The Exiled Gamers Forum: Blog has been updated. - The Exiled Gamers Forum

Hey Guest, We updated our Community Blog!

The following is a list of what's new in this version of our Blog:

Categories Return
During the development for the Blog system, the categories system was converted into tags. The developers felt that being able to apply several tags to a single blog entry was more useful than putting it into a category. This worked well but they felt there was still a need for 'fixed' categories. Now they have added categories back in and you can select multiple categories to file an entry in as well as as create new ones on the fly. The tag system is still in place to be used as well.

User Interface
The user interface has had a complete facelift to bring it up to standard. The new look feels more 'bloggish' and enhances the experience. Drop down menus are added at the top so that you can quickly access common areas and start new entries where you have permission to. The post screen has been overhauled to add functionality. You should find the new version much easier to navigate and easier to use.

Abillity to delete your blog
This is not a new feature but it was broken/disabled previously. If you do not longer want to host your blog, you can now simply delete your own blog without the need to contact forum staff.

Blog This!

This is a brand new feature that adds a "Blog This" button to every post. This allows you to use post content in your blog entry. Furthermore, the relationship is remembered and all linked blog entries appear at the bottom of the topic when viewed.

Per-Entry Rating
You can now rate each blog entry rather than just the entire blog itself. The blog rating is still shown on the homepage as an aggregate of all rated entries.

Report Item and Reputation
You can now report an entire blog entry, or just a single comment. You can now also give someone a reputation increase/decrease in comments.

List View
A common request of many communities using this same blog system was the return of a fully sortable and filterable list view for blogs that emulated a forum view. This is now added. You'll notice you can click the table headers to sort on that column and click again to reverse the sort. There is also a "List Blogs" sidebar block to quickly filter and list the blogs. There's even a little 'preview the latest entry' icon that shows the entry excerpt in a pop-up so you don't have to leave the page to preview it.

Dynamic Sidebar
We have moved some the footer links (Top 10 bloggers, etc) into a dynamic sidebar along with Recent Entries. This makes it easier to locate and saves a bit of space.

RSS Imports

Another long requested feature was to be able to create entries from an RSS feed. This is now a feature. If you currently have a blog elsewhere (like wordpress), you can now choose to either link to that blog or import the content instead.

Banish Entries
The Exiled Gamers staff can now banish entries from the front page to remove any 'clutter' such as 'testing' blogs or other unsuitable content.