Welcome!
Welcome to the test site for UBB.threads version 7. We've setup a few forums here for you to use and test.Since we last gave some news on what's in version 7 there have been quite a few more changes. After reading through here, make sure you take the time to register. All forums require registration to post and that's where you'll see alot of the new changes.
AJAX We've added some AJAX to various pages. When previewing a post or using the Quick Quote option, those are both using AJAX. The shoutbox is also fully AJAX'd. No more refreshing endlessly over and over in an iframe. It checks periodically to see if there are any new shouts and updates accordingly without having to reload the entire page.
For those that aren't familiar with AJAX. Basically it allows you to use javascript to talk to the webserver without needing to reload the page. For example, when previewing your post. It will show your preview right below the textarea. It actually talks to a backend script to markup your post properly and returns the results without needing to reload the page.
New File and Poll Management We've totally changed the way files and polls are handled, which you can try out in the Test Forum. We've added some popup menus in various places to clean up the interface a bit.
Announcement Blocks Another recent addition is the ability to add a global introduction that displays on the main category/forum listing page. This can contain HTML or PHP code. You can also create these for individual forums as well.
More Markup Panel Options We've added more options to the markup panel and more functionality. If you highlight some text and then click bold, it will put bold tags around your selected text. This works with all of the markup options such as font color, size, etc.
Features already talked about - Fully customizable portal and side columns. Ability to turn columns on/off and move column boxes around. The portal utilizes alot of caching to keep things fast.
- 10 fully customizable portal boxes. These can contain php code, can be cached for a certain amount of time, or be a static file for things like Google's Adsense. The flexibility of the custom boxes will allow users to pull all sorts of data from the forums, trade portal boxes with other users, etc.
- The portal boxes, including the customized ones, can be used on other pages outside of UBB.threads if they are php enabled.
- Much easier RSS syndication. Options to create the RSS feed while editing a forum. Forums that are RSS enabled have the proper RSS headers sent to the browsers. Ability to make RSS feeds that span multiple forums as well.
- New ActiveText feature. This allows you to translate certain keywords into links or images when the posts are being displayed rather than entered into the database. This allows you the flexibility to turn this feature on and off as needed. A variety of ways this can be used to empower your site. What's different about this than a standard censor list? When turned on this will be activated on posts already in the database, unlike a censor list that is done when the post is added.
- Ability to watch topics, users and forums, with options to be notified via email when a new post is made that matches your Watch Lists. The old subscription model that required a cronjob to be setup has been removed. In fact you no longer need to setup cron for any of the features to work.
- Unlimited levels of subforums.
- Full Text indexing on search data.
- Option to allow one of the custom portal boxes to be placed between the 1st and 2nd post of individual forums. This is normally the best place to put ads.
- An updated markup-panel with better javascript and more functionality including, admin definable font-size/font-family markup and a php markup tag with syntax highlighting.
- All new markup routines to allow nested markup, like lists inside of lists.
- Private messages have become Private Topics so the whole history of the conversation can be viewed.
- Ability to lock profiles to only be viewable by registered users.
- File attachments can be turned on/off on a per forum basis. Also now allows for multiple files to be attached to a single post.
- Polls can be turned on/off on a per forum basis.
* Allowing polls in replies or only in topic can be turned on/off on a per forum basis. - All User IPs visible to admin on the who's online screen.
- Ability to lock forum into flat or threaded mode.
- Front end templates rewritten to now use the php Smarty template engine.
- Moderator option to receive notification of new posts when a post is made in a fully moderated forum.
- Better ability for moderators to approve posts and manage members when they have the permission to do so. This utilizes the control panel to make the moderators job much easier than the prior method.
