Welcome Back

[VirusZero]

Welcome back to Endless Fight.

So by now you may have noticed that a little more changed than just a new skin... A whole lot of things have changed over the past few days.

First and foremost, we're entirely self-hosted now. That means we aren't connected to Jcink.com anymore (if they get hit with another DDoS attack we won't be affected). We're also running MyBB (which is a forum software that looks like it was split off from the original development of Invision Power Board, or what JFH is using). So you're probably going to find things very similar to how they were on Endless Fight before. (Some of the sections of Jcink were created and modelled after sections of MyBB.)

Because we are now self-hosted MyBB, this gives us tons of new features... Things like:
- Multiple user groups.
Every user has a primary usergroup that they inherit the access rights from. But now users can belong to multiple groups and choose which of them they display while still keeping all the rights from all.
I've put this into place currently for the forum based roleplays. Making the person running in the leader, which allows them to choose who can access the section and post.

- Multi-Quote
Users can now quote multiple people at the same time by pressing the multi-quote button (below each post) to select that post for when they hit reply to load them all into the post editor.

- Built-in video site BBcodes.
This allows youtube videos to be embedded in pages much easier than before. Using the full url instead of only the v= part like on JFH.

We also now can post videos from sites like Dailymotion or Vimeo also without issue.

- Thread Prefixes.
Each topic can now have it's own prefix in front of the title to let people know some info about the thread. Some common examples are:
- OOC (to let people know it's a discussion thread).
- IC (in character thread).
- Docs (to let people know these are topics about rules or organization).

I haven't set any of these up yet, but I will in the next few days.


- Increased post length options.
Because I have access to the entire database (and can edit it as needed), I've expanded the maximum length of posts from 65,000 characters to around 15,000,000 characters. (So no fear about running out of space in a post now.)

- Post Drafts.
Ever get a post started but didn't have time to finish it right then, but you didn't want to have to save it on your computer or re-type it all?
Now users can save posts as a draft to be completed later (accessible through the User Controls section).

- Friend / Ignore system.
By adding someone to the ignore list, the user won't see that person's posts and that can't be messaged by that person. Conversely, if you're friends with someone it allows you to quickly message them. Users also have the option to allow it so they can only be messaged by people on their friends list.

- A powerful plugin system.
Though this one sort of only benefits me directly (but still ultimately benefits everyone) because by having a plugin system it allows me to more quickly and easily slot in features to grow the site.


- MyAlerts.
This allows users to tag each other like @Test. They then get a little notification by their user control panel link notifying them about it. Furthermore every PM they get, reputation point or time a post is quoted they get notified.

- Dokuwiki Bridging.
Unlike before, now every user that registers on the forum automatically has an account provided for them. The account uses the same username and password on both the wiki and forum (making it easier to remember login details). No more having to go through creating an extra account to use the wiki. (This also allows me to control spam far more effectively by installing much more powerful anti-spam solutions that cover both forum and wiki.)
Though users will still have to log into each both (since they use different cookies to store logins).



Also, because we're self-hosted now I've put some extra policies into place. Some of which are more to cover my butt (since by self-hosting I end up taking more responsibility). But others are ones which I should have put into place some time ago.

The short version of the new sections are basically:
- We're not a self-help site. If you're depressed or suicidal don't bring it here... get professional help instead.
- Endless Fight's resources are for Endless Fight's members. Don't hotlink our stuff.
- If you want to access Mature content, you must be 18.




Just for a heads up, because of the nature of conversions, you may notice some posts that have the formatting stripped out of them. This is likely because the formatting in them was custom BBcodes I had added in Jcink (which don't work in MyBB or have been replaced by similar ones). If you find any posts like that, just let me know and I'll fix it up.
Otherwise all the posts have been converted over and should be in their proper locations. But, again, if you see something that isn't right please let me know.

Also, for the next few days I'll be working to iron out any other bugs or issues that come up so if you see any error messages or notice anything not working like expected, please let me know.

Other than that, what do you guys think?

[Demon_skeith]

I like the look even though I'm not much of a mybb fan.


Though I am surprised you left jcink so suddenly, but given how it's been of late it's most likely for the best. I hope this move helps the site out.

[VirusZero]

Thanks, I spent a fair bit of time editing the skin and templates to get them to look close to what we had before.

In terms of the move, I'd actually been planning to move since December 2013. I just kept the plan a secret to surprise everyone and to coincide with our 4th anniversary (which is tomorrow).

I had decided back in December to move but I needed time to figure out how to perform the database conversion and then to practice it a few times. And of course see what kind of post-conversion clean up I'd have to do. Of course at this time I was fighting against my old laptop which made things harder.

In terms of Jcink... I still like the forum software, it's pretty good. But I haven't left the host as staff. I'm going to stick around as staff there for a little bit longer at least. (Or possibly not if Jcink decides to kick me off. Doubt he'd do that though considering he's not that kind of person.)


Though I think ultimately going self-hosted will prove to be the best move.

[Black Angel]

You did an excellent job on this forum, you should really be proud of what you have done here. Everything looks fantastic!

[randomdrifter865]

good going this place will bring new life.

[VirusZero]

Just for a quick update, I've installed a Mobile Version for everyone who used to browse the site on their phones.

The plugin seems to work fine for me (it was able to detect my phone's browser, even though my phone wasn't one of the ones listed) and I was able to browse around the test site just fine.
So when you visit the site on your phone the Mobile mode should automatically kick in and override the default theme so you can browse quicker and easier.
However, the mobile theme has not yet been customized so it's running one akin to what MyBB normally has. (So, for now, it isn't going to look like the desktop version of the site. Not until I can dig in and spend some time customizing it.)

As always, let me know if there are any issues.

@randomdrifter865, here's the tagging system in work.

[Silver Stryker]

Quote: Increased post length options.
Because I have access to the entire database (and can edit it as needed), I've expanded the maximum length of posts from 65,000 characters to around 15,000,000 characters. (So no fear about running out of space in a post now.)

Challenge accepted. Twice. Upside-down with an introverted outlook on life forever.

I'm kidding. I'll go ahead and be thankful for the post-draft function in advance though. It'll come in handy for times when my friends yank me from the room for something. And I didn't even think to check up on here on my droid. That'll be something to do during those spontaneous downtimes at work.

[VirusZero]

Speaking of notifications though, so everyone knows... you can configure what you get notifications for (by visiting this link or going to your User CP and clicking "Alert Settings"). Currently it's only set to show notifications for when someone specifically mentions you using the @ but there are other options you can enable if you want.