RichM

They'd surely be better off putting CCTV on all of the bridges so that they can control them remotely from a control centre or wherever. This way they can reduce the number of bridge keepers required which would no doubt introduce long term cost savings after the initial cost of adapting all of the bridges. I understand they effectively do this already on one(?) of the bridges as mentioned.

Just to add; These can be adjusted to suit your preferences. You can update the settings here: http://canalworld.net/forums/index.php?/notifications/options/ It can also be found by clicking on the bell symbol at the top followed by "Notification settings". The tick-boxes which correlate with the "Notification List" can be used to adjust the FB style popups. (disable/enable to suit)

Just wanted to say a big thanks to all of those who have kindly helped others by providing support, assistance & technical insight/guidance. - One of the things we do best as a community. Will be spending some time handing out my greenies to show appreciation. (didn't want to say "hearts"! )

A suggestion which I thought some may appreciate: The new version of the forum software allows us to customise our forum profile and personalise it a little, e.g. adding cover photos, perhaps to display your favourite photo of the moment on your profile. Here's mine. Would be good to see some others.

Hi David, I suspect it could potentially be to do with the screen resolution on your computer as the forum will scale with it as best as possible. It has to do so in order to be compatible with as many devices as possible. 5-7 years ago when the old forum software was designed, smart phones & tablets were still in their infancy and were not used like they are today. Now, it's a lot more to accommodate for and thus we should perhaps expect the odd compromise here and there and should perhaps consider focusing on the improvements that it does have to offer. Sure, it's a new journey but we're all in the same boat. I'm more than happy to configure it for you as documented here if you wish. Rich

As existing members will have noticed and as per the recent announcement, we have updated the forum software to the most current version. In non-techy terms, think of it as a new engine that powers the site. The old one had reached its end of life after being in service for 5 years across many of many widely used discussion forums on the internet, including Canal World. You will notice that "View No Content" is missing. Why? The developers modified the search functionality to give you more choice over the content you choose to see and and as such, it has been replaced with "My Activity Streams" (screenshot on where to find this below) (PC/Laptop) You can set it to to show only new content or you can set it to only display content related to what your interested in, should you wish. The choice is yours but bear in mind it has a much broader scope. With this comes a little more complexity but it's relatively easy to learn. Ok that's great but I just want VNC back You can configure it to replicate the functionality of VNC. One of our forum members kindly posted the following tip on how to replicate VNC using a PC/Laptop. I'm still having problems with this Should you have any issues in completing this and should you wish to have these changes applied by me, please PM me and I will set it for you. I know we're somewhat relaxed when it comes to keeping on-topic but on this occasion, please may I kindly request that this topic stays on topic as we will be linking directly to this topic from other areas on the site. Cheers RichM

Great suggtion. As for the last step in bold I have included a screenshot showing where to find this. mross, would you mind if we re-use your tip? We could do with this in a more prominent location so others will get to see it. Cheers RichM

Hi mross, Firstly thank you for your contributions in the recent software update related topics, much appreciated. It's most likely due to the re-indexing of the database which will take some time but we should see gradual improvements. I have attached a screenshot to show where we're at. Cheers RichM

It's not that it's broken as such. The new search functionality is designed in such a way that allows it to be customised extensively and provide more control over the search results given. I appreciate users have spent some time tailoring this to their needs as they familiarise themselves with the new software. This is something I recommend doing when you have a spare 5-10 minutes if you haven't already done so. While it can be configured to near replicate the behaviour of VNC as others have discussed we appreciate it's not the same "out of the box". Again, we had no choice but to upgrade the forum software. It would have been irresponsible if we hadn't as the old version is no longer going to be supported or maintained by its developers, I.e no security updates etc. We're going to make the forum descriptions more concise shortly as to reduce the amount of scrolling required. - some are quite wordy. This change will no doubt help in this respect. RichM

I have since made it so the announcement is only displayed on the main/index page as to help address the issue you mentioned. Rich

Thanks for the feedback. One thing to add is that the search indexing is still in process and is just ~27% complete. (attached) This will take some time to complete. (I will say when) but until then the search functionality isn't complete. - but can still be configured to your style in the meantime.

Thank you for your feedback. We're taking all feedback into consideration with a view to implement improvements where possible. In the meantime, I encourage everyone to explore the new functionality of the software and the improvements it has to offer. I appreciate some may have mixed views (as do I!) but it was a journey we had to make. The software we used previously had reached its End of Life, or EOL (tech term for "use by date") and after April this year, no more security updates will provided for it by our vendor. As such it would have been irresponsible if we hadn't made the voyage. (to use Alan's term :)) Again though, we value your feedback and will be taking it into consideration bearing in mind the constraints we face. One of them being cost; This forum is funded by its members and staff alike and depends almost entirely on donations. As such, we appreciate all donations as it helps to keep the community going. RichM

Thanks for pointing out the issue with the announcement. It seems it did not like my formatting. Should be fixed now.

Thanks for the message. The search index is being re-built. As the community is quite large, we have a big database. This will likely take some time to complete and the server is working in the background to complete this. Hopefully it will complete within the next 48 hours. Our goal was to bring the site back online as soon as possible following the maintenance break earlier today. I have added an announcement which covers this along with other things to be aware of Rich

Should be ok now? Can you re-test? Cheers Rich

Several hours Rich

Sorry should have been clearer. - There will be a maintenance page with a link to our Facebook page whether or not people visit it is entirely optional. The idea is to simply give our community another place where they can discuss and continue to be part of just that, a community. I was not involved in any major updates previously, so I cannot comment on those but the short answer is no. As for the long answer, I have planned it as follows; The migration is being done in such a way that preserves the site on the original server. I will take the site offline, followed by taking a copy of the site including the database, transfer it to a different/much more powerful server, upgrade it to the new version of the forum software, address any configuration issues and then point the domain canalworld.net to the new server via DNS. Should the migration not be successful or should it take longer than expected we will point the domain back to the original server and continue the work at another time. This approach keeps risk to a minimum and allows me to "abort" without implicatons should the need arise. In addition to that, we have full site backups which are hosted in multiple locations in the UK, US and France. A further server migration will later be scheduled but more on that nearer the time. There is a likelihood we will encounter some teething issues and as such this is a rolling work in progress as we will look to make continual improvements based on user feedback. (wherever possible) We have also carried out testing and have successfully updated the site a number of times in a test environment. Some issues we can expect to see are browser caching issues and DNS propagation issues but I will be around to assist with these as and when they arise. I tried to keep it as non-techy as I could but hopefully it will help give some confidence. Rich

Appreciate your thoughts on that and it touches on one of the reasons as to why we must carry out the planned maintenance to deploy the major update; It's one measure that will enable us to keep on top of security as technology advances. Of course, whether or not you choose to visit our Facebook page is entirely up to you, the option is there for those who wish to use it and we will try and bring Canal World back online as soon as we can. Any questions/concerns, let me know. Rich

Just to add to the above, I'd like to take the opportunity to encourage you all to take a look at our Facebook page and perhaps even consider joining it if you're not already a member. When the site is offline, we will re-direct users to the Facebook page so I highly recommend joining in advance if you have not already done so. https://www.facebook.com/groups/707309872616701/ Cheers Rich

SITE MAINTENANCE AND UPDATE - Planned outages during February. During the remainder of February, we will be carrying out maintenance on the site in preparation of a major site update, followed by the update of the sites software. During which period, the site will be temporarily offline. The maintenance break will enable us to implement major updates to the software which we use run Canal World. The new update will bring many notable design and functionality improvements and concepts. Why are we doing this?: - The discussion forum software we're currently using was initially released over 5 years ago. While it has been maintained over the years, it's no longer optimised for use with current technology. - The discussion forum software we currently used is no longer supported by our vendor. This would make it difficult to receive support should we encounter any problems. It is important that we keep up to date - Mobile browser support is currently very limited. The new version will bring many improvements for mobile users - The new version of the forum software includes many security enhancements. Is there anything I need to be aware of? The site will be offline for an extended period of time in preparation of the new release commencing this Thursday. (23/02/2017) Upon completion, a number of significant design and functionality changes will be introduced including the search functionality. We will designate a forum sub-area where people can seek assistance from us and our members should they require. As we are a non-profit site, the site staff all have busy lives just like everyone else. As such we too have time constraints. Should the maintenance take longer than expected on the live server, we may continue the works at another time. After the launch of the site, we look to make continual improvements based on user feedback where possible What if I have a problem? Please either PM one of the site staff members or email sitestaff@canalworld.net What if I want to give some feedback? We welcome feedback and request you submit a topic in the Feedback & Suggestions forum. Technical Details: Current version of Invision Power Board: 3.4.8 (patched) New version of IPS Community Suite 4.1.17.1