Today dynamicsuser.net has gotten it’s software platform upgraded from Community Server 2007 to Community Server 2008.5.
This upgrade is quite a big upgrade, so you will see that not only the layout and navigation has changed, but also that many other things in here are not as they have been before.
New Features in CS 2008.5
The previous download/file section (and the Photo Album section which we didn’t use) has been replaced by a Media Gallery section. In here you’ll find all the files you had in the old site, but the section will be reorganized soon so that it is easier to find what you’re looking for.
It is now possible to create Groups or Hubs where special point of interests groups can get their own “sub site” with a forum and blogs etc. Here on our site it could be used in example by the freelancer community.
Friends are actually not new to the site, but where you before just had to add someone as your favorite members, then now it requires the other member to accept this setup. Your friends will be able to see your profile
But the for us most important improvement are the Wikis. You properly know Wikis from Wikipedia.com or from David Singleton’s Dynamics NAV Wiki. You can see the Wiki’s as a big knowledge sharing book. But it doesn’t get really good, before the users start adding their knowledge by updating the pages in the wiki. We can all contribute, but each Wiki will have a moderator, which will verify/check the updated pages, so that the information can still be trusted.
If you have a OpenID, then you can now use this to login to your account. You still need to create you account as before, but then you can associate your DUG account with your OpenID and use this to sign into Dynamicsuser.net. If you do not have an openID, then you can get one here: http://www.myopenid.com/
And that takes us to the last major change. Community Server have updated the SPAM filter rules. Today you might see especially in the blogs that some blog entries have maybe 100-300 replies. It would be wonderful if these replies where real replies, but in many situations they are merely spam, trying to get people to come to their spam sites. We cannot completely get rid of spam comments, but I have already seen that the new filter is picking up a lot of spam posts.
What is next?
Now the site update is done, that doesn’t mean my work is over. There are still quite a lot of minor changes, which I did to the old site, which I have to redo on the new site:
Front Page : Needs the special listing of new jobs. Actually it will be split into two sections. One for Featured Jobs - which only sponsors can posts to. And one for Other Jobs, where everyone can post without being a sponsor. Read here about becoming a sponsor: http://dynamicsuser.net/forums/t/21896.aspx
Forum: The little “Write new post” button was also not standard and needs to get back in.
If you see other things which is missing, then please let me know. I will not promise that everything get back into the new site. As with all development (just like when we do Dynamics changes) then I hope we can stick to as much standard as possible.