3.8 on vbulletin.com

vBulletin.com Blog Entry: 3.8 on vbulletin.com
Author: Darren Gordon
Published: 19th September 2008 06:29 PM


Hey everybody, just a quick update on today's news. Some of you may have noticed that vbulletin.com has been upgraded to 3.8.0 Alpha 1 :)

Have a look around and try out the new end user features. If you find any bugs please let us know.

I can now give you a full run down of the changes made in 3.8. Bear in mind that further changes will be made based on bugs and feedback.


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 submenu 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.

If you need any further explanation of any of the features, ask away below.



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