Site Update - Sunday April 8th 12:30am

This weekend the site will be taken down for up to 2 hours in order to install a few updates to the software. We will make every effort to keep the upgrade take place off peak hours as well as keeping it short. (Our hope is that it takes 15-20 minutes!) Since there are several key data changes, it's important that things are completed properly and tested.

In addition to the software update, there is a possibility of downtime during the week when several hardware changes will take place. We should have more information on this later on.

You can get more information on the upcoming changes in the news forum!


This update will take place roughly at 12:30am!!!

Here is a quick run down of upcoming fixes and changes you can expect to see.

Article System Upgrade (Mods/Staff)
- The changes to the system include improved security features as well as the ability to set co-authors to documents. All existing documents will be updated to gain these features. System restricted documents are now properly named.

Upgraded MyTopics, MyActive, ActiveTopic
- These tools have had improvements to their data fetching routines in order to improve performance. In addition improvements were made to allow the listing of Team, Mod, and similarly secure forums.

Homepage Quick Links (Team)
- New links into the forum tools are now available on the site's homepage for team members. These include the MyBoard, MyTag, MyActiveTopics, and MyTopic tools. These will show up in a small window on the top left of the main page. (Under the spotlight section!)

Site/Forum Notice System
- A new tool has been added to allow community specific or cross community notices to be posted. These will be used to ensure you do not miss important information regarding maintenance schedules, promotions, projects, and breaking news!

Team Member Expiration System
- Actually a more general "warning" type system for the site. This will initially be used to notify Team members of their account expiration. In addition to the warning by the login window, users will now have a small caution bar on the left side of the screen. When you click on the bar, a small window will open with information about your account status. All expiration notices have been adjusted to ensure 30 days advanced notice and we will no longer expire accounts 30 days past their due date. The warning box will contain a link to the online store, where you can update your account.

Improved Security
- Several security updates were made in the site code for existing information and more specifically for upcoming projects. More on this later!

Improved Search Abilities
- The site search received a minor upgrade in that it now allows searching of specific forums and not just full sections of the site. Other improvements were made, but will not remain offline until the text searching goes in. (Hopefully, I'll find the time this year!)

Quick Search
- At the bottom of each community and forum page will be a "quick search" tool. When you do a quick search at a community page, all forums will be searched. If you do a search within a forum page, the search will be limited to that area.

Quick Jump
- There is now a quick jump navigation option along side the quick search. This is just another way to jump around the site to a specific community or forum.

Topic/Reply Edit History (Staff)
- Edit history will now be searchable in an easy manner.

WAP Site Updates
- Few updates to the lite (WAP) version of the site to improve performance.

Range Tool Updates
- Few updates to ensure Add/Edit rights were working properly for Team members to add and modify range information.

IM Tool Updates
- Minor fixes and the addition of a "select all" option for messages.

My Tags Paging Bug Fixed
- Issue with MyTags was corrected so that multiple pages are now working properly.

NEW ONLINE STORE LAUNCH
- The online store was recently rebuilt and upgraded. We didn't make a formal announcement yet as we have been adding products and ensuring everything is in place. There are a number of new products now available, with a number of others to be added shortly. Rifle cases, Drag Bags, Range Bags, and more will highlight the additions! Currently the newest items include the Member's Only shirts, Travel/Coffee Mugs, Shot Glasses, and a number of new items for the ladies!


This should cover the bulk of the upcoming changes. There are the usual fixes, graphic tweaks, and so forth which I don't bother to comment on. There are a number of other items which did not make it into this update and will be coming soon.

Please keep in mind that the entire site is custom software and we expect to miss something during testing which you all will find. Please post any bugs you find in this thread and I will address them as quickly as possible.

The thread will be updated with the date/time of the upgrade as soon as we nail it down.

OUT FREAK'N STANDING!!!!


Lots of good upgrades there.


Thanks again for all the hard work.


(pointing my cursor toward's the online store...)




Gene

Always grateful for your hard work Juan!

Vic

I've been lobbying for these changes behind the scenes for months! w00t!

GoatBoy I appreciate everything you're doing to make ARFCOM the best firearms resource on the web. Thanks for all your hard work and best of luck with the update process this weekend!

Thank you Juan!

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!! ITS TEOTWAWKI!!!!!!!!!!!!! I WILL BE GOING THROUGH MAJOR AFRCOM WITHDRAWLS.






I hope it doesnt happen when i try to log on. I love this site

Thanks GB!

Danny

I'm a noob here, and so far, the site looks great. Lots of info and conversation. A great community to get involved in.

As far as the upgrades go, I hope there's a fix for me not receiving email notifications. I have done evverything the site suggest to fix this, but no luck so far. Maybe some help will be forthcoming.

Keep up the great work guys.

Ok I'm gettin real tired, so in an effort to get this done tonight, I'll be pushing up the timetable to 12:30am.

I apologize for the time change, but I'll make it as quick as possible!

Ok.



I really like the bunny, by the way.

Speaking of WAP, can we get a "my active topics" and login on WAP?

Thanks Guys, Keep up the great work.

Originally Posted By Punani: Speaking of WAP, can we get a "my active topics" and login on WAP?

Hopefully I'll have time later this year to give the thing a major overhaul, but for now it's a back burner item.

Had a post I was writing in Sports , go missing a little while ago.

Went to animations, hit one, typed some more, went for another animation, then froze up. Refreshed, and the post was gone.

Not meant to be negative, you said post stuff in hear or that other thread in GD, this was easier. Not sure if the prob's are related.

Thanks again for the Cool site.

That's normal browser behavior. If you reload a form page, it will clear the form to it's original state.

Thanks, Juan, for the tireless upgrades. They are greatly appreciated. I've got a few items of concern that I've passed up to Don, so I'm sure he'll contact you regarding them.

On a side note, I'd like to see some sort of pop-up box appear in the middle of the screen when an IM is received. I've seen this feature on other websites and always thought that it was a good idea. I've had many members miss IM's from me for weeks at a time before they finally noticed them.

Originally Posted By M4Madness: Thanks, Juan, for the tireless upgrades. They are greatly appreciated. I've got a few items of concern that I've passed up to Don, so I'm sure he'll contact you regarding them. On a side note, I'd like to see some sort of pop-up box appear in the middle of the screen when an IM is received. I've seen this feature on other websites and always thought that it was a good idea. I've had many members miss IM's from me for weeks at a time before they finally noticed them.

Ditto, this is a great idea. A pop up box and or an email letting you know that an IM is received so even if you are not logged in at that time you would be notified that someone is attempting to contact you via IM.

But is is a lot slower now. Things don't come up as quick as they did before.

There isn't any code in the system which would cause a slowing to occur. In fact, several of the changes were made to improve performance and have taken a good bit of load off the site.

The next step on the list (after catching up on emails and maybe a day or two of rest) will be to work on the data servers to streamline a number of functions. In addition we'll need to put in some time working on the data server to improve overall site performance during peak times.

Uhm, i was wondering when some of these scheduled "blackouts" have been during the week. I ask because at work during the day i can get on arfcom, but at night at home at like midnite i haven't been able to for awhile.

Updates all finished and the site only went offline during the days 2 times. Something is off with your home pc. Try to flush your DNS and try hitting the site through one of the other domain names to see what happens.

Originally Posted By GoatBoy: Updates all finished and the site only went offline during the days 2 times. Something is off with your home pc. Try to flush your DNS and try hitting the site through one of the other domain names to see what happens.

I tried other domain names home page and that didn't work, but i had forum address that worked. What is a DNS flush?

One thing is awry.
On top of page, "members online 4867"

On bottom of page, "4867 users are currently online,
579 Team Members, 848 Members. 3440 guests".

Should not the top read: users online 4867?

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