We're in the Future! - Forum Software Updates

[Mini-Me 24]

Everybody knows them, some people hate them while others just accept they are there, or even appreciate them. What I'm talking about are updates. Whether it's your operating system, like Windows in most cases, or web browser - every software nowadays is frequently supplied with updates, and so is our forum software. This version that you're currently looking at, version 3, was released in June 2009. We right away decided that we want to upgrade our dated website as soon as possible. There was only one requirement: we wanted to design an own skin for the forum, so that we don't just look like any other copy of Invision Power Board. But, if you look at a calendar you'll notice that June 2009 was by now more than 3 years ago. Because creating an own skin for a software as big as this takes a lot of time and by far is not easy we simply didn't get around to doing that, so we kept pushing back the update. Due to problems with the old version of the software though that started to arise lately we decided to ditch that idea for now and just upgrade. A skin can come once it's ready. So here we are, in a fresh, new environment.


What's new?
So you might be asking yourself now what is new. To be honest, we don't really know every detail for ourselves and have to get used to this change now, too. So please excuse us if there's things not working, we might not even be aware of it. What I can say though is:


Shoutbox
The shoutbox is gone for now. Instead, you'll now find a Chat tab at the top of the page. Clicking it you'll land in a chat room that functions pretty much identical to the old shoutbox, however it has a few limitations. Because it is just the default licence that is included with the forum only 5 people can use it simultaneously. Anyone who clicks the chat tab when there's already 5 people in it wont even be allowed access. Instead it'll for some reason prompt you for a username and a password. We don't exactly understand what's that supposed to mean and why it's not right away denying access, because even us moderators and admins cannot bypass the 5 users limit. But we'll investigate into that in the future.
We also don't know for sure yet if we'll stick with the solution, seeing that 5 users is quite little, and an upgrade to 20 costs $20 a year, and, even more importantly, the chat can't be embedded in the forum frontpage like the shoutbox used to be. Let's see, maybe we'll find something better.

Please see below, the shoutbox returned and replaced the chat.


User profile pictures/avatars
The old version of the forum allowed everyone to link to an external picture as avatar that's shown next to each post, and IFT Investors additionally to upload a user profile picture that's shown in their profile. These two features have sort of been merged. You no longer are able to link external avatars and your existing links are gone, but now either can upload one, or choose to show your avatar from Gravatar. The default maximum upload size is 50KB, which seems like a fair amount to me. If it's too little, just talk to us. Also if you want to reuse your old picture and only had it stored online and don't anymore know the link to it by heart you can ask us and we'll probably look the link up for you in a backup of the database before the migration.


Downloads
While the downloads system is pretty much the same there's one easy statement we can make about its current state: "It means that this damn think doesn't work at all!" If you try to download any file that existed on the site before the migration you'll notice that you don't actually get the file, just a nearly blank page saying "here's your downloads". We are aware of the issue and try to fix as soon as possible.
The issue was fixed, please see blow.


Mobile
Additionally to featuring a mobile skin optimized for smartphones, the new version of the forum software has built in support for a smartphone app. Currently, according to the developer of the forum software, it only is available on iOS, but it should soon arrive on Android.
To use it, download the IPS Communities app from the AppStore (while it says on their homepage that it costs $2 it seems that due to many unsatisfied users they made it available for free). Using it you should be able to add this forum to it and set it up to receive push notifications when there's something new here on the forum. If you go to the User Control Panel by clicking your name in the upper right corner of the page and navigate to My Settings -> Notification Options you can quite detailed specify about what you want to receive push notifications.
At the bottom of each page in the mobile version it'll also give you the same hint that there is an app for this.

Reputation
It's been quite a while ago, but in the very first forum hosted on this site there was a reputation system. If you liked a post, you could click a button to express that. The user then got added a point to his personal account. From the amount of points the user had one could tell how much reasonable content a user contributes. This system now is back! Below every post there now is a "Like this" button - much like on Facebook. Click it, and you'll see the member's likes on his profile increase.


And that's the most notable changes I can think of so far. If you notice anything that's not working, misbehaving or otherwise strange that I didn't list here don't hesitate to contact us.

See you in the future!
The BTTF HV Team

Edited December 3, 2012 by Mini-Me

[Mini-Me 24]

News update!

Shoutbox

Regarding the shoutbox Mini-Me mentioned, there are options... http://community.invisionpower.com/files/file/5955-shoutbox/

And that is live now. It essentially is the same shoutbox we had in the old forum, just ported to the current version of the software it runs under. It is still to be decided whether the chat will remain, but to my mind there is no need for it.

Video Gallery

Bob, we are looking into options for the Tracker, it will return in some forum. Mini-Me has discovered that it is a feature built into IP.Content so we may be able to get something up and running.

To get to know the feature Mike mentioned I played around with it and discovered it can easily replace the old video gallery with a little bit of effort - et voilá: We have a new video gallery! It now is more tightly integrated into the forum. For instance you can comment on the videos, or subscribe to the gallery for updates. It's not entirely finished yet - as everything around this place at the moment - but it works very well so far. If anything in it doesn't work as intended please let me know.

And that's the updates for now, stay tuned!

See you in the future!
The BTTF HV Team

Edited December 3, 2012 by Mini-Me

[Mini-Me 24]

Quick update:

Downloads

I found an issue in the database that caused the downloads to not work and fixed it, hopefully that was all. Please keep an eye open for not working downloads and use the report feature in the downloads section.

Shotubox/Chat

Since the shoutbox acted fine we decided to remove the chat as it didn't serve an extra purpose.