BuckeyePlanet 2.0. 10 years later, we're being rebuilt from the ground up.

[Clarity]

This is probably better suited for the Administrative forum, but I want as many people to see this series of posts as possible. So I'm going to create this closed thread here, and link to the discussion thread which is in the appropriate place:

http://www.buckeyeplanet.com/forum/administrative/631552-bp-reboot-migration-discussion.html

As some/many/all of you may know, we are leaving vBulletin for greener pastures. BP turned 10 this year, and it's time to take a strong step forward in terms of the technology we use. However, I am acutely aware of how disruptive and unhappy change can be, which is why (in the days or weeks leading up to the move) I want to introduce new features here. I am going to be inviting pockets of people over to actually test the new platform, and hope they might come back here and share their thoughts as well.

Note carefully that the screenshots I'm providing are of a work in progress. Styles aren't final, features are missing, the data from this site isn't in place -- it's a working development testbed. But I think I can use that to show off how things will be.

To relieve some concern, I can assure you that things aren't going to just be drastically different in terms of your day to day use. If you can use vBulletin, then you can definitely use the new software. It's actually less complicated, far more intuitive, and while it's been coded from the ground up as new software, it was coded by the original developers of vB (not the folks who took over there a few years ago). It is, I don't mind saying, fantastic software, and I think a lot of you are going to be VERY excited about what we can and will do with it.

I'll preview the first feature in the next post, and will update every day or two with a new post in this thread that shows off something new.

I will update THIS thread with answers to any substantive questions that I answer in the (above) linked discussion thread:

Q: Will we still have all the post/user/thread history?
A: Yes, everything will be migrated over.

Q: When do you expect the switch to occur?
A: Before the season starts. My best guess is the 12-16th, somewhere in there. We'd be down for about half a day during that process, it's going to be a massive undertaking, and I've hired staff members from the team that produced the core software to migrate the data, and do the complicated work of rewriting our old URLs to the new structure so that no links will be broken despite the new friendly URLs.

Q: Bpspy (ispy) for mobile?
A: Yes! Provided your phone's browser can handle AJAX. If it can't, there are some more static equally (perhaps even more) functional alternatives. Staying connected with what interests you is central to the new design.

 

[Clarity]

RESPONSIVE DESIGN:

The answer to mobile devices in the past have been mobile styles (good for some devices, less so for others), or mobile apps. This is clunky on a lot of levels, and just not a good solution.

I'm truly excited to announce that the next version of BP will feature responsive design. What that means is that the site will actually change itself in real time as your screen size changes. I don't mean it scales, I mean what's on the page changes and/or moves to adapt, so that you have a meaningful and properly sized experience on a cell phone, or on a tablet, or on a computer -- all from the same page, same style, same content, without having to install anything.

Here is a sample page in a typical full screen (computer) format:

Here is the same page in a tablet format:

Here it is again at (roughly) cell phone dimensions:

You can see the elements adapt (this was all done by resizing a browser window, but I could just as easily take a screenshot from a phone or tablet) on the fly. On other pages, you would see the right widget bar (to be shown later) drop BELOW the forum listing on the fly in order to show content without squeezing it all into the same place. Note that the postbit changes in the phone version, sliding above the post instead of on the size with a scaled avatar. The exterior padding disappears when you drop from full screen down to tablet size so that no space is lost to a tighter display. This is a brilliant approach to the mobile web experience, and it's going to be the future (and present) of modern web design. While it's a buzzword that others will toss around, we'll jump in with other early adopters and put it to use.

All features (including some very fun/exciting add-ons like Pick'em, Bookie, Galleries, Articles, etc.) will be responsive.

 

[Clarity]

ALERTS / NEW CONTENT / FOLLOWING:

So this update isn't *exciting* but I wanted to show off how much easier it is to stay connected to the content that's most important to you. With the new software, that largely comes in the form of alerts:

You've got complete control over what should or shouldn't trigger an alert through your profile settings. Note here a great new feature that allows tagging in threads. Which is to say that you may type '@Username' in a thread to make sure that a particular user sees that you're referencing (or otherwise calling) them, and IF they have that alert option checked, they'll get an alert flag pointing them to the post in question.

Alerts can come because someone has responded to a thread that you're watching, or because you've been tagged somewhere, or because there's been a new addition to a personal conversation (what replaces PMs, far more powerful, they're not unlike personal forums where multiple people can be invited and/or leave as they please), or because you've been liked, followed, received a trophy (more later), etc.

Keep in mind (again) that the styles I'm showing are things we're playing with. Not final products, not complete. Which is to say that awkward red text above is an artifact of an incomplete .css structure, and not representative of a final product. The plan is to roll out with 2-3 nice clean styles, each with better contrast than what we've had in BP_DayGame. Yes, the plan is to have at least one dark style for you BP_NightGame users.

So watching threads becomes an important tool insofar as the moment you log in you'll have a little alert flag letting you know if there have been any additions to the thread(s) that concern you. Note that you're always presented with the option (on a thread by thread, and forum by forum) basis to receive just alerts, or to also receive an email (our longstanding policy of NOT sending any emails by default, that people have to opt-in rather than opt-out, will of course stand).

When you go to recent posts, you see them for all of the fora available to you. Note the glasses icon which means that I'm currently following those threads:

Different from that is your own personal News Feed, which limits the post listing to just those users that you've chosen to follow:

And of course you can pull up a list of your watched threads as well. By default it lists just those that have been unread, with a link to see all (this is the latter).

See how I neglected to scratch out my devadmin temp username in a couple of those pics? Good, now I don't have to bother going forward, not sure why I was doing it to begin with -- maybe to limit confusion.

We will, as noted before, still have bpSPY. A real-time AJAX-based rolling update of new posts, for those who prefer that approach. But the point here is that you are connected, like never before, to everything that interests you. What we won't have, as I currently see it, is the TopXStats data that currently resides on the ForumHome here on 'production' BP. It feels redundant given all the connectivity and information on the new platform, and one of our primary goals is to make the site sleek, clean, light, fast, while still intuitive and rich in information.

Tomorrow I hope to demo SportsBook, which is what is replacing vBookie. And maybe I'll talk a bit about other things that you'll finally be able to do with your bpCash.

 

[jwinslow]

Here it is again at (roughly) cell phone dimensions:

To be clear, that's worst case scenario. My galaxy nexus looks about like this:

 

[Clarity]

This one is sort of self explanatory. Tweets in-line. Social network integration is substantial, but entirely optional, on a number of levels.

 

[Clarity]

WE WILL BE DOWN SUNDAY FOR THE MIGRATION.

I expect to shut the site down around 1pm ET. I have no ETA for its return. I expect just the data migration and conversion to take around 6 hours. After that, there's going to be some essential work just to get the new site running, and to make sure everything is intact.

I intend to bring the new site up as soon as possible. Meaning, while we're still working on it after the data is moved. So Sunday night, expect it to be shut down periodically, expect wholesale changes to forum structure, expect features to NOT be present when we first come back up that will be added throughout the evening, and possibly into Monday.

Any change requires a little bit of patience and an open mind. Here's what I'm absolutely comfortable saying -- once you've adapted and you're familiar with Xenforo, you're going to wonder how we ever survived on vBulletin. If you don't know how to do something in the new system, just ask, one or more of the people who have been involved with the prep can try to answer questions and point people in the right direction.

XF is made by the original VB developers. It's completely different and modern software, but there's going to be a philosophical and functional familiarity built in for everyone. Please be patient, I expect Sunday to be a very long day for myself, and it may be that I don't get as much done as I want, or it could be that we have problems with the massive data migration that makes that 6 hours substantially longer (oh how I hope that's not the case).

Anyway, we've only a few days left here on vB, which has been our base for a full decade. Pretty crazy. I hope each of you will be and/or become huge fans of the next step forward.

I didn't do as many of these preview posts as I hoped. The prep work has been furious, and we had to invent creative solutions to new problems that (as I type this) continue to flummox most others working with responsive design. I'm happy to say that I think we're *very* close to being ready, which is good, because Sunday is coming.

I'm leaving this thread open.

 

[FCollinsBuckeye]

vB, which has been our base for a full decade.

:crazy:

That's nuts. Big props to you, C , and everyone else busting ass to make this upgrade. I didn't do any previewing, but I really look forward to where we're heading.

Thanks man :)

 

[BuckTwenty]

Agreed. Major kudos to you Clarity. You're the man. How exciting! Hope all goes well with you and your team of minions in implementing everything on Sunday!

 

[Clarity]

Thanks, guys. Sunday is going to be an adventure.

Regarding vBookie: As I've said before (elsewhere, maybe here, I'm not sure) we will NOT be migrating old (or current) Bookie events into the new system. It's simply not practical (or even possible for our purposes). We *will* be recreating current events in the new structure, and folks will have to re-place their bets. We're not losing any of this old data, so it's *possible* we can go back after the fact and try to honor the spirit of bets placed before the conversion, but I can't make any absolute promises there.

My initial intent was to retain current virtual currency values. That is *not* the plan as I write this, for a multitude of reasons. Not the least of which is that the greatly expanded functionality of the Sportsbook allows us to create a much more reasonable simulation (but still a fun one) of a real world betting experience (without the danger of losing your house). That means bigger risk with bigger rewards. While I intend to honor those with the highest legacy vBankrolls somehow, expect a clean start across the board. That said, we WILL be going through and re-applying 2013 donor vCash awards in the new system on some reasonable scale. So some of you will start with a bit more than others.

 

[MD Buckeye]

Can't wait

 

[Clarity]

Wanted to take a sec to share a screenshot of one settled (test) SportsBook event to demonstrate WHY we're not moving old events over.

As you can see below, we have a single event with multiple lines of different betting for that event.

Which is to say that going forward on the new system, when we bet on a game (say, the Buffalo game) we not only have opportunities to place W/L bets, spread bets, but also who scores first, and other creative lines of betting as the event creators so desire. When and as possible we'll be tying to popular Vegas odds as much as possible. Note too that over the life of an event that we may update the odds. Let's say we create an event for the winner of the Super Bowl, and the odds for Green Bay (as an example) are great right up until they lose Aaron Rodgers in week 3 for the season (apologies to my GB fans for this hypothetical); then they plummet. If you placed a bet before the update, you're still locked into the old odds, and any new bets placed would be based on the new ones (until they change again).

Sportsbook is a MAJOR upgrade from vBookie, and our event/odds/risk-rewards philosophy is changing to a more realistic approach as well (except the realism stops when vGuido (now xGuido, I suppose) just gives you new money to play with when you bust out.)

 

[Clarity]

Note also that the Sportsbook, like Pickem, our new gallery, and all of our features are fully responsive.

No more tiny tiny tiny shrunken site on any page if you're on your phone. The site (as described above) adapts to your screen dimensions.

 

[osugrad21]

Rumor has it [strike]Tibor[/strike] Guy Incognito will be cutting the ribbon at the opening ceremony.

 

[Taosman]

It was a very, very long time ago and BuckeyePlanet was just forming. Things didn't always go as planned.......
[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zocutif0cQY"]Ice Age 4: Scrat Continental Crack Up HD - YouTube[/ame]

 

[BB73]

Thanks, guys. Sunday is going to be an adventure.

Regarding vBookie: As I've said before (elsewhere, maybe here, I'm not sure) we will NOT be migrating old (or current) Bookie events into the new system. It's simply not practical (or even possible for our purposes). We *will* be recreating current events in the new structure, and folks will have to re-place their bets. We're not losing any of this old data, so it's *possible* we can go back after the fact and try to honor the spirit of bets placed before the conversion, but I can't make any absolute promises there.

My initial intent was to retain current virtual currency values. That is *not* the plan as I write this, for a multitude of reasons. Not the least of which is that the greatly expanded functionality of the Sportsbook allows us to create a much more reasonable simulation (but still a fun one) of a real world betting experience (without the danger of losing your house). That means bigger risk with bigger rewards. While I intend to honor those with the highest legacy vBankrolls somehow, expect a clean start across the board. That said, we WILL be going through and re-applying 2013 donor vCash awards in the new system on some reasonable scale. So some of you will start with a bit more than others.

Does this mean I have less than 48 hours to spend over $500 vBILLION dollars on vHookers and vBooze? Damn, and people think you're going to have a busy weekend!