One of our main goals for IP.Board 3.2.0 was to revamp certain areas of the interface to make it easier to interact with the board. We also wanted to put controls at your fingertips rather than make you root through pages of settings. This blog outlines some of these changes.
User Control Panel
In many ways the user control panel follows the old computing convention of a special area for configuration and settings. The idea being that you keep all configurable elements in a single location. This works well for the most part but there are many times when you have to go looking for a setting to control how the board works often meaning you have to leave the page you're on, change the setting and then return to what you were doing. We wanted to move specific controls to their contextual location.
We've also merged a few areas together such as "Settings" and "Profile Information", "Email" and "Password". This reduces the number of links and allowed us to merge the "Profile" and "Settings" panes into one.
We've revamped the User Control Panel and stripped down many of the settings and put them in their relevant areas. For example, we've already moved the View New Content settings into the View New Content interface.
The attachment system now 'sniffs' out whether the user can use the better Flash based uploader and uses that if no other settings have been set. If the user decides to switch to the basic uploader, then this preference is stored and used on the next page load.
You can now disable your personal messenger from within the personal messenger itself. You can elect to do this if you do not want to receive PMs from other members. Once it has been disabled, you can re-enable it by visiting the personal messenger again at any time.
There was a single option to remove signatures from the topic view. We've enhanced this to allow you to remove a single user's signature if desired. When you mouseover a post, a little "X" appears in the signature. clicking this brings up a menu.
Ignoring a user's signature will add them to the 'Ignore Preferences' page so you can remove them.
Other Enhancements
The current "Mark As Read" found in the board's footer marks all applications as read which may not be the desired result. In IP.Board 3.2, clicking this link brings up a menu so you can mark a single applications or all applications as read.
We've removed the old style forum jump form drop down interface in favour of a much enhanced "Quick Navigation" link that is in the footer of every single page. This Navigation panel is extensible via the application's extensions folder so third parties can update their applications to take advantage of it.
The tabs down the side are loaded by Ajax, so you can quickly tab between all your applications to locate the page you want.
We've also gone ahead and updated all the areas where the mini profile card was activated with the green icon next to a user's name. Currently you have to click this icon 
to load the mini profile card.
Now, simply hovering over a user's name will make the mini profile card appear.
The main user drop down menu has also been enhanced. You can now update your status via the menu which means you can do this from any page on the board.
We feel that these small enhancements make a huge difference in your workflow and in the general feeling of the board.
Feel free to comment on this blog entry below or, if you have feedback unrelated to this blog entry, start a new topic in our feedback forum. If you have feedback related to changes beyond what this entry is referring to, please start a feedback topic. Be sure to check the What's New in IP.Board 3.2 topic for a running list of announced changes!
By Matt