Forum overhaul and updates: 2nd featured projects section added

[DJ Omnimaga]

As you have noticed, the forums divisions have changed a bit. Now there is a sub-division added between the Main and Community ones called Calculator Community Showcase. This is where are now located the Featured Calc RPG Projects and Calculator Projects And Ideas sections, along with a newly added section called Major Community Projects. This new project section is why we decided to regroup all community calculator projects in one place. The Major Community Projects section is similar to the RPG one, except that it's for non-RPG projects. Two projects were added there and have their own sub-forum. The first forum division, formerly called Main, has been renamed to Omnimaga, and the last one was renamed from Community to General. Some other minor forum edits were done.

The front page navigation has been updated according to these changes.

Another change is that non-staff members now have the ability to lock their own topics or unlock them (altough staff and admins can still post regardless of their status).

There was also another forum update, but done a while ago and I forgot I did it: the file attachment limit has been increased from 1 MB to 8 MB.

[ztrumpet]

Looks nice!  I like the Major Community Projects section.

[Eeems]

Sweet!

Edit: I was also wondering if we could have a web development subsection? Since we do have a lot of web projects right now.

[TIfanx1999]

Very nice! It's good to see Omnimaga is always updating. The ability for members to lock their own topics is a nice touch too. I'm also glad to see a larger file size limit. Very nice indeed.

[DJ Omnimaga]

I might eventually revamp the 3rd section except the two calc sections that remains there. I will most likely add web dev and also a 2nd music forum to showcase your stuff. I might add more too, but then I might start putting stuff into subforums to make sure the forum isn't taking too long to scroll, because some people dislike forums with way too many sections.

[Builderboy]

Hey very nice looking! And w00t on the file size increase ^^

[JCW]

Good news Omni.

[Galandros]

Nice...

This gives more attention to the projects going on to newcomers.

[JCW]

Yeah, the file size increase also appeals to me a great deal. Some of my tunes clock in at 15-17 MB though.. guess I'll have to cut them down some before uploading (if ever, I usually just embed a YouTube.) But still, nice for other uploads.

[ztrumpet]

I don't know how much the increased file size will effect me, but it's nice to know that it's higher if I need it to be.

[DJ Omnimaga]

Well for music files, I always do a 128 kbps and a 320 kbps file for my mp3s, or 128 kbps and wav file, and upload the 128 kbps one on places with limited upload capacity. I did not want to increase too fast yet, though. It was pretty much based on TIMGUL activity, which is what this hosting package was primarly used for. But then TIMGUL kinda died and since people often deletes all their songs when leaving there, the total amount of files have never increased past 1100 since March 2009, so I pretty much no longer worry about TIMGUL eventually filling my diskspace.

[JCW]

Yeah sounds like a safe bet Omni, I could also just upload external to 4shared if my songs ever did creep over the limit and I wanted to upload.

[DJ Omnimaga]

Another major issue is that this forum is also populated with many people who have slow or crappy internet connections, unlike TIMGUL (TIMGUL was a music showcase site after all ). Most calc game zip files are between 5-100 KB in size. There are even some people who still use 56k (dial-up in America) internet connections. Uploading large files would reduce your audience a lot over here.

[JCW]

Yeah I know of someone who uses 56k but only because his area doesn't support cable yet. I'll keep that in mind lol.

[DJ Omnimaga]

Yeah it's why there are still 56k users around. In Quebec, some areas also still don't supply cable internet yet.