Getting started

The new layout (Kunena) is, I think, better. For a preview, have a look at the forum at www.kunena.com . I'm waiting for the next stable production release of the product, due within the next couple of days.

I'm sorry to be making another change to the default presentation of the message forum but, instead of opening the forum with a bland list of categories and have visitors scratch their heads in bewilderment wondering what we've been discussing, I've opted for showing the list of most recent discussions (in descending chronology).

I hope this approach makes it easier for newcomers get their bearings quicker and participate on the boards.

Cheers

sozz

The new forum software (Kunena) has been released! I'll be spending some time today testing it out and making sure that I'll be able to upgrade our existing [Fireboard] messages without any problems. Stay tuned ... I think it'll be a "breeze" however there aren't any guarantees in life.

*keeping his fingers crossed* :blink:

Updated 19-Feb-2009 11:49 AEDT:
The upgrade to Kunena has been performed. As far as I can tell, everything has worked

I like this upgrade - looks snazzy and easier to read.. : )

I thought I'd experiment with a different colour layout. The "red/brown" tones are probably not to everyone's tastes - it's really easy to go back to the "blue" theme - but I'd be interested in hearing what people think. If you've got some better ideas for colours, let me know.

Cheers :lol:

sozz

Hi. Just want to quickly comment that I really like the current layout. The tab for Recent Discussions is a winner. Thanks, Sozz.

George.

Thanks, George. I'm disappointed that the new [Kunena] forum doesn't have a "threaded view" choice like the old [Fireboard] forum had. The following information is from the Kunena discussion forum site ( www.kunena.com ):

The threaded view was VERY much broken ever since [Fireboard] 1.0.4.

It would destroy a sites search rankings and would break entire sites on large topics.

We have physically removed many parts of it. This needs a new write from the ground up. I fear its not as easy as uncommenting a few lines of code.

Sorry about that.

The threaded view idea is a good one - it's one of the things that attracted me to this message board format in the first place - and it's disappointing that it's not available at the present time (and doesn't look like it will be available for quite some time to come, according to the above information, either!).

In the meantime, the current "flat view" format is still quite usable but it might become difficult if discussions split into several different directions and we're not sure which messages we're responding to. In that case it's a good idea to use the "quote" feature (or mention the message number in your replies).

I've updated the templates for the main documents about the site: the site policy (which includes our Code of Conduct), privacy policy , and a couple of other documents about the site's origins. I think they have a more consistent and appealing look to them, don't you agree?

You may have noticed one or two new changes around the site lately. I've tried to highlight the frequently asked questions section by putting my "great white hunter" icon on the menu.

I've also added a couple of new avatars to the ones that came with Community Builder. If you go to My profile on the User Menu, then click Edit > Update Your Image you will see some new images you might like to use. If you have your own picture, you can upload it to the site (please note the conditions regarding uploading your own images).

Some of you might also have noticed that a few of our members have added details about their birthdays, their gender, special "signatures" and a few other things which can be displayed on our message boards. This information is not managed from the My profile link at left [User Menu]. You add/change the information by clicking My Profile at the top of the forum page; to change the information, click the My Profile Info link on that page. You can also change other things such as your favourite forum items.

As well as these changes, I've also added two new articles called:

• You may have to login first ; and
• Why should I join The Quoroom?

If there's anything more you'd like to know about these changes, please post your questions under this topic or on the Please help! message board.

I'm always looking at new ideas and features to get people involved in The Quoroom's activities. We get a huge number of visitors here, I mean there are lots of people who visit the site, thumb through the contributions to our message forum or look at what else we have on offer, and move on. That's a bit of a shame, but that's a fact of life.

For a very long time I've been thinking about how to create a connection between certain articles and the message forum. Let me try to explain. As you have probably figured, there's a lot of site content that was not created as topics of discussion on the message forum. For example, there are the FAQ items, the site information material, and a number of miscellaneous articles that I couldn't categorise. It may surprise you to know that registered users can also create this kind of material, however I haven't delved into writing the procedures because it's a lot more complicated than simply posting a message to a discussion forum.

That's only part of the background. The matter that I've been thinking about is how to connect these articles (or some of them, anyway) to the forum where they can be discussed, debated or where improvements can be suggested. The benefit is that people will be able to comment on long or "elaborate" articles and their will appear with the article. Additionally, no existing forum functionality will be affected. All of this is technically possible; making it easy to use has always been the challenge.

I think the main reason I was attracted to the technology I've used for The Quoroom (and why I shunned the "three-mouseclicks-and-you're-done, website-in-a-box" approach) is because of it's ongoing extensibility. However, enough of my "sales pitch" for Joomla!

Today I have added a new feature to The Quoroom: the means for people to discuss articles. As a test, I will be confining the discussion capability to just one article: Quoroom games .

***Try it ***