- Created By James
IP Board Software Upgrade
As I just announced on OB itself, we are about to upgrade the IP Board software at OtakuBoards on Saturday.
This is a pretty significant upgrade and even though the site will not radically change as a result, I think everyone will begin to notice a lot of small enhancements.
One of the biggest things is that the status updates you put on your profile will now post to OB's main page on a featured display panel (the panel will appear underneath the existing Recently Added and Watched Content panels).
But in addition, you will be able to comment on people's status updates as well. So it won't just be a static display - it will actually make status updates relevant and useable.
There are a ton of other little changes in the software, many of which should make life a lot easier. We will have a new and improved search function and the little member control panel on the top right of the page will be changed to be easier to use and more relevant. It will include a new notifications system that will pull together notifications from across OB and put them in one spot (a bit like Facebook notifications).
One of the best things about this upgrade, though, is that it will enable our team to begin working on a backlog of stuff that needs to be fixed. Stuff like the Avatar Gallery and the Reputation system are top priorities.
Also, early in the new year I hope to have a proper page set up on OB for the OB Podcast. It should make life a lot easier for Korey and Boo and it should also be a really easy and centralized place for all members to access the full podcast library.
I hope you guys like the update when it goes live - Petie and Des have been working very hard on it for the last few weeks and they've done a really fantastic job.
We're almost there!
Progress on the new OB has been moving at a lightning pace over the last few days. I thought it might be a good idea to tell you a little bit more about what you can expect on the new site.
First and foremost, the question I've had from a couple of people is whether or not all of your old posts have been saved - the answer is yes. We have moved all of OB's historical stuff over to the new software, so all your posts and threads are still there.
But what about new features? Here are just a few:
Display Name
On our new version, User Names are different from Display Names. Your User Name will be exactly the same as it was on the previous version.
However, you can also choose a Display Name. And this you can change up to three times each month, if you wish.
The great thing about this is that you can keep your User Name the same (so as to "reserve" it for yourself) but you can actually change your Display Name to be whatever you want (provided, of course, that nobody else is using the same Display Name).
We can also show a history of your Display Names on your Profile, to make it easier for other Members to identify you.
Notes
This is a feature we've wanted to have for a while now and finally it's here. The Notes area allows you to store snippets of posts directly on your OB account.
I think this is especially useful for OB because of our RPGs. You can create new posts using Notes and always keep them right there on OB - this is especially useful if you access OB from different locations, because it means you'll never lose a work in progress.
Messenger
The Messenger replaces our old Private Messaging system.
There are a couple of great advantages with the new Messenger. For starters, you don't need to hunt between your Inbox and Sent Items to piece together a full conversation (or have PMs full of quotes). Now, whenever someone replies to your message, it will create a conversation (which is just like a regular Thread). This will keep your Messenger tidy and easy to read.
You can also search through all messages in your Messenger, which is a nice touch.
Those are just a fraction of the new OB features. In addition to those, the site itself is much cleaner and easier to navigate now. And with no locked width, you can stretch or shrink OB as much as you like - it will adapt to your monitor resolution with no trouble.
Our team has just a few more things to iron out before we go live with the new site, but hopefully this will only take a couple of days at the very most. Watch this space!
Where's OB?
As I mentioned a couple of days ago, we recently closed OB so that we can move it to our shiny new server. That step is now complete and it went very smoothly (thanks to Adam for doing the move and Petie for doing the pre-move upgrade).
The next step is a little more complex and I thought I'd talk about it a bit here.
For those who have been using OB for years, you'll probably be aware that we've been using vBulletin for a very long time. vBulletin is the software that drives our forums.
What normally happens is that we pay an annual fee for a vBulletin license - in other words, we have to renew each year.
For various reasons, we have decided not to renew our vBulletin agreement this year. As a result, we've had to decide on an alternative software to power OB.
We're going to go with IP Board.
Because this is a big software change, it will take us a little while to make sure everything is set up correctly. So at the moment I'm expecting that OB will re-launch early next week.
Initially we won't have all the updated FAQs and things for the new features - it will take us a little time to put those things together. Also it is likely that we will launch with a fairly barebones type of layout, with a view to doing a bigger update shortly after re-launch.
So I hope this sheds a little more light on what we're doing at the moment. As always, if you have any questions, feel free to comment.
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