Refreshing the look of NewBuddhist in 2019
Linc
Site ownerDetroit Moderator
Last year you may have noticed I made a new logo for NewBuddhist but never did anything with it. Things continue to move slowly but surely toward updating the site.
Currently, I'm working on rebuilding our humble server from scratch on a much less expensive service. I'm taking the opportunity to update quite a few things about how it works and performing much overdue maintenance to how I upgrade our software on it, so it's taking many full days of work. A member of our sister site, Icrontic, has been pitching in as well.
Sometime in the next few weeks, I expect we'll have some brief downtime as I do the final migration of the sites. I'll post an announcement beforehand with details. There won't be any changes or data loss.
Shortly thereafter, I'll be upgrading Vanilla (we're a year behind) which will bring some new features. I'll write more about those too as they launch, but the biggest thing will be an easier-to-use text editor.
Finally, not long after all that, I'll be updating the design of the site. It will be fairly dramatic, but you'll very much recognize it as NewBuddhist. We'll swap to the new logo and have a much fresher layout, but the general color scheme will remain the same. The mobile experience will also be made consistent with the non-mobile site so it won't feel like 2 different sites depending on where you browse from.
In general, the software will still work the same. It'll just look a lot nicer. 
Comments
@Linc haz plan ...
It sounds like some drastic renewal under the hood and on the surface both...
And this illustrates exactly what re-birth is all about.
Same, but different. And hopefully, an improvement too.
(Btw, that logo is masterful. Can't wait to see it "in action".) This is going to look Ay-Mayzing!! Thanks. @Linc, for everything you do.
@Linc -- As always, thanks for your efforts. Without you, I'd be sunk.
I do hope that whatever improvements you make, they will not make life too complex for computer-doofuses like me. These days, at my age, "improvement" is too often a code word for unusable.
Seriously, many thanks.
Our goal with the new text editor was to make it easier to use for everyone, including folks with sight and mobility impairments, and we spent many months rebuilding it from scratch to accomplish that. I’m hopeful it’ll be a positive experience.
You rock @Linc
??????❤️❤️❤️
Thank you for your dedication, Ling. Happy New Year!
P.S. As long as you're working on an overhaul of sorts, I'd like to put in a plug for the return of the old emojis, if I may. They were cool.
IMO this is the friendliest Buddhist forum I have ever had the pleasure of participating in. Keep up the good work.
I'm tentatively slating this step for next Sunday, Jan 20.
@Linc one thing that occurs to me that would be really worthwhile is a way to rate threads in the search results. The only way right now to see if a thread is going to have good content is to see how many pages of replies there are, which gives some indication of the amount of interest/controversy a thread had.
But perhaps it might be possible to use the number of insightful’s, awesome’s and lol’s on a thread to construct some kind of metric to identify the more interesting threads? If there are even a couple of posts with 5+ insightfuls it is often a good thread to read, or if there is an average of 3 awesome’s per post it could also indicate a consist high quality.
That is a good idea.
It's a bit beyond the scope of something I can do for 1 site (that's more a product-level feature idea) but I'll suggest it internally.
I believe we do take the discussion score into account already, which adds up reactions for a number. That informs the order of search results, along with other factors. We don't currently display information about that, however.
Is the site shutting down today?
No idea... I'm sure @Linc will give ample warning....
No. First, I've had to delay a day. Second, it should take less than an hour when it does go down.
Thank you @Linc . Wow , less than an hour! That's super efficient! ?
@Linc? Efficient? Doesn't cover it. You haven't seen him play 'Battleships'...
Remind me never to engage @linc in battleships.
Has this happened now? The site looks pretty much the same...
No, @Linc will give ample and advance notification.
You'll know it when it happens, the site will look different.
Sorry about that, folks. I had an extremely frustrating weekend last week that resulted in a stalemate. Basically I spent 2 days wrestling with server configurations, which while ultimately successful, ate all my allotted time for the actual migration. I will try again Feb 10.
Sorry to hear that, @Linc. Best of luck, and fingers crossed . Thank you.
NOTHING
In the beginning there was nothing and God said "Let there be light," and there was still nothing but everybody thought for sure that they could see and feel something.
Good luck @Linc
May all servers be servile
Moved back one more week. I swear I'm getting closer.
Yes, @Linc, like looking through the wrong end of a telescope: The farther away it seems, the nearer it really is.....
@Linc, how's things...?
Things are a little rough.
I hit a series of weekends where I was busy, which broke my momentum. Trying to get back to it.
@Linc remember the old saying:
"Nobody ever lay on their bed, dying, and said 'Gee, I wish I'd spent more time in the office!' "
I believe that is NT1
Enjoy your weekend
Did it!
Doesn't feel much different yet, but it's whole new world underneath the forum.
Congrats. I did notice the downtime.
What has actually changed then, at least on my mobile phone it appears much the same?
Visually, nothing yet. We moved from an old server I couldn't update to one I freshly built with a friend over the winter. Now I can actually upgrade our forum software, and then our theme.
The one little thing you might notice: The site is secure now, only accessible under HTTPS.
I do believe the site got much faster, too.
Bravo @Linc
A lotus blooms because of the mud. Everything is in the root/routes ...
Secure! Yay!!
Why am I picturing you in a hard hat, with cement, bricks and a trowel?
(See how hip and up-to-date I am? Why you have a dinosaur overseeing your site is beyond me, sometimes...!)
Thanks @Linc! Not sure if it’s related but I can’t post photos on the site anymore? Anyone else having the same issue?
let's see...
It seems to work if I take a general image found via google and post the URL, but selecting an image from a personal file...? Nope. Me neither...
Yeah, file attachments are broken. It's been noted and I'll try to sort it out soon.
Thanks @Linc
I was going to send a post as we were unaware of the server updates ...
'liar, liar, pants on fire'
However everything is in the preparation. Many thanks @Link, looking forward to the 'easy bit'
... looking nicer. Good luck with that and many thanks 🙏🏽
Hi @Linc - could not login from my ipaid - cleared cookies - still no.
Using Palemoon on my Puppy Linux - and I am in
Just so you know
Update ... Ipaid IOS now working for NewBuddhist
When I sign in, it doesn't show that I have, but when I click on a thread, them I can see that I'm actually signed in...
deleted. My sign in is working.
Forum members should also know that this issue affects profile avatar pictures too.
@Linc Thanks for the Https encryption. I feel a bit safer using the site now.
'Best of'
is empty
Profound ... but empty
Update 'best of' is back again ...
Emptiness really is forming again ... and vice reversa