Forum Improvements & Changes

DataMine
by DataMine · 94 posts
8 years ago in Mafia News
Posted 8 years ago · Author
For the past few weeks I have been working on creating a design for the topic pages in order to bring back lost functionality and increase forum activity. Today I have made the new design live so you all will now see and use it.

This topic will give you an overview of what's new and what's changed.


Complete Redesign
The topic pages have been redesigned to be more pretty, intuitive, functional and overall easier to use. Topics should hopefully no longer feel like a disgusting mash of data.



Member Actions on posts
You can now interact with other members directly from their posts. No longer do you have to search for links to someone's inbox or figure out how to contact them. All of those options are now easily available to you. You can find them on the bottom of the left hand side of posts. Not all buttons will be available for every member. For example, only those who choose to share their Skype username will have a Skype button. Same for website and email.

Here's an image detailing what each button does:
Spoiler: screenshot

Image



Poll Restoration
Polls allow you to ask a question and have people in the topic vote on it. For a while they were removed due to me not having the knowledge to properly re implement them in the site overhaul. I have since improved my knowledge and re added them to the forums and given them a re design.


Karma Actions
You can now give and remove karma from other members. karma is a reputation system, those with higher karma are more likely to be trustworthy and a benefit to the community.

You can find the buttons here:

Image


Breadcrumb Navigation
The breadcrumb navigation has been redesigned to be more easily recognizable. The breadcrumb navigation allows you to quickly backtrack through the forums by giving you links back to previous sections of the forums. So if you click a topic accidentally or decide you don't have an interest in the topic, you can quickly go back to where you were or return to the index.

Here is the breadcrumb navigation:

Image

Re adding social buttons
- Each post will have buttons that allow you to contact the user through multiple venues: PM, Skype and email. If any of you guys still use YIM, AIM or ICQ, I can add those as well. These buttons only appear when you have field out the social section in your profile here: ucp.php?i=172. If you don't put in a Skype username, the Skype button won't appear for you. Same for the others. At this time I cannot add FaceBook or twitter as our profile system does not have fields for you to type those into. That may be a future update if possible. There will also be add friend and add foe buttons that are hooked up to our friends system.


I've posted a screenshot below of what these buttons look like and where they are below:
Spoiler: screenshot

Image




Update 4/16/2016
Internal code cleanup

New profile pictures for the following users:
-Banned
-Inactive
-Deactivated

The following changes have been made to the topic list and subforums list pages:
-Breadcrumbs added
-New clean theme

The following pages have been given an overhaul:
-Contact Us: contact.php
-Mafia chat: chat.php
-Forum Index: index.php
-Topic listings
-Ranks: ranks.php

Polls have been re added and given a new look


Update 7/5/2016
The following ranks have been given new icons:

-Lower Family Member
-Inner Family Member
-Legendary Family Member
-Admin

Update 7/6/2016
-Fixed the flex alignment of the top row on the index page. The shoutbox no longer stretches to match the height of the other elements in the row.
Posted 8 years ago
Cool! :D
Posted 8 years ago
Love it, looks so much easier and love the set up. Excellent Work you do for us!
Posted 8 years ago
Thank you D.M, I love so much all these new features, I followed your hard work and it's sooo great see it live. Just I can't click on the karma buttons, I'm still seeing the old non-working version.
Posted 8 years ago
AWESOME LOVE THE WORK YOU DO FOR US
Posted 8 years ago · Author
Thank you everyone, I am glad you all enjoy the new design.

Don Von Alpha Dom wrote:
Great to see the karma system back in action. Great work @D.M

Axiom mentioned to me that she couldn't see it. I am curious if it's set up for admins only at the moment. I anyone else not seeing the karma buttons?

@Don Von Alpha Dom

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