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  • AndyJ
    AndyJ

    Punter Planet Welcomes You Back!

    Welcome to the revamped Punter Planet community! :)

     

    My energy over the past few days has gone into struggling with mysterious technical hurdles and the natural work involved in the upgrade process. It's been many years since our last upgrade, so it's been hard work to reconstruct what we've built and also tuning it up for the future.

     

    I planned this upgrade for 3 months, but there's always something unexpected, and hence the site it's not at the point where I'd like it to be before reopening doors. You'll notice some things missing but most of them will be added in the next few days.

     

    Just explore around and you'll see this a more modern and bigger mothership. Don't despair and please be patient, you'll get to like in due time whatever looks unfamiliar.

     

    There three ways of navigating the site, which are these three little menus at the top right of the screen.

     

    Screen Shot 2018-03-02 at 7.45.41 pm.png

     

    All Activity will look familiar to whoever uses social media. There you'll just see everything that happens on the site (well, almost), and the status updates have been updated to feature photos, embedded videos, etc. So, this could look a lot like Twitter in no time. But these things won't show in the main New Content timeline (in the future only status updates by advertisers will show there too).

     

    New Content is the classical way of seeing forum topics, but we've added blog entries, and advertisers and Punter Planet news (so, basically the same you saw before plus blogs). They do have social media style timeline too, that you can expand or condense to your liking. You can also customise these streams to see exactly what you want to see.

     

    And of course Latest Reviews is self-explanatory. Just that, reviews. (And again, you can create your own review streams, with feeds coming from just one State, etc. But mind you, there could be a lot of clicking involved unless you're just interested in only a few service providers.

     

    One thing I find great is the Create pencil at the top of the screen. From there you can create any kind of content. Just expand it and you'll see what I mean. :thumbsup:

     

    Screen Shot 2018-03-02 at 7.55.10 pm.png

     

    Anyway, people, I'm exhausted. Re-discover the site on your own, and if you have any questions, we'll be very happy to answer them.

     

    Enjoy and make the best out of it!

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    Coolgentleman

    Posted

    Well done Andy. No doubt this was very hard work. As always, some will resist change or complain about it. I say long life to this great platform and this great community.

    CG

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    Thanks, yes, there's still a fair bit of fine-tuning to do, but eventually all will become very familiar again. :)

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    Looks good Andy, major upgrades are always a pain but so far looks like it was worth the effort

     

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    Well done AndyJ. Looks good. 

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    Nice work andy J. Looks a million bucks.

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    Looks great Andy, much fresher than the old site. Ive had a decent surf through and didn't have any hassles. Have a good rest....migrations are a pain in the a**!!

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    Thanks for getting it back up. Just trying to find my way around. Everything has moved. The new content button looks like news. Have to try it out on a desktop. The reviews button I thought was favourites. I think I have the hang of it now! I checked into misceifo and couldn’t work out what you’re supposed to do there. 

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    CaptainDarling

    Posted

    Thanks Andy, I'm sure the younger folks will be fine with the new look site - but maybe the older guys will rage and cry and moan and want it all put back how it was before. Lol

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    Thanks guys, glad the first impression is good. (There's a thanks/like button in every post now, but I can't go thanking everyone individually). There's more to come.

     

    Something important is, that if you go to your account at the top right corner next to your avatar and select manage followers, there you'll find some new privacy settings, a bit hidden to my liking though.

     

    https://forums.punterplanet.com/index.php?app=dp42managefollow&module=manage&controller=follow&do=privacy

     

    But old privacy settings don't apply any longer. So everyone could see that and adjust for their profile as they like. Cheers.

     

     

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    3 minutes ago, Eric Shun said:

    Thanks Andy, I'm sure the younger folks will be fine with the new look site - but maybe the older guys will rage and cry and moan and want it all put back how it was before. Lol

     

    I'm not spring chicken, and it grew on me when I visited the invision forums. It took some time, but now I'm starting to see the pluses. :)

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    Andy, at the risk of sounding like a whingy luddite, the one biggest feature that I used on the old site seems to be missing from the new site.  On the old site, the pull-down from your name had a 'my content' option, which was an easy way of viewing all the threads that you had posted stuff in, and the threads with unread content would appear in bold so you could check them out (or not, as the case may be).  There doesn't seem to be an easy way on the new site of viewing all the threads to which you have contributed??

     

    There also doesn't appear to be an option to disable your signature from appearing on a post-by-post basis, which was also a feature of the old website that I regularly used.

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    Further to my previous message, it looks like you can't disable your signature from appearing on a post-by-post basis because the new website doesn't support signatures at all!!!  Noooooooo!!!!!!!!!!

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    Thanks for the heads up about the review template: Houston we have a problem! (I contacted the author already for help)... but in the meantime reviews can't be posted I'm afraid. Hoping it won't be too long (That problem doesn't happen in the test installation, but it's been like that, no two servers make things work the same).

     

    Anyway, My Content, it's true that it's not as handy as before, now it's in your profile. Now, you can also go to "New Content", and after it delivers the results, you can filter them by content in which you posted in, and you can even save that stream as a custom one that then remain for you to use from the Activity menu at the top of the screen.

     

    Signatures, yes, unfortunately you can't switch them off and on as you post. However, the forum supports signature. We are not on the forum in this thread but other application of the suite called Pages, a CMS application. I had not noticed that.

     

    But they are things that we may reintroduce with the aid of third party plugins depending on how much they are missed.

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    15 minutes ago, AndyJ said:

    Anyway, My Content, it's true that it's not as handy as before, now it's in your profile. Now, you can also go to "New Content", and after it delivers the results, you can filter them by content in which you posted in, and you can even save that stream as a custom one that then remain for you to use from the Activity menu at the top of the screen.

     

    Actually go directly to Activity on the top menu and select "Content I Posted In", you'll have the threads, and wherever something new has been posted, those threads are in bold too.

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    The problem with the review template has been fixed. So let the reviews roll down from the mountain. ;)

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    Is it just my imagination or have we lost the "Ignore Topic" function in the upgrade?

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    6 minutes ago, Oldandbald said:

    Is it just my imagination or have we lost the "Ignore Topic" function in the upgrade?

     

    No, it's not your imagination. As I said, there quite a few things still to come. That's one of them. :)

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    Mr Luvver™

    Posted

    It is taking me a while to navigate around the new layout,  but give me time I will get there.  (That could be bad news for some):D

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    Site looks great AndyJ! The one feature I was missing last night and was about to ask you about I’ve just noticed has been added this morning - excellent! :)

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    Slowly getting used to it, just like a cat hate change:lol:

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    Congratulations, looks very modern, great work Andy ! 

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    Regarding Sunday's upgrade I haven't heard much back but there are some novelties worth mentioning.

     

    Improved Search System

     

    The biggest change in this version has been the search system. Normally the Achilles Heel of a very good forum software, searching hasn't been the best aspect of it. 

    However, you'll soon notice that the new search function works better than before, particularly thank to the possibility to find "all of my search term words".

     

    Screen Shot 2018-06-11 at 11.19.07 am.png

     

    It's even okay if one of these terms has only 3 characters as you can search as phrase too.

     

    Then, it works fine with searching the review templates too. Unfortunately it's not possible to filter by fields rather than searching, but it will be eventually. In the meantime we can search the Reviews combining the terms that we know are used in the fields. For example you can enter: blond new south wales bbbj

     

    Like this:

     

    Screen Shot 2018-06-11 at 11.31.06 am.png

     

     

    And you'll get the most relevant reviews as the result.

     

    Screen Shot 2018-06-11 at 11.33.00 am.png

     

     

    The catch is that you'll need to use terms exactly as they are in the review template fields (for example blond and not blonde, New South Wales and not NSW), but it helps to click on the Latest Reviews menu before doing your search, as you'll have many examples (similar to the screen capture above) that you can simply copy and paste into the search box.

     

    As I said, it's not as perfect as being able to actually filter by fields, but we are gradually going in that direction. In any case it's much better now than how it was from March until Sunday.

     

    Emojis 😁😂🤣

     

    This new version makes it possible for those using a Desktop computer to use Emojis, the same way (and from the same place) we've been using Emoticons like this ;)

    (The emoticons that we all know and love are at the bottom of this menu)

     

    Screen Shot 2018-06-11 at 11.41.48 am.png

     

    These emojis are EmojiOne style, which may differ a bit from the Twitter type and from the one we all have on our phones, but people will still be able to post those using their mobile devices, etc. The advantage of this style is that even people with old devices will see them.

     

    Screen Shot 2018-06-11 at 11.47.39 am.png

     

     

    Automatic Moderation

     

    Well, sort of; just a little buffer that may help in extreme cases. Now if 5 different users report a same post, the post will hide automatically for our revision. On PP posts hardly ever get 5 or more reports, as we generally look into it after the first report. Sometimes we agree with the report, others we don't, so one should not assume that 5 people will definitely get rid of someone else's post, but imagine the mods are busy with their real jobs and I'm stuck in an intercontinental flight or inside a lift, then this could help.

     

    Screen Shot 2018-06-11 at 11.57.02 am.png

     

    The multiple options you see, were quickly thought last night, so we may still tweak them a bit based on the most common types of reports we get.

     

    Blogs New Look

     

    One of the most underused features on PP is the blogs entries. I don't know if you were aware that since our big March upgrade, blogs are seen even by non-registered guests, and considering that many Blog service providers do have a problem with adult or escorting themes, the ones here could see much more use. In any case, what's new now is the look and layout.

     

    Screen Shot 2018-06-11 at 12.03.17 pm.png

     

    Of course, you can replace the new funky default image with any other picture, but that beats the black space we saw there before. The same for members profiles:

     

    Screen Shot 2018-06-11 at 12.06.03 pm.png

     

     

    Advertisers and PP News with thumbnail

     

    Now when you see any advertisers or PP news in the activity streams, they will show a small photo of the picture used in those topics; something that existed in Status Updates and Classifieds, but not in Ad News. (This will work also in replies to those threads)

     

    Screen Shot 2018-06-11 at 12.11.16 pm.png

     

     

    Anyway, those are the main novelties. Of course there have been changes from the admin point of view, but those are mainly for the exclusive interest of mods/admins interest.

     

    I hope you like these novelties, and feel free to ask if you want to know more. Cheers.

     

     

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    Good work Andy, thanks 👍👍

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    Great job Andy J. I appreciate your efforts . 

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    Midnight Marauder

    Posted

    Cheers again @AndyJ, never sent my thanks for major upgrade months ago and the forum is developing extremely well.

     

    I know how difficult maintaining a platform is, so i applaud yiur relentless efforts for making this forum great.

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