Quote from: Bally6354 on March 09, 2016, 01:10:57 PM
Vic,

The typing is a lot easier. Not as many cursor freeze ups so far when typing a reply. I quite like the look of the new layout. More modern and a cleaner look. Good job! 

Regardless of the layout, the most important has been improved significantly, I'm talking about the freezing screens.
So yes, I agree with Bally.

Big improvement. 

For me, it still freezes in PM mode.

Or am I the only one thus afflicted?

Victor,

I don't know all the fuctionality you want to add, but what you mentioned is already available. Smf forum allows members to change the forum theme, if admin allows it. And any member can already have their own area with their own rules.

There are also already scripts that allow multiple players online. Making your own though would be realitively simple script mods, without needing to code from scratch. If you modify the smf engine, you degrade performance. If you just add php scripts the use a separate database, that would be ok but php hogs resources.

Things like additional moderation abilities is probably in an existing mod, but there ate smf coders that could probably do it in an hour.

High availability servers are for things like ad networks that lose money by the second if servers are down. I've had 100% uptime fir 12 months with my host, and the only problems I've had were with my stupid mistakes and cloudflare, which is not a reliable service. Most reasonable hosts have 99.99% uptime. The significantly extra money for high availability is a waste of money.

Anyway I don't know everything about your plans but the kind of things you mention are already free functionality, or not necesarry like high availability hosting. There isn't much difference between 99.99% and 100%. Again I've had 100% from the start and can host for free if you like.

Hello again Steve,

The final goal is to run an operation that we know for certain is up 100% of the time, that we can evolve by adding new features easily (i.e. 10 years ago, we wouldn't have been penalized by google for not having mobile versions) and -in general- stop depending on external parties to implement and fix things.

A home-grown web engine is the answer. The problem being -as usual- me having this as a hobby and not as a part-time job which means the only time left is at night (under an "if and when possible" basis); but (and this is where chance comes in) this year we may get enough sponsorship for me to devote daytime hours steadily.

The new engine is a long-term project. It's OK if we end-up with a basic web engine for us to "plug" (or unify) our Bet* sites into a single database this year. That's the starting point.

WE'LL SEE HOW IT GOES!

The time to see what was achieved in 2016 is Dec. 31; the year is still young 

1. exactly how much sponsorship do you need for development for everything you want?
2. exactly how much do you need for ongoing costs?
3. exactly which web host is providing the more affordable high availability hosting?
4. will sponsors later be reinbursed by the casino ads you run?

I've been developing all kinds of software and projects for decades. Again the way you propose going about it is inefficient and will cost sponsors much more than what's needed, for what should be a free forum that costs you $1 per month and virtually no time to run. But let me know details and maybe ill fully sponsor it, without any obligation, or perhaps we can use my programmers and i can assure it will be done more efficiently.

Steve, hold your horses! I'm not talking about asking members for sponsorship but getting sponsorship from the casino ads themselves and maybe also from selling a bit on the BetSoftware.cc site.

No need to worry about our costs. This is just a "hobby site" at this time.

We haven't run a donation/fund-raiser since quite some time around here. At least measured in "internet time"

Cheers & many thanks for caring!