Posted by Kim on June 5, 2010, 3:14am
Since the old bbcode parser was causing so many problems and represented a major drain on development by needing constant patching when I would rather other, more interesting things were being built, we switched to a new piece of bbcode parsing software this evening.Although it performed beautifully on the test server, when it was taken live there were a few unpredictable interactions that caused many of our pages to throw tantrums and stop working. It took about ten minutes to sort out the problem, during which everything, including my heart*, came to a horrible, screeching halt. Sincere apologies for the fuss and any widgets that got bruised during those few minutes.
Despite these initial transition problems, the new software appears to be humming along now. Images, links, and more than a dozen brand new tags appear to be working. Finally. The documentation on bbcode will be updated shortly to reflect some of the pretty new tags you can experiment with. A few of them are different, but I think at this juncture the only known oddity is the way it handles the size tag. The size tag isn't broken, it's just a bit different.
I think all the places that call on the bbcode parser have now been transitioned to call on the new software, but if you find some page that's whining it can't find the old software, please let me know so it can be set straight.
In other news, I've been doing a lot of testing on the timeout issue lately. This actually turned up a lot of useful information in our ongoing struggle to get the server to extend the allowed amount of idle time, and I hope to have good news about that soon.
The thing about timeout testing is that you have to spend a lot of time sitting around waiting to see if you're going to time out, and I used this rare stretch of open time to sit down and produce a handful of alternate colorations for some of the templates that had been requested for. I hope you enjoy them! I've also fixed some of the display problems character sites were suffering in Internet Explorer.
* My heart stopping was figurative. Everyone is okay over here aside from some wounded pride.
Comments
The arcanas are my favorite! This site is awesome! ^//^
Nice to know youre not dead xD
Thanks guys! You keep me motivated. 
Lovin' the sand colored Arabesque!
I love you guys. Don't forget to relax. You're doing so much for everyone here.
Awesome! I noticed a bunch of the new templates while building Hayato's profile, I really like them. Well I like most of them, the Arabesque (blue) hurts my eyes a little 
but the Marble, Sand, and the White Arcana are really lovely.
but the Marble, Sand, and the White Arcana are really lovely.
Kim
June 9, 2010
11:18am