# IPS v4 Has Gone Gold



## Drucifer (Feb 12, 2009)

Is this forum going to upgrade to v4?

If you do, I got a Q about it.

I'm curious how v4 handles its smilies. I hate IPS v3.8 single only group.

My forum, Mets Paradise, is heavy into smilie usage and the vB organization of smilies the one thing I miss when my forum converted from vB to IPS v3.4. I got my fingers cross for better organization method.


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## Dude111 (Aug 6, 2010)

Is version 4 the same as this Dave??

I dont want things to get worse here..... I love this site


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## David Bott (Jul 12, 2005)

Way to early for me to want to move to a totally new version that they have spent a long, long time on. When I tested it a few months ago, I had nothing but issues even with the conversion process.

So, nope, not moving anytime soon.


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## Eva (Nov 8, 2013)

David Bott said:


> Way to early for me to want to move to a totally new version that they have spent a long, long time on. When I tested it a few months ago, I had nothing but issues even with the conversion process.
> 
> So, nope, not moving anytime soon.


I agree. When I had my own forum up, I waited for some time for some other forums to get bugs out before applying it to my site. The current version works fine as it is.


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## Drucifer (Feb 12, 2009)

I Google 'IPS4 reviews' and got back zeo hits - that in itself is surprising.


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## Dude111 (Aug 6, 2010)

David Bott said:


> So, nope, not moving anytime soon.


Thank you buddy..... I dont see why people always want to change WHAT WORKS FINE!!!!!!

I have had couple VBB sites Im on ALMOST goto v5 a few months ago.... THANKFULLY I CONVINCED THEM NOT TO!!!!!!! (Vbulletin 4 and 5 are garbage and a disgrace to vbulletin)

I was crying like crazy Dave!! -- I had alot bothering me at the time and I didnt wanna lose audiokarma to that garbage!! (AK is beautiful) -- A couple days later when it was still the same version,I started crying I was so happy!!!! (They decided not to do it)

Here is the thread where I was so happy:

www.audiokarma.org/forums/showthread.php?t=646696

I value good things!!!!! -- Probably more than others.....


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## dpeters11 (May 30, 2007)

Dude111 said:


> Thank you buddy..... I dont see why people always want to change WHAT WORKS FINE!!!!!!
> 
> I have had couple VBB sites Im on ALMOST goto v5 a few months ago.... THANKFULLY I CONVINCED THEM NOT TO!!!!!!! (Vbulletin 4 and 5 are garbage and a disgrace to vbulletin)
> 
> ...


Yep, quite a few of us think you're nuts (in a friendly way!) :biggrin:


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## Eva (Nov 8, 2013)

It's like how Google dumped the GoogleChat for the garbage called Hangouts.

vB's ship has sailed long ago, especially when the new management types took over.


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## Dude111 (Aug 6, 2010)

dpeters11 said:


> Yep, quite a few of us think you're nuts (in a friendly way!) :biggrin:


Well thank you for your very kind words Mr. Peters


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## dpeters11 (May 30, 2007)

Dude111 said:


> Well thank you for your very kind words Mr. Peters


I still think you should move on from Win98SE


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## Dude111 (Aug 6, 2010)

I just love GOOD things ya know??

I dont want this site getting worse,its beautiful........ I dont know what IPB 4.0 looks like but I get a feeling its not at all like 3.x and lower.... (Like VB4.0 is garbage compared to 3.x and lower)


I love dbstalk.... David does a good job here....... I think I have made him mad a couple times BY MISTAKE,but I dont mean to.. I do like this place alot


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## jimmie57 (Jun 26, 2010)

Dude111 said:


> I just love GOOD things ya know??
> 
> I dont want this site getting worse,its beautiful........ I dont know what IPB 4.0 looks like but I get a feeling its not at all like 3.x and lower.... (Like VB4.0 is garbage compared to 3.x and lower)
> 
> I love dbstalk.... David does a good job here....... I think I have made him mad a couple times BY MISTAKE,but I dont mean to.. I do like this place alot


Everything changes over time. This site will change also. If I remember correctly it has already changed once since I came here about 3 years ago.


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## Dude111 (Aug 6, 2010)

But why do things have to get WORSE????

Why cant they stay as nice as they are now


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## jimmie57 (Jun 26, 2010)

Dude111 said:


> But why do things have to get WORSE????
> 
> Why cant they stay as nice as they are now


Some things get worse, some get worse before they get better, many just get better.
Take a tiny thing like a battery. The old batteries lasted no time. Then came along a better battery that lasted longer, then another even better and then another and another up to the lithium ion ones that last so many times longer than the originals it is just amazing.
I could make a hundred references but it is pointless. Bottom line is most things improve. Go with the trend and speed up my friend.


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## James Long (Apr 17, 2003)

I consider the great artists of the world - Picasso, van Gogh, da Vinci, Monet among others. They designed their artwork to look a specific way. Galleries attempt to display their work in the best way possible so that it may be enjoyed as the artist intended. Perhaps you are more of a fan of Georges Seurat and Edgar Degas makes you want to barf. Such are personal preferences.

To a much lesser extent websites design their pages to look a specific way. Themes set the mood. Some sites allow the user to select a theme ... but with that comes confusion. When I create a post with color, bold and text sizes (such as the Uplink Activity reports or my signature) I know what it looks like on my screen and can be assured that it looks similar on other people's screens. On sites that have multiple themes my posts may look good on the theme I have chosen but be unreadable on a different theme. With a unified theme I know my post will look like it was painted by Seurat and not Degas.

Unless one is blind and using a screen reader I'd rather you see my posts the way I typed them ... in the theme that I am using. One site with everyone getting the same view. Anything less and you are not seeing the post the way it was written.

30 years ago we were limited to text ... mailing lists and bulletin board systems with ascii art being a stretch.
20 years ago we had the basics of the web (rest in peace, dear Gopher).
While "everything the same" is nostalgic I am glad that the modern browser has themes to make stuff look better.

(This is my personal opinion and not intended to reflect anyone else's opinion.)


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## Blowgun (May 23, 2008)

Putting longer lasting batteries in a remote is not the same thing. Software upgrades when they go wrong can go terribly wrong. Ask anyone who can remember why Windows has a BSOD screen. There was a time when the OS icons had two colors. Over time icons improved and improved to the point were there was some amazing looking icons, out of the box. The trend now is two color pastel.

There are a couple general rules, they are do not upgrade for upgrade sake and do not fix what is not broken. A good example of a company not adhering to these rules is Google. Look in the Google forum and there are massive threads of people pissed off with Google screwing up Google Maps. I see site after site taking perfectly functional websites and turning them into crap with that ugly sterile white background and light gray foreground text. For example, Acronym Finder. The site looked so much better before and now the site looks awful. To bring it back to DISH, the new Carbon UI is horrible. Newer is not always better, nor will it get better.


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## Eva (Nov 8, 2013)

Blowgun said:


> There are a couple general rules, they are do not upgrade for upgrade sake and do not fix what is not broken. A good example of a company not adhering to these rules is Google. Look in the Google forum and there are massive threads of people pissed off with Google screwing up Google Maps. I see site after site taking perfectly functional websites and turning them into crap with that ugly sterile white background and light gray foreground text. For example, Acronym Finder. The site looked so much better before and now the site looks awful. To bring it back to DISH, the new Carbon UI is horrible. Newer is not always better, nor will it get better.


Another nasty thing Google did was dump the beloved Google Chat for the piece of crap called Hangouts, which only work in the Chrome browser. Many newspaper sites are now looking like garbage, such as CNN as they think everyone uses a tablet. My cousin design transit sites and he still does them in HTML when most are ASP or similar. He designs it from the customer's point of view, for function instead of being pretty and putting non-sense stuff on it.

As for this forum, it's fine as it is. Even if you view it logged out, or on a demo computer in a big-box store that is connected to the web, it looks great. It's not over crowded with 1000 ads like the "other" satellite site and most ads here are tastefully placed... Except when the ad network sneaks a video one in! Anyhoo like others, don't fix what's not broken.


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## Stewart Vernon (Jan 7, 2005)

If I may be blunt too... the primary reason any software company (and the companies that write forum software often fall into this category) makes updates or new versions is... money! They sell the software for money... they fix bugs for free for a while... but if they do it forever, their revenue stream is capped essentially... so they release new paid versions to try and sell it again... and one way to help that along is to stop supporting the older versions.

So... if you're running a forum (not necessarily this one, I'm speaking in general terms here)... you paid for forum software, and you might like it a lot... but you either want some new features OR are starting to have problems that aren't fixed anymore... so you have to choose to buy again. Buying again might mean the same company, or it might be a different one... even if you stick with the same company, major revisions sometimes make big changes to overall appearance. Essentially you get forced sometimes into a change because you can't keep making the old stuff work anymore.

In the olden days... when things didn't change as much... especially the text-only days... it was a lot easier to stay with something that was stable and patch stuff yourself to keep it going. Those days are long gone... so sometimes to keep a site up, you have to change even if you don't want to do so... and hope your forum members will roll along with you!


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## Eva (Nov 8, 2013)

Stewart Vernon said:


> In the olden days... when things didn't change as much... especially the text-only days... it was a lot easier to stay with something that was stable and patch stuff yourself to keep it going. Those days are long gone... so sometimes to keep a site up, you have to change even if you don't want to do so... and hope your forum members will roll along with you!


vB used to be the gold standard in forum software, but they have fallen by the wayside since the newer versions are bloated and lack some features. A game forum I'm a mod at went to vB5 and it is horrible. Another forum I'm admin at went to Xenforo and a tech site my hubs likes to post at went to IPB (Same software as here). As for free forum software, many say you get what you pay for.


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