#forumfiend
Posts and pages on Ape Apps tagged with <strong>#forumfiend</strong>
The legal landscape across the world is rapidly moving towards age verification requirements for any and all online services that provide user-to-user communication. As an independent developer, I don't particularly have the time or resources to implement this kind of stuff up to an acceptable legal standard, nor do I have any interest in keeping personal identity records for any of my users. You should not have to provide your real name or identity to play My Colony or track your spending with EZ Register. So, changes are coming.
I plan on phasing out all of my own in-house user communication service across the entirety of Ape Apps and instead, pushing users towards the Discord server or other social media sites. That includes the forums on this website, Ape Chat, the in-game chat in My Colony, everything. The following apps and services will be impacted:
Antiquitas
Ape Apps Launcher
Ape Apps Website
Ape Chat
Ape Market
Colony Wars
Discussions
Epic Adventure
EZ Office Apps
Forum Fiend
My Colony
My Colony 2
Terra Nova 4X
Walkie Cloud
Probably the largest pain-point will be the removal of the in-game chat for My Colony 1, which is utilized quite a bit, especially for users helping each other with resources. As a workaround, I will make improvements to the in-game Friends section to make it easier to add/manage friends and share resources, but you will still have to communicate using Discord instead.
Some services, such as Ape Chat, Discussions, Forum Fiend and Walkie Cloud will just be shut down entirely, as they really don't have any other features besides communication. Where communication is not an essential feature, changes will just be made to work around the issue and point people towards Discord where appropriate.
This website/forum will be another big change, although since the Discord came out the forum here has not been as important as it once was. I will probably rewrite it in a way to where I can just post helpful informational and help articles related to various apps and games. I might keep an archive on a subdomain of all of the current content though, for posterity.
In the end, I think this all kind of sucks to be honest. The writing has been on the wall for independent social services for a while now though, but over the last year especially, governments across the world seem to be amping up their "child protection" efforts to 10. I have never liked big tech, which is the reason I wrote my own forum and chat services from scratch, but I also don't have the time or money to keep chasing after new regulations, so we are just going to fall back to Discord for this kind of stuff moving forward and let them worry about it.
I will start phasing in these changes over the coming weeks and months, so if you have not joined the Discord yet, now would be a good time to do so, as it will be the primary Ape Apps communication platform moving forward!
#antiquitas #apeappslauncher #apechat #apemarket #colonywars #discissions #epicadventure #forumfiend #mycolony #mycolony2 #terranova4x #walkiecloud
I plan on phasing out all of my own in-house user communication service across the entirety of Ape Apps and instead, pushing users towards the Discord server or other social media sites. That includes the forums on this website, Ape Chat, the in-game chat in My Colony, everything. The following apps and services will be impacted:
Antiquitas
Ape Apps Launcher
Ape Apps Website
Ape Chat
Ape Market
Colony Wars
Discussions
Epic Adventure
EZ Office Apps
Forum Fiend
My Colony
My Colony 2
Terra Nova 4X
Walkie Cloud
Probably the largest pain-point will be the removal of the in-game chat for My Colony 1, which is utilized quite a bit, especially for users helping each other with resources. As a workaround, I will make improvements to the in-game Friends section to make it easier to add/manage friends and share resources, but you will still have to communicate using Discord instead.
Some services, such as Ape Chat, Discussions, Forum Fiend and Walkie Cloud will just be shut down entirely, as they really don't have any other features besides communication. Where communication is not an essential feature, changes will just be made to work around the issue and point people towards Discord where appropriate.
This website/forum will be another big change, although since the Discord came out the forum here has not been as important as it once was. I will probably rewrite it in a way to where I can just post helpful informational and help articles related to various apps and games. I might keep an archive on a subdomain of all of the current content though, for posterity.
In the end, I think this all kind of sucks to be honest. The writing has been on the wall for independent social services for a while now though, but over the last year especially, governments across the world seem to be amping up their "child protection" efforts to 10. I have never liked big tech, which is the reason I wrote my own forum and chat services from scratch, but I also don't have the time or money to keep chasing after new regulations, so we are just going to fall back to Discord for this kind of stuff moving forward and let them worry about it.
I will start phasing in these changes over the coming weeks and months, so if you have not joined the Discord yet, now would be a good time to do so, as it will be the primary Ape Apps communication platform moving forward!
#antiquitas #apeappslauncher #apechat #apemarket #colonywars #discissions #epicadventure #forumfiend #mycolony #mycolony2 #terranova4x #walkiecloud
After a 6 year slumber, Forum Fiend is finally back, and has been updated to v1.4.0 and should be hitting all Android and Kindle Fire devices shortly! Huzzah!
Many Ape Apps users have only been around since the My Colony days and may not be aware of Forum Fiend, but it was once one of my top apps by far. Created all the way back in 2013 and born out of my even older Discussions mobile forum software, Forum Fiend utilized the (then) open-source Tapatalk API to allow users to browse their favorite online forum sites and communities on their phones, without having to go through the heavy nickel-and-dime official Tapatalk app itself.
Users loved Forum Fiend because it offered all of the features of Tapatalk without the big overhead and with a cleaner and easier to use interface. Of course, Tapatalk hated the competition so much that in early 2015 they close-sourced their API and had their lawyer send me a cease and desist order. So that was pretty much the end of Forum Fiend.
One feature Forum Fiend had that Tapatalk didn't was an optional WebView interface that allowed users to add non-Tapatalk supporting forums to the app as well, so they could keep absolutely everything in one place. This new release is featured around that WebView interface, and greatly expands it with new features that site owners can take advantage of if they choose to do so. Development information for site owners can be found on this thread.
The new Forum Fiend also contains special code for Ape Apps forum sites (specifically, the website you are looking at right now), making it a great way to view this website on your mobile device.
With many online forums now employing responsive designs, use of the Tapatalk API in 2021 no longer seems necessary. Still, Forum Fiend offers a great way for users to combine all of their forum websites into one place, and for forum owners to add some extra customization features to their sites.
#forumfiend
Many Ape Apps users have only been around since the My Colony days and may not be aware of Forum Fiend, but it was once one of my top apps by far. Created all the way back in 2013 and born out of my even older Discussions mobile forum software, Forum Fiend utilized the (then) open-source Tapatalk API to allow users to browse their favorite online forum sites and communities on their phones, without having to go through the heavy nickel-and-dime official Tapatalk app itself.
Users loved Forum Fiend because it offered all of the features of Tapatalk without the big overhead and with a cleaner and easier to use interface. Of course, Tapatalk hated the competition so much that in early 2015 they close-sourced their API and had their lawyer send me a cease and desist order. So that was pretty much the end of Forum Fiend.
One feature Forum Fiend had that Tapatalk didn't was an optional WebView interface that allowed users to add non-Tapatalk supporting forums to the app as well, so they could keep absolutely everything in one place. This new release is featured around that WebView interface, and greatly expands it with new features that site owners can take advantage of if they choose to do so. Development information for site owners can be found on this thread.
The new Forum Fiend also contains special code for Ape Apps forum sites (specifically, the website you are looking at right now), making it a great way to view this website on your mobile device.
With many online forums now employing responsive designs, use of the Tapatalk API in 2021 no longer seems necessary. Still, Forum Fiend offers a great way for users to combine all of their forum websites into one place, and for forum owners to add some extra customization features to their sites.
#forumfiend
