Cool New Features

This board has so many new features that it's going to be hard for us to find them all. I thought, when we discover something new about the board that we like, we can put it here to help others find it as well.

I'll start off, and add more as I go; you can do the same!


Enhanced, easy-to-use signature panel

Our board has always been made more colorful and interesting with the use of signatures. Now, we have a whole menu for signatures alone in our CP under "Settings and Options." You can upload a signature photo rather than using photobucket if you like; you can turn an image into a link easily; you can format your text, etc.


Ignore List

Thankfully, this board hasn't had any serious conflicts since I started the Border back in December of 2006. Still, this is a feature that can come in useful whenever you think someone's posts are never worth reading. Nothing this person posts will be visible to you once you put them on "Ignore," although you can edit it to un-ignore them if you change your mind. It too is located on the side of the CP.


New Posts

On the top menu of the board, there is a link called "New Posts." That lists all the threads that you've visited which have had new posts since your last log-in. It's handy to have them all in one place, rather than having to click on different forums.

Okay - here are a couple of my favorites so far -

Top button

Down at the end of each page, there is a button that will take you back to the top of the page with one click instead of having to scroll back up.

Calendar feature

I love this feature - it is uber cool. We had the birthday feature on the old board, but in addition to member birthdays, this is where the admin or moderators can put up all kinds of events and reminders. For example, we could use it to put up important news events about the band or a reminder that something important is happening on a certain date. Soda already has one up today signifying today as the official opening of the new board.

The Admin Ability to Move Posts

Accidentally post in the wrong thread? Never fear! With this function, I can move them!

Seeing If Others Are Viewing Certain Threads and Forums

Now, if you go to the index page, you will see by a forum name "1 viewing," "2 viewing", etc. Unless the person is on "invisible" you'll also be able to see names once you click on the forum, down at the bottom under "Currently Active Users." A global version of this feature can also be accessed at the bottom of the front page. If you click on "Currently Active Users" there, it takes you to "Who's Online" where you can see what threads people are viewing regardless of forum.

This includes guests. If you post a thread, you'll also be able to see if guests are viewing it.

Whaa that's cool! :D

They are all great additions Soda. I also love the 'friends' section! Very cool!! The thing is.......over 150 friends to add!!!!:hilarious:

I'm already enjoying it, Soda! I like the 'new posts' feature' and the 'Friends' section. Thank you, you rock!!!:partytime:

Well, I've gone into Calendar and added the band's birthdays, but I didn't try to make them recurring events.

Okay - here are a couple of other new features that I really like about this board:

When you are replying to a post, Soda changed the default to the WYSIWYG view. However, if you want to see the tags, you can click the 'A' button in the upper right corner to change the view.

Also down at the bottom of the page, there is an Archive button that gives a really helpful view of all of the threads on the board.

Yep! That archive button is great!!:thumbsup:

The "Quick Style Chooser"

This drop-down menu on the bottom of the page enables you to switch back and forth between styles instantly.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by sodascouts

The "Quick Style Chooser"

This drop-down menu on the bottom of the page enables you to switch back and forth between styles instantly.

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That is cool. I just went back to blue from brown in an instant.

And you can change it even when you're not logged in. You never have to look at the brown again! lol

I am SO glad this is the first post I read today because I logged in and EVERYTHING LOOKED DIFFERENT!!! I thought I'd taken the wrong pills again! WHEW... once more my sanity has been validated. It does look pretty cool all brown and stuff. I like it!

So did I! But I must say every time I log in I'm getting more and more impressed with the new styles and features.:):thumbsup:

Glad you guys like it! Another I found:

The "Search Thread"and "Search Forum" features

We've always had the ability to conduct advanced searches on the search page, but here we have really handy search shortcuts. When you click on a forum, in the upper right corner under the page numbers you see an option to "search forum." Even better, when you click on a thread, you see an option to "search thread" in the upper right corner. So, if you're cruising a particular forum or thread, you don't have to go up to the search page and enter in a bunch of settings. You can just type your terms in the box there and it'll search that particular forum or thread automatically!

I am loving this new board! It has so many more features that we didn't have before. A couple more of my favorite features are:

You can collapse forums by clicking the button on the far right side of the forum name to "shrink" the board. To expand it back, just click the button again.

Another thing I love is how you can go to "Edit Signature" in your User CP and put a link in an image. I did this to my Joe Walsh Online banner in my signature. If you scroll over it and click, it takes you to joewalshonline.com. :applause:

i love the way you can see the most recent posts when you log in. I used to avoid logging in so as not to lose the 'view posts since your last visit' feature.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by glenneaglesfan

i love the way you can see the most recent posts when you log in.

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Yes indeed!

I think it's handy that when you click on someone's user name on the left side, above the avatar (if they have one) and ranks, you can get options to:

1) View the person's profile
2) Send the person a private message
3) Visit the person's homepage
4) Find more posts by the person
5) Add the person to your contacts

Not bad!

That is very cool, Soda. Whats this Pictures and Albums option under User CP?

Sorry I took so long to answer this, ticky!

The "pictures and albums" allows you to store various photos on your profile and people can come look at them. They can be of whatever you like. They can also be used to customize your profile (like changing backgrounds).

I experimented with it and added a few photos - you can see the results by scrolling down the right side of my profile here:

https://eaglesonlinecentral.com/forum/member.php?u=1

Very Cool Soda! I'll have to load some pics of Wild n me singing Rocky Mountain Way in the river *grin* Or maybe just the river and you can use your imagination.

Did ya'll know you can customize your profile real fancy like? Mike showed me and I've been playing with it. It's pretty cool! Check it out if you get a chance. ALSO, I put allll the wallpapers and backgrounds in an Album in my profile so ya'll feel free to take what ya want. (there are a few in there I used on my Joe page too)

Pretty fun stuff!

Thanks Soda!!

Ticky, you are so talented in this department, it's amazing. I'm having trouble reading the red lettering, though. When I have more time, I can't wait to look through yourr albums!

yeah, I couldnt change the red lettering. I think thats part of the basic code for the page *G* no control over that. But thanks! It was fun!

Excellent job Ticky! I really like the wallpapers. You're going to have to give some lessons on this.

Sure! I can do what I can do *G* I'll help ya if I can, just let me know

Thanks so much! How would I go about adding a pic as a background? I'm so ignorant when it comes to all this stuff. :?

Ok, Ill say it here instead of a PM so if anyone else wants to do it too, they'll know (if you dont mind Soda *G* It IS you'r site). You need to upload the pic you want to use into a photo album in your profile (so if you dont have a photo album, you create one by clicking "add album" then up load the picture you want to use into it. If you dont have it locally- on your computer, you might want to save it to your computer then upload it) then under "customize you profile" A small link in the upper right of your profile banner, you will see a series of "boxes" the top one says Main. This is the big background image behind all the secondary blocks. Here you can choose the font, font color background color and background image. You need to put the image address from your photo album here. Its easy. Dont panic *G* Go look at the image in your photo album. Once you have the full image in view, right click it, click "copy image URL" and then paste that where it says "Background" in the Customize your profile/main block. That should give you the main background image. For the backgrounds in the secondary blocks you'll need to paste the URL of the image you want in those. *I* suggest using either a solid color or a very basic BG image for the "Secondary content area" as it will get VERY busy when you look at the Friends section. Hope that makes sense.. but I'll be around if you need help! (its just for fun, play with it. you cant hurt it *G*

aw hey! I just noticed my birthday is marked on the calendar! Thanks Soda!

I'd like a private Eagles concert for my birthday if anyone can arrange it - and you all can come if you want!

Don't forget the chocolate....:hilarious:

I'd like nothing better than to try that again!

Here's a "tack on" to Ticky's instructions. I tend to work the URL's of pics the same way Ticky does it. However, when you pull the picture up to full size, if you look down at the bottom of the page the picture is on, there are two internet addresses...one is the straight internet address and you can just highlight that one and copy it. The other one is The same address bracketed with "IMG" tags (this one is cool to use if you want to insert a picture into a forum message.

One other thing. The addresses are a bit long and you can't see the entire address in that bar underneath the picture. However were you to scroll all the way to the right, you'll notice that there is a 3 digit number and that number is all that changes. At least I've only got 3-digit numbers. And I've only seen that part of the address change.

So, you can upload the images you think you might want to use for backgrounds, past the first one in all of the bars on the "Customize Profile" page and then come back and just change the last number in the address to get the changes made without having to cut and paste every address.

Rhonda touched on something very elementary in web design. She is FAR better at that than I am, and that's just a TRUTH! But, especially if you are working on a background that contains text, you're going to want to stay with a pretty bland design otherwise, viewers will get a headache trying to dig out the text from the background.

One other thing to keep in mind when selecting the main color of your background is that you have no control over the color of some of the text that is displayed. It is RED and forever will be RED unless Soda finds an option somewhere to give us to change it. So, if you select a background that contains a lot of red in it, that text is going to disappear on YOUR site.

I agree with Mike that one must be careful about one's backgrounds. I see it so many times - people find a background that's really cool or pretty, and they use it despite the fact that it makes the text practically illegible. I teach lessons on web design and it's always one of the most common errors. Heck, when I made my first site back in 1999, I did the same thing! Animated sparkling stars as the background... yikes!

If you have Photoshop or a similar program, I suggest either lightening, darkening, or tinting any background images that have a lot of different colors in them to increase text legibility. I would also recommend avoiding image-heavy backgrounds unless you have darkened or lightened them considerably so that they become subtle background rather than dominant elements. Of course, when there's no text to worry about, you can go to town!