The Lounge

If you would like to, I will add it to the next Maker News.

I can write up a guide if anyone wishes.

I think it would be beneficial to send out a newsletter on forum use, create a "how to post" stickied, use social media a few times to link to it.

Then finally in the emails ask people to respond by email if they can't get forum access.

Until a few weeks ago I didn't have the login to post or have any idea what these changes were. I wouldn't be surprised if a lot of people don't also have similar problems, so it will take some effort to help everyone get on board.

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Questions on how to use the forum? 3D Design & 3D printing? Please ask me!

Yes Nicholas gave me admin permission.

As you can see by whoever did edit it, YES you can edit it if you have admin permissions on that particular forum.

I forsee designating admins/moderators in the future, for now it's just the board I think.

Courtenay, Secretary

Hi Courtenay, one more question on the forums.

Is it possible to edit a subject after it has been created, or for a moderator to do this?

I made a post in the woodworking section making note that the wood planer was broken. Mauricio being the rockstar that he is fixed it, so now I'd like to edit my post subject title. I could do that as a mod on the old forums, after something gets fixed I edit to something like "RESOLVED: Broken Planer".

Looks Fantastic! Great job!

Thanks!

Looks like there's a lot of improvements made to the layout this week, good stuff!

EDIT: In the Forum General Preferences, I set my image there and it shows up here :)

And I enabled the other one for image and bio!

Courtenay, Secretary

Ok, I've set it up so we can get daily / immediate emails of forum posts now, though I think every existing user will have to set that up themselves.

I've also toyed with some defaults, but all of those apply only to NEWLY created users, not existing ones, so Garret, you'll have to configure yourself. That being said, if you go to Profile, Forum General Preferences, you can change all your forums at once if you check the blue-text "apply to all" box in EACH SECTION you make changes:



Courtenay, Secretary

Is there anyway to enable hyperlink detection?

I've found if I post links and web addresses in the message body they only show up as plain text like this: https://kamloopsmakerspace.com/

EDIT: Ok I've turned on the advanced text preferences that enables link posting and a tonne of options to change the contents of a post including embedded images, bullet points and lists and everything one might expect, including Proper Link Formatting This comes up if one edits a message as well.

Is there another admin setting for that to be defaulted?

On mobile this isn't available as a user setting but the 'edit' feature will allow for the additional options on mobile.

I never did get around to connecting with the Club Express folks to do have them do their tour and sales pitch. So I guess that's on me for not putting the time in to make sure their platform would offer a real step up in communications.

Initially I asked Club Express some pretty pointed questions on mobile integration and push notifications as well as instant messaging. Based on what's here they oversold their product. Without those features it will really be hard to increase traction on the forum as a platform as it will always be competing with every other app and messaging service. It was quite obvious that the old forum system didn't get the traction I was ever hoping for, a more modern replacement was needed.

Hopefully other members do end up using these forums for communication and community building, communication will always be fractured otherwise.

Thanks, inline images add a lot of depth to conversations, big improvement!
Adding images in the last forum was a chore as well. Looks like the mobile version of this allows for camera access within attachments, that helps a lot.

I turned on the threaded view and found it improves readability. Oldest post first and replies show in thread form. Can that be set as a default? Unfortunately that doesn't seem to be an available setting in the mobile version of the website.

One more thing, I can't seem to change my profile picture via mobile or desktop. I click on my name in the top corner and click the edit icon on the photo but it just returns an error message. Is there an admin setting that will allow this?

I've changed the default but I think it will only take effect for new users.

Go to "Profile" and "Forum General Preferences", and find this option: (if you're logged in, click here )

An inline embedded image is now possible! Note, you can't necessarily "paste" an image, though.

We moved to this platform because it is a complete system for memberships, payments, mailings and more. I agree that there are better forum technologies, however it was decided that integrating our technology solutions was the best choice. We are having a horrible time right now with Azure where the old forums were hosted. I am looking into possible ways to embed images.

Seems like a big step backwards.

Doesn't look like embedded images are supported?

The new forums are crazy nice!

Can’t wait to see what people are working on.