TechSpot news: a preview of our new community software

Julio Franco

Posts: 9,092   +2,043
Staff member

Very soon we'll embark on upgrading our forum platform and with it the underlying code that marries TechSpot's content management system and the forum. In other words, our entire community software will be changed for good. We are very excited about the vast improvements this will bring right away and on the long term, when we fully realize the new platform's potential.

I will save the full explanation for the actual launch, but in the meantime here are some screenshots and a feature showcase of what's to come. Enjoy!

The forum homepage's new style.
More functional and better looking user profiles.
Forum topic lists -- layout merges perfectly with the rest of the site's design.
User alerts! Get notified when your posts are liked, quoted or replied to, among others.
User profile panel, always at your disposal, across the entire site.
Edit posts in-line, better looking too.
You can watch discussions, get alerts, and (optional) email notifications

More coming soon!

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Oh, TechSpot you're such a tease!

I'm a details person, and besides the obvious all-around, better-looking design, I really like the icons representative of each sub-forum, don't ask why.

Needless to say, I am particularly looking forward to the improvements of the comment system... ;)
 
Sounds great, what about changing the color theme to Dark-Orange this time, or adding a feature in user settings section to switch over classic TechSpot theme and other new ones ? :)
 
Looks elegantly simple, +1 to lawfer's comment on 'comment system', it can do with a little revamp. Also would you guys consider developing an forum app for mobile platforms?
 
Archean said:
Looks elegantly simple, +1 to lawfer's comment on 'comment system', it can do with a little revamp. Also would you guys consider developing an forum app for mobile platforms?

OS specific apps are not yet on our roadmap, but we have something better already.

Our mobile site features a fully functional (and lightweight) version of the forum. It works on all major smartphone platforms.
 
What I saw with this preview appears to be very nice looking. To me the new format appears to be more streamlined and user friendly. But I did see someone here possibly recommend a "color change"! I don't know if it would be possible, but sometimes on You Tube they offer a "light switch" feature as to dim the white colored background and it automatically changes to a dark background, as to be more easy on the eye's. Maybe that "dim the lights" or "light switch" feature could be something that might be looked into. But I'm liking what I'm seeing here!
 
Guest said:
If this is a move to vBulletin 4.x then it's not good news at all...
Then I have good news for you because it is not :)
First one to guess correctly what it is will win an online only cookie :D
 
I like the changes techspot has made over the years, one of the rare websites which are trying to make things easier.
 
Per Hansson said:
Then I have good news for you because it is not :)
First one to guess correctly what it is will win an online only cookie :D
If it's not vBulletin then that is good news - as to guessing what it will be I've no idea as there's not much to go on from the images. SMF perhaps?
 
We are basing the development on a new forum called Xenforo. Speedy, lean and modern. Right off the bat it offers numerous improvements over vBulletin (and the failed vB 4 to which we never upgraded). Because of the way it's been coded, integrating new features to Xenforo and our new community will be much, much easier.
 
Ah Xenforo... I seem to remember they got sued by VB for some kind of patent infringement... much better (not to mention lighter) than VB though and no integrated google spyware into the bargain...
 
Am I the only one that prefers vBulletin? I think the old way was fine.
vBulletin 3.x was nice enough. VB 4.x is a sack of bloated nastiness, it's virtually unusable in some browsers and on low end machines you get horrible jerky scrolling... the list goes on and on.

VB is licensed, not free - I can't speak for this site or it's admin, but I suppose they had to choose, or make the long term choice anyway, between continuing to pay the licence, which would inevitably have meant VB 4.x eventually (if not already) and moving moving on to something else.

It seems to me that Techspot made an informed decision on this in the interest of it's members - the latter whom now need to be patient for the next few weeks/months while the problems are ironed out. I've seen to many other boards who simply handed their cash over for VB 4.x without question and came to regret it later. It's worth noting that v4 has been around for years and a lot of major online messageboards which run VB have been avoiding it
 
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