Site Problems Are Now Solved (Mostly)

General Required Reading Site News76

Update 4: First of all, thanks to everyone for your kind words and your patience.

I’ve finished rebuilding SFN from scratch, and as you can see, the site looks dramatically different as a result.  As I pointed out in the comments, it is mainly because the styling code that SFN has used for quite some time has reached end-of-life and I had to scramble and find something that worked and was available to replace it.  Yep, it’s different all right and will take a lot of getting used to.  There are some benefits, though:

  • You might notice that there’s little if any blue left on the site. No offense to our UNC or Duke readers, but those colors don’t belong on this site. I’ve been meaning to fix that forever and finally got around to it.
  • The pages now size to your monitor and fill the browser edge-to-edge.  That’s nice, because I swtich back and forth from a 1920*1200 screen to a laptop that’s far smaller, and with the old design, the browser in full screen looked 1990’s.
  • The site is far faster.  I never realized how out-of-date the old style’s PHP and underlying Javascripts were.  I can see a dramatic reduction on the server load, which will hopefully translate to faster load times for you.  Of course, I went through the database, the OS and the web server itself with a fine-tooth comb today and optimized it while I was looking for the source of the errors that started this process in the first place.
  • I think that the look in the comments make them easier to read.  Sometimes long threads would make my eyes bleed, but I am getting older.  Hell, I remember the first game Lou Holtz coached.  I also remember selling mixers Coca-Colas when I was 12.  And I get to see Thompson play…in person.  You get the picture.

That’s my take.  The important thing is that we can share our takes and opinions just like always.

Last thing: I do need to update the photo-bar and will be working on that after I get some dinner.

Update 3: Never mind these ugly pictures.  They will be changed.  I had to use a new style-sheet, as I don’t have time to carve out a new one and also make sure it is compatible.  The default photos are going to be exchanged, but right now, I have other fish to fry.  You guys can comment on articles, however, and that’s a MAJOR improvement from 4pm today.

Update 2: You can now leave comments.

I am working to rebuild our site’s look and feel, and right now, it looks like this upgrade and the theme layout were not compatible.  The replacement theme that works is ugly (as you can see) and I am working on that.

Update 1: I’ve wasted enough time with half-assed support and more false starts than a typical Amato offense.  I am rebuilding the site from scratch and it’s going to be ugly around here for a while.  Bear with me, I don’t like the Carolina blue theme either and it is temporary.  If things are looking strange or the site doesn’t react for a few minutes, it is because the monkeys are at their keyboards typing furiously.

Hi folks –after a so-called minor upgrade of WordPress (the underlying blog software) late last night a major problem has erupted: users cannot leave comments.

We are aware of this and are working with the vendor to try to figure things out.  That is going to take some time on their end as well as ours — we have jobs that we would like to keep and time is at a premium.  So, until we hear from the WP folks and until we get some time to roll up our sleeves and get gritty in the code, this issue will continue.  Hopefully that won’t be a long term issue.

Anyhow, please bear with us.  We’re working on it.  –Alpha

General Required Reading Site News

76 Responses to Site Problems Are Now Solved (Mostly)

  1. Pack Leader 02/12/2009 at 8:14 PM #

    Any memeber of the 1947,1948,1949,1950 Basketball Team got atleast 4 rings I know for sure……

  2. Trip 02/12/2009 at 8:20 PM #

    It’s so beautiful.

  3. JeremyH 02/12/2009 at 9:01 PM #

    i like the new naked look, very minimalist, very functional like all the kitchen and bathroom fixtures you commonly find German homes.

  4. TheCOWDOG 02/12/2009 at 9:11 PM #

    Not to be too picky Pack Leader…ACC formed in ’53.

  5. TampaPack 02/12/2009 at 9:13 PM #

    Thanks again for all that all of you do to keep this site up and running. Obviously we are all hooked on this site. I know being away from NC, I don’t know what I would do without. Thanks again for all your efforts on behalf of Pack Nation.

  6. TheCOWDOG 02/12/2009 at 9:13 PM #

    Does not lay 4 Southern Conference rings by the wayside however. Will look deeper into that to see if someone that had those 4 titles got another one in a 2nd sport.

    Someone knows their history!

  7. Alpha Wolf 02/12/2009 at 9:40 PM #

    “there are some aspects of this temporary layout that i like–it does need a new pic at the top, but i see real potential for a beautiful/functional site, ala NCSU’s new site.”

    Actually, I will be refining this look and not re-applying the old styles. Every time I use that code, two things happen: the site either comes up totally blank or it won’t allow comments. Not good. I grabbed the updated version (it’s called K2) and it has this hideous look with the link/info columns taking half of the screen and leaving the articles way ugly.

  8. TheCOWDOG 02/12/2009 at 10:12 PM #

    Alpha, your vermillion background posts just went maroon, almost VaTechish. BTW, thanks.

  9. Alpha Wolf 02/12/2009 at 10:14 PM #

    I know, I have de-volved into a systems guy and am starting to forget CSS coding. I should get Swordfish in here to help me if he would.

  10. Jonathan 02/12/2009 at 10:28 PM #

    Let me know if I can help with the CSS or anything else. I’ve wrangled a few WordPress sites before. WolfpackWire is actually running on WP now.

    Jonathon: hit me through the contact form so we can chat in email. BTW, if you are the webmaster of WW you do one helluva job, sir.

  11. Jason Deans 02/12/2009 at 10:46 PM #

    Good work on the site. WordPress is very handy but can be a pain to rebuild.

  12. 61Packer 02/12/2009 at 11:29 PM #

    Wish it were this easy to solve our basketball problems.

  13. VaWolf82 02/12/2009 at 11:44 PM #

    I pulled up the ACC Breakdown thread and noticed that the standings that I uploaded as a jpeg doesn’t display. Does this mean that all the graphic links are broken?

    Is there any way to get the number of comments to display on the front page? It’s not a big deal, but it helps me tell when a thread is still active.

  14. Alpha Wolf 02/13/2009 at 12:05 AM #

    ^ No, VaWolf, I noticed that I need to move some files from the old site directory. There’s still a bit of work left to do, but it is mostly cleanup.

  15. john of sparta 02/13/2009 at 6:45 AM #

    your new set-up keeps crashing Mozilla.
    four times.

    I tested against IE6, IE7, FF3, Opera and the current Safari with no problems. Try clearing your caches and see if it continues. I take it you are using Mozilla on some *nix flavor?

  16. nav 02/13/2009 at 8:25 AM #

    Thanks for working so quickly on the site. I don’t know what I would have done all day at work without it.
    btw. it is much quicker.

  17. LRM 02/13/2009 at 8:48 AM #

    Alpha,

    Looks great. You could’ve pulled this off as a planned major overhaul. I think it looks much better now than it did before, more streamlined.

    And please for the love of Philip Rivers stop talking “code” — giving me flashbacks to the horror of my two semesters and one summer of C++.

    I hear you, LRM. C++ was a bear.

  18. wolfonthehill 02/13/2009 at 9:11 AM #

    There’s always a silver lining… this is a MUCH better site, from a visual and from a performance standpoint. Thanks so much for the hard work you’ve had to put into it…

  19. skitchwolf 02/13/2009 at 9:39 AM #

    Everything looks great! Much faster, too! I really appreciate your efforts as SFN is my favorite place to catch up on the Wolfpack. Go Pack!

  20. Rick 02/13/2009 at 10:23 AM #

    I must be an idiot because I cannot figure out how to change my avatar.

  21. Alpha Wolf 02/13/2009 at 10:28 AM #

    Here’s How To Change Your Gravatar (Globally Recognized Avatar):

    Go to http://www.gravatar.com
    Register for the site using the same email address you used to register here.
    Follow the instructions on their site to upload your avatar.
    It will appear here after you get done.

  22. non sequitur 02/13/2009 at 10:41 AM #

    Well done, Alpha. Superior in both form and function.

  23. tapinpar 02/13/2009 at 11:52 AM #

    Great work on getting the site going again.

    Three requests:
    1. Could you put the thread author information at the top of each thread rather than just in the main page listing? done.
    2. Could you add the scroll through links that move you from thread to thread at the bottom of the comments in addtion to the top of the page? I will look at that.
    3. Could the scroll links go left to right as you move from old to new? Currently they go right to left which seems counter-intuitive to me. I will look at that too.

    Thanks for your input. — Alpha

    Sorry to nitpick, but hopefully feedback is a good thing.

  24. Packster 02/13/2009 at 12:59 PM #

    How do you put a photo to the left of your nick?

  25. Packster 02/13/2009 at 12:59 PM #

    Nevermind….if I read the page I would’ve known.

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