[K'aeloree]

Hey all!

As part of SHS' 12 Days of Christmas, we decided it was time for us to upgrade our forum software and give our forums a new look. IPB v3 comes with a slew of new and improved features, the most important of which are outlined below. A quick note is that the sub-forums will once return their vertically-placed selves later in the week. We are still ironing out problems and bugs, so if you find anything strange please report it here!

Download Manager Note
Unfortunately, due to a complication with the Download Manager, SHS' downloads will not be available for the next few days. My sincere apologies for this, it is the worst possible time for it to happen with 12 days going on! As a result, 12 days is on pause until the DM comes back online. Thank you for your patience and understanding!

Onto the new and improved features of IPB v3!

Private Conversations
The biggest change (apart from the new interface) is the switch from Private Messages to Private Conversations. Private Conversations work very similarly to forum threads, but only those you invite into the conversation can see and post in them. It has been likened to GMail by some, and in my opinion it's a huge improvement over the old system!

New file uploader
A brand spanking new file uploading system is in place, making the process of uploading files that much easier. In order to use the new uploader, you have to enable it in the user control panel. You can do this by clicking on the drop-down box in the top right-hand corner, and going to My Settings > Forum > Enable Flash Uploader.

"View New Posts" forum filter
A feature that people have been requesting for some time, View New Posts can now be filtered! Simply click on the drop-down box in the top right-hand corner, and go to My Settings > Forum > Block Forums.

Improved spam protection
IPB v3 comes with much improved spam protection, so with any luck we won't be seeing any more irritating spambots around!

"Friendly" urls
A new links system is incoporated into IPB v3, using natural language URLs. This makes it simpler for us and for search engines.

We hope you enjoy the new and improved Spellhold Studios forums!

Liam "K'aeloree" Esler
SHS Administrator

[Daulmakan]

Sounds nifty. Is it possible to make the old skin available again with the new software?

[K'aeloree]

The old skin was built specifically for IPB v2, so unfortunately not, I'm afraid. The layout differences are too extreme. I'm extremely happy with this layout, myself.

[Lollorian]

Woah!!! This looks great!!! (although a tad too bright )

You're still probably tweaking this and stuff but one thing I miss are the quote/codeboxes ... Can they be brought back??

Cheers,
Lol

[Lava Del'Vortel]

Well, that's a big change! It looks good, but I will have to get used to those all changes.

[Azkyroth]

What happened to the red-on-black theme?

[prowler]

Looks awesome! Color gamma is great and soft for eyes. Thanks!

[K'aeloree]

Lollorian, on 02 January 2010 - 06:29 PM, said:

Woah!!! This looks great!!! (although a tad too bright )

What part of it is too bright, exactly?

Lollorian, on 02 January 2010 - 06:29 PM, said:

You're still probably tweaking this and stuff but one thing I miss are the quote/codeboxes ... Can they be brought back??

We're working on it. They should all be back momentarily.

Azkyroth, on 02 January 2010 - 06:52 PM, said:

What happened to the red-on-black theme?

This is just the next incarnation of the theme.

[Lava Del'Vortel]

But I realized a strange thing... there are no options in PM's... no attaching files, no copies for other users, no things like font size or colours... Is there any way to add those? Maybe it's just me... maybe I am blind or something....

[Azkyroth]

K, on 02 January 2010 - 01:37 AM, said:

Azkyroth, on 02 January 2010 - 06:52 PM, said:

What happened to the red-on-black theme?

This is just the next incarnation of the theme.

That's what I was afraid of.

[K'aeloree]

Lava Del, on 02 January 2010 - 07:09 PM, said:

But I realized a strange thing... there are no options in PM's... no attaching files, no copies for other users, no things like font size or colours... Is there any way to add those? Maybe it's just me... maybe I am blind or something....

On the left, "Invite Participants" replaces copying to other users. And I think you want "Use Full Editor", possibly.

[Lollorian]

K, on 02 January 2010 - 03:07 PM, said:

Lollorian, on 02 January 2010 - 06:29 PM, said:

Woah!!! This looks great!!! (although a tad too bright )

What part of it is too bright, exactly?

Well, this is what I see The white part seems like ceramic (mebbe it's me monitor's brightness?? )

Is it a speciality of this forum or did my attachment privileges go fubar??

K, on 02 January 2010 - 03:07 PM, said:

Lollorian, on 02 January 2010 - 06:29 PM, said:

You're still probably tweaking this and stuff but one thing I miss are the quote/codeboxes ... Can they be brought back??

We're working on it. They should all be back momentarily.

Great! Thanks (I see they've come back )

This post has been edited by Lollorian: 02 January 2010 - 01:59 AM

[Lava Del'Vortel]

Oh, thx I was afraid that this quick-private-message thing is the only option of sending PMs now

I think that Lollorian wanted to say that the main forum part, the post and this everything what has white/pearl colours may be too bright. Maybe let's experiment with that? maybe the colour of the wood or... I don't know... it's hard to say which composition will be less bright but also good since I can't experiment myself

However, after the moment foum looks nice now, I am only (also) not sure if not too brigh (Sometimes I check forum when it's still night and I am afraid that swiching on the screen will change into a blinding flash piercing into my eyes and brain )

[Pain Elemental]

This shocked me wide awake. (I just woke up).
But it's a nice change. Cheers

[Archmage Silver]

It's a lot to get used to all at once... but I guess I'll get used to it over time.

The looks are generally OK, but I liked the old skin better, it had kind of grown on me. Any chance of either you or Seb looking into creating a version of it for the new board software in the future?

The personal profile page is now a lot less cluttered, I certainly like it better now. One thing I noticed on it though, is that prior to this post my post count reads 4622 there, but it's actually 4618, which is exactly what my previous forum posts show.

Next pointer: I don't what it is actually, but I'm experiencing slower load speeds on the forums in general.

This seems big: All previous posts that have quotes now have messed up tags for those, so the quotes don't show up correctly. Example

You already answered the previous.

I had to rewrite my signature as well, all tags for it (url, img) were a mess.

Spoiler tags ands smilies seem to work OK (I don't know if a few smilies are missing from the list though, it seems somewhat empty). I don't see any problems with uploads in posts either.

The pinned threads don't stand out that well at the moment, perhaps a separator bar or two would be in order?

Otherwise it seems like you guys have done a great job again.

This post has been edited by Archmage Silver: 02 January 2010 - 02:09 AM

[Mike1072]

I'm going to chip in and also say hooray to the upgrade and boo to the look, or at least part of it. There's something with the background and text colours, and/or the font, in the post content that is irritating my eyes.

Quote

Quotes on the other hand look great.

This post has been edited by Mike1072: 02 January 2010 - 02:18 AM

[Thanatos.]

Great job guys! This is sexy.

[Jarno Mikkola]

Lollorian, on 02 January 2010 - 10:56 AM, said:

(and is this forum looking nifty or wot?? ... kinda miss the codeboxes though ... is it my browser or is the crying simley not showing up?? )

Well, if you look into the Reply button and then the Emoticons in it, and yet the Show All, you'll see the few icons are gone for a while, they'll be back I am sure...

[Qwinn]

Quote

As a result, 12 days is on pause until the DM comes back online.

Phew! Couple more days to finish testing, yay.

Board upgrade looks pretty good to me guys, nice job.

Qwinn

[ghostdog]

Updates are always good

-One problem I found is that when I tried to edit one of my posts, the code that turned up wasn't the usual forum code, it appeared in html. Thank god I had that introductory post saved in my pc.

-Since you're updating , is there a way to keep track of the topics you have answered/started ? If not it would be a welcome addition.

-A secondary, slightly darker skin would be nice.