Alien Soup
Head Chef
Sometime in the next few days when you visit Cool Sci-Fi you will be greeted by an entirely different forum! 
We have been on our current software platform, vBulletin, for quite a number of years now and the time has come for a change. After a lot of thought on the subject we are converting to XenForo.
The decision to switch our software platform was not an easy one because it means that you, our community members, will be faced with getting used to a new interface for reading & posting in the forums. It also means that some features that are currently available will no longer be an option. The flip-side of it though is that you will have many new features to take advantage of!
XenForo has one purpose, forum discussion. That means everything is geared to help make it easier to communicate with each other. Something as simple as posting a YouTube video will no longer require you to copy & paste the video ID and remembering what tag to use, instead you can just copy & paste the URL of the video right into your post and it will automatically display the video! You will be able to log in with your Facebook account, or associate your existing Cool Sci-Fi account to Facebook, to easily share interesting topics with your friends. When you include an image in your post you will no longer have to worry about it stretching the screen display, instead the image will be automatically resized to fit into your browser window. If you visit a lot of sites and use a Gravatar account for you avatar than you will be able to use it here as well. Creating new conversations & responding will be a lot less effort and will be a breeze no matter your technical experience.
In short, the software choice is going to reboot us back to concentrating on the forum discussions with very little else tacked on. It will take some getting used to but in short time we believe the community will enjoy it.
Along with the new software we are also getting a new look & feel! The new Cool Sci-Fi design has a retro feel to it inspired by the Doo-Wop era of 1950's Rock & Roll! We wanted to avoid the typical dark & brooding designs associated with most 'sci-fi' sites so we went back in time for inspiration, back to the days of hanging out at the local diner and watching movies like The Blob at the drive-in movie theater.
We expect the conversion to take about a day to complete so if you come visiting and don't see anything, or worse yet, see an error message on the screen, do not worry because it just means we will be back shortly.
Stay tuned, Space Rangers!
We have been on our current software platform, vBulletin, for quite a number of years now and the time has come for a change. After a lot of thought on the subject we are converting to XenForo.
The decision to switch our software platform was not an easy one because it means that you, our community members, will be faced with getting used to a new interface for reading & posting in the forums. It also means that some features that are currently available will no longer be an option. The flip-side of it though is that you will have many new features to take advantage of!
XenForo has one purpose, forum discussion. That means everything is geared to help make it easier to communicate with each other. Something as simple as posting a YouTube video will no longer require you to copy & paste the video ID and remembering what tag to use, instead you can just copy & paste the URL of the video right into your post and it will automatically display the video! You will be able to log in with your Facebook account, or associate your existing Cool Sci-Fi account to Facebook, to easily share interesting topics with your friends. When you include an image in your post you will no longer have to worry about it stretching the screen display, instead the image will be automatically resized to fit into your browser window. If you visit a lot of sites and use a Gravatar account for you avatar than you will be able to use it here as well. Creating new conversations & responding will be a lot less effort and will be a breeze no matter your technical experience.
In short, the software choice is going to reboot us back to concentrating on the forum discussions with very little else tacked on.
It will take some getting used to but in short time we believe the community will enjoy it.Along with the new software we are also getting a new look & feel! The new Cool Sci-Fi design has a retro feel to it inspired by the Doo-Wop era of 1950's Rock & Roll! We wanted to avoid the typical dark & brooding designs associated with most 'sci-fi' sites so we went back in time for inspiration, back to the days of hanging out at the local diner and watching movies like The Blob at the drive-in movie theater.
We expect the conversion to take about a day to complete so if you come visiting and don't see anything, or worse yet, see an error message on the screen, do not worry because it just means we will be back shortly.
Stay tuned, Space Rangers!
