The Gumball Machine

[Chad]

Welcome to the gumball machine blog update:

Ok, the title is just a joke really. This is simple another blog post of new updates made the past few days. Below are the updates along with author's description per module.

Updated

- statistics software found under the Help menu. More stats available, all for fun curiosity.
- added more TV + radio stations to the Radio & TV player
- added about 10 new games to the arcade
- added about 100 new quotes to the random quotes feature [pink box in forum view] for more worthy Christian wisdom
- search function up top has more search features. Click it, see it.

New Features

MP3 Player in Live Chat

Due to the horrible support of the old mp3 player software I purchased a while back and recent problems, I decided to replace it with a new MP3 player. Go to the live chat room and check it out. Over 115+ songs currently available! Send me a pm to suggest new Christian songs (any genre like Rock, Jazz, Gospel, Pop, etc). Must be genuine good-hearted Christian songs only.

Social Group Calendars

1. Upcoming events for a group are shown on the group's page, grouped by day.
2. The group's next event is shown in more detail and can be configured to show the entire event description or be trimmed to a certain number of characters.
3. Members can see events for all the social groups they belong to consolidated into one calendar.
4. The forum home index page can be setup to show upcoming events for social groups.
5. Non-members can see upcoming events for a public group by viewing the group's page. They will not see events for these groups in the calendar view or on the forum homepage, which will help keep the clutter down.
6. Group's that are moderated, invite only, or must join to view content, will not display their upcoming events to non-members. Their events are also secured, so following a link to an event by a non-member will result in a no permissions error.
7. Group owners can optionally allow members to be able to post events, or they can set their group up so that only they can post events.
8. When clicking on the New Event link from the group's page, the event will automatically be assigned to the referring group.
9. When creating a new event from the calendar view, the creator can assign the event to any group he has permissions to post events. These events will appear in a drop down box on the event.
10. Plays nice with Farcaster's Event Attendance v2.0 (RSVP mod). [this rsvp mod is installed on the forum]

Video Directory

• Landing page for broad information and fully featured tag cloud.
• Category profiles for videos.
• Contribution profiles for users.
• Keyword profiles for tag cloud.
• Built in comment system for videos.
• Search function for titles and descriptions.
• RSS feed of videos.

Link: found under Community menu on top.

Members can add videos too [coming soon, actually]! All videos moderated first to keep the community's video directory free of unworthy content.

Tip: to add a video from YouTube, simply grab the url and just paste into the Video URL field. Click the Load Information button and it automatically fills in all the details including Title, Time, Video Description and thumbnail

Popup Private Messasging

Popup Private Messaging allows you to send a private message from a post, thread, profile, your members list or forum leaders list without leaving the page. A DHTML popup window will allow you to compose a message either using a simple form or an advanced form with WYSIWYG editor, post icons and miscellaneous options!

Random Album Pictures

Just random pictures on the home page, bottom area.

Quick Selective Quoting

Highlight the text of your choice, click the appropriate button and the "Quick Reply" you receive the text to quote.

This is the icon:

Tag Cloud

Tag cloud found on the home page, right side column. Just for fun browsing, click any keyword and it'll give you a list of threads with related keywords, aka "tags".

Stumble Thread

This one we had for a short while then I removed it because it did not work. Well, found the fix. So, its back up on the menu again. Click it, shows a random thread. Just for fun browsing.

User Anniversary

In the forum home page, in the WOL (who's online) section at the bottom, it adds a new box that displays user anniversaries. If any user has registered at least 1 year ago on the actual date, they will show up in that list! Just a nice gesture and props to loyal members.

Mini GodTube Video in Profile

Add your choice video from GodTube.com to show up in your profile area, right side column. Check my profile for an example.

MP3 Player in Profile

Add your choice mp3 [external link] to show up in your profile area, right side column. Check my profile for an example. Simple rule, must be a Christian song or sermon only. Any profile found to have otherwise will have the mp3 removed.

PDF Online

Ability to post PDF documents, nicely integrated into a thread, completely viewable inline. Ability to post PDF is available only to admin and mod group at this time for testing purpose.

Age And Gender Demographics

Shows a break down of age groups of members based on their birth dates. It will also show genders as well.

Link: under Help menu

 

[Chad]

A few more updates:

For social groups (see Community menu up top):

- ability for group creator to mass pm the group members
- automatic new thread creation upon new social group creation
- social group categories
- social group pictures (unique picture for your group)

Categories:

The categories make each social group more descriptive of what they're about and easier for members to search for certain types of social groups they'd like to join.

The available categories are:

Bible Studies
Counseling
General
Pen Pals
Prayer Warriors
Teens & Youth