Posted by Kim on July 11, 2014, 12:15pm
I've been trickling updates out over the past week, so it's possible you've spotted one of these goodies already. Here are the complete update notes:General Updates
- Image upload script has been updated site wide to make an attempt to handle transparent images correctly wherever possible - this means that the backgrounds of thumbnails, icons and portraits (usually) won't turn black if you uploaded a transparent image, but the site had to resize it to make it fit in the available space.
- Updated the account registration form to have some more convenience features, especially for mobile users.
- Added "other" gender to sign-up form (it was available when editing your account, but not on registering an account)
Updates to Groups
- Added a recruitment widget that displays a large "Join Now" button to non-members/logged out users only.
- Added a launch chat widget that creates a button anywhere to launch the group's main chat thread.
- Added a search widget that allows you to add a search box to your group. I recommend all groups with forums drop one into their universal sidebar!
- Added a gallery widget.
- Groups may have an unlimited number of gallery widgets.
- Groups are restricted to 20 images. They may distribute those 20 however they please -- all 20 in one gallery, 1 image in each of 20 gallery widgets, 10 images in 2 different galleries, etc.
- Thumbnails of group images have new "crop" feature, that seeks to make all gallery thumbnails the same size (if possible -- ultra tiny images will defeat this). This gives the gallery widget a much cleaner look.
- Oh yeah, I created a corresponding internal group search script that will search a group's forums, announcements, events and even text widgets for the given keyword(s). This is what the search widget directs input to.
- If a visitor goes to a group's "join" page but they are not logged in, they will be prompted to log in (as before) or register a new account. When the registration form is accessed via the link in a group, the server will now remember which group the new player joined the site for. During new player orientation, they will be directed back to that group. This should make recruiting players who don't already have an RPR account much more convenient for groups, and new player orientation more relevant to the individual's needs.
- Broke up the offered widgets into several panels of related widgets, much like characters enjoy.
- If a group has forums, but the person viewing the group does not have permission to view a single one of those forums, the forum link will no longer appear in the group's navigation. No point in taking them to a blank page!
- The Group Wizard now adds a join and a search widget to the universal sidebar as part of helping to set up a new group.
- When viewing available widgets to add to your group pages, there are now hover-over tooltips that describe what each widget does.
Comments
Yarr! x3
So, wait… unlimited gallery widgets but only 20 images allowed? Unless that's fututre-planning for possible expansion… what?
So, wait… unlimited gallery widgets but only 20 images allowed? Unless that's fututre-planning for possible expansion… what?
amazing
I already stumbled over some of these group-related features while I was fixing up one of my groups, and they're awesome! Go give 'em a try, founders! 
Kim
July 11, 2014
3:50pm
For years, people have been asking to be able to break up their character gallery images into several different widgets (For example, one gallery for "costumes" one for "weapons" and etc.), and this feature seems equally as desired for characters that use the max number of images and those that use only a handful.
I'm trying out a new system that allows for this with groups. If all goes well, it will be rolled out for characters as well.