Release Notes

[Davy Darkrage]

Forums Upgrade

I would like to announce the biggest update in community history.

This coming weekend, when you login to the forums you will be greeted with a modern, updated design.

..but don't worry. The changes are mostly cosmetic, and the site will continue to operate no differently than before. All the buttons and knobs will be found in the same places. The design you see today was created over three years ago just after the forums first began, so we could definitely use this refresh.

The new design will also scale down for smartphones and tablets so using the forums on mobile devices isn't such a pain anymore.

Along with the new design, we will be rolling out several new enhancements. The upgrade is being done in stages, so not all of these enhancements will be available at once. You should look forward to continuous improvements to the community over the coming months.

It should be noted that this update will be arriving in a "beta" form. There will be lots of cursed undead to fight off and parts the forums might not be in a fully-functional state over the next several weeks. Please please please report any problems you encounter.

I will announce more of the non-design enhancements over this course of this week. Watch this thread for more.

My continual thanks to all contributors of this community. I know we've been living in the dark ages for a bit, but it's a more exciting time than ever to be a member. Together, we can make this place greater than ever before.

 

[Davy Darkrage]

New post editor

Along with the new design comes a new post editor. The most useful parts of this new editor include the ability to paste or drag and drop images to upload them.

For example, you may simply press print screen and paste to the post editor to upload a screenshot. You may also drag images from your computer directly to the editor to upload them, so you no longer are forced to use the 'Upload a File' dialog.

This includes a completely rewritten @ tagging system that should work more consistently than our current version, as well as a new draft storage system, and a replacement for the ugly smilies dropdown.

Lastly, you will receive a note if new messages have been posted since you started writing your own so you may review them before submitting.

Post edit history

We will begin to log all post edits. Because of this, all members will now begin to be able to edit their posts indefinitely. No longer will the option to edit disappear after 5 minutes. Members that abuse this feature will have the edit limit restored for their account.

I will share more features in the update tomorrow.

Happy Wednesday!

 

[Davy Darkrage]

Watch Forums

Members will now be able to watch entire forums instead of just threads. This is great for getting notified of new threads or posts you might be interested in, but of course it should be used with care. Watching a busy forum might flood your alerts

Conversation Enhancements

It will be possible to "star" personal conversations to mark them for easy identification and filtering later. This is especially helpful to me because I often just let my conversations stack up until there's an overwhelming number to reply to. In any case it should be easier to keep track of a lot of busy or unreplied conversations.

There will also be the ability to edit the status of multiple conversations at a time. No more 'leaving' conversations one by one to keep your inbox tidy.

Lastly, all participants will be displayed in the list and and popup.

To note, you can already filter messages by who sent you them down at the bottom of the conversations list.

New Members Page

The members page has been made more useful. You will be able to list members with the mosts posts, likes, points.. and the sidebar will feature any users with birthdays on that day.

Various Small Improvements

Besides all of these, a lot of parts of the forums are receiving some polish. It will be possible to easily unsubscribe from a forum email via one click from the email itself. Passwords will be encrypted using a stronger algorithm.

I have just a few more things to share tomorrow.

 

[Davy Darkrage]

I want to wrap up this thread with the final remaining new features in the upgrade:

Multiquote

As you may have noticed, next to the reply button in posts, there is a new '+ Quote' button. This button allows you to reply to multiple people in the same post, without having to scroll up and down or move between pages. Simply click the quote button on all the posts you want to reply to, then click 'Insert Quotes' down at the post editor.

More Sign In Options

Twitter (and soon, Google) have been added to our registration options. It's easier than ever for people to create a forum account.

Live Update Returned

A while back, just by having the forums open, you would receive alert notifications. This feature has returned, and you will now be notified of any new alerts without having to refresh the page.


A small (but nice) new feature is the recent activity block on the forum sidebar now scrolls so you may view more than just the ~4 most recent items. There are far many smaller tweaks, as well as lots of bug fixes, in this update as well.. but they are far too many to list.

I hope everyone enjoys the new update, and please report issues to me at my profile.