The Administration is SUPER EXCITED to announce that we have successfully upgraded our old forum to the most recent version! We are saying goodbye to the old, dingy 3.0.12 version of PHPbb we were using, and are greeting version 3.2.1 with a hearty hello! The database has also been updated, but don't worry - we haven't lost any of your posts (Takatia in the background: "Thank goodness!") or other important information.
Things that didn't work on the old forum (such as the memberlist) should now work, and even more exciting, we now have access to many useful extensions. In fact, we have already started utilizing a lot of them - I will list them a bit further down in the topic so that you can take a look at what they are and how they work. But for now, let's take a look at the reorganization that came with updating the forum.
I would also like to apologize for the extended downtime. Due to work and my schedule sometimes not matching up with UD's as well as a TON of errors, it took longer than anticipated to update the forums and get everything going again. We have more updates that we are discussing and will be able to roll out later.
Your quick links (such as Unread Posts, Active Topics, etc.) are now at the top left under the breadcrumb menu "Quick Links". The contents of this area are primarily the same as what we had on the old forum with the exception of two new links: Your Posts & Your Topics. These are pretty self explanatory, but Your Posts will direct you to a list of topics in which you have posted, whereas Your Topics will bring up a list of topics that you have created. This way you do not have to sift through topics that have been created by other users or use an advance search to find which topics you have created.
The User Control Panel (UCP) is now located within the breadcrumb menu you can open by clicking on your username in the top right corner of the forum. There is also a link to view your profile and a link to log out. Everything within the UCP should be the same and easily accessible with the exception of new profile fields based on a suggestion by the community.
Located next to the UCP breadcrumb menu are private messages and a new feature: notifications. Notifications are a super nifty, built-in feature of the latest version of PHPbb. You can access the notification settings by clicking its icon and pressing "Settings" at the top right. From there, you can choose which actions you would like to be notified for. This for me is one of the best features that we have gained through updating!
We no longer have image size restraints when it comes to posts (there are still restraints for avatars and signatures). This means that your image does not have to be 1500px or under in width or height; the forum automatically resizes images to fit the screen.
Additional changes outside of the addition of extensions and normal PHPbb updates have been made.
- The Forum Rules are no longer located in a topic. They are now located on their own page. You can access this page using the navigation bar at the top left of the forum header.
- New fox smilies have been added courtesy of Vuldari on deviantART.
- The Artist Review documents are now on a page of the forum. You can access them by clicking this link or by using the navigation bar at the top left of the forum header.
- There are new social media icons in the footer. Check them out and follow Wolfhome offsite!
- There is a "bring me to the top/bottom" button when you scroll down a page located at the bottom right.
- We have created a YCH Market subforum under the Premade Market.
- We have moved Wolfhome Resources, FAQs, and Guidelines to be a subforum under Wolfhome Announcements.
- We have combined General Questions for the Administration, Questions for the Art Review Team, and Chat & Forum Technical Support into a new forum called Questions for the Administration.
- Wolfhome Screenshots has been merged with Chatlands Screenshots to create Chatlands Screenies and Pastimes, which is now a subforum of Critter Chatter.
- Websites has been made a subforum of Critter Chatter.
- When you are appearing offline your name will be italicized. Only Administrators and you can see this. This isn't new, it's just easier to notice now.
- Helping Howls has been removed and the posts it contained moved to Critter Chatter.
- Permissions and Artist Terms of Service has been combined.
- The Service Section and Wolfhome Markets Archive are now subforums of Artist Market.
- The Wanted Items and Services and Service Section have been combined.
Perhaps most exciting is the ability we now have to access multiple extensions that make it easy to enjoy fun and useful features we could not access before. Here is a rundown of the extensions that affect you and what they do.
Topic Preview
- When hovering over the title of a topic on any forum you will now be able to see a preview of the first 300 characters of both the original post and last reply. This is useful if you are looking to sneak a quick peak at a topic without actually loading into it.
Auto Drafts
- This is an extension I am especially thankful for as I am writing this announcement, haha. Auto Drafts will automatically save any drafts you make on a topic after 20s. You may also save your own drafts by pressing the "Save quick draft" button that is in the same area as the "Preview" and "Submit" buttons. To load a draft, all you have to do is press "Load quick draft". You are presented with a list of drafts that you have compiled and have the option to either load or delete them. You can close the Auto Drafts menu by looking underneath of where it displays your drafts. It is important to note that this extension is only accessible through the full post editor and not through quick reply.
Simple Mentions
- Lastly, the WHF finally has a user tagging system! To tag a user, simply type the @ symbol and start typing their name. It will bring up a list of names for you to choose from. You can either click or press enter to select the name. If this isn't to your liking, you are also able to type the BBCode for mentions, which is {mention} (with brackets instead). For example:
Code: Select all
[mention]clovette[/mention]
- Here's a little silly-fun extension that counts the amount of time a user has been registered. You can view it on your profile.
- I remember that there was a bit of commotion when we first enabled quick reply because not everyone liked the way it looked. I found an extension that fixes that! You can now toggle quick reply.
- This one is really neat. It allows users of the WHF to upload images by pressing the Imgur icon next to the font size selector in the full post editor. You press the button, select an image, and it uploads to an account we have created specifically for this purpose on Imgur. Once uploaded, it automatically inserts the image in {img} tags. It does, however, leave the link/img code at the bottom of the post, so don't fret if you can't find it! Check it out:
We realize that this is a big change and that with change come errors and suggestions. Please keep an eye out for things that may be broken and either PM me (preferred), another Administrator, or post about them in our Questions for the Administration forum. Suggestions are completely acceptable, and should you wish to suggest a new feature, change, or something else, please post them in the Suggestions for Wolfhome forum.
Thank you very much for your continued patience over the years. We have always wanted to make this a better place for the users, and now we are finally able to implement some changes that we did not think were possible before due to extended access Underdog has been kind enough to grant me. Wolfhome wouldn't be as great a community as it is without you guys to support it and push for improvements.