What's New at Inforoo

Welcome to the brand new version of Inforoo. All of the moderators of the forum are very excited to let you all know about these new features, plugins, and tools. We've heard what you've asked for and hope that this will satisfy as many of the requests as possible.

There will be a few threads that will discuss the new things to Inforoo. Here are the links to easily navigate:





So what's happening: We know we talked about moving off of proboards to a better message board system during the recent Inforoo announcement. It just so happens that while we were discussing/debating these options Proboards had been hard at work at upgrading their own systems. To make things easy, we decided to go along with the upgrade and see how things work out. If we all like it then perhaps there won't be a need for a move.



Small Changes to the Forum:

As you can see, we have split the forum into two parts. One called Centeroo and the other called The Farm. Bonnaroo and Roo-related talk will be handled in Centeroo while other discussions can be had in The Farm. Not a big change.

We also want to point out that two sub-board sections have changed names. We are dropping the name Troo Music Lounge and replacing it with The Which Stage. Bonnaroo no longer uses a Troo Music Lounge and so neither will we. The section of the forum that was formerly known as The Which Stage (where you can discuss albums, shows, bands, and festivals) is now renamed The Music Lounge since it primarily is a section to discuss music and shows not related to Bonnaroo. Only the names of these sections are changing and nothing else will be altered so you can still have the same types of discussions you've always had.

The final change to the forum sections is that we removed the sub-board known as The Washboard. We felt that it had served it's purpose and was no longer needed. We have moved a few of the still-active threads into the section titled The Other Tent.



New Features:


Global Accounts:

This is something that Proboards has started up. It's not that complicated or anything that should freak you out. Basically they just want you to create one account to use to login to all proboards forums. If you are on multiple message boards that use Proboards then this will make things easier for you. To "upgrade" your account to a globald account you just need an e-mail account and a "display name" (for example, mine is "itrainmonkeys").

Once you upgrade your account you just need to login to it for Inforoo and you should be all set. If you are having touble with this please e-mail us at info@inforoo.com or send us a tweet at Inforoo's twitter page.

Here is a short and simple video that will guide you through the process as well as a video that explains the Global Accounts in more detail:

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Live Search:

We are excited to tell you about the Live Search function on the new Inforoo. This search feature is much improved from the previouse board software. Now you can search the forum OR you can specifically search a forum, thread, or member. There are plenty of search options that you can use. Below is what Proboards has to say about it as well as a screenshot visual:

There is a new search box in the top right corner in many sections of the forum: When viewing a board, viewing a thread, in your Personal Messages. You can type any search term into this box and results will instantly appear on your screen. How can we make this feature even better? We offer a new Live Search Filters system. Filters allow you to narrow down your results even further by various criteria.

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A Working Ignore Function

Finally! We have an ignore function that is much improved. In the past, you could ignore a poster but you'd still see that they posted and have the option to view their post. The new Ignore function allows you to completely ignore a poster. You will not even know they posted if you set them to ignore. The whole post is removed.



Note: The only drawback of the ignore feature is if someone quotes the person you are ignoring you will be able to read the quoted text. If that happens...just be the bigger person and skip over it.

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Karma is gone

Proboards felt like it wasn't necessary and we agree. It was always a pointless system anyway and now we're sticking with the "Like" for showing the appreciation of specific posts.

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Visual Editor

No more hitting "Preview" to see what your post will look like. You can just easily switch to the Visual Editor as seen below. Here's what Proboards has to say about the visual editor:

Do you wish you knew what your post would look like without having to hit that Preview button? Our new Visual Editor allows you to see exactly what your post will look like while you create it!

Our editor comes with all the regular options that you are used to and even some new ones. Check it out!

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Profile Changes/Updates

• Notifications: You will now be able to see instant notifications if you have certain interactions on Inforoo. You will notice a number next to the "Notifications" link. Click that link to go to your notifications page and see what recent updates have ocurred. Click here to see how to edit which Notifications you recieve.
• Folllow/Friends: Similar to Facebook and other social networks, you can now choose to "Follow" certain posters and see what their recent activity has been. To follow someone just go to their profile page and click the "Follow" button. (Note: for privacy buffs Click Here to see how to change the privacy settings for your profile
• Social: If you would like you can link your other Social Network accounts to your Inforoo account. If you would like to share this info you can fill in the fields for Facebook, Google+, twitter, youtube, etc. by usiung the "Social" tab under "Profile"
• Settings: Under the settings tab of your profile screen you can choose whether or not you want to see the "Participated" button on the main screen (a.k.a. threads you have recently posted in), whether or not to show signatures, what theme you'd like to use, and other options in regards to posting.

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Private Messages/Group PM's

This is a topic that came up pretty recently. We hope that the upgrades to the Private Messages as well as the group functions will satisfy everyone who has wanted a bit more privacy in an easy to use system.

Here's a brief explanation of the new PM (Private Message) System:

You can send and recieve Private Messages just like on the old forum. In order to go to your inbox just click the Messages link on the menu at the top of the page.

From here you can either read your new messages or go to your outbox/archive folders. There are dropdown menus that also give you options on what you can do with the messages. One new feature is "Labels" which will help keep the PMs you want to save more organized. One example of how to use labels is make a label for "Local Concert Meetup" and then any messages between you and other members that are about meeting up at a local concert can have that "label" attached to it. This will make it easier if you want to quickly find a specific group or category of messages.


PM limit: Members of Inforoo can now send a "group" private message (PM) to up to 10 members at a time. Now, instead of each PM being a separate link in your inbox/outbox these PM's will appear in the form of a regular forum thread where you can read everyone's responses and the discussion flows in more of conversational tone. This should allow for much easier discussion to be had among small groups of Inforoo Members.

If for some reason you have a need to discuss information with more than 10 people (for example: a group meetup at a festival, discussion of a specific topic, local show/concert meetup, etc.) then see the section on Groups

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Navigating Through the Forum/Threads

You'll notice a new "floating" bar that will let you click through the pages of a specific thread, if that thread happens to be one of the longer ones. That should make things easy when navigating through one thread. You can also search through all the posts in that particular thread using the search bar or add a reply to the thread using the "Reply" button. The search function is greatly improved from what it used to be and they now have the ability to add filters to your search.

In order to easily get to and from specific forums/sub-forums you can now use the "Navigation Tree" that will create a dropdown menu when you hover your mouse over the top menu.

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Groups

We have heard the request for groups so people can easily get in touch with each other for certain things (meeting up at shows/festivals, working on blogs together, discussing certain topics that would rather not be posted publicly, etc.) and we hope that the new Member Groups addition to Inforoo will be helpful in those regards. These are not groups that will be chatting in any private or secret sub-forum or board somewhere. It is simply for discussing matters via PM.

Currently all Inforoosters can have a private message conversation with up to 10 other members but in some cases that number can be limiting. There are well over that number of board members who will be attending certain festivals in the summer and the ability to get in contact with everyone who wants to meet up in a single PM chain is extremely helpful. Keeping it to Private Messages helps in the case of sharing personal info like phone numbers and addresses that you may not want the world to see on a public board.

If you find it necessary to form "Group" with over 10 members then what you will do is get in touch with a moderator and request a member group be started. After a group is made you will then be able to start a Private Message conversation that is sent to all members of the group who can then discuss their topics in a multi-person PM.

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Shoutbox

There's a new feature on Inforoo known as the "Shoutbox". It's something of an "instant message" system that will allow members to post simple/short messages on it. You'll see it if you scroll down. Only members can currently see the shoutbox. Guests and Lurkers are unable to view it.

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Avatar Maker

If you don't have an image that you'd like to use as an avatar or perhaps you're just feeling creative there is now an Avatar Maker that lets you design what you'd like to display under your username. Proboards says, "Our avatar maker allows you to mix and match hundreds of options to create truly unique avatars. Give it a try by clicking Profile -> Edit Profile -> Avatar".

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Username Linking

Similar to how Facebook and Twitter, the new Inforoo has the ability to easily link to another user. Read Proboards information about it below and check the images to get an idea for how it works:

Ever wanted to mention someone in a post and link to their profile? Now it's easy! We have a new username feature to accomplish this. All you need to do is type @ followed by their username in your post. This will automatically link to this member's profile and will tag them in the post, notifying them if they have notifications turned on.

Don't know a member's username? No problem! Just hover you mouse over their display name to find out. If you're creating a new post click on the member icon to popup our Member Search Box and you can do a quick search for them as well.

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Photo Gallery

Inforoosters now have the ability to create their very own photo galleries and display their work here on the board. We have created a new sub-forum located in The Other Tent known as The Ferris Wheel. This is where you can start, update, and edit your photo gallery threads.








TL;DR Version:

Proboards put together this image to highlight some of the new features: