Welcome back everyone! The last month of downtime might have been painful for some, but it was absolutely required at this point. The former XMB board hadn't been updated beyond some security patches for years, and it was screaming for attention. Instead of simply updating to the latest version, I decided to take another route: a custom system called IOBoard! This is the seventh board to be used for the Mega Man PC Website and Interordi.com, and it will most probably be the last: now that I've come up with my own system, I'll keep on updating it instead of switching again.

IOBoard has been completely coded by myself, from beginning to end. As you might notice, it shares some details with IOekaki: I reused a few components, improved others, and did most of the coding from the ground up. The end result is what you're staring at. Coding a complete message board system is no simple task, and this one has been keeping me busy for the last several months. In fact, coding started late last Summer (in 2005) to be completed today. I used the last month of downtime to add a few extra features, redo the set of graphics, move over the old data and test it to be sure that it was up to the challenge. This is the first time that I have the chance to do a smooth transition between two boards: the data was similar enough that it could be moved over with little problems.

I'd like to take this occasion to thank Breakman, HollowTorment and Unknown_Entity. They've been working with me in the last two weeks by testing the new board before the official opening. They've helped me with finding several problems, including some that they didn't even notice since I fixed them before they got to it. Again, thank you all three!

He who says new board says new features, new options, and a whole lot of change. I designed this by sharing some options with the oekaki board instead of building over the former message board. Some things are similar with the XMB, though, since I had originally changed that one to suit my needs. My own installation was already quite different from the default board, which explain some of the similarities with IOBoard.

I'll take the time here to list all of the main changes. I know that this post looks quite long, but please read at least the next few paragraphs to know what's in store and important to keep an eye on.


What's here... and what's not
Almost all of the data from the former board has been carried over from the old XMB. As such, you don't need to register again. Just login as usual, and you're set to go right away. However, I recommend that you check in your profile to make sure that your contact info is still up to date. This will also give you a chance to set some new display options that weren't available before.

All topics and posts have also been kept, although I did (and will do) some cleaning by deleting some that were irrelevant now. It's not like we still need that list of bugs on the XMB, for example... However, since the XMB's contact list feature was somewhat broken and didn't work too well, I didn't carry them over. Feel free to readd your contacts, it should work much better now.

Most of the graphics are also new, with a few of them coming from the XMB or even the older Ikonboard.

New forum structure
The various forums have been reordered a bit, and two new ones were added about IOBoard and IOekaki. You can visit them to see what topics would go in those. Something to note: the Mega Man PC Website: Dr. Cossack's Lab forum will now be dedicated for that site instead of including everything related to the board and such.

Potential issues
Converting the data from the old board hasn't been easy, and some problems still exist and won't be fixed. For example, in some older data, you'll see useless backslashes (example: look, it\'s old!). I removed some of them, but I can't do it all. Everything writen from now on will not have this problem, at least. In a few cases too, it looks like the BBCode isn't completely working. I'll see if I can do anything about it.

Marks for new posts
The marks for new posts in various forums and topics (identified by those mets) now work in a slightly different way: your list of unread topics will be kept between your visits here. As such, if you want to remove all marks, you have to click on the new "Mark all posts as read" menu item among your user options.

User accounts
Some new options are there, along with your old data. The "mood" information has been replaced by the "thought" one, since it seems to be much closer to what people were actually typing in. You can also set your own custom titles without going through me, so if you're one of those who want a new title every day of the year, you no longer have to bug me about it!

The RPG stats
The stats have been much improved so that they now make some sense. The experience points you have now go beyond the simple post couts: various factors are now used to reflect your actual experience, including the amount of time you've been registered here. The levels are also unlimited. If you're part of those who don't like to see those stats, you can remove their display from your profile options.

The avatars
You can now enter a size for your avatar display: instead of being stretched to fit 64 x 64 pixels, it can now be of any size smaller or equal to this (such as 32 x 64, 50 x 50, 20 x 40, etc.). Also, the default set of avatars have been updated. The same set of robot masters is still there, but they now use better graphics. Give them a look, you might just adopt one!

Private messenger
The private messages are also all available. You now have the possibility of marking messages by putting a red pin next to them. This would be useful if you want to remind yourself to check back on a message later on, for example. Some other features have been added, and I think that this private messenger is much better than the previous one. A reminder: the "Delete all messages" feature, that I added late to the last system, was originally created for this board. Feel free to use it if you won't read again your older messages! Maybe now that you can see how many messages are sleeping in your inbox and outbox, you'll understand why a clean-up might be in order.

Reports
On the XMB, reporting a topic meant that only I, the board admin, would get a notice. On IOBoard, the whole reporting system has been looked over. From now on, when a post is reported, all of the moderators will also get to see it, so we will be able to get on it faster. It's also possible to report whole topics instead of individual posts if there's a need to. Instead of sending PMs to the staff about a topic to look over, use the report system!

Spoiler tags
The spoiler tag has been improved to cover some of it's previous problems. In the following examples, enter the code without the asterisks * to get the desired effect.

The usual form is still available:
[*spoiler]In Mega Man X1, Zero dies.[*/spoiler]
will give you


You can now specify a title for the spoiler box, which gives you a chance to say what is about to being spoiled. That would especially be useful in a topic where multiple games / books / movies / TV series are talked about.
[*spoiler=Mega Man X5]In Mega Man X5, Zero dies again.[*/spoiler]
will give you


Finally, to help in including a few spoiler words in the middle of a larger paragraph, you can do some inlining to avoid breaking the flow of your post. Give the title "inline" to create such a spoiler tag.

This is probably a spoiler, but [*spoiler=inline]Zero sure dies a lot[*/spoiler] in all those Mega Man games.
will result in
This is probably a spoiler, but Zero sure dies a lot in all those Mega Man games.

What's next?
The board is now open and available. So, what's next? Here's a list of things I want to work on in the next weeks and months:

• IOekaki will receive a large update to include some of the improvements that have been made for this board. For examples, the profiles will get a display much like the ones here.
  
• A stats page will be added.
  
• More customization will be possible.
  
• The RPG stats will be improved even more.
  
• MegaChess will be linked to the board (more to come on this!).

Conclusion
I didn't list everything that changed, although you should now have a solid idea of what's in store for you.

Now, not all features were kept since some were barely used. If you have a suggestion, or absolutely want something back, tell me about it and I'll see what I can do about it. Feel free to comment or ask questions about the new board in this topic. Bug reports or feature requets should go over to the new IOBoard forum instead.

Give yourself a cookie if you read all of this, and have fun!

Edited by Dr. Cossack on May 4, 2006 at 10:02:12.