Wedge

@Testers> Okay, due to a bug in Wedge's membergroup handling, you probably didn't have access to any boards if you weren't already a Friend. This should be fixed... (And I thought it was enough to use the "based off Regular membergroup" option in the group creation page...)

@verm> Performance is one of the things that obsessed me over the course of these two years. Here's what you can expect:

- Overall server performance: it's not going to be improved. Wedge currently does many more operations per page than SMF does. It notably tests for the presence of many files, which I have yet to optimize. I can't decide between using the cache system with a relatively low timeout, or adding an admin setting to 'force' considering the files as okay. This will definitely have to be addressed (mostly because once you install a forum and it's running well, you rarely launch your FTP client to upload new skins.) Other than that particular point, it should be on par with SMF -- I think we've optimized a lot of slow parts, but because SMF is already fast to begin with, we mostly used the extra power to add new features.

- Overall perceived performance: that's where it's becoming fun... Well, the difference isn't going to be TOO obvious either, but a first-time visitor should have much better performance, most notably with graphics being loaded instantly. If you try and run a SMF forum through Google PageRank, you'll see that your page gets something like a 70 or 80/100 score (I'm not sure exactly, it's been a long time.) Once you upgrade it to Wedge and re-run the test, it will jump to at least 95/100. Most of the bandwidth bottlenecks have been resolved. The only 'big' file left to load is jQuery itself (about 30KB), but even then -- by default it will load from the Google CDN, which your users are likely to ALREADY have in their browser cache, because it's used by so many websites out there. It's the whole point of using jQuery, really[1].Well, the converter has been ready for quite some time (maybe it's broken right now, I haven't tried it since last March when this very website was converted to run Wedge...), I'm just not planning to release it during the alpha, except to users who'd like to run their live forum with Wedge and can guarantee they won't be calling me every one minute for a support issue related to the converter or Wedge generally.But it's not on your left hand! How disappointed!

Oh, I used the opportunity to add you to the Friends group. I thought it was done already...

1.	I don't know why browser vendors aren't already shipping with embedded jQuery versions... Or even forcing the cache to retain all jQuery versions for weeks after they're loaded. Heck, maybe they're already doing it...

I will give Beta access to these groups: WedgeWard (obviously?!), Consultants and Testers.
That's all there is to say... You don't have to subscribe ;)
Friends do have to, though. But they can request to have the Testers group off their group list in the topic pages ;) (I'm not 100% sure I can do it, but I'm sure there's a setting in show_when for that... :P)

@Lorenzo> If you'll ask me, Friends have earned the right to test the alpha even without promising to test it.
And since I'm kinda making the rules for this... :whistle:

Odd. Chrome doesn't show broken lines to me... Only the scrollbar, which is still quite strange.
Actually, the buttons use a class that's in use on another page (the Display page), where having overflow: auto makes sense because of floating issues. No such issues here, so I guess I could 'fix' it... Or maybe even in the display page... Dunno.

And now we're gonna have fun developing for mobile compatibility as well... Since the rendering engines for Chrome Mobile or Firefox Mobile are probably a bit buggy/different from their desktop counterparts, just like Safari Mobile is... :P

I don't know how you can reach these numbers, perhaps your site is geek-oriented, I don't know...
Market usage numbers for IE6 and IE7:
http://marketshare.hitslink.com/browser-market-share.aspx?qprid=2&qpcustomd=0

2.51% for IE7, and 7.22% for IE6... If you click the browser names, you can see the evolution over the last year. IE7 numbers have been reduced by 50% which is good, but IE6 numbers have actually been stable.

Now, if you take ie6countdown.com into account, they claim similar numbers (6% for IE6, with a stagnation over the last few months), but their per-country data shows that most of that traffic is from IE6. This is apparently mostly due to the fact that the vast majority of China's Windows XP copies are pirated, and thus can't use Windows Update for anything else than 'critical updates'[1], and IE has never been flagged as a critical update -- until recently, and only in a limited number of countries. I suspect China has yet to have it flagged as critical, though...

Anyway, so in conclusion -- Wedge doesn't care much about China, so I'd consider the IE6 share to be about 2.5%, which is enough to justify dropping it (even though it's still higher than the Opera usage share, but I'm okay with preserving support for an excellent browser that barely has any quirks, eh!). IE7, in comparison, is the default browser in Vista only, and its shares probably mostly reflect the pirated Vista copies. Or something, I don't know. Let's say that the entire share (2.51%) is legit, and unlikely to update soon... So, that's still 5% to account for.
Would would be ready to refuse entry to your forum to one person out of twenty...? That's the main question.

I'm sure there are at least 5% of future Wedge users who'll be complaining that we don't support IE... So, I'm not dropping support.

An alternative, though, could be this: I could very well drop support for IE6/7 in the main skins, and create an IE6/7 compatible skin with the very bare minimum, similar to the Wireless skin. The only issue is that I don't see myself creating a 'shitty_browser' entry in the members table (there are currently two different entries for desktop and mobile browsers.) That is, if the user switches from IE6 to Firefox, they won't suddenly find themselves with the 'nicer' skins. Or, I could force the IE skin on IE6/7 users, disregarding their skin choices in other browsers... I don't know.

1.	Unless you're using an Enterprise version of XP, or something called like that.

I think it's worthy of a public topic...

We're looking for hot young ladies to test our software, and possibly our hardware later on.
If you're a fat old man, you're welcome too, but you won't get a chance to sample the hardware though. At least not mine :ph34r:

So, here's what you have to do if you're interested...

Prerequisites

- You MUST be well versed into the SMF software itself. If you're new to SMF, or have relatively little experience with it, you're probably better off testing SMF some more, at least until we get the software ready for prime time.

- You MUST be well versed into forum administration, that goes without saying. You must have a good understanding of the SMF admin area, and be prepared to see the many changes it holds, and determine whether they feel more logical to you -- or not.

- You SHOULD have good MySQL experience in general.

- You MUST have good MySQL and diff patch experience if you're planning to install the alpha on a 'live' website. The reason is that, let me be clear on this, we will NOT release any SQL patches for further updates. We will do so when Wedge is gold, but not before, because it's a pain in the ass. So, if we're releasing an update to the alpha that changes the database structure, you should be able to:
(a) make a diff between of the install.sql script you used when you installed, and the updated install.sql file,
(b) spot the differences between the two,
(c) launch phpMyAdmin or whatever, and apply these changes MANUALLY.

- You MUST be ready to install all new updates as they come out (or at least in a timely manner). There's no point in testing software if the bugs you find were already fixed... Basically, if you find a bug, make sure you're using the latest version before you report it.

- You SHOULD be participating in the forums already. If you only have a couple of posts, you're less likely to be granted private alpha access. Not that you shouldn't try to get access, but I'm just saying -- it's a private alpha, so we're not interested in spreading the Wedge codebase immediately.

How to apply

Post a reply to this topic, with this information:

1 - How long have you been a SMF user? (Approximately...)

2 - If you're planning to use Wedge on a live forum, post its URL.

3 - How much daily time you think you can devote to testing Wedge. (If you're planning to use it on a live forum, you can also rely on your users to help test it.) Please keep in mind that we'd like to keep the private alpha period relatively short (no more than a couple of weeks would be ideal), so I'm really asking about the next couple of weeks mainly. (Well, at least the first couple of weeks after the initial release.)

4 - Is there a feature in Wedge that you're most interested in? Something you'll focus your testing on, etc... Or just something you're just excited to use!

5 - If you're a hot young lady, post a picture of you, preferably on a boat (in front of a boat is also acceptable), or in an administration building's waiting line. Extra points if you're wearing a Fez on your left hand. Fezzes are cool.

That should be all...
(Oh, and don't bother with (5)... My girlfriend would hate to see a picture of a waiting line. Bad memories.)

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* [users_online_today] Just syncing with my version... Okay, it's just an extra space. (OnlineToday.php)

Fixed that for ya.