Your New FISD: How to make the Most of the forum upgrades

[ZeroRoom[TK]]

Hi everyone,

 

I thought I'd take a moment to address the new forum upgrades and help everyone get the most out of the new look of the FISD.

 

Firstly let me say that the upgrade path is always fraught with surprises and a learning curve, so while we have done our best to stay on top of any glitches or bugs as more and more people start using it who knows what new issues might be discovered buried deep in the bowels of the Death Star, so feel free to post any oddities you may experience here.

 

Ok - onto the important stuff!

 

First Things First

The first thing everyone should do is check to make sure they are using the FISD2011.2 skin. You will find the 'Change Skin' button at the bottom of the page. It is set to default currently but if, during the problems last week, you manually changed your settings to the IP.Board default skin you may still have that interface appear when you log in. It might also help to empty your cache after choosing the new skin and hit refresh. This will ensure all the new features and skin changes will load exactly as they were designed to without interference from legacy code sitting in your browser cache.

 

Your Settings

The next thing to do is check your settings under your personal profile page. Some setting have been changed or reverted to default following the forum software upgrade. One thing you will notice is you may have lost your profile pic. This is because IPB has merged the 'Avatar' and 'profile pic' functions into one - meaning that if you had a profile pic uploaded but not an avatar it will have disappeared. Re-upload your personal image using the Avatar function.

 

Then check your notification settings. Some users have reported the notification emails on watched topics aren't currently working. Go to My Settings > Notification Options and ensure that all the check boxes for your chosen notification methods are checked. We advise checking 'Auto follow topics I reply to' if you like to receive notifications of topics you are watching.

To be absolutely sure, once you have reset your settings reply to a topic and check that it is working.

 

Topic Viewing

Some people have reported also that topics are linking to the top of every topic rather than to the last post you had viewed. It is always best to use the Last Post time and date link to go straight to new posts, however one of the reasons this may have changed is that The IPB software is now using updated JavaScript functions. Ensure that using the latest version of your browser as the new forum software is 'forward facing' and may be in advance of some older browsers capabilities.

 

Posting and Text Editor

The new WYSIWYG editor is great for quick and easy post editing on the fly. However for those that prefer the old school BBCode editing methods simply switch modes using the 'lightswitch' icon in the top left corner of your editing toolbar. This will give you a fully BBC functional entry box that will return to WYSIWYG when the switch is pressed again. You will now see your BbCode edits in final post mode.

The previous 'Insert Link' function allowed both URL input along with hotline shortcut text. The current WYSIWYG editor only allows URL links like this:

http://forum.whitear...?showtopic=9510

 

This is an issue at the base code of Invision's new upgrades. Switching to BBC mode will allow you to write a link shortcut code for your posts so you can have it appear like this.

 

The BB code for this would look like this :

 

url="http://forum.whitearmor.net/index.php?showtopic=15566"]YOUR TEXT GOES HERE[/url

 

Except you should be sure to put a square bracket "[" at the beginning and end of your code. I've left them off because otherwise the post will do exactly what I'm trying to demonstrate and just show you the shortcut!

 

Attachments

When posting pics it is always better to post your images to a hosting site like Flickr or Photobucket and provide an link in your post. Attachment uploads are limited to very small sizes to keep from bottlenecking the server and ensure a free flowing FISD (alliteration award - me ). You will find the photo link button in the editing tools and there are is a good post Mason wrote a little while back here. that covers the subject.

 

OK - apologies for the lengthy post but here endeth the lesson. This should get most of you on the road to the smooth FISD experience we all know and love but feel free to PM me o post up any other undiscovered glitches you may stumble across. If I can help you make it work I will and if it's something that needs fixing - I'll fix it!

 

Over and Out

 

ZeroRoom (Lucas)

[ZeroRoom[TK]]

Bump to make sure no one misses this

[stevechewbacca[501st]]

thanks for this help Lucas

[JKCHEN]

awesome Job!!!Thank you,Lucas~

[Sparrow]

Thanks!

[emerald89]

Thanks a lot

[Dizzydevil105]

very good knowledge thanks for sharing