Cyburbia major upgrades

[Dan]

Not too many people have noticed the major changes and new features that were added to Cyburbia on March 5, so I thought I'd make an announcement here.

Please visit the http://www.cyburbia.org main page.

Major changes include:

* Drupal content management system integrated with vBulletin. Drupal is the same CMS that powers Planetizen and thousands of other popular Web sites. Cyburbia's front pages are no longer static HTML with jerryrigged Java scripts. In addition to greatly expanding the capabilities of the site, the odd formatting of seen by those using Mozilla 1.5 and Konqueror is are no longer an issue.

* Planning Site of the Day - a link to a different interesting planning or built environment-related Web site every day.

* Voices - a section for articles, op-ed writing, and other submitted written works. Articles from Perry Norton have been moved into Voices.

* Buzz - regularly updated feeds from about 150 news sources, online magazines and blogs related to planning and the built environment, with more being added daily.

* More to come, as I work the kinks out. First on the agenda: Getting things to look just right in IE. The site looks great with other browsers, but IE renders the text too large.

A few people have reported "page not found" errors. I've tested everything with different browsers on different IPs, and couldn't reproduce it. The standard cookie clearing might help.

Next on the agenda - what to do with the Resource Directory. The software author no longer maintains In-link in its current form, so I installed a hack that integrates a link directory into the message board. I'll be testing it over the coming weeks.

Some of you have had issues with vBulletin, where occasionally you'll get a "no permission" message when you try to post a message. The error messages are sporadic and random, and I'm hoping an upgrade to vBulletin 3.5.4 later this week will help. Again, I'll suggest the usual "clear your cookies and cache"; whether it will help or not, I don't know.

Again, thanks for all your support through the years!

Dan

[michaelskis]

Thank you for enhancing the usability of Cyburbia. The new information helps to provide information that we might otherwise overlook.

[Gedunker]

I noticed the changes Sunday when I was at home using Mozilla Firefox and heartily approve. But at work I'm stuck with the blue-shirt approved IE and I get the page not found error. I was able to "back into" the new home page from the jump window, which must have confused the boys from Microsoft.

I can never say it enough so I'll say it again -- thanks, Dan!

[Dan]

I noticed the changes Sunday when I was at home using Mozilla Firefox and heartily approve. But at work I'm stuck with the blue-shirt approved IE and I get the page not found error. I was able to "back into" the new home page from the jump window, which must have confused the boys from Microsoft.

Strange. I tried it with IE, and no problems. Then again, it's a browser I don't use, so there's no cookies to make things confusing.

[Tranplanner]

Cyburbia got some love back from Spacing.ca for being today's site 'o' the day.

[Chet]

Thanks for all the hard work Dan. FWIW, I too am stuck with IE at work, but have had no problems with the change over.

[Suburb Repairman]

Thanks for all the hard work Dan. FWIW, I too am stuck with IE at work, but have had no problems with the change over.

No problems here with Firefox or IE.

The changes look good and that featured site of the day I'm sure will increase the linking to Cyburbia and traffic.

Dan the Man continues to kick ass!

[mallen]

My former "Threadspotting" bookmark does not work. I formerly used http://www.cyburbia.org/index.html, but it does not work anymore. It says "page not found."

Any thoughts?

[Dan]

My former "Threadspotting" bookmark does not work. I formerly used http://www.cyburbia.org/index.html, but it does not work anymore. It says "page not found."

Let's try it now.

The main page is no longer index.html, but index.php. When there's no specific file name at the end of a URL, for example http://www.cyburbia.org, browsers will actually display http://www.cyburbia.org/index.html or http://www.cyburbia.org/index.htm -- the standard file name for a static main page of a Web site -- as a default.

The updated site is set up where http://www.cyburbia.org/index.php is the main page - a visitor to http://www.cyburbia.org will actually see http://www.cyburbia.org/index.php. However, some people still have bookmarks to http://www.cyburbia.org/index.html, and that file no longer exists; thus, the 404 error. I just made a new index.html page that redirects to http://www.cyburbia.org, which should solve the problem.

[SkeLeton]

Looks good! And no problems here!

I like the main page a lot more now... since it's updated far more frequently


This can be an issue!
Although I was looking around and I find that in my user account in the main page I see that in my profile under location it says Interests: and my real name... and um... I though that it was only for Admins and not public.... so what's with that? Am I seeing that because I'm a moderator of can regular users and guests see it too? Will it be available only if I add something in the front page or not?

[Dan]

This can be an issue!
Although I was looking around and I find that in my user account in the main page I see that in my profile under location it says Interests: and my real name... and um... I though that it was only for Admins and not public.... so what's with that? Am I seeing that because I'm a moderator of can regular users and guests see it too? Will it be available only if I add something in the front page or not?

If you're not a moderator, you shouldn't see any real names. If you're not a registered user, you shouldn't be able to see any profiles; you'll get an "Access Denied" message.