Welcome back everybody!!
You may have noticed, if you're not somehow blind and managing to use the Internet, that our new theme is live! You'll probably have also noticed that it's heavily based upon Star Trek Online's UI colour scheme. After years of dark greys, I felt it was time for something a little more colourful. So here's to five shades of blue, red, and green!
Along with the new theme, we also have some other updates which I'll try to explain without boring you all.
Minor ChangesPost/Reply and BBCodeTo try and speed up the load time for the 'post/reply' page, I've switched over all images (the BBCode buttons and what not) on that page to a single image sprite. I've also segregated the huge amount of smilies we've collected over the years into tabbed sections so that it doesn't have to load all of them up every time you go to make a post. This also means I may add more now that it wont look so chaotic... you can never have too many smilies.
In addition to this, the quick reply box at the bottom of threads now has a full set of BBCode buttons, text sizing, and smilies.
There are also a few new BBCode tags available for Instagram embedding, floating images right and left, and an off topic tag. They all have buttons on the post page, or you can type the tags manually if you're just that kind of person.
To demonstrate, here's an image using the float right tags.
Better Profile MenuThe 'Profile' menu now includes a lot more than just the three basic destinations. Most of the areas you'd ever need to access your profile for can now be accessed directly from the menu. This should make things such as finding all your posts, editing notification settings, changing themes (details below), and managing your ignored boards (details below) much easier.
Online StatusGone is the hideous square button next to your username to let people know if you're online. It's been replaced by a simple border around your avatar (thank
nrglg from the PWE forums for giving me that idea), green for online and red for offline. To aide with this for people who haven't uploaded an avatar, I've also added a 'default avatar' to the forums. Avatars now also display on the memberlist.
New FeaturesDraftsFirst off, a QoL improvement is the new drafts feature. Ever get half way through typing a post and then realise you need to be somewhere so you have to copy/paste it into a text file on your desktop for later? Well no longer, just hit 'Save as Draft' and you can pick it up where you left off. Drafts can be accessed directly via your profile menu or underneath any post window when you go to reply/start a new topic.
Years of ServiceYou've probably already noticed the badge underneath my avatar. If not, then take a look now, I'll wait.
This is a simple little thing really, but I felt it was time that we had some sort of recognition of your time spent in our family to be on display for others to see. The image will automatically update whenever you hit a year mark from your original join date. Also, if a user has not logged in for more than 12 months then they will get an "Inactive" image. It beggars belief that anybody would want to go away for so long really.
Theme VariantsNext up are our new 'theme variants'. For a long time I've wanted to have the ability to let users pick from a few different themes but it's always proved very difficult because of how different each theme can be and how quickly themes fall behind the current SMF coding versions. To that end, I decided to create a single theme with multiple variants which all use the same php files but different CSS files for styling. Currently we have three variants, all based on STO UI colour samples. Though I do plan on adding at least a few more in the near future which are not based on STO.
To change your theme is pretty simple, I've captured a quick gif to demonstrate.
The one thing you need to keep in mind is that the option at the top "Forum Default" will never let you use a variant even though it looks like it will. It'll always dump you back into this version. Scroll to the bottom like I do in the gif and select from "Holo Fed 2015"Theme variants use mostly unique images around the boards, some remain the same but I tried to get all of the important ones tying in more with their own theme.
For those of you who really can't bare the new theme I will happily delete your account. Joking, for you the old theme still remains and is still in a usable state though some of the new features have not been included because the theme is just too outdated and I was getting a headache trying to add some of the new code. If you wish to use it you can and if I find many people are still using it then I'll try my best to implement all of the new features to it.
Wallpaper SelectorWith a massive thanks to
Asterelle from the PWE forums, we now have a fantastic wallpaper selector available to all users. He had created this as part of his upgrades for the new PWE forums and I got permission from him to adapt it for use with our own forums! This feature will let you change the background image you see on the forums.
It makes use of the Imgur API, so I've setup a default album with a few background images for you to select from (the first three are ones I think work well with our new themes if you like something a bit more plain) but you can also upload your own images or even albums direct to Imgur. You don't need to register on Imgur to upload things, though registering does make it easier to find your uploads later if you loose the links. Just upload your image or album and then paste it's direct link into the URL bar of the wallpaper selector and load it.
Changes to Existing FeaturesRanksBecause this is probably the first post you've read since you came to the forums, you've probably not noticed that most of you have changed in rank. Chris and I had spoken about the rank system and about how irrelevant it had become in the last four years since the SRP ended and we stopped giving any of you promotions. Really we're lazy and we'd probably just make you all Captains because you're so awesome... However, in an attempt to make them a little more meaningful, we've decided to change them to a post based system. Part of this change included expanding the current rank system. Previously we ran from Ensign up to Captain. Now, new members will start as Cadets and work their way through the junior ranks before being granted Ensign status. We've also added Fleet Captain and Commodore to the upper echelon of the rank system. Ranks are also now visible in more places, they've been added to the memberlist and your profile pages.
Cadet | 0 Posts |
Cadet Grade 1 | 1+ Posts |
Cadet Grade 2 | 10+ Posts |
Cadet Grade 3 | 25+ Posts |
Cadet Grade 4 | 50+ Posts |
Ensign | 75+ Posts |
Lt Junior Grade | 150+ Posts |
Lieutenant | 250 + Posts |
Lt Commander | 600+ Posts |
Commander | 1200+ Posts |
Captain | 2200+ Posts |
Fleet Captain | 3500+ Posts |
Commodore | 7000+ Posts |
Some of you will have already reached the newly created Commodore rank, so congratulations to you for your spammy goodness!
Also congratulations to all of you who have now received your long overdue promotions, for some of you this is probably the first time you've not been an Ensign.
Part of the rank change involved a lot of behind the scenes changes to how membergroups were handled. Previously we had independent membergroups for every rank/division combination possible. Now, we only have division based membergroups (Command, Engineering, etc). This means you've all been transferred to these new groups. I'm pretty sure I've gotten everybody into the correct group but if I've somehow messed up your group then let me know and I'll fix it for you.
Game Division BoardsYou may or may not have realised that previously all of our game division boards were only accessible if you requested access to them, or if we knew you played that particular game and added you on the off chance you may want to see that board. This meant that there may have been a game board you plain didn't know existed. It also meant we had to do more work. To remedy this, we've decided to give you more control over which games you want to see on the main page and which you don't... without us having to do a thing.
By default all game boards are now visible to everyone. I've also added in a couple of new game boards for games some of us play and moved some of the older game boards which haven't been posted in for well over a year into a "Legacy" sub category so they don't fill up the main page. To prevent you all ending up having to deal with a dozen games you're not interested in, I've now given you all the ability to 'ignore' certain boards. All game division board can be hidden via your profile so that you only see the ones you actually care about. To explain this process, here's another gif.
BadgesI think this is the last thing now... Badges! It's a system we added to the forums four years ago but we never really used it because it was clumsy looking and a bit intrusive. To make it a little more practical I've adjusted how it displays so that it'll only display one badge and then it'll 'slide' open when you hover over it to display your other badges. Currently the badges are all game related, pretty much just badges for games we've played together. I've gone through and given most of you the badges for games I know you play, but if you feel you've got a badge you don't want or you've not got a badge you'd like to have then let me know. You can select your 'favourite' badge via your profile menu, the 'favourite' is the one which will always be displayed.
If anybody has any suggestions for a badge they'd like to see added, then let me know and I'll see what I can do.
Well... that was a crap load longer than I anticipated. I'm seriously glad I typed this up a few days ago and just had to copy/paste it over. If any of you made it this far, I'm seriously impressed! I hope you all enjoy the new look and the new features, now let the madness resume!
TLDR: There's lots of new stuff.
Known Issues:There are minor padding issues in Firefox, most noticeable is a gap between the menu and nav bars at the top of the page.
