Author Topic: New Feature Overview including "Been There, Done That"  (Read 6579 times)

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PSMKay

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You may have noticed a few new things around here.

First of all, the menu has been split in two.  For most folks, the old menu was perfectly functional, but for those of us on the staff it was getting far too long and unwieldy.  (We have a bunch of extra buttons to make sure that things don't fall apart behind the scenes.)  As I'll be adding more and more new features over the next few months during my slow work season, I split things up a bit.  Stuff that is more global in nature (staff list, rules, the calendar, features outside of the forums, etc) will appear in the upper right hand corner of your screen.  Stuff that is specific to the forums (personal messages, tags, searching) will appear in the same place they've always been.

I'll probably shuffle stuff back and forth a bit, but won't be deleting any links.  If at any point you don't see something in the old place, it may be in the new menu instead.

Secondly, I'm pleased to introduce you to "Been There, Done That" (BTDT), the first bit of completely original code I've scratch-written for SMNetwork in about 8 years.  I've added a lot of pushbutton features using open-source add on modules for the forums software.  I've written a lot of dynamic code for other projects.  This is the first time in a long time that I've typed every curly brace and semicolon in the code for something on SMNet since before IE6 was released.  I expect there will be lots of bugs.  :P

What is BTDT? It's something I've always wanted, and if I'd known how to do it in 2000 it would have been a linchpin from the start. 

It's a quick and easy way to search for other members who have first-hand experience on specific show- and location-related issues.  I've loaded a ton of shows into the database and a handful of venues, and my expert crack team of beta testers have started listing the shows and venues they've worked on & in previously.  Contribute to BTDT by editing your profile, adding the places you've been and the shows you've done.  (Bear in mind that if you list it, you'll probably get questions about it.  BTDT listings are visible to anyone with an SMNetwork membership, so use professional discretion.)

If you have questions, I've opened up a discussion topic down in the Green Room.  I'll be happy to answer anything that comes up, and tweak/fix stuff to the best of my ability.

Oh, and a tiny bit of bad news - in order to not go totally insane while implementing these new features, I've had to turn off the alternate themes for the time being.  I'd rather make sure I get everything working in one theme before I have to go tinkering about with multiple variants.  The old themes may come back or I may pick a raft of new ones.  We'll all be using the forum default for a while, though.
« Last Edit: Oct 11, 2010, 05:06 am by PSMKay »

 

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