thomas
The Crank Engine
- Nov 1, 2005
- 2,085
- 605
Just a brief heads-up: we'll soon be upgrading our core software to Xenforo 2.2.x and introduce several new features.
Here's what's under the bonnet (in no particular order):
The new thread types will come in very handy, e.g. question threads for the Tech forum and article threads for a Wiki subforum (time to revive the Wiki!).
We will also change to a new style designer but emulate the current style as much as possible.
I expect the upgrade to take place next week and shall post a short announcement prior to pushing the button.
Here's what's under the bonnet (in no particular order):
- User profile banners: allows members to upload an image to their profile page that will also be displayed on the member tooltip
- Username change management: users can now choose to change their usernames; this procedure needs to be approved and can be restricted in regard to frequency. Requires to add a reason for username changes.
- Writing before registering: allows guests to reply to posts but ask them to register before being able to post. Hope this will generate more registrations!
- Progressive Web App (PWA): PWAs aim to bridge the gap between websites and native applications on both mobile and desktop devices using a series of emerging web standards. This will not work on Safari on macOS and any iOS-based browsers though. Not sure whether to use this or not...
- Activity summary emails: a configurable periodical email members can opt into, which will give them an overview of what they have missed since their last visit to the forum.
- Text editor and attachment manager improvements: the new text editor is still based on Froala but sports a fresh new look. It fits better on narrow devices, has a button manager, new preview features, a new attachment interface and rendering abilities.
- Forum and thread types: this allows to create new types of fora and threads, such as question threads and forums (a la Stackflow where the best answer can be upvoted), article threads and forums, and suggestion threads. All that, of course, in addition to regular discussion threads.
- Other improvements: prefix descriptions and usage help, improved draft save trigger, improved alerts behaviour.
- Enhanced Search - Similar Threads: once we upgrade we will switch to Enhanced Search, a module that offers improved search results - and similar - related - threads which will be displayed under each thread.
- Media Gallery: a new lightbox for larger images, improved image and video uploading, and attachment mirroring which means that attachments uploaded to posts will automatically be added to preconfigured categories in Media.
- Giphy support, and more...
The new thread types will come in very handy, e.g. question threads for the Tech forum and article threads for a Wiki subforum (time to revive the Wiki!).
We will also change to a new style designer but emulate the current style as much as possible.
I expect the upgrade to take place next week and shall post a short announcement prior to pushing the button.