Web Wiz Forums version 9 suggestions

• New look and skins based on professional icons from AwIcons and Glyph Labs
• Admin can select default skin from admin area
• User skin selection (will be optional)
  
• Gallery (ideas of implementation welcome)
  
• First run setup wizard, to help new admins setup their forums
• Lightweight chat room (using AJAX to reduce server resource use)(optional)
• Review of security procedures with the outlook to tightening security
  
• Review of performance with the outlook to further improve performance
• Improve searching and possibly look at full-text search features for SQL Server version
• Generic Import Members tool, to import members from other databases, such as other forums
• Update Calendar feature, with range dates, reoccuringf events, and more options to filter whet you view in the calendar (maybe some type of advanced calendar event search/filter tool)
• Optional logging feature that will log certain events in a text based log file (would require FSO Object and write permissions on log file directory)
  

• Calendar with ability to specify a range of dates for multi-day events.
• Ability to specify times would be great too for single day events.
• Ability to filter weekly and monthly calendar views to only show events posted in a particular forum.  This would be useful to categorize events by type, simply by creating forums for each type of event (carnival, regattas, informal get togethers, etc.).  This way there would be a view that showed all events, but then you could have links that only showed carnival events or only regatta events simply by specifying which forum to filter by.
• Another alternate way to implement the above would be to create admin-defined categories for events and then be able to filter the weekly and monthly calendars by category.  This may actually be a better way to do it.  But there needs to be some way to categorize events and only show specific kinds of events.
• In my case, it would be nice if you could do both of the above.  Then I could create forums for specific kinds of events (carnival, regatta, conference, etc.) and then use the category field to define which country the event is in.  I could then pull up regattas in Aruba, or Carnival events in the Bahamas in the weekly or monthly views.
• An upcoming events view that shows upcoming events (like the next 10 or 15 events) regardless of dates.  This would be ideal for calendars that have few events spread out over months.  For example, if there are only 12 events in a year, this view would list all the events for the year conveniently on one page (assuming you have 15 events per page).  You would have a link for "next page" for the next 15 events, etc.  It would be a nice touch that the admin could define how many events to show on a page in this view.

Image Gallery:

• Allow member to have their own member gallery (if admin allows).  Perhaps even tie it to the forum permissions so that new members can't create their own gallery until they have participated a little, to avoid spam and inappropriate images.  It also can be a reward for users who have posted 40 times or more (by that time we usually can tell if they can be trusted or not).  But this, of course, should be admin defined.
• Allow admin-defined galleries that have a variety of permissions (similar to forum permissions) determining who can view and post pictures.
• Make it easy for users to be able to link to a specific page in the image gallery.  This will encourage people linking to the site instead of linking to the image.
• Avoid pop-ups at all costs.  Avoid pictures popping up in new windows and such.  The possible exception would be opening an image in full size that won't fit on the page.  But a scaled down version that fits on the page should be the default size.  And then, of course, a thumbnail view.
• Structure the gallery so that the admin can have a 150 pixel wide column on the right or left side (defined in the header/footer of course) without messing up the layout of the gallery.
• Have seperate lists for admin defined galleries and user defined galleries so it is obvious which are which.
• Have a link to a user's personal gallery in their profile (if they have one).
• In a gallery, allow the creation of categories or sections within a gallery to better itemize the images.  For example, an average user is granted only one personal gallery, however, they can create different sections to categories the pictures.
• Admins and authorized users can create new galleries (in addition to the personal gallery they are granted if the admin permits).
• Admins can decide if adding an image is considered a post or not in a users post count.

Those are the biggest things that come to mind right now.  I'm sure I'll be back with more.

Thanks.