CN is moving to new forum software!

[Disciple of Nagash]

I am very pleased and excited to announce that after investigation and discussion with the True Bloods / Staff, that in the near future Carpe Noctem will be upgrading it's software to XenForo

I am sure many of you will have questions, hopefully the following will help answer many of your questions.


Why? What's wrong with our current software?
CN currently runs on software that is free, and as to be expected of free software, whilst it is good it certainly cannot match other software which has more funds put into its development.

CN has been going for so long now that it is time to upgrade to software that functions better not only from a user perspective, but from an admin / development point of view.

In addition, unseen to the members, CN is very difficult to maintain. Due to the various modifications over the years, it is time consuming to debug or upgrade versions. In short CN does need stripping down and rebuilding, and if we are going to do that, we may as well do it with better software.

Why XenForo?
XenForo is excellent piece of software, used by some really big forums (some having over 20 million posts!). As well as having many user friendly features (such as rich text editor, so you can use keyboard shortcuts like ctrl+b instead of tags), it is a vast improvement from an admin side.

Yes it does cost money for a license, but like many things, you get what you pay for.

But what about all our posts, points etc?
Happily XF comes with an importer specifically designed for our current software. Therefore all threads, posts, users etc can all be brought across. Think of it like moving home, all the furniture is coming with us And of course, our address of vampirecounts.net will remain the same.
Some items such as the points and medals will need to be redone and myself and the team will work on this.

Ok, so we won't loose any functions?
Some of the specialised functions, namely the Army List Creator and WFO system cannot be transferred. However these functions are hardly used and in truth need a better design to be useful. Therefore if members are interested we can look at reintroducing them in the future.

Will we get anything new?
Yes, and this is one of the key reasons why I am excited at the transfer. There are many excellent addons, including a gallery for members photos, chatroom, and lots of smaller ones, like members automatically being able to submit quotes to the generator from posts.

What CN's theme?
We have some designers who have confirmed they can port our design across. It will not be 100% the same, for example the grey scrolling / swirls around the forum sections will likely not be brought across. However as much will be maintained as possible.

So what do we need to do?
At the moment, very little. In the future when we come to move it will likely be requested that members just check and note things in their profile prior to moving (like points and medals).

If members want to, you are more than welcome to look through the various addons available here: LINK
If you see anything that you think would be good on CN, just post here and I'll have a look.

The other way that members can help if they wish is to donate. As said above, the licence does cost money, as do some of the addons. Whilst I will providing money of my own, I would certainly appreciate any donations, however small.

Members can donate at the following link via Paypal: Donate

How long will it take?
The next few weeks will just be testing on our testsite, to make sure there are no major issues.
After that I will update, I am hoping the transfer to be complete before Christmas.


As usual, any questions, please let me know.

Cheers

DoN

 

[Disciple of Nagash]

Just received your donation Darvy - thank you very much

 

[Count Darvaleth]

*tips hat*


... doesn't have a hat...

 

[Melle]

just make sure the erv: and emoticon stays, and im happy

 

[Disciple of Nagash]

Oh yes they will be coming, I wouldn't feel the same without erv:

 

[Melle]

for sure

 

[Bullhax]

This sounds awesome! Anything that makes life easier is very welcome! Looking forward to see the new house!

 

[Monkey's_Uncle]

That's great news DoN, I'm glad that you've got your personal life in order as well.
Real Life is demanding most of my time at the moment, and I know how frustrating it can be...

 

[Count Vashra]

Good. I suppose CN could be improved quite a bit, and we could all do with a refreshing change (waaaait a minute-vamps are the definition of conservative...). I won't be donating unfortunately (I like to keep my details nice and private) but it'll be good to get the upgrade. And if you can't get WFO (what does that even mean? Warhammer Fantasy Online maybe?) across, don't worry. Who uses it? Let's just hope the transfer is nice and quick, and we can keep most of what we already have.

 

[Therril]

I see XenForo has support for Tapatalk, that would be a very welcome addon (for me atleast) as it makes browsing on mobile devices so much easier.

 

[Disciple of Nagash]

I recieved your donation Therril, thank you, very much appreciated. I have given you the donater medal

 

[Duke Danse Macabre]

Just curious with the image gallery feature.
Does this mean all our pictures will go to here or can we still post them in threads much like our plogs?
Would be sad to lose them, so much forum based awesome.


Well far be it for me not to chip in to help with the new forum.
I'll send some funds across when I get home, it keeps asking me to add a code it texts to me to donate and the code does not arrive until it has timed out... Great job Paypal.

 

[Disciple of Nagash]

Sweeney Todd & Akiro27 - I received your donations. Again, thank you very much, it really is appreciated and I have granted your the Donater award.

I just want to say to all of you who have donated so far, I am touched by how many of you value CN. It really has helped and we are a good way towards covering the all the costs involved for the software, addons and theme.

We still have some to go however, so any further donations would be greatly appreciated.

DDM - The idea will be to have facebook style albums where people can keep all their pics in a nice handy place, and individual pics can be commented on. It will be a great feature for users to browse through and see various pics. I am hoping to put on a tag / category system, so members can for example look up loads of different pics of zombies.

That said I will also be looking for a feature like Photobucket with the easy copied url, so members can post specific pics they want to discuss in their plog. So hopefully that will be best of both worlds

And of course if you want to donate it will be more than welcome.

 

[Duke Danse Macabre]

Sweeney Todd & Akiro27 - I received your donations. Again, thank you very much, it really is appreciated and I have granted your the Donater award.

I just want to say to all of you who have donated so far, I am touched by how many of you value CN. It really has helped and we are a good way towards covering the all the costs involved for the software, addons and theme.

We still have some to go however, so any further donations would be greatly appreciated.

DDM - The idea will be to have facebook style albums where people can keep all their pics in a nice handy place, and individual pics can be commented on. It will be a great feature for users to browse through and see various pics. I am hoping to put on a tag / category system, so members can for example look up loads of different pics of zombies.

That said I will also be looking for a feature like Photobucket with the easy copied url, so members can post specific pics they want to discuss in their plog. So hopefully that will be best of both worlds

And of course if you want to donate it will be more than welcome.

Truth be told the pics being away from the threads will lead to people just looking through images and not the forums which I personally feel will hurt the activity of the boards and kill off all the plogs.

The most successful forums AKA, warseer and Dakka Dakka allow thread images but the worst ones like The Round Table has a Gallery which has lead to the forums going mostly dead.
I think we should at least retain both options.




And thats my Donation sent as well, did not recognize the work computers as trusted machines so Paypal gives me massive hassle.

 

[Disciple of Nagash]

Point taken - certainly the gallery is not mandatory and something that can be discussed, the last thing I want to do is to implement something that will result in less activity - perhaps we can find a middle ground.

I would also like to thank DDM and pat@debrock.net (very unusual username!) for their donations. Very much appreciated and I have granted you both the donater award.

 

[Disciple of Nagash]

Not sure if I have already mentioned it, but the software itself has been purchased is currently undergoing testing / evaluation etc.

Again a huge thank you to those who have donated

If anyone else still wants to donate, we still have other costs to cover including some of the addons and conversion of our theme to the new software. Again any donations would be really appreciated.

I'll update here again once I have some feedback on the testing.

 

[Disciple of Nagash]

So I am sure some of you are wondering what's happening with CN's new software.

Well fear not! In the background I am continuing to test various functions and so far it is looking very good. It is important to me that we bring across certain key functionality (example is our abbreviations function which isn't standard), plus I am testing all the new functions available.

Examples of new functions currently being tested:

Enhanced quoting - You can highlight any text in a quote and easily click a button to put it in your post, rather than having to select a full post and delete the text you don't want.
New User Map - Shows CN's members on a worldwide map, something we used to have and I am excited to have back!
Calender system - an interactive calender which shows upcoming events. It can be linked to threads so it is easy to see for example when roleplays start.

Plus loads more. Realistically we are looking at a little longer as I would rather make sure the new forum is fully functional than just rushing along. However I am sure you will all be pleased when you see the improvements.

As usual if there are any questions please let me know. Plus if you wish to donate please do so, all extra funds enable me to purchase bigger and better addons for CN

 

[Disciple of Nagash]

Another update for those who are following. I'm pleased to announce that a designer is currently working on transferring our existing theme to the new software, so things are definitely progressing very well.

 

[Corien Sumatris]

Yay!! Can't wait to see it DoN!

 

[Disciple of Nagash]

Some more feedback.

I have had the first review of the theme, and it is fantastic. It basically matches the style we have at the moment but builds on it, for example the text editor is fully integrated.

Even better the design if fully responsive, meaning if adapts and resizes to any size display, so we will no longer have the old boring mobile version.

 

[Count Vashra]

Enhanced quoting - You can highlight any text in a quote and easily click a button to put it in your post, rather than having to select a full post and delete the text you don't want.

This will speed quoting up. Great.

New User Map - Shows CN's members on a worldwide map, something we used to have and I am excited to have back!

I suppose it would be nice to know where we are coming from

Calender system - an interactive calender which shows upcoming events. It can be linked to threads so it is easy to see for example when roleplays start.

So would that be, once you have decided to start a roleplay and there is sufficient interest, you upload the starting date to a calendar? That would be excellent.

Plus loads more. Realistically we are looking at a little longer as I would rather make sure the new forum is fully functional than just rushing along. However I am sure you will all be pleased when you see the improvements.

As usual if there are any questions please let me know. Plus if you wish to donate please do so, all extra funds enable me to purchase bigger and better addons for CN

Overall interesting ideas. I like it!

 

[Disciple of Nagash]

So another further update, with some good and possibly not-so good news.

Starting with the not-so good, there may be a slight delay in the software change (as in a few weeks). The reason for this is that our software authors have just released a beta of a brand new version, which will shortly become an official version.

After thinking about it, I have decided it makes sense to coincide our changeover to this new version, as it is a major version and will need some tweaking. This means that I need to check the addons and theme to make sure it works with the latest version. However I don't anticipate any real problems.

The good news is that the new version has some great features, like enabling members to register with either their Facebook, Twitter or Google details, enhanced performance and some other addition functions. So in short it will be worth it.

Also I am very pleased to advise that I have also purchased and test a new chat system which works perfectly.

Further updates soon.

 

[TMS]

How is it shaping up, DoN?

 

[Disciple of Nagash]

So so at the moment MS.

The new version has had some updates some checking on them, plus a few new addons. On the plus side the theme looks fine, no issues that I can find. I am currently following up with the software developers to see when they will officially be releasing and supporting the new version (its currently in beta), which will hopefully be soon.

Right now, I am just testing the abbreviations tweaks and a few other things tonight.

 

[Therril]

Hey
Just wondering if there's been any thought given to add Tapatalk-support?