Well, the upgrade process has gone fairly smoothly for the most part. There are still a few things to test before making the site publicly available, but it is getting close now.
Notable additions:
The most important addition is a proper search box, allowing the Nugget Directory to be searched directly from the front page. I have also integrated this search into the navigation bar - it is rather crude in its appearance, but it is effective. I will be pushing for more refinements, but in essence it works quite well.
Under test:
Up until now I was testing the use of the IntenseDebate comment system for all Nuggets as it has a number of great features. However, the upgraded site software includes a much more advanced built-in comment system which is directly integrated into much of the rest of the site software.
This will allow more complete use of 'Karma' (also under test) which I think will ultimately be a nice touch for the community aspects of the site, as well as being potentially useful in automated moderation of content (users with 'bad karma' won't be able to make submissions and so on).
