TheFactoryFiveForum.com Version 2.0

[David Hodgkins]

The time has come. Or I should say, is coming soon.

Twenty years ago on April 23rd 2006, I took delivery of my beautiful MKIII, ol' 5369. In honor of that auspicious occasion, I am shooting for that day to be the launch of public testing of The Factory Five Forum, version 2.0.

The Factory Five Forum version 2.0 is a reimagining of what can be the most impactful tool for our unique community. This is not just "Forum Software", this is completely new, modern experience designed from the ground up for Factory Five builders and dreamers. It uses the latest tech and will feel very familiar the both the traditional forum crowd, as well as newer user experiences like Facebook and Instagram.

I've been a member of this community for 20+ years. I built and have run this forum for 15+ years. Moreover, I am a software developer with over 30 years with everything from startups to very large public entities. I've never been as proud to present something new as I am this new "thing" to our community.

I hope you LOVE it, and I'm ready for the comments. I'll be posting more teasers soon. All the features I post will be working code, not a mockup.

[Papa]

Looks nice, Dave. Will our past and current build threads be transfered to the new forum when it goes live?

Dave

[JimStone]

I'm interested to see the new site.

I'm sure I'm not alone having some trepidations with a new format. I've grown up with this style of message board, so there is a comfort factor there.

I do hope there is still a home page running the newest posts, regardless of subforum they were posted in

[Skuzzy]

I hope it is okay to ask,...what is it built on (vBulletin, SMF, Xenforo, phpBB, custom...)? I'll take the comparison to Facebook and Instagram with a grain of salt, as I am not a fan of either.

[Jeff Kleiner]

Waiting to see but meanwhile my question is “what is this supposed to fix?’”

Jeff

[Skuzzy]

Waiting to see but meanwhile my question is “what is this supposed to fix?’”

Jeff

I would speculate there are options available in the new software which will allow him to implement things that are difficult to do in current version of vBulletin. I did software development for over 40 years and that was always the compelling reason to implement major upgrades.

[David Hodgkins]

Looks nice, Dave. Will our past and current build threads be transferred to the new forum when it goes live?

Dave

That is TBD. The structure of build threads in particular is different than the new Build Logs. The old site is NOT going away, although it will be archived at some point, meaning it will be read-only. Searches on the new site will be enhanced to use data from both sites.

I'm interested to see the new site.

I'm sure I'm not alone having some trepidations with a new format. I've grown up with this style of message board, so there is a comfort factor there.

I do hope there is still a home page running the newest posts, regardless of subforum they were posted in

The forums on the new site will act very much like you are used to. Yes, recent posts will be retained, in a prominent position on the "Home" (forum) page. I think you will find working with forums, threads and replies to be familiar, but enhanced for ease of use. The main difference there will be the ability to deal with images in a "Facebook" kind of way, with drag and drop combined with automatic file conversion to a common, optimized format and the ability to crop and zoom images as part up the upload.

I hope it is okay to ask,...what is built on (vBulletin, SMF, Xenforo, phpBB, custom...)? I'll take the comparison to Facebook and Instagram with a grain of salt, as I am not a fan of either.

This is all custom code, using modern libraries and frameworks like React for the ui and .NET for the back end. At this point the API's will not be public. I'm taking what works for Facebook (React UI libraries) and combining it with the forum paradigm of easily accessible post history and the ability to find previous threads, posts, etc. Have you ever posted on Facebook and tried to find it later? This site will NOT be that.

Waiting to see but meanwhile my question is “what is this supposed to fix?’”

Jeff

The biggest goal as far as "fixing" goes is to streamline media handling and make the site fully responsive, so that it works - and looks great - on any device. Also, The former classified section is being reworked to improve the user experience and deal with scammers. Another area is PM's. You know what I'm talking about if you've ever had any kind of prolonged back and forth with somebody. The "Reply History" can become pretty ugly after just a few replies. If you check out the PM message above (formatted as if it is being viewed on a phone) you will see how you can easily hide that history, but it is still just a single click away.

Those are fixes.

The new site has some features not seen before, like Build Logs and Picture Of the Month contest (POM). More on that in a bit. The site will launch with 2 themes - "Dark" and "Light" - as shown in the first pic posted in this thread. That pic shows how the site will be seen in light mode on a phone to the left, and dark mode on a PC or tablet on the right.

[David Hodgkins]

I would speculate there are options available in the new software which will allow him to implement things that are difficult to do in current version of vBulletin. I did software development for over 40 years and that was always the compelling reason to implement major upgrades.

I actually went down the route of upgrading vBulletin. I couldn't get it to do the things I wanted. Although easier to set up initially, I wasn't looking forward to another round of "beat to fit, bend to match", like the current POM, for example.

[David Hodgkins]

Ultimately the goal here is to use the ui technology of today and build a new state-of-the-art wildly enhanced forum for our specific hobby, or lifestyle if you're a guy like me.

Lets start with the Home page, which is also the Forums.

The main thing you see right at the top are navigation, search, alerts, and either a profile link, or Login/Register buttons in the header. Then the Gold and Silver advertisers, separated by a wall-to-wall slide show. It featuring call to action slides, which encourage new users to visit different areas of the site. These will be minimal in number, perhaps one or two at a time. The rest of the slides will feature the previous 6 month's POM winners.

Here's the top portion of the Home page with a call to action slide:



...and here it is on a phone browser, with a POM Winner:

[David Hodgkins]

pt 2...

For the purposes of this thread I'm only going to use desktop screen captures going forward. I'm also partial to the dark theme, but that's just me.

Since the Forum page is also the Home page, it gets the most "fluff" at the top. Below that are the forums. It's tabbed with Latest Forum Activity as the default:



A couple of things to note here.

• The use of pages. No doom scrolling, which is a Facebook thing, not a forum thing. Again, trying to bring the best from both worlds.
• This list is of Latest FORUM Activity, not Latest SITE Activity. There is an additional tab to choose between them, because this is the Home page.
• Forum Activity covers threads starter posts and thread replies. The Site Activity Tab is self explanetory.
• The footer. Consider this a placeholder, directly from my prototype. WITH the exception of the theme picker, nothing works and content is wrong.

The row is clickable to get to the post, and the Author's name is a link to their profile page.

The Forums Tab:



I am in favor of keeping the forum count down, and using tags as a means to classify and search. otherwise the ui will be more complicated. I'm open to opinions.

That's all for now, I have get back to it.

[JTG]

I have been at a few companies that have updated / upgraded their ERP software while working there and the progression was something like this: Scary, Confusing, This is stupid, I think I get it, Brilliant!

I'm not comparing the complexity to ERP software, just saying that I'm on board with whatever you have planned.

Thanks for everything!
Jon

[Skuzzy]

I actually went down the route of upgrading vBulletin. I couldn't get it to do the things I wanted. Although easier to set up initially, I wasn't looking forward to another round of "beat to fit, bend to match", like the current POM, for example.

I know what you mean. I inherited vBulletin at the last company I worked for and after one upgrade, decided to switch to something else. I never did anything which depended on third party sites either. I knew too many who got burned by that.

Always exciting to deploy something new. Good luck with it!!

[tundra2050]

I've never been a fan of social media. This site is the only social media worth being a part of.

Dave, thanks for what you've done and continue to do to improve this site!

[edwardb]

I have been at a few companies that have updated / upgraded their ERP software while working there and the progression was something like this: Scary, Confusing, This is stupid, I think I get it, Brilliant!

I'm not comparing the complexity to ERP software, just saying that I'm on board with whatever you have planned.

Thanks for everything!
Jon

Too funny. Back when I actually had to work for a living, I was on teams and leading teams that were inflicting ERP software changes at multiple sites for large multi-national manufacturing companies. In addition to training on the software, the migration, etc. we had a major educational track on change management. Because we found, and studies confirm it, that well over 50% of people react negatively to change no matter what. It helped some but most went through the exact stages you described. We were always on the lookout for early adaptors who could help mentor those who struggled. After a year or so, most of the naysayers wouldn't go back for any reason. But it was a painful process and we did lose a few along the way who just wouldn't change.

Although different as you said, this forum migration has some of the same dynamics you described. Already people are asking why, I don't want to lose my favorite feature(s), don't make me work differently, etc. David, I applaud you for what you've done with this forum and the work you've invested to make it newer, fresher, better, etc. Count me in as one will do my best to adapt as necessary and enjoy the improvements.

[edwardb]

Hey David. Tried to send you a PM several times. "David Hodgkins has exceeded their stored private messages quota and cannot accept further messages until they clear some space." Happens even to site administrators.

[Jeff Kleiner]

Hey Hodgkins! I got your PM but couldn't respond because your mailbox is full so I'll just reply here:

My answer is YES! Don't forget though that I'm old, cranky and ordinarily resistant to change

Jeff

[David Hodgkins]

Sorry about that guys! I cleaned it up a bit and pms should be good to go now.

[Blitzboy54]

Dave, I did not get your email but would would be happy to beta test the new site

[David Hodgkins]

Hey, check this out. You like?

[TrackDay17]

Thanks for all the hard work building and keeping this place running.
Without this place for us newbies to learn from the master builders and get help when we screw up there would be a lot more unfinished kits out there.

[Aleinsteingenius]

I just want to be able to post pictures again.

[Lugnut Mark]

Me too lol …. Post pics that is !

[PMD24]

Thank you for all of the time you've put into this.

Pat

[myjones]

Hey David. Tried to send you a PM several times. "David Hodgkins has exceeded their stored private messages quota and cannot accept further messages until they clear some space." Happens even to site administrators.

I had the same experience with his full mailbox yesterday. He's probably spending too much time on cars

[weendoggy]

Hey, check this out. You like?

To me, the thin strips of "vehicles" is a distraction and looks messy. But, tmo.

[mrmustang]

To me, the thin strips of "vehicles" is a distraction and looks messy. But, tmo.

I will second this, a turn off to those seeking substance and not glamour. Perhaps make that item a stand alone page of it's own so as to not clutter up the basic function of the forum. If anything, doing so will make it less taxing on not only the server, but the users optics as well.

Less is more


Bill S.

[dbo_texas]

Excited to see this new forum. I've been thinking it's about time to update the backend. If it works better on mobile and allows easier adding pictures/videos from your phone, that's a huge win for me. I actually rarely use my desktop except to update my build thread (due to uploading pictures, etc). So this would be nice to have a clean interface on mobile devices.

[David Hodgkins]

Excited to see this new forum. I've been thinking it's about time to update the backend. If it works better on mobile and allows easier adding pictures/videos from your phone, that's a huge win for me. I actually rarely use my desktop except to update my build thread (due to uploading pictures, etc). So this would be nice to have a clean interface on mobile devices.

I have the new site up in the cloud and I am adding support for .heic images now. Once that and an email provider are in place I will be ready for user testing!

[David Hodgkins]

https://thefactoryfiveforum-bkhxambg...ewebsites.net/

Have a look!

[PNWTim]

Looks great! I can't wait.

[mrmustang]

https://thefactoryfiveforum-bkhxambg...ewebsites.net/

Have a look!

Forum list backgrounds are distracting, font should be one larger

Bill S.

[MSumners]

Current account login and passwords carry over or we should create new accounts?

Thanks

[David Hodgkins]

Create a new account. If you match your current ID I'm planning to datamine this site later for carryover capabilities.



EDIT: The URL is temporary. DNS hostname in our domain is coming next week.

[David Hodgkins]

There is a migration path between the old and new systems. So, feel free to register and play with the new system, but I don't know how permanent the data will be. so don't get too elaborate with build logs and threads. Marketplace will probably be turned off for launch, we shall see. Other small stuff to do still, like the footer and a "like" system, and emojis...

[progmgr1]

Dumb question from an old fart (and Twitter / Facebook non-user): what is the difference between a build log and the old build threads? What are the advantages to the new system?

Thank you for all the work you're putting into the Forum! I may not understand it, but I appreciate it.

Keith HR #894

[David Hodgkins]

Dumb question from an old fart (and Twitter / Facebook non-user): what is the difference between a build log and the old build threads? What are the advantages to the new system?

Thank you for all the work you're putting into the Forum! I may not understand it, but I appreciate it.

Keith HR #894

Great question. A Build log has some features not yet available in build threads:

• It incorporates build milestones. Milestones are displayed as a status of the build. There are currently 16 build milestones
• It has a Build Log Entry Timeline. A build log Timeline can be thought of as a sub-thread to the main build thread. Yes, the Build log has a comments section, but each Build Log Entry also has comments so discussions can be more focused around each build log entry

I'm a visual learner so this is what it looks like:



The last build milestone is Graduation. Graduated builds are featured on the home page in the same way recent POM winners are.

[David Hodgkins]

Here's a pic of a Graduated build featured on the Home (Forum) Page

[David Hodgkins]

Reserved for build log timeline entry

[gbranham]

I sure hope build threads port over. So many of us worked so hard to build and maintain them, and they've been a huge resource for so many new folks. Would be a shame to lose them, and I'd bet most folks would rather keep the old forum than lose the build threads.

[David Hodgkins]

I sure hope build threads port over. So many of us worked so hard to build and maintain them, and they've been a huge resource for so many new folks. Would be a shame to lose them, and I'd bet most folks would rather keep the old forum than lose the build threads.

I share your concerns. My build threads mean a lot to
Me too. I'll be working on a migration