Softwareupdate of Trainz.de / Transfer respectively Removal of TrainzDepot-Contents

Dear Trainz.de visitors,

almost unnoticed I have bought and installed an update of the forum software in the last few days. New features are mainly in detail and in the background, for some of the new features you have to make some adjustments.

Visible or relevant changes:

• We will replace the currently used "news system" with the integrated article function in the future, so it should be possible in the future for users to submit news, which will be checked and activated by the moderation.
• Reactions will replace the "Likes" or "Dislikes", there will be additional possibilities to react to articles, currently the default settings are still active, which will certainly be adjusted (e.g. other graphics)
• Attachments (graphics) can be scaled before uploading
• The search function was extended and improved
• Signatures can now also contain attachments, i.e. signature graphics can simply be included as attachments
• For downloads, so-called reviews can be written (ratings, existed a long time ago in TrainzDepot in a similar form)
• Pictures and videos from the gallery can be set as "favorites" and are then available for viewing on a corresponding page
• New layout options for the gallery (we are still checking if we can do that)
• Cover pictures are now also possible for articles, dates, blogs and blog articles (as already possible for profiles)
• Topics can contain additional input fields (to what extent we use this is still open)
• The topic starter can mark an answer in his topic as "most helpful answer", which is then also displayed directly (additionally) below the start post

The exact changes in the software can be found here on the manufacturer page.

As already written, we will also check for some changes to what extent they are useful for us and can be integrated.

In addition, we would like to take the old TrainzDepot offline bit by bit, since the operation and maintenance from two sides involves time and financial expenditure, which one would like to avoid in the long run. Our goal is to ensure that no relevant content is lost, and we have of course already thought about this.

For the downloads we have already started a topic in the past: Zusammenführung der Downloadbereiche

Downloads will be transferred to Trainz.de - with the exception of those whose authors have lodged an objection and with the exception of defects (loss of data) - if the author has not yet done so. Of course it would be great if the respective authors would support us by sending in their own downloads (and check them for TRS 2019 compatibility if necessary)

Transferred downloads, defective downloads and downloads whose transfer was objected to will be deleted afterwards.

We have also thought about the forum posts, our plan here is to remove the broken forum attachments and to transfer the posts without assignment to user profiles (= author name not linked to profile) to Trainz.de. Here (Trainz.de) anonymized deleted users will of course also be anonymized for the imported posts, if necessary or on request, posts can of course be linked back to the corresponding Trainz.de user. In the long term, we will try to classify the articles in the appropriate Trainz.de sections, but first there will be a separate section.

Most of the encyclopedia contents have already been transferred, but there are deficits in the pictures/attachments of encyclopedia entries, which still need to be supplemented (possibly with the help of the Wayback-Machine)

With regard to the gallery, we will not transfer any content, pictures, images that should also continue to exist under Trainz.de must be transferred by 31.01.2020, otherwise they will be permanently removed from the TrainzDepot.

For the calendar the situation is probably quite clear, because there is no relevant content to transfer.

With regard to the blog, it would be necessary to check which blog articles are still current or worth preserving, these would then have to be transferred manually, possibly the encyclopedia (Bei Anleitungen & Co) is also the more suitable place here.

So far first to our current plans Support is of course - especially for manual activities - gladly seen, simply send a message to a team member

Many greetings and "Happy Training"

Sebastian (and Team)

Translated with http://www.DeepL.com/Translator (free version)