Getting the most out of VB 3.7.0!!!

I would like to see a great big discussion on how to get the most out of all the new, cool features of 3.7.0.

This also might be a good place for some Q&As regarding the new features too.

Some things I'm curious about and would like to learn from others:

1. Are you setting up Social Groups? If so, what are you using them for?

2. Are you using the Thread Prefixes? What prefixes have you added so far? I'm thinking of using things like:

How To:
Review:
Diet Critique:
Training Critique:
Rehab:


Obviously, your list will be related to your forum (mine is fitness related), but seeing what others do might spark some ideas.

3. For those that have been playing with the Betas for a while now, what features are your users really getting a kick out of?

GREAT thread, Fire. I've been running 3.7 on my designs site since beta 3. I think I mentioned in the other thread that I've had all of the features enabled so they could "play" with them.

I'm finding that more of my members are impressed by the notices and using them in lieu of announcements, and by the inline spam features. I am loving that particular feature myself. Mostly because you have a multiple choice dropdown that contains stuff like delete post/delete post as spam/ban user/delete user/delete post and ban user, and more. VERY nice tool.

I'd be interested to read what other people like/dislike about the new 3.7 features and how they are using them, as well.

Good feedback!

Okay - I just went and looked into Notices. Can't believe I haven't been playing with this already.

I need ideas folks!! What kind of cool notices have you set up?

I've started with some simple "congrats" for reaching 100 and 1000 posts. Need to think of some creative ideas...

These are not notices that you send out. It's posted on your forum on every page, and you have to check conditions.

In the acp, in the left menu scroll down to Notices. When you click on that, you can create a new notice. This notice appears at the top of the forum, every page. You then have to pick your conditions (there are several) where it says "Display this notice if...."

For instance -

Display this notice if user belongs to usergroup XXXXX (admins, for example. Only admins will see it. )
Display this notice if user does not belong to usergroup XXXXX (banned usergroup, for example - everyone who is not banned will see the notice)

You can choose to show the notice only to members with postcounts between 10 and 50. or to a user (or users) whose birthday is today. ONlY those people with a birthday today would see the notice.

If you want to go to my site - www.themesbydesign.net/forums (http://www.themesbydesign.net/forums) - you'll see the notice below the breadcrumb.

Keep in mind tho that mine is customized. By default the notice is in a box using the thead class.

Ha ha - that's awesome! Nice customization of that notice too!

Thanks for the help. Now to get to brainstorming. :D

Note - you can use html in the message box when creating your notice. By html I'm talking about links, line breaks, bold/italics/colors, etc.

And you can have more than one notice on your board - several, in fact.

The notices are certainly an interesting feature. At the moment I'm using it as welcome back(been away awhile)/post more often(haven't posted recently)/confirm registration(obviously unconfirmed members) sort of stuff. But I think there is a lot more scope there.

The social groups is proving useful for specific interest groups that might bore the broader community. In my instance, we're about SA business, but specific industries can dominate. I think this will really kick into high gear once the hack on vb.org that automatically creates a forum for a social group of x members gets fully sorted.