Webforumz Software Upgrade

Rob

Dear members,

Webforumz is planning an upgrade which will take place over the next week.

As you may know, Webforumz.com runs on software called vBulletin (vB). The new version of vB contains many desired features and functionality upgrades. Webforumz has been testing the next version of the software right from beta 1 right through until it's final beta which was released the other day.

Keen to get new functionality going in the quickest possible time, we shall upgrade before the official release candidate arrives - this may be put down to madness, but it's more to do with the trust I have in Jelsoft (The makers of vB) to deliver quality software and fixes in a very very timely manner.

Webforumz has generally always upgraded at the first possible opportunity and has not had any problems noteworthy of mentioning.

During the course of our upgrade, we will need to disable or entirely remove some functionality.

The features I speak of are non critical and should not impact upon your experience too much, but please bear in mind, some features WILL be removed or halted whilst the upgrade is in progress.

Everyone's first question is always 'how long will this take?'

To answer this, all I can say is as quick as possible. More than 2 days and less than 6 is about as clear as I can be at this stage as a lot of legacy data needs to be dealt with and custom functionality made compatible with the newer version. On top of this there is testing of our own modifications with the new version.

So, whats new for webforumz.com?

Well, there are way to many things to mention, but I shall touch on some of them. Top of the list for staff is much more powerful spam control - many members have been key in reporting spam here - many members wont have seen spam here 'ever' and thats down to the vigilance of staff - without whom this forum would be impossible to manage, so these new tools will make their lives a little easier which they richly deserve. - There are many additional staff improvements, but I wont dive into them here.

'Thread Tagging' is a feature which isnt exactly new to this forum as we've used this feature before. However it was not much more than a hack and there wasnt so much integration with the forums and it's use ceased a while back. Now that tagging is part vB's native code and hence very tightly integrated then this feature will return.





Tags can be added when creating a new thread, or to an existing thread by any user (with appropriate permissions).

'Thread Prefixes' will be possible.... it will be an option to use administrator-defined prefixes to thread titles. As you can see in the image below, it should aid in forum navigation and legibility.



Here is the dropdown selection you will see when posting a new thread:





Our custom user profiles have never been a massive hit here and thats most likely because of their lack of tight integration. Our upgrade will see a complete ditching of the present user profile system. This will be replaced with a much improved system -you will still be able to customise this with your own colors, etc ( i wont say too much more on the profiles because I dont want to spoil it for everyone). The new system integrates much better with the forums and user blogs and other aspects of the site such as the new 'user picture galleries'. Users can upload images to their own photo albums - you may create as many albums as you wish and may opt to make an album for 'photography', 'portfolio' or whatever you see fit. You may make each album belong to a specific type - 'public', 'private' or 'profile' - used to customize your profile style. Users may comment on your images, or not... as you choose.

People may leave comments on your profile, and you on theirs - this of course happens only if you wish and can be disabled.... or maybe you want to approve people's comments to your profile, or album pictures before making them live - all this and more is possible with our new profile functionality.

User-Created Social Groups

To further social cohesion between users and to encourage people to make friends, we will soon include a facility to allow users to create their own social/interest groups. Whilst these will focus on many aspects of development and design, they dont need to be limited in any way - they are user created. See the pictures below for examples...



These groups are enhanced by having their own public messaging system, and the ability to add pictures to the group from user albums.



.... and because the group you create is yours, you can choose to make it public, private or invite only. You can choose to moderate comments and images before they go live. Basically, you are in control.

This upgrade is the second step of three in a radical overhaul of webforumz.com. Our first step was a massive upgrade to our hardware - this was supplied courtesy of Wesh.co.uk - our most excellent hosts, and the best by far I have ever dealt with.

There are many more new features coming, but all the while I am writing this, I am not upgrading the site, so I will sign off now. Please feel free to discuss this in Upgrade Announcement discussion thread in the cafe.

Whats the third step?? aha.... stay tuned.

Thanks to all who make this possible... you know who you are because you've just read this!

Regards,

Rob