December 9: I figured out how to show names in the posts, so if you have set a real name in your profile, it will now shown next to your username, like this:
So the following days will see another major update of the forum software that we use (Discourse), which is entering its version 1.5.
Among lots of performance improvements and other little fixes, for me, the highlights of that update will be
- new and better group messaging
- “Smoother loading of stream, show placeholder posts while loading”
- “Refactor user page for significantly better group messaging support, and more speed. Also add summary page”
- “Better control of like notifications and better notification default so you know when old posts are getting liked”
- full screen mobile editor
- “Longer default passwords, better verification of changed email addresses for staff, and notification when email is changed for regular users”
Read the full blog post announcement or their Full changelog
I will post another update once these changes are rolling out to our forum installation.
Preview of new user profile page with quick links to summary, notifications, messages, etc:
Preview of your new summary page:
April 2: The upgrade to 1.5 is done, and we’re now enjoying the new version of Discourse. I invite you all to check out your new profile page, specifically the badges you’ve earned, and notice the faster loading times of the forum. I am excited, been waiting for this upgrade a long time, it greatly improves the experience with this forum! I hope you dig it
The developers have outlined the major new updates of in this blogpost. Full list of new features is here and here.
April 26: Topics in the “lost and found” section can now be labeled “solved” by chosing a reply as the best answer to one of those “I am looking for a certain movie” type questions.
https encryption security coming to the forum early May!
May 8: Two days after the SWDb itself, this forum is now officially running via https encrypted connections, bringing you more safety and privacy. You’re welcome 
Watch for the little padlock in your browser
May 21: There is a new badge “Contributor” that you can earn if you’ve done anything in the SWDb recently (let’s say within the last 10 months or so). Applicants please PM me 
Short preview of a really nice thing coming up in july: better use of the right hand “gutter” space to give a better overview of debate progress
May 24: Made some minor tweaks to the Category overview page. Updated the category pictures and description, and fixed the order for all categories. Also increased the number of latest topics shown from 3 to 4.
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June 1: Email notifications and digests, as well as any other email related functionality, currently not working because our provider has blocked us. Can you help? Yes and no. I will try to get us unblocked, but in general, keeping SWDb emails out of your spam/junk folders helps to cut down on the complaints and bounces rate
Ok Email is back. We were unable to locate the problem but sending is active again.
June 7: And blocked again… working on it. Annoying piece of clusterfuck
Update 5pm: Working again. Please keep your email addresses up to date. At any rate, I put some Amazon links up top, please do use those for your shopping needs, it really helps us out!
Aug 5: Discourse 1.6 is out and should be applied to this forum quite soon. According to the official blog post announcing the update, the major changes are a) vertical timeline, as teased further up b) better merging options c) easier polls d) warning of duplicate links e) better unsubscribe options f) deep linking into texts via anchors g) personalization of invitation emails h) some new badges i) “watch first post” alert option. And a lot more. Click here to read their summary, and here is a list of all the changes.
Edit: Some of my favorite new features are also the additional personal stats that were added, better thumbnails for large images. The update will arrive in the coming days, I will keep you posted.
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Aug 20: As you may have noticed, the new version of the forum is already up and running. See my previous post to dig deeper into what has changed, I will be back shortly with some highlights. In the meantime, I removed the ugly top bar and instead added some icons to the top right corner that lead you to the FAQ/Help, the donation page, the SWDb, and of course then as you know the powerful search and the hamburger menu which gives you tons of options. Play around, see if you like it.
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Jan 6: A new version 1.7 of the Discourse forum software will be released soon. I will post some highlights this weekend. For those interested in what is coming up, you can read an exhaustive list of features here.
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Jan 15: The new version has landed, and here are just a few highlights that you can easily spot
On the latest posts page, you’ll see a line that shows you what happened since your last visit, a nice visual aid
The categories page has been revamped and now has a sidebar that brings the latest posts/topics. It is thus a more useful hybrid page
Some more highlights
- Improved navigation on mobile devices (especially moving back and forth, scrolling down)
- More links pasted into posts will now automatically expand into a preview box (“onebox”) and you can start a post with a link (Just paste a link into the title field and see what happens)
- Email summaries (usually sent at the end of the day or week, depending on your setting) were redesigned and are even more useful now
- Advanced search as gotten some useful updates
- Tons of security, performance and UI fixes
- see official blog post and release notes
Nice to see the software we use here evolve every six months to become even more useful. I love posting in the forums from my mobile phone, it just works really well
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The new version of Discourse 1.8 will come very soon, for those interested in finding out what will be available soon, please read
or the full release notes at Discourse Version 1.8 - releases - Discourse Meta
I will let you know once we’re rolling live with the update
The update is now live. Let us know if you experience any problems. Two of you were awarded user of the month badges already 
The new year will start with the 1.9 upgrade to Discourse, bringing a number of interesting improvements to the forum software. Stay tuned
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It will probably arrive in the next days/weeks, and it brings a whole lot of smaller and larger upgrades to the forum, if you’re into the nitty gritty techy stuff you can check it out here Discourse Version 1.9 - releases - Discourse Meta
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