As people head back to school or college, start doing things in their lives they are less excited about, it's a sign summer has ended. You think that would stop Wirlaburla.com from a monthly newsletter and updates? Oh no no no, you are very much mistaken. As we step into the month of September, let's check out what we did last month.
A notice on donations:It's difficult to determine who is who when it comes to donations, especially since donations give real names. I will never disclose real names or personal information of my users without any permission from them whatsoever, so I try my best to figure out the usernames of donators. This is going to change. If you want to appear on the next newsletter under the donators list, you must message me your paypal transaction code. If you do not have an account on Wirlaburla.com, you can also contact us via email and we'll make sure you are included.
Onto the updates!
News System
Previously, we used a software named 'Grav' for our blogging system. It was alright for the time, but slowly became a much bigger hassle to deal with. Things like comments were given via a plugin that hadn't been updated in atleast a year, and had many issues that allowed spam bots to take over. The entire theme of the blog system had to be made from scratch and in a format specific to the blog system, which is why sometimes many site-wide changes didn't reflect onto the blog. The themes were also a pain to create and make consistant with the rest of the site, with changes in the stylesheet having to be made in order for it to look right.
Overall, the experience was not worth it for something as simple as a news announcement system. I had to disable comments towards the end, and then it was replaced. Welcome to the new system. Simple, easy to view, part of the site, and comments are back! The system is tied to the community system that has been in the works for awhile now on the site, so if you want to comment, make an account! It allows me to give control to other users without going through a tedious process of setting up custom accounts, and is simple to use behind the scene. Expect posts from other users too!
Email struggles
Ever since the start of an email server on Wirlaburla.com (previously under Wirlaburla.site), we've had issues sending emails to hotmail addresses. We've just recently been able to resolve the issue (hopefully). Our email server is now very secure and set up correctly, and hotmail has informed us that mitigations were set. If you continue to face problems using Microsoft email addresses, please contact us. We should still be able to receive email from those addresses.
Community Updates
As previously mentioned, we've had quite a few updates to the community system on Wirlaburla.com, and are growing ever so closer to the final product. Much still needs to be done, and much still is. You can read the complete changelog here, but to recap some of the features:
Revamped Dashboard
Message Previews and Youtube Embeds
Highly customizable profiles
Some additional changes
Some additions and changes have been made and are still being worked on after the initial changelog came out. I am still tweaking things and fixing bugs, so please report any you experience to me.
- Custom Made
- Fits with site
- Allows user comments
- Replying to a message will give a tab featuring the message.
- Messaging a user directly from their profile works now
- File downloading suffered a bug that is now fixed
- Staff Panel revamped (again)
- The initial revamp was very non-performant and caused issues with security on browsers
- Now more organized
- Features the improved News poster (which this was written with).
And much much more still coming.
Worlds.com Movie Nights
DrFrasierCrane hosts Movie Nights on Worlds.com on Tuesdays at 7pm EST, and a few weeks ago decided to experiment with Wirlaburla.com as it's site. Safe to say the results were fantastic, working smoother and more efficiently than expected. Take part and watch on Movie Nights at 7pm EST Tuesday every week! Teleport to DrFrasierCrane or this world for the theater.
Archives
Archiving has been slow, and we are hoping to pick up our own efforts soon. As always, we encourage users to also submit things for archival too. There is nothing very much of news to inform you of at this time, but we aren't stopping!
Donations
Thank you to all who have donated to the site! It's much appreciated and helps keep the site running!
VertigoMindwarp - $20
Momburla - $20
Paola - $10
And $5 from others.