Site Updates

Swoosh · July 13, 2017, 12:17:42 PM

There's a reason I made the decision to move to a blog format with MiG. The "needs" of people have changed since we first started out. People want info now without much fluff. I'm sure it'll change again in a few years. I just know that there's a reason a lot of the other sites closed shop and that's because they refused to change with the times. TBQH I'm surprised TPR is still going with its antiquated format.

joshblakebran · July 14, 2017, 05:12:32 PM

I was more referring to the forums...but it is a great site and I'll love it regardless so if it would require a lot of time to do please disregard my request.

Swoosh · July 25, 2017, 10:11:27 PM

Steve is there a way to make it more obvious when we have private messages? I had one from this past weekend that I just happened to catch tonight but as is - it's easy to miss unless you're looking for it

shavethewhales · July 25, 2017, 10:28:00 PM

I will see if I can add a badge or something if you have new messages. Hopefully I'll have some time to work on this stuff over the weekend.

Junior, too! · October 18, 2017, 09:39:03 AM

Hello to all the SDCFans...this is Junior, Too...our site director/administrator has allowed me to post away on The SDCFans FB site, so be looking for many old pictures and memories. I have also promoted the FB page on several other pages I contribute to. Hopefully it will draw new people here. Your input is needed, too...so post on the FB page, too...PLEASE. Thanks and God bless!

shavethewhales · January 02, 2018, 06:19:31 PM

With a new year comes a new push from me to refresh and improve this website. It's been a challenge for the past several years to keep the site relevant and useful as other mediums like Facebook take over and I find myself with less time and other priorities. I've been debating with myself for a long time about what to do to make the site "work" in the current era where small sites are going extinct and most people are moving over to just Facebook and Youtube to share and manage content, and I think I'm ready to push forward with some new things.

I'm going to re-organize the site so that there are three sections: the forum, a functional wiki, and a photo sharing plugin. The blog will be discontinued since I hardly ever get around to updating it. We'll probably have a section in the wiki area for important updates, and of course we'll share announcements and news on Facebook and in the forums as always.

Junior's posts on Facebook with all the historical photos has shown where a site like this can still be useful. All those great photos get lost in the void after a few months and it's hard to search for them as they get deeper in the pile. One of the main features we've been missing here is a good way for people like Junior to archive and display photos and nostalgia like that in a way that is easily browse-able. I've tried to tackle this before in a few different ways including writing my own scripts and using some of the features of this forum, but now I'm willing to just fork over some cash and buy something a little more professional and turn-key. Something like this plugin: https://codecanyon.net/item/user-gallery-wordpress-plugin/16122370?s_rank=3
Or something similar, I haven't finalized my choice just yet.

The current SDC "Wiki" hasn't been an actual wiki in a long time, but I'm planning on finding and customizing a plugin for that as well. It also started off as something I tried to code myself and tie into the forum features. Some of the content is very old and was originally written when I was in early high school, but I doubt anyone reads it much anyway. Some fresh content curated by more knowledgeable SDC veterans would make it relevant again.

Finally there's the forum, which has always held it's own pretty well. After 10+ years, a hosting transfer, and an "upgrade" to a completely new version of the software it is showing it's age in some funny ways with odd errors here and there, but there's not a lot I can do about most of that except install a fresh copy. I'd rather keep our ten years of forum archives around, so I plan to put up with it as long as we can. I will get around to taking another pass at smoothing over the look and feel of the forums though. Still need to add that new messages badge as well.

Hopefully all this will result in the site being cleaner, more relevant, and more usable so that more people venture off of Facebook and take part. If anyone has any ideas or knows any good plugins let me know. I'm going to try to get this stuff setup over the next couple weeks before I get distracted again.

Gilligan · January 02, 2018, 09:17:14 PM

Shave, you've put a tremendous amount of time and thought into keeping this alive. Thanks for all your efforts!

KBCraig · January 05, 2018, 09:56:09 PM

I like SMF, but I'm kind of old-fashioned about forums. I do not like vBulletin, especially from an admin's perspective. I also don't care much for it from a user's perspective, especially if the owner sets up too much bling.

I don't know which way you'll go, but thank you for this place. It's nice to have something that is archived, instead of forgotten in 30 seconds like FB groups.

sirwillow · January 06, 2018, 08:56:36 AM

Shave- really appreciate all the work you do on the site. Love the mix of "new, modern" formats while keeping things like the forums around. And it looks great. Especially compared to some of the other sites that are out there. You do a great job.

shavethewhales · January 14, 2018, 08:55:50 PM

Home page should redirect to the forums at the moment until I get things switched over. Got the new photo system - should be a lot of fun.

I can't find a good plugin for a wiki system of the type I've been wanting... I'm not sure what we'll do for that. I might end up writing something simple for it that would basically just email me with people's edits. It would be more work on my end, but I doubt it will be a highly used feature anyway.

shavethewhales · January 25, 2018, 08:27:53 PM

I'm about ready to push the new home page changes live. It's basically just a bunch of feeds now, but it will be a good landing page if you want to stay on top of SDC news from our FB page, the forums, SDC's Twitter, and even Branson Tri-Lakes News. Plus there's the new photo sharing feature.

I'll probably need some feedback this weekend, particularly to see how difficult it is to log into the photo feature. It's not connected to the forums, so you'll have to make a separate little account to use it.

Also, I went ahead and finally tweaked the colors on the forums. Notice that the reds aren't quite as bold anymore?

shavethewhales · January 28, 2018, 08:24:56 PM

Home page changes are live. Photo sharing seems to work OK. I do have to manually approve each individual photo before it shows up though.

Unfortunately photos have to be a minimum of 350px each way to be uploaded. I'm still working on adjusting that, because they didn't make that into an easy setting to adjust.

shavethewhales · February 03, 2018, 12:24:23 AM

So after a bit of hacking around, I finally figured out how to display a bigger message to notice people of new messages in their PM inbox. It should display a big "You have new messages!" link below the date in the upper right hand corner.

Only took me like six months.

sanddunerider · February 11, 2018, 02:43:26 PM

Quote from: shavethewhales on February 03, 2018, 12:24:23 AM
So after a bit of hacking around, I finally figured out how to display a bigger message to notice people of new messages in their PM inbox. It should display a big "You have new messages!" link below the date in the upper right hand corner.

Only took me like six months.

WORKS great!! had a new message and I knew it the minute I opened the site.... GOOD JOB!!!

LOL. Oh yes, the rest of it all looks good too

THANKS!!!!