Captain's Log

[Second Summer]

Have just upgraded the forum software and the enhanced search add-on to the latest versions. No new features, just bug fixes.

Edit: Also upgraded a couple of other add-ons.

 

[Second Summer]

Apparently, there has been a problem sending out email notifications since Saturday. I think it should be fixed now.

 

[Second Summer]

I've recently disabled some unused and less used add-ons for security and maintenance reasons. More add-ons could be culled in the future. If you notice anything missing you think is essential, then speak up.

 

[Second Summer]

VV has been unavailable over night until around 7:30am GMT and then again for a few minutes just now while I was messing with the configuration again. It's the old problem related to certificate renewal again. I am very sorry.

 

[Second Summer]

I'm going to restart the server in a bit for an upgrade. I expect we'll be offline for less than 5 minutes.

 

[Second Summer]

We're back. All systems normal etc.

 

[Second Summer]

Upgrading forum software, so forum will be offline for a minute or two.

Edit: All sorted now!

 

[Second Summer]

The forum was offline just now for about 20 minutes while I was modifying the server configuration a bit. Oops!

 

[Second Summer]

The hosting company is patching their systems in order to deal with the Meltdown vulnerability, and this unfortunately means we'll have some brief downtime.

We'll be going offline during a two-hour window starting 2018-01-19 3:00:00 AM UTC. The actual downtime should be relatively short, presumably just a few minutes. You probably won't notice a thing ...!

 

[MadamSarcastra]

The hosting company is patching their systems in order to deal with the Meltdown vulnerability, and this unfortunately means we'll have some brief downtime.

We'll be going offline during a two-hour window starting 2018-01-19 3:00:00 AM UTC. The actual downtime should be relatively short, presumably just a few minutes. You probably won't notice a thing ...!

Thanks for the heads-up! However, I can't even begin to determine what time that'll be for me.... LOL

 

[Second Summer]

Thanks for the heads-up! However, I can't even begin to determine what time that'll be for me.... LOL

I think it's something like 1 day and 4 hours from now. Approximately!

 

[MadamSarcastra]

I think it's something like 1 day and 4 hours from now. Approximately!

Roger that.

Wait... "from now" for you then? Or now? Sh*t.... Whatever, I'll deal. I'll probably be asleep or something....

(I'm just messin' with ya, it's all cool.)

 

[Second Summer]

On a positive note I've managed to renew the site certificates (manually ...) without crashing the web server. So that's a bit of progress there.

 

[Amy SF]

I've recently disabled some unused and less used add-ons for security and maintenance reasons. More add-ons could be culled in the future. If you notice anything missing you think is essential, then speak up.

I only just noticed that the Calendar feature is missing. Was this an add-on you disabled? I think it’s a useful feature, so if you can bring it back, would you, please?

 

[Second Summer]

I only just noticed that the Calendar feature is missing. Was this an add-on you disabled? I think it’s a useful feature, so if you can bring it back, would you, please?

Yes, I got rid of that add-on partly because it didn't work quite right, and also it didn't seem to be used a lot. Were you using it to find birthdays? I may be a able to find a dedicated birthday calendar add-on instead.

 

[Amy SF]

Yes, I got rid of that add-on partly because it didn't work quite right, and also it didn't seem to be used a lot. Were you using it to find birthdays? I may be a able to find a dedicated birthday calendar add-on instead.

Yeah, for birthdays. A dedicated birthday calendar add-on would be okay with me.

 

[Joe]

Thank you, IS, for making "Black History Month" the Featured Thread.

 

[Second Summer]

Thank you, IS, for making "Black History Month" the Featured Thread.

I think it actually happened automatically because it was a popular thread!

Yeah, for birthdays. A dedicated birthday calendar add-on would be okay with me.

OK, I've installed one now. It can be accessed from the Members menu. However, not a lot of birthdays are displayed. I suspect many members have elected not to display their birthday in their privacy settings. Also, I've configured the calendar so that it will only display birthdays of members who have visited in the last 365 days.

 

[Joe]

Why does the software on VV sometimes automatically bracket the text with MEDIA tags when I try to post certain URLs?

 

[Second Summer]

Why does the software on VV sometimes automatically bracket the text with MEDIA tags when I try to post certain URLs?

This is because of the way one of the add-ons works. If it detects the URL is a particular known media type, it will use the MEDIA tags on the assumption that this is always better and probably what the users wants. It is possible for users to circumvent this by specifically using the URL tags.

For example, here I pasted a Youtube URL into URL tags - note that you have to use the URL= syntax, and put the description between the tags:

[URL='https://youtu.be/KDbPYoaAiyc']Human Behaviour - Bjork[/URL]

Which results in:
Human Behaviour - Bjork

Edit: Or, instead of typing all that, you can just write your post as normal, then select the word(s) that should link to the media, then click the hyperlink / URL button in the editor. A little input box pops up. Paste the URL into that, click the 'Insert' button on the input box, and you're done.