This article is part of a series about upgrade changes. Here I'm covering site-wide changes. These are the changes that carry over into multiple areas of the forum, like account and profile settings.
Upcoming articles will cover changes specific to the forum, journals, gallery, chat, and new features for patrons.
Theme Customization
Our themes now have customization options that are available to everyone. Use the new button in your user bar to access them:
If you're a Patron who has access to our additional themes, there's also a new toggle to quickly switch between light and dark mode. The themes have been streamlined into three pairs with a light and dark mode in each pair.
There's a whole lot more I have to say about themes, but they'll get their own post soon.
Avatar Changes
Unfortunately, I wasn't able to bring that plugin that made the pretty abstract default avatars with us in this upgrade. If you were using one of the generated default avatars and miss it, contact me and I can get it from our backup for you.
Our new default avatars generate a random color with the first initial of the member's username. At least they're still unique. I've also retired our old avatar rules for now since the default avatars contain a letter. We haven't been enforcing most of the avatar guidelines since going private anyway, and I don't want the new avatars causing confusion.
That doesn't mean anything goes for avatars now. They'll still be removed if they violate our other forum guidelines.
Navigation Changes
The navigation bar has been rearranged. This change was made because the home link was added to the beginning and to group the "user content areas" (Forum, Journals, Gallery, Chat) next to each other.
Maybe it's just an admin thing, but I frequently need to link the Notification Options page to members. Getting to it in Account Settings was too many steps. So now there's also a link to it under "Rules and Help" so you can quickly get to it from anywhere on the site.
Push Notifications
These are notifications you can receive on your phone, tablet, or computer when content you follow has updates. They don't require you to have the browser open, so they'll appear wherever notifications pop up on your operating system. They're disabled by default, but if you want them you'll find the option at the bottom of your Notification Options page.
Site Error Pages
Our error pages for guests are more informative now, and explain that they can't see certain pages because they need to be logged in. Before, the error pages weren't informative and made it look like the site was broken instead of simply being private.
New Ranks and Badges
We have a new rank system that awards badges for forum achievements. Right now, it's not that noticeable because I only ported over our existing post count rank system. However, you do already have the achievement box on your profile so you can go there now and admire your first badge. Congratulations!
As the upgrade progresses, I'll add more achievements and badges so it's more interesting.
More to come...
This isn't everything! There will be more posts like this and I'll continue to add to this one.