Well, you are now looking at prince.org 3.0 "beta". Why beta? Because although I've tested all the site's functionality, there are undoubtedly a few issues here and there which will need to be worked out, so we're not quite at a "final" stage. But go ahead and use everything, let me know what you find wrong, if anything.

Here's a mostly-complete list of what's changed.... (in no particular order)

• New design; lighter, more standards-compliant. Looks OK without stylesheets, and most of the site works well with screen-readers for blind people. Site is now best viewed in Mozilla, but looks good in IE 5.5+ also. In theory, an advanced user could make their own style sheets for the site...
  
• The new look is also "stretchy". If you have a wide or hi-res screen, the site can take much better advantage of it
  
• New login / registration screen
  
• Avatars available in the chat, with several settings
  
• Moderation system is essentially all-new. Now being a moderator is only a lot of work, not a lot of work and incredibly painful
  
• Links can be attached to orgNotes in the header, not just body of note
  
• Bug about "can't 'exit' from enter chat screen" fixed
  
• "Today in history" links on homepage fixed
  
• New "MY ORG" screen with statistics, buddy status, etc.
  
• Ability to 'subscribe' to threads and receive notifications of new postings
  
• Upgraded BBCode handling, including "code" tag, and "GUI" for posting/replying/editing.
  
• Thread pagination (on thread list page) now uses "..." if many pages (nicer formatting)
  
• Search is back! Now you can search the forums, profiles, events, and even your orgnotes!
  
• New privacy preference: forget username on logout (good for shared computers)
  
• "Handy emoticons", specify them in your preferences and have them "handy" when making new posts
  
• Google search-term highlighting. If you come to a prince.org page from Google, the terms you searched for should be highlighted on the page
  
• Profile pages are now full-page-size, not popups
  
• List of past posts is limited now... but now does display "news" posts [thanks Bart]
  
• New "features" system, which allows "news" to come from any forum, and have better short descriptions, etc.
  
• Everyone can "vote" for threads they think should be "featured", with results reported to moderators
  
• Link "folding"... long links are displayed with '...' in middle, so they don't disrupt page layout
  
• When 'replying with quote', only two levels of quote will be kept. There's no reason to quote 10 other quotes, everyone's reading the same thread...
  
• Previous/next links on threads now respect your thread ordering preference (by start/last post)
  
• The 'quotable members' feature returns! The mods will select quotes to go on the homepage
  
• Events on the homepage now show details on mouse-over
  
• New events can be (will be) "annouced" in the appropriate forum. This gives more publicity to the event, and creates a default place to discuss the event, as well
  
• Event calendar page also lists events by type, with roll-over highlighting of the referenced event on the calendar view
  
• The preview and edit buttons have been swapped on the "edit" screen [thanks Alf]
  
• New chatroom for moderators (only) to conduct "meetings"
  
• "Star ratings" are gone! They were ineffective and I received LOTS of complaints about them. The column is gone from the thread overview page, too.
  
• You can forward orgNotes you've received, to your e-mail address on file
  
• 35 new emoticons!
  
• Clicking on emoticons on the chat help page now works better, in more browsers
  
• Fixed titles on forum pages (small HTML error)
  
• Mods can make important threads "sticky" so they always stay at the top of the list
  
• Dates shown on orgNote list is more 'friendly': "today" and "yesterday" if appropriate, etc.
  
• Contextual help now available in many places (more to come)... look for the "?" icon
  
• Less annoying "new orgnote" indicator
  
• Message preview typically displayed below input box, less disruptive of the page layout
  
• Unified "cancel" link formatting should make it clearer when it's available
  
• "Printable version" link of forum posts [I forgot who asked for this, but thanks for the suggestion]
  
• orgPops–simple "instant messages" you can send to other org members currently online
  
• Event notifications; new events will have a 'geographic region', and you can ask to be notified when new events happen in regions you're interested in. Never miss another concert or fan gathering!
  
• Revised forum rules (which you must agree to again--read them!)
  
• Main site FAQ updated, and now linked off 'about' in page footer. Any volunteers to help maintain the "Prince" FAQ?
  
• As promised, LS&R forum is no longer available.
  
• Tons of other little tweaks, performance enhancements, and behind-the-scenes changes!
  

Also, we'll be bringing board a whole bunch of new moderators next week. I'll announce all of them shortly. You'll soon be able to see who is a mod for each forum on the thread overview page, too.

Questions or comments, fire away. I'll be attentive to bug-fixing etc. as much as possible for the next few days, then I've gotta go out of town for a few days. I'm interested in everyone's feedback.

Known issues that I will fix shortly: search result formatting is hard to rea, and "ignore orgpops" checkbox doesn't do anything.

So far so great! Congrats Ben on your new baby!

Welcome 2 The Dawn

Oh ben. What;s going on man. 3 may be more effective, but 2 looked so much better

Illusions said:

You'll get used to it.

Until then, explore like you've never explored before!!!

Wow, this'll take some getting used to Ben. Hah I like the way you've named the site....

Strangely, in the chat I don't see any text. Just the emoticons.

Haystack said:

U got it set to Old school

Haystack said:

i can't get in at all...

Very cool features! Only thing i noticed to far is that when I click the links across the top to get to different areas, like "Events" and "FAQ's" I get a white screen and nothing else. Then when I go back and click the link again, it takes me to the page.

IAmTheTouch said:

Refresh the page. That seemed to work for me.

Functionality bug:

The links in the RSS feed have a double forward-slash after the domain name, e.g., http://www.prince.org//msg/5001/80591, similar to the problem with the events in v2.0.

THANK U THANK U THANK U FOR THE PRINTABLE PAGES, BEN!!!!! YAAAAY!

I like it, I LIKE IT!!!!. Nice, and posting's much more user-friendly. It'll take some getting used to though.

ExDeus said:

Gotcha. It's on the list. Will be fixed tomorrow. (Oh, and the previous version of the site was 2.5, actually... 2.0 with a ton of bugfixes and extras!)

My "delete Lleena" function doesn't work.

Ben - loving the new layout, and the added extras are great.

Things u may wanna look in2 tho: the font size here on the site seems 2 have changed, it is now smaller than it was before - and I dont wanna be messing with my computer settings (which will make all my 'nomral' sized texts twice as big if I alter it 2 look normal here...

although the url link is still their in my profile, i can no longer see a pic? Hope we dont lose this and it's just teething troubles.

Final thing - as the homepage is the springboard in2 the site, dontcha think it's a little 'busy'? SOMETHING along the old layout 4 the homepage where it is easier 2 pinpoint new articles etc would be good - just a few tweaks and I think u have got it buddy!

Kudos 2 u 4 all the hard work.

I think the chat will hopefully change peoples persepctions 4 the better chatting 2 other members in realtime - the old chat room I just couldnt get along with - this is a 100% improvement.

2the9s said:

Hehe! my first post! You made it to v.3.0!

Thanks for all the hard work Ben.

The orgpops are fucking cool!

I must say I was a bit of shocked accessing the org in its new form. On the one hand I think I will just need to get used to to the new design, but on the other hand the site seems a bit too messy now, meaning that there is a lot more info and links on the pages, which in itself is cool and handy, but also blurs the navigation. Perhabs you could try to separate the different features on pages better by using more lines and other visual boundaries, which would make the overall navigation more easy.

Then I am sure there are a lot of new features I haven't evenseen yet, which is also cool. I already saw the new feature "my org; account settings and status". I have a question about that. In mine the following is said:

"Subscribed topics
You are not subscribed to any topics!"

What are the benefits of subscribing to a topic?

"Activity
There have been 80,616 new threads and 1,419,043 new posts since you last left the site on Wed Dec 31 16:00:00 1969. "

Seems to me that I last left the site the day before yesterday, not 1969!

bkw said:

2the9s said:

.
[This message was edited Sun Feb 15 14:00:47 2004 by bkw]

Awesome stuff ben!!

Ben... Beta 3.0 is GREAT! Thanks, you're doing a great job, many many thanks and appreciations.

wonderful!! i love the home page.....it brings the focus back to the community and prince...


well done! well done indeed!! cant wait to come back and check out everything!!

When I click on someones name to get their profile, a new page opens but I have to sign in again...thats really annoying.

Also I miss the "Welcome to the Org REDFEATHERS..." with the Prince quote

I got a football!

holy shit! that is a lot of features
Damn man. You gotta love this technological age

REDFEATHERS said:

me too.

Ben, 3.0 is great, but the home page seems a little messy. And the font is HUGANTIC! I also really miss the Prince quotes on the top of every page. Bravo to all of your hard work....my deepest appreciation.