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I've got three super big, exciting announcements to make today! It's a long post, so hold onto your hats! Here we gooooooo!
Notifications
You may have noticed, you now have 1 (or more) Notification in your sidebar! Click it and BAM! You're in the new Notifications Hub! Whaaat?
Now you will be notified of many new things you never were before! We consolidated all kinds of notifications that already existed, but some, such as trades or gift notifications, were left separate because they have additional details and actions associated with them. Here's a rundown of what was included:
- First off, if it's not obvious already, is when site announcements are posted! These announcements will stick to a separate area at the top of the hub so they are easy to see. Maybe you only want to read posts like this once, sure. But new Site Events will also sit with announcements, so you can access them super quickly any time an event is running.
- You asked for it, and we made it happen, You will now be notified of replies in threads you are subscribed to. Don't want to be notified by a topic anymore? Visit the Subscriptions page (there's also a button in your sidebar) and unwatch that topic.
- You will also be notified of replies to threads you started.
- It was a little silly to send a PM for just a link, but now with the new Notifications Hub, you will be notified if you were mentioned.
- There's that age old saying, "if you're quoted in a thread and not around to see it, does it really happen?" Well no more! You are now notified if you are quoted in a thread!
- Guestbooks were made more visible on your profiles a little while ago, but now you will be notified when someone leaves you a nice new message.
- Leading into our next announcement: You will now be notified of new posts in Guilds you are part of!
We took away the old "unread posts" button. Using it on every page slows down the site and it is pretty inaccurate most of the time. If you find yourself missing the page of all unread posts on the site, you can always visit it again! There's a link back to it on the index page of the Forums and in the Forums dropdown in the menubar.
Guilds Redesign
We promised we wouldn't forget about guilds, and we haven't! It was important to make the Notifications System include Guilds before we updated the UI, otherwise they would be just as useless as before, just pretty. Now that we have the Notifications, the guilds are shiny and new AND useful! Waplam!
We updated all the pages:
- The homepage is cleaner, has images for each category, and categories are less confusing than before.
- Category lists now link back to the homepage, and show the description on the page! The listings are now using the cute little Guild Cards instead of the forum listing styles.
- Visit a guild and Wowza! It's clean, it's cool, it's bubbly and happy and so fun! Useful information about the guild is moved to the left sidebar, a nice welcome message greets you right in the middle, the message boards are visible and informative, the memeberlist doesn't overflow. So great!
- Message boards actually show the guild name and board description now so you don't have to wonder "where the heck am I?" They also list topics in the cute new guild format.
- And the topics? We didn't forget about them! They match the rest of Windlyn's forums! You can now send feathers, friend, or PM a user in the Guilds! There's also new breadcrumbs so you don't get lost on your way back to the guild.
Customization
You now have more outlets to customize your Windlyn experience! We wanted to give you some ownership over your spaces, so both User Profiles and Guilds can be customized with both (or either) HTML and BBCode!
Please remember our TOS still applies to all the images and content you use on your layouts. We've added a little blurb to the Rules and Conduct section. In short, hiding the sidebar, menubar, footer, or otherwise inhibiting a user's navigation of Windlyn is not allowed.
I've put together some Windlyn-themed layouts for you to use to get started! Check them out now! You can also find the Layouts Page under the "Account" tab in the menubar. Feel free to use them as-is, or to make your own. If you'd like to make a Windlyn themed layout for others to use, I'd love to add it to the page!
You did it!
You made it through the announcement!
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