Staredit Network is celebrating it's 11-year anniversary this year, a feat most early members probably never expected to happen. Despite starting as a forum devoted to finding the secrets of the StarCraft editor (and in some cases breaking StarCraft), SEN has evolved into a much larger entity as a community and social network. It became more about forming friendships, sharing ideas, and supporting others in their endeavors, as well as ripping one another apart in heated (and ultimately futile) Serious Discussion debates. There are members who have had the chance to meet in person, have helped one another in long Skype chats, or have taken the opportunity to give sincere advice when others are in need. That is what made Staredit Network important to me.
When maintaining SEN was passed down to me, I was met with a lot of questions about how I'd save the forum or somehow make it popular again. When I agreed to take over, I can honestly say that wasn't my main concern and perhaps things would have been different if it was. Instead I was more interested in attempting to preserve what I had loved about the community and what made the community important to me. We do what we do because we value this website, the community, and the connections we've made here. Working on, maintaining, paying for, and moderating Staredit Network is very much a labor of love for us. And I'm very proud to share the next version of SEN, almost completely re-coded from scratch by Devourer.
What's New in v6?
We know there will be bugs, but we've been painstakingly squashing them for months now to bring you the most polished version of SEN we could. Of course if any new bugs are found, please post them in our new Bug Report thread as Devourer will have a better idea now how to fix them.
One of the biggest things Devourer set out to do was create a much faster and less buggy SEN. By building SEN from scratch, he's been able to accomplish that better than we would have imagined. Based on Google Pagespeed checks, the old SEN was running with a score of 19/100 with very little optimization and all sorts of errors. This new and improved SEN is running at 93/100, with the best optimization we could provide. And it works well on mobile, too!
AJAX. AJAX, Everywhere!
We've decided to lean toward full AJAX navigation. We felt this gave the navigation a much smoother feel, and allowed us to play with the idea of updating certain things in realtime. This should allow for a more fluid experience going from page to page, as well as allowing you to park on a page and not having to refresh constantly for a new notification or Shout. Of course this may also be annoying to you, so we've given you the option to disable it in your Settings.
In regards to your Settings, you may also notice that they have all been reset. This is mostly to have you re-acclimate yourself with what has changed, and make sure you prepare yourself for all the new things SEN has to offer. Keep in mind this also means your time settings have changed, so be sure to set that.
One thing to note is that thanks to AJAX, you will now find a small icon in the top left of the window that will act as a notification marker. If you receive a new PM or a new post is made in a thread you subscribe to or you are greeted with moderation, that icon will notify you of something new.
Private Messaging
We've made a few changes to the PM system. First and foremost, PMs are no longer capped. You won't have to worry about clearing your inbox or buying more space. If you are interested in cleaning and sorting, however, we've made some new additions that would help with that. You now have the option to create new folders to store PMS, as well as create rules to help automatically sort incoming messages from certain members into specific folders. This is a very basic system for now, but should interest arise, we can explore updating and upgrading it.
The New Shoutbox
The Shoutbox is the most used feature on SEN, and therefore we've tried our best to make it the best it can be. As mentioned above, all Shouts will now post in realtime. That's perhaps the biggest and most needed update. We've also taken it a step further and allowed members to quote Shouts. Currently this system only works on the first page of the Shoutbox, though we're working on a solution to allow you to select quotes from any and all pages. We've also updated the way searches work in the Shoutbox, allowing you to find the context of a search result and jump to that Shout's exact location on a page.
You will probably also notice that all old Shouts are now gone. We will eventually be creating an old archive database of v5 Shouts for members to browse, so they aren't lost forever!
Search
Speaking of searching, SEN's general search function now works. And hey, there's the ability to perform a quick search as well! Performing a regular search may still have a bit of a delay, but it should no longer cripple the server or cause all sorts of mySQL errors.
Skins
You may have also noticed the look of SEN has changed. We have four skins to start with, the default now being JamaL's design from so long ago. We settled on this skin because, frankly, it's simple but still looks great. When JamaL first posted it years ago, it was met with a whole lot of enthusiasm. We were equally enthusiastic to use it for v6, and show it off as the new SEN. Over time we will add more (and probably port old ones over), but as always we ask you to be patient as we do so.
The DLDB and v4 Wiki
We've also made some aesthetic changes to the DLDB and the original SENv4 wiki. The DLDB now gives you a preview of the maps with a working rating and number of downloads, in addition to a small window showing off some older and perhaps forgotten projects. The system has been remade to focus more on showing off the maps first rather than seating the small image next to a perhaps lengthy description.
The SENv4 Wiki was a fantastic resource, and unfortunately has been buried for too long. We've now made it more accessible by listing all old articles when you go to the Wiki page. We are still going to use MediaWiki for our SC1 and SC2 resources, but at least all the old work is easily accessible.
The Store and Games
The store has some minor changes, including new items being added. For the most part, the store now contains cosmetic improvements. We've added things like name glows and prefixes and suffixes (as clans have been removed), to help make your name stand out.
The Raffle has changed back to a similar system as before with a starting jackpot for a higher payout. The time between drawings has increased, however, giving more members a chance to participate for a higher reward. Ideally this should allow for more interesting raffle results, as well as prevent one or two members from raking in all those sweet sweet minerals due to lack of participation.
The Magic Boxes have also changed, though mostly aesthetically. Boxes are now revealed as they are chosen, as well as showing who chose them without having to hover over them. We've added more combinations of boxes making each reset allot an equal amount of minerals. One combination even has a massive payout box, but at the cost of more 0 boxes.
Post has been edited 3 time(s), last time on Aug 30 2014, 8:06 pm by DevliN. Reason: Fixed formatting
Currently Working On: My Overwatch addiction.
Aweesssooommmme
any chance of a new one? 
