Voltstriker
23-10-2014, 08:18 PM
Greetings and salutations minions,
As many of you may have noticed by now the forum looks rather different. This is the result of a couple weeks of finding a skin with a nice layout, trawling through said skin's bad code, modifying bad code to be not as bad code, changing ugly colours, and spending hours upon hours of using the colour palette tool on photoshop to find a colour that's just right - I now hate the colour orange ;)
Anyway, I welcome you to the new skin for the forums - hopefully you like it :D . I was working on this up until a few nights ago and still will be, however I have to stop while I am doing my HSC's so I thought why not let you guys use what I have done in the meantime. So yeah, expect some things to not be fully completed.
In addition to the new look, I have added some new features to the forum that benefits both the regular members and the administration team, some these you probably would have noticed and used by now. A list of all the changes I have made in the past couple of week are listed below:
New Features
Visual overhaul
Buttons at the very top of the forums that link to our various social media pages/areas of interest
Automated birthday message in a new birthday forum (www.sonsofvalour.net/forums/forumdisplay.php?f=46)
Ability for admins to change a posts owner: select thread using checkbox and drop down the Moderation Tools list
User tagging and notifications system: Format is the @ symbol followed by their username (i.e. Voltstriker). It gives a notification which is view able in the notifications button in top right corner of screen. Please note that quoting people also gives a notification so try not to quote and tag people simultaneously to reduce on notification spam
Mood System: While this might be a little gimicky, I think its adds a little bit of a personal touch to your profile. Either on your profile or in the postbit area to the left of any of your posts their is an area to edit your moods. For some reason it doesn't let you remove a mood, you can only change them. (Sorry Joel you already have a mood set - I accidently set it while I was testing it)
Mass private messaging tool (only for admins sorry :P ): Go to AdminCP > Users > Send PM to Users
Post like feature: You have probably already seen this on the old skin as thanking people for their posts - this is only because I couldn't be bothered editing it on the old skin to say "Liking posts". Basically, click the like under their post. High Council have the ability to remove likes in case its needed though I might remove it from Hairy to stop his rampant corruption.
Added sidebar to the Activity Stream page
Updated the sidebar to look a little better (also changed what side its on)
Show current staff online: Viewable on the sidebar
Top posters list: Viewable by going to the Community drop down menu below the navbar and clicking Top Posters - can also see a link to it down in the statistics section on the main page of the forums
Forum uptime counter: Little tool that shows how long the forum has been online for - can see in statistics section on main page on forums
Ability to designate access to the forum to certain users when I close it for maintenance
Tab on the left hand side of your screen that pops out a form with the teamspeak server on it: Please give me feedback about it - its functionality, if it works properly, if it looks visually appealing (i made that background for it as a placeholder and I'm going to update that in the future)
Users can now upload forum avatars
Added link to inbox at top of page and removed inbox link from notifications drop down
Fixed up the Battlelog link so it now links to a permanent page that won't change even if you change usernames.
Added strikethrough (strikethrough) BBCode: to use surround your text with the tags [ s] [/s ] (remove spaces in square brackets)
Upgraded the quick reply editor: now has more buttons on it
Added awards system: will be implemented shortly (for donators and various other achievements)
Added feature that allows admins to set a reason for closing a thread: close thread then go to area above first post
Added GeoIP tool: click the IP button below posts and it will display approximate locations (admin only)
Auto Youtube link parsing: now automatically embeds youtube links into posts
Allow users to select an avatar at registration
Shows an icon next to the original poster's/thread starter's posts that highlight that they started the thread
Added Upcoming Scrims widget on sidebar: will be tweaking this
Added downloads section to forums: access through downloads button in navbar
Known Issues/Things I might work on in the future after exams
Update banner and (maybe) background
Colours on the settings page and the profile page are still on the default colour scheme of vBulletin
In the new post page the area underneath the message form doesn't sit within the background
Database errors when liking posts - spams me with emails when people like posts
Some alignment issues on pages
Font sizes/colours/actual fonts
Some extra plugins for the forum
Maybe some extra smilies?
So yeah, sorry for the long post. Its been a long time since the forum has been updated/changed so much so there is a lot to list. Please leave feedback and suggestions as to areas that you may not like/could be improved/errors you may be getting. Seriously, leave feedback.
If you have gone through this whole post going I have no idea what he is talking about, press Control and F5 to clear your cache and refresh this post.
As many of you may have noticed by now the forum looks rather different. This is the result of a couple weeks of finding a skin with a nice layout, trawling through said skin's bad code, modifying bad code to be not as bad code, changing ugly colours, and spending hours upon hours of using the colour palette tool on photoshop to find a colour that's just right - I now hate the colour orange ;)
Anyway, I welcome you to the new skin for the forums - hopefully you like it :D . I was working on this up until a few nights ago and still will be, however I have to stop while I am doing my HSC's so I thought why not let you guys use what I have done in the meantime. So yeah, expect some things to not be fully completed.
In addition to the new look, I have added some new features to the forum that benefits both the regular members and the administration team, some these you probably would have noticed and used by now. A list of all the changes I have made in the past couple of week are listed below:
New Features
Visual overhaul
Buttons at the very top of the forums that link to our various social media pages/areas of interest
Automated birthday message in a new birthday forum (www.sonsofvalour.net/forums/forumdisplay.php?f=46)
Ability for admins to change a posts owner: select thread using checkbox and drop down the Moderation Tools list
User tagging and notifications system: Format is the @ symbol followed by their username (i.e. Voltstriker). It gives a notification which is view able in the notifications button in top right corner of screen. Please note that quoting people also gives a notification so try not to quote and tag people simultaneously to reduce on notification spam
Mood System: While this might be a little gimicky, I think its adds a little bit of a personal touch to your profile. Either on your profile or in the postbit area to the left of any of your posts their is an area to edit your moods. For some reason it doesn't let you remove a mood, you can only change them. (Sorry Joel you already have a mood set - I accidently set it while I was testing it)
Mass private messaging tool (only for admins sorry :P ): Go to AdminCP > Users > Send PM to Users
Post like feature: You have probably already seen this on the old skin as thanking people for their posts - this is only because I couldn't be bothered editing it on the old skin to say "Liking posts". Basically, click the like under their post. High Council have the ability to remove likes in case its needed though I might remove it from Hairy to stop his rampant corruption.
Added sidebar to the Activity Stream page
Updated the sidebar to look a little better (also changed what side its on)
Show current staff online: Viewable on the sidebar
Top posters list: Viewable by going to the Community drop down menu below the navbar and clicking Top Posters - can also see a link to it down in the statistics section on the main page of the forums
Forum uptime counter: Little tool that shows how long the forum has been online for - can see in statistics section on main page on forums
Ability to designate access to the forum to certain users when I close it for maintenance
Tab on the left hand side of your screen that pops out a form with the teamspeak server on it: Please give me feedback about it - its functionality, if it works properly, if it looks visually appealing (i made that background for it as a placeholder and I'm going to update that in the future)
Users can now upload forum avatars
Added link to inbox at top of page and removed inbox link from notifications drop down
Fixed up the Battlelog link so it now links to a permanent page that won't change even if you change usernames.
Added strikethrough (strikethrough) BBCode: to use surround your text with the tags [ s] [/s ] (remove spaces in square brackets)
Upgraded the quick reply editor: now has more buttons on it
Added awards system: will be implemented shortly (for donators and various other achievements)
Added feature that allows admins to set a reason for closing a thread: close thread then go to area above first post
Added GeoIP tool: click the IP button below posts and it will display approximate locations (admin only)
Auto Youtube link parsing: now automatically embeds youtube links into posts
Allow users to select an avatar at registration
Shows an icon next to the original poster's/thread starter's posts that highlight that they started the thread
Added Upcoming Scrims widget on sidebar: will be tweaking this
Added downloads section to forums: access through downloads button in navbar
Known Issues/Things I might work on in the future after exams
Update banner and (maybe) background
Colours on the settings page and the profile page are still on the default colour scheme of vBulletin
In the new post page the area underneath the message form doesn't sit within the background
Database errors when liking posts - spams me with emails when people like posts
Some alignment issues on pages
Font sizes/colours/actual fonts
Some extra plugins for the forum
Maybe some extra smilies?
So yeah, sorry for the long post. Its been a long time since the forum has been updated/changed so much so there is a lot to list. Please leave feedback and suggestions as to areas that you may not like/could be improved/errors you may be getting. Seriously, leave feedback.
If you have gone through this whole post going I have no idea what he is talking about, press Control and F5 to clear your cache and refresh this post.