Forum & Chat Updates

[This Old Neon]

Over the next day or so, we'll be applying phpBB software updates and re-installing several mods, including the forum chat. You may lose access to the forum during these updates. You may have access to the forum, but no access to the chat. If you continue to experience problems accessing the site after it's officially back up and running, contact Kong using your favourite non-TONe method of Kong access.

We hope to have everything cleaned up in a timely manner.

[Kong Wen]

In addition to re-installing the chat, we'll also have to spend some time re-configuring the forum's appearance and whatnot.

On the bright side, there will be some nice enhancements that will make this a much nicer place to live until the next update.

[Kong Wen]

In addition to re-installing the chat, we'll also have to spend some time re-configuring the forum's appearance and whatnot.

A further update:

The forum software and chat mod have been successfully upgraded. In addition to some minor style updates and increased stability, this has given us some nice updates:

• Google's reCAPTCHA to help fend off spambots
• Better chat integration, incl. easier updates and URL tag support
• Emoji support, if you're posting from your phone or have an Emoji keyboard installed in your browser
• Smart quotes (see above) including a link back to the quoted post and a timestamp
• A couple more minor options in your User CP, like notifications and more profile fields

Please post here or in the Forum Testing & Suggestions thread if you run into any problems or bugs associated with this upgrade, and I'll look into them ASAP.

I'm now moving on to re-applying the TONe look & feel and branding to the forum.

[The Shoemaker]

Figure I'd put my chat opinions here, so that they aren't lost in the chat

Pictures - they are quite big in the chat, but I like them. I often don't click on links in the chat so this is a good way to keep up on all of Spores shitposting.

Likes - Not sure what are options are here, a like counter would be more ideal, but if that's not possible I still like the idea of "liking" things. Sometimes I want to recognize a message in the chat but don't have anything to really add to it, so I can see myself using this.

Forum activity in chat - the feature that says when someone posts in a forum thread. I feel like this is a great way to keep up with what's happening and possibly encourage more people to post. Also, now that the site is mobile friendly, it doesnt show you previews of the newest posts in each subforum on the main page, so I feel this is one way of keeping up to date, especially if you aren't refreshing the forum when using the chat as well.

But I can also see how this feature more than others could be a little obstructive if a lot of posts are happening at once. At the current rate of posts per day, I don't think it will be an issue though.

So overall, I'm liking the new updates!

[Kong Wen]

One of the additional updates being rolled out is "Quick Reply"—if you don't need to quote someone or use the full reply editor, you have the option of composing a reply directly from the thread view, without having to go to a whole separate reply & submit page. This should streamline the posting-in-the-forum experience. Let me know if there are any issues.

[MerlinDrazziw]

Quick Reply is good, but it would look better if the position is beneath the text part of the thread. The empty space I see at the right should be at the left. But that's just nitpicking

[Kong Wen]

Quick Reply is good, but it would look better if the position is beneath the text part of the thread. The empty space I see at the right should be at the left. But that's just nitpicking

Probably easy for me to remedy! I imagine it's like that because the avatar/user info section is on the right by default, but our theme moves it to the left. I'll look into it. I kind of don't think there should be any empty space at all: the text input field should span the whole screen, if anything.

[Kong Wen]

Update: Quick Reply input box spans the whole width of the page now.

[Kong Wen]

I've installed some new advanced polling options that will be generally handy around the forum, but especially for any future voting events. Some of the highlights of the new options include:

• Users can give multiple votes to a single option.
• Votes can be hidden until the poll ends.
• Option to allow users to vote only if they've posted in the topic.
• Users are able to change/redistribute their votes.
• Option to display who voted for what.
• Automatically re-order results according to votes received.

Have fun!

[Kong Wen]

Forum activity in chat - the feature that says when someone posts in a forum thread. I feel like this is a great way to keep up with what's happening and possibly encourage more people to post.

But I can also see how this feature more than others could be a little obstructive if a lot of posts are happening at once. At the current rate of posts per day, I don't think it will be an issue though.

Fortunately, this is a setting that each user has the ability to customize according to their own preferences! If you go the Chat tab in your User Control Panel, you have a couple options for how the Chat appears/behaves.