It's now been a month since I started working on bringing JaxBoards into a new era. I'm pleased to say that we've accomplished a lot more - and a lot more quickly - than I thought possible!

As I discussed three weeks ago, I installed a new server with new architecture and a new domain name, and I successfully restored the old database (minus nine posts and one PM that weren't in my last backup).

JaxBoards 2.0!
Since then, we've fixed most or all of the errors and warnings. Many of these were just deprecated syntax warnings - PHP telling us that we were using older syntax that is no longer a best practice. However, a few of these errors would prevent you from even being able to see the boards. A big thanks goes to Sean and WTL/Mario for helping me track down solutions to the peskier bugs. And, of course, thanks to everyone who pointed out problems.

Sean and I agreed that we can call this new version JaxBoards 2.0! While the new code isn't a massive re-engineering, we've made changes to just about every PHP file, and our architecture has jumped ahead 15 years into the future!

Some bugs started happening while I was fixing other bugs. Most notably, the Users Online Today list would sometimes list the same person three or four times, especially if said user had visited on multiple devices or had changed themes. Bot users weren't appearing in the Users Online list for a little while. And the Register button on the forum index didn't work right - you could only register new accounts if you copied the link to the registration page into your browser. That's obviously not a desirable user experience. And fortunately, all of the bugs I just mentioned should be fixed!

A few bugs had been happening since before we moved to the new server. I squashed a bug that caused additional trailing spaces to appear after usernames on the index page - that was the fault of an over-helpful tool for standardizing code formatting. Sean repaired a small issue with searching forums, and he fixed a problem where contact cards wouldn't appear on mobile.

Skins
All skins should be functional now. I've fixed up a few things that had broken over the years - for example, the Alfred skin's giant question mark music box has returned to its former glory! All skin images are now hosted on our server - no more hotlinking to flaky file hosts. This should boost performance as well. I had to remove a few dead image links, especially from the Rainforest skin, but I think these image links had been dead for over a decade and were never that important.

New profile fields
I added three new social/contact links for your profiles! I decided that Discord, YouTube, and Bluesky were probably the most relevant for our audience in 2025. If hordes of people are craving an easy way to link their Twitch, Reddit, Instagram, Facebook, TikTok, or Myspace accounts, I can add them. It's not that hard - just a tiny bit tedious. I'm sure Myspace would win in a vote, of course.

Also, I updated the ancient Google Talk labels to Google Chat. There's nothing Google loves more than changing the branding of its chat protocols, after all.

Looking forward...
At this point, I don't expect to encounter any major stability or performance issues with the new improved JaxBoards. We'll probably bump into a few small bugs - if we do, be sure to speak up so we can fix 'em. If my motivation holds out, I plan to make some more improvements to the forum software and make better use of our fledgling "mainsite".

Stay tuned!

I've said it elsewhere already but it will do no harm to say it again: It's wonderful seeing Jaxboards 2.0 be a thing. Great stuff.

Suggestion for a feature: Time zone adjustment. That doesn't seem to be a thing, or at least I can't find it if it is.

On the note of time, new posts seem to have incorrect times.

Good catch on the timezones. I designed the software to autodetect user timezones and it's supposed to automatically adjust all times to match your local timezone.

That piece may be broken, I can look into it.

Timestamps/timezones should be fixed now. Let me know if otherwise!