Ok, I'm going to roll out my plate of things "to do" The details of some of this are subject to Russ' approval, and other things might change as time goes by. So, at best, consider this a draft.
Note that some items here are labeled Community Supporters - these will become premium features only available to community supporters.
Fair warning - Russ hasn't seen or approved any of this so don't take any of this as a will happen. He'll be reading this for the first time like the rest of you.
1) User Selectable Postbit
This simple hack is already on WotC's site, and upgrading to 3.0.3 is required to make it possible here. What it will allow is for you to determine whether posts are displayed as they are now or with all of the information on the top of the posts (the vb3 default).
2) User Selectable Icon Set
This is relatively simple to do as well - and goes beyond what Arnwyn requests in the prior post by allowing posts to mix and match any icon set with any style set.
3) User Selectable "New Threads Bold"
Piratecat don't like this, I do, and the rest of the boards are split roughly 50 / 50 on this so having a toggle makes everyone happy.
4) User Selectable "Subscribed Threads Italics"
This makes the threads you've subscribed to appear in italics in their listing.
5) User Selectable Left Menu
This will create a left menu occupying around 20-25% of the screen that will include various news items, maybe a quick jump menu - I'm open to ideas on this. Of course, it can also be turned off on the forums pages (other pages may continue to require it as their setup demands).
6) Commercial Accounts
Who gets them is still up in the air, but basically this will allow publishers to pull and add ads at their leisure. Instead of purchasing a number of exposures for a specific ad a publisher will instead purchase exposures for their ad pool (up to 5 ads at a time). Ad pools will be accessed from the owner's Commericial CP (Similar to the User CP). In addition to ads Commerical users will be able to create company and product line icons to label their threads with. Finally a Commerical user will be able to designate other associate accounts that will be able to use the company and product line icons in their posts.
This replaces the current global company and product line icons on the system.
7) Category System
This system allows posters to designate a thread they are creating as belonging to one or more categories from a list of those available for the forum they are currently in. When browsing the boards users will be able to browse by forum or by category. Categories provide a secondary method of thread sorting and should ease the burden on the search engine AND make it possible to find posts far more quickly. Categories will be capacle of many of the same behaviors as forums with the sole exception that you won't be able to start a thread in a category - you must choose a forum to start a thread.
The radical implications of this sorting system means that the moderators may wish to combine some of the existing forums and allow categories to be used to sort threads.
The Category system will replace the Post Icon system. Note that Post Icons will still appear - the first category you select will determine the post icon. So if you create a post with categories "Spells, Prestige Classes, NPC's" then the post icon will be "Spells"
8) User Selectable Post Icons
Users will be able to turn Post icons off.
9) User Selectable Forum Icons
Forums will have icons as the WotC boards do, and users will be able to shut them off (though they'll be on by default).
10) Moderator Quick Action Buttons
Most of you won't see this, but Moderators will be able to move a thread to the archive, move it to another forum or soft delete it without actually viewing it (reducing their required mouse clicks). Each thread will have a check box and at the bottom of the screen, below the Quick reply, the Mod will have a list of actions to take
11) Users Selectable Smilies
Users will be able to turn smilies on or off. The jury is still out on whether more will be added once this feature is available, but odds are that if they are added their aliases ( for instance :happy: ) will be made clear to those with them turned off.
12) Product Reviews & Previews Database
The d20reviews section will be melded into the vbulletin database for faster more secure access. The cron job that does this will also give post counts to those posting reviews there (padding Crothian's already high count to be sure). User reviews will be accessable through icons displayed next to their avatar, and the ten most recent reviews will automatically be kept updated on the news page; the release dates of products will be displayed on the vbulletin calendar. Vbulletin code will be added to allow products to be linked within a post (something like [product=ArcanaUnearthed]Monte Cook's Arcana Unearthed[/product] )
13) Art Gallery integration
A truely integrated gallery will be added in place of Coppermine. User's most recent pictures will be linked from icons at or near their avatars.
14) New Page Upgrades
The news page will automatically parse out the digest - freeing the newshounds to other work, but more full articles will also be possible along with commentary. Scoops will be credited again as they were in the Post Nuke era.
15) Top Ten List
The ENWorld top ten list will be integrated into the main database. Every user's homepage will automatically be entered into the system and each user will be able to supply a link image for the site.
16) Flash ads
Advertisers will be able to place ads in Macromedia Shockwave files - users will be able to turn them off though so all shockwave ads will be required to have a *.gif or *.jpg equivalent.
Ok, that's MY list of things to do, and that doesn't include a lotta little things.
