Welcome to the new TechExams.net!

I'm pleased to introduce to you the new TE! Took a "tad" longer than expected, which was expected but it took even longer than that.

This upgrade was what we internally refer to as phase one of TEv4 and besides a major forum upgrade provides us with a better system for integrating additional features. Phase two will be spread out over the next several weeks and includes integrated blogs, a new test engine (including new practice exams) and more.

The forum upgrade by itself introduces a whole bunch of new features of which I will list some of the imo best:

- Much better editor (box I'm typing in now) that amongst many other things supports an auto-save draft feature.

- Notifications menu (top right of page, the counter) - Although it was available for our forums earlier, if you use Google+ you'll find it very familiar. Currently notifies you of new PMs, new rep, and friend requests. I'll add more in the future, perhaps when you get a reply to a subscribed thread.

- Better search - Not directly something you'll notice, but once we finish phase 2 of the upgrade you'll be able to search blogs, articles/TechNotes, and the forums in one search. [Search tables are still rebuilding, so results are incomplete for a while]

- New Mobile Style - A new mobile theme that supports iPhones and Androids, and soon other mobile browsers. There's an update coming that fixes a whopping 122 bugs so consider this one in a test phase.

There are still several things I need to do to but they don't require the forums to be closed. That includes some cosmetic changes as well but if you notice something unworkable or simply not functioning please let me know (either by posting here or PM-ing me). I hope you like the new design! Still needs some tweaking (including some font size changes) which I'll do this weekend.

Several maintenance routines and cache rebuilding might cause the site to respond slower than usual. I'm keeping a close eye on the server and we may have some additional down time during the weekend.

Johan

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Comments

NightShade03

Slowhand wrote: »

I want to say a big thank you to our one and only Webmaster for all the hard work that went into this upgrade, along with all the fixes and changes that are still on-going. Thank you, Johan, TE has always been a great forum for all of us, and now it looks even better. Without your tireless dedication, the rest of us would actually have to work all those hours we spend in front of our computers when our bosses think we're doing our jobs.

Here Here

thenjduke

I am really impressed... I like it alot better. I been here for a long time and have to admit I am always impressed with these forums and people and now the new look.

Mike-Mike

yeah, i really like it, and i notice the page number issue has been corrected, great job

arwes

Great work, Johan! I really like it!

Monkerz

I was totally blown away with the face lift. I miss one day of surfin the forums and you change everything up on me.

Looks great!

kriscamaro68

I am liking the new look so far.

mattlee09

Slowhand wrote: »

I want to say a big thank you to our one and only Webmaster for all the hard work that went into this upgrade, along with all the fixes and changes that are still on-going. Thank you, Johan, TE has always been a great forum for all of us, and now it looks even better. Without your tireless dedication, the rest of us would actually have to work all those hours we spend in front of our computers when our bosses think we're doing our jobs.

Agreed!

Is there a donate button anywhere? Paypal address I can send to?

I try to participate as much as I can and like to think I'm adding some sort of value to the site as a whole, but...in most cases I'm usually asking something myself

This site and it's members have certainly provided a HUGE amount of value (both monetary and non) to both my career and life. We've gotta give back any way we can and keep places like this around!

Xantcha

Looks very nice. Good job and thanks.

Xcluziv

Looking good....verry noice

Nate--IRL--

Hmmm, I switched to the mobile theme to have a look, and now I can seem to access my account settings to change it back. Clicking "Full Site" has no effect.Nate

rsutton

Site looks good! Is there a legend for the new icons?

Webmaster

Nate--IRL-- wrote: »

Hmmm, I switched to the mobile theme to have a look, and now I can seem to access my account settings to change it back. Clicking "Full Site" has no effect.Nate

Try using the grid menu to go to the forums (or use the direct url /forums/) and try the Full Site option there please. That said, if the mobile style works for you, why would you want to switch back?

I'll start a separate thread about mobile themes soon - we will support pretty much every modern and also not-so-modern phone. Atm the forums should work for people with Androids and iPhones. I personally love the new mobile style. Here are some screenshots of how it should look:

Edit: we'll have real app for droids and iOS within a couple of months as well.

rsutton wrote: »

Site looks good! Is there a legend for the new icons?

I actually removed the icon legend from the design because it took too much space. I can add a link Icon Legend to the footer and still show them but in short:
- red means hot topic (based on views or replies)
- orange means new (I.e. new thread in forum, new post in thread)
- the lock means locked (:)) and yellow arrow means moved.
- the green arrow means you replied to the thread.

@Slowhand: Thanks

It's a great community worth my dedication and more.

@mattlee09: Thanks, I did mention to a few others the Support Us option will be more visible in the new design but totally forgot about it - I`ll add that to the footer as well.

Also, in regards to a message I received about site performance, the new design is "not" slower than the old. It's actually faster partly because it uses divs/ul/il+css properly instead of the old table/tr/td html structure. However, the underlying system "is" a bit heavier on the server so actual site performance may be less. If it turns out to be really bad at peaks we'll definitely upgrade the server hardware as well but I think we'll be fine. It'll undergo some tuning later this week once we gathered enough usage info.

Thanks again for the feedback and also for your patience while I'm fixing things. I actually planned for things to go a little bit smoother but despite several test upgrades and installs the live one went a little different. By the end of this week I should be ready to continue with phase 2 of the upgrade.

Webmaster wrote: »

Edit: we'll have real app for droids and iOS within a couple of months as well.

That is exciting news! I am really bummed out about the mobile browsing on android 2.2 and 2.3. I haven't been able to spend nearly as much time on the forums since the update.

Devilsbane

simonmoon wrote: »

Clicking "go to first unread post" icon is taking me to the start of the thread, not the first unread post.

Mine will go, it just stops at the first post for 5-10 seconds. Meanwhile I'm impaitent and given up on technology and trying to scroll myself. Then it finally does make the jump and I don't even know where I am anymore. IE8

Clicking on reply is instant. Trying to quote takes some time to load, as does editing.

Devilsbane

Webmaster wrote: »

The invalid redirect message after logging in should no longer appear.

I logged onto my palm pre at 11 or 12 last night. Got the full site and also got that error. Maybe you fixed it minutes after I saw it?

Webmaster

Devilry wrote: »

That is exciting news! I am really bummed out about the mobile browsing on android 2.2 and 2.3. I haven't been able to spend nearly as much time on the forums since the update.

What exactly doesn't work for you with the current mobile style? Some of our moderators have tested it on droids and I have in the emulator and it seems to work rather well. It's in many ways an improvement over the old style (which simply doesn't work on our new system) which was specifically designed for iPhones and not droids, and even though atm it's buggy (and works, at least should, for only the forums atm). As I mentioned in my initial post, there's an updating coming soon for the mobile style (I expect within a matter of weeks, the update is currently in beta) that contains 122 fixes and adds some missing features (like "what's new") but also support for more mobile browsers and pages outside the forums (currently that's only the homepage, which now is messed up in the mobile style. Again the forums should work though. In any case, complete mobile support is at the top of my list.

Server just had a hick-up, if you noticed a db error it's because I had to do a quick restart of the db server. I apologize for any inconvenience (I see it saved my post

) and looking into now.

Webmaster

Devilsbane wrote: »

I logged onto my palm pre at 11 or 12 last night. Got the full site and also got that error. Maybe you fixed it minutes after I saw it?

I replaced the workaround with supposedly the real solution to that error and there was a short period in which it could occur again. It should be solved for the moment. I actually may have to introduce that error again for short periods (minutes) a couple of times.

brad-

Thanks Johan for all the work.

My input:
1- I miss the tooltips when you hover over a thread to give you the first few scentences.
2- I dont care for the advertisements below the first post on every page...but thats just teh way it probably has to be. Not really a criticism, just saying.

Nate--IRL--

Webmaster wrote: »

Try using the grid menu to go to the forums (or use the direct url /forums/) and try the Full Site option there please. That said, if the mobile style works for you, why would you want to switch back?

Unfortunately, no joy with either of those methods. The Grid menu has an option for changing My Profile, but not for changing my account settings. The direct url /forums/ still shows the Mobile theme and selecting "Full Site" has no effect in Opera or Internet explorer.My account seems to be locked to the mobile theme now. The reason I want to change back is that I mostly view the forum on my main computer rather than my phone. A strange glitch, but not the end of the world.Nate

Webmaster

brad- wrote: »

Thanks Johan for all the work.

My input:
1- I miss the tooltips when you hover over a thread to give you the first few scentences.
2- I dont care for the advertisements below the first post on every page...but thats just teh way it probably has to be. Not really a criticism, just saying.

2. Those ads are for guests/not logged in visitors only and shouldn't be visible to members (if the thread has one post it's a different ad at the bottom of "all posts") and both have been there for years i.o.w. ads haven't changed with the upgrade.
1. Hmmm, seems I broke those as they should be there. Thanks, I'll take a look as soon as I get the chance.

Webmaster

Nate--IRL-- wrote: »

Unfortunately, no joy with either of those methods. The Grid menu has an option for changing My Profile, but not for changing my account settings. The direct url /forums/ still shows the Mobile theme and selecting "Full Site" has no effect in Opera or Internet explorer.My account seems to be locked to the mobile theme now. The reason I want to change back is that I mostly view the forum on my main computer rather than my phone. A strange glitch, but not the end of the world.Nate

That's certainly strange, I'll PM you about this later today.

erpadmin

Johan,

One thing maybe you ought to do is maybe rollout HTTPS login? GoDaddy/Globalsign have real cheap certs and I think for a little extra, you could gun for extended validation certs.

Just an idea...I know some other forums use them. If there was a way for us to contribute other than the ads, I'd help chip in for that.

Devilsbane

erpadmin wrote: »

If there was a way for us to contribute other than the ads, I'd help chip in for that.

Speaking of ads, I've clicked on several because the screen jumps around. Is this your evil plot to take over the world?

Webmaster

erpadmin wrote: »

Johan,

One thing maybe you ought to do is maybe rollout HTTPS login? GoDaddy/Globalsign have real cheap certs and I think for a little extra, you could gun for extended validation certs. Just an idea...I know some other forums use them. If there was a way for us to contribute other than the ads, I'd help chip in for that.

We actually had it for a year and then when the cert expired it turned out almost nobody was using it, but, you are right, the certs are dead cheap nowadays. I'll add this to my longer-term ToDo list, as in after I completed phase 2, thanks. As for the donations in addition to the ads, even though the latter don't provide a full income, they have allowed me to do this for over 9 years now and make up for the costs and much of my time and I hope to continue like that for many years to come. Edit: I might add a second paid, no-ads, with bonus features, TE app but that's something for later this year.

Devilsbane wrote: »

Speaking of ads, I've clicked on several because the screen jumps around. Is this your evil plot to take over the world?

I actually noticed it jumps back sometimes to the last post while scrolling to the bottom. It might grow a mind of its own but it's certainly not on purpose

Speaking of jumping to last post, it seems to work fine as long as the page loaded completely. It's just a basic HTML anchor link though.

whatthehell

It looks frackin awesome! Thanks for all the hard work and looking forward to checking it out on my mobile devices!

j_griffith

My netbook only supports 1024x600 without scrolling, could that be supported?

erpadmin

Webmaster wrote: »

Edit: I might add a second paid, no-ads, with bonus features, TE app but that's something for later this year.

Keep up the hard work, brother. I'm sure you will have all the gremlins worked out and add to this site as your time/costs permits. I for one would like to be a paid member just cause I know the site can be expensive to run.

Yeah, we're (probably) not going to buy you a castle...but perhaps a small moat, if you so desire...

Nate--IRL--

Webmaster wrote: »

That's certainly strange, I'll PM you about this later today.

The issue seems to a have been corrected now. Thanks.

Nate

Webmaster

j_griffith wrote: »

My netbook only supports 1024x600 without scrolling, could that be supported?

Uhm, no horizontal or no vertical either?

The minimum width is 1015 (about 9% of our visitors are still on 1024x768 ) so it should fit horizontally. Feel free to email me a screenshot if I'm misunderstanding (webmaster 'at' techexams.net).

computer g33k

The new site looks amazing.