Hi,

Today I implemented a few changes to the site, most of which you won't actually notice but will help to improve performance. Some you will notice though, for example now if you receive a new inbox message or an alert, you won't have to refresh to see it - the notifications at the top right corner will update automatically within 15 seconds of receiving a new inbox message or alert. Similarly the latest news and recent forum posts panels will automatically update within a short period of time after a new article is published or forum post is made.

However, the majority of changes were behind the scenes which aren't visible, firstly to allow IE9 users (Mina and Nick for example) to keep private chatboxes open as they navigate around the site (something which has always worked fine in Firefox, Chrome and Safari but was incredibly slow in IE9 at times, so it was disabled until now). Secondly, a change to the way pages are stored will provide a huge speed boost to IE9 users but also the minority who use Safari (me, fat shit, MGF C, et al). Other changes were in preparation to support the second phase of newchat which will be here very soon.

However, the reason I'm posting this is because some of the changes were complicated and complex. As a result, they may have introduced some bugs or site anomalies or issues that I'm not aware of yet. So if something doesn't seem right, or if you run into problems or things not working or appearing the way they should, please let me know.

Thankfully Anette is on holiday now so she will be oblivious to these changes and hopefully any issues caused by them will be resolved before she gets back, for the sake of my sanity and blood pressure.

No problems here Anette, in full glorious technicolour.

Further to the earlier post, the biggest upgrade to the current site software took place earlier tonight which provides more bug fixes and a few new features:

Warnings: When escChat.com first launched we had a warning system in place to inform members if they were breaking the rules. When we migrated from the vBulletin software to the first version of XenForo we lost that facility. However, thanks to the new version of XenForo which was released recently, it's back. Now, we're not going to go on some mad spree warning people for minor infractions, but it will hopefully help to keep order and it will integrate with Newchat (for example, if someone receives a warning for abusing their bell, they will lose their bell for a defined period of time). So as El Crusto would say: "Behave!"

Easy access to block people PM-ing you: You can now block (or unblock) people who annoy you directly in the real-time private messaging facility without having to go into the Chat Options page by clicking the link in the top left corner of the chat box. This might be valuable during peak ESC season for obvious reasons.

Ignore lists: If Someone Is Getting On Your Nerves In The Forum You Can Add Them To Your Ignore List So You Don't See Their Posts.

Prefixes: Did you notice the little red "Important" sticker next to this post in the forum list? That's new. It lets the administrators and moderators draw your attention to important posts.

Quick navigation: See the little arrow icon in the breadcrumb trail above? This lets you quickly move around various parts of the site. It's especially useful to jump into different sections of the forum without going back to the main forum list every time.

Private conversation changes: You can now upload files in private conversations (inbox messages). The interface for displaying these messages has changed a bit too, letting you filter your inbox/outbox and it's now easier to see the participants in a multi-person conversation.

Fixed header: I want to jump in before Anette and say this is "not a bug". When you scroll down the page, the black header bar at the top should remain at the top of the screen at all times. This is so you can quickly see how many people are in the chat room and also if you have any unread private conversations in your inbox or any new alerts. However, I know some people might not like it so you can disable this behaviour and revert to the old method of doing things where the header bar is only visible if you've scrolled to the top of the page. You can toggle this behaviour in the Preferences option of your account settings.

There should also be some usability improvements on Android too. The upgrade also included a package of changes necessary behind the scenes for Newchat's eventual deployment so - again - please let me know if you discover any problems. Unless you're Anette, for reasons that she so wonderfully demonstrated earlier in this thread.

Oh and in case you didn't notice, the main link navigation menu has been updated to include Eurovision 2012. As you'd expect, Eurovision 2011 can now be found under "Past Contests".

The power of the RSL.

Thank You. I Do Try My Best