So I just recieved a message from our lovely admins at proboards. For about two years now (if not longer), they have been trying to get their users to upgrade to proboards forums version 5. When I asked the member oof this site if we wanted the upgrade, most responded with an "if it isn't broken, don't fix it." So we remained with our little corner of the internet staying just the same, no upgrade and everyone was happy. In the message I received, we have no choice, all forums are being upgraded to this new Proboards v5 whether we like it or not on April 29th.

Here is the message I got:


This message was only sent to the "admin" account on this forum

ProBoards v5 is coming soon!

We're excited to let you know that on April 29th we will begin to upgrade all forums to ProBoards Version 5. This free upgrade to this forum contains literally hundreds of new forum features and improved functionality. Below are just a few of the great things you can expect with this free upgrade!

The "Colors & Theme Creator" section of the Admin Panel makes it extremely simple for you to customize the look of your forum.
Host all your forum's images directly on ProBoards! No more relying on third party image hosts!
The new Forum Dashboard helps you keep track of what's happening on all your ProBoards forum accounts all in one location.
Create custom web pages and Forum Portals directly on your forum using our new Custom Pages feature.
A new Member Groups system that allows you to categorize your members into multiple groups allowing you even easier member management.
New Live Search functionality that brings you search results as you type; Never wait for your answers again.
A Shoutbox integrated directly into your forum!
Join multiple forums and transition between them seamlessly using a single account with our ProBoards Global Login.
Notifications to help you stay on top of the latest updates to threads you've participated in and more.
Send a personal message to multiple people in the same conversation, or even entire groups!
Create a unique, custom avatar inside of your forum with the new Avatar Maker.
Per-user activity feeds with the ability to follow other members.
Better moderator tools that make moderating your forum a breeze.
The ability to "Like" posts!
A new Visual Editor for creating posts. See exactly what your post will look like while you make it!
Upgraded attachments system that allows you to easily attach even more files to your forum posts!
Lightning fast forum navigation on every page with our new drop-down navigation tree and improved hotkey support.
At the top of each page you can see if any of the topics you've participated in have been recently updated.
Direct access to the forum's HTML and CSS for those hard-to-reach tweaks.
tagging to bring a member's attention to a post.
Coming Soon: Our new Theme Library and Plugin Library provides you with one-click installation for custom themes and plugins. No coding knowledge needed to make your forum look great and add new functionality!
... and so much more.

If you don't want to wait until the end of April to upgrade, you can upgrade early here! For forum admins that are not quite ready to make this upgrade, you do have the option to opt-out until the end of this year.



I guess we have a lot to look forward to, I just hope it wont wreck our coding!

Ugh.

I've seen V5 on other forums, and maybe it was just their coding or something, but the only thing I liked about it was the auto-updating cbox that came attached to it and used your PB account as the login info. THAT was cool.Other than that, it just felt too tacky.

Oops, i just noticed at the end it says I have the option to "opt out" until the end of the year. But personally I am a bit curious, reading over the new features, it seems okay and they will probably keep pushing v5 on us anyway. Maybe we can try the update, and then if it turns out we totally hate it, we can just opt out and go back to how the site is now.

In case you haven't seen this, here is a video about our upgrade. It's really important and full of info.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=0ylYGM-DGQU