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The Old Man

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  1. The Old Man
    Unless you've been living under a rock, on Mars or have possibly been abducted by The Polaroid Stalker, you will have no doubt heard about changes to Privacy and Data Protection in Europe called General Data Protection Regulation (or GDPR for short). The legislation in reality effects and improves the rights of everyone.
    As you would expect, we have always respected your privacy and the processing of your personal data/information, and we will continue to do so. 
    Our community software suite recently received additional functionality and tools to better facilitate compliance with the new GDPR legislation.
    We have therefore recently made enhancements to our Privacy Policy, which take effect from May 26th, 2018.
    Our Privacy policy increases transparency, explains our role and responsibilities in terms of storing, using and safeguarding your data. It explains what you can expect if you make contact with us and use our services. It also serves as an introduction to your rights under GDPR.
    There are understandably lots of interpretations, wild claims and opinions on GDPR. However, we believe GDPR isn't about ruining your enjoyment of the internet, it's good news for all of us.
    We manage an awesome website, we're open and transparent,  but we're not lawyers or GDPR experts. So for further information and better understanding, we highly recommend reading the guidance available at the ICO website, which you can find here.
    We have also taken the opportunity to review and update our Guidelines.
    Thank you for your time, understanding and for your continued use of our website.
  2. The Old Man
    We've just upgraded to the next level of cloud VPS hosting. 48 unlocked CPUs, increased super fast SSD storage and double the RAM!

    Roedecker would be proud!
    And the next major update of our community suite software is on the way, with some great new features to enhance our forums that you'll love!
  3. The Old Man
    We have come a long way since the late 90s when someone had the genius idea of using a small yellow smiling face image instead of the more common colon-bracket representation of a smiling face.
    Within our community, there are various places that photography can be used to create visual interest. From uploads in topics, to cover photos for your blogs, calendars, clubs and profiles.
    Incidentally, I've recently added some lovely animation to those areas, which you may have noticed!
    So the humble upload field has served these areas well, but sourcing images to use can be a pain; especially when you have to walk the minefield that is copyright and attribution.
    Fortunately, there are more than a few online stock photo libraries that offer quality photography that requires no attribution and are not hampered by copyrights. One such library is the ever-popular Pixabay, which was established in 2012 and features a very powerful API. Pixabay has over a million images ready to use from apples to sausages, and everything in-between.
    This Is Who We Are now includes intergrated support for Pixabay which brings those images to your fingertips (or mouse pointer if you're on a desktop!). I'm hoping to add more integration soon.
    All members now have access to this new feature which can be found in various places throughout the site like this:

    Launches the Stock Photo Picker!
     

    Search for an image and then insert it into your content...
     

    Then just use the + button on the Uploaded Image as usual to insert the image where you like within your content!
     
    Using it for Profile Cover Images

    Adding a stock photo to your profile cover images is easy too!

    then click on Choose Stock Photo...
     

    and your images will be inserted as your cover image, ready for you to reposition, just how you like!
  4. The Old Man
    You asked. We listened! 
    Many of our long time members and visitors will be familiar with the cool 'millennium-istic' t-shirt designs created by our hugely talented @ENGINECOMICS. However a lot of newer fans of the show and many first time around missed out on the opportunity to own one or more, and when they saw some images of them last year, the message was very clear. We heard you!

     
    In order to help support our website and community forums, we've tried ads and we recently launched our own community store here offering premium member accounts with ad-free community browsing to help keep the site going. Sadly, despite the extra features, take up so far has been very disappointing.
    I'm therefore very pleased to confirm that following discussions, Barry has kindly donated his range of inspired designs with obscure references to many of your most favourite episodes. He will make no income from them himself. 
    I'm delighted to announce the launch of M-TIWWA's new clothing and apparel stores, utilising Spreadshirt's quality print on demand service combined with quality clothing and apparel, with locations in the US and EU and therefore offering affordable shipping to the US, Canada, the UK and Europe.
     
    m-tiwwa_clothing_standard_v2.pdf
    I've recently set up a new shorter domain for the site (m-tiwwa.net) and set up links that redirect to the new stores. The tiwwa.info domain will still shortcut you to our community forums.
    The store covering the UK and Europe is now open and the first designs are now available at:
    m-tiwwa.net/uk-eu-store
    The US/Canada store will be available very soon at:
    m-tiwwa.net/us-store
    I'd like to extend my huge gratitude and appreciation to Barry Renshaw for his kindness and support in making his art available again for more to enjoy, and for hopefully helping keep the site going.
    You can currently take advantage of a 15% store launch discount for a limited time, plus other discounts and free shipping offers as and when they become available, courtesy of Spreadshirt.
    Thank everyone for your ongoing support.
    Graham
  5. The Old Man
    Dear TIWWA members and visitors, 
    Nothing to be alarmed about, but I would like to extend apologies for any inconvenience you may have experienced with slow responses or speed with the website in the last few days. 
    Unfortunately we have intermittently been receiving a high amount of illegitimate web traffic, effectively hammering away at the server in what appears to be a crude attempt to knock our server or website offline. 
    As you may know such is the nature of DDoS or 'Distributed Denial of Service' attacks, the hackers (possibly someone who has watched too many episode of Mr Robot) often use a one or more, sometimes a whole network of compromised computers or devices to try and take random or specific servers down by bombarding their firewall and server software with traffic or hits. 
    Initially it was coming from Italy, then the US, then South America.
    We can manually kill off the Apache server process each time and restart it, but after a while it starts up again, sometimes soon or after a few hours. Eventually they will get bored with door rattling and move on, especially since we're not a big company website, power station etc.
    Our web-hosting company has elevated the issue to a more senior tier of support staff who have been working hard to resolve the issues, however we may start using Cloudflare and routing through their network behind the scenes for extra protection, as they provide a network service to assist with this sort of issue. If so, the website may be inaccessible for a short while. 
    We may also have to enable additional firewall rules, which potentially could cause you to receive a blocked or forbidden error messages in your browser if your use or visit to the site triggers a false positive.  Such advanced rules are very sensitive, and require a lot of fine tuning and extra time to configure, so are best avoided if possible.
    I want to reassure you that we have no reason to believe the website or server has been compromised or hacked in any way, or personal information taken. 
    We take security seriously. We also have automatic backups available, and all non-public user account related personal information such as e-mail addresses, passwords etc are fully encrypted, as you would rightly expect. This is one reason why we licence use of professional community software with regular updates rather than use free software, and we also automatically encrypt all traffic between our server and your browser when you visit our site. 
    We also use another company to probe our server infrastructure, encryption levels and website  each week for potential security issues.
    Thank you bearing with us.
    Handy to know tips from Roedecker

    Contrary to first impressions, he actually knows what he's doing...
     
    Remember in general to always use ideally single use, strong passwords on your websites and devices, in particular your Google or other email accounts which if compromised could be used to change or hack your social media and website accounts. Password managers are well recommended, in particular LastPass and  1Pass are recommended.
    https://uk.pcmag.com/password-managers-products/4296/guide/the-best-password-managers-of-2018
    https://www.techradar.com/news/software/applications/the-best-password-manager-1325845
    https://www.cnet.com/news/the-best-password-managers-directory/
    Always use a good, up to date Antivirus software, ideally combined with separate anti-malware software such as  Malwarebytes. These days, on Windows 10, Microsoft's built-in antivirus is regarded as very good. Avast is excellent for free software, I used it for over 10 years, but tends to nag with somewhat, scaremongering pop ups to buy the full version. Kapaskey, Mcaffee and Symantec are probably best avoided.
    Should you have any concerns about account security in general,  you may be unaware but we also support so-called 'two factor' account protection. 
    Did you know we support Google Authenticator!
    If would like to make use of the popular Google Authenticator service which you can configure in your user account settings, it is free and optional for non-staff members. Very handy if you don't use a password manager service or tend to read-use the same password for multiple sites.
    Once activated, it allows you to require anyone accessing your account from a new device or browser for the first time or after you sign out, to enter a one time code sent to your phone or mobile device by Google, either by text message or via the Google Authenticator app (if you have it installed on your mobile devices). 
    If the code is not correctly entered before it expires, access is denied, so without access to your device, nobody can in theory access your account.  
    I can't stress this enough to everyone with a Google Account these days, I very strongly recommended activating Google 2FA/Google Authenticator to access your Google Account, but you can also use it here if you want and on many other websites and apps too. 
    Adding an extra layer...
    We also have the optional 3 Security Question/Answers option if you prefer, or you can use both. You can set up questions and answers that hopefully only you would know the correct answers to (don't share too much info on social media!),
    Either of these options are are available in your Account Security settings and are useful if you feel you would like to add an extra layer of protection to your account.
    You may also have noticed a new section after our last big update that provides device and browser usage history (Recently Used Devices). If you also use a VPN service however, the info will obviously be incorrect.
    The Old Man
  6. The Old Man
    This entry is about our TIWWA Community Suite 4.2 release. It is a new feature available to all registered members.
    TIWWA's Community Suite software has long had a reputation system; first we had a simple up/down number-based system, later updated to introduce a Likes system, tied in with our reputation system.
    We're pleased to introduce the latest updates to the reputation system, which we think you'll love: Reactions.
    Quite simply, reactions allow users to offer more fine-grained sentiments towards posted content than a simple 'like'.
    Reactions are now in common use on many popular social networks, and so users may expect to be able to be more nuanced in their response to something they see here at TIWWA.
    A little more interesting than simply 'liking' a post, blog entry, gallery image, download review or comment; but of course, 'like' is still an option!
    Let's see how they work in an example forum post, and then cover the options you'll have available:-

    At first glance it may look a little confusing but what you see above is a looping animation showing the default Reactions setup, below a post or comment.
    First it shows the logged-in user clicking on the React feature's 'Like' blue love button (he he - Love is blue - see what I did there?! ).
    Then it shows the user clicking on it again to see the other available react options in case they want to change from 'Like' to a different one, then selecting 'Confused'.
    Then it shows the user removing their chosen reaction to the post completely with the X (Remove) button. The gif then loops around to show you again.
    The software includes 5 reactions by default, but we can add more of our own, tailored to Millennium and our members:
    Like Thanks Confused Sad Haha  
    Will we still see a total summary for all our posts/comments like the current reputation?
    A user's total reputation count is still shown alongside their content and in their profile, of course.
    Can we see who reacted to a post, similar to how we can currently see who 'liked' our posts/comments?
    As you'd expect, you can click individual reaction counts (or the overall reputation score, if we enable that setting) to view who reacted to the content in a small pop-up window.

    (On touch devices, on-hover functionality is not suitable, and so for these devices the reactions UI looks slightly different, but works the same).
    Where can we use Reactions?
    You'll be able to use reactions anywhere on our site where you can currently like a post, comment or any other price of content. Reactions play well with all areas of the suite, including the new Recommended Replies:

    ...and see them in activity streams...

     
    We hope you're looking forward to this new feature.  It's already been a hit on the developer's internal testing site, and we're looking forward to seeing how we can customise it for use on our own community.
    More to come soon on what we'll be seeing later this summer!
     
  7. The Old Man
    We are happy to introduce the next major feature that will be available at This Is Who We Are - Clubs.
    Clubs are a brand new way of supporting fun, on or off-topic sub-communities within our site, in other words, providing new improved 'social group' functionality.  Let's take a look at the concept with a few demo example screenshots from the software developer's beta test site, and then go over what Clubs are capable of doing!

    (Above: The Club directory. This is similar to the main forum index page)
     

    (Above: A Club homepage, essentially what a specific Club will look like)
     

    (Above: Club member listing, showing a particular Club's creators and also the members of this social group.)
     

    (Above: Example of content within a club; topics, in this case.)
     
    There's a lot to digest there! Let's go over the basic functionality...
     
    Club Types
    Four types of club are available, we may enable some or all here at TIWWA:-
    Public clubs
    Clubs that anyone can see and participate in without joining. Open club
    Clubs that anyone can see and join. Closed club
    Clubs that anyone can see in the directory, but joining must be approved by a Club Leader or Club Moderator. Non-club-members who view the club will only see the member list - not the recent activity or content areas. Private club
    Clubs that do not show in public, and users must be invited by a Club Leader or Club Moderator As the site staff, we can of course configure which club types can be created and by whom. We could, for example, enables members to create public and open clubs, but allow a "VIP" group to also create Closed and Private clubs. Obviously we need to give this thought and see how things develop.
     
    Club Users
    Each club has three levels of user:
    Leader
    A leader has all of the permissions of a moderator, and can add other moderators. They can also add content areas (see below). The club owner is automatically a leader. Moderators
    Moderators, as the name implies, have the ability to moderate content posted within the club. We can define which moderator tools can be used. We could, for example, prevent any content being deleted from clubs, but allow it to be hidden. Moderators can also remove members from a club. Users
    Anyone else that joins the club.  
    TIWWA's staff (Elder administrator and moderator groups), are able to moderate content in any Club regardless of whether they are a member of it. 
    Clubs can be created by any TIWWA user who has permission. As you would expect, this is controlled by our regular member group permission settings, so we may make available Club creation facilities to Patrons, or other specific groups.
    For closed clubs, there's an approval process. Users can request to join and the request must be approved by the Club's leader. Leaders get a notification when a user requests to join; the user gets a notification when their request is approved or denied.

    (Above: Approving and declining join requests.)
     
    Club Content
    Club Leaders can add a variety of content areas to their club - forums, calendars, blogs and so on. It's important to note that these content areas are fully functional just as if they existed as a top-level admin created area. They will appear in search results, activity streams, users can follow them, embed links to them, and so on. If a user has permission to see a forum (for example) within a club it will behave exactly like other forums they see - and the same for all other kinds of content.
    Each content area a leader adds can have a custom title, and will appear in the club navigation. This means, for example, that you can have multiple forums within a club, and give each a different name.

    (Above: Adding content areas to a Club.)
     
    Club Custom Fields
    Clubs also support custom fields. Custom fields are defined by the site administrator and can be filled in by Club Owners. The values they enter are shown (along with the club description) on the club homepage.

    (Above: Custom fields in a car-themed club.)
    On the Club Directory page, users can filter the list of clubs by the custom club fields if they want to.

    (Above: Filtering clubs.)
     
    Club Locations
    Clubs have built-in support for Google Maps, allowing users to specify an optional physical location for their club.
    Let's say we run a community for car enthusiasts; each club might be tied to a particular region's meetup. The Club Owner specifies the location when setting up the club, and clubs are then shown on map on the directory page:

    (Above: Club locations.)
    And within a club, the location is shown too:

     
    Club Display
    We offer two ways to display club headers within the club - the standard way, shown in the screenshots you've seen up to this point, but we also have a sidebar option. This is something the admin sets globally for the whole TIWWA site, rather than per-club. This is useful if our site design doesn't facilitate another horizontal banner taking up valuable screen real-estate; moving the club banner to the sidebar alleviates this pressure on vertical space.

     
    Using Clubs
    There's a lot of scope for using clubs beyond allowing TIWWA's members to create their own groups. We do not even have to call them "clubs" if that does not suit our case. For example, we could rename Clubs to "Social Groups".  This would allow each social group to have its own community, with its own forums, gallery, file sharing and so on, private and separate from other social groups.
    We could use Clubs for special events or as a home for project teams, like our TIWWA Black Coats community volunteers.
    The first that occurred to me is that Members will be able to expand on specific aspects of Millennium that interests them, perhaps the bahavioural science and criminology aspects, or Legion, Angels, or perhaps an expanded Mark Snow themed area.
    Secondly, I can see huge potential for off-topic content, expanding further on some of the existing themes in our off-topic forums... A club for The Donut Hole, a club for Lucy's Pantry, or a TV and Movie Club.
    You may be inspired to create a club for The Walking Dead, Game of Thrones, perhaps a club for the weather, or great 80's TV shows, or a club for horror movies or any other movie genre or sub-genre, cult television series, or for a favourite actor, artist, writer or musician.
    Like the idea of clubs? Inspired to create one? Let us know... 
    And of course, you don't need to bother with Clubs if you don't want to!

  8. The Old Man
    This entry is about our TIWWA Community Suite 4.2 release. It is a new feature available to all registered members. 
    Our  Community Suite comes with a default profile photo which is used when members have not set a profile photo for their account. While this model has served the software well for years, our software developers IPS felt it was time for an update to the software to keep pace with current internet trends. This has led to one of the latest changes you can expect to see with version 4.2: letter profile photos.

     
    The colors are not set for each letter. You will notice in the screenshot that each "A" letter photo has a different color. They are chosen randomly when generated.
    More TIWWA 4.2 feature details coming soon. 4.2 will be available this summer.
  9. The Old Man
    This entry is about our TIWWA Community Suite 4.2 release. It is a new feature available for staff, designed to benefit all users. Screenshots are from a test developer's version.
    Sometimes TIWWA staff may find situations where you want to highlight one or more replies to a content item to bring attention to a really great response. This is especially true on busier topics where you might have dozens or even hundreds of replies in a single discussion.
    In 4.2, there is now an ability for a moderator to Recommend a reply (or multiple replies)...

    (Above image: Showing new Recommend Moderator Permission)
     
    ... and even leave an optional note explaining why they think you should view that post...

     
    ... When a reply is Recommended you will see a snippet at the top of the content item along with the optional moderator note and a link to jump right to that reply....

    (Above image: A topic with a Recommended reply.)
     
    Staff can Recommend more than one reply and this feature works through the Community Suite in forum topic, blog entries, gallery images, and so on. Staff can set this permission along with other moderator permissions in the AdminCP.
    Our software developers IPS really think this will allow moderators to bring attention to some of the best replies, and guide users to the best content our community has to offer.
     
  10. The Old Man
    This entry is about our TIWWA Community Suite 4.2 release. It is another new feature available to staff, designed to benefit all users.
    Following on from our previous entry about the new Recommended Replies feature, we also have one more small feature change that will be very useful.
    Content Message is a small feature that will be available in all content areas (forums, blogs, gallery, etc.) and allows a moderator to put a message at the top of any item.

    (Above image: Example topic with a moderator message)
     
    This is useful if we have a special use for the area people are posting in, need to encourage conversation to stay on topic, or perhaps the conversation is becoming heated and moderators need to remind people to behave (never happens here!).
    Sometimes the smallest features can prove the most useful. I am sure staff will find it useful to have the ability to add custom notes to any area of the TIWWA software suite.
  11. The Old Man
    This entry is about our TIWWA Community Suite 4.2 release. It is a new feature available to all registered members. 
    There are many Calendar related improvements in 4.2 designed to make adding and engaging with events easier than ever before. First of these is Event Reminders. 
    Reminders are easy to create. Simply use the Set Reminder button shown on all future events and specify when you would like your reminder...

    (Above image: Choose when you would like to be reminded.)
     
    Changed your mind? Simply adjust the reminder or remove it altogether...

    (Above image: Easily adjust existing reminders.)
     
    When the time comes a notification will be sent via the member's chosen email or inline method.

    (Above image: Receive inline or email reminders using the standard notification settings.)
    Our software developers say that event reminders are a simple but often requested feature and we're excited to be introducing it with 4.2.
    More to come soon!
     
  12. The Old Man
    TIWWA Members and visitors can look forward to the next major release of our community suite software coming mid-2017. Software company IPS are well into development on v4.2 and are excited to start announcing all the new features and improvements.
    Our next big release is focused on engagement with our members. You will see enhancements to our Reputation system, new ways to encourage people to register on our community, and enhancements to existing features to make them more interactive. There are also entirely new capabilities we cannot wait to show you ranging from new ways to organize content, to tools to help promote our community.
    Version 4.2 also features a refreshed default front-end design (and for Libby to play with, a refreshed Admin Control Panel too!). Theme changes in 4.2 are mostly in the CSS framework so our existing themes will either work without issue or require minor changes to work in the new version.
    Over the next several weeks we will be posting news entries with previews of upcoming features. Be sure to follow our Staff Blog or Twitter to stay up to date.
    We expect IPS Community Suite 4.2 to be out in mid-2017. Everyone at IPS has worked very hard on this update and they think we will love it!
  13. The Old Man
    Greetings TIWWA Members!
    We've recently made some minor changes and improvements to our Member Groups and Ranks at This Is Who We Are.
    Also, all members can now edit their own content with no time limitations. So if you have an older really good post with broken images because the images were stored on say Photobucket, but you deleted the image or album at Photobucket image, or Photobucket shut down etc, you can now edit your post at any time and fix those broken images - very handy for informative topics featuring helpful trivia or important images. All members can opt to hide posts, this makes it invisible to other members except for staff, handy if you are not sure you want to completely delete your post.
    We have also provided increased storage space for active members but space on our server is not unlimited, so we suggest members in general use their attachment storage space for quality content attachments, especially those that would say break a good, interesting or important topic if they were one-day broken, and instead link to less important images. You can easily link to images hosted elsewhere instead of uploading and using your attachment storage space here by using the Insert Other Media button at the bottom right of the text editor. 
    The updated Member Groups are:
    Millennium Group Candidates
    This is the member group you first appear in after completing the registration process upon joining TIWWA.
    Once you make 1 post or piece of content, you will be promoted to the Millennium Group Initiates member group.
    Persons in the Candidates group have 15MB of total storage, storage for 10 Personal Message conversations or PMs (but can only send only 2 per day and only to 2 people). They can start 1 Blog and can share content in the Gallery, Downloads, Videos etc.
      Millennium Group Initiates -
    Persons in this group will have 5 or more posts or content, and after making 50 posts or piece of content, Initiates will be promoted to the Millennium Group Patrons member group.
    They now have 50MB maximum total storage, storage for 100 Personal Message conversations. Initiates can also start 5 different Blogs and can still share content in the Gallery, Downloads, Videos etc.   Millennium Group Patrons, TIWWA Blackcoats(Community Volunteers) & TIWWA Honored Members
    Persons in these groups will have 50 or more posts or content.
    They now have 75MB maximum total storage, storage for 500 Personal Message conversations. Patrons can also start 10 different Blogs and can still share content in the Gallery, Downloads, Videos etc. Member Ranks
    Below you can find a list of our recently updated TIWWA Member Ranks, which are just for fun and appear by your name when you post etc. After 1013 posts or pieces of content, you can still override and enter your own custom message or rank if you prefer.

     
  14. The Old Man
    As we approach the end of 2016, I would like to take this opportunity to wish all of our amazing members, old friends and guest visitors a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.
    To mark the Yuletide occasion, This Is Who We Are has once again been festively decorated with a choice of two themes, Christmas Noel and White Christmas, created by Sherri at IBTheme.
    For those who prefer the usual default TIWWA Theme, you can select this or any of the other themes from the Theme selector menu at the bottom of any page.


    Today, I've also updated our community's software with the recently announced upgrade (see previously Staff Blog entry for more details) which sees the introduction of the new built-in 'Leaderboard' which highlights, just for fun, our most popular and active Members, and awards them with Gold, Silver and Bronze Trophies. The awards are also visible on the relevant member's Profiles.
    I'd also like to take the opportunity to thank our Elder Staff Members, who assist me by helping moderate when necessary and administrate the community, in particular @Libby
    For many, I'm sure it has been a good year, but also unfortunately for many an eventful, sad and difficult year; in particular for those of us who have lost special friends such as our wonderful Erin @Raven Wolf who loved this time of year, who have lost family members or who have suffered from illness or challenging times. Let's hope 2017 brings a more happier and prosperous year for everyone, no matter who they are, or where they are.
    This Is Who We Are
    Graham
    UK.
  15. The Old Man
    In addition to many small bug fixes, this next release includes:
    For Admins - Accounts flagged as spammers are now more visibly different on the member list in AdminCP The Password form helper can now show a "strength" meter, and set a minimum strength required. Added quite a few new embed providers codepen.io coub.com deviantart.com docs.com funnyordie.com gettyimages.com iFixit.com kickstarter.com meetup.com mixcloud.com mix.office.com on.aol.com reddit.com reverbnation.com screencast.com screenr.com slideshare.net smugmug.com ustream.tv Google Maps (requires free Google API key) Admin - Default location for an AdminCP tab honors the admin's ordering Auto-saved content in the editor will now expire after 48 hours If you load an editor that has previous auto-saved content you will now be prompted to keep or remove it Staff - You can now set pre-filled reasons for Warning actions that will automatically populate the member notes editor when a moderator warns a user Staff - Escape key will now cancel quick-edit on titles Staff - Adds a setting to restrict member birthday view to admins only or to completely disable prompting for birthday to member There are now more "save and reload" options in various places to keep your place when editing content or settings Staff - New check all box when viewing activity on a member profile for easier moderation Staff - You can now hide posts that are unapproved rather than just approve or delete Staff - When a moderator changes the status of a report in the ModCP the system now puts a reply in moderator comments noting the change Admin - When you see a "could not write file" error the file it was trying to write now shows in the error logs You can now quickly edit tags when viewing an item without having to edit it if you have permission If you are using multiple devices to login to a site you will be less likely to be logged out Tags can now be quickly edited when viewing an item Administrators can now create custom RSS feeds for various content Staff - Enhancements to IP discovery tools for moderators Staff - Actions for reports in ModCP now show when status is changed as a comment Admin - Redesigned support tool Password strength rating and requirement option Guest terms of service alert Minimum age requirement Admin- Ban Filters are now Word Filters and can set words to automatically moderate Display name history is now available on profile view Leaderboard  
    Some  of the most interesting changes:
    Better Analytics Integration Tag Quick Edit Default Warning Notes Custom RSS Feeds Word and Link Filters Leaderboard Moderation Improvements Security and Privacy Embeds and Integration The next big feature is the new Leaderboard which we really think will enhance our community.
     
    The Leaderboard
    The new Leaderboard is designed to better highlight our most active members and content based on reputation and other metrics. The Leaderboard will greatly enhance both member and content discovery on our community.
     

    First you will notice the new feature of member leaders based on a specific time frame. In the example above it is set to All Time showing those members with the most reputation overall in the community. It also shows the content with the most reputation for the same timeframe so you get a snapshot of both popular members and popular content in one view.
     

    The Past Leaders tab (example shown above) shows the "winners" of each day in a history. The system counts all reputation made each day and logs the members who had the top reputation counts that day. Using reputation rather than post count encourages our members to post quality of quantity which is really important to any site.
     

    Those who win the day also get a badge on their profile page (see above example screenshot) to highlight that they were the member with the most reputation for a particular day.
     

    Top Members shows you a list of all members sorted by various metrics. By default you will see members sorted by reputation but you can also easily sort by total post content TIWWA-wide or per-app. All of these views can be linked directly to so if we wanted a menu item to show members who post the most files in Downloads, we can just directly link to that sort view.
    There are various settings to control the default behavior of the Leaderboard. We can define the default view and how many members to show which is helpful to tailor it to our needs.
    We hope you enjoy this initial launch of the new Leaderboard feature. We are excited about the new content and member discovery abilities this offers and look forward to adding new options to the Leaderboard as it continues to develop!
     
    Embeds and Intergration
    Our Community Suite allows for integrations with quite a few third party systems and also can embed content from external sites. We have added a whole new list of embed providers where you can just paste in a link to that site and a nice box will show up embedding the content.
    You can do that will many popular sites already and we are adding a lot more:
    codepen.io coub.com deviantart.com docs.com funnyordie.com gettyimages.com iFixit.com kickstarter.com meetup.com mixcloud.com mix.office.com on.aol.com reddit.com reverbnation.com screencast.com screenr.com slideshare.net smugmug.com ustream.tv Google Maps Example - you can them just paste in a link to a Google Map location. So when you paste a link to a Google Map in an editor it shows like this:

    The maps are also interactive on the screen.
    We hope you enjoy all these new additions coming in December.
  16. The Old Man

    Coming soon to TIWWA

    By The Old Man,

    Some information for those interested about our forthcoming software update, I've highlighted most relevant in bold...
    Key Changes
    In addition to many small bug fixes, this release includes:
    Performance improvements in: profile view, sitemap generator, posting replies, and Activity Streams More efficient license key checking to keep the keys from being checked too often which can slow the site down Admins - There is now a column in tasks view to show the last time it ran to help diagnostics When a member changes their email or password they now get an email confirmation If group promotion based on date is enable the system will now auto-promote even if a member does not login Admins - There is now a setting to change the number of topics per page in the forum view You can now press ctrl/cmd+enter in any editor window to submit the reply There is now logic to prevent double-posting when the initial post encounters an error on submit Moderators can now remove all followers from an item Contact Us is now configurable with various options Staff - Announcements can now be restricted by member group Admins now have a setting to have members automatically follow content they start or reply to. Members can optionally override this. The editor will now show a message if a link that can be embedded (image, video, etc.) failed to embed for some reason. Admins get more detailed error reasons. Admins - If our datastore (cache system) is not working properly the AdminCP will now show you a warning telling you that it needs attention. When a member is banned/suspended the system now shows a more friendly page with information on their ban. Previously it showed a permission denied page. Security Questions for account security  
    Security Questions
    To enhance the security of our member's accounts we now have a new security questions feature where we can allow our members to put in their own, personal security questions. The member will then be prompted to answer those questions for account actions admins define.
    Account Change Emails
    Members will now receive confirmation emails when they change their email address or password.
    Automatic Following
    Our members can already choose to automatically follow content they start or reply to, but now we can define this as the default behavior for all members. Our members can of course override this to their own preference.
    Embed Failure Message
    To answer a frequent question "why didn't my media embed?" we now show you why. Regular members will just see a message indicating the Suite tried to embed but was not able to. Admins will get more information on what failed.

     
    Suspended Member Page
    If we banned/suspended a member previously they simply saw a generic permission denied message. We now show a more friendly page saying they were suspended and why.

    The member can click to get the full information from the Warning System as well.

    Announcements
    Global announcements can now be restricted by member group (such as messages for Guests).
    The following update after this one is still in development, but will include 
    Added quite a few new embed providers codepen.io coub.com deviantart.com docs.com funnyordie.com gettyimages.com iFixit.com kickstarter.com meetup.com mixcloud.com mix.office.com on.aol.com reddit.com reverbnation.com screencast.com screenr.com slideshare.net smugmug.com ustream.tv Auto-saved content in the editor will now expire after 48 hours If you load an editor that has previous auto-saved content you will now be prompted to keep or remove it A batch of moderator improvements.  
  17. The Old Man
    TIWWA Software Upgrade - Key Changes
    For anyone interested...
    (Much of the following are behind the scenes, technical improvements or areas relating to the administration/configuration of the software. I have highlighted in bold text the points of more relevance to our Members.)
    This release fixes reported issues and adds refinement to existing features as well as some security upgrades.
    New or Changed Features
    When your link auto-embeds in a post such as with an image, YouTube video, Twitter link, etc. an option will now display to revert the embed back to a plain text link if you do not want the embed. New setting to disable embedding. Facebook/Twitter integration improvements If you are an administrator and encounter a system error, additional debug output will now display. Regular members will see the normal error message. If an advertisement is set up with a main image, but not smaller images for tablets/mobiles, the ad would not show at all on tablets/mobiles. This has changed so the main image will display on all devices unless smaller images are provided. Topics scheduled to automatically lock or unlock will now reflect this in the topic listing and when viewing the topic. Placing a link to a Facebook status will embed when possible. When viewing a report, the container (for example, the forum) the content is from is displayed. Three character searches are now allowed in the Admin CP Live Search. The Account Settings page now uses vertical rather than horizontal tabs to prevent overflow. If Gravatar is enabled, and a user has not defined an profile photo, then their email address will be used to fetch from Gravatar unless explicitly set not to. Gfycat embeds now use their oEmbed endpoint rather than their JS API. Using Amazon CloudFront as https provider will now be recognized as valid secure connection. The member REST API endpoint will now return custom fields. The Developer Center for Plugins now shows the filename in the list of hooks, and when editing a hook, a breadcrumb includes a link back to the list. Inline notifications can now be dismissed Efficiency improvements to the search index You can now close a poll independently of the topic  
    Important Fixes
    In addition to dozens of smaller fixes this release includes fixes for the follow items that impacted many clients:
    Several security enhancements. The posting parser has been made more efficient. Some BBCode does not parse correctly in version 4 and we have applied some fixes for this. In general BBCode is deprecated so we only provide basic support. Sitemaps could sometimes be blank if there was no content in a specific section. Certain URLs from version 3 were not redirecting properly to the new version 4 format. The timezone detection is now more robust and will more gracefully fail if it cannot determine a visitor's timezone. Permission matrices have been reworked to send less data to prevent exceeding server limitations. Decimal handling has been reworked in Commerce for more precise calculations. The database class now handles InnoDB deadlocks more gracefully, and some queries have been changed to reduce the likeliness of deadlocks. Performance improvements to areas which perform large updates on the members table (for example, when editing permissions). Pages 'number' custom fields previously had an upper limit for submitted values around 2 billion. Multiple fixes for tag searching  
    Activity Stream Improvements
    The activity stream has a new toggle and filter bar that replaces the "Edit Form" link. It is now faster and easier to customize existing streams and to change the filtering options without having to create new streams.

    Example of "un-embed" option

     
    Facebook/Twitter integration improvements
      If signed in with Facebook or Twitter, when posting a status update, a checkbox to share on these services appears instead of the old setting to export statuses in the account settings panel. This change ensures IPS4 conforms with Facebook's Terms & Conditions and will pass Facebook's App Review. When setting up Facebook integration, a new setting allows disabling status imports so you do not need to go through Facebook's App Review if you only want to allow users to sign in with Facebook and not integrate with status updates. When setting up Facebook or Twitter integration, the setting to allow automatic sharing is shown in addition to in the sharing settings so it is easier to enable this feature. Facebook integration has been updated to use their latest API endpoints.  
     
  18. The Old Man
    I've just upgraded the TIWWA software suite. As with any big update, if you are visiting soon after the upgrade, I strongly recommend that you do a hard refresh to make sure your browser loads the updated versions of the files and isn't using a mix of new and cached old ones which can cause odd things to happen to your experience of our site(!). To do this in Windows, simply hold down the CTRL key and then just press F5 then let go, and it will force your browser to reload all files on the page. There, you are seeing everything as it should be.
    There are some minor maintenance fixes expected over the next few weeks, which will address any new bugs etc with this latest major update and may add some new features along the way.
    What's New?!
    The developers have added dozens of new features, enhancements to existing features, fixed the majority of 4.0 bugs, and made large performance gains.
    Firstly New Content (some still call it View New Content) is now called Unread Content. There is also a handy link to it as shown below...

    This will take you to one of the new Activity Streams, which is like a time-line of new content.
    If you don't like the way a particular Stream looks, (eg. say you want a more condensed view without the content of the posts showing), you can toggle the display between the Expanded (normal) and Condensed Views.

     
    The new Menu Bar
    The new Menu Bar represents how most people use the software suite, by browsing through the existing content to spot or view items of interest or sections of the site such as the Forums, Gallery, etc, much like the old menu system, but it also now provides an easy way to see and catch up with new activity using the Activity menu tab. We can also customise the menu, so we'll soon add useful links to the main website, such as the Episode Guide, Music Guide etc.
    The image below shows the new Activity tab where you can use the default Activity Streams, or Create or Edit your own streams....

     
    Browser Notifications
    If you choose to allow Browser Notifications, you will get a small pop up and sound effect to alert you when someone has say, replied to a topic you are following or created a new topic.
     
    Smarter Pasting
    When you paste content from say another website or page, if the editor detects it it is styled content (different font, size, contains HTML or images etc), you can choose to quickly paste it as plain text.
     
    Selective Quoting
    I've a feeling many will like this new feature. You can now hightlight part of a post, and selectively quote it using the pop-up option that appears. When ready, only the part of the post you highlighted will be quoted, which saves time and is much neater. It makes it easier to quote part of someone's post without quoting the whole things, especially if its from a long post when it will save lots of scrolling.
     
    A list of changes and new features...
    Some of the main changes and new features include (I've highlighted the main ones, and removed a lot of the internal stuff from this list):
    New menu structure and drag-and-drop menu manager Ability to have two menu levels Option to create both custom-link menu items and embed preconfigured menus Preview before publishing All menu items support group permissions Discovery system, a very powerful new feature that allows for both admin and user created Activity Streams Admin-defined Streams always visible to users. Users can edit and save admin streams to create their own, custom copy if they would like to tweak them to suit themselves. The main show-all stream automatically tells you when there is new activity Users can now create their own custom streams User streams can be shared but viewer will only see content based on their permissions Filter options include: All content or specific apps. Some apps support further refinement into categories or content-type. Unread content Ownership Content I posted in Content I started Content by specific members (user can create a list) Content I follow Areas I follow Specific content I follow Posted by members I follow  Time Period Any time Since my last visit Specified number of days Specific date range Activity Streams that reference features not available to Guests such as unread tracking and follow system will auto-hide Selective quoting to highlight a bit of a post and quote just that Gallery application enhancements New upload image process Images and movies are submitted to the same upload field Image reviews Editor updates Uses div-mode which is much faster and more reliable. Clicking into the editor is now pretty much instant. Auto-linking and member mentions to use new APIs for better reliability Quotes, code boxes, and spoilers can be dragged and moved and there is no more "red line" When cmd/ctrl right-clicking: options to remove or break-out of quotes, edit links and edit image properties Pasting asks if you want to convert to plain text Editor is responsive, and ability to have small editor show in areas with less space Member @mentions in posts can now be selected by tab key Design and interface enhancements Improve typography for titles Better contrast for user-entered text (posts/comments/etc) Brighten background colors Pre-select text in when share popup is opened Make positive/negative colors consistent across all uses Better hover highlighting of 'blended' links Better styling of mentions in posts (both the username, and the menu to select a user) Better contrast for certain areas Flatten the default photo image Improve popular/selected post styles Change popular post icon to heart for consistency with likes Make date a permalink for sharing Improve sidebar contrast and block styles Improve attachments dialog Add X to close mobile nav menu Select messages for multiple deleting in messenger Make leaving a conversation clearer Improved warning panel in user profiles Move content status icons (pinned, hidden etc.) to start of row Improve cover photo so it automatically puts it into position mode after uploading Android title bar inherits theme header color Added date uploaded to Downloads version dropdown Browser notifications for completed actions (such as large file uploads) Search The main search box defaults to the app you are currently browsing unless you are on home page where it searches all New default interface Results now highlight and skip to search term in preview Retina emoticons for Ipad/iPhone etc (where available) Instant Notifications Receive notifications via your Browser Notifications of new Personal Messages and anything in the notifications menu Intelligent auto-polling that only polls when needed to reduce server traffic Browser local storage used, to allow for cross-communication if you have multiple tabs open to further reduce resource use
  19. The Old Man

    Emoticon alert!

    By The Old Man,

    Thanks to a very long awaited feature in our latest software version at TIWWA, which provides much better smiley/emoticon management by way of categories and drag and drop re-ordering, I've finally been able re-organise the very mixed up smilies at TIWWA.
    We now have a General Category (for small everyday small smilies), and brand new categories for seasonal, fun, holiday etc themed smilies including Halloween, Christmas, Food themed etc.
    This should make it a lot easier to find your preferred smiley of choice to suit your post and mood, and.... Millennium drum roll.... I've added dozens of new themed smilies and emoticons, as well as removing some of the more boring ones.
    Simply click on the Emoticon button when posting your content to bring up the Emoticon list. You can quickly jump to a specific category and your most recently used emoticons/smilies will show at the top of the list for convenience.
    I hope the new categories and emoticons make for a better posting and reading experience here at TIWWA.
    This Is Who We Are
  20. The Old Man
    One of the great new features with our software is the ability to customise your profile with a cover photo. Cover photos can also be used to great effect in the Calendar when you create or edit an event, and in the Blog section where you can theme your Blog much more easily than before. I've increased the maximum file size of the profile cover images as of today, from 1MB to 2MB to make it easier to find and upload your favourite images. You can really add something to your profile by using a cover photo, it may be a favourite scene from Millennium or another TV series or film, perhaps something personal to you with a meaning that enhances your profile and allows other members to get a better impression of you, or part of a cool wallpaper or other image, your home, town or pets. Some images look better than others, generally wider rather than taller images work best as you get a letter box view of the image.

    Cover photos/images have replaced the old customisation options in your profile, so your customisations don't break the layout or theme of the site. They're also a lot cooler and fun to upload, especially if you are using a mobile device such as an iPad, because it will let you smoothly slide the image around to where you want it just using your finger (well it turns me on anyway!).
    This blog entry will cover member profile cover images, but the principle is the same when adding a cover image to a Calendar event or your Blog.
     
    Adding a Profile Cover Image
    Simply go to your profile, you can do this by clicking on your photo/avatar anywhere on the site or from your User Menu (normally top right).
    If you haven't uploaded a cover image yet, you will just see a blank space where it would normally appear. Look for the Cover Photo options to the right of this space.

    To upload your new cover photo or image, click on Upload Photo.
    The uploader appears and you can choose to browse and upload a suitable image or perhaps a wallpaper background image, or you can drag and drop an image however you prefer.
    Once uploaded the image may show as you would like. You can reposition the image/photo by choosing the Reposition Photo option, which lets you move the image to where you think it looks best. This repositioning step will appear automatically after we upgrade to v4.1 of the site, as its often needed.

    Once you are happy with your cover image or photo, it will be now displayed whenever you or a member views your profile. You can use the relevant options to overwrite or completely remove your image at any time.
    Our new software is now fully responsive by design, which means the website and your image will automatically look and work really well on all devices includes mobile/cell phones and tablets, as well as computers without needing a separate skin or theme for mobile devices that have smaller displays and therefore need smaller images.
    (Member profiles will improve again with the next update to 4.1, so any gallery albums will be displayed better in your profile.)
    We hope you found this tutorial/guide useful.
    This is who we are.
     
  21. The Old Man
    IPS Community Suite 4.0.13
    Released 08/31/2015
    Key Changes
    This release primarily focuses on stability with many bug fixes. In addition to dozens of fixes, important items include:
    When unflagging a member as a spammer, if any tasks are still queued to delete or hide the member's content the tasks will be cancelled.  This is useful if you flag a user as a spammer and then immediately change your mind and unflag the member. NO_STEP issue during upgrade should now be resolved Lists were not rebuilding correctly coming from 3.4.x Changed rebuild routines to not use internal embeds as it represents a change from the way content looked pre-upgrade There were some infinite redirect issues in some cases when Pages was used, particularly when the gateway file was used Fixed an issue related to core_cache and the task not running  
  22. The Old Man
    V4.1 is on the way!
    Key Changes
    The next major release for IPS Community Suite 4 is now in the final stages of development. The de operas have added dozens of new features, enhancements to existing features, fixed the majority of 4.0 bugs, and made large performance gains.
    Changes and New Features Include:
    New menu structure and drag-and-drop menu managerAbility to have two menu levels Option to create both custom-link menu items and embed preconfigured menus Preview before publishing All menu items support group permissions Discovery system that allows for both admin and user created Activity StreamsAdmin-defined streams always visible to users. Users can edit and save admin streams to create their own, custom copy. The main show-all stream automatically tells you when there is new activity Users can create custom streams User streams can be shared but viewer will only see content based on their permissions Filter options include:All content or specific apps. Some apps support further refinement into categories or content-type. Unread content OwnershipContent I posted in Content I started Content by specific members (user can create a list) Content I followAreas I follow Specific content I follow Posted by members I follow  Time PeriodAny time Since my last visit Specified number of days Specific date range Activity Streams that reference features not available to Guests such as unread tracking and follow system will auto-hide Option to serve images via a local proxy script (useful for SSL sites) Option to globally disallow remote images in posts Ability to preview email template wrapper Version number in AdminCP header Selective quoting to highlight a bit of a post and quote just that Pages application enhancementsNow installs with better default content to help new users Pages menu manager removed in favor of Suite-wide menu manager. Upgrade system will attempt to preserve menu items. BlocksNew blocks Members block, Blog comments, Blog List, Download comments, Download reviews, Poll block commentFeed/itemFeed based widgets have date limit (today, 7 days, etc) RecordFeed has a customisable title Calendar widget has a calendar selector to restrict events to specific calendar(s) Better selectors for open/pinned/featured selection External Widgets: Ability to add blocks to other websites via generated iFrame code PagesLarger editor box when editing/creating pages More tags in sidebar when editing/creating pages Custom error page configurable FieldsSimple relational field added Ability to place fields above or below record content Simple Name: Value display format added Media ManagerAbility to upload media for use within Pages pages, CSS, templates and blocks Compatible with designers mode TemplatesNew templates for when viewing the record homepage as 'articles' Ability to export and import templates to share with other IPS4 communities Gallery application enhancementsNew upload image process Images and movies are submitted to the same upload field Image reviews Editor updatesUses div-mode which is much faster and more reliable. Clicking into the editor is now pretty much instant. Auto-linking and member mentions to use new APIs for better reliability Quotes, code boxes, and spoilers can be dragged and moved and there is no more "red line" When cmd/ctrl right-clicking: options to remove or break-out of quotes, edit links and edit image properties Pasting asks if you want to convert to plain text Totally new code plugin with syntax highlighting as you type Option to make enter behave as a new line rather than with spacing Editor is responsive, and ability to have small editor show in areas with less space Member @mentions in posts can now be selected by tab key Upgrade processNew upgrade process where new files are downloaded and installed automatically when possible. Option to set email address for notifications when an upgrade is available Banner shown to admins on the front end when an upgrade is available. It can be dismissed except for security updates. Design and interface enhancementsImprove typography for titles Better contrast for user-entered text (posts/comments/etc) Brighten background colors Pre-select text in when share popup is opened Make positive/negative colors consistent across all uses Better hover highlighting of 'blended' links Better styling of mentions in posts (both the username, and the menu to select a user) Better contrast for ipsAreaBackground Flatten the default photo image Checkbox/radio buttons now use custom styling, giving themers more control of their style Improve popular/selected post styles Change popular post icon to heart for consistency with likes Make date a permalink for sharing Improve sidebar contrast and block styles Remove tab bar 'stretch' option and use CSS approach Improve attachments dialog Add more IDs to the user bar template for hook use Add X to close mobile nav menu Upgrade FontAwesome to 4.4 Select messages for multiple deleting in messenger Make leaving a conversation clearer Improve warning panel in user profiles Move content status icons (pinned, hidden etc.) to start of row Improve cover photo so it automatically puts it into position mode after uploading Android title bar inherits theme header color Added date uploaded to Downloads version dropdown Browser notifications for completed actions (such as large file uploads) Option to prompt users to re-consent to Terms and Conditions and/or Privacy Policy when you change them in AdminCP SearchThe main search box defaults to the app you are currently browsing unless you are on home page where it searches all New default interface Results now highlight and skip to search term in preview Retina emoticons Ability to uncheck all when adding Moderators in AdminCP Instant NotificationsReceive notifications via your Browser Notifications of new Personal Messages and anything in the notifications menu Intelligent auto-polling that only polls when needed to reduce server traffic Browser local storage used, to allow for cross-communication if you have multiple tabs open to further reduce resource use  
    No Longer Included
    Areas such as View New Content, My Content, My Followed Content, Status page and so on are replaced by the new Activity Streams
  23. The Old Man
    I think we've nailed all the really annoying things (bugs) since the upgrade now, like links in old posts being broken and reloading the same page instead of showing the actual linked website (all since rebuilt and working okay again).
    This latest version of our software framework although more powerful, efficient and feature-laden in a lot of ways, does in some ways use a lot more system resources, something the developers possibly never really made clear (at least I wasn't aware of that and I do keep up to date daily with developments), and despite us moving to a much better web host with a newer more powerful servers and superfast SSD drives, the server resource usage has still been very high which has caused some issues we're trying to resolve.
    I've blocked a few IP Addresses in Romania and elsewhere that were hitting the server hard and its helped, and made sure there's a 30 second delay for search bots, but 'bad bots' probably ignore that setting!
    There isn't a fully released version of Shoutbox yet, its being rebuilt from the ground up in the developers spare time, but when we installed a recent pre-release candidate version it was hitting the server 50,000 times a day, despite only containing about 10 actual shots per day max and some tweaks applied by the developer. So we had to remove it before our web host suspended our account! Shoutbox may return one day if the developer addresses impact on system resources, and there is another similar program we can try called Chatbox. However, all these types of programs have major resource issues by definition, so it may be we re-install the official IPS Chat app, which runs off an external server. IPS Chat has a 5 user limit on the free version but the main issue is that when you exit the a Chatroom is doesn't keep the old messages visible, like the Shoutbox does. Therefore, when we used to have it installed in the last year or so, it was rarely if ever used as everyone seemed to love the Shoutbox. Perhaps if we charged optional membership subscriptions etc to raise funds, we could possibly pay for a managed VPS Virtual Private Server or even a Dedicated Server, but they are really expensive, and since I'm facing redundancy from work on October 31st, I'm reluctant to commit to that for now.
    So for now we're trying to run the board at basic level without any third party add-ons to get a baseline on performance, which is still going way up to 150%-200% of available system resources during peak times of the day, but we're getting there!

    As you can see, the chart is coming down over the last month.
    I make a change and then see what the effect is over a few days, checking the system logs, so its a bit of a slow process but it could help nail down what's causing it, could be as simple as showing forthcoming calendar events, or latest topics on the main index page etc.
    Each software update has seen a boost in system performance too, as well as fixing hundreds of bugs, many of which we never see or experience but I thank you for your patience and I'm please that things are improving and certainly are very stable!
    Meanwhile, IB Themes are busy getting the Halloween themes ready, which will brighten up the board again with an autumnal season feel - always the best time of the year to enjoy Millennium if you ask me!
    This is who we are.
  24. The Old Man
    We have recently applied a major software update to TIWWA, which has introduced many great new features and improvements both in terms of functionality and design.
    New features include a new responsive layout that works great on mobile and touch devices as it does on a PC. Smarter profiles for members with the ability to upload and reposition your own cover images. You can now mention a member in a post by typing an @ sign and as you type their name it will autocomplete for you. The person will be notified they've been mentioned (depending on how they have set their notification options), which is a great way to attract someone's attention to something that might interest them.
    We also have a brand new text editor, and now have the option to split up our smilies and emoticons into Categories and re-order them, which I'll be doing soon.
    A completely re-written software project will always mean some issues and bugs, but a lot of hard work is being done to identify and address them. One of the biggest issue we have was caused by the text converter part of the upgrade which converted the database to UTF-8 character sets to improve support for international language characters and symbols. It seems many of our older posts which contained links, have had those links modified unintentionally and which now cause the page they are on to reload. This has happened on many other websites, and the developers are looking into why and how to fix it.
    Many of you will be missing the Shoutbox, but this not an official add-on. It's made by a developer as a third party add-on, and there isn't currently a full release compatible with the new version of our software. We attempted to use a beta release candidate version but it was causing a massive spike in server resource usage taking us over 300-500% more than we are permitted on Shared Hosting, even with our recent move to a new web-host and more powerful server. Server usage remains high so we have reported this to the software developer to understand why and hopefully to prevent our account being suspended! There is now an alternative to Shoutbox, again a 3rd party app, which we can try out and which works the same, but I need to understand the high server use first.
    The next software release primarily focuses on stability with many bug fixes, not all of which we may be experiencing. Amongst other important fixes, it will address:
    Some reports of issues with insert/embed images into posts IPS are also working on big improvements to the Search system but, until those are ready, they have made two small changes to make search a bit more pleasant: date will be default sort order and words will be searched using AND logic rather than OR logic.
    This is a list of items in progress but not yet assigned to a specific scheduled release. Items here are are coming very soon: usually within a month or so. Check back often as we update our roadmap!
    Current estimated for this coming soon section: early September
    Gallery enhancementsUser interface improvements to make what already works more friendly for the end user Sorting/filtering improvements Easier moderation Content discoverySearch system overhaul View new content improvements Activity stream improvements Improvements to the followed content section to make it more useful Editor enhancements including native quote ability to remove annoyances dealing with quotes, we now use DIV rather than IFRAME mode for faster loading, and mobile experience is also greatly improved. Image proxy system so remotely linked images on SSL sites are routed through a local proxy to maintain a secure page.
  25. The Old Man
    It's been over 2 years in the making, but the next major software update to our community software suite is coming soon! V4 of our software has been completely rewritten from the ground up for faster performance, great new features, improvements and functionality, as well as a new, fully responsive theme design, meaning it will scale automatically to fit computers, mobile devices and tablets without needing a separate plain mobile theme for smaller display devices.

    There are a couple of important changes just to be aware of as Members.

    Firstly, our current software has the option for Members to have separate Log-In User Names and Display Names. The User Name is what you enter to log into the website (or you can choose to enter your email address), the Display Name is what appears on the community website and in your profile which can be changed if/when you like.

    V4 has done away with log-in names, so you just need to remember and to use your Display Name and TIWWA account password (or email address and TIWWA password) to log in to TIWWA after the community is upgraded.

    Secondly, the concept of Friends in your profiles has been replaced with Followers, to make the feature more useful and social. So if want to Follow say Libby, you can do that from Libby's profile as you would have done before. You can then opt to keep up to date by receiving email or online notifications when the people you follow add new content, follow someone else, add a video, post a status update etc.

    As some Members have lots of Friends, there is a consideration that those members may be receive too many Following Notifications, so when we upgrade the software we may opt not to convert Friends to Followers immediately as part of the upgrade process, in which case you can choose afterwards yourselves who to follow from new after the community has been updated. I'll give this some more thought to this but welcome any preferences from our Members.

    I'll keep you all posted on progress, for the moment I'm waiting for the majority of issues or bugs to be discovered and fixed before we upgrade, and also for compatible Shoutbox to be released.
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