I've spent the past few days implementing lots of features which will ultimately make the vizzed board experience even better!


New Features Include:


Modified Message Center
This area contains your Private Messages, your Notifications, and the Announcements. These things also appear on all pages now so that users will know when they get PM's, get notifications and now people will actually know when an announcement is made.


Notifications
When someone replies to a thread you made, you will receive a Notification. If you haven't read your notifications, it will only notify you once per a thread so therefore it wont notify you again if additional replies have been made to a thread that you've posted (until you've read your notifications). When you go to the notifications page, it automatically marks all notifications as read.

Things that you get notified on:
-Replies to threads you made
-When someone signs up and refers to you
-When someone posts a comment on your profile
-When someone stickies, unstickies, opens or closes one of your threads (and it tells you who did it)
-When someone moves one of your threads (and it tells you who did it and where it got moved to)
-Additional notifications to come (so request some suggestions and if it's good, it'll be a notification)


Modified Announcements
Announcements will now appear on all pages and will let you know when a New Announcement has been made. Going to the Announcements page marks all Announcements as read.


Modified Referral System
Your referral code is still on the index but now when a user clicks it, not only does it take them to the index of the site but it lets them navigate the site all they want and when they're ready to register, it'll still set you as the referrer. The way it worked before was dumb, basically you gave someone a link which took the user to the register page and if they didn't register using that exact link, you didn't get the referral; this is not the case anymore.

Also, if someone registers that you referred but didn't use your referral link, when they're signing up, they can type in the username of the person who referred them (and it has a drop down box that auto populates with the correct spelling of all the usernames on the board).

Showing if there are new announcements is nice, and so are notifications.


But could you make it so that the message center only shows when there's something actually new? Like the Private messages did before? Or at least let it be an optional setting? I vastly preferred it that way.

I like it, but I have one question: Will there be an option to make it not on every page? Seriously, it makes pages look cramped and wrong. It may just be me, but besides that, I love it

DM & Rasen: The problem with that is, users don't know where to go to send a message if the 'Private Messages' link isn't always there. I'll make it optional eventually but for now it'll have to be on all pages even if you don't have new messages.

The one thing I don't like right now is the notifications for replies. I want to be able to turn that off.

I like the feature for new members... it is a great idea. But for someone like me I check my threads so often I don't need it.

I think we all sort of agree that we just want the option to turn these things off.

I think this is great. It doesn't take up too much space so I don't mind it being on every page.
I also had a couple of ideas for the notification part.
One idea was that you not only got a notification for replies to your threads but also to favorited threads, so if there was a thread you were really interested in but you didn't start you could still get a notification.
And another idea I had was that every time you put someones name with a : after it, they could get a notification.

I like it too but I'd also like to see a way to delete old notifications.

Joebab: Yeah I was thinking about making it so that you get notifications to threads you favorite, also will make it so that you can 'subscribe' to a forum so that you get notifications when a thread is made in that forum (might be useful for some).
I love your other idea, I'll look into that.

Other possible notifications:
-When you get a thumbs up
-When you get a trust point


I honestly don't think it takes up much room though and the notifications are easy to ignore, you're not forced to check them and when you do, marks them all as read.
The message center needs to stay where it is though, I've got other plans for it and it's important that people see what it offers.

Originally posted by Surgiac

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but I'd also like to see a way to delete old notifications.

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I second this statement. Also will we have an off option?

I like the new system that you have going it's vary help full.

Originally posted by DarkHyren

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Also will we have an off option?

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PLEASE PLEASE PLLLEEEASSE!
I find it annoying having notifications for "someone has replied in your thread"

this would be great if this feature came out sooner. i referred one my friends tot his site a while back and in fact i even got banned because i had to use her account to help her get started lol

It's unnecessary to delete notifications, I just don't see a reason for it, just extra work. The notifications page only shows your last 50 notifications so if you have a notification that you really hated, it'll eventually be bumped off the page.

As I already said, I make an off option eventually but I've got other things to work on at the moment.



Overall, this feature will be a great way to get non-posters to become more into the board itself by reading the announcements and such. Also users who make threads and never post again, this will be good to let them know they're getting replies to their newbie thread so they'll be more likely to continue posting.

love the notifications dude.. i havent even been a member that long so i didn't even know it was a new thing LOL

definitely an upgrade because i would forget half the stuff without being notified

I have noticed the new referral link thing at the top of each page.
It's rubbish.
It insists on auto high lighting whenever the mouse goes over it, which is VERY annoying as I have to then click somewhere on the page to use the arrows, page up/down, home and end, etc because it retargets the mouse cursor into the box.
Get rid of it.

DH: What makes you think you should instantly get your way? It's been up for less than 16 hours and already 80+ people have visited the site from a referral link that someone else gave them, it's very beneficial to the site.

Instead of rudely saying "It's rubbish." and "VERY annoying" and "Get rid of it.", you could've simply made a suggestion. I changed it so that it only auto highlights from mouse roll over in the RGR, on all other pages you have to click it.


But seriously, people need to stop criticizing features I implement, I spend so many hours (sometimes days) making these features just to get criticized, it makes me lose all self esteem and makes me lose any motivation to continue developing for the board. Some members are very ungrateful.

NOOO!!! David the site needs its God to help make it more awesome. An like you said a few are ungrateful not all of us believe that it is bad but a lot of the improvements are pretty cool.

Sometimes your just going to have to ignore peoples comments and do what you think is best. I still get moaned at if I do something alone even though it is my job to work alone most the time just like you. Your a web developer, you know what is best with the site or it wouldn't be as popular and cool as it is today

Exactly, the site is successful due to my decisions and ideas. Many protested against the Game Room, now most of the board's activity is the result to the Game Room and a lot of the top posters game here because of the Game Room (and many of them are quality posters).

Excellent idea, needs some tweaks.... but its new so no surprise there