What do you think of 3.2?

[Whiskey Bizness]

Seeing 3.2 in use here has convinced me that it's time to finally switch my largest forum away from vBulletin and move it to IPB. I've had my IPB license for several years now and just never could bring myself to pull the trigger for fear of end-user backlash. Now, I'm not afraid. Some may complain but so many more will love the new look, feel and features.

I'm anxiously awaiting 3.2's gold release.

[ørret]

I think the word "sick" explains 3.2. Nuff said.

[invisiblex_merged]

Its good ..my rating 4/5

[jucs]

Upgrading and what they did with the skin will cost people $$ no doubt. Next time maybe they will realize this and not make total skin changes with only a DOT upgrade!! I am not happy about this 3.2 version. It's cost me money.

[3DKiwi]

Upgrading and what they did with the skin will cost people $$ no doubt. Next time maybe they will realize this and not make total skin changes with only a DOT upgrade!! I am not happy about this 3.2 version. It's cost me money.

No one forced you to upgrade. I have no plans on upgrading any time soon. I've yet to see a decent skin for 3.2. Yup, it might cost me 20 bucks for a skin once one comes out that I like. Maintaining a forum costs money.

3DKiwi

[CrossFire-Radio]

I kind of like 3.2.. little bit more "oomphy" to a point.. however.. I dont like the ACP ... The ACP in 3.1.x was better.. but thats just my opinion :D

[Ikadon]

Biased. Love certain features, dislike the loss and change of others (avatars, topic description). Not quite sure if to use it or not for upcoming projects.

[iWeb]

Just don't like the direction its gone. Little things that make forums more attractive have been taken away because they 'serve no purpose'. The new skin design is nice and clean but clean isn't everything, the board index and forum view especially is boring, very bland. Look at the board index for example, the avatar overload is simply too much. You've got them on the right of every forum under last post, and every part of the sidebar has them too. Whilst adding these avatars everywhere, you've taken away all little images that such as [img]

[/img] in the sidebar that make it abit more attractive. (online statuses, folders etc and I could go on but I've done enough of that over the months).

Even the bullet points that signalled if a sub forum has new posts in it by turning green has gone from the board index. Now that was useful, you know...

I love the new functionality but the whole look means I don't get to have that. Can you make a 3.1 skin available? Afterall, this is still 3.x, we shouldn't see a complete overall in the design, especially if we don't want it. Have used this software since 1.3 and this is the first version that makes me :sad:

I actually like the icons, but would prefer to have an option to hide this for guest users (good for seo reasons).

[telcoman]

I really don't like it. I am considering downgrading back to 3.14.

[telcoman]

In fact I just did. I will stick with 3.1.4 until I am forced to upgrade. Very few in my community liked it compared to 3.1.4.

[markopolo2002]

I don't (or didn't) really have an issue with v3 in general, there were some omissions like topic description which I felt was poorly handled and more recently we're now told that those of us who have already upgraded will have to tell each member to reapply their notification options which is just ridiculous - I normally can't bash Invision, but c'mon, your coaxing us into it now!!. There are still far too many options available in my opinion for a lot of users to be comfortable with, I've suggested before that the site could offer 'real-time' options for a lot of things based on the users actions .. i.e. post's a reply in a thread - if the board detects the user hasn't configured any notifications a window could appear asking them if they would like to receive notifications of further replies .. "yes, only for this topic", "yes, for this topic and all topics I reply to or start" "no, not this time" and "no, I don't want to receive notifications on any topic I reply to" ... same could be done for most other parts of the site including apps, etc .. you get the idea?

V3 could have been much more interactive like that, didn't receive any response to my suggestion - or at least I don't think I did, maybe my notifications have been reset as well

[LKW-Allrad]

great,
but ACP is very slow,
i dont need the pop-ups-.......

[iWeb]

Yeah, I kind of agree with Allrad -- i'm kind of iffy about the drop down menu also.

[Mellisa]

sadly there aren't real skins around that stands among the rest. i would really like to see a skin that makes me stop for a moment to explore it.

sadly.. this never happen

[Windwalker222]

The Avatar/Photo thing was/is a disaster. Run the tool and you really screw things up. Now many of the mods are going "Paid". It's becoming more of a business model than a hobby or fun past time.

Kudos to those developers that are still producing free skins and mods for the forum hobby, and to those who take over abandoned modifications etc.

I hope this is the last upgrade for a few years, my wallet can't take buying new skins every few months or paying for once free mods that are now paid "because of the work to upgrade them" to the new versions. This upgrade resulted in 3 nice mods that were once free going paid, and all the skins (even free ones) not working once again.

I may be going back to 3.1.4 till it is no longer supported and then just get out of the forum world.

[cmh]

VB has good default skin

Xenforo has a good default skin

both have better than IPB default

then why not IPB can have good default skin ?

Are you kidding? vB's default skin is better?

Personally I think IPB 3.2 has one of the better default skins I've seen. It demonstrates IPB's advancement in the direction of Web 2.0, unclutters many areas (e.g. combined search menu), and exudes an air of modern professionalism. To me, it's certainly more fun to look at and play around with than other default skins I've seen, including vB's, phpBB's, and IPB's previous default skins.

Most of the complaints here are regarding negligible features and can be resolved with some (incredibly) simple modifications. For those modifications that are harder to implement, if there are enough users complaining then it's possible that the IPS designers will fix it in a future version. However, I haven't found anything significant missing. If something was removed, I think it was probably for the better.

[Kfir]

The Avatar/Photo thing was/is a disaster. Run the tool and you really screw things up. Now many of the mods are going "Paid". It's becoming more of a business model than a hobby or fun past time.

Kudos to those developers that are still producing free skins and mods for the forum hobby, and to those who take over abandoned modifications etc.

I hope this is the last upgrade for a few years, my wallet can't take buying new skins every few months or paying for once free mods that are now paid "because of the work to upgrade them" to the new versions. This upgrade resulted in 3 nice mods that were once free going paid, and all the skins (even free ones) not working once again.

I may be going back to 3.1.4 till it is no longer supported and then just get out of the forum world.

You know you aren't forced to upgrade. Any update to the software is welcomed.

I seem to like IPB 3.2, better than 3.1 for sure!

[Windwalker222]

Your right.

Also I would like to apologize if I sounded too harsh on developers that charge for mods. After all, you do put a lot of time and hard coding work into the paid and free mods. Many of them well worth the money.

Thanks for all you do, and I will be sticking with 3.2 and even buying some mods.

[Calvin39]

I have always praised IPS on any previous editions that were brilliant, on this occasion I can't, I detest it, my members detest it, not just 3.2 but the Gallery as well. Now we just have to suffer with it, because we can do nothing about it.

I honestly think IPS should think of adding a roll back system for their customers, like other software vendors.

[markopolo2002]

Gerry the only way to roll-back is to backup your site before upgrading, Invision couldn't possibly provide a roll back for every site as even if they tried it would screw up your database and then there's the question of custom mods that may have been on your site beforehand ... annoying as it is to have made the leap and regretted it, unfortunately it is down to each client to decide on whether to upgrade or not - I too regret upgrading but it was my choice, although the bugs are beginning to annoy me now but that's another story!! - the lesson I've learned this time round is I won't be upgrading again anytime soon, or at least until many months after the next major release and when I'm sure all bugs have been dealt with :)

[• Jay •]

Gerry the only way to roll-back is to backup your site before upgrading, Invision couldn't possibly provide a roll back for every site as even if they tried it would screw up your database and then there's the question of custom mods that may have been on your site beforehand ... annoying as it is to have made the leap and regretted it, unfortunately it is down to each client to decide on whether to upgrade or not - I too regret upgrading but it was my choice, although the bugs are beginning to annoy me now but that's another story!! - the lesson I've learned this time round is I won't be upgrading again anytime soon, or at least until many months after the next major release and when I'm sure all bugs have been dealt with :smile:

While it's certainly not IPS' responsibility to do it, I have no doubt it's feasible to create a "downgrade" script.

All it would require is reversing the MySQL database changes and reuploading the previous version's files, right?

Or you could look at it as a conversion, for that matter. Still, far from unpossible. (no, nobody said that. I just love the word)

[markopolo2002]

All it would require is reversing the MySQL database changes and reuploading the previous version's files, right?

Please tell me this is humor :frantics:

[Farron]

I have always praised IPS on any previous editions that were brilliant, on this occasion I can't, I detest it, my members detest it, not just 3.2 but the Gallery as well. Now we just have to suffer with it, because we can do nothing about it.

I honestly think IPS should think of adding a roll back system for their customers, like other software vendors.

Yes.. would love this. Can a roll back system be implemented or made somehow? I still have a back up of my files from the ftp server before I installed 3.2.1 over the top, but I don't have a copy of the sql database before the upgrade. Even if I did.. it wouldn't have the posts that had been made in 3.2.1. I did have a backup initially but I deleted it once I saw that the upgrade didn't fail on me. Little did I know at the time the software was missing numerous functions that were available in 3.1.4. After I learned that 3.1.4 was actually a better system for me, I later removed the 3.2.1 files from the server placed the 3.1.4 files back there hoping all would be ok. It was in some ways, but there was just too many glitches and errors that I couldn't sort out. Images missing from the default skin, the ACP was saying something like it was version 3.1.4 but the upgrade to 3.1.4 was not finished, so I had to do it. So I tried to proceed but it then said everything was installed. So I couldn't get rid of that error. I was able to rebuild caches, and FURLS and it removed those errors ok, but it still thought some upgrade was not completed. I was stuck with that and the status update sidebar not appearing and a few missing images, so I had to take the 3.1.4 files off the server again and put the 3.2.1 files back, just to have a working forum even if it had less features.

I miss 3.1.4, I feel like it is a more functional and powerful forum that allowed me to do things, that just aren't possible in 3.2.1 :sad:

The lesson I have learned from this is.. upgrades aren't always the same abilities plus more. They can actually be downgrades. In all previous versions of IP.BOard I had seen it was like 'Wow.. cool. Look at this new feature. Look how great this looks, etc'. Now it is like 'Where is that bit that could once do this? Why could I do this before and I can't now?'

I'm trying to talk myself around, but I just miss so many functions from 3.1.4.. that I hope it is possible that a system can be enabled allowing rollbacks to 3.1.4 software.

[• Jay •]

Please tell me this is humor :frantics:

It's not humor, you're just thick if you can't grasp it.

Changing from phpBB to IPB is a conversion
Changing from 3.1.4 to 3.2 is a conversion
Changing from 3.2 to 3.1.4 is a conversion

IPS provides two of those scripts, go find, make, or commission the third if you want it so badly.

Back in Vista's day, computer shops made a killing selling "upgrades" to XP.

[markopolo2002]

It's not humor, you're just thick if you can't grasp it.

Changing from phpBB to IPB is a conversion

Changing from 3.1.4 to 3.2 is a conversion

Changing from 3.2 to 3.1.4 is a conversion

IPS provides two of those scripts, go find, make, or commission the third if you want it so badly.

Back in Vista's day, computer shops made a killing selling "upgrades" to XP.

OK then, I'll rise to this one - listen up everyone, Jay is about to tell us all how we get our old site back without first backing up .... we're all ears Jay, the floor is yours ......... ?? I for one am intrigued to know how you revert changes to a database that have been overwritten and re-insert tables that have previously been dropped - all without a backup!