[Sneak Peak] Ioannes Engine 3.0.0 Alpha 9

[Kaelon]

Sneak Peak into Alpha 9

Right on the heels of our latest patch, Ioannes Engine 3.0.0 Alpha 8, which featured revamps of our user interface, implementation of new "landing pages" and storefronts to service our Aelyria Shoppe and Amazon, and overall improvements to the stabilty and security of Aelyria, I am very pleased to provide you all with a sneak peak into the Ioannes Engine 3.0.0 Alpha 9. Powered by the next iteration of the industry-defining forum software, vBulletin, Alpha 9 offers the next major evolution in Aelyria's several month transformation into a creative and social experience hotspot on the Internet by introducing impressive new Web 2.0 elements and community networking features.

These new features have long been requested by users of our forum software and will impact the basic experience here in Aelyria for everyone, while Companions will obtain a new series of premium functionality on our web site. Slated for testing later this year, Alpha 9 will offer a major definitive upgrade to Aelyria service and help us market our web site and our community to large global audiences.

There are some minor additions planned, that despite their ease and simplicity of implementation, should offer users with many more options in enhancing their experience with Aelyria. Here are just a few of the minor changes:

• Visitor tracking on profile pages
• Automatic resizing of attached images
• Enhanced and new bbcodes
• Custom icons per forum
• Advertisement locations for marketing
• Multiple moderation collaboration support
• ATOM support for the RSS Poster Robot
• Hooks that allow attachments to be virus scanned
• All AJAX will adopt the Yahoo! User Interface (YUI) library for consistency and predictability
• YUI will be faster, resulting in quicker pageloads

So, here are some major Aelyria-specific highlights as to what is to come...

[Kaelon]

Thread Tagging

A new way to facilitate grouping and searching of our threads, it will soon be possible for users to add tags to the threads they post or read.



Tags can be added when creating a new thread, or to an existing thread by any Aelyria member.



Any users who then click on these tags will not only find all threads that have the same tag as the one clicked, but will also contribute to the building of a search tag cloud, which gives users a quick guide as to what has been searched for recently and most frequently.

[Kaelon]

Thread Prefixes

Long requested by our users, threads can now have administrator-defined prefixes to their titles.



Thread prefixes are divided into groups, which means we'll be able to have different prefixes to be available in different forums. For example, the Herald might enjoy news sections prefixes (e.g., News, Games, Local, Politics, Guilds, Rumors, Opinions, etc.), whereas the Help Deskmight have prefixes that help users classify their request for assistance (e.g., Query, Account, Game Rules, Website Issue, etc.).

[Kaelon]

Reciprocal Friendships Between Users

As part of our new social networking system, Aelyria users will be able to request that people on their buddy list confirm their friendship, after which time a person's list of confirmed friends will be viewable to other users.

[Kaelon]

Public Messaging

While private messages between users has been a major feature on Aelyria since it was mimicked in our famous "Magic Mail" system of 1997, vBulletin 3.7 and Alpha 9 will introduce the new public messaging system, allowing users to communicate publicly via their profile pages.

[Kaelon]

User Picture Galleries

Aelyria users will be able to create albums and upload pictures to their account. Unlike the Aelyria Gallery, these personal picture galleries can be of any picture the user likes.



Companions will enjoy unlimited space and unparalleled control over their picture galleries. They will be able to limit the ability to view these albums and pictures to just board staff and people on their buddy list if they want privacy.

[Kaelon]

User-Created Social Groups

To further the social cohesion between Aelyria users and to encourage new members to make friends, Aelyria will have the facility to allow users to create their own social/interest groups.



Whether it's a club of Aelyria fans from Canada, or the official group for one of the realm's leading Factions, Guilds, or Houses, these groups will enhance the collective experience. Each group will have its own public messaging system, and the ability to add pictures to the group from user albums.

[Kaelon]

New Member Profile Page

In order to accomodate all of these new features in vBulletin 3.7 and Alpha 9, the member profile page will be completely redesigned from the ground up.

The new page presents information in a far cleaner and more logical manner, dividing information into manageable chunks using a tabbed interface. It will never be easier to separate out of character and in character data about your membership!

Individual profile field categories can be displayed alone in blocks in the right column, in addition to appearing in the 'About Me' tab.

[Kaelon]

Customization of Profile Page

Companions will be able to use the profile page customization tool, which allows users to alter fonts, background, borders, etc. of their profile page in order to create a personalized look. This has been one of the most requested and highly anticipated features of the Companions program, and we are excited that this will be but the first step of empowering Companions to design Aelyria however they want to experience it.

[Kaelon]

Inline Editing of Profile Field Values

The 'About Me' tab of each member's profile has edit controls, which will enable them to quickly change values without having to leave the profile page. Now users will be able to update their character details dynamically!

[Kaelon]

Attachment Viewing Lightbox

Clicking on an attached image will now open a lightbox rather than open a new window, with the image scaled to fit the browser viewport. A click on the image in the lightbox will open it in a new window as before.

[Kaelon]

Post Edit History

Changes in Aelyria are often important, and up until now it has been impossible to know whether someone's edit in a post was to correct a grammatical or spelling error or perhaps to undo a critical character decision in a storyline or plot. It will now be possible to log all edits to posts and then review those changes at a later date.

[Kaelon]

Inline Moderation Enhanced Authentication

When performing inline moderation actions, board staff will be required to re-authenticate themselves if they have not done so during their browsing session. This prevents the possibility of unauthorized parties acting as a moderator on a public computer where a board member has accidentally ticked the 'remember me' box.

[Kaelon]

Navbar Notices

Administrators will be able to set up custom notifications that will appear underneath the navbar (the blue bar in Aelyria with the links to various board hotspots) when visiting users fulfill certan criteria. For example, we may wish to issue notices to specific usergroups, advertise an adventure or plotline that a user has not yet participated in, show congratulatory messages when users reach their 1,000th post, etc.

[Kaelon]

New Human Verification Systems

In addition to the standard image verification system that we present to new users when registering, vBulletin 3.7 will introduce the means for us to choose a different verification system to enable blind users to register more easily on our community.



For example, the popular RECAPTCHA system or defining a set of questions and answers for visitors to deal with have proven to have high registration completion rates. As a part of converting the thousands of visitors to our web sites, we hope to provide a streamlined, more secure method for them to register.