Welcome to the MFG Forums 4

[Sharky]

Welcome! As you can see the MFG Forums are now running in a different location. We've switched from using Invision Power Board, to a software called Community Server.

For a long time now, we've known that we've wanted to have the forum and the main site work beter together. And we've been doing a lot of work in that area. The main site is now completely converted to ASP .NET. We have a .NET based gallery. And the next step is to move to a .NET based forum.

We looked around and Community Server is the best .NET based forum. Unfortunetely, they don't yet have a way to migrate old posts from invision to community server. However, rather than waiting for that, we've decided to switch over to Commmuntiy server right away.

When a migration tool is eventaully available, we will convert the old posts and make them visible in community server.

Please make sure to grab anything you want off the old forums while they're still online! They'll probably only be up for another 12 hours or so (Monday night).

Got a question or a bug with the new MFG Forums? Let us know and post it in this topic. Answers will be added to this post, so look for updates.

How long until the old Forums close down completely?
Roughly, I'd say you have until tomorrow night (5/8/2006). So if you have stuff you want from there, get it while you can.

There's more than one Skin?! How do I change which one I'm using?
Yes, there's 2! Well, technically there's 3, but the 3rd one (called anime or something like that), is just a duplicate. That's the one that we'll be changing and using for our custom skin that we make. Okay, so here's how you change skins:

01. Make sure you're Registered and Logged In (Sorry, guests can only use the Default theme).
02. In the upper-right corner, It should say something like: Signed in as: "your username", click there.
03. Then click on the "Site Options" tab of your profile.
04. Go to the second one down, where it says "Theme", and click the drop down box.
05. That's all the available skins. Choose which one you'd like, then click "Save Changes" at the bottom of the page, and you're done!

What are the rules regarding Avatars?
The new rules for avatars are a maximum of 150x150pixels, and no file size restrictions. However, at this time, animated avatars are not supported.

How do I upload an image to the forums Photo Gallery?
01. Make sure you're Registered and Logged In.
02. Click on the "Photos" button (under the banner), to enter the gallery.
03. Click on the "All Galleries" link near the bottom of the page.
04. You'll see a list of a bunch of different Users. Find your name and click on it.
***You're now in your gallery.
05. Click the "add picture" link, under "Common Tasks", on the right side of the page.

The rest should be pretty self explanitory. But, if you have any trouble don't hesitate to ask.

How do I post in my Blog?
The blogs are currently down. When we get them fixed we'll let you know.

I don't like these skins, can you add a better one?
We understand the 2 available skins are much different than what we had previously on IPB. We took a good look around the web for more skins, but unfortunetely they just don't exist. Well, they do exist, but they're just slight color variations on the 2 skins we already have installed. Which is not what we're looking for.

So, Ace and I decided we'll just have to make our own skin(s)! Don't expect it right away, but we'll work on it when we have time. When progress is made on the skin(s), we'll post about it in the News & Announcements forum, or in a message on the homepage.

Why are the Smilies different from MFG Forums 3.0?
Invision Power Board and Community Server both come with different sets of default Smilies (Emoticons). We will be importing all the Smilies from the old MFG Forums, and adding them to the currently available ones. But in the meantime, please use what we have.

How do I use a Smilie / Emoticon?
Do the same thing you would do on our old forums, except add a [ and ] around it. For example, let's say ":coconuts:" is the trigger from an emoticon (even though it isn't, just pretend it is).

On the old forums you would type -- :coconuts:
Here on the new forums, you tpye -- [:coconuts:]

While this may be a little more difficult at first, in the long run it will prove much more effective. One of the downsides to the old method was having smilies appear in a post when the user didn't intend for them to. For example, let's say ":/" is a trigger. If someone types in "http://blah" the beginning of the URL gets turned into a smilie and everything gets broken. Of course this is still possible with the new method, it's just much, much more unlikely.

What are the Features in Community Server 2.0?
A full list of features can be found over on the official Community Server website, here.

Where did the Post Ranks go?
Unfortunetely in CS you can only choose to display post count or post rank, not both. Originally, we had it setup to show post rank, but overall it seemed to confuse users more than help them. Ace and I will be editing the CS code to change this, but until then you'll just have to live without a rank title.

Why are some of the forums and sub-forums ordered all wierd?
CS supports re-ordering forums, and sub-forums. However, there seems to be a slight bug with that feature. It works in some areas on not in others. We're still working on getting this straightened out. One of the quick fixes I figure out (and used on the DBZGT forums), was to add a number to the beginning of each forum. If we have to we could just do this, although having a strange order may in same cases be a better choice.

How do I Private Message (PM) members?
01. Go to the Member List (Which you can view here).
02. Click search.
03. Find the name of the member you want to PM, then click on the "Private Message" button.

How do I put images into posts?
There's 2 ways, depending on where the image is you'd like to insert. While option 1, works no matter where the image is, option will only work on images that have been uploaded into the MFG Forums image gallery.

Option 1:
1. Get the URL of the image you'd like to insert
2. Paste the URL into your post
3. Add [img] tags around the URL

Option 2:
1. Go to the screen where you type up your post
2. Click on the "Content Selector" button (located under the font highlighter box)
3. Navigate to the Image you want
4. Select the image, check the settings you want, hit OK -- here's what I ended up with:


[img]/photos/dino/images/296/thumb.aspx[/img]

What are "Points", and how do they work?
Community Server comes with something called a Point System (also know as a Reputation System). Basically, when a user does various actions here on the forums they're worth a certain amount of points. These actions include things like Posting, starting topics, writing in your blog and so on. All of these points are constantly being calculated and re-calculated and then displayed alongside things like your avatar and post count.

For example, with the regular post count system, if one user makes a 1 word spam post, and another user makes a detailed review or editorial of something -- they're post count will be the same. But with the Point system, the user writing the long editorial will be rewarded with more points. They're many different factors that are looked at to decide what earns how many points, but for now we'd like to keep them to ourselves so they aren't abused.

[dino]

How do I PM Members?

[Sharky]

Originally Posted by dino

How do I PM Members?

Okay, you're question has now been answered and added to the main post.

[Matt]

Wow you lot have done a great job. Im quite keen on the new website :) well done you lot keep it up :D

[Sharky]

Thank you!

[Fallen Angel]

Everything is looking good. At first, I was a little against the idea of a move but this place is really cool and interesting

May take a while getting used to, but this place is definately an improvement and well worth the wait!

[Crayne]

Adjusting to the new forums will take it's time, but even so, nicely done. Good job with the new forums.

[Shade]

Yeah, I agree with pretty much everything that's been said.

They're cool. IMO. I like a lot of the features here...

[Sharky]

Thanks guys! I appreciate it .

[Beautiful Illusion]

*just got back on*

Nice look, guys - I'm sure I shall adjust in no time - I'm sure we all shall ^^ looking forward to being a part of MFG v4 ^^

[mackBlasta]

So uhh.... how exactly do you put pictures in posts?

[Sharky]

Originally Posted by Blackmasta

So uhh.... how exactly do you put pictures in posts?

Same as on the old forums. Get the URL of the image you want to insert, paste it into your post, and add [img] tags around it. There isn't a button you can click to add the tags for you, like Invision. But, if your image is uploaded into the Forums gallery, you can click the content selector button to insert it.

I kind of remember seeing an add-on that customizes the post window to be a little more similar to invision. I'll see if I can find that again.

[Star Platinum]

Well from what I have seen these forums are great and I shall enjoy my time here.

But on to business. Why am I signed off after a short period of inactivity ( i.e 5-10 minutes)? i also noticed while going over the old boards that a couple of the pinned topics in the Naruto and Bleach sections had dissapeared.

[Legend]

Thanks Sharky! This will defenitly help me when im in trouble.

[Kei]

This is gonna take some time to get used to... but I'll handle it. A little move isn't gonna stop me from coming to MFG... Good work guys!!! *shoots the smilie* Why do those things keep coming near me...?