The website has just been upgraded!
There have been various fixes and improvements. Some of which are detailed below.
There have been various fixes and improvements. Some of which are detailed below.
Online Status
- There is now a green triangle indicator in the top left corner of a user's avatar that lets you know if they are currently online.
- In your privacy settings, in addition to specifying whether you show as online or not, you can now choose whether to show your online activity. Note that this feature is currently available to certain membership types.
- There is now a green triangle indicator in the top left corner of a user's avatar that lets you know if they are currently online.
Selective quoting
- For some time posts have had Quote+ and Reply links at the bottom right to allow for quoting in replies. Reply would quote the entire post and Quote+ would add the whole post to the multi-quote list (see this post on how to use multi-quote). Whilst these were useful, it was a bit of a pain at times when you only wanted to quote part of a post, as you had to edit it after quoting.
Now we have selective quoting, which is easy to use. Simply highlight the text in a post that you want to quote and you will get two options:
+Quote will add the selected text to multi-quote and Reply will immediately quote the selected text in the text editor at the bottom of a thread.
The good news is this worked on mobiles too!
- For some time posts have had Quote+ and Reply links at the bottom right to allow for quoting in replies. Reply would quote the entire post and Quote+ would add the whole post to the multi-quote list (see this post on how to use multi-quote). Whilst these were useful, it was a bit of a pain at times when you only wanted to quote part of a post, as you had to edit it after quoting.
Improvements to Profile Posts / Status Updates
- Status Updates (Profile Posts) are a way for members to post quick messages on the forums about what they are up to. They are very similar to status updates on Facebook and tweets on Twitter and they are limited to 140 characters. There have been various improvements to Profile Posts which will hopefully make them a little more important to the life of the forum.
- There are three ways that you can post a status update. The easiest way is to enter it into the new Recent Status Updates block on the Home page. This block displays the most recent status updates by members. In addition, the new block now shows profile posts made by users on another user's profile. These are indicated by two names with a grey triangle between them (see below).
You can also enter a status update by:
- Clicking on your name at the top right of the forums and then entering the status update at the bottom of the dropdown menu.
- Going to your Profile page and entering the status update into the Profile Posts section.
- Clicking on your name at the top right of the forums and then entering the status update at the bottom of the dropdown menu.
- Now you can easily like or reply to someone's profile post directly from the New Profile Posts block. Click on the the three dots next to a profile post and a pop-up window will appear.
Click "Like" to like the profile post, or click on "Comment" to comment on it. Here you will also see any other comments made by other users.
- Finally, as well as new profile posts being visible in the New Profile Posts block, they can also be seen by clicking on New Posts at the top of the forums and then clicking on the New Profile Posts tab.
- This will take you to the New Profile Posts page (which can also be found via the Members link at the top of the forums). Here you can see all new profile posts (the block only shows the last 5). You can also update your status here using the Update Your Status link at the top right as well as like and comment on profile posts.
- Members can view all of their own status updates on their own Profile Page along with any responses and posts made by other users.
- Remember that posts you make on other members' Profile Page are visible to other members of the community. If you wish to have a private conversation with someone, please use Conversations.
- Status Updates (Profile Posts) are a way for members to post quick messages on the forums about what they are up to. They are very similar to status updates on Facebook and tweets on Twitter and they are limited to 140 characters. There have been various improvements to Profile Posts which will hopefully make them a little more important to the life of the forum.
Poll improvements
- New Poll Options - There are a number of new options and controls when you create a new poll:
- Polls are no longer limited to one or multiple choices. The creator can now control exactly how many responses a user can select. If they select the maximum amount, the other options will automatically disable to indicate this.
- Voters can now change their votes, if the option is selected. This is useful to handle cases where people make mistakes, a response is missing, or if people just change their mind.
- Poll results can be limited to only be viewed by people that have voted.
- Polls are no longer limited to one or multiple choices. The creator can now control exactly how many responses a user can select. If they select the maximum amount, the other options will automatically disable to indicate this.
- Editing a Poll - These new options spill over into the existing system for editing a poll, but there are some important changes.
First, a poll can be added directly to an existing thread. This can be done by the thread creator or a moderator.
The thread creator can also edit an existing poll with some limits. If there are no votes in the poll, they have full access to edit everything about it or to simply remove it. However, if there are votes on the poll, some options remain editable and new responses can be added; the question and existing responses cannot be changed. Moderator poll editing remains roughly unchanged.
Moderators always have the option to entirely remove a poll. Additionally, they can also reset all votes in a poll without changing any other options.
Finally, if you merge a thread with a poll into a "basic" thread (just a simple discussion), the poll will be maintained.
- New Poll Options - There are a number of new options and controls when you create a new poll:
Watch Threads management
- If you watch any threads, you can now quickly disable all email notifications or stop watching all threads from the Watched Threads list (Click on the "Watched threads" link on top and then select "Show all watched threads" on the bottom)
- If you watch any threads, you can now quickly disable all email notifications or stop watching all threads from the Watched Threads list (Click on the "Watched threads" link on top and then select "Show all watched threads" on the bottom)
And finally...
- There are many other additions and changes that are behind the scenes too. Oh and beware, there is a new thread ban option that moderators have if you misbehave.
- There are many other additions and changes that are behind the scenes too. Oh and beware, there is a new thread ban option that moderators have if you misbehave.
