March 2020 Test Server: Concluded - Feedback & Suggestions

We're initiating a new Test Server for our website. This version of the website is not complete but will allow us to gauge how the community feels about the features we've added before continuing. We anticipate users will experience issues, however with your help, we can minimise the issues when the site goes live to the thousands of visitors we get every month.

You can find all the details in this topic.

When does the Test Server take place?
The Test Server is now offline. Thanks for testing!

Test Server Eligibility:
Everyone is eligible to try out the Test Server.

Feedback and Issue Reporting Guidelines

• Please be constructive and clear when reporting any feedback
• Use this topic to post issues or feedback. Any information helps.
• If you discover any bugs or issues that could be used maliciously to attack Donut Team or any user, privately report it to jake@donutteam.com immediately with as much detail as possible.
• If possible, include screenshots in posts so we can accurately understand your reports.

Changelog:
It is important to note that the changelog may include things that are currently in progress or may be missing some changes that we've made. We'll be updating it until the live server launch of version 20.2

Spring Cleaning
Today we're starting fresh with some spring cleaning. So dust off your boxes in the garage, because its time to toss them out!

Navigation Bar

• Some commonly used links can be now found in the new user dropdown; these links can be toggled on and off on the "Settings" page.
• We changed the colour scheme of the notification button to fit better with the search bar.
• Clicking the "View All" button on notifications will bring you to a refreshed notifications page. This page now supports pagination, so you can view all your notifications.

Settings

• The Settings page was refreshed with a new design.
• The following themes have been removed:
  • Classic Theme (Pink)
  • "Green" Theme
  • Aurora Borealis Theme
  • Dark Theme
• Added a new experimental dark mode, you can enable it on the Design Settings page.
  • This design setting is saved as browser cookie.

Homepage: Refreshed
This is not available in the March 2020 Test Server, but will launch when this goes to live.

Forum: Refreshed
The forum has been redesigned with a new heavy focus on content.

• Redesigned the forum sidebar.
  • The forum show will now show relevant information to the page you're currently on.
    • Topic Listing Pages will now show Community Home, Discord, Play History, Create Topic, and all boards
    • Topic Pages will now show Follow Button and Top Contributors to topic
    • New Topic will now show information about making a new topic, Drafts and a Forum Home link.
• Redesigned the forum homepage
  • Topic Listings are now much more vibrant and spacious to promote rich content to a new user.
  • A preview of the post is available below the post title. This preview is the first line of text found in the main post. It will exclude any BBCode to prevent spamming of the main topic page.
• Topic Pages have been refreshed.
  • While this is not included in the site yet, we're currently working on several new post types including:
    • Information Post
      • Shows information relating to the topic. Example
    • Blog Post
      • A post with a customizable URL and comments instead of replies.
    • Download Post
      • A post with a customizable URL.
      • A specialized and customizable layout.
      • A comments and reviews section.
      • Detached from the forum, but still using the same forum engine you already know and love.

You may notice there is no way to see who recently joined or who in your following list is online. These features are coming back soon, but for the purpose of the March 2020 test server, they are disabled. We'll share more information on this when we are ready.

Subscriptions

• Now known as "Follow", "Unfollow", "Following"

This is a work in progress change, some areas of the site may still refer to it as "Subscriptions". This will be finalised by the time this update hits live servers.

Quick Drawer
Introducing the new account dropdown, properly known as your "Quick Drawer."

• The Quick Drawer can be accessed at anytime by clicking on your avatar in the top-right hand corner on Desktop and Mobile.
• On Desktop, icons are displayed in a grid.
• On Mobile, icons are displayed as each row with the ability to scroll down.
• All icons (excluding Profile, Page and Settings) have the ability to be disabled in the Design Settings. This will be saved at the account level and can be tweaked at anytime.
• The Quick Drawer is not spawned when you visit Donut Team, it will be spawned the first time accessing it or after updating it to reduce the initial load time.

Notifications

• The notification page (accessed by clicking "View All" on your notifications panel) now has the ability to go between pages.
• Notifications will now be sent in batches to speed up posting topics when you have lots of followers.

BBCode

• When specifying a quote's author, you can now use an @ symbol before the name to add a link to their profile. Example: [quote=@jake]Jake's quote[/quote]

Balance Changes

• If your overall karma is less than -20, your topics will be hidden until a site administrator approves your post.
• Blocked 2,069 domains from registration

Administrator Functions
This change was documented for historical reasons, however is not necessarily important to normal users.

• Management panel now shows audit logs on the user management section (managing a specific user)
• Additional statistics added to the "Statistics" page.
• Removed the board updating functionality as it was under utilized and did not function properly.

Bug Fixes

• Fixed an issue where design settings would not be set correctly for www.donutteam.com - You will need to reapply this fix to take affect.
• Several fixes to new search were applied on 3 February 2020 at 6:38 PM EST.
• Further optimizations that should speed up the website and improve stability.

Removed

• Karma Leaderboard
  • Indicated to us by several users, we've found the Karma Leaderboard to give off an extremely negative feeling.
  • We will keep the feature for site administrators to monitor karma fluctuations, however it has been removed from the forum.
• Themes

Known Issues:

• Dark Mode Experiment is incomplete.
• Profile design is a bit broken, but is a work in progress.
• Mobile navigation is broken. We're currently looking into what broke and will resolve this ASAP.

When does this launch to live?
Before the end of April 2020.

How can I access the Test Server?
prodtest.donutteam.com
Please note once the test server is over, it will redirect back to this thread.

f for the Classic Theme (Pink)
"Green" Theme
Aurora Borealis Theme
and the old Dark Theme :(