Happy new year everyone, is what I would like to say but this update wasn't able to be finished anywhere near that soon.

With this new year though comes along a new forum style that's had all of it's graphics freshly created or re-done, it will be becoming the new default for this forum, this is the only style that has proper/custom/original graphics for everything. It's my personal favorite, and I think that most if not all of you will be fond of it, I don't intend to re-do any of the previous styles. All of the new forum modifications and changes will work fine on them, and the new style is also the only style that will look like it's supposed to if images aren't set to show in your browser.


● New Features And Content ●

Let's start with the best of the best, completely new forum additions and upgrades.
This which is obviously what you all want to see and read first, this is the first major update that this forum has ever gotten.


New Forum Style
The new forum style is titled: Subtle.
It's become the new default style for this forum, containing completely original or re-done graphic of every single forum image, unlike any other style here.
Everyones board style has been set to the new one to help the transition over to it, you can still switch to any previous board styles if you want to.
- Screenshots: View 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6


New Rules And Restrictions
The forum rules and guidelines have been completely re-written, updated and changed.
You can access the rules from the page header now, that goes to the new page that was made for it.
Go give them a read since the rules will be fully enforced from now on.
- New Forum Rules & Guidelines: Go to the New Rules Page Now!


Strikethrough Text BBCode
A new BBCode for striking through text has been added.

You'll also find a button for it above your typing area when posting a message, topic, pm and when editing.


Spoiler Text BBCode
A new BBCode for.. You'll also find a button for it above your typing area when posting a message, topic, pm and when editing.


Emoticon Update
Over 1/3rd of the smilies have been removed for varying reasons, all remaining have had their text calls and descriptions renamed.
11 new Smilies have been added to replace the old removed ones, these containing many new expressions.

                     


Forum Section Update
There have been a lack of many forum sections for too long, just cramming most things in life in general. To help with this a Sub-Forums system has been added, and all of the boards categories and most forum section's descriptions have been edited, I'll only list the adds, moves and forum section name changes here.
New or re-created sections:

All posts for the entire forum have been moved to the new forum sections according to their content, make sure to report any that you think were missed or that are mis-placed.
Since there's many new forum sections, I'd like to encourage the creation of new topics in them by everyone from now on. By having something there to discuss, it will help create more activity in the forum.


Message Spell Checker
When posting a message you can now press the 'Spell Check' button, doing this will open up a new window and allow you to check your message for any corrections that need to be made to it. This will only allow you to fix any mis-spellings in your post and lookup information on words, it will not correct any grammatical mistakes, that's something that you have to make sure is correct on your own part. The dictionary is vast with over 230,000 different words and it should be able to point out most spelling mistakes, it's possible that it could miss rare mis-spelling however, so it's always wise to check the posts yourself before posting it. A topic has been made for it so that you can submit custom words that you'd like to be in the dictionary, or that happen to be missing from it, you can also talk about it and report anything related to it that needs to be reported there.
- Screenshot: View
- Link: http://www.bombermanboard.com/viewtopic.php?t=1366


New Private Message Notification
If you have a popup window set to show in the event of receiving a pm, and the window gets blocked from opening because of a popup blocker, then it will show the new pm notification in-lined on the page instead. Also in the control panel you can select to have it only show the notification in-lined, the meanings of the options are 'Yes = (both, in-line only on popup fail), No = (none), In-line only = (in-lined)'.
- Screenshot: View


Quick Reply Button
At the bottom of all topics that you can reply to now, a quick reply area can now be accessed by clicking the new Quick Reply Button, it will appear right below the button. This area will give you access to the Emoticons Window, and options to Quote the last post, whether to attach your signature, subscribe to the topic, to Spell Check the message and to Preview or Submit the message.
- Screenshot: View


Profile Edit Re-Designed To Control Panel
The edit profile area has been completely re-designed to have a control panel like interface, it uses dhtml for instant access to all of your options, which are now well organized and set in place. (needs javascript to show properly)
- Screenshot: View


User Online Status
There's now text in user descriptions in posts to the left under their avatar or username, in the memberlist, usergroups, private messages and their profiles that says whether they're online or offline.
- Screenshot: View


New Post Ranks And List
New post ranks have been added, and a list for all of them has been added to the rules page.
- Link: http://www.bombermanboard.com/rules.php#10


User Last Active
You can now view when users were last active on the board from both their profile, and the memberlist. From the memberlist you can arrange the users by when they were last active, this so that you can see who the most recently active users are, or so that you can see what users haven't been around for awhile.
- Screenshot: View


Show and Hide All Avatars & Signatures
In the control panel 2 new options have been added, these let you choose whether you want to show or hide avatars and to show and hide signatures, or only show text for the signatures.
- Screenshot: View


Subject Character Count Left
A count will now show to the right of your post, topic and pm subject line when you access it or type in it, that will tell you how many more characters you have left that can be entered for that field.
- Screenshot: View


Search For Topic Title Only
The option to search the topic titles alone from the search page has been added, instead of before where you could only search the 'user post' or 'both the user post and the topic title' together.
- Screenshot: View


View And Manage Watched Topics
You're now able to view a list of all of your watched topics, and manage them from that page. A link to access it has been added on the index page, under the header and on the right near the top with the other 'view' links.
- Screenshot: View


Automatic Image Resizing
If any images would cause the page to stretch, they will be automatically resized and it will give you a link to view the full size of it.
- Screenshot: View


View Users Who Posted In Forums And Topics
By clicking on the post amount for any forums, sub-forums or topics, it will open up a new window that will tell you how many posts each person that posted in that forum/topic has made.
- Screenshot: View


Updates For Moderators And Administrators
There has been many updates for the management team as well, one would be that moderators have the power to ban now, and have their own management section.
Other moderation related updates will be told to the moderation team members individually, and we'll stay on track with the normal forum updates in this topic.


Private Message Viewing Post Look
The look for viewing private messages has been re-designed for them to look like actual topic posts now, compared to how they looked more like a plain text e-mail before, the preview area for sending and editing private messages was also modified to look like a topic post.
- Screenshot: View


Quick Search Forums And Inside Topics
A quick search bar has been added just below the header of the page when viewing topics, this is the only way to search the posts inside of a single topic, there wasn't any way to do so prior to this.
A quick search bar has also been added just below the header of the page when viewing a forum, this will search the posts and topic titles in that forum section and return topics that have matching results.
- Screenshot: View


Search For Users
A search bar has been added near the bottom of the memberlist page that will allow you to search for members by their username, there's also a button next to it that will allow you to search for usernames with wildcards, this is the same wildcard search that you can use while sending private messages.
- Screenshot: View


New Forum Post Listing Method
New forum posts will now have all of the note graphics for it showing as new, and they will take you to the newest post since your last visit for that topic. Some graphics for it are used at different places now for a more quality forum layout, and it will also show the post button for guest posts now as well. When the displayed note graphics aren't new, then they'll take you to the latest reply in that topic.
- Screenshot: View



● Modifications ●

We're done the major updates now, just smaller but still important stuff from here on out.


After Login Page Redirection
After logging in you will now be taken to the page that you were previously at, instead of being taken back to the index.


Post Re-Sync
Everyone's post count from the 'Fan Fiction' section have been removed, and resynced relating to any new locations that they're at now.


E-Mails Private
E-Mail Addresses are now account related only, they will no longer be shown to the public, or accessible by any other users besides the moderation team and you. The buttons for them have been removed from topics, memberlists, usergroups, private messages and profiles. This will keep your e-mail addresses safe from spam lists and other people now, if you need someones elses e-mail then just pm them for it.


Profile And Profile Information Private
Viewing profiles and profile information at the bottom of posts is now only allowed by registered users, this way your information doesn't get spread all over the internet.


Private Message And Signature Space
Max PM Inbox 50 --> 100
Max PM Sentbox 25 --> 100
Max Posts In Savebox 50 --> 100
Edit: You now have unlimited space for PMs, limits were removed in a later update.
Maximum Signature Character Length 555 --> 1000

Just because the limits have been raised, we still recommend keeping your boxes cleaned and deleting un-needed messages, also to keep your signatures within the guidelines.

Minor Forum Changes
1: Many words and sentences have been edited to fit where they are more properly, cleaned up words and how the forum looks.
2: The opening size for the Emoticon popup window has been set to the proper size for it now.
3: Some button colors have been changed and positions re-aligned, and all post related type fields have been set to white.
4: The bookmark favorite icon has gotten slight editing to make it look nicer and re-locating, you may need to delete any offline temporary internet files on your computer to get the new one to show.
5: Moderators and Administrators names now have properly set colors.
6: More words have been added to the censor, hopefully they don't even have to be used.
7: Broken and violating Avatars and Signatures have been removed, people with violating avatars and signatures have been contacted and dealt with.
8: All Non-Activated 0 post users accounts have been removed, and users that have never logged in once have also been removed, most were likely spam signups or from failed registrations.
9: Coding and files from old mods that were no longer in use have been deleted, don't expect any speed increase due to all of the new stuff.
10: Non-Activated user accounts and such will be deleted on the first of every month if they're more then 3 days old, if you had a failed signup and want it deleted sooner then pm me or post about it in support.
11: You can now access user profiles by clicking their post username, which is found to the left of all of their forum posts and private messages.
12: Long urls appearances (links that exceed 50 characters) are now shortened with cut text and a ..... in the middle of the url's name, this will help prevent page stretching, and it will not effect the actual links location or any posts text.
13: The msn e-mail in user profiles and under their posts and private messages has been changed from a text link to an image link, and all msn links will now open up an msn chat box with the person if their version of msn/wlm is new enough.
14: If you don't type in the 'www.' before the domain name, you will now be redirected to the www. version for the bombermanboard domain.
15: Search engine crawlers will now be listed in the viewing who is online section on the index under 'Bots:', and they will show as guests in the viewing who is online page.
16: When at the forum index or when at a forum sections listing of sub-forums, it will display some text next to the forum/sub-forum section name saying how many users are browsing it if there's any users browsing that forum section. It will only show guests and users, not search engine bots.
17: Replaced the old affiliate button with a brand new one based on the new forum style, check it out here.
18: Signatures are now aligned at the bottom of all posts, on some of the shorter posts it used to be right under the message, instead of at the very bottom of the post where signatures belong and are always at now.
19: It's set now so that when you're viewing a topic that you started, the view count on it won't increase at all, it will only increase when other users view it.
20: If a user has a signature now, then it will be placed under the rest of their info on their profile page, so you don't have to go and view a post if you want to check your's or somebody elses signature.
21: The user information buttons at the bottom of every member post will not show for guests now, except for the profile and pm button, you will need to be logged in to view the others.
22: For the forum sections where guest posting is allowed, bbcode is disabled for them, and they'll have to type in a code when posting.
23: Fixed countless little small glitches, and made sure that everything works like it should, won't list all of the small details.


Request New Features And Content
Want a new forum feature or section to make your forum life more convenient? There's now a topic where you can request stuff that you'd like to see added to the forum, request something good and it may get added, or report anything about the forum that you think needs work or editing.
- Link: http://www.bombermanboard.com/viewtopic.php?t=1275



I started the forum update halfway through december 2008, and after putting a great deal of time into it I've finally finished it. Your comments on the forum updates are appreciated, as the entire forum update took me around 500 hours in total to finish. This due to completely custom original mods, non-original mods most all being re-coded sometimes entirely, and from all of the moderation related updates that aren't listed here and customizing that was done to make sure that everything is quality.

Well thank you all for reading this long update post, and I hope that everyone enjoys all of the new forum updates and improvements.

Wow with all these new changes you might bring old people back to have a look!




...wut.

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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h-FYLjegGxM

Very impressive. This place was in need of a new layout. Good to know Bombermanboard is in the hands of someone so dedicated, willingly investing such large amounts of time in the community.

Cheers,
Pikabutcher

 

Nice! But is the old style still available?
Oh, I think you could add a ShoutBox/chat here. That would make people come in even more often!

Very interesting new look. :)

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It is awesome that this forum is still alive and that the administration cares about it so hardly. I'm very surprised that the new layout turned out that good, it's amazing x3
Maybe the most members will come back again soon now that the forum changed his layout and the rules. ^^

Seems like you put a lot of work into all this.... nice additions/revisions.  

And yes, I will be one member to keep the new layout.

Uh... I understand most of the new rules, but

why is the spoiler tag only to be used for storyline?

In my experience, there can many other valid and reasonable uses for it.
If you were afraid that people may abuse it, why not have a rule like those for colors and bold (i.e. use them scarcely/not for the whole post)?

Aside from that, you guys certainly made some good improvements.

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Metroid: Other M - As in "There's the good Metroid games... we chose to do one of some Other Make altogether."

I did the entire update myself actually, besides asking AoBman to try a few things out from time to time- a thanks goes out to him for helping test forum modifications when I needed someone else to.

As for the spoiler rule I've modified it to be less strict now, I said 'unless otherwise stated' because I intended to allow for other uses for it.

Aside from that, I'm glad that everyone likes the new forum updates.

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"Everyone is entitled to their own opinions, but they're not entitled to their own facts."

Kudos to Razon for finishing this sucker up :D

I'm very impressed with everything Razon. Great job!

The new board style "subtle" is nice and it's easy on the eyes, I used it for the bulk of my visit today. I might use it from time to time but I think I'm gonna keep it on the classic style, at least for now. It's still my favorite, I'm such a stubborn old timer.

I'm perhaps also having too much fun with this new feature....

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You can change it on the control panel. Personally the original style will probably always be my favorite.  

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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h-FYLjegGxM

Quite the update, thanks for your hard work ^^. This update places this forum up as one of the more feature filled forums I go to... good job.

Excellent work.

I was thinking about this the other day, about how the post count from the Fan Fiction section doesn't get added. It makes sense for the Forum Games sub-forum, but I don't really see the reasoning behind it for the main fanfiction forum (which it used to, since it was all in the same place). Just an idle thought.

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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h-FYLjegGxM

Aww the Bomberman at the top is so cute XD

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The Elemental Stone of Shadow

That's fine, it's not like there's many posts in that section anyway. It's one of those things that didn't matter so much on the grand scale of the update, so I just left it like that.

For further posts regarding recommended modifications and etc, it can go in the request forum modifications and updates topic.
http://www.bombermanboard.com/viewtopic.php?t=1275

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"Everyone is entitled to their own opinions, but they're not entitled to their own facts."

Nice to see the new changes.

*Appearance post*

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bring me the head of the one called lettuce

This is something that I wanted to have done when I had initially released this forum update, after long while the BombermanBoard has finally moved back to it's rightful .com domain location. The .net links will continue to work by redirecting over to the .com link for the page, but it doesn't hurt to update any bookmarks now that you may have for the BombermanBoard just in-case this ever changes.

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"Everyone is entitled to their own opinions, but they're not entitled to their own facts."

BombermanBoard.net: "It's dot com!"

....I'm sorry.