I would like to get your opinion on these two customizations

[bennylava]

I have two alterations to my forum that I would like your opinion on. They are:

1. Do you think it's a good idea to add something to the message that users see in their initial registration email? I ask this because many of my users will be elderly, given the nature of my forum. It's not any kind of tech related forum, so many of my users would benefit from a little extra instruction. At least, I'm guessing they would. And if we know anything, it's "Make things very easy for your customers". So I'm considering adding to the first registration email so it also says:

"Your username is (whatever they picked) and your password is (whatever they picked). You may want to keep this email, or document your username and password for future convenience. That way if you ever get logged out, you can reference it and you'll have an easy time logging back in. Otherwise you will have to use the "Forgot your password" button when you try to login, and you will have to set a new password using your email again".

Is this superfluous? I'm trying to make things as easy as possible on my users. I'm imagining older people getting logged out, and then not being able to find their password, or even forgetting their username. Maybe it's better to have a sticky explaining all this?

Next question!

2. I have noticed that when you click "New posts" or "New media" (or new anything), it has a time limit. Meaning if nothing new has been posted during the time window, the user will be shown a blank page saying "There are no new posts". Shouldn't it show the most recent, instead of highlighting the fact that there hasn't been any new activity lately? That's doesn't seem like something you would want to point out. That's like saying "Hey, notice how this site is kinda lacking activity! You may want to spend your time in a more happenin' place!"

I would like to know what the cutoff is. Is it a week, or perhaps a month? Maybe it would be best for sites with less traffic, to have new posts and new media stay "new" for several months. Anyway I would like to get your thoughts and opinion on this, cause maybe there's a hole in my logic somewhere. Thanks!

 

[Davyc]

On your first point, I would not put passwords in an email. Instead, get them to write their username and password in a book and advise them to keep it in a safe place. This minimises the risk of emails either being hacked or going astray.

The other thing you can advise them on is the use of a Password Manager - depending on their level of tech-savvy, this could benefit them if they use a lot of online sites that require a login.

On the second point, this is probably best answered by one of the developers as I, personally, can't find anything that relates to time limits in any of the templates or options. I do know from my own What's New list on one of my sites, that the posts date back to August from two weeks ago and another dates back four weeks and nothing is showing.

 

[Old Nick]

"Your username is (whatever they picked) and your password is (whatever they picked).

You can't display password, they are stored hashed/crypted, they are unreadable to anyone in the DB.

 

[Old Nick]

I would like to know what the cutoff is. Is it a week, or perhaps a month? Maybe it would be best for sites with less traffic, to have new posts and new media stay "new" for several months. Anyway I would like to get your thoughts and opinion on this, cause maybe there's a hole in my logic somewhere. Thanks!

/admin.php?options/groups/discussionOptions/

 

[bennylava]

/admin.php?options/groups/discussionOptions/

View attachment 310809

So does it work by keeping track of everything a user has viewed? In other words, if you change that setting, will it start to show them things they have already seen?

 

[bennylava]

On the second point, this is probably best answered by one of the developers as I, personally, can't find anything that relates to time limits in any of the templates or options. I do know from my own What's New list on one of my sites, that the posts date back to August from two weeks ago and another dates back four weeks and nothing is showing.

Do you happen to know how the backup situation works? It looks like I can create a backup of my entire site using Cpanel. So,

1. Can you tell it to automatically make a new backup every day, while keeping a backlog of backups for 5 days? (so it just deletes the oldest one when it creates a new one)

2. What all is backed up? I have paid for a lot of customization to my site, and I certainly wouldn't want to lose it. I would really prefer it makes a kind of image file like Windows OS does. Where it's going to copy everything, database included. That way you keep all your user's posts and images as well as your site customizations.

3. If it does create a kind of whole image, is this difficult to deploy? In the event that you get wiped out.

Side note, with no users yet, it looks like my backup is only 64 Mb. The home directory backup was over 100 Mb

 

[Davyc]

There is no built-in backup system - your hosting company should be taking backups as part of your package; you'd need to check this out with them. I know my hosting company, Ionos, do daily backups. It's a bit of a tricky one if you want to do this yourself as depending on the size of your site it could take a while to do a full backup, and you also need space to keep them. A full backup of one of my sites, just for the files alone, was 3GB, and then I needed to do a separate backup of the database. Check with your host and see what they do.

 

[bennylava]

There is no built-in backup system - your hosting company should be taking backups as part of your package; you'd need to check this out with them. I know my hosting company, Ionos, do daily backups. It's a bit of a tricky one if you want to do this yourself as depending on the size of your site it could take a while to do a full backup, and you also need space to keep them. A full backup of one of my sites, just for the files alone, was 3GB, and then I needed to do a separate backup of the database. Check with your host and see what they do.

It seems they do provide a free backup service, and I can simply click "download full backup". But I'm not sure what all that includes. I don't have any users yet. Do you happen to remember the size of the Xenforo program? I am not sure if it's backing that up too, or just a kind of config file, that contains all your customization to the site. I'd really like to know that information.

I found this, which is $10. I went ahead and purchased it, but it's a bit confusing, I hope it still works fine with Xenforo 2.2 since I've decided not to upgrade to 2.3:

XF2 [8WR] Database Backup - Updates

xenforo.com

It says

"This release is identical to 2.1.1.0, except it explicitly defines the requirement XF2.3.
2.1.1.0 has been removed to avoid confusion with compatibility as it does not work with XF2.2."

Not sure if that means I'm supposed to use version 2.3.0.1 of that on Xenforo 2.2

 

[Davyc]

That program only backs up the database and not the entire site. So, for example if you have a backup of the database, but lose the entire site, meaning you have to do a fresh install, the database alone would not restore your entire site and would likely cause issues.

When it states only for Xenforo 2.3 it means just that, you need XF 2.3 otherwise it won't work. It's important when looking at add-ons that you check which version of XF it is intended for. Some that 'MAY' work on 2.3 but doesn't say so could mean that the developer hasn't changed the version criteria; just be careful.

 

[Old Nick]

So does it work by keeping track of everything a user has viewed? In other words, if you change that setting, will it start to show them things they have already seen?

No.

 

[bennylava]

That program only backs up the database and not the entire site. So, for example if you have a backup of the database, but lose the entire site, meaning you have to do a fresh install, the database alone would not restore your entire site and would likely cause issues.

When it states only for Xenforo 2.3 it means just that, you need XF 2.3 otherwise it won't work. It's important when looking at add-ons that you check which version of XF it is intended for. Some that 'MAY' work on 2.3 but doesn't say so could mean that the developer hasn't changed the version criteria; just be careful.

Thanks yeah it was confusing, as I didn't see anywhere where it said "only". I guess "require" was the word but I'm not familiar with the way programmers will sometimes word things. And it seems to skip from 2.1 to 2.3.

Although it may not be necessary, as it looks like I can do a full backup just using Cpanel. At least I assume it's a backup of the entire site (including all my configs and changes) because it also has separate button that says "backup database". I'll post a pic below.

I just need to find a way to automate the full backup. Anyway thanks guys for the help. It's much appreciated by those of us who are not programmers or server admins.