Scheduled Forum Downtime Saturday Dec 9 From 19.00

[george]

SERVER MAINTENANCE Saturday DEC 9, 2006 from 19.00

We will do a scheduled maintenance on the server (power supply and hardware, plus a software upgrade) on Saturday evening Dec 9.

The forum might be down from time to time in a window between 19.00 and 22.00 (Bangkok time, GMT +7).

The total downtime will be approx. 1 - 1.5 hours.

/admin

[george]

ANNOUNCEMENT - FORUM SOFTWARE UPGRADE

When the upgrade is ready this evening it will contain a huge selection of new features ranging from speed improvements to new features designed to enhance our community.

New features include:

Speed improvements

The new forum software is improved with regards to speed. A better caching system and a software Accelerator will hopefully help to deliver pages faster than before. We recommend Firefox, Opera, Safari or Internet Explorers newest browser versions for best performance.

Personal Profile Portal

The forum has a totally redesigned portal page with the following features:

* Friends list - manage your friends for easier PMing, to see if your friends are currently online and display your friends on your profile

* Profile comments - allow visitors to leave comments on your profile. You can set to moderate all new comments before they're shown.

* Recent visitors - recent visitors are shown on your profile.

* Your content - show your recent posts / blog entries / gallery uploads on your profile

* Personal statement - add a short bio for others to read

* Member rating - rate other members

* Set your gender

* Easy access to edit your location, age and IM details

Our forum rules are in effect for Personal Profile pages.

New Text Editor

New Style

The text editors, both standard and rich text (WYSIWYG) have been completely rewritten to make them more intuitive and faster to load. Clutter has been reduced with the new dynamic menus.

Switch

You can now switch between the rich text editor and the standard editor without the need to reload the page or visit your User Control Panel.

New Attachment System

Upload without the reload

The forum has a new attachment system that enables one to upload attachments without having to reload the post screen. The new attachment area is directly below the text editor.

New Style

The attachment system has had a complete overhaul and is now styled along side the new text editor

New Thumbnail Design

Attached image thumbnail previews now have information above and below the thumbnail offering original file size and original dimensions.

Inline message system

Invision Power Board has an on-the-fly message system to confirm actions taken place. This is an important new part to the user interface. I uses AJAX for improved speed and functionality.

Topic notifications improved

Only one email will be sent for topic notifications until you visit again, unless you have your email setting set to send the full post in your topic notifications (in which case you will get a notification for each new post)

Better search

The search link now has a context sensitive drop down box. If you're in a forum you can search directly in that forum otherwise you can perform a global search.

Better top navigation

Modified top navigation area with subtle separators to break up the links into cleaner sections

Mini-profile

Enhanced 'mini-profile' drop down when clicking on an author's name in topic view or when reading a PM. This drop down includes the member's photo and current rating

Better topic rating

Topic Rating via AJAX

When rating a topic your submitted rating will be sent to the server via AJAX allowing you to save your rating without having to refresh the page. Additionally, you will now be able to see two more pieces of information when viewing the rating menu drop down: total number of ratings, and your individual rating.

Multi-choice polls + Ability to create a 'poll only'

You can now create a poll as a "poll only" (disallow other members from replying to the poll, but still allow them to vote).

Additionally, you can now create multiple-choice polls. There is an additional checkbox next to the question line(s) in a poll form so you can do this on a per-question basis (e.g. - you could have one multiple choice question, and one single-choice only question).

Calendar is back

The calendar is back!

Many users have requested the calender back. Here it is!

Auto resizing of large linked images

Posted images are automatically resized on-the-fly if they are larger than the available screen width of the browser. Clicking the image displays it full size in a pop-up window. Each reduced image has information above stating how much reduction has taken place and the dimensions of the original image.

Security enhancements

Improved overall security updates.

Gallery Enhancements

The Gallery has also been updated with the following features:

* Ratings now use AJAX

* Added MPG, Flash, and AVI display codes into base release

* Added ability for user's to upload thumbnails with non-default file types (i.e. wmv, mpg, etc.)

* Complete redesign of image view page

* Fast reply available even when there are no existing comments

* Updated 'Forum' and 'Gallery' style layouts - general skin cleanup

* Support for 'Category Markers' - image indicators to show if there are any new images

* Animated GIF issue corrected

* 'My Albums' link (ala My Blog) in IPB member bar

* Clicking an image now brings you to the image page, rather than the category page

* Last X comments page now supports pagination

* Removal of 5 image limit in search results (with pagination support)

* Ratings show total # of votes and your vote after you have rated an image

* Added a better wrapper on medium sized images to make it clearer you can click them for full sized images

* Proper breadcrumb support for albums in categories

* Setting to block guests from reporting images and comments

Blog Enhancements

The Blogs has been updated along with the forum with the following features:

* Numerous bug fixes and enhancements

For power users:

Forum manual for download

If you are interested in the details, here is the full forum manual for download in PDF-format (3.18 MB):

http://www.thaivisa.com/forum/thaivisa-forum-new-manual.pdf

[wpcoe]

I wasn't sure where to post his, but since it may relate to the forum enhancements I'll post it here:

What happened to the "edit" button on posts? I wanted to edit one of my posts, but can't see how to do it now...

[wpcoe]

dagnabbit! There is an edit button on the above post, but not on other posts I made earlier today. Is it at "limited time offer" we have to make edits?

[endure]

Yes, you have 30 minutes to edit your posts. After that editing is disabled.

[Tony Clifton]

What about the option that showed if a member is online or offline? Could we have it back?

[Tywais]

What about the option that showed if a member is online or offline? Could we have it back?

If you look at the little picture next to the members name it will be in color if they are on-line and grey if off-line.

[chownah]

For power users:

Forum manual for download

If you are interested in the details, here is the full forum manual for download in PDF-format (3.18 MB):

http://www.thaivisa.com/forum/thaivisa-forum-new-manual.pdf

This link seems to be broken

Chownah

[Tony Clifton]

What about the option that showed if a member is online or offline? Could we have it back?

If you look at the little picture next to the members name it will be in color if they are on-line and grey if off-line.

Great! Thanks:D