Big Software Update Notice!

[dcdeb]

Hey everybody!

 

Just a little warning that we will be running a fairly big upgrade on the site later tonight.

 

I plan to run the upgrade tonight and expect it will take a while, maybe several hours. During that time MFC will be offline, but we will try to keep everyone updated on our social media accounts, on Twitter and Facebook.

 

When you log in tomorrow, you'll find that a number of enhancements have been made. Many of these won't change your daily usage of the forums as we don't do e-commerce here, or they are functions for moderators.

 

But there will be some changes that you might notice:

-- Improved search function

-- Ability to resize large photos before uploading.

-- Ability to embed TikTok videos

-- Expanded thread (also called topic) lists. This means you'll be able to read part of the thread from the list of topics, without having to click inside to see if it interests you.

-- Each thread/topic will have an activity bar so that you can see at a glance how old it is, when the last reply was, a mini gallery of images in the topic and more.

-- Topics will show follower counts so you can see how many people follow the subject.

-- Long quotes will be collapsed, reducing how much scrolling you'll have to do, if you want to skip over something.

-- Improvements with notifications.

-- Integration with a variety of other apps, including Google Docs, Twitter, Facebook and Discord. For example, we SHOULD be able to create a Google doc that all members can see, and that new members will be added to automatically. (I say "should" because this is a beta test function, so I'm not sure if/when we will be able to make this work for us.)

The most exciting thing that will happen with this upgrade is the introduction of a mobile app version! This is still in beta testing for iOS and Android, so we have to see exactly how it's going to work for MFC, once our software has been upgraded. It may still be a while before this is available to all of our members, but it is something that we will keep you updated on.

 

Thanks for your patience tonight while we undergo this upgrade. I hope that by tomorrow at this time we'll all be back here, with everything mostly back to normal! Let us know if you have any questions or experience any issues!

 

 

 

 

[krysady]

10 minutes ago, dcdeb said:

Long quotes will be collapsed, reducing how much scrolling you'll have to do, if you want to skip over something.

 

This is one of the best improvements here, I was waiting for this one for so long!  It is always annoying to have to scroll over a long post that got quoted several times, until you get to see new comments  

Thanks, can't wait to see the new changes.

[silver]

Roughly what time do you expect to start the upgrade, Deb?

[dcdeb]

3 hours ago, silver said:

Roughly what time do you expect to start the upgrade, Deb?

 

I think I'll start at 9 p.m. Eastern US time -- that will be 2 a.m. for UK and 3 a.m. for Central Europe. I'm sorry it will mean members in some other time zones will experience downtime during their peak hours, but I'm hopeful that it will all go smoothly and quickly.

 

EDIT: I need to delay this for a few days -- probably until this coming weekend sometime. I'll let you know then. Sorry about that!

[Starlight]

Thank you for your warning.  and I can't wait to see all the improvements you mentioned! I'm very curious what it will be like afterwards!

[dcdeb]

Something's come up and I'm going to need to delay this upgrade for a few days. Sorry for the false alarm! I'll let you know when the upgrade will actually take place -- probably sometime over the coming weekend! Thanks for your patience!

[Mikasister]

10 minutes ago, dcdeb said:

Something's come up and I'm going to need to delay this upgrade for a few days. Sorry for the false alarm! I'll let you know when the upgrade will actually take place -- probably sometime over the coming weekend! Thanks for your patience!

 

Don't worry, Deb,  as Mika fans we are used to wait. We have great patience  
 

[Starlight]

16 minutes ago, Mikasister said:

 

Don't worry, Deb,  as Mika fans we are used to wait. We have great patience  
 

[Gabry74]

1 hour ago, Mikasister said:

 

Don't worry, Deb,  as Mika fans we are used to wait. We have great patience  
 

😅🙌

[EzPz_german_squeezy]

I'm so curious about it! 

[Moni]

9 hours ago, dcdeb said:

Hey everybody!

 

Just a little warning that we will be running a fairly big upgrade on the site later tonight.

 

I plan to run the upgrade tonight and expect it will take a while, maybe several hours. During that time MFC will be offline, but we will try to keep everyone updated on our social media accounts, on Twitter and Facebook.

 

When you log in tomorrow, you'll find that a number of enhancements have been made. Many of these won't change your daily usage of the forums as we don't do e-commerce here, or they are functions for moderators.

 

But there will be some changes that you might notice:

-- Improved search function

-- Ability to resize large photos before uploading.

-- Ability to embed TikTok videos

-- Expanded thread (also called topic) lists. This means you'll be able to read part of the thread from the list of topics, without having to click inside to see if it interests you.

-- Each thread/topic will have an activity bar so that you can see at a glance how old it is, when the last reply was, a mini gallery of images in the topic and more.

-- Topics will show follower counts so you can see how many people follow the subject.

-- Long quotes will be collapsed, reducing how much scrolling you'll have to do, if you want to skip over something.

-- Improvements with notifications.

-- Integration with a variety of other apps, including Google Docs, Twitter, Facebook and Discord. For example, we SHOULD be able to create a Google doc that all members can see, and that new members will be added to automatically. (I say "should" because this is a beta test function, so I'm not sure if/when we will be able to make this work for us.)

The most exciting thing that will happen with this upgrade is the introduction of a mobile app version! This is still in beta testing for iOS and Android, so we have to see exactly how it's going to work for MFC, once our software has been upgraded. It may still be a while before this is available to all of our members, but it is something that we will keep you updated on.

 

Thanks for your patience tonight while we undergo this upgrade. I hope that by tomorrow at this time we'll all be back here, with everything mostly back to normal! Let us know if you have any questions or experience any issues!

 

 

 

 

🤗🤗

[dcdeb]

On 8/20/2020 at 2:24 PM, Mikasister said:

 

Don't worry, Deb,  as Mika fans we are used to wait. We have great patience  
 

 

Well, as you may have guessed, I was delayed by the announcement of the "I Love Beirut" livestream -- didn't want the site to be down when all of that happened.

 

However, I am going to run the upgrade tonight, starting at 9 p.m. my time, which will be 3 a.m. for those of you on CET, 2 a.m. for the UK.

 

As I said earlier, I anticipate the site to be down for a while -- but I hope it won't be too long, and that everything will go smoothly. Please keep your fingers crossed and hold a good thought!

 

If there are any issues, we'll update you on Twitter and Facebook, so please check there if you find you can't log in tomorrow morning.

 

Thanks again for your patience and understanding!

[Starlight]

So far I have to say that I'm really happy with the result after the update!

[mellody]

Hmm, I can't find my notifications & profile icons anymore (mobile version). I'll look around a bit when I have some time.

[Mikasister]

Well, I'm here again. I could log in without any problem with my mobile. Later I will do it with my laptop but it seems everything works fine. Thanks so much for your work Deb. 

[TinyLove_CJ]

1 hour ago, mellody said:

Hmm, I can't find my notifications & profile icons anymore (mobile version). I'll look around a bit when I have some time.

I'm having this problem too with the mobile version. The only way I could log in was to go to the Members Chat section and log in where it asks at the bottom. Other than that I really like the new look!

[TinyLove_CJ]

On my mobile I have just switched to the desktop version and I can see the notification icon at the top and I'm able to log in and out this way, but it's much harder for me to read the text this way (poor eyesight doesn't help 🙁), and I realised as well that the mobile version doesn't have a menu button in the top right corner anymore, unless I'm looking in the wrong place 😅

[mellody]

22 minutes ago, TinyLove_CJ said:

On my mobile I have just switched to the desktop version and I can see the notification icon at the top and I'm able to log in and out this way, but it's much harder for me to read the text this way (poor eyesight doesn't help 🙁), and I realised as well that the mobile version doesn't have a menu button in the top right corner anymore, unless I'm looking in the wrong place 😅

Yes, it seems the toolbar of the mobile version was messed up by the update. I looked into the settings but as I don't have much time now, I couldn't find any quick changes that could improve this. I'm sure Deb will try to take care of it later, it's only 4am on the US East coast now, so we'll have to wait a bit. For now, changing to desktop view on the mobile seems to be the only option to solve the problem.

 

Edit: also the edit function is hidden in a menu now. I preferred the edit button, maybe we can get that back with some setting...

And in the tags the text is red instead of white now, which is hard to read with the grey background (just collecting things here that I notice)

[Mikasister]

1 hour ago, TinyLove_CJ said:

I'm having this problem too with the mobile version. The only way I could log in was to go to the Members Chat section and log in where it asks at the bottom. Other than that I really like the new look!

 

53 minutes ago, TinyLove_CJ said:

On my mobile I have just switched to the desktop version and I can see the notification icon at the top and I'm able to log in and out this way, but it's much harder for me to read the text this way (poor eyesight doesn't help 🙁), and I realised as well that the mobile version doesn't have a menu button in the top right corner anymore, unless I'm looking in the wrong place 😅

 

I have the same problem now to log out. I am not very skilled in these issues, you will tell me if you find the icon to be able to log out by mobile. 

[TinyLove_CJ]

I found a way to solve the problem for now!

If you're using the mobile version of the site go down to the bottom of the page and change the theme from the MFC one to Default only one. Straight away all the icons, including notifications and menu button, come back at the top right of the page!

I don’t mind the default theme but hopefully the MFC one will also have adjustments made later. 😊 

[krysady]

1 hour ago, mellody said:

And in the tags the text is red instead of white now, which is hard to read with the grey background

Yes, that's quite difficult to read indeed

 

Also it's weird the way the quoted text appears, no more frame or colored background, you can't notice where the quote ends and the answers starts. A clear delimitation would help.

Edited August 22, 2020 by krysady

[Kumazzz]

35 minutes ago, krysady said:

Yes, that's quite difficult to read indeed

 

Also it's weird the way the quoted text appears, no more frame or colored background, you can't notice where the quote ends and the answers starts. A clear delimitation would help.

Agree with @krysady

 

Too difficult to read it !

[Mikasister]

57 minutes ago, TinyLove_CJ said:

I found a way to solve the problem for now!

If you're using the mobile version of the site go down to the bottom of the page and change the theme from the MFC one to Default only one. Straight away all the icons, including notifications and menu button, come back at the top right of the page!

I don’t mind the default theme but hopefully the MFC one will also have adjustments made later. 😊 

 

Wow it works!   Thanks so much for your help @TinyLove_CJ 

[Anna Ko Kolkowska]

1 hour ago, TinyLove_CJ said:

I found a way to solve the problem for now!

If you're using the mobile version of the site go down to the bottom of the page and change the theme from the MFC one to Default only one. Straight away all the icons, including notifications and menu button, come back at the top right of the page!

I don’t mind the default theme but hopefully the MFC one will also have adjustments made later. 😊 

 

Thank you CJ. It's much better with this Default theme.

[dcdeb]

Good morning, all!

 

Well, as you have discovered, the upgrade messed up our theme/templates a bit. There were a few other minor problems, and I have a message into our Tech Support people for help with a few things, but overall it went fairly quickly and smoothly. I have gone through the steps to install the mobile app, but apparently you have to wait until you're approved for that -- I guess maybe because it's a beta test, still. So we'll see how long approval takes.

 

We'll be spending some time this weekend ironing out the wrinkles, so please bear with us. We hope to get everything back in order soon!

 

Thanks!