Post by Nightmare on Apr 15, 2013 23:04:30 GMT -5
Hello everyone! As I'm sure you all know, we've upgraded to Proboards V5. We kind of made a big deal about it. You probably have noticed a number of changes, some more drastic than others. The forum understandably looks familiar enough to make you feel comfortable but probably is different enough to be confusing as well. So allow me to walk you through some of the key differences!
NOTE: If you wanna skip the big, in-depth explanation, you should skip to the end and take a look at the "Highlights" at least, which should cover all the most important things.
Navigation
Posting
Profiles
Highlights
Q: Why is the chat room gone!?
A: The chat room is still there I promise. There should be a button up top beneath the banner. Give that a click and it'll shoot you right to the chat.
Q: I'm staff and my rank says I'm a normal member! Did I get demoted!?
A: Probably not. What I mean is, go to your profile and click on the "Settings" tab. There should be a field that says "Display Group." Here you can choose which group you display on your profile. This does not effect what powers you have-- So long as you're in your respective Staff Member group you have the privileges that come with them, regardless of what you display on your profile. Some non-staff members may be in groups too, check it out!
Q: What's the deal with the skins?
A: Skins (now called "Themes" in V5) are found in the "Settings" tab of your profile. These allow you to customize the appearance of ZV to your liking! Sort of, you have 5 to pick from. Due to their poorly made appearances, with V5 we opted to discontinue the ZV Part 2, Sonic, and Metroid themes. If you for some reason used any of those, I'm sorry. All the other themes have carried over though, and we've added a sexy new theme, "Zero Virus V5." This theme utilizes the full Proboards V5 experience, and using it should help you to appreciate how much work it was to recode parts of the forum to preserve the old themes!
Q: Do polls finally work?
A: Yes, I'm pleased to report that polls do work on all browsers in V5!
Q: There's no button for it anymore: How do I make Running Toast?
A: The <move></move> code should still work, you just have to type it now.
Q: How come the <youtube></youtube> tags don't work anymore...?
A: Because they've been replaced with <video></video> tags! Click the Video button in the new post screen to see that you can now embed direct links to videos, as well as videos from Youtube, Facebook, College Humor, and much much more!
Q: Can I still Like posts?
A: Yup! There's a "Like" button at the top of your posts, next to the edit button! And who likes your post is now displayed at the top of your post next to the post time rather than at the bottom.
Q: Is there anything else I should know?
A: Sure! Give our new Videos board a look! It's in Fan Stuff, and great if you like making videos or have any questions to our members that do!
**Note: All <>'s in code should be typed as []'s
NOTE: If you wanna skip the big, in-depth explanation, you should skip to the end and take a look at the "Highlights" at least, which should cover all the most important things.
Navigation
What changes has there been to the navigation?
Very good question! There's not much to say here though, so let me just walk you through the key differences.
Very good question! There's not much to say here though, so let me just walk you through the key differences.
- Navigation Tree: You'll notice at the top of the forum there's a nice little Navigation Tree that's vastly improved on the old one. This makes jumping all over the forum way easier! I recommend hovering over it and checking it out.
- Blog: You'll notice up top just below the banner the "Blog" button. This nifty little thing includes the most recently updated threads, a calendar, and a newsfeed for the most recently posted announcements! Pretty nifty!
- Chat: You'll also notice the chat board is gone! Don't worry, it's been moved to a nice little button up above, under the banner and between "Blog" and "Search". It's a mibbit-based one but that's just because we couldn't fix the old one yet, it should work perfectly though.
- Members: The member search has been improved and moved! It's now a button as well up top by the calendar. It makes digging around looking up member profiles way easier, definitely worth trying at least once!
- Messages: If you're using the new V5 skin, you'll notice a glaring lack of a message center. Don't worry, you can still access your inbox via this nifty little button located between "Members" and "Profile" up top!
Posting
How is posting different?
There's no button for it anymore, how do I preview my posts?
I don't see code for marquees anymore... Is this the end of the Running Toast?
A noteworthy concern, but no cause for alarm! <move></move> still exists, even if there's no button for it! You'll merely have to dedicate it to memory.
Is there even a point in adding polls in proboards?
The compose post/create thread interface is one of the things that's changed a lot between V5 and the ZV you all know and love, as I'm sure you noticed if you've bothered to use anything but the quick reply feature. For the most part though the code and features are identical, and it's just a matter of getting used to the new look.
This little guy now hides the color chooser, which is more powerful than ever.
This button displays all the smileys, of which there are many, many more now!
This button allows you to embed all kinds of video types beyond just YouTube.
This button allows you to create a url to a member's profile.
This guy activated the spoiler tags you're reading this from!
There are additional options being hidden by this guy in the top-right corner.
There's no button for it anymore, how do I preview my posts?
A very good question! We couldn't figure that out either at first. At the bottom of your post, you should see two little tabs, "Visual" and "BBCode."
BBCode is the forum code you're writing your post in. By clicking the "Visual" tab you can see how the code would be rendered after you post. this takes the place of the preview button, and is generally far more useful!
BBCode is the forum code you're writing your post in. By clicking the "Visual" tab you can see how the code would be rendered after you post. this takes the place of the preview button, and is generally far more useful!
I don't see code for marquees anymore... Is this the end of the Running Toast?
A noteworthy concern, but no cause for alarm! <move></move> still exists, even if there's no button for it! You'll merely have to dedicate it to memory.
Is there even a point in adding polls in proboards?
We were all pleased to find while testing that polls work in all of our browsers now! Huzzah! Make and vote on as many polls as you like!
Profiles
Sweet lord! What happened to my profile!?
How do I modify my profile?
My initial reactions exactly! Proboards has changed the profile system a lot in V5, you'll immediately notice it's nothing like how it used to be. There are numerous other functions and several sections added to the user profiles now. Allow me to walk you through them a bit...
- Summary: This section is your basic profile page. For the most part it displays everything one would need to see when clicking on your profile, such as your name, rank, avatar, signature, followers, e-mail, etc.
- Activity: For all those stalkers out there, this is a Godsend. This allows you to keep track of what a member has been up to, right down to avatar modifications.
- Following: This is a notification list telling you what members you've been following have been up to. Others can see this list as well!
- Friends: When two members follow each other, they become listed as friends! It's a kind of silly system and is mostly just for cosmetics.
- Groups: The member group system has upgraded a lot in V5, now members can be in multiple groups at once. This tab displays them! I personally am in both the Administrator Group alongside Xero, and the Staff Member group tied together with the rest of our staff! Many of you won't be a part of any special groups though, but that's okay.
- Notifications: This tab shows you information you may find interesting, such as the additions of new followers and alerts to new messages!
- Awards: This tab shows off Carnival Badges you've won! Awards are unique and usually one-time giveaways, so if you have any you should be honored!
How do I modify my profile?
This unfortunately has also gotten more complicated with V5. I'd be glad to try and walk you through that as well though! Start off by clicking the "Modify Profile" button in the upper-right corner of the Summary tab.
- Avatar: This one is pretty self-explanatory! You can upload and set up your avatar here. Proboards has a new feature though, that being an avatar creator! So if you're feeling particularly lazy, or are sick of the "No Avatar" image, give that a try!
- Personal: Here you can change the more uhh, well personal aspects of your profile! Your display name, gender, location, website, signature, and even a nice little "About Me" paragraph! These are all shown in your profile's "Summary" tab.
- Social: This tab lets you manage your social media stuff. You can display your e-mail, Skype Contact, Facebook or Twitter pages, all that fun stuff!
- Settings: This is where the fun stuff happens! In addition to some of the usual mundane features, here you can select your skin to change the forum's display (we now have 5 since we removed Sonic, Metroid, and ZV Part 2, and have added a new skin for V5: Zero Virus Classic, ZV Mk.III, Zero Virus V5, Xero Virus, and NMMZV) You can also customize which of your member groups displays on your profile (should you be a part of multiple member groups.) There's also a nice new feature that allows you to insert BBCode into your posts by default, so if you liked typing in red for example, you can have that code waiting for you every time you reply to a new post!
- Privacy: This section is more or less just a formality, allowing you to set who can see what on your profile!
- Notifications: This is a series of checkboxes allowing you to arrange what kinds of things will appear in your Notifications tab on your profile! So uncheck anything that you don't care about and enjoy!
- Staff Options: For those of you on ZV's staff, this has nice little modifications such as custom titles, warnings, and member group modifications!
- Badges: Some of you may see this tab. It's entirely useless, unfortunately. It's to make use of a very unintuitive paid Proboards feature that we've all collectively decided to ignore, so you should too!
Highlights
Q: Why is the chat room gone!?
A: The chat room is still there I promise. There should be a button up top beneath the banner. Give that a click and it'll shoot you right to the chat.
Q: I'm staff and my rank says I'm a normal member! Did I get demoted!?
A: Probably not. What I mean is, go to your profile and click on the "Settings" tab. There should be a field that says "Display Group." Here you can choose which group you display on your profile. This does not effect what powers you have-- So long as you're in your respective Staff Member group you have the privileges that come with them, regardless of what you display on your profile. Some non-staff members may be in groups too, check it out!
Q: What's the deal with the skins?
A: Skins (now called "Themes" in V5) are found in the "Settings" tab of your profile. These allow you to customize the appearance of ZV to your liking! Sort of, you have 5 to pick from. Due to their poorly made appearances, with V5 we opted to discontinue the ZV Part 2, Sonic, and Metroid themes. If you for some reason used any of those, I'm sorry. All the other themes have carried over though, and we've added a sexy new theme, "Zero Virus V5." This theme utilizes the full Proboards V5 experience, and using it should help you to appreciate how much work it was to recode parts of the forum to preserve the old themes!
Q: Do polls finally work?
A: Yes, I'm pleased to report that polls do work on all browsers in V5!
Q: There's no button for it anymore: How do I make Running Toast?
A: The <move></move> code should still work, you just have to type it now.
Q: How come the <youtube></youtube> tags don't work anymore...?
A: Because they've been replaced with <video></video> tags! Click the Video button in the new post screen to see that you can now embed direct links to videos, as well as videos from Youtube, Facebook, College Humor, and much much more!
Q: Can I still Like posts?
A: Yup! There's a "Like" button at the top of your posts, next to the edit button! And who likes your post is now displayed at the top of your post next to the post time rather than at the bottom.
Q: Is there anything else I should know?
A: Sure! Give our new Videos board a look! It's in Fan Stuff, and great if you like making videos or have any questions to our members that do!
**Note: All <>'s in code should be typed as []'s
