[Darth-Apple]

After over two months since MyBB's initial release, we've finally become fully prepared and ready to make the upgrade here at Makestation. You'll notice the difference very quickly, as we've also pushed a brand new, 100% custom theme, built entirely in-house. For nostalgia's sake...



Our old design was not bad for MyBB 1.6, but 1.8 has a number of improvements worth noting: 

• Various improvements across the forum (including buddy list improvements, theme switchers, better default avatars, thread rating improvements, postbit improvements, edit reasons, better image resizing, etc. )
  
• Our new customized theme that works much better on smaller monitors and larger monitors alike. 
  
• Our registration form was fixed. (/oops)
  
• Better post editor
  
• We've taken a gamble to enable guest posting. Yes, captchas will be displayed, and yes, new guest posts will have to be approved before they go live. Of course, registration is still encouraged by all means, but our feeling is that visitors with something quick to contribute shouldn't have to go through MyBB's painful registration system to write a single post.
  

This was actually the second phase in upgrading software on the forum. The third phase will be the plugins phase. We hope to have some of the following in store within the next few months: 

• Much better status updates plugin that will be significantly improved and have full support for status notifications and replies. (May be rolling out in the next week or so. )
  
• Significantly improved forum notifications
  
• Content management system/community wiki? Development is in the early stages, so I won't promise much, but some cool stuff might be planned...
  

What are your thoughts? As always, if you notice any bugs or have any improvements to suggest, feel free to post them here!

-Darth Apple

[simlink]

Great to see everything now live, DA! It looks fantastic, excited about it for sure. Also looking forward to all the things coming down the pipe. Keep it up!

[Clayton]

Looks great, feels great, it will be great!

[Darth-Apple]

Thanks for the feedback!

[Darth-Apple]

Our station cash shop has now been fully restored. The way that badges show on the posts has been changed a bit to keep them from being cluttered, as you will now be able to view a member's badges by clicking the "items" dropdown link below their avatar. Another advantage is that now more than three badges will display on the posts.

Next up is our status updates plugin. More needs to be done, but the next version of it will support BBcode in statuses, replies to statuses, better notifications, etc. I hope to have the one we currently use here upgraded within the next 1-2 weeks.

[Clayton]

Awesome, updates are looking great!

[Electric2Shock]

Why was I offline for three days! I missed it!

NNOOOOOO

[Darth-Apple]

Why was I offline for three days! I missed it!

NNOOOOOO

Haha I was wondering where you had gone. Welcome back.

[VRVisions]

I like MyBB 1.8, thanks for the upgrade.

[Nebulous]

Awesome! Great work Darth.

[Darth-Apple]

Thanks for the feedback everyone!

I'm going to be doing some more work on the theme to simplify a few things that MyBB tends to make too complicated over the next few weeks. I already have a little work done on it, so feel free to check out "Core 2.2" in the footer theme switcher. I'm not really one to hide upcoming changes from the community, but keep in mind that it's a test of a concept that is in its beginning stages, so not a whole lot is really polished yet. The more exciting part will be the header improvements that will be hopefully put in place this week. Along with that, there are fewer grays and more contrast in the theme as a whole. Let me know if you guys like some of the adjustments made so far.

The status updates plugin is still delayed by my lack of time to upgrade it. It will come, but maybe not until December at this rate. I've been insanely busy, so it's been on the back burner for a few weeks. Luckily, next month I will have plenty of time to look into it. Who knows, maybe I'll even release it publicly.

[Guardian]

Been away a bit myself (shame on me I know ). Everything looks great though!

[Darth-Apple]

Been away a bit myself (shame on me I know ). Everything looks great though!

Thanks for the feedback, and welcome back!

[spork985]

I'm really loving the theme, great work!

[Darth-Apple]

I'm really loving the theme, great work!

Haha, thanks! Haven't seen you stop by here in some time.

[Nebulous]

Any plans on reviving this place and bringing some activity in?

[Darth-Apple]

Any plans on reviving this place and bringing some activity in?

I had thought about it, but I suppose the hardest part for us is that we ended up becoming like any other general discussion forum that advertised on a lot of promotion websites, other general discussion forums, etc. There wasn't much that really made us unique. We had some cool people here for a while, and honestly, it was worth running it at the time. Those people don't hang much anymore because like myself, they have become pretty busy as well. However, even though we were never really "big" or fancy as a community, it was still fun a little while back. I've always been a bit of a laid back admin, and even as a member here, I kinda liked the simplicity of it a bit.

My personal life got very hectic over the last year or so. Job switches, two new cars (my current still breaks down and needs a lot of attention), and now, just got some court stuff finally taken care of (all charges dropped this morning) and am doing tons of paperwork to go back to school. Needless to say, I have had trouble even loggingg on to this place. What's more, there is a good chance I will not be paying for internet when I move again in a few months for school, so trying to revive activity here would be a little tricky in that situation. 

However, with all of that said, I don't delete projects I have spent a lot of time and energy on. Whether I have internet or not in coming months, I will still be able to maintain everything from my phone or from my computer anywhere where there is WIFI (my workplace that I would be transferring through has WIFI, so that would be easy), so I don't expect us to go anywhere. I have every expectation that makestation will remain online, and would not want to see something I have invested so much time and energy on (or, may I say, "we," since it was a community effort since day one), simply disappear.

I actually have an itch to do a website again anyhow. For me, makestation was always gonna be the place where I shared the things that those I know in real life would not appreciate so much. Anything from philosophies, to photography, to art, to music, and everything in between could be shared here, and everybody was welcome. We have a lot of people with aspergers or autism here that have more creative minds as well, and MS was always going to be a place free of any judgment where anything and everything was welcome. 

I'm still in love with the concept. If I could overcome the "we need more members, we need more posts, we need MOTMs, we need a new theme, etc. " mindset of forums, and get some cool people back in teh community, I'd find a way to keep MS active, as opposed to just being online, but I really think that the key to a successful community has everything to do with the people, and not the administrator, the staff, the software, or anything else. 

We'll see. I'm still in love with the original concept that MS was after, and if I figure out how to overcome the barriers that keep it from being about the community first, MS may thrive again in the future. It's no secret that most people don't really check in here that much anymore, but if anyone wants to contribute and is just as in love with the concept, let me know. I always thought of MS as a community project. I almost prefer to take the back seat as a facilitator when it comes to running forums. We're too small to make the administration complicated anyhow.

[brian51]

i also think its possible MS will be able to still thrive into the future.
I am hopeful to get going again with my postings in my meta physics thread ..

Brian