Helene

I'm not sure how it's possible to announce a "secret" flash mob in advance with date, time, and place, but here's the notice from the press release:

Dynamic pricing -- pricing that changes according to availability -- was highlighted in a "Denver Post" article, as many Colorado arts organizations are using it: http://www.denverpos...ter/ci_19259545 According to the article, Lester's first client was Pacific Northwest Ballet: The odd thing here is that for almost every program in the last 10-12 years, I've bought seats to multiple performances of the same program. I have been aware of discounts over single ticket prices for subscribing, the 20% subscriber discount for single ticket purchases, higher "Nutcracker" pricing for peak performances, and various last-minute discounts applied to base ticket prices, but maybe because I try to sit in different sections and buy most single tickets long enough ahead of time, I've never been aware of dynamic pricing, which makes sense for "Nutcracker", "Swan Lake", "Sleeping Beauty", now "Giselle", and perhaps unannounced discounts but discounted pricing close to the less-popular triple bills. I could see the potential danger expressed here: I wonder if this is more detrimental for an arts festival than for an organization that performs much of the year. Subscriptions, which guarantee numbers and provide early cash flow, are trending down, with people making decisions closer to events. The truism is that subscribers are more likely to be donors than single-ticket buyers, and at PNB there's a mandatory donation for premium seats. I'm not sure if subscribers, who generally get a discount on the seat price, often discounts to local restaurants, discounts to the gift shops, and first dibs on gala tickets, and who get to keep their seats, think that much about the per-ticket price months later, or are likely to go to the website to see what people around them are paying. I do know I'm much more aware about advertised discounts than unannounced changes in pricing that would come up on the website.

Thanks to a heads up! by a friend, there were changes to the original casting on the website for the "Love Stories" program for the first weekend: Kaori Nakamura dances all three "Romeo et Juliette Balcony Pas de deux" with Lucien Postlewaite on opening weekend. James Moore was originally scheduled to be her partner tonight (Friday, opening night), and Carla Korbes was originally scheduled to dance it with Postlewaite tomorrow matinee and evening. Leta Biasucci and Kyle Davis make their debut in "Divertimento from 'Baiser de la fee'" tomorrow night instead of second weekend Sunday. They replace Rachel Foster and Benjamin Griffiths, whose debut is now listed for second weekend Saturday evening. Kylee Kitchens/Jerome Tisserand made their debuts tonight in "Afternoon of a Faun", replacing Carla Korbes/Batkhurel Bold, and replacing Rachel Foster/James Moore tomorrow (Saturday) afternoon. Foster/Moore are still scheduled for second weekend Friday and Korbes/Bold are still scheduled for second weekend Saturday. Rachel Foster danced with Jerome Tisserand tonight in "Bluebird Pas de deux", with Tisserand replacing Benjamin Griffiths.

No need to apologize. You're not the only one who noticed this behavior at the time of the upgrade.

The same thing happened to me. With the upgrade, at least some, if not all, of the old notification options defaulted to "off" because of a new notifications paradigm. If you click the little down arrow to the right of your login name at the top right of the site, you should get a menu. Click "My Settings". From the left menu, click "Notification Options" There are two choices for notifications: the Facebook-like list that is triggered by the little icon directly to the left of your login name, and email. Well, really three, because under "Personal Messenger", there a check-box that allows you to enable and disable getting a pop-up message whenever you have a new PM (or "Conversation" in some of the wording). You can check either/or. I find the site notifications valuable, because 1. there's a counter and 2. it retains the list. Once you click the notifications icon, the counter goes away, even if you haven't clicked any, but the ones you haven't clicked remain bolded. At the top of the page, there's also a drop-down box to set the default notification timing (immediately, "offline" -- not sure what that is -- daily digest, weekly digest). This doesn't automatically create a notification when you click the "follow" button at the top of threads/topics and forums, but it sets the confirmation box value.

"Today's Active Content" was removed in this release. "View New Content" is the new paradigm. Sandy has since replied that this is no longer happening, and that there is a lag time. (It's possible that the system needed some time to reset itself. There is no setting for a "grace period", and we haven't been able to figure out the algorithm that is used. The documentation suggests that the initial behavior that Sandy describes is the intended behavior. The way to get everything in the past 24 hours is to select the "Past 24 hours" option instead of "Since my last visit". I think a number of individual settings were removed from "My Settings" (in User Control Panel). The only settings I see are global. I'll check the support forums to see if I can find a confirmation or, if we're lucky, their new hiding place.

Perhaps he will be like Kaiser at Kennedy Center.

Rehearsal footage from "Divertimento from 'Baiser de la fee'", with Kaori Nakamura and Jonathan Porretta:

Are you subscribed to the Links forum? The new terminology is "Follow" forums or threads. (If you are, the follow button on the top right will prompt you to unfollow. ) If you are following it, and used to get emails when the daily thread has been created, but no longer do, click your name and go to your profile. Click the notification option from the left menu. Chances are the notification option was unchecked during the upgrade.

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The delete options changed in this version and reverted to "no". Senior Members can now "soft delete" their own posts, which means that Moderators will be able to review the deletes and hard delete them.

Just be careful, because that isn't the same as "Mark the Forum Read" or "Mark the Thread Read" or "Mark All New Content Read". It will mark everything read.

The change was made because of so many complaints that the list was too far behind in the updates and showed content that was already read. The way I read the documentation, the plan was to keep topics on the list until the member navigates to the last page of the thread, at which point it is considered "read". I haven't tested this yet, but will later, since I don't know if this made it into the release. However, you can switch your setting to "Past 24 hours" or a later time, to be safe. Also, if you have notifications -- click the little icon to the left of your username -- you might find someone's reply on the topic in the list, and re-find the thread that way.

For the "automatic" option, when you sign in, click the "Remember me" option, just under the password input box:

I found the "styles" for most of the smaller text and darkened it. The way the site is designed, there is a setting, and then different parts of the site use that setting. I'm not a programmer, just a poke-arounder and a best-guesser, and I didn't attempt to make them independent. I also didn't make the very small (11px) text larger, because in the style sheet, there's a comment "Important!" next to the size, and I didn't want to blow up the site. There's a reason the type on the "Edit", "Report" etc. buttons are so slight until you cursor over them: it's to keep you from accidentally using these buttons, unless you really mean it Once you cursor over them, the text is dark enough to read.

When you click on the "Reply to this topic" box, the double strip of formatting tools appears at the top of the box. There are two types of links: Links attached to a word or phrase Stand-alone links [*]For stand-alone links, you can copy and paste directly into the reply box, or you can use the same tool used for word/phrase links. The wordy, step-by-step version to use the formatting tool. Optional, if you don't want to type the URL: copy the URL. Skip Steps 2 and 3 for a stand-alone link. Type your word, phrase, sentence, paragraph, or post. Highlight the word, phrase, or sentence you want to turn into the link. Click the "Link" button, the little icon on the second row, under the size box down arrow. [*]The "Link" box will appear: paste or type the URL into the box and click "OK". [*]If you've highlighted a word(s), the highlighted word(s) will be underlined: If you place your cursor over it, you should see a "tool tip" box that says "External link". [*]If you haven't highlighted a word(s), the free-standing link will appear as if you had pasted or typed it directly into the post. You can see the encoded version by clicking the light switch icon (left-most icon on the top row). Apologies for the first grader red circles on the screenshots: I only have Paint and a touch pad on my PC.

The text was very dark gray, and not black. I changed it to black and raised it by a pixel. I have to go look for the quote size settings, though.

I thought the type face was black, but let me go in and look. I'm working on something for the lighter gray type: BT4D is having the same issues. The default background for posts is now white; it used to be a light, greenish-blue. I wonder if that is causing an issue. I changed it on BT4D to a bluish gray, because there was feedback that the white was too glaring. It's odd that "View New Content" was ever visible without signing in: it's always been a search. It's possible that in past versions it went to whatever ballettalk/balletalert cookie was on the machine to determine who you were -- it needs a starting comparison point -- and now it's looking elsewhere.

Many thanks!

What are you reading the board on?

I'm doing only little tweaks. Almost every UI change was done by IPB, the makers of our software, based on feedback from many of their customers. I think they've done a splendid job with the UI. There are some things that are graphics that will keep their colors, but I am trying to distinguish us from BT4D visually.

About "View New Content", I just found a setting that lets the default be "New since my last visit". (It had been set to the only other default options, "Content I have not read". You can always change it back or choose another one of the options.

I've decided to bring up the board now, since our very kind IPB people rebuilt our database for us, and, from my preliminary tests, the board is working. The UI changes won't be documented until later. Two of the big ones are 1. "New Topic" Button on the Forums Pages is displayed after the Stickies, and you may need to scroll down to find it. 2. The "Reply" button has been kept at the top of the page, but removed from the bottom of the page. From the bottom of the page, you can Use the "Reply to this topic" box at the bottom of the page (the old "Quick Reply"), or You can click "More Reply Options" at the bottom right, and the full reply box will appear. If you can't find a formatting option at the bottom of the page, click "More Reply Options" I'm still trying to get rid of all of the avatar/photo boxes throughout the site, but I haven't been able to find them all. They will disappear gradually. There may be a few features that we didn't notice and will disable. The colors will change a bit. --- I won't be available to make more changes until this afternoon Pacific Time. (I'm not ignoring you.) ----- Please list any questions or comments here.

The upgrade can start any minute now!

I put the request in this morning, but haven't heard back. The upgrade could be done early Eastern time, before I'm conscious. Until I run a process, the quotes might be garbled. Please do not panic: I'll bring the board down, run the processes, and make the changes as soon as I'm conscious