[ Site News ] - Forum Upgrade, Graemlins & IIP ...

[James]

(just for information so I know what I did when!)

 

* Upgraded UBBThreads to v6.1.1

* Finally updated graemlins which wasnt (properly) achievable until the upgrade had finished

 

oo ooo - as I've upgraded I can now apply this wonderful intergrated index page (IIP) addon by the lovely peeps at threadsdev which incorporate the following ! ....

code:

1. News Display - A configurable number of news/article posts and from different boards can be displayed down the center in the same fassion as the popular *nuke portals. Past news/articles can also be displayed along the right hand column (only). 

note: the options to turn off who posted the article and the article date have been added back to the configure panel.
 

2. Current Poll - This will display the most recent poll posted or may be set to pull a random poll out of the forum. This can be set to use a specific board also. Results will be displayed if the viewer has already voted for the poll. (based on username or ip address) 
 

3. Top Rated Posts - This will display a list of X number of top rated posts in the past 24 hours. 
 

4. Current Threads - This will display a list of new threads posted in the past 24 hours. 
 

5. Top Posters - This will display a list of the top X number of posters. 
 

6. Last Seen - This will display a list of members who have visited the forum most recently. This is not completely accurate because depending on what they are doing at the site their 'laston' information isn't always recorded. 
 

7. Short Stats - This will display various statistical information such as Total Users, Total Posts and New Users in the last 24hrs, 7days, 31 days.

Short Stats will also display "max online" information including how many and when.
 

8. Profile Spotlight - This will display a random profile listing username, location, hobbies and bio with a link to the full profile. 

Username has replaced Name (real name) in previous versions.
 

9. Quick Search - This will display a seach box that will allow for a quick search of the forums using the standard search default values. 
 

10. Login/Status - This will display a login box or your current status including the number of private messages stored and links to edit your profile and display properties and email subscripitons. Unregistered or users not logged in will see the login box. Logged in users will see their status box. 
 

11. Online - This box displays the number of registered and unregistered users online in the last 10 minutes. It will also list the usernames of the registered users.

You can set a maximum number of names to display and once that limit is reached a link to the "Who's Online" page will be included so users can view the full list. 
 

12. Hot Topic - When a post reaches X number of replies it is displayed in this box with a flaming .gif 
 

13. Menu - This box has various links to other features of IIP. 
 

14. View More Polls - This generates a list of X number of poll posts per page with links to the post and board. 
 

15. File Attachments - This generates a list of X number of file attachments per page. There are also sorting options to display only the files specified such as .txt or .zip files. 

An attachment specific search feature has been added allowing the search for specific words or from specific boards.
 

16. New Member - This will display a message welcoming the most recent member. This will only be displayed for X number of days. 
 

17. Member Sites - This will display a list of X number of members and their home page links. Only those with this field filled in in their profile will be displayed. 
 

18. Recommend Us - This will display a short form for visitors to fill out and recommend the site to their friends.

Mail sent includes an updated header to ensure acceptance by your host. This header includes using the sender's name and email in the "from" section. When the email is recieved by the recipient the sender's name appears in the "from" area and not their email address. (hope that made sense) 
 

18. Call Us Home - IE specific, will not (or should not) display for browsers other than IE. This will allow visitors to set the site as their home page. 
 

19. Add to Favorites - IE specific, will not (and again should not) display for browsers other than IE. This will allow visitors to add the site to their favorites folder. Netscape users will see the "Press CNTRL-D to Bookmark" notice. 
 

20. Shout Box - This displays "shouts" (quick, small postings) from guests or members in the order they were made. Admins can easily delete shouts that are offensive. The shout box does use the .threads nickname/language filters also to suppress such postings.
 

21. Profile Index - This displays members profiles in a sorted list. The profiles are searchable. Boolean (AND, OR, NOT) and wildcard * searches are allowed. This makes finding specific members easier than ever.
 

22. Cache Table - Information can be automaticly stored and updated in intervals to increase page generation times. Depending on setup, this can cut the number of queries used to generate a page by as much as 50% and large sites will see a considerable speed increase with generation times.
 

23. Configure Panel - IIP settings can be controlled via browser and allow for easy setup and managment of the features listed above.
 

24. Standards Compliant - IIP is XHTML 1.0 Transitional compliant and should render well in standards compliant browsers. This basicly means that the display should look the same from one standards compliant browser to the next.
 
 
 

New Features:
 

25. Template based "table wrappers" added to allow for easy customized design of pal boxes. A wrapper for AllenAyres' port of the Blam Ice templates by Bookie for .classic has been included in the wrapper template. More can be created, just follow the same layout as the ones listed in the template. 
 

26. Custom pal boxes have been added. You can edit the boxes and include what ever content and code you want to display and then manage their placement and display from IIP's configure panel. 

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This to me is what sets this lovely piece of totally customizable mysql/php driven software apart from the rest. If you ever want to learn a language just buy a decent bit of software and review/hack the code - its the best way !