Responsive

One of the major perks to rebuilding the site was that we could focus on providing a better overall experience to those who visit us on a mobile device. The entirety of the new website is now responsive; you can browse and view it from any device because no matter the screen size you use, the website will dynamically adjust its elements for a proper view. The responsive functionality is hard coded into the website framework, so you won't be forced to run any third-party application to make it work properly. Yay, no more tapatalk!

Search functionality and easier navigation

No longer will our search function limited to just the forum software as we have opted to utilize a site-wide search area that you'll be able to find in the upper right hand corner of the new website. Navigation will also be vastly improved with updated menu layouts, and greater use of search engine optimization. Need to access the clan charter? No longer will you have to browse to the archaic extended url that was impossible to remember:

Instead, we've greatly simplified it for everyone's benefit.

(and yes, that's an actual url. Good luck trying to access it, though)

Up to code

Another reason we are making the jump to a new framework and forum package is to bring the website in line with current PHP code offerings. Our present forum software publisher has been fairly lax in bringing vBulletin 4 up to date with PHP code, and recently announced that they have no intention of offering PHP 7 compliance on version 4. They would rather strictly market that perk toward the vBulletin 5 package and use it to lure old customers to upgrade at a significant cost. The new site package is already compliant with PHP 7, and is on a far more reliant upgrade schedule than vBulletin 4 was.

Its not all roses, however...

This isn't to say that everything is perfect and we'll all think the upgrade will be the greatest thing ever. There are several changes to automation that I haven't been able to recreate on the new website, at least not yet. We'll lose the ability to publish forms directly to the forum until I can work out proper database connections and sufficiently test it. Our current automated rank upgrade system will not be transferring over either. We'll be resorting to our old method of handling that by manual entry. We also realize that there may still be some minor style and layout adjustments that may need to be made so we thank you for your patience.

Still, the time is right to make the move and get the site published. As such, I'll be bringing BBFHQ 11 online on Tuesday, May 24, 2016. This will give everyone a few days to get acquainted with things and sort out any issues ahead of the next roll call.

Before the site goes live, every BBF member will need to take care of a few things that I listed in my other post linked above so please read it. In addition to that any new members that joined BBF or created a forum account after May 7th, will need to re-register on the new site. If they applied on the current forum, the post will have to be manually copy/pasted to the new forum so that we can keep the record. Those members who received those emails from a non-BBF source earlier this month should try the passwords included in those email(s) to log into the new site. (usually most recent email received will work) If you did not receive any strange emails, there will be a link available on the new site to request a password reminder. That link will send another email to the email account you have on file. If you haven't gotten any strange emails, and you have an out-of-date email account listed on your forum profile, you might not be able to retrieve a password via the site. In that case, you will have to forward your new email information to me via a PM on the old forum here, which will still be active for a few weeks. I will have a link on the menu bar of the new site that will link to the old forum.

We hope you'll take some time on Tuesday to explore around the site, and see how things look and interact with your computer or mobile device. If you should have any suggestions or feedback once you have had a chance to soak it in, please leave us a comment on the new forums. We're open to all the feedback we can get from clan members so that we can continue to improve and meet the needs of the clan.