It’s finally arrived. On or near Atomic’s two year birthday, we give to you this present. Atomic V2. The site that’s outta-site.
We've revamped everything, we've overhauled the forums, and, most importantly, we've made it faster. Faster than a ferret on speed or a Teflon-coated surfboard spanking downhill on an Artic glacier.
Curiously fast.
Besides the speed, we've added a pile of new features. The site's been redesigned, and the forums have gone through a complete rewrite – more a case of 'out with the old, in with the new' rather than 'let's cram in some more crap and see what happens'.
Being the Atomic way, the site, it's forums and all features were hand-coded by the dangerously talented Evil Admin (Daniel Godden). None of this generic, off-the-shelf UBB stuff for Atomic!
Refreshing is always refreshing. So, here it is – the new stuff:
Current users online – Now you can see how many other Atomicans are cruising the Atomic Website. No longer will you wonder in the depths of the night if you're the only soul probing the forums. At the very least, you'll know how many people are ignoring your 'super' midnight posts.
Community calendar – Calendars. Usually fairly boring, unless you need to know what days it is, but even then, some punk often forgets to cross off the days. And often, that punk is you. Well, that's not what this calendar is for. It's for the exclusive purpose of letting you (and us, because we often have no idea what the hell is going on) know what's happening during the month. Never miss an Atomic BBQ or LAN again. Unless you sleep in, of course.
News comments – Got an opinion? Everyone does, so let other Atomicans know what you think of a news item. Is it controversial? Interesting? Old? New? Whatever. Express your views on the latest news in this section, without chogging up 'Comments – Website'. The server won't periodically eat your replies either! Gotta love V2.0.
News search – You can search the news now. It's exciting. Really. So now, when we do put up an article of interest (and we do), you can go hunting for it with an SQL back end, rather than your hand and brain back end. Databases have so much going for them, so why not abuse a query or two?
News archive – What's the point of a search function for ten or so news posts? That's where the archive comes in. Now every news piece we stick up will be preserved through the ages on magnetic media. Well, until we develop isolinear data chips. They're in Star Trek so it must be possible?
New forum categories – Hoorah! It's been a long time coming, but finally, we've invented some more, new, forum categories. Making the grade are 'Unix, Linux & Open Source', plus 'Networking' and finally 'Modding'. We'll fix these as we go, compress a few, spread a few out, add some, remove some – you know, tweak until we bleed.
Extended user profiles – Want your MSN name and ICQ number in the Atomic user database? Do it. There's a bunch of other new fields to flesh out your online persona some more. Flesh is tasty, so there's nothing to lose.
Viewing profiles – In addition to the extra chunking profiles, you can now view other users' profiles, and the info they provide based on their privacy settings. Search for real names, ICQ numbers, phone numbers – whatever you need to contact that slacker 'MaGiC_IrIsH_FaIrY' who promised you a burn of the latest Gentoo.
Private messaging – Messaging! In private! Need we say any more? Maybe a little: you can now send other users private messages to discuss forum topics, general gibberish and whatever. All part of the new forums package. Fleshing out the community. Fleshing everything out really.
Better forum search – Quick like a sniper round, so you'll be busting the melons of topics at a breakneck pace. The new search not only checks forum titles, it checks the contents of the thread as well. You'll find every post on any topic you can think of, including those in the archives, in case you need to find the 'Jesus: Just a man' post again. The question should be 'Why?', not 'When?'.
Sticky and lock thread functions – If it doesn't blow, and it's important, moderators can now lock threads so they can be preserved, and stick threads so they don't wander off down the page. No more bumping those exquisite posts. Mind you, good posts usually keep themselves afloat – Atomic staff announcements tend to sink, though.
Atomic Glow – The best threads ever. If it's gold, you can vote for a thread to become part of the Atomic Glow – an archive of the most amazing, funny or just plain thoughtful posts. This title shouldn't be taken lightly.
Enhanced moderating – Finally, moderators have more power to supervise, monitor and, well, enhance the forums. Along with locking and sticking, threads can be moved around to different topics, be reported by users, and set so that they don't contribute to user post counts (for those Nighteyes threads). There's lots of other stuff as well to make life easier for all.
Quoting and post reply – Individual posts can now be replied to. When you click the 'Reply to this post' link, you'll be able to type a response that will appear back in the thread, along with the post your replying to. It'll be framed in a nice, green box, inside your reply, so people know what you're talking about. Context, Jim. You can now 'quote' yourself as well using the '[quote][/quote]' tags. Enjoy!
Email validation – We can't guarantee you exist, or that you'll even post, but we can make you validate via email. Now every time a user logs a new account, they'll be required to validate through an email sent when they sign up. Just an extra feature that's been waiting too long to be implemented.
Speed and stability – It's fast, and it's stable. New software back end, with fresh, clean code. Seriously hard work has gone into making this the best Atomic forum (at least until the next revamp comes along). Gone are the old problems (only to introduce new ones – hopefully not), with the inclusion of a transaction system for posting, better forum database handling and a generally better back end.
New user rankings – Mega-personalities who have been a godsend to the community, will get better recognition through the inclusion of some new forum rankings. And here they are:
(0-25) Serf(26-50) Initiate(51-75) Learner(76-100) Apprentice(101-125) Journeyman(126-150) Charge(151-200) Disciple(201-300) Master(301-399) Primarch(400-999) Overlord(1,000-1,999) Champion(2,000-4,999) Guru(5,000-9,999) Titan(10,000+) Immortal
As the weeks
Issue: 137 | June, 2012