Latest release of the Coderanch forum software - 01/20/21

[Devaka Cooray]

Hot dog! We just deployed a new release of the forum software that runs Coderanch.

Noticed the new menu bar? Here are some other changes it contains:

• Devaka - Show effectively expired thread boost factors as expired
• Devaka - Increase the default timeout of login links to 10 days
• Devaka - improve the water cooling system
• Devaka - enhance plasma synthesis to make the production of artificial atoms more efficient
• Devaka - fix the hypersonic scramjet
• Devaka - shielded the primary shuttle from the messier 83 gamma ray burst
• Devaka - fix the droid that was secretly malfunctioning
• Devaka - add more lithium-7 coolant to the main reactor
• Devaka - rewire cabin 12 to facilitate a hologram projector
• Devaka - fix the broken liquid scintillation counter
• Devaka - corrected a 5.39x10⁻⁴⁴ seconds offset found in the main atomic clock
• Devaka - add more tritium to the main engine
• Devaka - re-calibration of the carbonite freezer
• Devaka - added to level 5 diagnostic for long range sensors
• Devaka - upgrade the self-destruct button with a weirdly bigger one
• Devaka - alligator pit expansion
• Devaka - fix the launch button so it won't get 'pressed' abruptly.
• Devaka - connect the lightning rod to the top of the clock tower
• Devaka - refill the main wetwell suppression pools
• Devaka - strengthen the intensity of main ultrasonic transducers
• Devaka - Staging page for login links
• Devaka - Login link staging page - CSS fix for firefox
• Devaka - make precise simultaneous burn in tripropellant rocket system
• Devaka - alligator pit trap door mechanism adjustment
• Devaka - temporary jump jets added to escape pod 7
• Devaka - replaced some of the polymer solar cells with organic solar cells
• Devaka - capture some unstable isotopes of bismuth
• Devaka - shark tank trap door mechanism adjustment
• Devaka - refilled the main beta particle emitter with copper-64 isotope
• Devaka - connect more solar cells to the undervolt main B bus
• Devaka - lava routed to a lower level, opening up three more bunk rooms for henchmen
• Devaka - increase the magnetic field intensity of the primary cyclotron
• Devaka - thinking cap rebuilt to use batteries instead of gasoline
• Devaka - clean out the kraken cave
• Devaka - optimize stellarator to produce more plasma
• Devaka - boost the main engine thrust by a magnitude of 3.14
• Devaka - primary weapon made 4% more efficient
• Devaka - refill lithium deuteride in the external pulsed plasma propulsion
• Devaka - add more long range sensors with better accuracy
• Devaka - replace electrodes of the gridded ion thruster
• Devaka - donuts cleared out of torpedo tube 3 so we don't get ants
• Devaka - center and right bb tags
• Devaka - enhance the main gas turbine modular helium reactor
• Devaka - Make internal links with hash open within the same tab.
• Devaka - add more plasma-squeezing transformers to the magnetic confinement fusion reactor
• Devaka - fishing the gross goo out of the carbonite freezer after a boo-boo
• Devaka - add more type-x phaser arrays to the galaxy-class ship
• Devaka - install new aneutronic fusion system
• Devaka - shark tank expansion
• Devaka - fix vacuum engine in a quantum torpedo
• Devaka - fix beam-powered propulsion in one of our pulse detonation engines
• Devaka - removed the dead tribbles from shuttle pod 7
• Devaka - add more sensors to the main reactor so we can monitor it more 'closely'
• Devaka - reworked the AI of HAL 9000
• Devaka - "be nice" wording change
• Devaka - main engine reconnected to another electron pump
• Devaka - clean up the broken indium phosphide crystals
• Devaka - No more automatic pie after the first one.
• Devaka - dilithium crystal calibration
• Devaka - more quantum detectors installed to capture remote brainstem activities
• Devaka - Ability to send pie on a post without logging in.
• Devaka - robot goat army finally has actual targeting so THAT won't happen again
• Devaka - cleaned that weird goo out of transporter room 2
• Devaka - Add pie link to the main menu for non-logged in users
• Devaka - add one photon cannon to the runabout
• Devaka - Improved menu bar
• Devaka - Pie feature to let the menu bar scroll with the page
• Devaka - Various improvements to the menu bar
• Devaka - Search box on the menu bar defaults to forum search on forums
• Devaka - bring the flux capacitor online
• Devaka - fine-tune the lorentz force in the main z-pinch system
• Devaka - improve the performance of distributed bragg reflector
• Devaka - fix the broken vacuum beam lines in the primary electrostatic nuclear accelerator
• Devaka - Deprecate recent topics
• Devaka - Recent topics is now a pie-only feature
• Devaka - undocked the command module from the secret mission module
• Devaka - found the droids we were looking for

[Stephan van Hulst]

Love the new navigation menu!

[Matthew Bendford]

It took me a bit for getting to read the log - neat idea.

Devaka Cooray wrote:Recent topics is now a pie-only feature

I don't know about those pie stuff - but is there a reason this feature is now locked away behind some sort of paywall?

[Liutauras Vilda]

Very nice!

Thanks Devaka and all involved.

[paul wheaton]

Matthew Bendford wrote:It took me a bit for getting to read the log - neat idea.

Devaka Cooray wrote:Recent topics is now a pie-only feature

I don't know about those pie stuff - but is there a reason this feature is now locked away behind some sort of paywall?

https://coderanch.com/wiki/667313/custom-home-page-category-forum

[Matthew Bendford]

paul wheaton wrote:

Matthew Bendford wrote:It took me a bit for getting to read the log - neat idea.

Devaka Cooray wrote:Recent topics is now a pie-only feature

I don't know about those pie stuff - but is there a reason this feature is now locked away behind some sort of paywall?

https://coderanch.com/wiki/667313/custom-home-page-category-forum

Well, quite honestly this doesn't really answer my question. I've read about this pie stuff (although I don't seem fully got it as I (maybe still wrong) think of it as some sort of "showing of one supports the site with a bit of extra money"), but I don't get why a quite useful feature is now "locked away" only for those who either pay money support the site, get some granted by others, or write some good posts, get granted with cows, and get some pie this way.
But, it's not me to judge, I guess you have some reason why this was changed.

[paul wheaton]

The old "recent topics" stuff has been deprecated for years.   It is using old code that needs to be removed.   The new look and feel for the home page is using the new code that is much smoother.  

We need to cut our code base by 50% so we can grow faster with a new look and feel.  So the deprecated stuff needs to be removed.  

At the same time, all work is done by volunteers.   And we have zero QA, and zero BA.   Spotty dev.   So we flounder along and make the best of it.  

PIE and advertising doesn't even cover the server bill, so I just pay for stuff - but that isn't sustainable.  

The PIE stuff is $1 per month.   So if you want to keep using that feature for a while longer, you can shell out five bucks every five months.  Easy.  Or, use the new replacement that functions almost exactly the same.  


The PIE stuff is freaky cheap.   The advertising is freaky cheap.  The site is run by a few volunteers.  It isn't going to be super fancy like some places, but I think it is more about the content anyway.

[Matthew Bendford]

As said: It's not me to judge. I also don't know how much you have to pay for the server this site runs on, but as I renting a dedicated root myself for about 30€/month runing mostly my main mail server (although I have a backup on a machine at home - and luckly have a contract with a fixed IP and personalized reverse PTR record) and a couple of game servers, I'm aware of that evening running "just a forum" one doesn't get for free. As for the domain and most likely a managed mail solution - well, I'm not sure but I guess one can get those for rather cheap these days. And all that you provide for free with only very few adds. I'm fine with granting supporters some back, but a "recent topics" function?