$1936

Hi everyone,

Even though there is still a lot of things to fix, I think the new website is "ready enough" to share it with you. The sooner you start testing/using it, the better it is!

You'll find below the remaining items that are on my list. I didn't go into much detail, but if you have any question let me know and I'll do my best to explain what it implies.

Be aware that you should not think of this test website as a "finish product". It's still a work in progress (as you can see from the list below) and I'll keep updating it in the following days/weeks.

You can do whatever you want, it's a copy of the database and there is no way that it impacts the official website. Be extremely careful if you follow some links though; you could be redirected on the official website. The easiest way at the moment to make sure you're on the "privatebeta" server is to look at the top to make sure there is NO AD. If there's an ad on the page, you're on the official website. I'll probably change the background color from yellow to gray or something like that so it's even more obvious when you're not on the privatebeta server.

So, the address to test the new website is : http://privatebeta.friendship-bracelets.net

Please DO NOT SHARE IT with anyone except in the moderator forum.

It's a backup of more than a year ago, if you don't remember your password you can ask another mod to change it for you (it would be a great way to check the reset password functionality). Otherwize you can use "test@test.com" with password "test" to login (this is a test admin account).

If some of you would like to test the website as a "normal user" that would be amazing (you can reset the password of the user of your choice then log as if you were them).

I'll still be working on this new server so it's quite possible it goes down from time to time while you test, but it should not happen too often.

Please let me know if you find anything that is not working correctly. Your input is extremely important! I have to mention however that my goal is to make sure we get a working website (with identical features) as soon as possible. I'll be happy to talk about possible upgrades for a version 2 though... Also, if you think some features should be removed/simplified (in the list below) I'm really open to suggestions!!


List of things I'm working on
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Bubbles in top left
- It's a tool for me to see what's happening on the server - It won't be there after the migration...

Tutorials
- You can consult, but anything related to editing/approving/etc. is not done.

Notifications
- Nothing related to notification is done yet.

Approval process
- At the moment new or modified elements (patterns, photos, etc.) may be displayed even if they haven't been checked by a moderator. I need to review the validations...
- The moderator task list isn't done
- The moderator reviewing tools (list of tasks, go to next task, etc.) aren't built

Emails
- Anything related to sending email from the server (send email to user, retrieve password, etc.) isn't working since the email "sender" is not configured on the server.

Donated amount
- Donated amount at the top is not dynamic and link is not good.

Guestbook
- The "I am not a robot" validation is not in place for anonymous guestbook posters.

Content
- Images are all served by production server ATM (this is a little complicated... Lets say you create a new pattern on the privatebeta server. This new pattern has #88999 you made it with the colors blue and green. The image displayed when you look at the pattern on privatebeta will be the same as the one on the production server - for example it could be a red and white pattern. This will be fixed when I restore a fresh backup of the database & import all images on the privatebeta server).
- Links in tutorials, comments and forum are invalid (pointing to a page that was moved in the new website) I should be able to fix those
- Images in tutorials and forums are invalid (same as above) - I should be able to fix those too
- Links pointing to official website - Be ** EXTREMELY ** careful with those because you'll be redirected to the official site. It's only a problem with the "privatebeta" because it's a different "URL". When we do the official migration those links will point to the new website (which will be at "friendship-bracelets.net")

View count
- The number of views increment in patterns, images, etc. is not built

Image generation
- Profile image generation (thumbnails) is ready but not "activated" yet - see also problem explained earlier about images served from official website...

Security & permissions
- Things that only moderators OR members can do - It's configured but not applied everywhere it should be

Search
- General search (top of page) - development is postponed

Other problems
- Unrecognized characters (apostrophe) - This was mentionned by kleinevos. It's not fixed and I now think it's related to a setting in the database. I want to look into it before deploying the new website.

Rating
- Completely disabled at the moment (development is postponed)

Pattern numbers
When you view a pattern some numbers aren't good (ex: number of videos, etc.) - I need to identify exactly which numbers and load the correct values...

Awesome star
- The "awesome star" is not displayed next to the usernames ATM (development is postponed)

Newsfeed
Newsfeed is not displayed anywhere

FEEDBACK
- kleinovos : edit-kumihimo can't be "saved as #..."
- kleinovos : color choosing is still difficult on iPad, just like the current generator - Note from Nic : For v1 I'll keep it this way, we'll see what can be done/what is prioritized for v2.

Last thing, a big element for me is to load a full "new" backup of the database. When I'll start testing that, anything you've changed on private beta will be wiped. I'll let you know before doing it just in case there was something you were planning to test.

Also, some general advice about "how to test"... The goal is basically to cover the most popular use cases that you, and our users do. Which is :

For anonymous visitors
- Search patterns, view patterns, read comments, write in the guestbook

For members
- Create pattern
- Interact (forum, comments, guestbook, favorite, tutorial, etc.)
- Update profile
- + all anonymous actions

For moderators
- Manage user
- Approve (patterns, profiles, pictures, etc.)
- + all normal user actions & all anonymous actions

I have tried to make a new pattern and comment on it.
I did not see a pattern image. And I got pop ups after saving the comment. The same when commenting in the guestbook.
And I couldn?t go to the next line (return) when making a new forum entry. But you saw that already on the new website :-)

This is what happened when I tried to upload a picture to a pattern:

screenshot

And some forums where they talk about the index.html pop-up:

https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/strange-download-pop-up-index-html-bug-or-malware.2222180/page-2

https://discussions.apple.com/thread/251094484

I made a new alpha from the PC and from the Android phone. Nor can I see the image on both systems. The pop-up window said "reload URL with selector". I guess it's because they aren't stored in the database because I tried to find them and I couldn't.

I have a question, will it be the format of the page where we look for patterns? It's fine, but I think the line with the links to the different pages on the back is very useful while we review the patterns because we don't have to go back to the beginning to change the page. And also the total pages so we can know if the search we are doing is not too general.

In the same way that we can look for patterns with photos, is it possible to implement a search for patterns without photos?

Perhaps for the second version, the search for "only rejected patterns " does not work on all three types of patterns.

@all : The popup/message box mentionning "reload URL with selector" after some of the interactions (adding a comment or similar actions) was a test I used while debugging. You can ignore it... I simply forget to remove this "alert" after testing... I'll delete it when I deploy a new version of the website on privatebeta.

@all : images generated from patterns & any uploaded picture won't display correctly at the moment. See first answer to @kleinevos below.

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@kleinevos
1) The missing image is "normal". This is linked to the "images are served from production server" that I tried to explain in the post above. It's difficult to explain, but privatebeta try to load the image from the official website. A new number is assigned to each generated pattern and I'd think that the one you created was assigned the number of a pattern that don't exist on the official website. Long story short, if it was assigned a "valid number" you would see an image but it would be non-related to the pattern you created (it would be the image of the "corresponding" pattern on the official website). I'll double check if images are generated on the server (this is step 1)... But I'll need to fix a few things before you see the generated images associated to the pattern you created on privatebeta.

2) See the "@all message" for the "popup".

3) Thanks for the precision. I misunderstood on the "privatebeta" forum (I thought it was a problem on the official website when I first read your message). I should be an easy fix, I'll look onto it today.

4) The error you got when uploading is not normal. I'll take a look.

5) The "index.html" popup happen also on the new website or it's only on the "official" website that you've got it?

6) Quick question : I think I've seen an apostrophe (') in one of your messages. Is it working fine with the new website? I don't know why but I thought that the problem wouldn't be resolved without additional script on the database... If it's working fine I'll just look if I can fix the "existing" messages (comments, forum, etc.) before putting the new website live...

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@Cecilia
1) For popup & image generated from the pattern see answer above.

2) By "links with pages on the back" do you mean the pages links after the list of patterns? If so just confirm. It's an easy fix, I'll deploy it as soon as I push the next version of privatebeta. Also, for the total pages - would a simple text with something like "### patterns were found" would be good enough? It would be much easier for me to do it rather than change the "paging component" I used to show the last number of pages...

3) Search pattern without photos - Could be done and should be simple to implement but I'd postpone that into a phase 2 to spend the time remaining on missing features.

4) Search for "rejected patterns" seems to be working for all but kumihimo - Should be a quick fix, it's added to my list. Have you found another anomaly?

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Let me know if I forgot something!

Hey,

Little update.

First, I redeployed the website so the problems you've mentioned should be fixed (except the results count - I'm waiting for confirmation about that). Also I changed the background color like I said yesterday so it'll be easy to make sure that you're on privatebeta...

Regarding the image upload, it now "works". I use the quotes because it does work, but again, since the privatebeta loads all images from the official website it'll still be **really** confusing because the image displayed has nothing to do with the uploaded picture... For example I uploaded a test picture (you can see it here : https://privatebeta.friendship-bracelets.net/im/gal/n/106166.jpg but it displays as this : https://www.friendship-bracelets.net/im/gal/n/106166.jpg)... I wanted to postpone this & concentrate my energy on the features that are missing but I realize that it's an obstacle for you to complete the tests... I'll skip the technical details, but I'll try to think in a temporary solution that would work "good enough" for the testing period (making the complete migration of images will take me a lot of time - that's why I'd prefer a temporary solution)...

Let me know if you have any additional comments about the privatebeta!

P.S. : I started working on the tutorial edit but it's not finished/not fully working.

Last thing...

@kleinevos - I read the links you sent & searched a bit online about your "index.html download problem" and it might be related to a problem in one of the ad that is displayed on the website. The only thing in common that there is between other websites where the problem has been reproduced and this website is the advertising network (it's most likely the same). So I'd suspect that one of the popular publisher has a small problem in their ad. I can't garantee it's the case but that's a possibility. If this is really the case, the first of the following should solve the problem "by itself" :

1) the publisher update their ads
2) the advertising network desactivate the ad
3) there's an iOS patch to fix the problem on iOS (since it seems to only happen on iOS)

If you find a recurring pattern between "ads shown" and "index.html download" please let me know (if you think you have identified the ad send me a screenshot).

Another thing that could give a good hint is if it also happens on the new website (if it's the case, then the whole "ads" theory is wrong since there's no ad on the privatebeta at the moment... but at least I'll have something to start investigating).

Let me know!

Yes, I mean the pages links after the list of patterns.

And for the total of pages or patterns, a simple text like that is fine. What matters is knowing the total number of patterns that will be displayed in the search.

I am seeing that not all the comments of the moderators in the normal patterns are shown, in some yes and others no. In the majority I do not see the comments we add when we vote or the "likes". All or almost all patterns should have comments from moderators. I can see them in alphas and kumihimo.