The Photo Album software was upgraded Monday evening and appears to be running properly.

The forum software has been upgraded and the forum is now back on-line.

There are some additions and changes that still have to be made but I wanted to get the forums back on-line while these changes are being made. These changes include template changes for Sponsor banners, Trader Ratings, new Chat, etc. I will work on these as the day goes on. None of these changes should affects the fuctionality of the forum but you may notice a few minor "glitches" as I tweak these changes.

At this time it appears that the avatars are broken... I am working on getting that fixed so please do not make any changes to your avatars unless I ask you to do so.

Thank you for bearing with us as we make this major upgrade. We are working as fast and best as we can to make it as smooth as possible.

Please report any problems here.

At the present time I have the avatars working. I want to make a change to the avatar storage system so while I figure it out (it's done differently with the new software) you may see them disappear and reappear now and then until I figure it out :)

How about the trader feedback? Will it reappear at some point?

Yes, I will be working on the Trader Feedback later today. Should be an easy upograde.

Sponsor banner mods have been completed.

It lives!!!! In technicolor.

whatever function tracks our viewing habits seems to have mine pegged as last visiting on 1/28. Now I know that's not true. No biggie. This is where you view "unviewed posts" in threads. It takes me back in time like a BnB plot.

Wasn't there a "mark all threads as viewed" function before?

Never mind. found it at the bottom of the page. Seems to work.

Thread marking has changed a bit. It now tracks which threads you have actually viewed and only marks it as read if you have actually viewed it. Unlike before if you were gone from the forums for 15 minutes all threads were marked as read.

Trader Feedback/Ratings has been upgraded. I will add the display of it in your profile and under your name once I have the rest of the forum upgraded.

iTrader Ratings now showing up on your post info (under your Join Date & Location).

The new chat system is now on-line and operating. I know some that use 3rd party apps to access to old chat may not like this new system but support for integration in the forum was difficult to find. FlashChat is very well supported so future updates will be easy to find.

This chat should be easier for new users and those that are not advanced computer users.

Thread marking has changed a bit. It now tracks which threads you have actually viewed and only marks it as read if you have actually viewed it. Unlike before if you were gone from the forums for 15 minutes all threads were marked as read.
is there any way to change this? Maybe something in individual user settings? That way it doesn't look like theres new posts when i check back to the forums when really nothing has changed i just haven't viewed those particular threads.

At the top of any page click Quick Links > Mark Forums Read

The advantage of the way it is now is that many only have a few minutes to check out the forums (say at lunch). If they come back after work it will still show threads that they haven't looked at otherwise they wouldn't know what gthey have looked at and what they haven't.

This is not really a problem, just a question.
The link thing that shows where you are used to be on the bottom
of the thread you were viewing. Will this,

HobbyTalk > Odds & Ends > Computer/Internet/Forum Assistance > HobbyTalk Upgrades part 2

be back at the bottom, again?
I always found it useful.

At the top of any page click Quick Links > Mark Forums Read

The advantage of the way it is now is that many only have a few minutes to check out the forums (say at lunch). If they come back after work it will still show threads that they haven't looked at otherwise they wouldn't know what gthey have looked at and what they haven't.
thanks hankster, Everything else is looking good. :thumbsup:

El Capt-e-ton... yes, I will be adding that back in. It'll take me a few days to get all of the minor tweaks back into the layout.

Yay!!
:woohoo: