UPDATE - Forums, Java.Net and such

Holy cow! An update! Will wonders never cease…

So, there has been a static “COMING SOON!” message on the front of the Java.Net site for 2 months. It was not changed due to a lack of wanting to get the update in the can but, rather, just swamped. So here’s a quick update.

Forums:

I have the new forums up and running on a new server. I have been testing the boards, making sure all of the data ported over correctly and so on. Here are some teaser shots for you:

Top page menus. The title bar will show your avatar when logged in and the first 2 links under your personal stats by the avatar will be:

• LAST POSTS SINCE VISIT
• REPLIES TO YOUR POSTS

W00T! Only been asking for this for 2 years

Same stat center but now names will be colored by activity and additional stats will be there. Oh, an there is an active community calendar that will be used by the mods.

Just a shot of the screen layout and purdy buttons.

I really think that this forum software addresses 90% of the issues that have been brought up to us over the past 2 1/2 years since the move off of Discus. Some other features are a comprehensive search that defaults to the MAXIMUM days instead of 7, is database driven instead of flat files, and features too numerous to mention.

Now, here’s the big news…

We are going to turn over the forums to you, the community, for maintenance and moderating. We just don’t have the bandwidth to be as active as we used to and feel that you would be better served if you had more control. Anyone who is interested in moderating and/or administering the site, send me an IM.

Java.Net/games:

Much like the forums, we are overhauling it and are looking for community members to contribute to the content. We are looking for:

• Projects and descriptions
• Case studies
• Hints, tricks, tips
• Developer spotlights

You get the picture. Send all items to Athomas. his e-mail is under his avatar on these forums.

Well, that’s it for now. We will be back before the break to let you know the progress.

As always, we thank everyone in this community for their participation and suggestions.

Cheers!

-ChrisM

:o :o :o

DEATH TO THE SPAMBOTS! ;D

Great!

[quote]I have been testing the boards, making sure all of the data ported over correctly and so on.
[/quote]
/me applauds

I know it’s very confusing for new people, but this time, let’s see if the Newless Cluebies can manage not to lose themselves on the way over ;D.

I expect they will accidentally end up on the BlitzMax forums

Cas

Hurrah!

Yay! But how will Matzo cope with not needing to wring the spammers’ pants anymore?

I’ll survive - if not I can just create shadow accounts which post random semi spam stuff every now and then :

Great ChrisM been looking forward to this.

But there is no email to Athomas

[quote]Great ChrisM been looking forward to this.

But there is no email to Athomas
[/quote]
Athomas dot Goldberg at sun dot com
Chris dot Melissinos at sun dot com

Thanks!

-ChrisM

I may have missed it but what forum systems have you ended up using? and is there any time frame on the actual change over?

Dan.

Well…we actually wound up moving over to the Simple Machines forums. It was the only way to get a clean migration of the data so nothing was lost. The SMF is a pretty new package and it incorporates most of the functions from many popular packages, offers a high degree of customization, and is fast.

The anticipated timeframe to move over to the new forums is before the end of this month.

-ChrisM

[quote]Well…we actually wound up moving over to the Simple Machines forums.
[/quote]
Some highlights of their features list. There’s some good stuff in there (stuff I couldn’t find anywhere last time I was looking for forum software…)

General

* Advanced permission and user management.
* Tracking of new and old unread topics, not just from your last visit.
* Multi-media output. (XHTML, XML, RSS, WAP)

Security

* Administrative actions require the user's password (and do not rely solely on cookies.)

Forum Settings

* Ability to display page creation time and query count per page.
* Word censoring, either full word or partial.

Boards and Categories

* Group boards into collapsable categories.
* Reorder boards within categories, or reorder categories.
* Create child boards under other boards. (sub boards)
* Assign moderators to boards.
* Allow certain membergroups to access a board, including guests only.
* Configure permissions for each membergroup on the board level.
* Ability to indicate new posts to child boards but nothing new in parent.

Member Registration

* Require email authentication by sending an authentication link.

Member Tracking and Tracing

* Show all (error) messages and IPs made by a member. (track user)
* Show all (error) messages from an IP address or range. (track IP)
* See who's doing what (accessible by permission.)

News and Announcements

* Ability to create announcement boards (members receive a notification of topics automatically.)
* Show a news ticker or news fader.

Communication

* Ability to send a topic to a friend.
* Ability to view a "printer friendly" version of topics.

Membergroups

* Create membergroups to group members on permissions, access rights, and/or appearance.
* Assign several membergroups to a single member, with one membergroup as the primary group.
* Define membergroups that are auto-assigned based on the amount of posts a user has.
* Determine which membergroups are allowed to access a board.

Banning

* Ban members based on their username, email address, IP address or hostname.
* Chose between full ban, 'no post' ban, or registration ban.
* Include an expiration time for bans.

External integration

* Integrate parts of forum software into existing website using SSI or PHP.
      o Recent topics or posts.
      o Recent news posts in a board.
      o Recent polls.
      o Several forum statistics.
      o List of users online.
      o The menu bar.
      o News.
      o Search.
      o Login/logout.
      o Today's events/birthdays/holidays.
* Export forum data using XML/RSS
      o Latest members.
      o News.
      o Recent posts.

Wireless access

* Support for WAP, WAP2 and I-mode protocols.

Posting Features

* Quick Reply
* 'Insert Quote' feature on posting screen to quickly quote previous replies.

Polls

* Can be added or removed to existing topics.
* Polls can have up to 256 options.

Attachments

* Allowed on a per member group or board basis.
* The filename can be encrypted to increase the security (so you can upload .php files, etc.)
* Images can be embedded into posts.

Calendar Support

* Link an existing topic to the calendar.
* Events can span multiple days.

Moderation Tools

* Ability to lock and unlock a topic.
* Ability to allow members to use moderation on just topics they posted.
* "Report to moderator" link.
* Ability to Merge/Split topics.
* Recycle bin/board for all deleted topics and posts.
* Moderation log which shows moderation activity and disallows log removal outside of 1 day.

User Resources

* Show new replies to your posts.
* Ability to view most recent messages.
* List all topics that have new replies since your last visit.
* See who is browsing the same boards or topics as you.
* Topics that span multiple pages have the page numbers listed as well as an "all" link.

Thanks Blah

-Chris

Cheers,

It sounds like it is going to be good, I can’t wait

Will we have to re-register or will we just be able to log on with our current details?

Dan.

edit: bad typing

[quote]Cheers,

It sounds like it is going to be good, I can’t wait

Will we have to re-register or will we just be able to log on with our current details?

Dan.

edit: bad typing
[/quote]
Everything will move over. No need to re-register. Also, all profile info, settings, etc. will be in tact.

-Chris

Great news!

One question for Chris: What have you been doing with JGO in the last year as information purposes? This is not an attack or negative question.

Thanks!

Phew. For a while there, I thought my greatest achievement to date (3000 posts in this forum 8)) would be a short-lived celebration indeed…

;D

EDIT: damn you, Cas!

EDIT2: /me wonders if he should “get out more”

Well, that’s great for JGO

Chman

I’d like to start featuring monthly developer and project spotlights on the Java Games Community homepage. If you would like to be included or have your project included (whether or not it is hosted on java.net) please send either:

For Developer Spotlight:

headshot (64x80) GIF or JPEG
Bio 500 words or less, may include links

For Project Spotlight:

Project logo (64 x 80) GIF or JPEG
Description: 500 words or less
link to project homepage

Depending on how many we have, I will begin rotating them on either a bi-weekly or monthly basis.

We are also looking for articles as well as tips and tricks related to Java Game Development. If there is anything you’d like to share with the community on the front page of the site, please send it to us.

Please send all submissions to me at:

athomas (dot) goldberg (at) sun (dot) com

NEW UPDATE -

Ok, I will be putting these forums into maintenance mode for a few hours today to do a new backup. The server is up, stable and the new features work great! That’s the good news.

The bad news is that the dmoain switching will not happen as rapidly as I would have liked and that puts us into the holiday break for Sun. The issue here is that the new forums will not go live until the first part of Jan.

But, new year, new forums…oh well

Lastly, the new front page should be up by that time as well. Please make sure you are getting your information to Athomas for publication on the front page and if anyone else is interested in moderating, let me know.

Will let you all know how things are progressing.

Thanks for your continued support!

-ChrisM