Road To Canada Forums

Michael upgraded our board software today, and it's a fairly significant upgrade in terms of new and improved features.

Here are some of the new 'toys' you will now find available to you :D



Multi-Quote
The much-requested multi-quote feature allows users to tag multiple posts that they wish to respond to by clicking a small button on each post. Once the user clicks the reply button, each tagged post is quoted.

To increase usability, by default, only posts within the current thread are automatically quoted. If you wish to quote posts in other threads with multi-quote, you simply need to click a link on the reply page, and the text of those posts will be added without a reload.



Mark Forums Read with AJAX
If you wish to mark a forum read, you can simply click its status icon on the index page and the change will be processed without a reload. You can even mark individual sub-forums as read in the same way.




Quote Tags Link to Quoted Post
When quoting a post, the ID of the post is automatically included with the [quote] tag. When the quoted text is viewed in a thread, a small icon links back to the quoted post.

Example:
Quote:
Originally Posted by Kier
The output generated by the Archive is now buffered before being sent to the client. Plugins for the Archive that generate output must be adapted in order to work correctly.



New Buddy/Ignore List Editor Saves with AJAX
Along with a new interface, your buddy and ignore lists are saved with AJAX to prevent an unnecessary reload. Additionally to make the interface even easier to use, vBulletin searches for matching users as you type their names.




Options Backup and Restore
If you have ever tried to setup a test board before making changes to your real board, you have probably run into the problem of trying to move your option changes from the test board to the live board. Now, you can backup your options to an XML format and restore them to any other board. Options that might cause problems if moved (such as the cookie path and domain) are automatically skipped from the backup/restore process.


Private Message Preview in Notification Emails
If you have elected to receive emails when receiving a new private message, the email will now contain more than just the name of the user who sent you the message. The title and body of the message will be included. Any BB codes in the message will automatically be converted to an equivalent plaintext version using the new plaintext bbcode parser.

Example output might look like this:

Quote:
Dear Mike,

You have received a new private message at Test Forums from admin, entitled "Demo Private Message".

This is the message that was sent:
***************
This is a demo private message with *bold text*.

---Quote (Originally by Mike)---
Quoted text
---End Quote---

1. And an
2. ordered
3. list

***************

To read the original version, respond to this message, or delete the message, you must log in here:
http://www.example.com/forum/private.php

All the best,
My Demo Forums

Message previews in thread subscription emails also include the improved plaintext representation.


Auto-Resize Oversized Image Attachments
If a user attaches an image that has dimensions larger than the administrator allows, the image will automatically resized to fit. This is similar to the auto-resizing of avatars that vBulletin 3.5 performed.


‘Reason for Editing’ Available on Quick Edit
You may now include a reason for editing without having to click through to the full editor.




Unique Unsubscribe Link in Emails
Thread and forum subscription emails now include a link for unsubscribing that is unique to each user. When using this link, unsubscribing from a thread or forum no longer requires logging in.

New Buddy/Ignore List Editor
The new buddy and ignore list editor allows users to be quickly added and removed from your lists, with AJAX-based assistance for name suggestion along the way. If an error occurs such as a user not being found, you can simply correct the error and continue without reloading the page.



Uploadable Signature Image Support
Additionally, you may allow users to upload a single picture with their signature. If you combine this with limiting access to the [img] tag, you can completely control the dimensions and file size of the images your users place in their signatures.



Signature pictures are controlled with the [SIGPIC] bbcode allowing them to be placed anywhere within a user's signature.



Pop Up List of Attachments in a Thread
The paperclip icon that denotes whether a thread contains attachments is now clickable. It will pop up a window that shows a list of all the attachments in the specified thread, including file size and number of views.



Receive Private Messages from Buddies Only
You may now select to receive private messages only from users on your buddy list. If a non-buddy tries to send you a message, they will receive an error saying that you do not accept private messages. Administrators and moderators are automatically able to bypass this restriction.



Private Messages: Quota Warning
Once you have reached 90% of your private message quota, you will receive a warning telling you that you have almost reached your quota.



Full BCC Support in Private Messages
A number of you have discovered this by now. Like in an email, BCC (blind carbon-copy) allows you to hide the full list of recipients from each recipient. In previous versions of vBulletin, the “to” field acted like a BCC field. Now, the “to” field acts like the field in an email; each recipient will see all the names in the “to” field.

Wow. Cool features!

I noticed the new features and need time to fool around with it. Thank you for upgrading the site!