IMPORTANT ANNOUNCEMENT- Forum will be closed for Upgrade

[Marina]

This is advance warning that the forum will be temporarily closed for an upgrade to a newer version some time next week - which has been much overdue!

 

The forum will therefore need to be closed from Thursday 18 August for a few days whilst I work on it. I'll try to keep it closed for as short as possible but I suspect it might be 4 or 5 days, or maybe more depending on how I feel MS-wise.

 

If you should come to the forum whilst it's closed, you'll see a message saying that it's closed for maintenance and asking you to come back in a few days.

 

If you've not disabled "Send me any updates sent by the board administrator" in your "My Controls" (top right of every page) under "Options -> Email Settings", you'll also receive an email from the forum telling you that the forum will be closed for the upgrade, and again when the forum's back online having been upgraded.

 

The new forum will have a brand new appearance and a number of new features. These include:

- a whole new Profile and Settings area which will replace "My Controls"

- a whole new PM system and where your PMs and replies will show in their entirety, rather like reading a topic

- a new "Status" feature where you can enter short "status updates" a bit like on Facebook and where other members can comment on your statuses

- a "Reputation" system, which is similar to "thanking" someone for an individual post

- the ability to choose your favourite smilies to replace those that are immediately visible in the emoticon box when typing out a post

- when hovering over topic titles in forum indexes, a preview window will pop up showing you the first and last post in that topic

- Blogs, where you can have your own blog to write in

- and some other goodies.

 

Hope you enjoy it when it finally arrives!

 

I apologise in advance for the inconvenience to anybody who might be hoping for support during those days.

[Marina]

Just a reminder that the forum will be going offline tonight at around midnight in preparation for the upgrade.