This website was re-implemented with a new web application framework and deployed to a more modern server in July 2014. The deployment happened earlier than originally planned (because of a problem with the old site) which meant that not all the usual features were available right away (see list). Here is a list of the main changes from the perspective of ICU members, website editors and webmasters.
Members
Article Series
Many more articles than in the old website (nearly half now) belong to a series. Previously, series only existed by virtue of links between the constituent articles but now each series also has a searchable description. Examples of searches you can perform are "ICU Bulletins" or "Baburin". The results of such searches present lists of related articles. Try it out here.
Downloads
The previous website was able to store files for download (PDFs, Word Documents, PGN files, etc) and make them available via links embedded in articles and news items. Now, in addition to that, each of these files has been given a description, year and type so you can search for them independently. Some examples of the type of searches that can be performed are: "Irish Chess Journal" or "AGM" in "2010" or all files of type "PGN". Try it out here.
Help Pages
The old site had a series of FAQs which you searched for help. The new site will still have browsable help pages (though no longer in the form of FAQs) but also context sensitive Help links at the top of any page for which help is available (similar to help in the ratings website). Unfortunately, the help pages are nowhere near finished yet but will be gradually added to and are hoped to have reasonably comprehensive coverage by the end of 2014.
Irish Language
The new site was due to have limited support for displaying in the Irish language. However, although the technical work is complete, the translations are not and our translator has quit (for reasons unrelated to this project) so the feature is currently disabled. If you're a fluent speaker of Irish and would like to contribute to this project, please get in touch with the ICU .
News
The information on the new home page displayes the latest 20 news items with a link to at the bottom to get more news. The old website displayed only 10 items with no link at the bottom for more. Like the old site, there's a page where you can perform custom searches of old news.
Responsive
The new site uses styling which automatically adapts to the size of the display device (PC, tablet, mobile). The technical jargon for this is responsive. Try the site in your phone or just scroll to the top of this page and reduce the width of your browser window to see what happens.
Searches
There have been some changes to how searches (of articles, news, images, games, calendar events, clubs, etc) work to improve the user experience:
Last/New Search
After clicking a search result to view it you can return to the search results by clicking Last Search, or start a new blank search by clicking New Search.
Previous and Next Links
After clicking a search result to view it you can use previous and next links at the top of the page to browse through the other results instead of having to return to the search results.
Pagination
The old website was a bit inconsistent about pagination. Now all search results are paginated (usually 10 results per page) with links to the first, last, next and previous pages.
Season Tickets
In the old website the term PIN caused confusion because some people thought it meant password. It has now been renamed Season Ticket (to give a better hint as to it's purpose) but still works exactly the same way. You get a new one when you pay your annual subscription, you keep it secret (to avoid someone impersonating you) and you only need it if you want to create a new login account for yourself. See this help page for more information.
Shop
The shop now has the ability to sell things other than just subscriptions, foreign rating fees and NCC entry fees. For example it can now also sell entry fees to non-ICU tournaments and accept donations. Tournament entry fees may take a while longer to appear because a process for transfer and reconciliation of funds between the ICU and tournament organisers has not yet been worked out. If you are an organiser and wish to know more about of this facility, please contact the webmaster.
User Preferences
The previous website's default theme was a dark one and, as a member, you had the option to automatically switch to a light theme when you logged in. Now the default theme is a light one and you have the option to switch to any one of several themes which differ in various ways, not just dark and light. If you're missing the old dark theme, the closest of the new themes would probably be Darkly. To try out and/or switch themes, first login and then click Preferences under your name in the top right.
Language will be another user preference if the Irish language project is ever completed.
Editors
Access Control
Access control was previously only available on articles. It has now been extended to downloads as well. So, for example, a download file can be excluded from search results unless the user is logged as a current ICU subscriber.
Article Series
Articles can now belong to more than one series and, as mentioned above, series are searchable so when you create one you need to give it a unique name.
Create, Edit, Delete
To create a new resource you go to the index page for that resource, scroll to the bottom and click the New link. To edit or delete resources you display the resourse then scroll to the bottom of the page and click the Edit or Delete button. Of course you must login first and your account needs to have the proper authorisation. For some resources (articles, calendar events, downloads, images, news items and PGN uploads but not article series, champions, games or tournaments) you can only edit or delete them if you own them.
Downloads
You can create, edit and delete them now. Previously they could only be uploaded (as a plain file, without description or year) by the webmaster.
Images
The maximum width or height allowed for uploaded images has been increased from 600 to 1000.
Journaling
For added security, we now have a journaling system to record when and by whom any resource was created, changed or deleted.
Markdown
In the old website, articles and news items were written in raw HTML. You now have (and probably want to avail yourself of) the option to write in Markdown, a less verbose version of HTML. More help on this will be available soon.
Shortcuts
The system of shortcuts for links to articles, news items, images, games and other resources has been retained and extended. More details.
Webmasters
This section is for anyone considering volunteering to be the ICU webmaster. The italicised words below will give you an idea of the technical areas you would need some knowledge of.
Databases
The main SQL databases are still MySQL but now version 5 instead of 4. We also now have a no-SQL Redis database for I18n.
Deployment
Capistrano 3.
Hosting
The old site was on a shared server which wasn't very convenient (too many restrictions). Both the new site and ratings site are on a Linux (Centos 6) virtual server which we manage ourselves and can do what we want with. We're using Apache and Phusion Passenger to serve the websites.
Language
The old website was written in custom PHP 4 without the aid of any framework (not much fun). The new site and the ratings site are both written in Ruby 2 within the Ruby on Rails 4 web application framework (much better).
Scripting & Styling
JQuery for both sites, Twitter Bootstrap 3 for www, JQuery-UI for ratings.
Source Code Management
The source code is managed by Git and available on GitHub for both sites (www, ratings) along with some system management notes in the associated wikis.