A large update on what came today, and a large update on what’s to come! Highlights include the styleguide, push notifications, and linked Steam user fields.
Core
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Updated Discorse to v2.4.0.beta8 +154, and upgraded the Docker Manager.
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Updated Ubuntu and downloaded various security updates.
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Updated various plugins (Canned Replies, Data Explorer, Solved, User Notes, Tooltips).
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Updated Sam’s Simple Theme. More text should now respect your language preference, rather than always appear in English.
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Updated various theme components (DiscoTOC, “Thumbs up” Like icon, “Seen” on User Card, Hamburger Theme Selector).
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Updated all the Steam link user field to now hyperlink itself similar to Twitter. Use your profile ID or custom profile URL in order for the link to work.
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Updated the “About the _____” category descriptions for #community-lounge and #regulars-lounge.
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Updated the table CSS for Nyx Theme. Yep. These tables are still getting tweaks. The latest changes slightly reduce the contrast and make it more in line with the rest of the theme. Here’s some tables to see how it looks, and this time you don’t even need to switch themes!
| Game Modes | Weaponry | Clothing | Vehicles | Misc. |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Survival | Eaglefire | Ballistic Vest | Hatchback | Name Tag |
| Horde | Cobra | Military Boots | JSPR Cybertruck | Car Key |
| Blastlane | Remington | Fingerless Gloves | Bicycle | Medkit |
| Arena | Knife | Military Vest | Great 100% Functional Chair | Catwalk Key |
Styleguide
The Styleguide plugin adds a /styleguide path that renders a bunch of common components and UX elements that Discourse uses. While this page is currently public to everyone, it will be primarily be useful in the continued development of themes (and other customizations) of the site.
Community members may also use this page as a method of viewing the differences between various themes.
Less Private Groups
All curated map team groups have been merged into a single group. Originally, each map team had their own group so that (1) users could mention the group in order to report feedback/bugs (2) teams would have an increased public visibility in terms of their contributions.
By the end of 2019, it has been realized that:
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Very few people mention these curated groups directly, and most feedback actually occurs off site except on the first few days of launch.
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There’s an overabundance of relatively exclusive private groups on the SDG Forum.
So in keeping in consistency with how in-game curated feedback channels now direct to the Workshop page Discussions, the SDG Forum will also be pulling back by just grouping all of these contributors into one group. This group is non-mentionable by those outside of the group.
Push Notifications
This plugin exposes a user option that allows users to enable push notifications, if they dare!
Previously, users were only able to enable live notifications that appear as long as the SDG Forum was open. Now, users have the option of enabling push notifications, which means that the live notifications they’d receive will appear even when they are not on the site.
Looking to see if your browser supports push notifications? You can check with Can I use….
What’s next?
Within the first few days of 2020, we’ll (hopefully) be kicking the new year off with a topic highlighting 2019: The Year in Review. 
Also on the to-do list is to add a proper “maintenance” status page for when the site is offline, and to fix up the email system, among other things.
Private Groups: Changes in Review
While these changes do reduce the overabundance of private groups, it does not resolve the fact that there are zero public groups. In the future, I am personally considering the idea of resolving this by either creating and emphasizing a new set of groups that are realistically attainable, or by creating entirely public groups users may join.
- I have also considered the idea of handling interactive Forum-specific events through groups, although nothing has been put forward on that.
Steam Discussions
We take great pride in all of our official mediums in which we can interact with players. Some of our users, despite participating on the SDG Forums, still use the Steam Discussions quite heavily, and for many players the Steam Discussions will always be a go-to place even when first-party company-ran forums exist.
- Internally, we have discussed methods in which we can cut down on the less valued topics, group together the more niche or similar topics, and better document acceptable posting behaviors.
So, we don’t plan to leave them behind on our journey, and moving forward we will be working towards getting some productive changes out to the Steam Discussions!
Community Blog
However, now that this SDG Forum update is out, I, Tyler “MoltonMontro”, will be returning back to focusing some of my time on finishing the next Community Blog. It is planned to still continue with these moving into 2020. 
SDG Wiki
The SDG Wiki will also be receiving some extra attention again, as a lot of the core foundation of it is cleaned up to make way for Unturned II’s eventual full-release, within the next six years.
