How to's and tips and tricks on the new version of Boards.ie

Spear

Boards.ie has moved from it's nearly quarter century old vbulletin basis to a new platform based on Vanilla Forums. The old vbulletin was both ancient and a bit of a Frankensteins monster of bolted on bits and pieces it had accumulated to meet it's needs. But it's dated nature means it couldn't keep up with the needs of a modern internet and the growth that's occurred. At this moment Vanilla also lacks a lot of the comforts/features of the old platform. These are being added as we go, so right now the comination of missing things and changes to others means people are going to be a bit lost.

I'm going to start building some knowledge on using the new version of the site here, collating it in this post to serve as a quick reference. As the site is very subject to change, so will this.

Disclaimer

The site is a work in progress, and so is this collection of info. Additonally, the desktop and mobile versions may not match in their functionality.

New Features

Notification on being quoted.

This was a commonly requested option, which Vanilla supports. Simply quoting a post with the quote button will trigger a notification to the use being quoted.

Points system

There's a points system showing a score for your account. I've no idea what use it has or how it works, other than it seems to be closely linked to likes count.

Account Level System

There's an account level system, and like the points, I've no idea what it means or how it works, except that it generates a mail alert when you increase in levels.

Badges system

There's a system of reward badges for various achievements. It's the usual stuff, age of account, number of posts and likes etc. Right now it's currently not enabled, but you may have seen some of it during the testing phase.

Questions system

Rather than start a pure discussion thread, a thread can now be started a question type. This allows for the thread starter to mark a response as being the answer to their issues.

How do I?

Notifying or calling a users attention to something.

You can use @ followed by a username to trigger a notification to someone, much like other platforms like Twitter or Slack.

Bookmark threads?

There's a bookmark icon immediately to the right of the thread title, just click that once so it turns blue. Same again to unbookmark it.

Edit a post?

There's an edit button, consist of three full stops just right of the bookmark button. This allows you to edit your post for 24 hours.

How do I report a problematic post?

There's now a flag button, which has three options, spam, abuse and the more general report option.

How do I use spoiler tags now?

If you use the paragraph icon to the left of the text you're adding, it'll open up extra options. One of these is the special formats option, which allows for text to be marked as spoilers.

Spoiler Warning

Here's an example.

What's broken, missing, not yet added?

Usernames

Vanilla is not as friendly to non-standard username, or names with spaces in them. It normally allows letters, numbers and underscores. This is causing issues with various functions currently.

Where are Helpdesk/Dispute Resolution etc?

Not all forums are moved across yet. There's no ETA yet.

Bookmark forums?

That's not completely implemented yet. It's present on the mobile/responsive version, but not on desktop, and the mobiles choices don't carry over to desktop.

cormie

Hey, is there any way to get subscribed threads back, I had my subscribed threads bookmarked as my landing page for boards, but it's not working anymore. Also, there doesn't seem to be a way to subscribe to threads now?

Also, I'm pretty sure before the update my post count was not even 19,500, now it seems to have jumped over 20k? 🤔

cormie

https://boards.ie/discussion/comment/117620412#Comment_117620412

Ok, I just see now it's down to 18.5K, it was definitely about 19.5K though and on my profile page, it says 20,566 posts!?

Spear

https://boards.ie/discussion/comment/117620412#Comment_117620412

The old bookmarks/subscriptions don't seem to have come across properly. There isn't a subscription with notification style system like the old one.

Your post count may jump, as not all posts on the old system counted. Some forums, such as Puzzles and Quizzes were excluded due to post count boosting.

Purple Mountain

You have to squint to see a username in a thread.

I recognise some of the avatars but as for usernames, their banner in threads is way too small.

Spear

https://boards.ie/discussion/comment/117620448#Comment_117620448

Feedback and usability issues like that should go into this thread:

https://boards.ie/discussion/2058198814/welcome-to-the-new-boards-ie-platform-version-1-0

Atlantic Dawn

Is it possible to have an entire quoted post shown? Currenty only first portion of 6 lines or so are shown and you have to expand it.

Spear

Yes, but it's a bit more fiddly. When you're responding to a post, the paragraph symbol to the left can be used to open up further editing options, including a manual quote system under special formats.

E.g.:

Boards.ie has moved from it's nearly quarter century old vbulletin basis to a new platform based on Vanilla Forums. The old vbulletin was both ancient and a bit of a Frankensteins monster of bolted on bits and pieces it had accumulated to meet it's needs. But it's dated nature means it couldn't keep up with the needs of a modern internet and the growth that's occurred. At this moment Vanilla also lacks a lot of the comforts/features of the old platform. These are being added as we go, so right now the comination of missing things and changes to others means people are going to be a bit lost.

I'm going to start building some knowledge on using the new version of the site here, collating it in this post to serve as a quick reference. As the site is very subject to change, so will this.

The spoiler and code block options are also there.

The Continental Op

Edit Profile doesn't really work as a cohesive whole but you get to edit a couple of things by clicking on your icon and squinting to see the Edit Profile link which can hardly be seen on the background.

Then there is the three bars link to the top right of the Notifications drop down which allows all your notifications email/on screen to be switched on or off.

https://boards.ie/discussion/comment/117620448#Comment_117620448

Its the same font size as the post text

Spear

https://boards.ie/discussion/comment/117620536#Comment_117620536

There's a whole bunch of possible options, but they're currently disabled. Usernames such as your own were causing issues due to spaces.

The text colour is a known issue though.

The Continental Op

This is heading 2

This is heading 3

This is heading 4

This is heading 5

Just posted that for anyone expecting heading 5 to be a bigger font that heading 3.

List of things I like....

• Bulleted lists work
• And cut out the extra line feed pressing returns normally give
• Numbered lists also work - press return twice to continue with normal text

1. First
2. Second
3. Etc - press return twice to continue with normal text

But no nested lists as far as I can see

Spoiler Warning

Spoiler Alerts look like this - press return twice to get out of the spoiler box once you have typed in it

This is some code in a code box

This is a quote

Highlight a word (or any text) to get an additional menu for Bold, Italic, Strikethrough, ellipses and adding a link .

Following forums/Threads on Mobile

As "My Forums" doesnt appear to be making a come back any time soon, here's a way to rebuild your lists of favorite forums

On mobile, find the forum you wish to follow

Go up one level in the breadcrumb links e.g. for Galway City forum, the breadcrumb looks like this

Home - Regional - West - Galway City & County

Clicking on "West" brings you to the list of forums under that topic, click the gear icon beside the forum you want to follow, select "Follow".

Now click the boards logo at the top, this takes you to the "Latest" page. In the dropdown at the top, change view to "Following", now you only see threads from your followed forums.

To get something vaguely similar for threads only, click the star icons beside the thread title, this will add them to your bookmarks.

To see activity on your followed threads, click your avatar, then click the star icon.

None of the above is perfect, but its the best there is at the moment.

Following Forums/Threads on Desktop

I can find no way to follow a forum on desktop at the moment, however if you follow on mobile per above, then on desktop, when you click "Discussions" at the top, you will see a page with only posts from your followed forums whereas clicking the boards logo will bring you to "Latest" across all forums.

Following threads:

Go into the thread you want to follow, click the bookmark icon at the top right of the thread.

To view bookmarks (followed threads), click your avatar in the top right, click bookmarks et voilà

Hope this helps

How to - Get a link to a specific post

Click the Twitter share button and you'll get a direct link to the post as it opens a twitter window with the link pasted into a new tweet

Not user-friendly, but it works.....if you have a twitter account

The Continental Op

https://boards.ie/discussion/comment/117621161#Comment_117621161

On a desktop click on Quote then in the quote just click the time in your quoted post and "Copy link address", paste as required.

From above https://boards.ie/discussion/comment/117621161#Comment_117621161

quickbeam

How do you do formatting and spoilering on desktop? I don't see anything to the left of where I'm typing.

https://boards.ie/discussion/comment/117621291#Comment_117621291

Check out this guide Niamh put together

https://boards.ie/discussion/2058199126/how-can-i-a-users-guide-to-the-new-site

quickbeam

https://boards.ie/discussion/comment/117621336#Comment_117621336

Thanks, but I'm still confused because I don't see any paragraph mark to the left. There's barely a couple of milimetres to the left of the Leave a Comment box on my screen:

https://boards.ie/discussion/comment/117621381#Comment_117621381

see below

pleasant Co.

https://boards.ie/discussion/comment/117621381#Comment_117621381

Same for me, but it's there - kind of.

Highlight your text, gradually move your mouse horizontally left of the text and your cursor will find something to click which will bring up those options. 🤣

Slydice

Just lost about 5 mins figuring it out including checking this thread so..

If anyone is looking for the way to put a youtube video into a thread, it's just to:

• copy the video link from youtube
• in your post, click the Insert Media button (next to the attachment button at the bottom of the post)
• paste your link into the Insert Media thingey

Example below with me just copying and pasting this one: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zCTJmXrgsFg

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zCTJmXrgsFg

Slydice

OK! OK! I know it's been over a week but I think I just noticed how to tell if a thread has a new post in it.

Before it used to be a different Colour.. but now it's an Envelope that is closed for unread posts and a Envelope (same colour) that is open for no unread posts... I think.

HeidiHeidi

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117660233#Comment_117660233

Is that on desktop or mobile?

On desktop, under bookmarks, there is indeed a nearly invisible envelope to the left of the threads list, but if there are new posts it also says after the thread title "X new", but in among other labels, so you have to actually look to pick it out.

Please, please, if the powers that be are reading this - can you bring back the bold/not bold distinction??? Or put me out of my misery and let me know if it's not possible (but why??).

At this stage I think that's my biggest wish for the site.

Apart from the slowness of pages loading on both versions of the site - still a major pain 😡

Slydice

Is that on desktop or mobile?

Desktop for sure.

a nearly invisible envelope to the left of the threads list, but if there are new posts it also says after the thread title "X new", but in among other labels, so you have to actually look to pick it out.

Yeah I did notice that once or twice. Something about that invisible envelope being opened/closed means something else too I think.

Slydice

wow, selective quotes look really confusing at the moment

funkey_monkey

Does search facility not work yet?

Boards.ie: Niamh

It does work but is not great, there is still work being done on it. Is there anything specific not working for you?

beryl1

Is there a way of getting a weekly notification of my bookmarked forums? I don't have time to look at updates any more than that and used to find the weekly email of all updates very handy.

Boards.ie: Niamh

There isn't I'm afraid, I can add it as a request though and see if it is something we can do in the future.

Paremon2

I note the above post that the search facility is still a work in progress.

How do you search within a Place (e.g. Bargain Alerts) with a specific search string?

The old site's search facility was user friendly in so far as you could search within a Forum, Sub-forum etc for more accurate results.

Boards.ie: Niamh

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118141543#Comment_118141543

Unfortunately you can't search specifically in a thread or forum but can use the filtering options on search on desktop to narrow down your search a bit.

MidlanderMan

Can I change the settings so the boards.ie header (logo, discussions, categories, groups, etc bar) isn't always at the top of ym browser and only shows when I scroll to the top of the page/when I hover over it?

Spear

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118432133#Comment_118432133

Sorry, but no, there's no such option that I'm aware of.

galwaytt

Any news on what happened to signatures ? I only twigged yesterday that mine was missing, so looking back through historic posts - back 10 years - my signature is gone from those too.

Boards.ie: Niamh

You may have them switched off on your profile @galwaytt you can switch them back on by going to Signature Settings.

On mobile:

Tap on your profile pic on the top right of any page

Select 'Edit Profile'

Scroll to the bottom of the page and select 'Signature Settings'

If 'Hide signatures always' or 'Hide signatures on my mobile device' are selected, deselect them and click Save.

On desktop:

Click on your profile pic on the top right of any page

Click on your username to open your profile

Click on this menu on the right:

Select Signature Settings

If 'Hide signatures always' or 'Hide signatures on my mobile device' are selected, deselect them and click Save.

Boards.ie: Niamh

Having said all of that, I don't see a signature set up on your account so you can also do that in Signature Settings.

galwaytt

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118882879#Comment_118882879

that's what I don't understand - I've had the same signature since approx January 2008 on (10k?) posts, so where did that signature go ?

If I could see an old post (10yrs?) I could copy/paste it into my profile now, but its seems to have stripped every post back to 2008 of it.

Boards.ie: Niamh

It was probably lost when we changed to the new platform last year, have you only just noticed it was missing recently? Old posts will still only display your current signature I'm afraid.

galwaytt

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118889548#Comment_118889548

Well, I just went looking, and this post I started, with 9.6k reads, and 84 posts ............has 'lost' the first 61 posts and ALL the original (20+) pages..... so neither my actual post, nor my signature, is there: where did that all go ?

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/2055683179/audi-sportscar-experience-because-theres-more-to-life-than-just-existing

Here's another I wrote in 2011. Not only is my signature gone, but it's 'written back' the one I just put in as my signature over it (today)....

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/2056231888/so-at-the-weekend-i-went-to-disneyland-sorry-bmw-welt#latest

Boards.ie: Niamh

As I said in my post above, any post will only show your current signature - it's not part of the post text and will change every time you change your signature just as your username would change on old posts if you changed that too.

I'm not sure what you mean by 61 posts being lost? Can you remember 61 posts that are no longer there or is there something you are looking at to give you that idea?

Brendan Bendar

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