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I have reached the conclusion that MAAD aren’t bothering their @rse with the site upgrade so, me being me, I’ve decided that, sod it, I’m going to re-design the whole site and implement it as I see fit. Essentially I’m going to change the platform totally, we’ve outgrown Nuke and there’s little more that I can do with it in all honesty. The problem with that is that it’s also becoming more than a little restrictive, limiting what can actually be done.
So the Nuke system will go entirely and be replaced, I’ll not tell the whole story but in it’s place will be a heavily customised CMS system.
That means a lot of work and we’re probably a month to two months till rollout I should imagine.
The repairs@ module will be redesigned with the desired changes as discussed in the subs forum.
vBulletin will be implemented in the new release, phpBB will be abandoned although all the data and posts will be ported across.
All users etc. will also be ported along with all the content as this is essential.
There will be more monetisation of the site, this is unavoidable due to the cost of running UKW and I don’t want to charge users so, basically, I have to find the money to fund it from somewhere. It’s staggering that we had some clown call us the other day asking whether we liked working as volunteers! We were, gobsmacked to say the least, yeah like we all go to work for free. :rolls:
So here’s the question, if there’s anything that you want to see on the redesign now is the time to speak as, after I submit the specs and commit to it, that’s it, it’s a done deal.
I’d also appreciate it if you could keep this very, very quite for now as I plan a big surprise for this, in fact some people as if I get my way, truly will be gobsmacked at what I have in store. 😉
I don’t like to disappoint and I’ve basically decided, b0ll0cks, I’ll do it my way.
Oh and, if you think we get a lot of traffic now… just wait… I have evil plans. 😈
K.
Re: UKW 2.0
As you well know I have been banging on about V Bulletin for yonks, it has so many features that make using it so much easier than php.
Bring it on. 8)
Jim.
Re: UKW 2.0
Hehe…
If I get all the things I want in this get ready for a sizeable surprise. Even if I get half what I actually wanted a year ago it will revolutionise UKW bringing it bang into Web 2.0, hence the title.
Let’s just say that I thought, what can I do with a small budget that is really, really, in your face and makes the site far more useful. Then I got nasty with it and built in a lot of things that, most likely, some people might not like.
We’ll love it as will most of the indies as I incorporated a huge update of repairs@ as requested in the subs forum and that allowed me to somewhat expand on the remit. 😈
However, I’m not done as it’s like the Forth Road Bridge, I’ll just move on to the next stage after that as you gotta keep it fresh. But first there’s a couple of things I need to sort before I revisit UKW is this all goes to plan.
Only the UKW directors know what I’m up to for now until I start to Beta test. 🙂
vBulletin integration is only a small part of it all but it is also crucial to it. But I agree totally Jim, the version of phpBB we’re using is way behind the times now, it needs to change.
K.
Re: UKW 2.0
Why oh why does everything take a bl00dy age to get done? :rolls:
http://ukwhitegoods.co.uk/ukwhitegoods/
It is getting there as the tough one, which was repairs@ as it couldn’t be ported, has now been rewritten for Joomla and repairs@ is kinda important in my eyes. 😉
There will be a template change and the forums will go to a new vBulletin format. The template MAY change to the “Lego” one as I call it very shortly, at the moment it is running a pretty standard template.
K.
Re: UKW 2.0
There will be a host of errors like that Jim where the import doesn’t recognise the original characters and suchlike.
I dunno where I get the time either. 😕
K.
You’ll be happy now Jim…
I just bought the bridge from Joomla to vBulletin. 😉
I HOPE to have this done before Sibson, but somehow I don’t think it will happen and, even if it did, I don’t have time to that and this as well since there’s a fair bit of work involved in it.
Oh and the weird characters are apostrophes, for some reason databases don’t seem to like them. 😕
K.
Re: UKW 2.0
I sort of thought it was the punctuation, it only appeared in doesn’t, wasn’t and such.
I would give you a greenie for your efforts it I was able to. 😉
Jim.
Re: UKW 2.0
If you mean when I die I’d go to Talisker heaven then there’s better places I can think of. 😉
Yes, it is the punctuation that is an issue, it depends on how the dbase and import routine sort it out and often it’s a case of never the twain shall meet sadly. So, you have to manually go in and fix it. Isn’t that an unbridled joy. :rolls:
On the upside, at least it’s moving.
K.
Re: UKW 2.0
For my sins, a long time ago I sold the first dBaseII package in the UK…….. Whatever happened to the Ashton-Tate Corporation?
Anyway, looks good.
Chris.
Re: UKW 2.0
Penguin45 wrote:Anyway, looks good.
Glossing right over the first part… 😉
Thing is, it’s not what it will look like but there’s no example I can show as yet. But the news will be a bit more prominent and will be animated a little, means a bit more work but damn it looks nice.
The other things that will upset people, Martin included, is more advertising than we have currently. But, the simple fact of it is that, currently the advertising only just covers the hosting and no more. I need it to do more although, within the forums, there should be an option to pay not to see advertising and that way it’s people’s own choice, you pay to use the site advert free or you use it free but with adverts, that to me is fair. The fact remains that we have to cover the costs somehow and our previous benefactor seems to have vanished.
Which brings me to something else, we’re free in December for site sponsorship again. :rolls:
But, just to put Martin back in his cage, whilst the advertising covers the cost of hosting it does not cover the costs for development, upgrade and additional bandwidth or server requirements all which will in time need to be met. Spares sales cover the costs, just, for now along with some of the other bits and pieces we do but the loss of the P&G contract means that every penny counts for now and I have to find the cash to do all this from somewhere. It’s like a bl00dy runaway train now though with everyone wanting this that and the next thing with not everything being possible or on the agenda in the short term. I have to manage that and manage how it all plays out.
My hope is that this upgrade will further UKW, make it more professional and less “blog like” as well as generate some well needed extra revenue. Adding functionality is next.
However, one of the really nice things that I should be able to do in the future is create articles and features that are only available to trade members and that is a huge plus on it’s own.
There’s also a lot more options and controls within the forums as well as the ability to use hotlinked video from the likes of YouTube and image sites easier, I may even enable the ability to upload images directly.
All in all I’m hoping it’s a huge leap forward and that it’s only the start of it.
K.
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