Something to talk about

Here casinos are still closed, life is boring.

I am wondering what are you thinking now about this forum software. We are using it for longer time did you get use to it.
I like some things, as it sends notifications, easy to copy files but the old one I could control better add side columns for extra stuff and it did not require own server.

Here casinos works almost three weeks… but need be in them with masks , what is not really comfortable…
I more liked previous forum, but anyway forum software is not main…

Here all the casinos are still closed too.
Waiting them to open from 1st of July maybe.
I’m used to that software of the forum, but I don’t remember which were exactly the previous one.
I remember there were some diferences, but I don’t know now exactly which were they.
Don’t like to change the software of the forum, because each time doing it there is always some data lost on it… so as the current one is not bad we still could continue use it.

Before we used SMF a Simple Machines Forum, now it is Discourse.

My only concern is that you might loose pictures and other attached items if you switch to a new one. But this platform feels fresh and up to date.

Old forum saved all uploaded files on the server. Problem is that the backup gets to large.
So we we used outside uploads as tiny-picture. But after some years they closed and many pictures were lost.

With this forum i set uploads to Amazon, so backup is small, only text, and images are relatively secured at Amazon. It also makes less stress on the server because the Amazon serves the images.
Well, once I made mistake and mistakenly deleted wrong folder storage on Amazon, and lost some pictures. There was no way to get them back.

I am only missing side blocks from old forum (portal), as for example latest uploads. Old forum was based on PHP, it was easy to make changes. This forum is based on Python software running inside Docker container and I have no idea how to change anything. For every change everything needs to be recompiled.

I like instant notifications, side preview, easy copy form XL, automatically saved drafts, security, scam protection, mention someone with @his-name so he gets notification etc.

List of forums benefits

I found it here

Some of the benefits and features that this forum offers will be immediately apparent, others may not be so obvious. In this thread we’ll cover a few of them - if you spot any yourself or have any favourites you’d like to share, please feel free to!

Firstly, this forum uses the Discourse forum software (albeit customised). Discourse was created by the same people who made Stack Overflow :003:

###A wonderful UI

And a refreshing design. It’s probably the first thing you noticed - that it just ‘feels nice’ here. Well, I mentioned that the creators of Discourse are also the makers of the Stack Exchange sites… so they know a thing or two about good UX. We’ve just taken things a little further on the design front, drawing on a decades worth of experience of running online communities. This all results in a clean, uncluttered look that helps focus on the things that matter; you and the conversation.

###Automatic forum search when posting new threads

A common problem faced by chat rooms, mailing lists and older forum platforms is that you often get a set of questions that get asked over and over again. While this isn’t a problem in the early stages of a community it can start to grate on members after a while. Often search isn’t available (or when it is, isn’t great) so it’s difficult to blame the user.

The search here is actually very good, and whenever anyone goes to post a new thread, the system carries out a search while they are typing and displays it prominently over the preview box (until the user dismisses it). It works , but don’t take our word for it - give it a whirl!

###A search engine friendly public space

Everything you say or do here offers tangible value to the Elixir community - because the forum is publicly viewable and search engine friendly.

###You can use Markdown to format your posts

Yes, we know, awesome! (See the guide here .)

###Mailing list feature

There are two ways to use this forum as a mailing list:

  • The entire forum as a mailing list.
  • Or you can subscribe to individual sections (just go to a section and set its option to ‘watching’).

You can also mute category sections or individual threads, which is not something you can usually do on mailing lists.

By default the system tries to not bother you by sending email notifications regarding a post if you have recently been active on the forum, but this can can be turned off by a setting in your preferences: ‘Send me email notifications even when I am active on the site’.

###@Mentions and notifications

You can @mention people, and they’ll get a notification. Users will also get a notification if anyone quotes them, PM’s them, likes any of their posts, or replies to a thread they are watching.

###Browser notifications

You can get browser notifications so you don’t even have to keep checking the site.

###Automatic embedding / Onebox

Post a link to a photo, a video or a tweet and they’ll automatically get embedded into the post. The forum can also automatically extract information from blogs, github, news sites etc. (Uses oEmbed and OpenGraph.)

###Wikis

You can post Wikis - that anyone at Trust Level 1 or higher can edit.

###Trust levels = community moderation

Where good members are valued and rewarded. The system keeps tracks of all sorts of things, even the number of posts you read. See this thread for more info.

###Group Messaging

Want to take something off the forum? You can! Just start a PM and add multiple recipients - add more even during the conversation.

###Download your posts at anytime.

You can download your posts at any time via your control panel.

###Our Twitter account tweets every thread

Whenever anyone in the community starts a thread, our Twitter account tweets a link to it and gives it the #ElixirLang tag :slight_smile:

###Intelligent quote system

Just highlight some text in someone’s post and you’ll get the option to ‘Quote text’ - it couldn’t be easier!

Also, when viewing a post with a quote that has been made this way, you’ll see a down arrow, that when clicked, shows the full original post - and even - highlights the bit that was quoted! Awesome!

###Automatic code highlighting

Post some code enclosed in backticks at both start ends and the code gets highlighted. Post three backticks on a seperate line before and after the code block for blocks of code. Put the name of the langauge after the oppening ticks to specify a language (if you don’t the system will try to guess the language)

###And many more…

Here’s a brief look at a few more:

  • Users can mark a post as an ‘accepted answer’ in their threads
  • Threads can be tagged (and subscribed to)
  • You can upload photos
  • Drafts of your posts are saved as you type
  • Edit histories are public (unless muted by staff i.e for spam)
  • Off-server backups are carried out every day

And much much more! We’ll let you discover the rest :lol:

If you find any features or have faves you want to share, please feel free to mention them in this thread.