It's time for another update!

One important thing to note first: you might need to do a full page refresh (Ctrl-F5) to see the new elements properly.

I'm happy to present you with a new update to the board: IOBoard v1.4.1! This upgrade adds some new features to the Stream, introduced officially last April, alongside some surpises.

New features and improvements:
- Posts and Stream: images can be uploaded next to messages
- Notification when someone adds you as a friend
- Posts that only contain an URL will automatically get the linked page's title
- Minor posts layout update
- Stream: edit/delete comments
- Stream: allow moderation from super moderators
- Fixed: Notifications on Stream comments now properly show who posted the original message
- Fixed: PM previews with quotes


As indicated above, it's now possible to attach images to posts and Stream notes! Some members here, especially those coming from social networks, don't have any easy way to display images or screenshots to illustrate their posts. This new feature takes care of that: you can post an image coming straight from your computer by using the options displayed right under the main posting box!

The Stream also supports the display of images. To do so, while on your (or someone else's!) Stream page, select the "Picture" tab and do your thing! Note that direct linking to these uploaded images from other sites is disabled. Sorry, but I don't have the ressources of a pro images host!

The next update is already underway under the codename "personalization". Stay tuned for more information!

After the madness of yesterday, as X himself would say, time to get serious.

Before I begin, a full report on this year's April Fools' Day event will be posted in another topic soon.

The most important of all: the Stream is back and now a permanent feature of the board. Quite a few of you apparently liked the idea last year, and after spending some serious time refining the concept, I'm happy to announce that it's here to stay! I'd like to thank all the willing beta testers from last year for their participation in helping me locate bugs. Now, you might want to ask what the real purpose of the Stream is. You can post on it, share items with friends, use it as a journal, track your board status, and more. For the full details, please see this topic when you can learn several tips & tricks on how to make the best of it.

One consequence from this new addition is the removal of the "Thought" option in member profiles. This short line of text, meant to be displayed next to all your posts, has been replaced by the Stream itself: your latest Stream thought, posted by yourself, will be shown next to your posts.

Next on the plate, the forums. Bad Box Art Mega Man, Katawa Shoujo and the ponies are obviously going away. However, the Anime & Manga area is here to stay. Many of you have posted about your favorite series in the past, and I'm sure that others would like to chat about the current releases, the past classics, and maybe get a few recommendations. Make the best use of it! Likewise, the Valve & Steam forum is still here. Steam as a platform is a huge thing, and many of us use it often (fun fact - did you know we have a Steam community?). Valve's games are included in this as they tend to have a deep integration with the platform. I'm not 100% convinced yet that you'll adopt this new forum, but I'll give it a chance and let you people run with it. Be sure to speak your mind if you want it to stay!

What you're now using, as it was already the case yesterday, is IOBoard v1.4. This new version brings several new features and upgrades, which are detailed below.

New features and improvements:
- Redesigned member profile display
- Stream!
- Board items!
- Option to disable modules
- Stream: like/dislike
- Stream: edit/delete thoughts
- Stream: view our own information more easily
- Thoughts moved as part of the Stream
- Improved display of the list of forum moderators
- After a login, return the user to the page he was viewing
- Display the pages counter at the bottom of a list of topics
- Parse posts properly when more than one YouTube movie is included
- Forums: when posting in a subforum, it's parent's last post information will be updated as well

Most obvious when browsing around is the redesigned member profile page. For an example, you can check on my own profile. The left column is dedicated to each person's information and contact networks, while the right column is all about the member's interation with the board. This makes each module much more visible, such as the list of Mega Man games owned & played and the Minecraft player info (if available). On all browsers excluding Internet Explorer, you also get a look at each person's in-game skin!

A new option, included in your user profile, allows you to disable the board modules that you're not interested in. If you're someone that has no interest in the Mega Man series, for example, you can check the "Mega Man" option and most of the pages and sections related to the series will vanish. Forums aren't affected by this: you always have access to all available forums, so you don't miss out of the posting going on. You can go back to that page later to uncheck any module that you suddendly want to pay attention in.


This update was done with a very precise deadline in mind (April 1st!), so this hasn't gone through my usual battery of tests. I did get to iron out several bugs and flaws on the Stream since last year as well as yesterday, but I'm sure that some tuning will be required here and there. Be sure to post here or in the IOBoard forum in case you have a problem, a suggestion, or simply a comment.

I've got some new key features on the drawing board for the next several weeks. This includes:
- More posting options on the Stream
- Improved notifications
- A way to personalize your posts and signatures much more easily
- A tool for you to post your pictures directly on the board, without having to upload them on another service first
- A surprise for our Minecraft players...

The move to v1.4 adds a whole new group of functionalities to the board. Some are well integrated, others have been showcased but serve little purpose at this point, while a few are still in the waiting room. This is your board to use: what features would YOU like to have? Is there some critical tool that you'd love to use? Something special that the Stream is missing? Would you like to be able to "Like" and "Dislike" specific posts and topics on the message board itself? Do you want fries with that? Speak up!

A new chatroom structure has been installed to replace the previous web chat. What's old is new again: we're going back to IRC!

First of all, let me quote the two main announcements. First, from the Mega Man PC Website:



Next, from the Creeper's Lab:




As you might have gathered from these messages, there are now two chatrooms, or IRC channels. The first one, #interordi is all-purposed for all topics, including Mega Man. The second, #interordi-mc is dedicated to Minecraft and links directly to the players in-game.

Some members commented that the integration between the board and the web chat was nice to have, and I have been able to keep this going to a degree. The usernames don't have to be the same between the two anymore, while the list of people connected is still available! You can see that at the bottom on the index, in the Who's Online section, or on the dedicated Who's Online page.

A new feature has been introduced today for Mega Man fans: the ability for you to go in your profile, check which Mega Man games you've played and now own, then compare your results with your friends!

For the details on how this works, please see the appropriate news post. The full list of games is accessible from the main menu's "Mega Man games option". For an example on how this works, see my profile or directly go to my own list of games.

Happy New Year!

Makeover!

After being asked from time to time for the past few years if I was going to change the look of the board, here's the answer: a brand new skin!

This new look is based on the future appearance of the Interordi.com domain, once I move forward with it's planned makeover. The goal of this operation is to offer a refreshing new look more in line with the future focus of the website. As I've said before, I'm working on an expansion to cover other topics beyond Mega Man, starting with Minecraft. The "all blue, all Mega Man" appearance might give newcomers the wrong impression on what this place is all about, now and in the future.

"omg wtf turn it off!!11"
Relax. Give this a serious try, I think you'll grow to like it very soon. Otherwise, this update also introduces a skin selector! You can go in your profile options and select the board appearance that you like the most. Some pages, however, will be tied to a specific skin and you don't have any control over that.

Four skins are currently available to choose from! The first and current one, Interordi.com, is made to match the main Interordi.com website and is a preview of the upcoming redesign. Your previous favorite blue theme returns as Mega Man, slightly updated from it's previous form. This April's Fools Day Facebook-lookalike is back for an encore under the IOSoBo name. White, blue and grey tones dominate it's look. Finally, the previously TJ-exclusive Hot Pink look makes a surprising appearance for those who have... specific color tastes.

Here's a preview of all four skins:




Some extra improvements are tagging along with this update.

New in this update:
- New skin: Interordi.com v6!
- Logos for specific forums on the index list
- Quick announcements displayed directly on the board's front page
- The Who's Online page will now display all online users, including in the chat and Minecraft
- No multiquote!

The board has gotten fairly large by now, and with four skins, it's entirely possible that I didn't check through everything properly. Additionally, I'll probably do some tweaking here and there in the coming days. If you notice anything not displaying properly, or want to suggest a change, send me a PM about it!

Pay attention, things have been changed around!

As I'm working on expanding the scope of Interordi.com, I've reorganized the forums to match current and future goals.

Most notably for long-time users, the five forums dedicated to the Mega Man series are now available as subforums under a single one called Mega Man Series. This helps to shorten the board's index by regrouping common topics together. This also means that the Mega Man Series forum is now a general-purpose area on the Mega Man universe, giving us a place to write the topics that don't only apply to a single series. Things like the future of the franchise, multi-series compilations such as the Mega Man Dual Pack and crossovers will be right at home!

This allows me to create an entirely new category named "Gaming", where the forums on Mega Man, Minecraft and other games will be regrouped. Wait, did I say Minecraft? Of course, as the new website is now live! For more information on the Creeper's Lab, see it's dedicated forum !

If for some reason you don't like this new structure, you can go into your profile and set the "Expand subforums" option to YES. That way, the entire list of forums will be displayed in full on the board's index.

In the coming weeks, a brand new forum skin will be introduced along with some new features. If you'd like to share some ideas, suggest something or give me some comments on all this, then by all means do so!

In order to support these changes, IOBoard has been updated to version v1.3.1. None of the changes are very obvious, as most of them are here to prepare the ground for future additions.

New and updated in this version:
- Improved the security of the forums
- Improved BBCode parsing (nested codes now allowed)
- Added "quote" and "edit" buttons for forums in the blog format
- Usability improvements

Here is a new IOBoard update full of improvements and new features! I attempted to modernize some sections of the software while providing some features you might have come to expect.

New in this version:
- Improved password and login security
- "Lost password" feature
- More network settings. Add your profile information for Facebook, Tumblr, Minecraft and more!
- The search engine now links directly to a post result instead of the topic's first page
- Search results can now be sorted by score, latest first, or oldest first
- The list of unread topics should no longer show your own posts if using multiple computers
- A member's online status is now displayed along his posts and on his profile
- Inactive and banned members will no longer be listed among the list of birthdays
- Description header for some forums, linking them to their matching website
- Replaced lists with checkboxes when appropriate
- Fixed post previews with quotes and spoilers
- Quick reply at the bottom of topics
- Preview the first post of a topic when putting the mouse cursor over it's name in a forum listing
- Fix: Foreign languages such as Japanese can now be included properly in posts
- Some performance improvements

One new element that you've probably seen already is the password update screen. A new password system has been introduced with better encryption. It also allowed me to add a "lost password" feature: if you can't remember your password, use this and you'll receive an e-mail with a reset code! If you haven't seen this page yet, please follow through to update your profile information! Also, I'd appreciate it if you could add your IOekaki profile information to your account. To do so, either do it during the password update or follow this link.

Another new element is a profile section for you to enter your network information. You can now specify in your profile your Facebook, Tumblr and Twitter accounts among others. I especially urge Minecraft and Steam players to enter their usernames there, so we can play with you!

Another update is already under preparations. While this one improved the board overall, the next update will be all about visual changes. A new skin will be introduced to refresh the look of our community! Stay tuned!

Edited by Dr. Cossack on October 23, 2011 at 1:03:09

The social platform and the Stream might have been decoys, but the board did receive some actual updates!

First of all, you might have noticed yesterday that the Private Messenger opened in the main browser window instead of a floating one. The PM system is back to it's previous state, but if you don't want the floating window, you can go into your profile and set the "Private Messenger in new window" value to NO. This is especially useful on some locked down computers that won't allow new windows to be opened, such as Internet kiosks. It also makes the PM system usable without any Javascript.

Next, a [video] BBCode object is now available. Using it is as simple as including the movie's URL within the tag. For example, entering [video*]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AVWX9oevTjg[/video*] without the asterisks will embed a video in your post. Only YouTube is supported for the time being, but you can request other sites to be added.

Obviously, the format of this forum changed. Instead of using the standard display, I'll keep it in the blog-like form. I think it works better to post short to medium updates, possibly more frequently where they can be easily seen. This new format is also closer to the announcements display on the oekaki board. You always have the ability to comment on these posts, of course.

Finally, the quick login was moved to the right of the main header, again closer in position to the oekaki board. I think it's a more logical location for this small, useful feature. Beyond that, small changes have been done here and there, but nothing too noticeable.

I'll be posting a bit later a topic on this April's Fools Day gag, which will be available in the Mega Man PC Website forum. Please hold your thoughts until then.

Much like the previous update allowing you to comment on the news, I've now added the ability for registered members to comment for the pictures of the FanArt Gallery. The comments on the gallery, as well as their related pictures, are now available in the new self-titled forum. As before, any posts done about the pictures will also be displayed on the website itself, under each picture.

This new option also works on the daily art piece featured on the front page. Some people requested this, and I hope you now make the best of it.

As you might have noticed, two new subforums have been added: one "News and updates" for each of the Mega Man PC Website's forum and ION Gamma's one. In these subforums, you'll find the list of updates that were posted on the two sites, giving you a chance to read them directly here. You're also able to speak up on each news item, your comments being carried over to be displayed on the matching site. Express yourself!

This also marks the introduction of the subforum feature. By default, you'll see them listed below the description of each forum. If you'd like to have them more visible, you can go in your profile and set the "Expand subforums" option to YES. That way, they'll be displayed on the main board index just like any other forum.

Coming soon: the ability to comment on the pictures of the FanArt Gallery!

I realized today that a long standing bug was preventing the e-mail subscriptions from being sent properly. Looking at the code, it's possible that this never worked properly for anyone but myself (!). The correction is now in place.

As a reminder, you can subscribe to a topic, such as this one, to be notified whenever new posts have been done between your board visits. The notifications are being sent out once a day. To add a topic to your notifications, simply click on the "Subscribe" link offered next to the topic's title, click the appropriate checkbox to select the e-mail notices, then hit the "Subscribe" button. You can remove these notifications from your user profile.

It started on Monday, and we're now on Friday. What happened?

I logged in at random on the site on Monday afternoon, and noticed that many sections were broken or looked odd. More importantly, entire folders worth of files were missing, and it even seemed like many others were being actively deleted! That calmed down, but then I took the boards down again some time later. So, what gives?

My web host decided some days ago to upgrade the server hosting this site, which included moving everything to a new hardware platform. You might notice that most pages now load faster than before. The catch is, the moving process didn't go too well. Some of you might have read my status update about a "dimensional rift". I was only half-kidding: starting on Monday, and still continuing today, there are actually two servers for Interordi.com! The old server, holding a copy of the site as it stood; and the new one, where I'm posting this. Because of various technical issues that I won't go into, some people still see the old server while others reach the new one directly. If you're reading this post, you're on the new server. In at least two cases, people have even been jumping back and forth between the two as the days went by. This could mean that, for example, you'd write a post on a copy of the message board, but it would end up on one of the servers only. As a result, many people couldn't see it or reply. Even worse, you might get the feeling that your post vanished, then came back from nowhere!!

Additionally, the server move broke some file system permissions, making entire sections of the website unavailable. ION Gamma was also affected. This has been fixed by my host's support team.

So, what now? This rift should settle itself in the next few days; already, things are more stable. I'm reopening the boards on the new server, so you can now go back to posting. However, based on my own estimates, about 25% of the visitors of Interordi.com still connect to the old server instead. Don't freak out if you notice that one of your friends hasn't logged in for days: he might be on the other side of the rift right now, but he should automatically come back with us soon. The older copies of the boards are locked, so no one will make posts that would just get lost.

If you're aware of anyone still stuck on the older server next Monday (the 29th), please tell them to send me an e-mail at doc_cossack@yahoo.ca (my off-network address). I wouldn't want to leave anyone behind!

If you have any questions, don't be afraid to ask in this topic.

After quite a while spent cooking in the oven, I'm happy to present to you IOBoard v1.2! Several new features are in, along with a bunch of bug fixes:

New in this version:
- Updated the search engine to match the IOekaki functionnality level
- Searching for a topic title (with no post content) will no longer return multiple entries
- Made checkbox descriptions clickable
- It's now possible to subscribe to a topic when creating it or replying to one
- Improved page location indicator (at the right of the forum logo)
- Skins support! A skin can be applied to any page individually as needed
- A member can now be assigned to several ranks at the same time
- Fixed the display of some stats in the dedicated stats page
- Forums now have the option not to be counted to determine a member's posts count
- Chat integration code was moved to a plugin
- RPG stats display was moved to a plugin and completely rewritten
- Fixed: the topic pages counter will no longer appear when there's only one page worth of posts
- Fixed: the memberlist will now remember the options set when navigating through the list
- Fixed: the Private Messenger feature to delete all messages

Some features, such as skins support, are available but not in use yet: I don't have any skins outside of the default one available! I'll create some new ones eventually and put them to good use.

With this update also comes the return of the RPG forum and the forum games! The two used to be available, but a large problem came from posting spam: some people would waste hours creating dummy RPGs or forum games just to raise their post count. The new forum, dedicated to both activities, goes around this problem thanks to a new feature of v1.2: the option to disable posts counting in a specific forum. This means that any new posts done in this forum won't count toward your total amount. The existing "An RPG" topic was moved to this new forum, and some people's count has gone way down as a result! More details are available in the new forum's introduction topic.

For any questions or comments, feel free to speak up!

As you might have seen in other forums already, I've updated the look of the pinned topics to make them stand out a bit more. A new bolt icon replaces the standard metool as an indicator of the status of the topic. An animated bolt indicates that the topic received new posts since you last checked on it, while a static bolt indicates that no new posts are available.

The custom bolt was created especially for this board by Tri-Edge. Thanks!

After a request from The Helldragon, and after considering the matter, I've decided to boost the maximum avatar picture size. From now on, you'll be able to use pictures up to 96x96 pixels.

The new size, just like the former 64x64, is a multiple of the standard icon format (which is 32x32). This also matches the double of a normal AIM avatar, which is set at 48x48. This allows you to reuse existing pictures without having them stretch oddly. The maximum filesize will remain at 50 KB, which should be plenty enough for anything normal. If you really come up with something which weights more, you should consider compressing your picture somehow.

The default remains at 64x64, and the stock avatars will also stick to that size. They'd look too pixelated if they were enlarged. Of course, nothing stops you from going in your profile to change that size if you so wish!

If you have any question, feel free to ask.