Welcome to the new LondonCommons.net

Hi folks. This is it, the upgrade we've been talking about and working on for so long. There are still details to work out, but most of the work is done. Until everything is all wrapped up, you'll continue to see the word 'BETA' on the top banner. There is now a lot more you can do with the site!

Everything that used to be on the site is still here, usually in the same place. Here are some of the new features:

  1. images can now be put into albums (with nifty effects)
  2. audio files can be organized into playlists
  3. groups, which let you create private discussion areas
  4. social networking: add your friends to your buddylist
  5. embed videos from youtube etc. in blogs and forums
  6. categorize posts with tags
  7. compete for "spacebucks"
  8. rate content on a scale of five
  9. "book" pages that can be collaboratively edited, sorta like a wiki
  10. users can now take part in moderating comments with the karma feature
  11. spam filters and CAPTCHAs to prevent bots from making accounts
  12. a brand new look
  13. lots of smaller improvements in all kinds of places

Please take a look around, try out the new features. We will be posting more information about all of the new features and how to use them in the book pages.

If you notice anything wrong, don't panic! You can leave a comment here, or start a discussion in the London Commons Site Development forum.

Besides some tweaking that needs to be done with the theme and layout, we will be adding a few more new features in the near future. You can always post suggestions in the Site Dev. forum too.

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from LondonCommons.net on March 22, 2008 - 9:46am

A few new features introduced to the site tonight.

Cancel your own account
Moderate comments in your own blog
Trackbacks
reCAPTCHA

We also added a log in link where the log out link is like Alex suggested. Mike McGregor also did some work on the Abou

Comments

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Jeff P.'s picture

Internet Exploder

IE is not making it easy for me post a reply - this will be the third attempt on a computer at school. Keeps crashing and telling me that IE has performed an illegal operation.

"Participatory democracy postulates low energy technology. Only participatory democracy creates the conditions for rational technology." Ivan Illich http://radicalblogs.org/lpps

Jeremy McNaughton's picture

what version?

Do you know what version of Internet Explorer you're using?

Jeff P.'s picture

XP

Microsoft Windows XP, Professional, version 2002, service pack 2

"Participatory democracy postulates low energy technology. Only participatory democracy creates the conditions for rational technology." Ivan Illich http://radicalblogs.org/lpps

Trev McNaughton's picture

no, the version of the browser

thats the operating system.. what version of the browser are you trying it on?  IE5, IE6, IE7?  they're each different in terms of web standards.. silly microsoft.. 

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Jeff P.'s picture

IE 7

 

"Participatory democracy postulates low energy technology. Only participatory democracy creates the conditions for rational technology." Ivan Illich http://radicalblogs.org/lpps

Jeff P.'s picture

ha

that's what po-mo induced delirium will do... enough from the nihilists i say. on to noamy - where hope is still alive...  i will check tomorrow. 

"Participatory democracy postulates low energy technology. Only participatory democracy creates the conditions for rational technology." Ivan Illich

http://radicalblogs.org/lpps

Jeremy McNaughton's picture

over complicated css

Greg is also reporting crashes in IE in this forum topic.

It might be TinyMCE.  It might also be the overly complicated CSS in the current theme.  Thomas is simplifying the CSS in the new theme, so hopefully IE won't trip up as much. 

Trev McNaughton's picture

different theme engine

Its also a simpler theme engine, that has better support for IE's craptastic format BS.. 

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Mike McGregors photo account's picture

albums

It would appear i can no longer add albums under my photo account...  

-30-

Mike.

See my Words HERE.

Mike McGregors photo account's picture

ughh...

can't add to, or edit albums either.  

-30-

Mike.

See my Words HERE.

Rachel Ayres's picture

changed it

Second accounts didn't have that ability in the settings, I couldn't see why not, so I changed it.

Try again. 

-r.

Bex van Koot's picture

Beta vs. 2.0

Just wanted to see if anyone else had noticed that the site title says "Beta" nd wondered why, being that the site is live, it isn't "2.0" instead?  Hmmm....

Mike McGregor's picture

look up!

The answer you seek is in the 1st paragraph of the original post of this thread. 

-30-
Mike.
"Debout les damnés de l'Université."
-=There is no Cabal, Long live the Cabal=-
My Photos

Mike McGregor's picture

the "parent" variable when creating albums

I'd find it very useful to be able to select no parent for new albums. As it stands now I would have to put all new albums within my 'Mass Appeal Launch Party' Album, even if they're unrelated.    

-30-
Mike.
"Debout les damnés de l'Université."
-=There is no Cabal, Long live the Cabal=-
My Photos

Trev McNaughton's picture

parents

I'm not sure you have to select a parent.. if you don't, it defaults to the main one called "photo albums" which is where all albums are put.. I could be wrong, so I'll look at it tonight.. 

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Mike McGregor's picture

parents

 

 

 

 

Within the album submission page, there is only the one option that i can't deslect. It seems to be selected by default.

-30-
Mike.
"Debout les damnés de l'Université."
-=There is no Cabal, Long live the Cabal=-
My Photos

Trev McNaughton's picture

camino vs firefox

EDIT - it does in firefox too it looks.. it didn't before.. thats strange...

I'll get it worked on tonight

 

I don't think it does that in firefox, you could try that.. firefox is really the only supported browser on the site.. the others work, but just not as well..

also, you should avoid safari and camino, as they have neglected any fruad safe gaurds for paypal/ebay/bank fishing scams and are being heavily targetted right now... AND.. apples pulling a microsoft, and being non standards compliant with the aim of shutting firefox down..

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Mike McGregor's picture

the only thing that's

the only thing that's really preventing my from switching over is the inability to migrate my bookmarks. there was no practical way to do it last time I tried and I havent cared to look again since.

-30-
Mike.
"Debout les damnés de l'Université."
-=There is no Cabal, Long live the Cabal=-
My Photos

Trev McNaughton's picture

user albums

the maintainers of the code took out the automatic creation of albums per user.. so each user would have to create atleast one parent album before having child albums... this is kinda dumb, but I found a way to have it create one album for a user if there isn't one already existing for them when they log in..

however, those that have an album already set up will have to create a new album and then change all existing albums as child albums within that one..

so for you mike (as the example), would do the following:

  1. create a new album, and call it "Mike's Albums"
  2. edit existing albums, to be under the parent "Mike's Albums"
  3. any other albums would now fall under the parent "Mike's Albums"

I thought there was a switch in this, as it seemed to do it for me on my other install of the site on my laptop.. but I guess not.. so this may be the only way of doing it.. sort of an inconvienence, but luckily there are only a few albums on the site so far..

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Trev McNaughton's picture

parents

okay, just read some of the documentation for the albums module we're using.. seems the first album a user creates is the parent... I think I know how to get around this, so I'll try that..  

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Mike McGregors photo account's picture

aww crap...

So it looks like all the addresses of the nodes posted before the update have changed. As a result, all the internal links in old posts are broken (i.e. links in blogs to images posted on the commons, links to old blogs, etc...). Are there prospects of that being fixed in the forseeable future?  Or would I be better off going through my old stuff and fixing it manually?

-30-

Mike.

See my Words HERE.

Trev McNaughton's picture

probably have to be manually

I'm not sure if theres even an automated fix for that..  

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Mike McGregors photo account's picture

hmm...

the aspect ratios are all messed up on them too. I'm not so sure it's worth the effort to find the images and fix the links...

balls.

-30-

Mike.

See my Words HERE.

Trev McNaughton's picture

img_assist

we forgot to add img_assist, so we can't add images to content.  we also can't add images from other sites right now either (hot linking).  we'll need to do that as well. 

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Trev McNaughton's picture

favicon

we also need to remember to put the sites logo as the favicon as well..

(the favicon is the small little icon next to the url in the address bar)

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Toban B's picture

Event postings

As far as I can tell when posting new events there isn't a location field to enter that info into (though previously posted events still have there location fields) 

(Of course, for now, the location info could be entered in with the other text.  Maybe the designers are even planning to leave the posting setup that way.   I don't think that would be the best approach, but it is an option.) 

Trev McNaughton's picture

location bar

yup, definately just forgot that.. we actually had to make a new event type to replace the old one, so we could use the flashy little popup calendar for selecting date/time easily.  the old one is still there, but only for legacy reason, so no more of those will be created..

on that note, we'll add it to our list for this weeks work session and get some of these things pointed out..  thanks for the heads up 

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Mike McGregor's picture

event ratings

It seems the ratings on the events for promotion to the front page are turned off as well

-30-
Mike.
"Debout les damnés de l'Université."
-=There is no Cabal, Long live the Cabal=-
My Photos

commons's picture

fixed event ratings

Fixed that issue, just a simple adjustment.

Justin Cozens's picture

uh-oh

Looks like my account is not restricted anymore. Big trouble!  The site looks awesome though.

Mike McGregor's picture

Log-in block

Could the Login block be moved to the top of the Right hand column so we don't need to scroll down to find it?

Also, the "1234next ›last » " at the bottom of the recent post page (and other pages) is almost invisible due to a lack of contrast between the text and background colours.

 

-30-
Mike.
"Debout les damnés de l'Université."
-=There is no Cabal, Long live the Cabal=-
My Photos

Mike McGregors photo account's picture

I *Heart* Mass Import

Just sayin' 

-30-

Mike.

See my Words HERE.

Jeff P.'s picture

Groups

I have set up the Bread and Roses Cafe group but Im not able to add everyone who has subscribed. One person worked by using the email prompter. the email prompter has not worked for the other people nor can I find any 'accept' option in the groups admin area. what should I do?  

http://radicalblogs.org/lpps

Trev McNaughton's picture

some more stuff to check out on the new site

here's some more stuff to look for while browsing the site:

  1. Chatrooms - there are two of them, ones under the help menu, this is for asking for help, hopefully the mods will plant themselves in there while on the site.. this isn't for complaining or reporting stuff (which I'll get to later), its more for asking about how to do things on the site. The other one is a general chat, you can find it under the socialize menu. this is for day to day friendly chatting.. keep it civil. if we want more chat topic rooms, we can make more...
  2. the links under each page you view - there are new links under each page (like when viewing a blog, image, music, poll, etc). they do different things, and are very useful to the running and using the site. The "comment" one hasn't changed, but theres now "report this page", which allows you to send a message to admins/moderators explaining why the post was offensive, or inappropriate, or perhaps was violating copyrights.. "report spam" if you see a spammer, click that link, and tell the mods it spam, and the new spam features can be set loose on the jerk! "bookmark this" this link lets you keep track of your favorite stuff for future reference. it will add a link to it, on the left sidebar, under the heading "my favorites". so be sure to check that out.
  3. Mugshots: you'll find this in both the user profile pages, and the socialize menu.  This is for if you have a webcam, and you want to pull a silly face on the site for fun.  You can use the site to take your picture, or a picture of whatever, and it shows in the mugshot gallery (I think there's also privacy settings, but I can't remember).  You can also click and drag your mouse accross the image before taking a picture, and it will help make the picture be evening more silly (though some of us don't need any more help with that.. har har I kid!).. it may not work for everyone, but those with a webcam should definately give it a try.  you can always go back and delete them if you want..  there should be atleast two in there already from me...

I'll post some more later on.. but these I thought were worth mentioning.

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Trev McNaughton's picture

photo album issues

so the permissions haven't been properly set for photo albums mass import. I thought it was, but apparently we didn't do it. so it'll be changed later tonight. in the mean time, users can still attach an image to an exsisting photo album (that they've created, or are allowed to attach to), with the selection box inside the image upload/edit page. the box is called "photo albums" and will contain availible albums..

edit - it appears that jer changed it, because I can now see a mass import.. and mike has now made an album using it.. so it works! 

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Mike McGregor's picture

Looks good!

The site looks great!

Can someone refresh my memory on how to post multiple images? oh yea, where's the search box located?

-30-
Mike.
"Debout les damnés de l'Université."
-=There is no Cabal, Long live the Cabal=-
My Photos

Trev McNaughton's picture

searchbox

heh, must have left that one out.  I can't log into the commons anymore (relinquished my admin privs til next meeting), but when I speak to jer, tonight, we'll add it.  

you can still search by going to the searchpage
(add the word "search" to the end of londoncommons.net/ in the url box in your browser) 

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Trev McNaughton's picture

photo albums

the photo album, after you create it.  click the "mass import" tab link at the top of it.  then you'll be able to select up to 5 or 6.  once you've uploaded that many (hit submit), you can go back to that tab and repeat but adding other pics.. 

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Jeff P.'s picture

Audio

I enjoy the audio section and how easy it is to access but would it be possible to listen to audio files and still be able to navigate on diferent parts of the site?

 

http://radicalblogs.org/lpps

Trev McNaughton's picture

oh yea.. audio feeds

forgot that you could click on the links below the audio playlist players for m3u and pls.  they will allow for streaming through your choice of media players instead of the player built in the site.  

so you could click m3u and open in say winamp, or similar and it will stream through that...  

woulda mentioned it earlier, but the lack of sleep during the whole upgrade the other night made it hard to keep track of small details like that.. 

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Trev McNaughton's picture

easy to do

right click on a link, and "open in new tab" (or window if the case may be)

unfortunately, beyond that (atleast the abilities of the site), not much more can be done right now.. same with the chatroom, its one of those things that people will have to remember to do.  We discussed it before about having pop-out chatrooms and audio players, but our lack of knowledge on how to do that, as well as unable to find assistance on how to do it, got in the way.  I'm looking into that sorta thing for future upgrades. 

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Toban B's picture

Weirdness

This is... weird.

I'm going to have to do something about this creepy default profile pic. 

 

alex homanchuk's picture

 eww.. it looks like

 eww.. it looks like someone peed your portrait...

 

------------------------------------

"If tyranny and oppression come to this land, it will be in the guise of fighting a foreign enemy."
-- James Madison

Toban B's picture

Better?

Happy now?

alex homanchuk's picture

MUCH BETTER!

 I move that the London Commons make this handsome gentleman the default profile pic!!

woot!

 I second!

 All in Favour?

Aye, Aye, Arrrrrrrr 

Motion Aproved! 

 

 

-----------------------------------
"If tyranny and oppression come to this land, it will be in the guise of fighting a foreign enemy."
-- James Madison

Jeff P.'s picture

How's Winnipeg?

just following the motion with a few modifications of course. Find any Glenlivet drinkers out there? We shall have an evening dedicated to Dodgeball and scotch when you return.

cheers mate

http://radicalblogs.org/lpps

Toban B's picture

Gee..

Gee..

You're not a very "good neighbour"--or even "just a neighbour"

I think you just might be a "bad neighbour"!

Trev McNaughton's picture

way too many crash errors

getting a lot of fatal errors.. seems to be a memory problem with the site. we'll need to take a look at it from the server end, as this is now a huge site, and getting a lot of hits.. which is not good at all..

EDIT - seems to be back on track after a quick increase in memory.. hopefully it stays that way..

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