[Raion]

Afternoon guys,

With the frontend redesigned, I guess it's time to discuss the future plans for the forum to bring it inline with the new design, as well as what this means for users of the forums:

The Plan
The plan for the forum is to bring it inline with the front end for MyBB 1.9 - which sadly keeps getting pushed back:

https://community.mybb.com/thread-215211.html

You can follow that here if you're interested.

With Google's recent push for HTTP/2, to keep our search rankings, it'll eventually be necessary to enforce HSTS on the https://forums.irixnet.org domain, meaning plain http won't be offered via that subdomain anymore. Read on for a contingency

The plan is to use MyBB's APIs to build either a PHP or Python frontend offering a basic http-plain solution for people to use the forum from obsolete systems on another subdomain.

The basic plan is to have:

Login Functionality
Reading/Responding to posts/creating new threads
Attachment uploading
Reading/Responding to PMs

Other functions like viewing avatars, and opening images by default will probably not be offered, and this subdomain won't be indexed by search engines. The goal is to make it accessible for low bandwidth connections as well, hence the limitations there. The reason this is being pursued, and not NNTP or gopher is because of accessibility. It's easier to just use plain http for most, and it's easy to design for comparatively.

FAQ

• Will the dark theme be enforced?

Likely, unless there's a huge push for a light variant. It's going to be up for discussion, but help with that may require a financial bumper so to speak, since developers to help cost money.

• Will the CSS be improved and the minor glitches in places be fixed?

Yeah, the 1.9 release means nothing of the current rendering engine for MyBB will carry over. It's a clean redesign

• Are you still planning to move to PostgreSQL?

Yes

• Any software-related goals included?

I've been floating ideas every so often, but for now, no. I have been trying to get things nailed down here.

• What of a return of chat functions now that Dodoid shut down his discord?

Maybe in the future, but the overall conduct of people on there just became toxic after a while and it divided the culture between the forum and chats, with some people refusing to use one or the other. I'd like for the community to first agree on sticking with our forum before we ever try an experiment of that scale again.

• What are your plans going forward other than the redesign?

Finish my personal obligations to things, including some shipments to users, and then return to working on documentation of IRIX and various computers with contributions for the community. Overall, I think we're in a good position there already, but I think through further refinements, this compendium will be as great as it can be.

[Gamefan]

Thank you Raion for getting this site running and keeping the SGI community moving forward with a place to call home! Great site!!

[Raion]

Yes, but the goal here is a bit more comprehensive than just a HTTP-type proxy. With a plain-http login that's logged, uses basic html and such, it's a "Kill multiple birds with a single stone" approach -

Plain-http logins can be turned off for users who don't want the security risk
I can easily monitor the gateway and keep malicious users out of it
Allow bandwidth-limited or very old browsers to easily access the forums and post screenshots or reply to forum posts

Anyways, you get it.

[Raion]

I was just thinking, what's the easiest way for you ? how to run a website that will keep google & co happy, while at the same time keeping us luddites happy ?  That's kinda like getting Karl Marx and Gordon Gecko to share an apartment  ....

Yup - proxying won't fix everyone's issues though. Layout will still be difficult for people using old browsers and low bandwidth systems, and cookies and stuff don't always work correctly behind NGINX, SQUID or other proxies. Rather than risk that, I'd simply hold out for as long as we can with these hacks, and then when they start hitting us, use the MyBB Integrator class to fix this with a basic HTML system.

[commodorejohn]

Putting in a vote for a light-mode theme here. Not a fan of dark-mode.

[Raion]

Putting in a vote for a light-mode theme here. Not a fan of dark-mode.

Duly noted. You're not the first to ask, so I'll see what we can do. I appreciate the feedback - just a heads up that may not be easily implemented due to the theming engine limitations.

[Raion]

HOLY SHIT guys, thank you so much for donations. Shrek, and the other two gentlemen that donated just now. You guys rock, please DM me a copy of your paypal receipt to be flaired! You guys deserve recognition.

[Raion]

Update: sorry if the theme preferences you had just reset. We just had to rebuild some things so some users will have had their defaults reset as a minor consequence.

This should fix some of the CSS bugs people showed us

[Raion]

For those of you who have requested a light theme, we're currently looking into it. I'll let you know once I have something to show off.

[shrek]

I'm not a huge fan of dark themes but this one isn't bad. You did a nice job on it. I can definitely live with it but if you have the time and energy to spare down the road a light theme would be appreciated.

I think that for a basic chat service that IRC might work well in terms of accessibility (works on SGI machines too!) and it takes very little resources to host. IRC is a lot more simple and old school than Discord which is more like a modern social media platform than a simple chat program. That's not to say IRC has a high barrier to entry but the fact that it isn't Discord and is text only will act as some sort of imbecile filter.