Sitewide update coming soon!

[Matdragon]

Hi all,

Rc Tank Warfare has grown far beyond what I thought it would become when I started the site over 8 years ago! My thanks go out to all you for being part of this journey, and special thanks to the moderators who give up their free time for free to maintain a safe and friendly environment for everybody!

The website hasn't changed much since it was first released, however over time technologies have improved and vulnerabilities have been found and patched. Due to my somewhat lack of free time, my methodology has been more of a "dont fix what isnt broken"! For a while we had Ben (scooby) who did allot of good work to keep the site secure, however since his departure and technology moving faster than ever, with the current website being at the limit of what we can do to "keep it going", I decided to embark on a rebuild of the website, from scratch! This project has taken quite some time to complete as its been done in the background whenever I had some free time, but the new website is now nearly complete, the moderators and I are testing everything to make sure all is well. The new website will look and feel very similar to the current website, so the user experiance will be much the same (nobody likes change too much!). All content will also be transfered over so do not worry, you wont loose anything!

Some key points for the update include;
- New, up to date, fast and secure server that the website resides on
- New software for the forum, fully up to date with all known security patches made
- More moden look, the header and footer of the website have been updated to bring the site into the 21st centuary!
- Responsive - the new website is fully responsive, so will work on all devices (phones, tablets, desktops etc)
- Homepage - The homepage has been redesigned to be a better "portal" into the website
- News - This page has received a good visual update, make it easier to read
- Downloads - This section has received some new functionality as well as a much better look and feel
- Gallery - The gallery has had many much needed bug fixes and improvements
- TOTM - A new page showcasing the winners of the Tank of the Month competition

We also have planned a few changes to some boards (mostly naming and placement), however this will come after the migration to the new website is complete.

There is no planned date for the migration to the new website, I still dont get much free time so whenever I get a conveniant few hours I will put a temporary holding page up on the current website to prevent its use whilst migrating over to the new site. So this thread is the heads up that there will be changes coming, and please dont be surprised if you visit the site someday soon and it looks different!

As always, donations to the website are appreciated, as with everything in the current world climate costs have risen - However I will always cover any defecit from donations that the site costs to keep online as it is my "pride and joy", so please dont feel you have to donate at any time if it is not easy for you to do so, the site wont be going anywhere!

Once the new site is live, we will apprecaite any feedback or improvements we can make to make the experiance better for all!

Kind regards,
Matt

[Son of a gun-ner]

I guess a little over 14 years is technically more than 8

That's the trouble with getting older, time flies by unnoticed

[General Jumbo01]

Good work! Let's hope that gives us all another dozen or so. Could see me out! What forum software/ver. will the new site be working on? It may be familiar to a few of us.

Oh, and many thanks for all your slow, careful, slow, dedicated, er, slow work .

[Matdragon]

I guess a little over 14 years is technically more than 8

That's the trouble with getting older, time flies by unnoticed

Wow.. not sure why my brain went to 8 however 14 is way more than I remembered

Good work! Let's hope that gives us all another dozen or so. Could see me out! What forum software/ver. will the new site be working on? It may be familiar to a few of us.

Oh, and many thanks for all your slow, careful, slow, dedicated, er, slow work .

Haha, yes, slow I know Regarding forum software, the current "forum" part of the site is using phpBB 3.0.14, the new site will be running the latest version of phpBB 3.3.8. Doesnt sound like a massive jump, but it is, primarily due to the new and secure versions of the programming language version the site running on is incompatible with the current board version, so to update I must update both!

Many thanks

[jee]

Thank you (and the whole team) to have started this great forum!!!!

[John Glover]

Cant thank you and every body involved. This Forum has become one of the things I enjoy in life. Regards John.