Posted October 13, 201014 yr You may have noticed the site looks very different to how you remember it– it is! We have upgraded the site in order to fix some issues that were causing problems including the issue which resulted in the recent downtime as well as aiming to provide members with new and exciting features. The management team understands some members were concerned their account was suspended as suggested by the message displayed when attempting to access the site over the last few days. I can assure you this is not the case; it was a server issue which has now been resolved. With the upgrade comes a fresh new design with many new features and enhancements which we are sure you will enjoy and wonder how you lived without! New and updated features include (but are not limited to): Revamped and improved search system A completely revamped search engine, making it easier to find content within our site. It's now easier to search individual applications, and each application has custom filters available to find precisely the material you're looking for. There's also a brand new contextual search box in all pages in the site header. You can specify which type of content to find, and search inside individual topics or forums easily. All new centralised notifications Available is a brand new centralized notifications system. Notifications have been available in the past for several events (topic subscriptions, etc.), but they used unrelated generation systems. The new notifications system provides consistent, central management of notifications, as well as several new events that can send notifications (such as 'someone quoted my post'). Notification options are now managed in a single interface in your member User Control Panel. All new Status Updates system We have introduced a status update system. Members can update other members on what they're doing right now. Updates appear in that member's profile, in a section called 'a block' on the site homepage, and in the new Status feed. Plus, status updates can now be replied to and there's Twitter and Facebook integration. What's more, status updates made by members can be posted to Twitter and/or Facebook - and their updates from those sites posted to our site. (We plan to further such integration at a later date) All new content sharing tools Another new feature is the brand new content sharing tools, letting members share community content across the internet. There is now support for all the major social networking and new aggregation services, and with Facebook and Twitter members don't even need to leave our site (other options open a new window instead). Also included is a new sidebar block which shows the most shared content in our site which can be found on the site homepage. (This feature will be enabled shortly) All new topic preview feature Click the new topic preview icon in the topic listing or search results views, and see the first and latest posts without leaving the page – a major timesaver! Changes to user profiles Many changes have occurred here including an updated look, comments and activity overview system as well as the introduction of a "mini profile popup" – Look for a small square with an arrow (which is just about everywhere a member name appears), it can be clicked for a handy mini-profile popup. Send a PM, check reputation or find user content - without needing to leave the current page. We also plan later on to allow every user to customise their profile page by selecting a background colour or background image, with tiling options. Alternatively, we will allow members to make use of Twitter and/or Facebook integration so members can choose to automatically import their profile customizations from those sites - and keep them synced. All new reputation system Members can rate posts up or down, earning the author of that post reputation points. Members can earn badges and titles for having a good reputation, encouraging high quality posts across the board, thus providing everyone with better information! All new private messaging system We introduce the all new personal conversation message system. Personal conversations allow members to send messages directly to other members, out of public view, in a topic format. Other members can be invited to existing conversations - or remove themselves, if they so desire. All new "New Content" search system New topics and messages posted since your last visit can be easily found via a handy link available on every single page. Content shown can be everything you have not read before, or just that content posted since your last visit. Try it now! Click here! Full iPhone compatibility If you own an iPhone and you visit you will find our site will transform itself into an iPhone friendly version! Give it a shot – visit forums.budgiebreeders.asn.au on your iPhone today! *Above wording adapted from the IP Services Inc website I have only touched on a few new features that members can take advantage of. We will be considering other features in the future such as a live shout box and a full size photo gallery with member account integration plus other exciting features. Please be patient with staff as we settle into the new site. As you can already see there have been many extensive changes to the way our site looks and operates. Some issues you many encounter may take a short while longer than usual to rectify while we are still adjusting to the new systems in place. Over the coming weeks new features will be enabled with all aspects of the site receiving finetuning as some areas are not finalised as of yet . We are also planning to slowly update the design with new graphics and colours during this time. If you find any errors, please report them to an Administrator who will look into your issue as soon as possible. I'll also add if you have any trouble of any kind, feel lost or have any enquires, myself and the rest of the management team will be more than happy to assist! You can find the team here. For best results when viewing our site, please ensure you are running a popular web browser (example – Internet Explorer or Firefox) and that it is the latest version. It must be also mentioned that unfortunately some previous add on features that were available to members were needed to be removed. We apologise if this has caused any inconvenience. I would also like to advise all members that our domain name has been renewed as of this week, so we are not leaving anytime soon! Note: If you wish to be notified you have private messages via a visual popup alert much like how it was done previously, you must enable the alert by navigating to My Settings (top right corner of any page) > Notification Options > Notification Preferences > Show popup when I receive a new inline notification. We hope you enjoy the new look site! Feel free to discuss anything regarding the new design by clicking here.
