Software upgrade to 3.8.1 brings some feature changes

[paulcalloway]

Hey all - I upgraded our forum software to the latest version and it brings with it quite a few different feature changes. Below is a listing of some of those changes - this may not in fact be all of them. I hope you enjoy the new stuff and we'll likely be doing some tweaks around here to make these changes fit our particular community a little better.

Regards -
PC

And now the goodies:

Social Group Discussion Threads

• Messages in Social Groups are now threaded into 'Social Group Discussions'.
• Discussion are sortable by creator, replies and last post.
• Discussions can be filtered with a simple full text search on titles.
• Discussions can be managed with Inline Moderation to soft delete, physically remove, approve and unnapprove them.
• Discussions are Read Marked using both database and cookie methods, with a jump to go to first new post.
• Users can subscribe to discussions and receive email notifications on new messages.
• Subscribed discussions with new posts are aggregated in the User CP.
• Individual Discussions have social bookmarking links (user defined, such as Digg, StumbleUpon etc).
• New 'Can Always' permissions to create and view both discussions and messages, simplifying access.
• Fallbacks implemented for non javascript users.
• Moderators can Quick Edit social group messages using AJAX.
• Posts are now ascending, which is more intuitive in threaded discussions.
• Users can configure their groups so that only the group owner can create new discussion threads.
• Moderated and Deleted discussions are aggregated in the User CP where the user has moderator permissions.
• Moderation permissions are seperated for discussions and threads, including deletion.
• Some extra database cleanup is performed with discussion related data when a user is merged or deleted.
• On upgrade from < 3.8, existing messages are moved to an initial discussion with the same name as the group.
• Social Group info is hidden when entering a discussion or viewing pages of results to move focus to discussions.

Social Group Changes

• Social Groups are Read Marked using both database and cookie methods, based on new messages or discussions.
• Mark All will read mark all discussions in a group via AJAX.
• Social Groups can be subscribed to, adding group aggregation to the User CP.
• Social Groups now belong to a category.
• A group's category is displayed in the navigation breadcrumb, group lists and group info.
• A new overview page displays a random group, your groups, new groups and groups that you created.
• Groups that you created are navigatable via AJAX and display further information about the group, including pending members and moderated items.
• A category cloud is displayed in the group overview with popularity weighting based on the number of groups.
• Categories can be created and deleted and merged in the Admin CP.
• On upgrade from < 3.8, existing groups are moved to an initial 'Uncategorized' category, which can be renamed.
• Groups can be filtered by category, via the category cloud or advanced search.
• Social Groups can now have a group icon. The icon is displayed in the group info, and a thumbnail version is used in group listings.
• Icons are displayed on the User Profile page for groups that the user is a member of.
• Permissions control user abilities to upload icons for their groups, including file size and the ability to upload animated icons.
• Icons can be stored in the database or filesystem.
• A new permission can limit the amount of Social Groups an individual user can create.
• Social Groups can now be transferred between users. The group will only be transferred if the recipient accepts the transfer.
• Moderators with the appropriate permission can transfer any group. This is useful when a group owner becomes inactive.

Private Message Changes

• Read receipts are automatically accepted when a PM is replied to.
• A new Quick Reply can be used to reply to PM's.
• A new user option is available to set the default value for 'Save Copy' which is also used with Quick Reply.
• PM's can be ordered by Title, Date and Sender.
• When ordered, PM's are grouped by:
  • Title - Alphabetical ranges (A-H, I-P, Q-Z, 0-9 and other) - Non ASCII chars are grouped based on transliteration where possible
  • Date - Today, Yesterday, individual day names, Last Week, 2 Weeks, Last Month, Older, etc.
  • Sender - Grouped by Sender
• Private Messages can be filtered by Sender, Title, a given date period, and whether the message has been read or not.
• Message Throttling. Admins can define a time period and the maximum amount of message each usergroup can send within that period.
• Message selections are remembered over multiple pages for bulk actions (Move, delete, mark as read etc).

Profile Privacy

• With the appropriate permission, users can now configure which parts of their profile is visible, and to who. The configurable components are:
  • Profile Picture
  • Visitor Messages
  • Contact Info
  • Albums
  • About Me
  • Friends
  • Recent Visitors
  • Group Memberships
  • Custom Field Blocks where the admin has allowed it
• The components can be configured to be visible to:
  • Everyone
  • Registered Members
  • Contacts
  • Friends

• Generally information is only hidden/displayed within the user profile page with the exception of Albums which also affects the ability to view the albums.
• Also, custom field blocks can be configured by the admin as to whether they will be included in users' privacy settings.

Albums

• Pictures can now be moved from one album to another.
• Album covers are regenerated when moving images if the cover is moved, or the destination album has no cover.
• The default albums view now displays recently updated public albums.

Lightbox

• Lightboxes can now be used to view all images in a post.
• Next and Previous buttons can be used to navigate the attachments, and wrap when the first/last image has been reached

Other Changes and Additions

• Options and permissions for Human Verification checks have been streamlined. There is now a single bitfield option to select which HV checks are used, and a single permission to select who must pass the HV checks.
• Thread tags can now be merged and renamed, and threads are updated to reflect the changes.
• Tag selection in the Admin CP is remembered over multiple pages for bulk actions (Delete or Merge).
• A new Terms and Conditions link is configurable and displayed in the footer by default.
• A new Community link replaces the Members List link with a submenu for Social Groups; Pictures & Albums; Contacts & Friends; and the Members List.
• Deleted and Moderated items in the User CP menu have been collapsed into submenus to reduce clutter.
• A New Items submenu is also available with the newest Visitor Messages; Group Messages; Group Discussions; Picture Comments and Album Pictures.
• Some cleanup has been done on the User CP menu to ensure only links that the user has permission to are displayed.
• A new permission to view thumbnails in posts has been added. This allows users to see thumbnails even when they do not have access to view the full image.
• Improved RSS filtering for RSS Feed Forums. Terms can now be quoted into phrases, and a new 'match all' option is available.
• Templates can now be compared with 'inline diff', reducing the screen space used to find differences while displaying line numbers. Diffs are wrapped in an optional number of lines for context.
• Thread Prefix Permissions - Thread prefixes can now be configured so that only certain usergroups may use them.
• Support for TypePad Anti-Spam
• Username availability now checked via AJAX during registration
• Notices can now be configured to be dismissible, allowing users to close notices that they have read.
• Post edit histories can be pruned in Admin CP.
• Forum rules can be viewed outside of the registration process, which is useful for logged in users when multiple registrations are disabled.
• PM Reporting.
• Subscription folders can be emptied with one click.
• Quick Edit is available for Visitor Messages and Picture Comments, as well as Social Group Messages.
• New UTC and user date and time criteria for Notices.
• Improvements to Contact List editing. Show Avatars option is now preserved.