My AW Is Different!

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AW Admin

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Hi folks:

We've turned the Forums back on early, because we realized it's going to take days to get all the settings, and the "look" adjusted, and the indexing finished, and we didn't want to lock folks out that long.

Please bear with us.

We're all in the same state of confusion.

Help each other and help us.

The Mods haven't gotten used to this new format either.

I'll start new FAQs as soon as I can. In the meantime, I'll keep updating this post.

New Forums, New Cookies!

That's right; hot-from-the-oven cookies.

Problems with Staying Logged in / Cookies / Password Remembering

We have a problem with some users and Cookies not working correctly; they time out when they shouldn't so members aren't staying logged in.

We're working on this; honest.

This is affecting the way members log in to password protected forums, because those also use Cookies.

Clearing your Cache, History, and Cookies is working for some. See: FAQ: Emptying Your Browser's Cache, History, and Deleting Cookies

Here are some Quick Tips:


  • When you first arrive at the Forums, you're on your Home screen. You'll see notifications there about Visitor Messages, and new posts.
  • The Forums are accessed by the Forum button at the top.
  • AW should work much better with mobiles/Smart Phones. See the options at the very bottom on the left in a little menu that says (probably) vB4 Default Style?
  • There's another option under it for Default Mobile Styles. We'll try to get some other options there too, but it may take a while.
  • There's an Auto Save on posts; it's set to Save your posts every sixty seconds.
  • Point at the little icons on the Edit Tool bar to see some hints about what they do.

Your User CP has been divided into a couple of sections:

  • Private Messages are in the Navigation bar on the top, on the left.
  • See the Forum Actions menu in the Navigation bar for Mark Forums Read, General Settings, and the Edit Profile option.
  • Just above the Navigation bar, at the absolute top of the page is a quick link to your Profile and profile Settings.
  • Settings has your Rep Comments; see the very top on the right. You should see notifications when you log in about new Rep Comments just as you do with PMs.

Message Editor Interface

This is the tool bar with the buttons for formatting posts etc.
You have options for which tool bar /Editor Interface you use in your Settings.

  • Basic Editor A simple text box.
  • Standard Editor This is the one that lets you see/use the BBcodes in square brackets; it was I think the most commonly preferred option.
  • Enhanced Full WYSIWYG Editing This is sort of like MS Word.

Standard and Enhanced have Advanced Options available when you're posting.

To Set a Preferred Message Editor:

  1. Go to Settings on the top right of AW
  2. Select General Settings from the Sidebar on the Left.
  3. Scroll down to the section labeled Miscellaneous Options.
  4. Pick the editor you want to use (you can change it).
  5. Make sure to scroll all the way down to the bottom and click Save Changes.

To See Rep Comments using the Mobile Style


  1. Scroll to the bottom of the page
  2. Tap Full Site
  3. Wait for the page to load
  4. Tap Settings on the top left

Problems with Searching

We have just under or just over 9 million posts, depending on how you count.

In order for the vBulletin/Forum search to work, all of them have to be indexed.

It takes a while.

So until that's finished, the built-in Search isn't going to work quite right.

All the data is here, it's just not "fetchable" at present.

Please be patient; we're working on it.

In the meantime, scroll down to the bottom of the page and try the Google search for the Forums.
 
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AW Admin

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I'll add a Spoiler Warning option to the Posting tools just as soon as I can.

It's Complicated though, because I have to modify Templates.
 

Jack Lebowski

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Hooray! AW is back! I'll deal with the "new" site goodies. Just glad to see ya'll again!
Jack
 

MacAllister

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Please understand, everyone, that the looks of the place are going to change pretty significantly over the next couple of days -- but it took two days of major structural overhaul (new foundation and floor joists, new database structure, and a lot of other behind-the-scenes back-end structural stuff) and we didn't want to keep the community locked out any longer, since what's left to do amounts to hanging some curtains and slapping on a little paint!
 
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AW Admin

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Smilies

First, confession. I mostly can't see them.

But I think there are a bunch of new ones.

The entire Smiley list is here.

You can click the Smiley
attachment.php
in the Posting tools, and then click More to see more Smilies, too.


Can someone who can see and knows our smilies/emoticons tell me:


  1. Are there more/new smilies?
  2. Are any missing (I have them all backed up and can easily fix this).

Thanks !
 
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KokkieH

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Looking good so far. Thanks for all the hard work.

And as I'm in bed with a cold I now have a good excuse to spend the whole day exploring the new layout ;)
 

jjdebenedictis

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Oh, I'm so glad AW is back! I've missed y'all so much! **SMOOCH**

Are...are rep points gone? **lip trembles**
 

MacAllister

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Breathe! It's all good, and rep points are still there. :) Just click "Settings" at the top right. It's pretty close to the old "User CP"...
 

phantasy

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Wow, so different...Congrats on the new layout! Hoping this is easier to use on my phone. *dances*
 

Scribhneoir

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Can someone who can see and knows our smilies/emoticons tell me:


  1. Are there more/new smilies?
  2. Are any missing (I have them all backed up and can easily fix this).

I see all the old favorites and a number that appear to be new, at least to me.
 

auntypsychotic

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I've often wondered myself.
Great gods and little fishes! This must've taken a freaking ton of work. Thank you.

I will have a time figuring things out. I have sometimes have trouble learning new things but it looks good and I already LOVE the autosave!
 

Reziac

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Autosave is a killer feature, all right, especially for crit posts.

Discovered a problem: if one has site colors turned off (which I do because the white background hurts my eyes) the editor becomes real blind: None of the controls are visible except for the font and size dropdowns.

Conversely when I decided to test the Edit Post function, which defaults to Advanced, all the formatting controls show as text labels only!

But I see among those labels "Paste from Word" -- that will cause much rejoicing over in SYW. :)
 
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muse

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Whoo-hoo! Great to have AW up and running again. Will take a while to get used to the new layout - but hey, isn't that what procrastination is for?;)

Thanks for all the hard work.
:e2flowers
 

MacAllister

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Reziak, thank you! That's exactly the kind of thing we need to know, to tweak the settings over the next couple of days so they're more customized to AW's unique needs.
 

Reziac

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If there's anything specific you'd like broken, holler... cuz I sure as heck can do it. :) I use a grey background in Windows so that's what I see when I turn colors off.

Hmm. Now I'm getting text-only labels in the quick editor controls too. Looks like I broke both halves! :D
[Actually, it's kinda nice this way.]
 

10trackers

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I miss the green smiley with all the teeth! Uh. :D, but green, and the teeth were more... life-like :tongue

ETA: This one:
mr%20green_zps8lx2dcz3.jpg
Hopefully I'm just being dumb as per usual!
 
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SaraP

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*pokes*

The new AW tastes funny. :D

(Honestly, Lisa and Mac, thank you SO much for all you do for us. Y'all deserve all the chocolate. :Hail:)
 

Reziac

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Yeah, I instantly missed the old green grinner too. The new smileys are more snazzy but also not so easy to see which is which. What? a popup rather than a dropdown for the common ones?! at least it respects the ESC key!

Noticed something else: italics in the default font, as seen in a quoteback box, are now narrow and very strongly slanted -- looks pretty, but is going to be hard for some folks to read.

Oh, more invisible stuff with site colors off: the little icons below the user info where one clicks to Report Post or give Reps.

And there's a white bar under the status line, where the rep counter widgets would be if they were visible. (Actually, I see it's a white bar with colors on, too.)

The multiquote button vanishes, too.

The online status green thing is actually harder to see with colors on, it's overwhelmed by the white background.
 
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MacAllister

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Ydp. I miss the green grinny guy, too -- the new emojis are way harder for me to see and parse, so it's definitely gonna make a comeback, but since our server admin has been up for two days running scripts to restructure the whole backend, I'ma gonna wait til she's had some sleep before I ask about it.

And maybe bring her some excellent chocolate.
 

backslashbaby

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I'll bring y'all both some virtual chocolate! Great job! It's always amazing when huge overhauls like that go well, so many cheers for being so talented :D
 

BethS

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Somehow I didn't realize that the shut-down meant we were getting a renovation. It will take some getting used to, but I'm sure it will be wonderful.

I find the graphic images on the buttons in the toolbar to be fuzzy-looking. Not crisp and clear at all. Is that a feature or a bug?
 
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