Thread: Major Forum Changes Ahead

Thanks for the updates!

Update (Version 1.1.0)

I've had some free time lately (hoping to have a lot more going forward) and I've been getting so much done, including some work on the forum.

Everyone should now be able to edit their signatures!
Give it a try if you'd like and let me know if there are any issues.



I'm also finally starting to use the version numbering (should have been using it a long time ago), so we've moved on from version 1.0.0 and are now on version 1.1.0 (visible on every page in the footer if you've never noticed it).


Allowing updates to the user profile "Basic Information" is a very similar task, so I should be able to get that working without much effort very soon.

Update (Version 1.2.0)

TL;DR - Forum staff can now one-touch ban/remove spam-bot accounts.

We've had a very small handful of spam-bots get through the new-user creation process. I've been deleting them manually, but Kyle caught one recently before I did. Kyle (and the other forum staff) should really have the tools to deal with this. I had some time today so I implemented that tool for the forum staff. This is not something anyone will notice, but it will help continue to make things run smoothly around here. This is the first of many staff tools we need, and I hope to get to the others as time permits.

There is one little bit lacking from this feature. It won't take care of threads created by the spammer, but I will get that working when we run into that situation.

Kyle - I'll let you do the honors banning Dorothyspearman who is as of this writing responsible for post #35 in this thread: Purchasing a GTiR
Click the username to see their user profile page, and the process should be obvious from there. Let me know if you have any issues.

I'm doing a little preliminary work on the forum and I may have messed something up. If the forum is behaving badly (mostly by displaying blank white pages) then I am sorry. I should have this problem solved within a few hours at most.

Then I'll get back to what I was working on...

Update (Version 1.2.1)

I'm still waiting for data to be recovered to fix the intermittent blank pages.

While I'm waiting on that, I'm working on a new feature.

While working on the new feature, I found a bug with private messages. When a PM is sent to someone they are supposed to get an e-mail notification as well. That is working correctly. However, when someone is blind-carbon-copied (BCC) on a PM they were not getting an e-mail. Instead, that e-mail would go to one of the other normal recipients instead. I've fixed this, so BCC recipients should get e-mails as well now.

In the process of fixing this, I DRY'd up the code quite a bit. So that feels good.

I guess I'll up the version number from 1.2.0 to 1.2.1.

Well, according to the data recovery process, there was actually nothing permanent that I deleted, only temporary files that should repopulate as we go.
In theory, we should be fine and everything should shake out soon. Maybe no one else but me is having problems. I hope so...

For now, I'll just continue working on what I've been doing that started this whole thing.

Update (Version 1.3.0)

I've added a new feature. This is the first in a while, but hopefully more will come soon.
I was feeling particularly unproductive yesterday, so I told myself I'd add a feature to the forum so I could feel some sense of accomplishment.

The "Notifications" section of the forum header now works as a drop-down menu for quick access to Likes, Mentions, PMs, and Subscribed Threads.
Well, not exactly... The PM portion of it works perfectly. The rest are placeholders until I can get them working. This was a big step needed to get Likes and Mentions working again, so I'm happy to have made progress there.

Now, when you get a new PM, you'll not only get the e-mail notification, but you'll also see it right there in the header. Once you visit the inbox, the notifications count will adjust automatically (after you move to a new page, or refresh).

If you notice any issues with the feature, please let me know.

Sorry there isn't much to play with right now with the new feature until you get a PM, but that's how it goes. I plan to get Mentions and/or Likes working next. Those will be huge, and I know everyone misses them. Sit tight.



Edit: Whoops, I forgot to release the feature to everyone (I had it enabled for me only during testing). You should see the new behavior now.

I spent a little time this morning styling the drop-down menu to match the rest of the forum. It matches the PM navigation menu the most if you want to take a look.

I will start working on Mentions or Likes today. We'll see where I get.

Update (Version 1.3.1)

While working on Likes, I found a couple bugs I introduced for PMs yesterday while cleaning things up. The system was sending double PMs (to the same person) and not sending out the e-mail notifications.
I've fixed both of those problems now.

Update (Version 1.4.0)

Three years ago exactly to this day (best I can tell) the forum went offline for a few months. I resurrected it, but as you all know, we lost all sorts of features.
I've clawed back many of those, and today we get one of the most sorely missed back!

Likes work again!

They work exactly as expected. Go ahead and give a like to a post and you'll see. You can also easily retract the like (although the notifications will still be sent out and currently don't get retracted).

When a like is issued to a user, that user gets a notification. The like notification(s) clear when the user has checked page 1 of their own list of liked threads.
I plan to also have an e-mail send out to the user, but that will likely get finished over the weekend.
Edit: E-mails are sent out now too. (They too do not get retracted when a post in unliked, obviously.)

I leveraged many features we already had to get this working. It would not have been possible without these features created earlier:
1) The notifications drop-down
2) The member profile page
3) The member posts display page


Here are some fun screenshots to look over.