New site, new forums, new… everything?

[Stephen Houser]

As Paul mentioned in another thread we have been working on moving the site to a new forum software. I wanted to start a thread to post updates and track the changes. My hope is it will all go smoothly, my expectation is, there will be troubles along the way.The change is needed as PCSWeb, our server hosting provider, is shutting down. So we need to move. Taking advantage of the need to move we looked at a few options and decided it was best to move to a modern web-publishing platform (WordPress) and new forum software (bbPress). There are lots of options and we had to choose one that we thought fit the community. It will be different. There will be changes. It’s unavoidable.We have been working in the background for the past few months to make the change as smooth as possible. The main focus of any change was to keep the forum threads and history. It has been, by far, the biggest challenge in the site migration. While we may miss some other small pieces, we will continue to have the history the forum has built.I’ll post updates to this thread as the migration proceeds. It will start happening in the next week (with any luck) and proceed quite quickly. We will have an outage between a few hours and a day. Though the new site is setup and ready to import the forum data, it takes some time and there is a fair bit of manual work that needs to be done after the automated portions complete.Thank you for your patience ahead of time! Constructive feedback and questions are quite welcome.Stephen

• This topic was modified 7 years, 8 months ago by Stephen Houser. Reason: Making this topic no longer sticky

Buxton, Maine
1982 London Roadster - "Kit Kat"

[edward ericson]

Thank you, Stephen. Seriously.

[scubasteve]

I am always impressed by folks who can work with computers and programs.
Thanks for all the work you do!

Amor Conquista Todo

[Paul Mossberg]

And that there is the man who has been doing the heavy lifting for us.

If you recall, maybe a year or so ago, I put out a call for someone who can handle web site building.

Stephen stepped up and has been doing yeoman’s work.

I thank him for that!

Paul Mossberg
Former Owner of a 1981 Classic Roadsters Ltd. Duchess (VW)
2005 Intermeccanica Roadster

If you own a TDr and are not in the Registry, please go to https://tdreplica.com/forums/topic/mg-td-replica-registry/ and register (you need to copy and paste the link)

[davearoy]

Thanks a whole lot guys for your tireless efforts. I can only imagine all of the long hours, and time consuming double checks on the forum history transfer. I know sometimes “words are just a part of a conversation” but my words of honest, sincere appreciation are my recognition, of y alls work!

It’s guys like you, that make our TDr web site, what it really is, a wealth of information sharing, and problem solving. So again “Gold Medals” for you both!!

Dave
Lakeland,Fl

Dave
Lakeland, Florida, where we drive Topless every day

[T. J. Marrone]

Thanks to you both, look forward to the changes

[Stephen Houser]

An update that there’s no update. I’m waiting for the domain name transfer to happen, which typically takes 7-10 days. Perhaps I was too hopeful it would have happened quicker. After that it will be a day or two to get my act together and start in on the weekend directly thereafter.

Buxton, Maine
1982 London Roadster - "Kit Kat"

[Stephen Houser]

The domain transfer happened overnight. “tdreplica.com” still points to the same server, it’s just who does the pointing that changed. There should be no side-effects, but, you never know. If you do see problems, try refreshing the page.

I’m backing everything up (again) just in case.stephenhouser2016-06-04 07:17:58

Buxton, Maine
1982 London Roadster - "Kit Kat"

[scubasteve]

You’ve earned a raise, another week of vacation, an extra personal day, and a corner office with your name on the door…:lol:
seriously, THANKS FOR YOUR EFFORTS!

Amor Conquista Todo

[Dbanta]

Seems to working just fine. Nice job!

In wine there is truth, in water health.

[Stephen Houser]

Step 1 done. Next will come the real work. Not sure yet if I will have time during the week or if it will have to wait for next weekend. Either way we are moving closer.

And thanks for the thanks.

Buxton, Maine
1982 London Roadster - "Kit Kat"

[Paul Mossberg]

The best is yet to come!

Wait ’til you see the new website!

Thanks Stephen!

Paul Mossberg
Former Owner of a 1981 Classic Roadsters Ltd. Duchess (VW)
2005 Intermeccanica Roadster

If you own a TDr and are not in the Registry, please go to https://tdreplica.com/forums/topic/mg-td-replica-registry/ and register (you need to copy and paste the link)

[ricrx7]

I have had no issues at all.  The change seems to have been seamless.  Thanks for all your excellent work.

1986 British Coach Works Type 52 (Sammy)
Chevy 2.8 V6, 5 speed

[secretagentcat]

Thanks Stephen, for all your work! We all appreciate the work youre doing to improve the TDR.com experience. With all the new members, the improved web site and a Flux Compasator on back order, our devious plans to rule the world are right on schedule! ❗

[davearoy]

Your efforts are appreciated!! I have not had any problems, even though I use an iPad. Both your’s and Paul’s efforts and skills are awesome.

Dave
Lakeland, Fl

Dave
Lakeland, Florida, where we drive Topless every day

[Stephen Houser]

We are nearly ready.

I’ve got the domain transferred and am now just waiting for the “right time” to make the final copy of the site and forum data into the new system. I’m going to look at the logs and see if I can find the day/time that has the least use and try and match that up with when I have time to make a go at it. I’ll post a note here when I’ve got the day/time selected. Sorry about the silence for the past week. I was away from home at a work-related conference.
Also, importantly…

Posts to the site will be disabled from when I start until we are on the new site. This may mean no posting for somewhere between half and a full day. I’m hoping for the half.

Stephen

P.S. If you are ever in Las Vegas make sure you visit the car museum right on the strip where they have two original MG TD’s. The pinball museum/hall of fame is a bit off the strip but a better place to spend your money than giving it to “the house”.

Buxton, Maine
1982 London Roadster - "Kit Kat"

[edward ericson]

fingers crossed. And thanks, again.

[John Simion]

The car museum is in the Linq, which used to be the Imperial Palace. The cars there are for sale if you have enough $$$.

[Stephen Houser]

Free admission for veterans as well.

Buxton, Maine
1982 London Roadster - "Kit Kat"

[Stephen Houser]

Going to have a go at the site changes tomorrow morning, Sunday June 19. Expect the site to be offline and/or just a bit wonky from 5-6am until maybe noontime.

Buxton, Maine
1982 London Roadster - "Kit Kat"

[billnparts]

Good Luck !!

Bill Ascheman
Fiberfab Ford
Modified 5.0, 5sp., 4:11
Autocross & Hillclimb
"Drive Happy"

[newkitman]

Good luck Stephen. I kinda think it’ll go very well. 🙂

Allen Caron
VW based 53MGTD - "MoneyPenny"
"If one thing matters, everything matters" - from the book The Shack

[edward ericson]

! Onward!

[Stephen Houser]

Here we are. There are a few things still not quite right, but I’ll be working on them over the day (and next few days I imagine).

• Avatars — to set your avatar in the new site, use the free http://gravatar.com site. This has the additional feature of working with other forums and sites as well.
• Images and photos — the whole image and photo interface is new.
  • Images and photos you uploaded prior to the upgrade (June 19, 2016) will continue to show in forum threads but you cannot edit or remove them. An administrator will have to do that for you if there’s something that should be removed
  • Adding new photos and images is via the ‘Media Library’, in the upper right corner when you click on where it says ‘Howdy, Your Name’. Check it out… it solves our long-standing problem of seeing each others’ image galleries.
  • You cannot easily add images to a post while you are writing the post. There’s a plugin that I need to install to get that working, which with other things will happen over the next few days.
• Signatures — I could not get the signatures to migrate, so you will have to create new ones. Sorry.
• Technical Articles — I’m still importing some of the Technical Articles and will update this thread when complete.

There’s more, feel free to post them to this thread so we can track and fix them!

Lastly a special thank you to John Barry for letting us use his photo for the banner of the site. It’s the same one used on the flickr group.

Stephen

• This reply was modified 8 years, 5 months ago by Stephen Houser.

Buxton, Maine
1982 London Roadster - "Kit Kat"

[Stephen Houser]

All the old images have been uploaded and should show in forum topics. Again, you cannot modify any that were added before today.

Login Problems – I’ve had a report of not being able to log in. If you have a problem please send an email to webmaster@tdreplica.com so I can take a look and try to get everyone connected.

UPDATE to Login Problems: Usernames and passwords are CASE SENSITIVE the first time you log in! If you don’t know what capitalization your username is, go to the ‘Members’ section, then change the dropdown to ‘Alphabetical’ instead of ‘Active’. This will give a list of all members where you can find yourself. Thank you Dean Banta for finding this! I’m looking for the option to disable/fix this. The good news is this seems to be only for your FIRST login to the new site.

Dean also found the ‘Lost my password’ was not sending him an email. I’m also troubleshooting this as a new problem.

Thanks for your patience!

• This reply was modified 8 years, 5 months ago by Stephen Houser.
• This reply was modified 8 years, 5 months ago by Stephen Houser.
• This reply was modified 8 years, 5 months ago by Stephen Houser.

Buxton, Maine
1982 London Roadster - "Kit Kat"

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