TST Site Upgrade - IPS 4.4!!!

[iacas]

Today is a big day!

The forum underwent a rather large upgrade. While most of the looks will remain the same, many of the features that go into powering the site have been upgraded.

Here are a few of the highlights. Some will matter more to some than others… but all make the site that much better!

In no particular order…

Animated GIFs
You can now add animated GIFs, easily, to posts with the click of a button and a quick search!

Post Before Registering
If you are a guest (this probably doesn't apply to many of you), you can now post and then register. We've had the ability for guests to post, but it was almost never used. This will allow you to post immediately when you have something to say, and then register an account afterward, quickly.

Faster Loading Speeds
The site will, after it processes old posts, "lazy load" images. This reduces bandwidth by loading images and videos only when you've scrolled to where they're visible. Blank avatars (the letters seen on new member accounts) will now be SVG files instead of images. About 20 other improvements were made to help with page loading speed, too, including improvements to notifications/follower management, member searches, stream performance, UTF8 conversions have been sped up, PHP-level performance. They've implemented rel=noopener when links open a new window (which improves browser memory management), cache/data store management has been streamlined and centralised, many background tasks and the profile sync functionality have all been improved for performance.

Six Small Improvements
Some smaller improvements include:

• Browser notifications were greatly improved. I recommend enabling them.
• Widgets can be displayed (or not) depending on the platform (desktop, tablet, mobile).
• Club navigation is improved.
• Announcements can now have URLs. The first one of these will point toward this article!
• Time frames are selectable now.
• Groups can have different styles!

Email Advertisements and Other Enhancements
This feature was added - we can include an advertisement in the emails you get from the site - but we have no plans at all to activate this feature. Please,  virtually all of the money we make from TST to pay the bills and provide this site, for free, is from advertising. Please do not turn on ad blockers, or disable them from this site. We keep advertising to a minimum; please repay this by viewing them and, occasionally, clicking on one that interests you.

I'm considering turning off most of the ads for Supporters, too. If you'd like this, please post below.

Also, you can now unfollow content without having to log in. And we get a few more statistics on email, but again… we see email as a convenience feature for YOU. It's a great way to be notified of new things or replies or comments on your topics, and more.

Application Icon Management
This one's for me, mostly, as I'd previously paid to have a plugin to generate pinned Safari tabs, favicons, application icons for iOS/Android, etc.

Other Improvements
A ton of REST API improvements, SEO improvements (including pagination being in the URL instead of the query string and canonical tags), Email statistics, Admin Control Panel notifications, store filters and commerce updates, and more.

More is here:

Welcome to Invision Community 4.4! - Product Updates - Invision Community

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Were thrilled to announce that Invision Community 4.4 is available to download now. After months of development, over 1650 separate code commits and quite a few mugs of questionable coffee you can now get...

Enjoy!

[Club Rat]

Is it me or does the site have a New Look?

Seems much cleaner and has a better viewing using the Edge Browser, very nice …..  

[iacas]

1 minute ago, Club Rat said:

Is it me or does the site have a New Look?

It's not even just you - it's nobody. Nothing changed with the look.

[boogielicious]

5 minutes ago, Club Rat said:

Is it me or does the site have a New Look?

Seems much cleaner and has a better viewing using the Edge Browser, very nice …..  

Edge is the new Microsoft Browser, correct? The site looks the same on mine, but I am using Chrome.

[iacas]

BTW, Emoji seem to be kinda screwy right now. The whole set is limited. It's this way on the IPS site, too, so it's likely not a configuration issue here.

[Club Rat]

9 minutes ago, boogielicious said:

Edge is the new Microsoft Browser, correct?

Yes, from my PC, the site is now very crisp, images are sharper.
Maybe it's just my eyesight is better today....  

[nevets88]

Just going nuts with the gifs. This is awesome. 

 

[TN94z]

My first thoughts were that it was much faster loading and I agree with @Club Rat, something does look different about the site...from my pc anyway.

Edited March 7, 2019 by TN94z

[billchao]

I'm primarily a mobile user and the only change I've noticed in the look of the site is the signatures.

[klineka]

2 hours ago, Club Rat said:

Is it me or does the site have a New Look?

Seems much cleaner and has a better viewing using the Edge Browser, very nice …..  

12 minutes ago, TN94z said:

My first thoughts were that it was much faster loading and I agree with @Club Rat, something does look different about the site...from my pc anyway.

Maybe you guys are noticing the different colored usernames and the absence of the 5 or 6 selected forum topics that usually made up most of the homepage?

 

[iacas]

11 minutes ago, klineka said:

Maybe you guys are noticing the different colored usernames and the absence of the 5 or 6 selected forum topics that usually made up most of the homepage?

I don’t know what they are seeing.

[Slim_Pivot]

This sounds like a big upgrade, congrats

[mcanadiens]

27 minutes ago, klineka said:

Maybe you guys are noticing the different colored usernames and the absence of the 5 or 6 selected forum topics that usually made up most of the homepage?

 

Yeah. That's pretty much what I've noticed.

[Zeph]

21 minutes ago, iacas said:

I don’t know what they are seeing.

Usernames are now colored on the activity list. New to me too.

[Missouri Swede]

1 hour ago, Zeph said:

Usernames are now colored on the activity list. New to me too.

What do the different colors, bold, and italics mean?

[dennyjones]

Payment man!   The darker the color the more money you get!

 

 

 

(sorry.......)

[iacas]

3 hours ago, Zeph said:

Usernames are now colored on the activity list. New to me too.

Those are just the same colors as the different user groups. So at a glance you can identify Forum Leaders, moderators, Supporters, and Established Members

And… emoji work properly again.

[David in FL]

Damn, I wish I understood this stuff because I’m sure it’s all very cool!