I notice the basic forum software has undergone a lot of change, a lot of them aren't so obvious as to their function. My other home, Major Geeks, uses the same software and has undergone the same transformations, mostly.

One of the items that has jumped out at me is the album in the profile area. I wonder if it is what I think it is? I've been using Photobucket to put pictures up here, the results are worth the hassle and look very good. Will the albums section in profiles do the same thing? If so what are the limitations in memory and sizes?

If it is what I think it is I love it. I've always felt vunerable using 2 separate websites to support my posts, but the end result was worth it.

Another thing is the bookmarks and tags at the end of each thread. What are they about?

I'm not sure I like the new profiles layout, but I'm probably in the minority, as a lot of people love the drop down tabs it now uses. The addition of features might change my mind on that too.

 

Opps, just found your announcement. Seems some reading is in order...

http://www.vbulletin.com/forum/showthread.php?t=268833

 

Thanks for the comments Bill.

The Albums section is exactly as you think it is - it is a place to store you pictures in collections (similar to how photo management software works). As long as these pictures conform to the forum rules then you are free to upload what you wish to your album (electronics, projects, personal interests) - it is up to the member how they use it (if at all) pretty much like the blogs. This can be used to support the attachments you use in forum posts. At the moment the conditions/restrictions are as follows:

- No upper limit to number of images or sizes (this may change depending on how the feature is used - we have an unlimited usage for attachments, and currently the attachment load for all members is just under 189MBs). This is manageable.
- Images can be titled/captioned - the title appears on hoover and is restricted to 150 characters.
- A maximum of 3 images can be uploaded at once.

This feature like all the new features will be reviewed as an ongoing assessment and if changes are made we will inform the wider forum community as appropriate.

The Bookmarks links are to allow people to bookmark a thread on the forums to one of the social bookmark websites (you can see the current list). The nature of the discussions here at AAC means that the topic is often of wider interest to Internet users and by providing this feature it makes it easy for people to link up and "socially network the content here" with there own communities - conversely it also helps AAC by making people aware of this project and the types of discussion that are ongoing in this community. These things are very popular on the net and it helps with the AAC principle of making it easy to share knowledge. Look on Wikipedia at Digg to see how these websites work.

Tags are to assist with search identification further to the features in the standard search tool. So for example you may post up a thread about PICs and programming them, but not explicitly state during your OP the word "programming" - this would omit this thread from any future search for the term "programming". Tags are a simple way of dumping a few useful search terms that are relevant to your topic. It doesn't have to be used, but the feature is there is users want to use it.

These features are all things we are having a play about with at the moment. I disabled the Visitor messages (I see MG hasn't done this thus far) for the risk that this feature may be abused as a mechanism for asking questions direct to members. There are other more appropriate channels (the forums and PM). Plus it minimises the amount of maintenance members would have to do on their profiles.

Dave

 

Opps, just found your announcement. Seems some reading is in order...

http://www.vbulletin.com/forum/showthread.php?t=268833

Much of the focus of that vB link is aimed at admins, however it should give you an overview of what is new.

Dave

 

They keep blocking my noisey self from where it probably doesn't belong...

Interesting reading none the less. I knew there had to be something like that out there.

Yes indeed, I WILL be using the album section. I suspect all the old hands will, it addresses the graphics comments perfectly.

I haven't been as active on the forums lately (can you tell? Probably not.) because of all the reading. Time to get back to SubML.

 

They keep blocking my noisey self from where it probably doesn't belong...

Interesting reading none the less. I knew there had to be something like that out there.

There is a lot in this release and it will take a while for it to settle down here at AAC where we get it working just as we want. I have the thankless job of redoing the FAQ in the coming weeks.

Yes indeed, I WILL be using the album section. I suspect all the old hands will, it addresses the graphics comments perfectly.

Good, hope you like it. It should help where people use Photobucket etc for larger images, where they can now have local albums for circuits etc. The attachments faeture is still available for those who are used to it. I intend to have a good play around with it soon. If you learn any tricks let us know.

Dave