Site Update for January 2023 - URL Previews

[Shawn Zipay]

Another site software update is now under our belt.

New in this update are URL previews. Here is what the vBulletin team has to say about this:

The URL BBCode has been reworked to pull more information about the link. If you place the URL on its own line, it will behave similarly to the Link Content type after posting. Previews will include pulling a thumbnail and description from the linked site.

Inline links will work the same as always, as the new behavior isn't suited to inline display.​

For example, links like this won't change. But if I were to take that URL and just paste it below on its own line, it turns into a nice preview.

https://totalgamingnetwork.com/

There are also some new "Custom Node Fields" added. I'm not really sure what these are all about just yet or if they're even useful for our site and its needs. Here is what the vB team says about this along with an example image.

Custom Node Fields
This new feature allows Administrators to define text and text area fields that are assigned to channels. When a user creates a new topic, defined custom node fields will be available.

How it works

1. The Administrator will create Field Categories in the AdminCP. Each category is assigned to one or more channels.
2. Within each category, the Administrator can create one or more fields that will get assigned to individual nodes.
3. When the End-User creates a new topic in that channel, the fields are available above the standard editor.
4. When the user saves their post, each field with a value will be shown above the post text in a key-index table.
   1. When saved, the field values are attached to the node. So if the node is moved to another channel, the field values will travel with it.
   2. These fields only appear on the starter post.
   3. The system will not show any field without a value assigned in the post.​

I haven't looked too deeply into this, but maybe this could be used for review organization? Or maybe some sort of a rolling list of upcoming and new games sorted by release date?

Edit: Just looked at it a bit more and it's fine for actual message board use but outside of that doesn't seem to have much use here. The nodes don't seem to be usable on any main index articles either AFAIK. Also, I don't see how this could be useful for sorting, if at all.