Forum Blog

Ok people, as you might have noticed last night - the "action bar" under the posts changed, from having big blue buttons, to something a bit more stylish.

There were 2 reasons for this - 1: to look nicer and 2: to allow for what I did after

Drum roll .....

The inbuilt thanks system has now...

 

Ok gang, after testing the subdomains for the last few weeks, I've now properly moved us over to running on a CDN.

What does this mean for you guy?

Well, all the images, javascript and css is now served from a server close to your physical location, rather than needing to come across from the...

 

Trying a few tricks to get the forum pages loading up faster.

First thing I've done is split up all the elements of the site to be loaded from different (cookie-less) sub-domains.

You'll notice things loading from *.fiatcdn.com - which * can be:

i - Images
a - Avatar Images
s - Signature...

 

The main backend of the forum has been upgraded with a minor update.

Last time I had to hash 2 files to stop errors occurring, which I haven't done this time and all seems to be ok.

However, if you get some PHP errors appearing when using the forum, please report them here for me, so I can add...

 

All the model forums now have a little photo icon next to their name - 1 to make it easier for new users to find the right one and, 2 to make the forum look a little nicer

I'll roll out icons for all the other forums over the next week or so

 

As there are going to be some key differences in the US spec'd model, I've now setup a dedicated 500 USA section.

So a warm welcome to all our new USA members

http://www.fiatforum.com/500-usa/

 

After getting years of grief from Helz (bless her) - I've finally got around to getting a fully functional mobile skin on the site.

It will kick in automatically if you are on a mobile device, and offers almost all of the main functionality of the full version - just heavily cut down.

There...

 

Well we tried people - but in the end it seems the groups just weren't integrated enough to keep people interested and thus just got quieter and quieter.

It's all rather complicated why we came around to needing them in the first place - however what's done is done.

Now, we've implemented...

 

Updated the garage to the latest version - will start styling it later on.

I also went though as much of the outstanding submissions I could, but basically.

If you submitted a business with no address, phone number, or website - it was deleted.

Most generic products were also erased, as well...

 

Latest version installed which should deal with some performance issues and run a bit quicker.

Tweets are now integrated directly into it, so no need for the Tweetbar now too

If you find an interesting page on the forum and you want to share it, you can now click the...

 

Updated the definition files for the embedded video links.

Recently a lot of Youtube videos were becoming external links, rather than loading in the video container - however this should be sorted now.

HD movies are sorted too

 

Added direct links to Twitter and Facebook in the site header (under the "100% unofficial star").

I intend to use these a lot more in the future, perhaps a couple of posts a week to advertise what we are doing, so it's good to be able to get there quickly

 

Now this is in testing, as the due to the way it works, I can't do a behind the scenes check .... but ....

If you donate more than £15 in one year, the ad banners will be turned off for that year ... coming back on again when the full "£15 year is up".

For example:

Donate £5 on the 1st of...

 

I never really liked those massive boxes at the top for guests, but unfortunately it was the only way to get enough money to run the site.

I have however now been experimenting with other styles, so from today, I will test for a week (assuming we don't lose tons of money) with a new "in post"...

 

Have added a "Like" button to threads (just beside the "New Reply" button) - so if you think a thread is interesting, please "Like" it for us.

 

To make threads easier to follow, the highlighting structure now mirrors the blog style.

In any thread, after the first post, any subsequent posts from the OP (original poster) will be highlighted in blue.

Now you can quickly see if they came back, etc etc

 

Yes, it finally happened. After 6 months (yes, 6 MONTHS!) of planning and arranging, the forum has finally moved onto a new (much faster) server.

I haven't yet finished optimizing the database settings yet, so there is still a bit to do, but for the most part, we're all done.

To keep things...

 

Despite people telling me for ages I should get an Abarth section on the forum, I kept putting it off, convinced somewhat that they would be too much like the current FIAT offerings.

It would appear I was wrong

So anyway, the Abarth models now all have their own seperate sections (scroll...

 

Well I finally got around to doing it, EPER no longer runs off its slow and unstable built in webserver - I've completely converted it to IIS.

So gone are the days of "too many connections" and suchlike

I've still got version 20 on at the moment, which I will test for a week or so -...

 

Due to people never being able to find the guides, faqs and downloads (to name a few things) - I thought it was finally time to make the more prominant.

So now, on each of the forum display pages, there is now a "Shortcut" bar - with direct links to the relevant model options (they will...