Major upgrade coming soon

[Stuart Wright]

A major upgrade to AVForums is coming soon. We use vBulletin software which has just published a major new release.

The upside is that we get lots of new features and functionality, a small number of which are:

• Inline spam management & prevention
• Thread tagging
• Search cloud / tag cloud
• Thread prefixes
• Reciprocal friendships between users
• Public visitor messaging on profile pages with 'conversation' feature
• User picture galleries with user comment facility
• User-created social groups with invite only and moderated membership options
• Extended member profile pages
• Customizable member profile pages with admin-controlled styling abilities
• Inline editing of custom user profile fields
• Lightbox viewer for attached images
• Viewable and comparable history maintained for post edits
• Extended re-authentication for inline moderation actions
• Notices system for navigation bar
• Multiple human-verification systems including reCAPTCHA, image verification and Q/A
• User change history
• Social bookmarking integration

The down side is that most of the key additional add-on features we use are not ported to the new version, yet. These include the iTrader system, the post report system, post Thanks facility, special classifieds form, classifieds archival and PM auto reply as well as loads of behind-the-scenes tools for the moderators. (Your iTrader and Thank You figures will NOT be lost and will continue into the new system).
I would wait for these add-ons to be updated, but the new features (especially the social networking ones) and the included major security fix are so important that I want to upgrade sooner rather than later.
Plus bringing the add-ons online slowly later will mean we can assess their impact on board performance more accurately.

When the upgrade happens, the forums are very likely to be down for several hours and return missing much of the above mentioned functionality you are used to.
Naturally I will try time the upgrade when the forums are quietest and try to finish the process as quickly as possible. Apologies in advance if you are kept waiting.

[Holy_Pilgrim]

Sounds good Stuart !! Thanks for all of your hardwork

[daveaka]

Seems interesting, however I dont understand half of the new functions (iam a bit thick), search cloud??

[TeeDoubleUDee]

So long as it works with Mozilla Firefox

[KevD]

Originally Posted by daveaka

Seems interesting, however I dont understand half of the new functions (iam a bit thick), search cloud??

Click on each function in the first post and it will give you an idea

[crocodile]

Based on previous software upgrades, this sounds like a recipe for total chaos.

[Marc]

how long will the itrader system and classifieds form be down? Those ones are such an integral part of the forums their absense will be very noticeable, the trading forums will be a complete shambles

[senu]

Sounds very good if it works as hoped.

[Holy_Pilgrim]

Any idea on a date when this is likely to happen ?

[kingfats]

Sounds great looking forward to it.

[Stuart Wright]

Originally Posted by crocodile

Based on previous software upgrades, this sounds like a recipe for total chaos.

I guess you're a glass is half empty kind of guy

Originally Posted by Marc

how long will the itrader system and classifieds form be down?

iTRader has the highest priority and you will continue to be able to trade - just not leave feedback for a few days.

Originally Posted by Holy_Pilgrim

Any idea on a date when this is likely to happen ?

Next week some time is the best guess at the moment.

[virtual22]

Sounds good Stuart, are you going to open a sweep stake on the number of posts that appear after the update stating either :"Why can't I leave feedback" or "my thanks have disappeared"!

[limblee]

I hope your going to be very strict on the "Member Customization of Profile Page".

I can't stomach those myspace pages.

Best of luck with the install.

If there was a chance of the trading threads going wrong I block all trading from Friday for a week (my two penneth worth).

[SeanT]

Can I add a ditto to absolute priority on restoring trader ratings - I've been stung on here before (pursued a successful claim using moneyclaim online against the bleeder though) and it's a key part of our forums.
We always knew the mods had "loads of behind the scenes tools"

[Tejstar]

Sounds good, but still no editable titles?