News and Updates

12-Sep-09

New Tool - Comment Sysytem

We've created a simple to use widget that enables you to add a fully featured comment section to your web pages. Its fully integrated with the Registration System. Just paste it into your web page where you want comments to appear. Check out the Comment System. Let us know of any problems or suggestions for improvements.

13-Jul-09

Registration System

When editing a profile, members now see their photo (rather than just the url of the image)

You can now remove the following options from the 'edit profile' form,,as used by your members (Go to Registration System' | 'Configure' (bottom of form)):

a. List me in the Member Directory
b. List me in the 'Who's Online'
c. I will accept messages from other members.

You can change the two labels: 'Registration for Individuals' and 'Registration for Businesses' to whatever you want. Go to Registration System' | 'Configure'.

You can now retrieve email lists of 'all your members', 'only your free members' or 'only your full (paid for) members'

15-Jun-09

Forum Boards
We've added more navigational and ordering links to the forum boards

13-Jun-09

Survey Builder
You can now restrict access to survey results to holders of a password. Set the password on the config page for the survey.

27-Apr-09

Registration System - New Feature
You can now create messages to show to your members when they logon. Only messages created since they last logged are shown so its ideal for news and updates

14-Apr-09

Registration Payment System
You can now set up different subscription payment options e.g. $10/month and/or $80/year

03-Apr-09

Tool Template
There is a new template option which allows you to provide html to be inserted above and below all your tools (i.e. a header and footer). Some people might find this easier to use than the other previous options.

28-Mar-09

Guestbook
You can now insert the guestbook into your web page like a widget. If you give it a go and experience any problems please let us know because it uses new fancy technology behind the scenes!

URL/Code Paste
For all tools (except Registration System) we now provide code for inserting them directly into your web page (by using an iframe). Some people might find this preferable as it will get rid of the poppydog url in the address bar.

Forums
The forums have had a face lift. Also the screening and moderation pages have been improved. You can also move topics from one forum to another. If you can think of any other improvements that are badly needed let us know.

Registration Payment System
If you are using two types of registration (individuals and businesses), you can now set up charging differently for each registration type.

Registration System
You can now insist that visitors must log on before they can view profiles. Go to the 'Registration System' | 'Configure' page and see the new option at the bottom.

07-Jan-09

Password Protector
You can now provide your own login page (instead of having the PoppyDog generated page). Go to Password Protector | Configure to see the new option. Any problems with this feature let us know.

04-Dec-08

You can now upgrade some individual tools

If you are only using say the Password Protector you can choose to only upgrade that for less than a professional subscription (although the professional subscription is still very good value).

04-Dec-08

PoppyDog's had a face lift!

It was about time we modernised the web site. Everything works exactly like it did before, its just presented differently.

The tools themselves have not been changed in any way

If there are any problems please let us know

23-Oct-08

Message Service
There is a new improved version of this service. Amongst other things it is now more like a regular message inbox in which messages are stored for a couple of weeks. It has moved away from the instant message feel.

Survey Builder
There is a new improved version of this service. It is now much easier to use and looks better.

Poll Builder
There is a new improved version of this service.

CAPTCHA (image verification on the forms)
A number of improvements:

There is an option to switch this off in ForumBoard Builder and MessageBoard Builder (go to the relevant poppydog 'Style/Display' page).
With the forum and message boards, if someone is logged on they will not have to fill in the captcha when posing a message (it wont be on the form)
With the Registration System, if you have configured it so that registration emails are confirmed by the user or you are manually approving registrations, then the captcha is no longer on the form.

If anyone has any feedback or suggestions with regards to captcha let us know

20-Aug-08

NEW: Email Form Service
We've taken our time doing it but finally we have implemented an email form service. This service enables you to have a form on your website which is emailed to you when its submitted.

Details of the Email Form Service are here

As always any problems or suggestions for improvements please let us know

04-Oct-07

Poll Builder
Professional Subscribers can now create polls with up to 50 responses. Free versions are still limited to 10 responses.

04-Oct-07
Registration System
When a member logs on, you can now display their profile photo on your web pages (if they have one). The code paste for this can be found on the Registration System URL/Code Paste page (at the bottom of the page)

28-Jun-07
New Features/Improvements

ForumBoard Builder
1) visitors can edit their messages. Go to the Configure page for each forum to switch it off/on
2) There is now a profanity filter. You can add your own words to it or switch it off if you want.
Go to the Configure page for each forum. Go to the Configure page for each forum to switch it off/on 3) visitors can preview their messages
4) visitors can report inappropriate posts to the moderators

PhotoCenter Builder
Visitors can now rate the images. To switch this option on/off go to 'PhotoCenter Builder' | 'Configure Photo Center'.

Guest Book
At last you can edit the questions that you ask!

Registration System
usernames can now be up to 30 characters long

18-Nov-06
NEW Registration Payment Service
Charge a fee for your website membership. Features include: one off payments, recurring subscriptions, two levels of membership: free and full, automatic payment and registration handling. Works with PayPal

13-Aug-06
NEW!! RegistrationForm Builder
You can now ask whatever questions you want on your registration/profile forms and choose what is displayed in your members directory. Check out the RegistrationForm Builder Add-On service. Any problems or suggestions for improvements let us know.

17-Jun-06
ForumBoard Builder
1) You can now configure what permissions forum moderators have i.e. whether or not they can block IP addresses, delete memberships etc. Go to ForumBoard builder and hit the (new) 'Moderator Permissions' button

2) With forum boards you can now restrict topic creation to moderators and admin only. To do this, go to the Configure page for the relevant forum board and look for the new option under the section: 'Level of Access' section

17-Jun-06
ImageStore and PhotoCenter Builder
We have released a new tool to go with the ImageStore. It is called PhotoCenter Builder and it allows you to create a photo album or gallery on your web site. We have also made improvements (again!) to the imagestore. Anyhow, everyone can have a free trial again if you wish.

17-Jun-06
Startup page
If you are not allowed to create web pages (e.g. you have a blog), we now provide an alternative method for creating that dreaded (but really useful) poppydog startup page!

17-Jun-06
Color Schemes
It has always been the case that one color scheme was used for all your tools (called the master color scheme). Now you can set a different color scheme for each tool if you wish. Using a master color scheme is still a good idea, but at least now if you want your forum boards to look different to your registration system members directory then you can. Look for the (new) 'Color Scheme' button on the tool control panels.

28-Feb-06
Subscription Costs
Trial memberships - sign up fully now and save money:
For 'new' signups, we have increased the minimum subscription level from 5,000 page views a month to 10,000 page views. This means an increase from 2.50 to $5.00 month. This change will not affect existing customers i.e. if you are currently paying for just 5,000 page views a month ($2.50) then you will continue do so.
If you are currently signed up for the professional subscription free trial and you choose to sign up fully before the trial runs out, then you too will be able to able to pay just $2.50 month instead of $5.00.

28-Feb-06
Subscription Renewals
You can now renew your subscriptions when ever you want i.e. you do not have to wait until its due for renewal. Go to 'Account Manager' and you should see the renew links. To be more precise, you can renew your subscription anytime if you have a year or less left to run.

28-Feb-06
Image Store
You can now enable your visitors to upload images into the forum boards. We have also made some other general improvements including the ability to easily select images from the Image Store to use with your PoppyDog tools (e.g. emoticons, template logo, page background etc). Also when you browse through your image store, the images are now displayed (thumbnails) so its much more user friendly. The next step will be to introduce a kind of photo album front end to use with it, but that wont be for a while. Everyone who has already had a trial can have another trial in case you want to take a look at it again

27-Jan-06
ForumBoard Builder
At the top or foot of your forum boards, you can now display the number of guests visiting your forums and who is logged on etc. If you want to display this on your forums, go to the 'ForumBoard Builder' | 'General Style' page and select the relevant option (at the top of form). Any problems let us know

27-Jan-06
Registration System
We have a slightly improved code for the 'login box'. If you have inserted a login box into your web pages you might want to use the new code ('Registration System' | 'Url Code Paste'). Now if someone enters incorrect details, the web page remains displayed and a little message appears in the box. Previously if incorrect details were entered, a dedicated login page appeared

24-Jan-06
New Service
We've just introduced a new Add-On service for the Registration System tool. It is a Data Backup Service and will enable you to back up and download the data relating to your registered members (email addresses, usernames, profiles etc). Please let us know if you experience any problems with it or have suggestions for improvements more

19-Jan-06
Password Protector
You can now make sure that no-one can access your protected pages directly by inserting a line of JavaScript into the protected pages. Details can be found on the 'Password Protector'|'Url/Code Page' page.

17-Nov-05
UPDATE: ForumBoard Builder (Professional Subscribers): if you have configured a forum so that messages have to be approved by you first before they appear (screened), you can now choose to receive an email when a message is posted. This will stop you having to keep looking for new messages! To receive emails go to 'ForumBoard Builder' | 'Configure' | and look under the section called 'Screening'. Any problems let the crew know, thanks.

17-Nov-05
UPDATE: ForumBoard Builder: We've given the forum boards a bit of a face lift. There is now a slightly more 'modern' style. Existing forums will still look like they did before, however you can change to the new style by going to 'ForumBoard Builder' | 'Forum Style'

31-Aug-05
Forumboard Builder: Professional Subscribers can now supply their own emoticon/topicon images to use in the forum boards Go to 'ForumBoard Builder' | 'Icons/Images'.

NEW SERVICE Image Store: the image store service is designed to be used with the Registration System tool. It allows your members to upload their profile photos and signature images. You can control which images can be uploaded and also set the max size of uploadable images. You can also use the store to upload your own images as well. There is an extra charge for using this service.

14-Aug-05
Message Service: Professional Subscribers can now supply their own buttons for the message service, replacing the ones currently used. Should help it to match your site even more. Go to 'Message Service' | 'Configure'.

Registration System: There are two new features available:
1)We've provided html code which will allow you to insert a login box into your web pages. Go to the 'Registration System' | 'URL/Code Paste' page, section 4 for details.

2) We've provided an alternative url for the 'Register' link which allows you to open up the registration forms in a new window straight away. Go to the 'Registration System' | 'URL/Code Paste' page, section 5 for more details.

Registration System Clubs/Subscriptions: three new things, further details are on the 'Registration System' | 'Subscriptions and Clubs' | 'URL/Code Paste' page (for the selected club)
1)You can now create an 'Unsubscribe to ..' link for any clubs/subscriptions you may have set up.

2)We've provided a bit of JavaScript that you can use to detect if someone is subscribed to a club

2)We've provided a bit of HTML that you might find useful which displays a 'subscribe to..' form/box

JavaScript Coders: For some of our tools we describe how JavaScript can be used e.g. to detect if someone is logged onto your site. This JavaScript often required that you check for cookies. We now provide utility functions which do the checking for you (which is a good thing if ever we change the way we use cookies). You dont have to change any of your code, all your JavaScript will still work. Its just that the JavaScript code we now give looks different (and much simpler) and makes use of these new functions e.g. pd_isLoggedOn(<..>). We may be able to think of a other functions for JavaScript coders that can be used with the tools (or maybe not!). If you have any ideas let us know and maybe we will build a library of functions.

26-Jul-05
UPDATE: We've simplified the ways that you can make use of the Registration System within your web site. All the same functionality exists, its just presented in a more simplified way (hopefully!). For those who are already using it extensively you might notice a couple of changes in the instructions on how to do something, however it all still works (and always will) if you followed the old instructions. Basically the new instructions cut out some steps that are now redundant. All instructions can now be found on the 'Registration System' | 'URL/Code Paste Page'. Let us know if you find any problems.

26-May-05
UPDATE: Within the Registration System you can now create membership subgroups (subscriptions or clubs). Previously clubs were only really used to protect access to forum boards. By creating a club you can now do things such as create a 'Subscribe to Newsletter' link on your web site. By doing this you can restrict access to the Newsletter to only those who have subscribed to it. You can also obtain the email addresses of all those who have subscribed to it and also the email addresses of all those who have not. You could also, for example, create a private 'admin' group and restrict access to admin web pages to only members of an 'admin' club. For more info check out the Registration System User Guide and look for 'Subscriptions and Clubs' To access the new feature go to the Registration System control panel and you'll see a button: Subscription and Clubs

14-May-05
UPDATE: We've changed the icons (buttons) for the Message Service. They are much more meaningful now but are slightly bigger. Check that they still fit correctly on your web pages. Let us know of any problems!

17-Feb-05
NEWS FLASH: Some of you may have received an email about your subscription expiring/expired by mistake. If you have, then ignore the email. We ran something yesterday which may have sent some emails out by mistake. As a precaution we have ensured that no subscriptions are considered expired/expiring and everything should be working fine for everyone. If however you have a problem with your account of course let us know.

07-Feb-05
UPDATE: Registration System: A few weeks ago we removed the 'Create Profile' form from the Registration System application process (making it a shorter process). Instead, new members are asked if they want to create their profile when they first log on to your site. However, it has been noticed that now, new registrations often don't bother to create a profile at all. Therefore you can configure the Registration System to be the way it used to be i.e. to include the 'Create Profile' form. Go to 'Registration System' | 'Configure' and take a look at the new options at the bottom of the form. You can also determine the order in which the forms/survey appear in your Registration application.

30-Jan-05
NEW: You can now add a survey to your registration forms. This will enable you to get some statistics about your registered members. In order to add a survey to your registration form: 1) sign up for SurveyBuilder (free) 2) build the survey 3) Go to 'Registration System' | 'Configure' and at the bottom of the configuration form you will see an option to add the survey. Simple! As always let us know of any problems.

09-Jan-05
ACTION REQUIRED: If you are using the Message Service icons in your web site then you need to complete a simple installation step to get them to work properly. Go to 'Message Service' | 'URL/Code Paste' and follow the new Installation Step at the top of the page

13-Dec-04
NEW TOOLS: Message Service and Visitor Tracker. Message Service allows your visitors to send messages to one another and the Visitor Tracker allows you to display who is currently visiting your site and who is logged on (if you are using the PoppyDog Registration System). Try them out and tell us about any problems or suggestions you might have to improve them. In particular we'd like to know how you feel about Message Service because we can't make up our minds about whether its any good or not! We will be integrating it as a feature of the forum boards soon.

Nov 05/04: Check out the new Visitor Tracker. This allows you to display who is currently visiting your site and (if you are using the PoppyDog Registration System) who is logged on

Sep 07/04: At last, a user guide for ForumBoard Builder is available in the help center

Sep 01/04: For all those who have the Registration Tool, we have created a registration entry using your PoppyDog username and password. If you log on to your registration system using this username, you will be logged on as administrator and hence have Administrator rights. You will notice the change when, for example, you 'View' a forum board from your ForumBoard Builder control panel. When you do this you will see that you are automatically logged on as administrator and can post messages as 'Admin'. As administrator, you will have unrestricted access to your tools and will not be subject to any restrictions you might enforce on normal visitors using your tools.

July 17/04: We've made it easier to provide your own template, and also you can give a complete web page with javascript if you want. We've also improved the Help Center with many more tutorials etc. More tutorials will be added in the next few weeks.

May 18/04: Check out the Directory Manager! We are creating a directory which will contain the web sites of our members, their forum boards, surveys etc. This will, for example, enable visitors to browse for forum boards/communities on a particular subject. It will be a good way to promote your site as well because your site details will be displayed with the forum board, survey etc. At the moment, the directory is not available for viewing because we are waiting for people to add their web sites etc to the directory first.

April 16/04: We've just released a new tool called Survey Builder. This tool allows you to create survey's or multiple poll's. Check it out. As always let us know of any problems.

January 1/04: You can now ask your visitors to agree to your Terms and Conditions when they register. To do this, all you have to do is create a web page defining your terms and conditions and then go to 'Registration System' | 'Configure' and add the Terms and Conditions URL in the box provided. As always let us know of any problems.

December 12/03: With ForumBoard Builder, you can now set things up so that topics are automatically deleted if no posts have been added to them after certain amount of time. This is very useful if you have a forum which is used very heavily i.e. for chatting. Also, if you go to the configure page for a forum, you will now see a new option which allows you to optimize the forum for chat. If this option is selected then all topics which have remained unchanged for more than 24 hours will be deleted from the forum, and your visitors are warned about this before they post a message.

December 07/03: Ads have appeared on the free tools. If you see any banners and you think that you shouldn't have any then send us an email and we'll look into it. Actually the ads are just for PoppyDog at the moment because we had a problem with our affiliate network .. they weren't very nice with us :( so we're carefully looking at other schemes.

December 02/03: The registration system that existed within ForumBoard Builder and MessageBoard Builder can now be used as a tool on its own. The registration System tool enables you to ask your web site visitors to register with your site and to also set up a members area. Go to your 'Registration System' and look for 'Your Members Area' section for full details.

October 30/03: With ForumBoard Builder, you can now delete posts in bulk and delete topics which have remained unchanged since a chosen date (topic pruning).

December 07/03: Ads have appeared on the free tools. If you see any banners and you think that you shouldn't have any then send us an email and we'll look into it. Actually the ads are just for PoppyDog at the moment because we had a problem with our affiliate network .. they weren't very nice to us :( so we're carefully looking at other schemes which mat take a bit of time.

December 02/03: The registration system that existed within ForumBoard Builder and MessageBoard Builder can now be used as a tool on its own. The registration System tool enables you to ask your web site visitors to register with your site and to also set up a members area. Go to your 'Registration System' and look for 'Your Members Area' section for full details.

October 30/03: With ForumBuilder, you can now delete posts in bulk and delete topics which have remained unchanged since a chosen date (topic pruning).

October 30/03: User Management has been improved so that you can now 'view' the banned emails, usernames and IP addresses. Also users are prevented from using banned email addresses in registration forms, so combining this feature with the registration 'user email confirmation' option will make security even stronger for you.

October 25/03: You can now configure your Registration System Pro to either accept all registrations automatically (as happens now) or to request that users respond to an email before registration is complete (ensures that your users email addresses are valid!) or send all new registrations to you first (administrator) to approve or reject.

October 16/03: We've added a feature to prevent malicious visitors flooding your forum boards, guest books etc with stupid repeated messages. The configuration option is call Post Flood Control. If this option is selected, then a visitor has to wait 60 seconds before they can post a message again. This option is switched on for everyone by default. If you want to switch it off, then go to 'Configure' under you forum boards etc. It cannot be switched off for guestbook.

October 15/03: We now enforce the max size of posts in the free versions of ForumBoard Builder and MessageBoard Builder. the max size is 4,000 characters .. which ain't bad.

August 20/03: We've added a feature that allows you to quickly browse through your registered users. This is useful for checking valid emails. See 'Registration System' : 'Quick Browse Users'. If you have any suggestions or requests for improving the tool control panels let us know and we'll see what we can do.

August 16/03: You can now order your forum boards and create categories for them

July 24/03: You can now assign moderators to your individual forum boards. Go to 'ForumBoard Builder' and click the 'Add Moderator' button.

July 24/03: You can set a default timezone for all your tools i.e. your Forum Boards can display times as GMT or PST etc. You can change your timezone in 'Members Area | Preferences'. Users can also set a timezone to one which makes sense to them, depending on where they are living

July 08/03: With Forum Boards, you can now stick a top tag to a topic so that the topic always appears at the top of the list. This is handy for posting introductory info etc to a forum board

July 05/03: We've improved the navigation possibilities in the forum boards. You can jump to pages, search and sort!

July 05/03: You can now assign an icon to a new topic (a posticon)

June 26/03: Your registered users can now create a custom signature with an image. They can include this, for example, when posting messages to a forum board

June 22/03: You can now determine whether you want your registration system to be for non-business only (informal), business or both. Default is non-business. Its probably been a bit annoying for some of you! Configure it in 'Registration System | Configure'

July 08/03: With Forum Boards, you can now stick a top tag to a topic so that the topic always appears at the top of the list. This is handy for posting introductory info etc to a forum board.

July 05/03: We've improved the navigation possibilities in the forum boards. You can jump to pages, search and sort!

July 05/03: You can now assign an icon to a new topic (a posticon).

June 26/03: Your registered users can now create a custom signature with an image. They can include this, for example, when posting messages to a forum board

June 05/03: We have now added CSS stylesheet support for all our tools. This means that you can now provide your own stylesheet to fully customize the look of your tool web pages. We have made customising the color scheme quick and easy for members who don't want to spend too much on it and through CSS we have given a great deal of power to members who do want a lot of control over the way their web pages look. Check out the CSS guide for more info. As usual, please let us know if you have any problems or further suggestions etc

May 07/03: You are now able to block abusive users from using your tools. You can block by IP address, email address and username. One place this can be done is by clicking on the new 'User Management' button. You'll also see options to block users when Moderating and browsing through your registered users. From now on IP addresses are being stored. For all previous posts etc you will see IP Address unavailable

May 06/03: You can now edit the forum messages

April 29/03: There is now a professional edition of Password Protector ($20/year). It allows you to password protect up to 5000 web pages. Also all banners (when they are up and running again!) will be removed from your password protected web pages

April 25/03: The PoppyDog web page template was 'too wide' on some browsers, so we've made a subtle change to it. It should be much better now, but if you find your forum boards etc have been messed up please let us know (they should be ok though :)

April 15/03: We've released version 1 of a Voting Poll tool (Poll Builder). Please let us know what you think or if you experience any problems with it

April 10/03: The menu on the left has been improved, let us know if you experience any problems since the changes

March 10/03: We've replaced the Code Paste stuff as we thought it was confusing for members who do not know about HTML. The old code paste stuff still works and always will, but you might want to take a look at the new 'Hyperlink URL' stuff as we've created some buttons for you. Also a user guide has been written which should explain things - we'd appreciate some feedback on it!

March 07/03: We've created a Support Center. Currently it has a Help forum and Bug Reporter. We've added the first new help file (yeah!). It is for Password Protector. More help files coming soon

March 05/03: Some predefined color schemes (themes) have been created. Go to your Domain Manager and click on 'Themes' to preview and apply a color scheme to your tool web pages

March 05/03: A quick and easy to use color scheme generator has been added. If your tool web pages don't match your site, go to your Domain Manager and click on 'Quick Color Scheme' to generate a simple color scheme which ensures your web pages do match your web site. You can of course still fully customize ALL your colors/fonts in the usual way (Domain Manager: 'Advanced Color Scheme'), but if this is too involved for you use 'Quick Color Scheme'

March 03/03: Password Protector has much improved security

Feb 24/03: You can now provide your own web page template. Take a look at your Domain Manager and see the new options.