StrafeRight v4.1 Release Notes

**wootini** · 02-17-2008 02:37 PM

StrafeRight v4.1 Release Notes

I'd like to welcome everyone to the latest incarnation of the StrafeRight website. Below I will talk a bit about what is new and improved, and how it can make your experience on the site all that much more enjoyable.

But first, I'd like to give props to the brilliant team that makes the site click, Teck and DanForth, whom were we without, I have no idea where this site would be today. You guys own...thanks brahs!

New Homepage Items

Here is a listing of some of the new features of the website with an explanation of each one, how it works, and how it can benefit you as a StrafeRight member...

Quick Nav - The most obvious and new feature on the homepage is the cool new three tabbed box that is right below the website's header. The first tab in that box is called the Quick Nav, and it is a flash video that plays when the page is loaded that features our own Bananaman, and displays some new navigations for the website as well as some older favorites that were previously only reachable by clicking through to a few pages within the site structure. Here are the navigation buttons and where they take you:

New Posts: This is a link that upon being clicked, will show you the latest new posts on the forums. This is very handy for catching up on all of the conversations going on throughout the day on the forums.

SR Store: This link brings you to the StrafeRight Swag Store where you can purchase SR branded gear from T-shirts to hoodies. This page is still not completed graphically, but the system works and you can purchase product through the Logosportswear secure online shopping cart using a major credit card or PayPal. Watch our Community Announcements section for updates on new products being listed in the store.

CSS Stats: This is a quick, one button navigation from our homepage that shows you all of the stats from our three Counter-Strike: Source servers.

SR @ Steam: This is a link to our community page at Steam, where you can easily join up and be listed with the rest of the SR folks for all of your Steam gaming adventures.

Link To Us: This new page is where you can grab a number of custom StrafeRight banners, in various sizes, shapes and colors, that can be used on any other website, blog, forum or social networking website to show you StrafeRight pride. This also helps spread the word about the SR community so that others might find there way to our little slice of nerd-dom.

(A screenshot of the new homepage box and its features)

Top Hits - The next tab you see on the homepage's new square box, is Top Hits. Here you will find a listing of the most popular news, reviews and forum postings from around the website. As you will also notice, each topic now has a nifty I'd Hit It icon shown directly above it. This is to be used like a rating system for site content. So should you like the topic, simply click on the button and your vote will be counted towards the total number of Hits that topic has received. This new homepage box is where we generate a listing of the top five most popular topics of the week. Every Sunday night the Top Hits box will be reset so that new topics can be voted for in the upcoming week. We will soon also be adding an archive for the Top Hits content so that we'll be able to see the most Hits of all time, each month, ect. Please note: This is a very new feature for us and we're going to do our best to see that it works out, but it may take us a bit to tweak the settings to get it streamlined and functioning the way we want it to for its purpose.

(The Top Hits button above each topic...Hit It!)

Featured Content - The third and final tab on the homepage box is called Featured Content. You might recall that I mentioned we'd be doing more exclusive content in my What's Ahead For 2008 post, and this is where we'll be highlighting much of those items going forward. This is where they will be listed should we feel a few days of homepage exposure is warranted for such topics and content.

Editorials Preview - On the left-hand side of the homepage, you will now see a preview of the Editorials (staff written content) just like we have setup for the reviews. There will be a header URL/title and a lightbox driven image that enlarges upon clicking on it. This is simply a cool feature that we've had, but are expanding to another area of the site.

Frontpage News Pagination - Now you'll be able to continue reading news directly from the SR homepage because we finally added an archive system to it...took us long enough, huh? Look at the bottom of the page, right below the last frontpage news story and you will see navigation for every news post ever written.

New Control Panel Options

StrafeRight User Bars - Access your account manager, by clicking on the link on the top right of any page (the wrench), from there you will see a new link under Settings & Options called SR Userbars. This generates a custom userbar that can be uses on this site, or any other for that matter, that shows off your name on a custom designed banner made by DanForth. We plan on expanding this feature of the site greatly in the future to add a lot more customization and options to the userbar generator, so stay tuned. Here is an image of the new link...

(A screenshot of the new SR Userbar link...)

(...and the image it generates)

Other New Stuff

New StrafeRight Email Page - We have so many requests for @straferight.com email addresses that we finally added in a new page that will allow a new user to submit a request for a StrafeRight email that will be handled by an admin manually. If you do not already have an official SR email, just click on the Email button at the top of this page and follow the instructions to get your very own @straferight.com email address.

(The Email page link)

Improved Footer - The footer of the website has been edited down a bit to save on page load times. This might seem like a small detail, but every kb counts!

Improved Browser Support - Teck has done an amazing job at increasing support for most of the major browsers so that whether you're using FireFox, IE or Safari, the site looks great and works the way it is supposed to.

Holy Shit That's A Big RSS Button! - Yes it is

. Now you can be sure not to miss the easiest way to add StrafeRight content to your browser's feed or wherever you add syndication for your daily net wanderings. In fact, I think you could land a jumbo jet in a hurricane with that thing, who else can brag about that?!

(Ok, maybe DanFortH got a little carried away on this one)

Optimized Site Templates - For you design/code nerds out there, you'll appreciate the huge amount of optimization that has been done to the site to ensure speedy, error-free and efficient page loading. This also helps if you are viewing the site on a mobile device such as the iPhone or a BlackBerry device.

Where To Report v4.1 Bugs

Bug Hunting - Please submit all website bugs in this thread so that the appropriate action can be taken to rid the world of such atrocities. It will be ok little Johnny, it will be ok...

(Bugs = teh suk)

In Conclusion

We're always trying to bring the best and coolest new ideas to the website so that your time here, as members, is not only informative, but kinda fun too. Keep in mind what we've always said, StrafeRight is run by its members, and the content you read on it is created by them as well...so don't ever be shy about telling the community what you'd like to see added/changed/deleted/ect about the site. You can drop any suggestions in this thread on the forums, or write them on a $100 bill and mail it to my house...please?

Enjoy your new site ladies!