Forum Updates and Changes Announcements

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Winston
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Re: Miscellaneous Website Updates

Post by Winston »

Announcement:

I created two new categories in the forum. You will see them on the forum index page. They are:

- Countries, Cultures, Continents
- Practical Living Issues

You will see these categories under the General HA Discussions category. I've moved a number of boards into them. The location specific boards have been moved into the "Countries, Cultures, Continents" category, and some various boards related to practical issues of living abroad have been moved to the "Practical Living Issues" category.

Hope that makes the forum look better organized.

Winston
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Winston
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Re: Miscellaneous Website Updates

Post by Winston »

Update:

I've just installed a new mobile version of the forum that's designed for our upgraded phpbb3. It looks smooth and sleek. Check it out at the link below!

index.php?mobile=mobile

If you come here on a tablet or mobile device, it should redirect there automatically. If it doesn't, you can always get to it by clicking on the "Mobile Version" link at the top under the banner.

If you're on a tablet or mobile device, try it out to see if you like it. If you don't, you can always switch back to the desktop version by clicking the button "Switch to full" in the mobile theme.

Hope some of you like it. I think it looks smooth and sleek.
Check out my FUN video clips in Russia and SE Asia and Female Encounters of the Foreign Kind video series and Full Russia Trip Videos!

Join my Dating Site to meet thousands of legit foreign girls at low cost!

"It takes far less effort to find and move to the society that has what you want than it does to try to reconstruct an existing society to match your standards." - Harry Browne
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Winston
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Re: Miscellaneous Website Updates

Post by Winston »

Update:

After we switched to the new forum, the search box at the top that came with the template sucked. I couldn't find a lot of search terms. And I could not build a search index in the admin panel either because building that index put too much of a load on our server that caused the panel to fail. So we couldn't even generate a proper search index.

So I put the Google search box back at the top since it worked much better. You can use it now to find topics or keywords.
Check out my FUN video clips in Russia and SE Asia and Female Encounters of the Foreign Kind video series and Full Russia Trip Videos!

Join my Dating Site to meet thousands of legit foreign girls at low cost!

"It takes far less effort to find and move to the society that has what you want than it does to try to reconstruct an existing society to match your standards." - Harry Browne
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Winston
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Re: Forum Updates and Changes Announcements

Post by Winston »

Note: I just disabled the forum feature that shortens URL links to a shortened version with dots in the middle.

I thought it made links look annoying and weird, and made it harder to copy and paste posts. If you copy and paste a post with a shortened link, the shortened link will not work once pasted. So you have to do an extra step and right click the shortened link and select "Copy link address" in order to copy the full URL.

However, disabling that feature will not unshorten the URL's that have already been shortened. So if you wish to unshorten any URL's in your posts, you will have to edit them and then resubmit them. Once you do that, the URL will no longer be shortened and will show up as the full URL.
Check out my FUN video clips in Russia and SE Asia and Female Encounters of the Foreign Kind video series and Full Russia Trip Videos!

Join my Dating Site to meet thousands of legit foreign girls at low cost!

"It takes far less effort to find and move to the society that has what you want than it does to try to reconstruct an existing society to match your standards." - Harry Browne
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eurobrat
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Re: Forum Updates and Changes Announcements

Post by eurobrat »

Winston wrote:Note: I just disabled the forum feature that shortens URL links to a shortened version with dots in the middle.

I thought it made links look annoying and weird, and made it harder to copy and paste posts. If you copy and paste a post with a shortened link, the shortened link will not work once pasted. So you have to do an extra step and right click the shortened link and select "Copy link address" in order to copy the full URL.

However, disabling that feature will not unshorten the URL's that have already been shortened. So if you wish to unshorten any URL's in your posts, you will have to edit them and then resubmit them. Once you do that, the URL will no longer be shortened and will show up as the full URL.
Fix your avatar lol.

And I can't wait to get the HA private chatroom going so we can have realtime chats all in one area.
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Winston
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Re: Forum Updates and Changes Announcements

Post by Winston »

Updates:

I've changed the font of the forum posts to sans-serif. Now the text looks smoother and neater. How do you all like it? The default one looked funky and uneven.

I've also increased the font size of the text a little bit, so it's easier to read. Hope it doesn't look too big for those of you who have big screen computers or laptops.
Check out my FUN video clips in Russia and SE Asia and Female Encounters of the Foreign Kind video series and Full Russia Trip Videos!

Join my Dating Site to meet thousands of legit foreign girls at low cost!

"It takes far less effort to find and move to the society that has what you want than it does to try to reconstruct an existing society to match your standards." - Harry Browne
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jamesbond
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Re: Forum Updates and Changes Announcements

Post by jamesbond »

Winston it sure would be nice if you could fix the YouTube link so we can see and hear YouTube videos. I know you have been working on trying to fix this.

It really sucks not to be able to see any YouTube videos on this new forum! :shock:
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Winston
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Re: Forum Updates and Changes Announcements

Post by Winston »

Just to let you all know, in this forum there is a help guide with a list of FAQ's that address questions about the basics of using this forum. So if you have any questions about how to do something on the forum, you can check to see if it addresses it. Here is the link.

faq.php

For future reference, if you need to find the support guide again, you will find the link to it in the top right of the forum at the FAQ link next to the login/logout link.
Check out my FUN video clips in Russia and SE Asia and Female Encounters of the Foreign Kind video series and Full Russia Trip Videos!

Join my Dating Site to meet thousands of legit foreign girls at low cost!

"It takes far less effort to find and move to the society that has what you want than it does to try to reconstruct an existing society to match your standards." - Harry Browne
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Winston
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Re: Forum Updates and Changes Announcements

Post by Winston »

Ok we've switched back from the Halloween theme to the regular theme now.

Since the Halloween theme is a dark background one, I've decided to keep it active as an alternate theme that one can select if they prefer it.

To select it as your theme, go to your User Control Panel linked above. Under Board Preferences, you will see an option for My Board Style. There you can select the Halloween theme. Then click submit and you will be viewing that theme again. So if any of you prefer it, you can always switch to it.

Here is the link for your User Control Panel.
ucp.php
Check out my FUN video clips in Russia and SE Asia and Female Encounters of the Foreign Kind video series and Full Russia Trip Videos!

Join my Dating Site to meet thousands of legit foreign girls at low cost!

"It takes far less effort to find and move to the society that has what you want than it does to try to reconstruct an existing society to match your standards." - Harry Browne
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Winston
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Re: Forum Updates and Changes Announcements

Post by Winston »

Update:

I just installed a Google search box in the mobile theme of the forum. Check it out.

index.php?mobile=mobile

Now the mobile theme is fully functional and complete. :)
Check out my FUN video clips in Russia and SE Asia and Female Encounters of the Foreign Kind video series and Full Russia Trip Videos!

Join my Dating Site to meet thousands of legit foreign girls at low cost!

"It takes far less effort to find and move to the society that has what you want than it does to try to reconstruct an existing society to match your standards." - Harry Browne
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Winston
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Re: Forum Updates and Changes Announcements

Post by Winston »

Winston wrote:Updates:

I've changed the font of the forum posts to sans-serif. Now the text looks smoother and neater. How do you all like it? The default one looked funky and uneven.

I've also increased the font size of the text a little bit, so it's easier to read. Hope it doesn't look too big for those of you who have big screen computers or laptops.
That font was too big, so I've changed it back to normal size. Is the font size too small for any of you, or just right?
Check out my FUN video clips in Russia and SE Asia and Female Encounters of the Foreign Kind video series and Full Russia Trip Videos!

Join my Dating Site to meet thousands of legit foreign girls at low cost!

"It takes far less effort to find and move to the society that has what you want than it does to try to reconstruct an existing society to match your standards." - Harry Browne
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Winston
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Re: Forum Updates and Changes Announcements

Post by Winston »

Update:

I got rid of that navigation menu at the top because most of the buttons were not working anymore. They disappeared when you hovered your mouse over them. I could not fix it. Weird. It was too big anyway. I tried to install a one line menu but the coding was too complicated and conflicted with the code of the template. So I just settled for a simple text link menu at the top for now. It looks amateurish I know but it helps to consolidate space at least. lol
Check out my FUN video clips in Russia and SE Asia and Female Encounters of the Foreign Kind video series and Full Russia Trip Videos!

Join my Dating Site to meet thousands of legit foreign girls at low cost!

"It takes far less effort to find and move to the society that has what you want than it does to try to reconstruct an existing society to match your standards." - Harry Browne
ethan_sg
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Re: Forum Updates and Changes Announcements

Post by ethan_sg »

Winston I think another thing you could do is to make it easier to login/register. The login and registration buttons should feature prominently on the homepage for ease of use. Right now it's not even accessible on the homepage.

Also would you be able to allow users to register/login via social media as another option? People have tons of username password combinations to remember these days and many forget them after a while so allowing the social media option (which should still enable users to select their own nicknames) should help increase your retention rate.
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Winston
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Re: Forum Updates and Changes Announcements

Post by Winston »

On the forum index page, there is a link to log in or register. All forums have them in the tip right corner. Its very standard. Dont u see it? If you arent logged in, you will see it. Otherwise if ur logged in you will see a log out link in the top right.

Yeah i am thinking of allowing a facebook login. But its very complicated to install. Did u design your site by yourself?
Check out my FUN video clips in Russia and SE Asia and Female Encounters of the Foreign Kind video series and Full Russia Trip Videos!

Join my Dating Site to meet thousands of legit foreign girls at low cost!

"It takes far less effort to find and move to the society that has what you want than it does to try to reconstruct an existing society to match your standards." - Harry Browne
ethan_sg
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Re: Forum Updates and Changes Announcements

Post by ethan_sg »

What I mean is that the register/login buttons should be on happierabroad.com itself and not only after visiting the forum page. That would make it clear to first time visitors that there is a forum and forum participation is one of the main purposes of the site. Higher user engagement levels will increase content and be good for SEO. For example on http://www.chinaebuys.com when you visit the site it is immediately clear that the main call to action is to 'tell us what to buy for you from China'.

For the amount of traffic you get you should be getting higher user engagement levels and more forum postings.

I really don't believe that happierabroad.com can't grow to become bigger than it already is Winston. Keep working on it.

Just my 2 cents Winston.
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