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Sep '08
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461 views Posted by: 8 Toes in: features at: 04:26AM
Our latest update is now live! We dubbed it our "Polish Update" as it mostly focuses on adding polish to existing features on the site.

Site Admin Updates
Every page of the Site Admin received some UI updates, to make them more clear and easier to use. The Races and Classes which was previously under the Settings tab got moved to its own tab, and each page was refactored to make better use of the side panel. We won't go through all the changes here, but the page which changed the most we want to cover in more detail: the Layout tab

Site Admin - Layout Tab
The Layout tab is where you add side and homepage blocks to your site, and it has grown quite a bit since we first launched, now containing more than 50 different blocks you can add. To make the UI more user friendly with all these new blocks we have grouped them up and added them to the side panel:



So while we have 7 different DKP side blocks, they are all grouped together and shown as simply DKP on the side panel. If you click the DKP block, you then get the option of which view you want to add:



And if a block has no extra options, it is simply added to your layout without showing the popup, making the Layout tab quicker and easier to work with =)

New Comments Block!
A new block is now available to be added to your site, the comments block! It will show by default the comments from all of your content (images, videos, journals, events, raids, raid items); *note: it will not show comments from guild applications or groups. You can also configure the comments block to only show comments for certain content (such as just images, or just videos).



New View for Images Side Block
The images side block now has a new view "Latest Images", which will show the last 5 images added to your site with thumbnails:



Improved Views for Videos Blocks
The videos blocks were updated to match the style of the new latest images block, and include small thumbnails of the videos



Instant, HTML emails
Previously our mail server only sent out mail once a minute, meaning if you did a password reset you had to wait up to a minute to receive it; and the email was in plain text. Email is now sent out instantly, and if your mail client supports it, it will come as an HTML email with some pretty formatting =)

Focus Improvements
We have gone through the site and made focus improvements everywhere we felt they would be helpful. For example when you click on "New Forum Thread", when the popup form is displayed, the subject field will now have focus so you can just start typing, rather then having to click it first. We have gone through all the popup forms and added focus to the first field you would type in, so this should make it a little quicker to use =) Some focus improvements were also added elsewhere on the site, for exampe after you shout in the shoutbox now, the focus is set back to the new shout field, so you can shout again if you like without having to click there first.

Popup Form Usability Improvements
Along with the focus improvements we have done some usability improvements to the popup form also. An example of this improvement is previously after you added a new forum thread the popup box at the bottom would say "New Thread Added; click here to add a new one or here to close"; generally this was un-necessary, after you add a new forum thread you typically do not want to add another one right away, and in most cases you want to check your forum thread to ensure it is correct, so after you add a forumthread now you are simply redirected to it.
Comments 5
Commented: Sep 10, 2008 @ 05:18AM
Great changes guys! One thing about the comments - with the forums and PMs there are easy mechanics to see new entries. While this box will also give that mechanic for most comment - I do miss group comments sometimes because there is no way to remind me.

I'm not saying I want the amount of detail as shown in the comment box, but it would be nice to have a "new comments" indicators on the homepage for groups & applications as well.
Commented: Sep 10, 2008 @ 05:41PM
Admin page looks sexy, thanks for the update :)

I too, would like some kind of indicator for new comments on guild applications.

And while I'm here:
-Visual indicator for new posts in a category and not just a thread.
-Non-modal posting boxes.
-No "reply" button on every post (and a subtler "quote" button to go along with it).


Commented: Sep 10, 2008 @ 06:02PM
Jeh Nazgum!
Commented: Sep 10, 2008 @ 10:23PM
Is there a way to restrict blocks from appearing on all the pages?
Commented: Sep 11, 2008 @ 05:48AM
Hi Jaycen,

An easy way to see comments for groups and guild applications will be coming, they are a little more difficult however due to the permissions required to view them =)

Accident,

You can remove the overlay with the custom css feature of the theme editor if you like =) Just add the following line to your theme's css:

#overlay { visibility: hidden; }

Jomondo,

Having different blocks and columns show on different pages is a feature we are working on and will be coming in the future =)
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