Big update to our blogging software!

[Neo]

I know that our blogging software has been a bit sub-par in the past and I'm proud to announce that a major update was just made to bring it to a whole new level!

Here are some of the new features:

User Interface

The user interface has had a complete facelift to bring it up to standard. The new look feels more 'bloggish' and enhances the experience. We have added drop down menus at the top so that you can quickly access common areas and start new entries where you have permission to. The post screen has been overhauled to add functionality. You should find the new version much easier to navigate and easier to use.

Blog This!

This is a brand new feature that adds a "Blog This" button to every post. This allows you to use post content in your blog entry. Furthermore, the relationship is remembered and all linked blog entries appear at the bottom of the topic when viewed.

Per-Entry Rating

You can now rate each blog entry rather than just the entire blog itself. The blog rating is still shown on the homepage as an aggregate of all rated entries.

Report Item and Reputation

You can now report an entire blog entry, or just a single comment. You can now also give someone a reputation increase/decrease in comments.

List View

A common request was the return of a fully sortable and filterable list view for blogs that emulated a forum view. We have added this in. You'll notice you can click the table headers to sort on that column and click again to reverse the sort. There is also a "List Blogs" sidebar block to quickly filter and list the blogs. There's even a little 'preview the latest entry' icon that shows the entry excerpt in a pop-up so you don't have to leave the page to preview it.

Dynamic Sidebar

We have moved some the footer links (Top 10 bloggers, etc) into a dynamic sidebar along with Recent Entries. This makes it easier to locate and saves a bit of space.

RSS Imports

Another long requested feature was to be able to create entries from an RSS feed. This is now a feature. You can control which member groups have access to this as well as limit the number of items imported on each cycle.

Mobile Access

You can now view and add/edit blogs from our posh mobile version of the site!