New Forum Features

[theSven]

The time has come to add some new features to the forum that enhance the user experience. The first new feature is that likes will now show who has liked a post. As I recall this was similar to what was available in the forum when using vBulletin 4.x. Above the area where you can like/give a thumbs up the following is now shown:



To improve the writing experience for those that are good at writing a new feature is available to expand the text editor to take up the entire window in the web browser. The button is used to expand or contract the window. Hopefully this will provide a better experience for creating content. The button is located in the upper right corner of the text editor:


Finally a new plugin was added that will now clear the forum cache every hour. I have noticed and you may have noticed as well that the forum can get sluggish when browsing and posting. The simple fix has been to login to the control panel to clear the cache. With this new plugin the cache is cleared every hour. I hope this clears up some of the performance issues with the sluggishness.

Enjoy!

[theSven]

Two more features have been implemented now on the forum. Search is now easier and doesn't take you to a new page when you search. Type in three letters minimum and results will be found. Advanced search is available to if you want to search by tag or other options.


The next feature was something I recall from vBulletin 4 where you could click on the page number of the thread to quickly get there. That is now possible again!


Enjoy the new features 😉

[technodanvan]

Good stuff Sven, you spoil us!

[theSven]

Good stuff Sven, you spoil us!

Based on user feedback I have been finding mods that offer features similar to how the old forum software was. I haven't found a fix for all the feedback yet, but slowly I'm making progress. Plus a better user experience is always a plus when using a site!

[JonMarsh]

It's coming along nicely... the new software can be confusing- I just finally figured out TODAY how to edit my user signature!

Of course, I'm far from the sharpest stick in the drawer...

[theSven]

Time to add some more features to make the site easier to get around! As threads get longer wouldn't it be nice to get to the bottom to read the latest post???

Now you can get to the bottom post quickly with two different ways. The first is to use the Bottom button when in a forum channel, clicking the Bottom link takes you to the bottom of the page.



The second way to get to the bottom when reading a topic in the forum is to click on the Bottom button.




As you read through posts that have many responses wouldn't it be nice to know who started the topic? Well look no further there is now a badge that will show up on the forum member who started the topic.



Lastly I thought it was time to polish the HTGuide stats to make them look more presentable. I thought this was a nice enhancement that only took 5 minutes to add to the forum for us. The stats should be displaying nicely for all the themes on the website.



Until next time enjoy!

[technodanvan]

Oh fancy!

[theSven]

I forgot to mention one other feature 😮. Have you ever wondered about all the topics you have started on HTGuide? I know I certainly don't have that many compared to many others on the forum that have been active for decades! Now there is a new link in the sub navigation bar called My Started Topics. Click on that link to review all the topics you started, or if you want to add to it and can't remember where it got moved to or you don't feel like searching use this.