Forum Update BONANZA

For those of you just tuning in; this week has turned into an UPDATE BONANZA! Many new things have been added and many bugs have been fixed - some of you, I'm sure were following along, but if you're just joining us; here is a rundown of whats changed!

Please make sure to clear your cache because a lot has changed!

New Features:

• Brand new post editor - much easier and nicer to use than the old one! You can still use BBCode though!
• Improved Quotes - you can now select text to quote (Im still working on this a bit)
• Brand new Private Messaging system - Its actually nice to use now!
• Liquid Crystal Cafe - this is our new shoutbox!
• Drafts! - you can now save your posts as drafts and edit them later!
• Webgardens can now render on the forum!

Fixes:

• Profile Look & Layout bug is fixed
• Cinni theme emotes/smilies now render better
• Cinni theme has other small fixes
• You can now see what thread your replying too.
• Fixed some missing images and icons
• Quick Reply now works in the MelonLand theme!! (its at the bottom)
• All members now redirect back to topics when they post a reply.

Let me know if you have any issues, bug or just don't like something Iv changed Enjoy!!

Since just about everyone has voted against this so far; Iv rolled back this edit - all topics are now public to guests again!

However feel free to keep discussing if you like; the poll will remain open indefinitely.

That almost certainly means your trying to connect to forum.melonking - all the buttons and links will try and redirect you to melonland - so your logged into melonland.net but you keep trying to connect to melonking - update your links and it should fix everything

I use Waterfox

I would avoid Waterfox these days; I read that its been taken over by quite a nasty company with a very bad reputation for privacy

that don't have the modern 'flat' design

The most retro browser is SeaMonkey, it has proper 90s style themes - its a lil clunky though, and its not as fast as mainstream browsers. You can look at enabling CSS styling in Firefox, that can do a lot, although its not well documented.. theming is really very hard to do these days!

https://www.howtogeek.com/334716/how-to-customize-firefoxs-user-interface-with-userchrome.css/

That seems to have fixed it. I never had to log in to YW+ this time.

Great I will leave this option turned off! (It just means that when you login with YW+, your account is a bit less secure, but only if your computer is compromised in some way - aaanndd I dont think there are many hackers out there trying to steal your ML account )

I have an idea! I recently enhanced forum security and flagged all cookies as secure HTTPS cookies! I bet thats the issue - your windows 98 machine and the YW+ are both using proxies to downgrade the site to HTTP right? Thats breaking your cookies.

As a test I disabled this option - see if your login issue goes away and let me know 

Give us the ability to highlight specific reply text and QUOTE!

Highlight to quote is now fully functional

Ummm this is CLEARLY a Star Trek community!

Star Wars is for Disney bros who are not smart enough to enjoy real scifi *insert missing snooty nose emote* - Ok really, I do like Star Trek more, but Star Wars has some amazing qualities too!

Do you like your hi-fi/home video equipment to be Black or Silver?

I'm still unsure how I feel about how it looks but I can always change it later~

I like it! Making it like a lil popup window is a cute touch; one thing though you need to set target="_blank" on that enter link! Otherwise your site opens inside the iframe!

Also the X button should totally do something fun 

Hmm thats strange - it doesn't sound like a cookie issue then; but nothing on the forum has changed in over a year that would effect logins. I havent had any issues myself, but if anyone else has please chime in!

Are you connecting to forum.melonking or forum.melonland? (or switching between them?) because melonking is long since unsupported and might cause issues.

What are your cookie settings? Do you have an extension or setting that clears cookies periodically or when you close the browser?

The way your login works is, there's a cookie with a code saved on your computer when you login, and every forum page you visit that code is sent to the server and its like "HEY ITS YOU <3" - but if that cookie is missing, then the servers like "wooo u?"

I think the new editor is mostly setup now - please clear cache before reporting bugs!

• I know there is an issue with links not always auto linkifying - AM LOOKIN into it!
• We are missing marquee and glow buttons! Ill look into these too!
• For now the colours will stay, so just be mindful of dark-light themes!
• Omg making a list is so much nicer now
• Testts! hullo i am words MORE WORDS  red! 22:30:54

Iv setup a separate poll/discussion for this topic since its important! https://forum.melonland.net/index.php?topic=1001.0

Since this seems to be a divisive issue, Iv decided to put it to a vote!

In the past the forum was fully public - anything you posted could be read by anyone! Today we have been testing a new system where topic titles are public, but you must login to read peoples actual posts

Why did I consider this change?? - Mainly because it gives people the freedom to feel a bit more protected about what they post on the forum; it means if someone is banned they are no longer able to follow what you say and it means that the information is less exposed.

Why could this be a bad thing? - Well as some have pointed out, its not entirely in the spirit of the old web - it login-walls forum posts; and it potentially makes the forum less inviting to new people.

However you could also argue that a forum is not a publishing platform; sometimes the ideas we write here are half formed and not quite ready for the whole world to see? Or maybe you think thats not such an issue and its more important to be open?

So in this poll; think about what kind of balance you'd like to strike - the web is vast and full of many bad things; but hiding away is not always the best answer - what makes you feel most comfortable? Does knowing your posts are more or less readable change what you would post?

Feel free to expand on this discussion below! (Also try look at the forum when your logged out to see what its currently like in locked mode)

I suddenly can't view topics on any category if I'm not logged in

This is not a bug actually; I locked out public viewing because its a bit of a privacy issue - it means that anything anyone says on here is exposed not just to randos on the web or banned people, but also to google etc - Im happy to switch it back if people really don't like it; but I feel a lil less exposed with more limited access!