DU4 Feature List

[EarlG]

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Last edited Tue Sep 19, 2023, 08:58 AM - Edit history (2)

My hope is that if you are familiar with DU3, you will be able to jump straight into DU4 and get around without any problems. However, for those who are interested in a deep dive into the details of what's changing from DU3 to DU4, please read on. I'll continue to update this post if I find that I've forgotten to include any features.


GETTING AROUND

Main site navigation
Site navigation is now split into two sections: The "Navigate" button at the top left takes you to all the public areas of the site, whereas the "My Stuff" button at the top right takes you to your personal pages. (When you are not logged in, the "My Stuff" button will say "Sign in" and will take you to the sign in/create new account page.) Clicking the site logo takes you to the home page. On most layouts the top navigation bar remains onscreen at all times, so you can get anywhere in a few clicks.

My Stuff
The following DU4 pages are carried over from DU3:

• Your Journal
• Your Bookmarks
• Your Subscriptions
• Your "My Posts" page (now known as Posts)
• Your Ignore List
• Your Jury Blocklist
• Your Trash Can
• Your Recommendations
• Your Inbox
• Your Profile
• Your "My Account" page (now known as Account Settings)

The following pages are new on DU4 (see further down for details):

• Feed
• Member Lookup
• Star Membership

Forum Hierarchy
Forums are now either "Main Forums" (Latest Breaking News, General Discussion, The DU Lounge, DU Community Help) or they are "Topic Forums." On DU3, Topic Forums/Groups are divided into 25 different categories, which can make it hard to find what you're looking for. We've cut the number of categories down to six on DU4, finding that all our existing forums and groups can fit into one of the following:

• Issue Forums: Debate-style forums where people can discuss various political issues (eg. Economy, Environment, Gun Control, Religion, etc.)

• Culture Forums: Forums for people who are interested in discussing the arts and other typically non-political subjects (eg. History, Science, Photography, Sports, etc.)

• Alliance Forums: Safe-space forums for members of various political or cultural groups and their allies to talk about their issues (eg. Asian Group, LGBT, Jewish Group, etc.)

• Region Forums: Forums for people who are interested in discussing subjects connected by geographic area (eg. all the state forums, U.S. Territories, United Kingdom, etc.)

• Support Forums: Safe-space forums for members who want to give or receive assistance with various personal issues (eg. Addiction & Recovery, Cancer Support, Mental Health Support, etc.)

• Help & Search: Site Announcements, DU Community Help, and General Computer Help can be found here. If you are a Main Forum Host or MIRT member, links to those forums also appear here. This page also contains options for searching DU.

Left-column navigation (does not display on mobile)
There are additional navigation options in the left column of every page on all non-mobile layouts. This navigation area displays your username, Star Membership status, post count, and join date, as well as links to the "big three" forums (Latest Breaking News, General Discussion, The DU Lounge). If you are a Main Forum Host or MIRT member, links to those forums also appear here. At the bottom of this area you will find an expandable section containing links to any forums you have subscribed to, so you can build your own menu of favorite forums.

Site search
Click the "magnifying glass" icon in the top navigation bar to open and close a site search bar (currently on all devices except mobile). A standard Google-powered site search can be performed diretly from the search bar. Meanwhile, clicking the "Advanced Search" button will take you to the Advanced Search page (Star Members only).


NEW PAGES AND IMPROVEMENTS TO OLD PAGES

Latest Videos
This top-level page works like the Latest Discussions page, but only shows OPs which contain YouTube videos. Like Latest Discussions, the Latest Videos page can be filtered by category, relevance (political/non-political), or time, and it can also be sorted by most recs, most replies, and last replied. (This page replaces the Video & Multimedia forum, which will be retired on DU4.)

Bookmarks
On DU3 bookmarks are displayed in chronological order and can only be browsed by date, but on DU4 bookmarks can be sorted by date or by forum. You can also filter bookmarks by whether or not they have a note attached (see further down for information about OP Notes).

Subscriptions
As well as subscribing to forums, on DU4 you can subscribe to people by visiting their Journal or their Profile and clicking the "Subscribe" button at the top. (After subscribing, the button will change to say "Unsubscribe".) Discussions in forums you're subscribed to, and discussions by people you're subscribed to, will appear on your Subscriptions page. If you are a Star Member, they'll also show up in your Feed sidebar notifications on devices larger than a phone (see below for information about the Feed.)

Feed
This is a new page which shows a log of useful DU activity that is relevant to you. It is for Star Members only. On devices larger than a phone, Feed sidebar notifications appear in the left column of most pages, below the left column navigation area. If you don't want Feed sidebar notifications, you can turn them off from Feed Sidebar Settings on the left side of the Feed page.

Jury Blocklist
We changed the name from Jury Blacklist to Jury Blocklist because we prefer to use a racially-neutral alternative.

Inbox
You can now mass-delete DU Mail messages by checking the boxes next to them and clicking the "Delete checked" button.

Member Lookup
New on DU4, this is a standalone version of the member lookup function which appears at the top of your Inbox. This function is only available to registered members.

Star Membership
This is an standalone version of the Star Membership tab in your "My Account" section on DU3.

Account Settings
In addition to the settings found in the Preferences section on DU3, we have a number of new settings on DU4:

• Visual appearance settings: For Star Members only, on DU4 you can "re-skin" the site with a couple of different layouts. As well as the new DU4 standard design, we've created a "Night Mode" layout with a dark background and light text. If you prefer the DU3 look, we also have layout designed to resemble classic 2011-2023 DU3, which we're calling "Skinner Mode".

• Large fonts: Increased text size across the site. (Default Mode and Night Mode only.)

• Tooltips: A number of the main navigation buttons on the top-level pages have tooltip popups which appear to describe the button's function. You can turn those on or off from this setting.

• "My Stuff" notifications: On DU4, the My Stuff button glows to notify you whenever you get a new DU Mail message, a new subscription, or when someone replies to one of your posts. If you don't like the default glow, this setting allows you to change the My Stuff button's appearance when a new notification arrives. You can also change which notifications trigger the button.

• Show tweet indicator/Show video indicator: For Star Members only, on DU4 you can choose to see little icons next to thread titles on the top-level pages and in forums which will tell you whether the OP contains a tweet or a video before you click on it.

• Change email address/change password: We've improved the process that allows you to change your email address and/or password because the DU3 method was frankly kinda confusing.

NEW FEATURES AND FUNCTIONS

Milestones
This is an old DU3 function which was great but had to be turned off for performance reasons. We're bringing it back on DU4, on the Latest Discussions and Latest Videos pages. Every time a discussion gets 25 new replies, it will reappear at the top of the page as a Milestone, so when you're browsing the Latest Discussions or Latest Videos page, you can see at a glance which discussions are getting the most interest at that moment.

Recommending replies
You can now recommend replies. We may expand uses for this in future, but currently it simply allows you to see at a glance which replies have been preferred by readers. Once a reply reaches five recs, it will be highlighted in the reply tree whenever you click the "Recommended" button just above the reply tree. This should be particularly useful for discussions with lots of replies, when you just want to skim through and see the best ones.

OP Notes
For Star Members only, there is now a button in OPs which allows you to attach your own notes to the OP. Notes will only appear for you, not for anyone else, and you can add a note to any OP, not just your own. Adding a note to an OP automatically bookmarks it, so you can find your notes again on your Bookmarks page.


MISCELLANEOUS IMPROVEMENTS

Long links
Long links in posts now break correctly and consistently, so posts can contain full-length hyperlinks and pages won't get deformed if someone accidentally pastes a URL into their subject line.

New post formatting options
We've added a few new post formatting options -- Strikethrough, Highlight, and Monospace font (useful for posting table data). Please note that while you're welcome to use them, these WILL NOT WORK for DU3 visitors -- the tags will be displayed instead.

Posting tips
This button appears on the post page and gives you information about how to format or embed media in your posts.

Sharing options
Social sharing buttons at the bottom of OPs no longer contain social media tracking code, for better privacy. You can currently share a discussion directly to Facebook, Twitter, Mastodon, Reddit, and Pinterest. Click the "SHARE" button at the bottom of any OP to see your options.

If you like your Twitter, you can keep your Twitter
DUers are somewhat divided on whether we should continue to allow Twitter embeds in DU posts. However, the Admin position is that the tweets people bring to DU are generally useful and so we have no plans to get rid of the feature at this time. That said, we did make it so that embedded tweets on DU4 still have the old bird logo, because fuck Elon Musk.