Joel
TS Technical Admin
- Favourite Ride
- Closed season on TST
Hello all!
As you may have seen recently, we cancelled our forum maintenance plans and brought forward some plans we had for the future to look at new forum software for TowersStreet. The decision was mostly influenced by the fact that SMF, our current software platform, is lacking in any kind of development due to issues with their team, and our forum is continually experiencing issues with things like the thanks, alerts and speed/load on the server.
We've spent some time testing forum packages for a while knowing this point would inevitably come in time, and the team have settled upon a forum software package called XenForo. We chose this as it offered a sleek style that looked great, offered lots of features out of the box without us having to hack the forum to death, was easy to administer, and has active development, moving away from the traditional free software we've used up until now.
Maintenance Day - Friday 6th June
After much testing, we've now set the move date for next Friday, 6th June 2014. The maintenance for the forum move will begin around 10am, and should end a few hours later - although as usual we are penning a whole day in just in case of issues.
The forum, wiki and ridecount will be unavailable during this time, however all access will be restored once we have the new forum in place.
Our brilliant testers (@Amy , @Dar , @Mike , @Tom.B and @Danny ) have been checking everything out for us and given lots of feedback on the interface and design, which we've tweaked to get the best experience for you. I'm sure they would be happy to say how much better the forum operates and works from their feedback to the team so far!
We have a tweaked look with new controls and options, and tonnes of new features we hope you'll find useful in the new forum. Over the coming days, we'll be bringing you screenshots and snippets of those features so you can get to know the new forum before the big day.
Obviously we know people hate change - of course you all love what you've become familiar with, but we've really thought carefully about things, had a few debates along the way (such as the placement of buttons!
) and really tried to look at every element as best possible. There will inevitably be changes to site designs in life (hi Facebook!), and we hope that you'll grow to love ours in time too, but we'll be highlighting those along the way so you can feel right at home come Friday.
So, lets start having a look at our new home....
A fresh, clean and clearer look
We've tweaked fonts and sizes to make things as clean and clear as possible, whilst still retaining our familiar purple feel. Here's a look at our new board index page...
We've still got some work to do to sort out our overall site header, so we'll be looking at the design of that (the big purple striped menu across the top!) in the coming weeks
Threads now have a clearer look, and all the controls are easier to see at the bottom of a post - right where you need them after reading through the text. We know this is quite a big change, but we feel it's the most natural feel - after all, if you've read the post, your eyes are naturally near the end and then the buttons/actions come next.
Quick reply is now the default focus when you hit quote, but the separate page is only a click away with 'More options...' if you want to lose the clutter and focus on your post.
Styling is done in a more natural 'word processing' style of highlight and click, but for those BBcode loves it still accepts normal BBcode markup also!
Similar threads offer you a path of what might be interesting after this thread too, so you can explore the past and present postings of the community.
Writing a long post and closed your browser by accident? Or clicked away to another tab? Fear not, the forum now automatically saves a draft of your post every 30 seconds, or when you click the save button. That essay on the Air Tunnel will be lost no more!
Our old friend is back, and better than ever! LIKES! And we've got some new like things for you too, but that's a secret for now... sssh
Want to quickly check someone out? You no longer need to browse away to another page, as clicking on usernames or avatars brings a smart little popup where you can check out other members... and even drop them a message if you want
The speedy way of getting around doesn't end with profile cards. Your messages and alerts are shown right on the page, and with a quick hover reveals all, without disturbing what you were reading or working on.
Your name is now the home of all your controls and options... and we've got lots to explore in here later on!
Fear not, the shoutbox is still there, and now supporting images and colours and topic notifications too! It's the shoutbox, but bettererererr.
There's still so much to explore...
We've barely scratched the surface... but hopefully we'll bring you the details of more things to look out for on Friday.
I have more questions!
We're also putting together a FAQ to help you transition as there's a few things you need to know, and we know you'll want to get stuck in without getting frustrated.
We've also implemented a dedicated help system for the new forum, where you can get all the answer to questions you might have, or fire off a simple email to us if your answer isn't there!
So, we hope you'll love what you've seen so far, and we're prepared for one of our biggest changes so far as a site - so we're more than happy to answer your questions and queries along the way too, and welcome your thoughts and ideas too.
Thanks everyone, and lookout for some more updates coming very soon!
- Part 2: Tapatalk & Responsive Design
As you may have seen recently, we cancelled our forum maintenance plans and brought forward some plans we had for the future to look at new forum software for TowersStreet. The decision was mostly influenced by the fact that SMF, our current software platform, is lacking in any kind of development due to issues with their team, and our forum is continually experiencing issues with things like the thanks, alerts and speed/load on the server.
We've spent some time testing forum packages for a while knowing this point would inevitably come in time, and the team have settled upon a forum software package called XenForo. We chose this as it offered a sleek style that looked great, offered lots of features out of the box without us having to hack the forum to death, was easy to administer, and has active development, moving away from the traditional free software we've used up until now.
Maintenance Day - Friday 6th June
After much testing, we've now set the move date for next Friday, 6th June 2014. The maintenance for the forum move will begin around 10am, and should end a few hours later - although as usual we are penning a whole day in just in case of issues.
The forum, wiki and ridecount will be unavailable during this time, however all access will be restored once we have the new forum in place.
Our brilliant testers (@Amy , @Dar , @Mike , @Tom.B and @Danny ) have been checking everything out for us and given lots of feedback on the interface and design, which we've tweaked to get the best experience for you. I'm sure they would be happy to say how much better the forum operates and works from their feedback to the team so far!
We have a tweaked look with new controls and options, and tonnes of new features we hope you'll find useful in the new forum. Over the coming days, we'll be bringing you screenshots and snippets of those features so you can get to know the new forum before the big day.
Obviously we know people hate change - of course you all love what you've become familiar with, but we've really thought carefully about things, had a few debates along the way (such as the placement of buttons!
) and really tried to look at every element as best possible. There will inevitably be changes to site designs in life (hi Facebook!), and we hope that you'll grow to love ours in time too, but we'll be highlighting those along the way so you can feel right at home come Friday.So, lets start having a look at our new home....
A fresh, clean and clearer look
We've tweaked fonts and sizes to make things as clean and clear as possible, whilst still retaining our familiar purple feel. Here's a look at our new board index page...
We've still got some work to do to sort out our overall site header, so we'll be looking at the design of that (the big purple striped menu across the top!) in the coming weeks
Threads now have a clearer look, and all the controls are easier to see at the bottom of a post - right where you need them after reading through the text. We know this is quite a big change, but we feel it's the most natural feel - after all, if you've read the post, your eyes are naturally near the end and then the buttons/actions come next.
Quick reply is now the default focus when you hit quote, but the separate page is only a click away with 'More options...' if you want to lose the clutter and focus on your post.
Styling is done in a more natural 'word processing' style of highlight and click, but for those BBcode loves it still accepts normal BBcode markup also!
Similar threads offer you a path of what might be interesting after this thread too, so you can explore the past and present postings of the community.
Writing a long post and closed your browser by accident? Or clicked away to another tab? Fear not, the forum now automatically saves a draft of your post every 30 seconds, or when you click the save button. That essay on the Air Tunnel will be lost no more!
Our old friend is back, and better than ever! LIKES!
And we've got some new like things for you too, but that's a secret for now... sssh
Want to quickly check someone out? You no longer need to browse away to another page, as clicking on usernames or avatars brings a smart little popup where you can check out other members... and even drop them a message if you want
The speedy way of getting around doesn't end with profile cards. Your messages and alerts are shown right on the page, and with a quick hover reveals all, without disturbing what you were reading or working on.
Your name is now the home of all your controls and options... and we've got lots to explore in here later on!
Fear not, the shoutbox is still there, and now supporting images and colours and topic notifications too! It's the shoutbox, but bettererererr.
There's still so much to explore...
We've barely scratched the surface... but hopefully we'll bring you the details of more things to look out for on Friday.
I have more questions!
We're also putting together a FAQ to help you transition as there's a few things you need to know, and we know you'll want to get stuck in without getting frustrated.
We've also implemented a dedicated help system for the new forum, where you can get all the answer to questions you might have, or fire off a simple email to us if your answer isn't there!
So, we hope you'll love what you've seen so far, and we're prepared for one of our biggest changes so far as a site - so we're more than happy to answer your questions and queries along the way too, and welcome your thoughts and ideas too.
Thanks everyone, and lookout for some more updates coming very soon!
- Part 2: Tapatalk & Responsive Design
