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Marina

What's new since the forum upgrade

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Marina

I still have some work to do and things to add. I’m quite exhausted though, so this might take me a bit of time.


There’s so much that’s new that I can’t list it all. Here are some, in no particular order:

 

User Names and Display Names have merged into one - Previously, your User Name was purely for logging in and your Display Name was what showed everywhere on the forum. Now, you only have your Display Name; User Names will no longer exist or work.


The 2 icons on the main forum index page, towards the top right - these give you different views for the layout of the list of sections (forums):
- The first one is the traditional, and default, view.
- The 2nd one gives you a list of all topics from all sections. Using the sidebar box, you can choose to see topics only from certain forums.


Search - The small Search box on the top left is a bit of a pain to use, as it has a drop-down that disappears after you choose something in it, meaning you have to keep making it drop-down if you want to change more than one option. For this reason, I added the main Search page to the main menu. Searching for 3-letter words won’t work (same as in the past).


Attachments - if you’ve ever attached images, you can now find them all by clicking the down arrow next to your name at the top right and then clicking “My Attachments”. You can also delete attachments, eg: if you previously had a blog and had added attachments, you might as well delete these as they won’t show anywhere else - or you can keep them in case you ever want to add them to a topic.


Activity - There’s now a whole selection of “streams”.


Hover Preview - If you hover over the title of a topic, you’ll get a popup where you can read the first and last post of the topic.


The Editor (typing box) - has the option to make the Return key create a single line break or a paragraph break (like in Word). Given that the forum has always used a single line-break, and that many of us might generally be used to hitting Return twice and not once for a new paragraph, I’ve set the editor so that hitting Return once drops one line, like before, and not two. However, (for those who may know a bit about coding) hitting Return twice does not create 2 x <br> (line-breaks), it creates a new empty <p> paragraph. The editor code doesn’t recognise <br> at all. This is, in my opinion, a bad thing, but there you go, nowt can be done about it. However, if you copy and paste from a text editor that uses line-breaks (<br>) and not paragraphs (<p>), you’ll end up with no empty lines between your paragraphs when you paste it in.  


The Editor (typing box) - if you type something into it and then cancel it or go away from it, it remembers what you typed, so the next time you go it, your typed text has been saved for you. This only happens if it’s in the same section/forum.


Quoting parts of someone’s post in a topic: if you highlight the words, phrase, sentence, paragraph you want to quote, a small popup will appear, saying “quote this”. Click on it and it will automatically enter it for you in the editor (typing box). This is MUCH better than using the “Quote” button as it means you only need quote the relevant part of the post instead of your reply including the entire post.


Linking to another topic or post is now embedded in a box, like this, and a black bar at the bottom of the editor gives you the option to post it as a link instead of embedding it.


However, do be aware that if you copy and paste the link to a topic, it might take you to the last reply in the topic. If you want to link to the top of the topic, you’d need to delete everything from the “?” towards the end of the link, including the “?”.


When you go to a topic which has replies you hadn’t previously seen, there’s now a separator line to show you where those new replies start.


Reactions have replaced the previous “Like”. I’ll see if I can add a few more and/or replace some of the icons, as somehow a “love” icon isn’t quite the same as “like”.


Profile Privacy - members, but not newbies, can make their profiles private via a button at top of their profile cover. Admins and mods will nevertheless always see your profile regardless of the setting. The settings are as follows:
- Registered members only. This is the same as the setting for “Everyone”. Profiles are already set by default to not be available to non-members.
- Members who are following me only. NOTE: if you enable this, only your existing followers will be able to see your profile. No-one else will be able to follow you from now on.


Emoji - I have disabled IPB’s 100s of emojis as there were too many, so we’re back to what we always had, the “MS People” smilies. The only problem is that they all load at once in a small popup, with no means to separate into categories.


Moods - If you previously had a “mood”, you’ll need to add it back.


Zodiac signs - if you’d previously added one and it now shows no image but instead shows “none” as text, you need to add it back via your profile.


Non-members can no longer see who’s following topics.


There’s an option to clear notifications.


Messenger: the list of messages has now become a small box on the left when viewing on a desktop. It would seem it’s (stupidly!) been designed purely for mobile view. Once you open a PM/message, the PM itself opens up full page on a desktop. I’ve added buttons to paginate the list, which is helpful to anyone with a long list of PMs, so you don’t have to scroll through a huge list and can quickly go back to (for example) page 2 without having to endlessly scroll.


Some items are only available to members who are signed in.


Apart from making or adding tweaks to various parts of the forum, eg: like clicking on a topic title taking you to the most recent post that you haven’t seen, and various tweaks to the appearance, there’s not much else that I can add as there’s no add-on for it, eg: there’s no sidebar block which shows the latest replies...


Many of the “How To” topics are outdated and waiting for me to (eventually!) update them.


If I do or add anything else new, I’ll post it as a reply here.


Edited by Marina
Added top bit about Display Names. Edited bit about icons at top of index page.
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Marina

(belated DX in June '05, SPMS)

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Marina

A couple more new features:

 

- Pinned topics now have a visual separator, to help make it easier to differentiate between them and normal topics.

 

- When a topic receives one or more “Reactions” (for the original first post), the list of topics will show a clickable “like” icon where you can see who “reacted” to the topic in a bar at the top. This is for the topic itself, eg: the first post, and doesn't include "Reactions" to replies.


Marina

(belated DX in June '05, SPMS)

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- Just added a link to "My Activity" in the user bar, in the drop-down next to your name, so that you can quicker find what and where you posted stuff.

 

- Coming soon, hopefully, a sidebar box with latest replies, similar to what we had before.

 


Marina

(belated DX in June '05, SPMS)

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Marina

Added: Recent Posts sidebar box on main index page. There's a couple of tweaks to still come, but I felt people would prefer to see it now rather than wait, despite it needing a bit of a fix. The more astute amongst you might notice what's "wrong" :wink2:

 

Also added: a sidebar box to show topics that haven't yet had a reply. Unfortunately, it doesn't hide itself when there aren't any topics with no replies.

 

Coming soon: Bookmarks. You'll be able to bookmark individual posts from within a topic.

 

Extra fatigue following a lot of (continued) website development stuff (not just on this forum) over the past few weeks, plus the current heat, is still slowing me down, I'm afraid, so I have more tweaking to do and, not least, fixing the Resources section. But I'll get there in the end! :flowerface:


Marina

(belated DX in June '05, SPMS)

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New! Colourful avatars:

 

If you haven't uploaded an image of your own as an avatar, the system automatically gives you an avatar with your initial in it, where the colour of your avatar is based on the letters of the alphabet. With the system default, all names starting with A will be of a very similar colour, ditto B to Z.

 

Instead, I've added an add-on which will now be in 2 gradient colours and which will be unique to each member. Also, if you have a name with 2 words (separated by a space), then it will show the initials of the 2 names.

 

EDIT: There's a bug where avatars don't show at all in the lists of sections or lists of topics on an iPad. I'll see if it can be fixed; if not, I might have to remove this...
EDIT 2: It's not a bug, it's by design... :nuts:

 

Resources: I'm getting there with fixing it... most thumbnails are back, the remainder will be back soon.

 

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Marina

(belated DX in June '05, SPMS)

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Just a quickie to say (I think) I've finished fixing Resources. I've updated a ton of links and there are new thumbnails for each link. It's also visually a bit different than it used to be on the old forum on the main Resources index page, as well as in individual links, as there are now sliders with thumbnails below the list of categories and in individual links.

 

I have one small blip that still needs fixing, where deleted links (as the website's dead) still show. So if you go to that link, it will throw you an error.

 

I also have a bunch of new links I'll be adding over time.


Marina

(belated DX in June '05, SPMS)

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New! Post a new topic faster: you can now start a new topic by typing your title directly into a box at the top of each forum/section. When you type your title in, the editor (typing box) will open beneath the box, whilst still on the page with the list of topics.

 

Please note that this is not for replies, it's only for new topics.

 

You can either use this box or use the standard "Start New Topic" button which opens the editor on a separate page.


Marina

(belated DX in June '05, SPMS)

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New! Embedded Links. When you add a link to another website, it will now embed, like this:

 

keep-in-touch-with-the-MS-Trust.png
WWW.MSTRUST.ORG.UK

Providing information you can trust, supporting the MS specialists you need.

 

You might have to wait a few seconds for it to show, though. It won't work if you don't add the "http/https" bit at the beginning:

www.mstrust.org.uk

as links without the "http/https" bit aren't clickable.

 

On occasion, if a site is "http" and not "https", it might not become embedded.

 

And lastly, links that were added to older posts won't be embedded, it will only work for links added from now on.

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Marina

(belated DX in June '05, SPMS)

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Reactions: I’ve changed the icons and added 3 more, so we now have:

  • Like
  • Thanks
  • Sad
  • Angry
  • Facepalm
  • Shocked
  • Love
  • Haha
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Marina

(belated DX in June '05, SPMS)

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Another new addition: you can now easily see who started a topic when reading a topic, as the OP (Original Poster) will have a badge saying "Topic Author" above their name in every post they make in the topic they started.


Marina

(belated DX in June '05, SPMS)

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Also new: Spotlight! This is a section with inspiring or noteworthy topics from across the forum, laid out as articles. There's a link to it in the top menu, and a scroller at the bottom of the main forum page with the last 9 topics.

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(belated DX in June '05, SPMS)

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New! Online Indicator. When someone’s online, it’ll show in posts and in PMs near their avatar. There will be a red coloured border around avatars to indicate “online” and a grey one to indicate “offline”.


Also, when someone’s online, it will show an icon of a desktop, tablet or phone, next to their name to let you know what kind of device their on; if they’re offline, it’ll show a grey dot.


As with many things on the forum, some things that show when using a desktop computer might not show when using a mobile device.

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Marina

(belated DX in June '05, SPMS)

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