Future Forum Upgrade - Wishlist?

[Marina]

I'm hoping, fatigue and whatever else life throws at me permitting, to finally and rather belatedly upgrade the forum software to the latest version some time in the not-too-distant future, but it might be a couple of months or so before I do so, especially as there will be quite a bit of work involved on my part in doing so.

 

Apart from having a new appearance, I will be adding an image "Gallery", and also "Blogs" where each member will be able to have their own Blog. The Gallery will take over from the current "Photos" forum and will slightly look like a sort of "Flickr" site. Blogs could act as "diaries" if one wants, or just to blog about whatever you like. Members will also be able to "comment" on both Blogs and images in the Gallery.

 

"My Controls" (now called "My Settings") will change quite a bit but I'll leave that till the time comes and it'll probably need an entire "Help" page of its own as there are so many changes...

 

Amongst new built-in features will be:

• A "Status Updates" box (not a "Shoutbox" but not too dissimilar) on the main page of the forum, rather like on Facebook and, again, members will be able to comment on status updates.
  
• The ability to connect and login with your Facebook or Twitter account. This can also let you automatically use your FB profile photo as your forum one, if you want it to.
  
• Accessing the forum via one's iPhone (iPad, iPod Touch) with an iPhone app, and getting push notifications on one's iPhone.
  
• The ability to mark a topic as "favourite" but I think that is scheduled for a later upgrade.
  
• A "Reputation" system. This is where every post (not topic, where we can give it stars at the moment) will have a little box in it which you can click to give that member a "reputation" point. It's like a sort of "thank you for this useful post" feature that you may have seen on other forums.
  

There are other features that I can optionally add (as extra "add-ons") and, amongst the list an arm length's long that I have , a couple of fun ones I was thinking of maybe having are:

• Favourite Smilies. This will allow members to one to pick their favourite smilies to replace those visible in the smiley box (which will move to the right instead of the left).
  
• Moods. These are amusing icons one chooses, to indicate one's mood and which will appear in profiles as well as the member info box by each post. One can change one's mood as often as one likes, just like in real life
  
• Images for one's Zodiac sign (based on the birthday you enter) in one's profile and the member info box by posts.
  

Before I start testing all this stuff out (on a test server I have) to check the add-ons work OK and don't destroy the forum totally , I thought I'd ask you all if there might be any other new features you might like, maybe like things you may have seen on other forums? Please bear in mind that not everything is possible though and that there are limitations but, even so, I thought I'd ask you all (the only one I can say straight off that I'm afraid we won't be having is Chat - sorry!).

 

So, fire away and I'll let you know if it might be possible or not!

[Christina]

It all sounds exciting Marina, although a lot of work for you! I particularly like the sound of the blogs that can be used as a diary because I try to keep my own diary of relapses and symptoms, especially for filling out DLA forms etc and that would be a useful tool I think.

 

Looking forward to seeing the new forum in action!

 

Chris x