

I believe that is it, or at least the bigger things. If you guys have anything you want me to look at, fix or add to the site or forums, please let me know! Now is the time!

As always, thanks to you all for keeping this place alive.
Rock on.
Fuzz

[loaf]

You rock. Let us know if you need anything. Everyone here is always happy to assist on anything, even if it's just simple feedback.

[Fuzz]

Thanks loaf.

Well, I ran into quite a few hurdles updating PHP on the server (of course)... we were using 5.3 and the latest build of vBulletin requires at least 5.4... so I had to basically reconfigure ONLY our domain (thefinalfantasy.net) to have a different PHP version than the rest of the sites on this server. I couldn't do a global PHP update because there are a ton of sites on this server and I didn't want to risk breaking anything and having clients calling my ass in the morning, haha.

Good news is I got it all figured out. We are now on PHP 5.6.24 using Zend OPCache/Memcache combo for sessions/caching - much better than what we were using. Plus I was able to get Vbulletin updated... while it was updating my Wifi went out, so I had to restart the upgrade process (again, of course).

So hard parts are done at least, just need to clean up the files I imported tonight in the morning and install the mobile themes to VB. I'll keep everyone posted May not be until mid afternoon though.

[loaf]

5.6 is just better from my experience. Surprised you can't just change the PHP versions easily with a simple change, but then again, each Control Panel and OS is different. Nonetheless, can't wait


Edit: So my recent replies. whenever I post quick reply, it is asking me to move to the Go Advanced section and then it says Duplicate post. Not sure if related to whats being changed or not. Or if it's my browser.

[Andromeda]

Since I have you for the moment Fuzz, being a hard man to tack down. One thing myself and Loco have wanted to do, but haven't done is get new reviews up on the main site when new FF games or Square related games come out. Is that going to get any easier? It still goes through you if I'm not mistaken. Or it goes through Loco, who is starting to inherit some of your traits. ;p

[LocoColt04]

One thing myself and Loco have wanted to do, but haven't done is get new reviews up on the main site when new FF games or Square related games come out. Is that going to get any easier? It still goes through you if I'm not mistaken.

Accurate! I have a bunch of stuff that I half-wrote that never ended up getting finished out because I wasn't sure if we were going to showcase them on the homepage or not. Now, that absolutely falls on me for not going ahead and publishing them on the forum regardless, but still...

And, for what it's worth, I know that others may be willing to have preview/review content showcased on the homepage as well. If we can form guidelines for doing so, would public submission be something we look into?


edit:
Since the administrator class is immune to the double post filter, I JUST encountered the exact issue loaf was talking about, except it allowed the double post for me and I had to delete it.

[Fuzz]

Annnnndddddd the main site is open again

Took much longer than I thought due to all the PHP 5.6 issues, blah.

Loaf - Well, in theory, it was as easy as selecting '5.6' for this domain in Plesk, however, since this was the first site I have actually set to use a different version of PHP it had to install some crap... then, I had to customize fast cgi wrapper to work properly with how I have TFF setup.

Andro - yeah, what Loco said is currently how it has been done, however, that is obviously NOT the most fluid way to do things, especially since all of us are busy and I am hard to track down, haha... Let me see what I can do so you guys can easily submit reviews to the site without me having to post manually. I think maybe we can do something similar to what we are doing for tagging news in the forums - but with a new icon? I'll get back to you soon because new reviews, articles, etc are exactly what TFF needs!!!!

I'll check out this double posting/quick reply bug... sounds like something that obviously started happening since we upgraded to 4.2.3 - thanks for reporting. If you catch anything else (on the forums or main site) please let me know!

Edit: Ok, I just ussed the Quick Reply and everything seemed OK for me... so did you guys literally just hit the 'Post Quick Reply' button and it forwarded you to the 'Go Advanced' page? I'll check the VB support site and see if others have ran into the same thing.

[LocoColt04]

Edit: Ok, I just ussed the Quick Reply and everything seemed OK for me... so did you guys literally just hit the 'Post Quick Reply' button and it forwarded you to the 'Go Advanced' page? I'll check the VB support site and see if others have ran into the same thing.

I wonder if it only happens when I use the "Reply with Quote" button.

[LocoColt04]

Edit: Ok, I just ussed the Quick Reply and everything seemed OK for me... so did you guys literally just hit the 'Post Quick Reply' button and it forwarded you to the 'Go Advanced' page? I'll check the VB support site and see if others have ran into the same thing.

I wonder if it only happens when I use the "Reply with Quote" button.

[LocoColt04]

Well, it just did it when I quoted, so let's see if it does it when I don't.

[LocoColt04]

For reference;
Windows 7 Ultimate
Google Chrome 52

[loaf]

I'll have to test it at home because each time I've posted has been at work and our browsers are out of date.

What I am doing is just using the Quick Reply at the bottom of the thread and clicking 'Post quick Reply' it then gives me the popup asking me if I want to Stay on the Page or Leave Page and then it takes me to Advanced.

With the error

Errors

The following errors occurred with your submission

• This post is a duplicate of a post that you have posted in the last five minutes.

With Loco saying he replicated, I'm not sure if it's just a browser issue or something with vBulletin or something else.

[Fuzz]

Thanks for the additional information guys. Yeah, the fact that both of you are having issues rules out the browser... What style/theme are you guys using on the forum? Dark or Crystal?

I created a test thread and did some quick replies using both themes and didn't have any issues, so not sure if it is the theme, just curious if you both are using the same one and I can dig deeper. If not, I think it is an AJAX issue... does that pop-up asking you to stay or leave come up right-away or after a few seconds?

I did do some general maintenance stuff in the backend of vBulletin to see if maybe that will help... I flushed the system cache, repaired tables and updated a few out-of-date templates... not sure if any of that could help but FYI.

[LocoColt04]

Crystal.

And I wasn't actually moving on to the Advanced page, just getting the duplicate posts.

It won't do it if I don't click the "Reply with Quote" button first, though. So it seems loaf is having a separate, similar issue.


No pop-ups on my side.

[LocoColt04]

Crystal.

And I wasn't actually moving on to the Advanced page, just getting the duplicate posts.

It won't do it if I don't click the "Reply with Quote" button first, though. So it seems loaf is having a separate, similar issue.



.......

HAHAHA INTERESTING

So I edited the first post to include the bit about pop-ups and then it created a duplicate of the original when I hit save. The duplicate is what I'm editing into now.

[loaf]

When it goes to Advanced, it's asking me to Edit the duplicate.


Edit:

woah okay so like, I clicked 'Post quick Reply' when I had this above typed out but I clicked on 'Stay on Page' and finished my actual post which had more information on the subject. I clicked 'Leave Page' and then went back here to only see the original post when I clicked 'Post Quick Reply'.

----------------

I am on Crystal. The popup is instant when clicking on 'Post Quick Reply' and it seems clicking 'Stay on Page' might post it but not actually refresh the thread? So it's not taking me to 'Go Advanced' instead it's taking me to editing the duplicate post.


Edit 2: So it saved autodrafted items which was ^ when I did this? Didn't even know that was a feature. Perhaps the autodraft feature or plugin or something?

[LocoColt04]

Which text editor are you using? I have mine set to standard. I wonder if your specific issue is caused by WYSIWYG editing?

[Fuzz]

Still good information here, thanks for sharing guys.

The Auto Save is a builtin featured of vBulletin 4.0, i can change the interval of when it saves... think it is every 30 seconds right now. I don't think that is causing the issue though... it is something that is only effecting random users and it is related to the browser and AJAX... plus I think the cache.

Try clearing cookies, restarting your computer or a different browser yet?


I'm on Win 10, Chrome 52 and using Light theme, as well... I tested all themes' quick reply and was fine... this is so weird!

Also, I just uninstalled vbSEO (and installed DBSEO) - so there is a chance that was impacting this issue, as well - since it was very old and doees effect a lot of the core VB files. So I would reset cookies, restart computer, try a different computer, etc... Let me know if you still have problems and I'll keep digging. Sorry for the inconvenience!

[loaf]

Whatever you did, fixed it.

I was able to click 'Post Quick Reply' and it posted with no popup asking to Stay or Leave Page.

Edit: I did have an Autodraft still saved and I clicked that and removed the text first, not sure if that's a thing.

I also just tried from Chrome and Mozilla and it's fixed on both.

Edit 2: I'm not sure how to trigger the auto-draft in the Quick Reply to see if perhaps it was that but I doubt it's causing that.

[Fuzz]

Whatever you did, fixed it.

Sweet! *high five*

Let's see if it works for Loco later and then we can close the book on this. Thanks for your help.

[loaf]

woot! *high five*

Glad we got that resolved.

It wasn't much of an inconvenience, but I know some people might get super annoyed at it. Hopefully Loco doesn't run into it!

Anytime!

[Yoko]

Are ads meant to be in the middle of posts?

[Fuzz]

Hmmmm, nope. I'll look at it and fix later!