FTO development plans

[Admin]

Cache cleared. What it looks like now:
View attachment 5
:evil:
Actually this is a DOUBLE cutoff. When I loaded the picture here, the right side got cut again.

the problem is on your end, it's not at the server

:-k This problem did not exist until format changes this week. :-k

I'll repeat: the problem is at your end.

Here are two screenshots of the exact same post that you screenshotted. After taking the first one, I dragged the browser window to make it smaller and took the second screenshot, showing how the forum space adjusts dynamically.

Given that my screen resolution is 1366px wide, that browser in the second screenshot above can't be more than about 900px wide.

Seeing as how you're using Firefox, I pulled it up in Firefox, too:

No cutoff images in Firefox. And what the hell,to prove my point, here it is in Internet Explorer and in Edge:

Therefore, the images are not cut off in Chrome, Firefox, IE or Edge. Whether or not you had the problem before has nothing to do with whether or not the problem is at the server end or the client end. The fact remains that something of the old style is still being relied upon by your browser. That, or you have your browser zoom elevated, your default font size enlarged, or something like that. Clear cache, clear cookies, clear sessions, clear everything. Maybe even reset your settings in Firefox:

1. Click the menu button and then click help.
2. From the Help menu choose Troubleshooting Information. ...
3. Click the Reset Firefox… button in the upper-right corner of the Troubleshooting Information page.
4. To continue, click Reset Firefox in the confirmation window that opens.

 

[Tony Crocker]

An uninstall/reinstall of Firefox made the pictures fully visible if I selected "mobile mode." The 4 steps above finally made them visible in full mode. Chrome then worked also. IE still has the problem but I don't care as I hardly ever use it.

I have tested the ability to back up all my TR's on my computer and own website. Patrick started doing this 5 years ago. I am motivated by situations like this, even though it would be a very time consuming process. Correct display of pictures seems to be very vulnerable when FTO's software is modified/upgraded. The last time that was done in 2004 every TR needed to be edited for new syntax to display pictures at all. Fortunately I only had a digital camera for one year at that time and it was a small job back then.

 

[Admin]

I have tested the ability to back up all my TR's on my computer and own website. Patrick started doing this 5 years ago. I am motivated by situations like this, even though it would be a very time consuming process. Correct display of pictures seems to be very vulnerable when FTO's software is modified/upgraded.

That's absolutely ludicrous. FTO content was never at risk in this process and the photo display problem was entirely related to your own browser issues, as your corrective actions have proven. What display vulnerability was present? I realized an error in the CSS and fixed it. Your browser simply didn't take note of the change. The photos were safely stored the entire time in the database, which is an entirely separate entity from the style sheets and forum templates.

To try to blame this on FTO's server is like trying to blame your local gas station because your car ran out of gas. Really, Tony, I love ya but you're speaking from a position of ignorance and creating unjustifiable concern where none exists.

 

[Tony Crocker]

If not, what I may do is migrate these forums over to phpBB 3.1, which is a newer, different fork of phpBB than the 3.0 branch that we're running here. Both are being developed concurrently by the phpBB folks. The advantage of 3.1 is that it offers responsive themes that automatically size themselves to screen width. There are substantial disadvantages to going to the 3.1 fork, however, not the least of which is that I'll have to start this design process all over again. :roll:

This paragraph was what made me think about what happened in 2004. If that happens again it will be monumental job to make pictures viewable. And if it does happen again I will only undertake that job once, to put the TR's with pics on a site where I have control, as Patrick has done.

you're speaking from a position of ignorance and creating unjustifiable concern where none exists.

I make no claim to systems maintenance expertise. But lots of people are in the same boat, and the 2004 phpBB upgrade was surely a motivation for Patrick's move. FTO seems more vulnerable to these issues than Epic, TGR, etc.

 

[Admin]

Until 2004 Liftlines was run on a BB system called Zikula (nee Postnuke) that was no longer being developed. I therefore had to migrate to something different and chose phpBB because of its widespread use and active development. Absolutely no one had published a script to migrate a Zikula database to phpBB. I created one myself and it's therefore nothing short of miraculous that any posts were migrated over at all. The photos were a tiny sacrifice to the mySQL gods.

By contrast, not only is phpBB 3.0 to 3.1 within the same ecosystem, it's an upgrade that takes place on hundreds of sites each day. Unbeknownst to our users, Liftlines undergoes about a half dozen phpBB software upgrades every year and there have been no hiccups now for more than a decade. That supports that my decision to go with phpBB was a good one.

 

[Tony Crocker]

I sincerely hope you're right. That backup job is tedious and at the moment low on my priority list. I think Patrick is still working at migrating his past TR's and he's been at it for 5 years or so.

 

[Marc_C]

I sincerely hope you're right. That backup job is tedious and at the moment low on my priority list. I think Patrick is still working at migrating his past TR's and he's been at it for 5 years or so.

I'd be curious to know how frequently those old TRs are viewed. Is it really worth the effort?

 

[Marc_C]

I make no claim to systems maintenance expertise. But lots of people are in the same boat, and the 2004 phpBB upgrade was surely a motivation for Patrick's move. FTO seems more vulnerable to these issues than Epic, TGR, etc.

The same thing happens on those sites, too, and pretty much everyone else - a lot. Some sites can hide it better than others as they can manage a full duplicate environment to test any changes, but bugs escape into production in those cases as well.

The 2004 incident wasn't an upgrade to phpBB but a migration - a significantly more difficult endeavor which almost assures something(s) breaking or not being possible. As an example, at my former company we converted a major web application from an Oracle database to MS-SQL. That took about 30 developers working for 4 months to accomplish, test, bug fix, and certify before moving the code to production.

So some pictures or links to pics from a dozen years ago were lost. Not worth crying in my cornflakes over.

 

[Tony Crocker]

I'd be curious to know how frequently those old TRs are viewed. Is it really worth the effort?

A valid question. In both Patrick's and my cases, those TR's are an easily accessible diary of our skiing. They beat the hell out of rummaging through photo albums in the old days. And they are edited/organized and thus much easier for friends to view than a directory full of pics on a home computer.

In my case there are occasional useful references in those TR's when I want to look up snow conditions at some particular time/location for snow analysis purposes.

Patrick has the view that if it's important to you, don't depend upon somebody else's hardware, time or general interest to keep this stuff accessible indefinitely.

As James has pointed out, there have been significant stretches of time in the past two years where the level of admin's commitment to FTO was far from obvious. So from that perspective the current activity to update/integrate/modernize features is encouraging. =D>

 

[Admin]

Patrick has the view that if it's important to you, don't depend upon somebody else's hardware, time or general interest to keep this stuff accessible indefinitely.

In that regard, Patrick is absolutely, positively correct.

As an example, there are my personal photos. They reside on two different computers in my house, plus on an external hard drive, plus in the cloud in the event of something catastrophic like robbery or fire. If you can't afford to lose it, your backup strategy should span multiple destinations in multiple locations.