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phpBB updated

Posted: Sun Mar 11, 2018 5:37 pm
by Thomas
I just updated the forum software to the latest version.

Re: phpBB updated

Posted: Sun Mar 11, 2018 9:59 pm
by Alexias
Thanks very much! Still working on the main site!

Re: phpBB updated

Posted: Sun Mar 11, 2018 10:11 pm
by Alexias
Please be aware that the upgrade appears to mean that you can now contact other members directly via the email address they have used to register with the forum. If you do not want people contacting you via the email address you have used, you may wish to consider creating a new email address and changing your pothos login. At the moment, I cannot see a way to turn this facility off if you do not wish to use it.

Re: phpBB updated

Posted: Sun Mar 11, 2018 10:48 pm
by Thomas
Alexias wrote:Please be aware that the upgrade appears to mean that you can now contact other members directly via the email address they have used to register with the forum. If you do not want people contacting you via the email address you have used, you may wish to consider creating a new email address and changing your pothos login. At the moment, I cannot see a way to turn this facility off if you do not wish to use it.
It may be you see more because of your heightened access rights. Probably worth seeing if others have access?

Aymez loyaulté


Re: phpBB updated

Posted: Mon Mar 12, 2018 2:37 pm
by sikander
Greetings Thomas and Alexias,

I have to admit I am not certain how to test of everyone has access to membership emails. Does the yes/no setting on the global email setting still determine who can/cannot post to a person via their email setting?

Regards,
Sikander

Re: phpBB updated

Posted: Mon Mar 12, 2018 8:46 pm
by Alexias
It may be you see more because of your heightened access rights. Probably worth seeing if others have access?
Yes, I think it is just me. I created a test user and it didn't seem to be showing the email addresses. Everyone probably does not need to worry therefore.

Sikander, I am unsure if you will be able to see the email addresses as well or not. On the right hand side of the screen where the author of each post is shown, there is 'Contact:' with a speech bubble beside it. If you click on this, a standard user can see a dark box, which if you hover over it says 'send private message'. A standard user does not see an envelope as well as this dark box, which if you hover over it says 'send email' (although I can). As a moderator, can you see this as well?

If a user has filled out the web address on their profile, anyone, whether logged in or not, will see a blue globe if they click on the Contact speech bubble and will be able to click on this to follow the link.

Emails/Alexias and Main Site/Thomas

Posted: Tue Mar 13, 2018 2:49 am
by sikander
Greetings,

Alexias, as a moderator, I still see only the dark box, so I assume only you and Thomas can see emails.

Thomas, is the site update still going to allow us to post articles on the main pages outside the Forum?

Regards,
Sikander

Re: Emails/Alexias and Main Site/Thomas

Posted: Tue Mar 13, 2018 7:11 am
by Thomas
sikander wrote:Greetings,

Alexias, as a moderator, I still see only the dark box, so I assume only you and Thomas can see emails.

Thomas, is the site update still going to allow us to post articles on the main pages outside the Forum?

Regards,
Sikander
I think that would be the "Pages" add-on which I have not added.



Aymez loyaulté


Re: phpBB updated

Posted: Thu Jun 13, 2019 11:22 am
by sean_m
Thanks Thomas. Keeping all of these threads available is important, there are some good discussions and people put in a lot of work.

Re: phpBB updated

Posted: Thu Jun 13, 2019 11:58 am
by Thomas
All of the forum is where the threads are I think.

The "Fixed" content of the site https://www.pothos.org/ is flat HTML that I harvested from a very out of date CMS that was full of security holes.

If you wanted the ability to make fixed pages again then it might be possible to do it with phpbb "Pages" add in, but it is pretty limited and only really for very small sites. I genuinely am not sure if we need "fixed" content - the original content predated Wikipedia (and was editable by volunteers through a web browser) and the internet was in its infancy. Now there is so much stuff out there! But if we did I could install the pages add-on but it would need volunteers to copy and paste stuff across. Setting up the navigation between pages would be painful.
OR
I could install a WordPress instance and you could have a really killer site with all the functionality you wanted - but it does need people to commit to maintaining the content. I could keep WordPress up to date.

It is now 25 years since I first set up the Pothos site (I think it was wallop.demon.co.uk/alexander/ before becoming pothos.co.uk before moving to pothos.org years later. I can't remember the reasons for that change at all). It is amazing that the site continues. I just maintain software. I truly set up the first site because at that stage in my life (single, travelling a lot) I was reading about Alexander having realised I was entirely ignorant of him. I just wanted a topic for my experiments with HTML. :lol: Now I am 51 years old and my first born is travelling the World in her gap year. I am still happy to keep the software going but rely on everyone else for the content. My main interests now are cycling and my podcast (The Physics Teaching Podcast).

BTW I updated the forum software today - shiny new - let me know if anything is broken. :)

Re: phpBB updated

Posted: Thu Jun 13, 2019 5:31 pm
by derek
Thomas.

Thank you for maintaining the site. Yes, it's a lot quieter than it used to be, but it jumps into life now and then. I still regard it as the "authorative" Alexander website, and my lunchtime routine sees me checking to see if there's any new posts most days.

Thanks again,
Derek

Re: phpBB updated

Posted: Thu Jun 13, 2019 8:44 pm
by Alexias
Thanks for updating the site, Thomas.

I owe a huge apology to everyone for not completing the 'new' website. Work and life in general kept getting in the way. That, and trying to update and expand the content. Plus, I wasn't happy with the layout I had set up - it just didn't look professional enough. My aim was to try provide a resource where people could look things up. Maybe that was too ambitious. Plus there seemed less point as fewer people were contributing. I had thought that once the main site was updated, a bit of advertising on Facebook, Instagram etc might kick the forum into life.

The Wordpress idea sounds a good idea and I could upload the content I have completed. My only concern about Wordpress is the navigation as it seems to be mostly blog based and sequential rather than a hub-based content. I think there is also a 3GB limit on free Wordpress sites. Any thoughts?

Re: phpBB updated

Posted: Thu Jun 13, 2019 10:36 pm
by sean_m
For my own site I am looking into static site generators like Hugo. They seem a way better choice than Wordpress if you don't want comments and like buttons and the ability to edit your site from the beach and all that other rubbish which creates security holes and creates the possibility of a database corruption destroying the site. Of course there is a learning curve and I may just go to plain HTML! But I think that is easier to combine with a forum at ~/forum than a Wordpress installation is.

I would not recommend that anyone use a 'free' site with Automattic unless they just want a site of their own and don't want to learn anything technical.

Re: phpBB updated

Posted: Fri Jun 14, 2019 1:23 am
by sikander
Greetings Thomas,

Just want to express appreciation for the site continuing.While it is a lot quieter, it still remains a much-accessed and often referenced site for students- and writers.

It seems (and I could be just not seeing them) that some of the original articles many of us wrote for the Pothos site are no longer visible? If they are, ignore this note, but if they have managed to disappear, I am certain some of them could be retrieved from private files. Or perhaps they are going to appear at some later date as the site is revised.

At any rate, I believe it remains an invaluable site for many and I look forward to seeing it for years to come.

Regards,
Sikander

Re: phpBB updated

Posted: Sat Jun 15, 2019 3:58 pm
by Alexias
Hi, Sikander, do you know what pages are missing?

PS it is nothing to do with what I have been doing as this is completely off line,