- Joined
- Apr 14, 2017
- Posts
- 665
We're back!
It's been a while since Relic Castle last underwent any major changes, so we decided now was the time. We've upgraded and overhauled Relic Castle in many ways, fixing small inconsistencies, changing some things around, and adding a lot of new functionality that is guaranteed to make your experience here on Relic Castle much more pleasant. I'm going to do my best to list and show everything that's changed, but it's a long list. You can also close out of this thread now and explore for yourself, if that's more your sort of thing.
It's been a while since Relic Castle last underwent any major changes, so we decided now was the time. We've upgraded and overhauled Relic Castle in many ways, fixing small inconsistencies, changing some things around, and adding a lot of new functionality that is guaranteed to make your experience here on Relic Castle much more pleasant. I'm going to do my best to list and show everything that's changed, but it's a long list. You can also close out of this thread now and explore for yourself, if that's more your sort of thing.
Relic Castle App
Okay, well, it's not a real application in the traditional sense, but it may as well be one. When you're in Relic Castle, modern applications will offer you the choice to add Relic Castle to your home screen. This creates a sort of app container. You can then run this app as its own mini-browser. This is faster than launching a normal browser, and allows better native notifications.
Read the article below for a slightly more in-depth explanation for how to install Relic Castle as an app:
How to install a PWA to your device
Question and Suggestion forums
One of the most major changes we've made is related to questions, support threads, suggestions and bug report threads. These can all be reduced down to question-type threads and suggestion-type threads. There has never been an easy way to sort and organise threads as such, however, forcing people to improvise in the form of reactions or replies.
That ends today.
Questions
The main forum that dealt with question threads was the Pokémon Essentials forum, which has now been placed in a new Pokémon Essentials section, titled Questions. This questions forum has been specialized to aid users in asking questions, providing answers, and looking through all the various answers.
One of the four major changes here is that you can now upvote and downvote posts in question threads. This is the ideal way to tell a good answer apart from a bad one as they're differentiated by a vote count.
What's more, you can even sort the replies to the thread based on vote count rather than reply date. This allows you to search the thread from best answer to worst, or from most popular answer to least popular.
As the focus of the question thread is on the question itself, the main post will now always float on top of the site, regardless of which page you are on. That way you never have to go back to the first page just to see what the exact question was.
The fourth change is that replies are seen as potential answers, and the thread author can accept an answer as the "accepted" answer. This will give the answer a green check next to it and also float that answer at the top of the page, below the first question.
By default, all old threads have been left alone, and they'll look something like this:
If you like an answer though, you should upvote it. When the author thinks your answer is the right one, they should click the checkmark button at the right of the post to pick it as the accepted answer. A good question thread will then look like this:
On top of that, the thread list of the Questions forum will show how many answers each thread has, and you can filter based on criteria such as whether a question is answered, whether it has an accepted answer, whether your replied, or whether you asked the question. This will ensure everyone gets an answer, and that everyone gets a good answer. It also helps people in the future come back to already asked questions and find the perfect answer to their question.
Suggestions
The idea behind suggestion forums is much the same as that behind question forums, but rather than voting on individual answers, you vote on the main post.
I have replied and also upvoted the suggestion, which allows anyone to come into the main thread list and sort by votes to determine what the most popular suggestion is.
Articles
Another brand new type of thread you can create is an article. We have three article forums right now, the Articles forum, and the Project Showcase and Progressing Projects forums. What makes articles stand out is that the focus is shifted away from the person and the content, and instead just on the content itself. The author is shown at the bottom of the article rather than besides it, making more space for the now-centered article content. See for yourself:
And at the bottom of the article,
The rest of the thread are normal replies. If you go onto a page other than the first, the main article post stays afloat at the top of the page in a collapsed state.
That's not all though. The thread list of the article forum is radically different from what you're used to, and instead shows a grid view with a small snippet of the start of the article, and the first image of the article if it contains any images. This makes for an awesome display of all the articles, as you can see in the Project Showcase.
Resource Teams
When you're publishing a resource, you're now able to specify a team of people who created the resource. Everyone on your team will then have the same editing and updating privileges for that resources as you have, except for deleting the resource. This is very useful if you want multiple to be able to able to update your resource, or if you want someone else to maintain it.
Markdown
Markdown is another way of formatting posts, like BBCode, but simpler. So now you can use double asterisks to make your writing nice and bold, or single asterisks if italics is more your thing. There's also
inline code and underline, and you can even make links with different text than the link itself. The Markdown is converted back to BBCode upon saving, so mixing Markdown and BBCode together can be tricky.You can unordered lists by starting new lines with an asterisk
- like
- so.
If BBCode doesn't suit you, perhaps you'll have more luck with this alternative formatting style.
Improved Attachments
The attachment system has also received a big makeover. Uploading or dragging files now immediately makes them attachments, and they're now shown horizontally instead of vertically, so that you don't have to constantly scroll up and down to find the attachment you're looking for.
The attachment viewer itself has also been redone, and it's now exactly 100% better than it was before.
But there's more! You can now also resize images and attachments in the editor, as well as re-aligning them and changing their text. All in all, you'll find that it's a much more convenient and intuitive process than ever before.
What clicking on an image that didn't fit within the post looks like:
And what editing an image in the rich text box looks like:
Inline spoilers
If you're still not convinced that formatting and writing posts has been improved, wait until you hear about inline spoilers! These inline spoilers offer you a brand new way to hide your content.
URL Unfurling
You may have noticed that various media URLs automatically turn into embeds. The same now happens for any other URL, including forums and threads. URLs will automatically unfurl if you place them on their own line. Unfurling URLs now happens with a new unfurl tag within the [ url ] tag.
Here's what that could look like!
Home
Luka's collection of resources and goodies. Explore a rich resource repository, keep up to date with the latest news and get in contact.
luka-sj.com
The URL must be available as a guest without any authentication, otherwise no metadata will be retrievable and it will simply display the plain link instead.
LaTeX
As any big boy forum, we now support LaTeX mathematical expressions. You can write inline math like [imath]a^2+b^2=c^2[/imath] with the [ imath ] tag, but you can also create a big, centered block of math with the [ math ] tag, as shown below.
[math] z = \overbrace{ \underbrace{x}_\text{real} + i \underbrace{y}_\text{imaginary} }^\text{complex number} [/math][math] R(t)= A \left(\frac{E_0}{\rho_0}\right)^{1/5}t^{2/5} [/math]What's special about our LaTeX renderer is that is renders pure text, which means all mathematical expressions are also affected by font family, font size, boldness, etc.
Improved Code blocks
Code blocks have also been redesigned, and you can now choose many more languages to perform syntax highlighting on, you can set a custom title for your code block, and you can also highlight any line you want within your code block now.
Proof of improvement:
def is_this_better_than_before?(is_it)
return "yeah, definitely"
end
p is_this_better_than_before?(true) #=> "yeah, definitely"lang, title and highlight tags within the [ code ] tag.Tables
Next in our list of formatting improvements, we've got tables! This is yet another brand new way to format your content, and you can see an example right below!
| Event | Starting Date | Finish Date | Games Published |
| Game Jam #1 | 2015 June 30 | 2015 August 10 | 11 |
| Game Jam #2 | 2016 June 30 | 2016 August 10 | 14 |
| Game Jam #3 | 2017 June 30 | 2017 August 10 | 25 |
| Game Jam #4 | 2018 June 30 | 2018 August 10 | 13 |
| Game Jam #5 | 2019 June 30 | 2019 August 10 | 11 |
| Winter Game Jam #1 | 2020 January 10 | 2020 February 21 | 12 |
| Game Jam #6 | 2020 June 30 | 2020 August 10 | 27 |
You can also use them as a type of grid and separate content in several columns with them!
| The BBCode for creating the table above. You create a table with the [ table ] tag, a row with the [ tr ] tag, and then enter data with the [ td ] tag. | The table from above. |
Oh, and you can also simply use the button in the toolbar to create all the BBCode for you.
Draft Saving
The most frustrating thing that can happen when writing a thread post is losing your work. Whether you closed your browser or your PC crashed, it's very demotivating to lose your progress. That's why we now have an improved draft-saving system. The system will automatically save your draft every 20 seconds, and if you stop typing for more than 3 seconds. You can then easily restore your draft if you were to lose it somehow.
Video & Audio
As part of the attachment updates, you can now also upload and play video and audio files directly in your posts! You no longer need to upload them to a different website and pray it's compatible with our [ media ] tag, and now instead upload them directly to Relic Castle.
Improved Previewing
Previewing your post or thread has always been an annoying process, with a lot of scrolling up and down with double scroll bars. None of that anymore. Previewing your content can now be done by clicking in the top right of the text editor, which replaces your content with a live preview.
Reactions
Since simply "liking" a comment doesn't suffice anymore in 2020, we now have a whole array of reactions you can use to better express what the content does to you and your emotions. You can now express, by hovering over the Like button instead of clicking,
Like
Love
Haha
Wow
Sad
Angry
! 
GIPHY Integration
It's never been easier to share GIFs. With a click in the toolbar you have access to the entire GIF catalogue of GIPHY, all just waiting for you to embed them in your post.
Prefixes
All prefixes now have a description to help you better understand when you should use which prefix.
Furthermore, most prefixes now also add a small text snippet above threads with that prefix to steer the thread and the readers in the right direction.
Similar Threads
You also no longer have an excuse to post duplicate threads - because you now get a list of similar threads when creating one!
Bookmarks
You can now bookmark threads and post in the top-right corner of the content to bookmark it for later reference. You can choose to give it a name and tag which you can use to find and filter your bookmarks. For the full list of bookmarks, click on your name in the top-right of the screen and go to Bookmarks. You can also find these in your Your Account page.
Profile banners
On top of BBCode being allowed in profile posts, you can now also set your very own profile banner! This is a neat way to give your profile page a bit of your own flair. Creativity is not my forte, but you can see what I've done with it below.
Streams
Our very own streams section is back! Grab some food and something to drink and join in on a Pokémon streamer! The streams tab shows everyone playing Pokémon Sword/Shield by default, but if a featured streamer goes live, it will be prioritized and shared in the #streams channel on Discord.
Featured streamers are developers or players from the Relic Castle community. If you wish to become a featured streamer, reach out to an administrator!
Feedback Forum
We've also dedicated a new forum specifically to asking and receiving feedback with all different kinds of work. Be sure to use the right prefix when asking feedback, and you shall receive.
Small changes:
- Push Notifications
You can now opt to receive push notifications on all your devices. This extends the "watch" and alert system so that you can be kept up to speed instantly, with a push notification on your phone or computer. This does not work on Apple devices. - Read Alert and Read Content is now separated
Previously, reading an alert meant you also read the content, but we know that's not always true. That's why there's now a difference between reading an alert and reading the content, so that you can keep better track of what you have and haven't read. - Avatars are round
Because square avatars are ugly. - Profile posts and reviews are now rich
This means that you can now use BBCode, upload images and use all sorts of fancy formatting to stylize your posts. This also applies to resource reviews. - New password strength checker
Because the smarter us humans get, the dumber our passwords. - Improved 2-factor authentication
There is now better support for third-party 2fa account managers. 2-factor authentication is crucial for protecting your account from malicious attacks and unauthorized access to your account. - Username changes
You can now change your username all by yourself in your Your Account page. The new name will then be approved or rejected by an administrator. Be aware that you are only able to change your username once every 30 days, so be sure not to mistype your new name! - Guests can write before registering
This means that guests are able to write and post things with a guest account, but their content will enter a pending queue. Only once they've registered will their content be publicly and automatically available. - All prefixes now have icons.
Because icons are better than no icons. - Many, many more changes
As you use Relic Castle more, you'll keep discovering small new changes you never noticed before. Keep your eyes peeled!
OH AND CURRY IS BACK
Last edited: