New update is live, but we ran into an issue with the feedback update so it will be changing. There are some fun things added and some things which will help ease site load as we continue to improve things. I'm sure there are a few questions on how things work, so I'll do a quick FAQ below...

1) New WYSIWYG Editor
Faster, cleaner, and built entirely in house. It will be entirely new, so if there are bugs we missed (and we tested the snot out of it), PLEASE let us know and we will fix them. There are a few differences, such as not using the shorthand smiley blocks on going from WYSIWYG to BBCode. It was just easier to show them as their image links. You can still enter them as you have in the past. The editor will also always post from bbcode mode, so if you are using WYSIWYG mode and click submit, you may notice it switches to bbcode mode before submitting. This is normal and ok since we validate all input through bbcode. It will look just like the current editor you are using. In mobile mode it will retain a top level bar but will show limited buttons. (Basics only.) The editor will also be back to the instant messenger tool, where you can more easily add links and images again. Few key fixes were added during development like links no longer needing text description. (Optional once again!)

2) Multi-Quote
Multi-Quote is here! It will allow team members to quote up to 3 replies + an additional fourth on click. (3 checked boxes next to replies + hitting quote button on a 4th.) This will only work PER PAGE, so dont click on page 2 then go to page 3 and think those will be held in stasis. The goal here was a nice easy system to get multi quote on a given page. I figure it's good to start somewhere and we can always improve the system if needed. During the code update, I also fixed a few issues with the quote "view button" system which has been wonky at times. (I believe multi-quote is turned off for mobile devices.)

3) Image Attachment Changes
For Bronze team members, the beloved (I hope) image attachment system needed a little tweaking. In short it has been embraced and seen higher traffic and use than anticipated. To slow down some of the BW usage, we are making attachments show up as links for non-logged in folks. This should help with things like casual visitors, etc loading a large image thread and sucking up BW. We may look at other ways to help control increased resource versus removing this ability. It may end up as a bronze membership donation increase for next year. One other item of note, we are shutting down image linking to other sites. (Can't share photos from arfcom to ebay listings for example.)

4) EE Feedback Moved to Memory
EE feedback has been running in real time off a reporting DB for a while now, but it's still a resource hog. To combat this, feedback is moving from real time to server memory and will be updated hourly. (Rough time frame right now.) Actual feedback will always be live in urser's profiles, but the numbers with each post will roll from this new system and be behind up to an hour from feedback being posted. This should help reduce resource usage and speed up the site. Again, this is the numbers you see with people's posts not the actual feedback itself.

** Feedback has run into some problems with CPU usage so we will change this to only display feedback while you are in the EE and not all forums. **

EE FEEDBACK UPDATE
Feedback is back to being real time, but it will only be displayed when you are on the EE, or if you check a user's profile. The reason for this is to cut back on excessive load. (It's just not worth how much it uses up in resources to display everywhere on the site.) Again, it's still showing REAL TIME for profiles and in the EE.

Minor Updates
===============
- MODS - EE trash should be accessible for EE mods
- image hotlinking from other sites disabled (saving on BW usage where we can! This means you can't share images on a different website. It will show a "missing" image instead.)
- wysiwyg/bbcode editor added to IM tool so it's easier to use and format your messages
- *with the editor, you can easily add images and links to IMs
- ee manager tool is forcing a no-cache to help with some issues folks are having
- login fixed to properly trim spaces in front or behind logins (easier for those who accidentally add them)
- fix to the quote view button system
- im and email user will now open in a new tab
- fixed a bug with site error loggins code
- fixed a bug with login page
- removed IND forum threads from active
- removed limit for mentions in a post for admins (this will help with next year's giveaway)
- removed server dependency on Archive DBs. This will help if archive is under maintenance or breaks
- fixed tabbing bug on editor pages

There are more minor things in this update, but these are just about everything not cosmetic. As always, our primary goal is performance and stability. We feel these changes improve the site usage, speed, and resource usage, which benefits everyone.

Feel free to ask questions here on how things work, or to report problems.

UPDATES
- Feedback was restored and is real time. Found a nice way to do it without impacting load much.

- Attachments are back to normal for everyone who is logged into the site. Lurkers will have ATTACHMENT links for anything attached to threads.

- The quote system should be back to fully functional.
Fixes:
1) you should not be able to get "stuck" in the quote box. You can always hit the quote button while inside a box to get out, but that's now a last resort.
2) fixed the weird quote breaking problem with nested quotes.
3) fixed the quote display bug with quote all and not showing the most recent post with the view all button.

Enjoy.

Tweaked the image blocking a bit. It should be better now.

Of course. Let me explain again.

Image linking is normal.

For attachments, when bronze members attach images to posts, they will display as links for non-team as we monitor bandwidth improvements. In a few weeks we will decide to turn them back on for any logged in users and keep them as links for lurkers only. Any image you share from any other site, is not impacted by this at all.

Image blocking is only when you try to link to the image hosted on arfcom from an outside site. So for example if you link an image hosted on this site (from an attachment or media library) to another website to share, the site will send a "missing" image versus the real one. It's for image leaching which has picked up a bit since the attachment piece went live. In short, we will save bandwidth by not allowing outside sites to link into arfcom hosted images for their own use.

@GoatBoy

EE trash is not accessible for EE MODS.

Quote All did not change. Only multiquote was added to the existing system.

Same as before. [youtube] bb code or click the youtube button.

Oh if you are on a compressed browser (small window), it will remove some of the less used items for more critical things. It's a work in progress, but for now I do think some of the icons like amazon, twitter, youtube are left off while images and links are left in. You can still just paste the link into the window and wrap it with the YOUTUBE board code tags.

Already been done this way, if we stored in a snapshot with the post, it would be fine, but it would also not be real time and could lead to confusion. Keeping it real time was a key part of feedback and how it's handled in the EE. Having a different manner to display is something we are discussing in the GD thread.

@GoatBoy

Trash for EE MODS is active again, but not unlocked.

Long ago we did, but it's been gone for year+ at least.

Trash is now accessible.

It's been discussed a few times in a few threads. Here's the "official" discussion... Image Attachment Thread