- Tutorial System now fully online
The Tutorial System is now open for everyone to write Tutorials and how-to's into. The Tutorial System will be the place of general information on our site, as we post documents and other knowledge in it.
Notice something that isn't clearly explained here? (there should be a lot...) Make a Tutorial about it and submit it into the Tutorials Section.
Submitted Tutorials from Members will not be immediately viewable for others, they need to be checked and approved first.
Tutorials can be about anything here, and if yours won't fit into an existing category, we'll make another category for it.


- Author Ranks (for the Tutorial System)
Every Member who submitted a Tutorial will get a 'Author' Rank Banner under his Avatar in the Forums.


Since few Members care about sharing their information & knowledge in detail with others, this will show who actually cares about other Members and filling the information hole that gradually builds up.
Upon mousing over the Author Banner, you will see what this Banner really means and how much content a member has submitted.
By clicking this Banner, you will be taken to the Member's Tutorials Page, where all recent Tutorials (from the last 365 days) are displayed. (older Tutorials are viewable via the 'Find Content' Button)



- Porter Ranks are back!
A little bit different from what we had in phpBB, but now a lot better.
Every Member who submits at least one Port to the Port Database, will get a 'Porter' Banner under his Avatar in the Forums.


This Porter Badge is automatically given by the system (refreshed every 24 hours), and this does not require mods or admins anymore to set it up.
Upon mousing over the Porter Banner, you will see what this Banner really means and how much content a member has submitted.
By clicking this Banner, you will be taken to the Member's Ports Page, where all recent Ports (from the last 365 days) are displayed. (older Ports are viewable via the 'Find Content' Button)



This information is also displayed in the Profile View.




-Port Database Category Field Information
It may be a bit confusing to some Members what to post into some Port Database Categories. Only Wrappers? or Full Games? what about Apps? Wrappers there, too?
Every Category in the Port Database will now have some little Notes above it, what this section is for.

(the wording may change)
We hope that clears up what content these Categories have, and what is allowed where.


- Pre-defined Port Database Topics
As with the pre-defined help topics in the forum, this feature is also available in the Port Database.
Forget about copy/pastà with the post template when submitting a new Port, now the template for editing your Port Information is built into the Port Database.
Click the 'Submit new Port' Button, and the template for editing is automatically in the Description Field.


Since a lot of Members stray from the template or totally forget to use it, this should show things more clearer.
We really can't make it easier than that

The Template is open for suggestions, but it is laid out for minimal edits to be made for submitting a new Port, this is the minimal Info that others will need about your Port.
Naturally you can add as much extra info as you like in your new submits to the Port Database.


- Linksave/linkcrypt/safelinking now no longer required*
Linksave was introduced by us for posting download links to wrappers; for protecting download links against hotlinking and abuse, also to avoid link deletion from Hosters via website spidering.
All main download links are now automatically protected by the download system via a dynamic links.
This gives us the opportunity to drop linksave from content like Wrappers, DOS Games and Applications. (also because linksave became such an ad-infested place)
You can choose to use it further, or not. We think most will choose not to

* Only complete game Backupshave to be posted via Linksave, because the links posted via the fullgamebutton are not part of the main download part from the system, and for other obvious reasons.
This part of the update will also get mentioned via an extra announcement.

- System Version indicator
On the top left there is now a System Version indicator.
Click this link to get to our ChangeLog of the entire site.



- Graphic Card Status Indicators in Category view
Porting Team System v3 was text-based, but v3.1 show the GPU indicators pretty nicely via custom graphics.
Since Wrappers run differently on different GPU chipsets, you can use the Port Indicator to get a quick view of the Port's compatibility.
Click any category in the Port Database to see the Port Indicators.



- Automatic Personal Message Cleanup
Normally, the IPB System does not have a way for automatically remove old messages.
Your Inbox can get full pretty quickly, and you'd have to manually delete messages to receive new ones.
We've set up a automatic message pruning system that removes messages after they are 90 days old.
This saves you the hassle of manually deleting old stuff.



- Porters Page
The Porters Page lists all Members who have submitted a Port to the Port Database.
The old way of manually adding Porters to a group was tedious and some users were overlooked easily.
Now the system will add you to the Porters Page, if you submitted at least 1 Port to the Port Database.
Porters with the most Ports are on the top.
The List of all Porters is available in the Port Database (Left side, 'Extras' Panel), or click here to get to it directly.



- Latest Announcements Sidebar
Since only a few actually stumble their way into the Announcement section every now and then, we've added a Sidebar on the top right where we will list all important messages we want you to read.
Now everything important is easy to notice.



- New Member Ranks & Rank Window & Custom Ranks
We've introduced a bit more 'generic' Member Ranks, since the old ones we transferred over from phpBB were a bit outdated, and didn't fit anymore with our current system.
Not everything is in the Forum anymore (Port Database, Tutorials), and not everyone is a Porter.
Also click on the Rank banner under a Member's name and see all the Ranks members can get on our System.
Users with more than 500 Posts in the Forum will get Stars instead of 'Pips', and they will be able to choose their own custom Rank name (Member Title) in their profile settings.



- Pre-defined Help Topics
All new Topics in the 'Ask for Help!' sections now have some default information automatically filled into them for members to edit.
Since most new members do not read the 'how to post' stickies or forget to post some required things others could use to help them, the pre-defined Help Topics will definitely help out in this area.
The 'Porting Requests' section & 'Report website problems' section have this helpful change as well.



- Better Notification System
On the top right corner besides your name is now a 'Sync' button.
This Sync button will automatically change your Notification settings to the Board default one.
Since notifications are a big source of information transfer on our system, going with the default Notifications is recommended to show you when your favorite Port is updated,
show you when you got new replies on your followed Topics, or get a email when someone reports your Port broken.