I want to introduce you to the new PowerShell.org!
While we’re still doing a little test-and-adjust work, I’m pretty confident that everything in the new theme is working. I’d also like to point out some hopefully useful new things we’ve done with the site.
First, we’ve still got pretty much everything you’ve been used to - our friendly and helpful Q&A forums, our community-authored articles, and more. Incidentally, if you’d like to be a writer here at PowerShell.org, we welcome you. Let us help you get some eyes on whatever it is you’re creating, whether it’s a short tutorial, an article about an open source project you contribute to, or whatever. Drop a line to our webmaster@ email alias and we’ll hook you up with authoring rights.
I’ll note that our Events Calendar is currently offline; the old plugin was antiquated, and we need to find something more suitable. That’s ongoing.
We do have some new stuff, though. You’ll find **Groups **right at the top of every page, and that takes you into our new discussion groups. These are designed to foster open-ended, freeform discussion threads, unlike our more problem/solution, issue-oriented Q&A forums.
Click on your avatar at the top of the page, and you’ll switch into your new profile (incidentally, if you don’t like your avatar, you’ll need to register your email address with Gravatar.com - that’s who we pull images from). You can leave a quick Twitter- or Facebook-style status update, letting everyone know what you’ve been up to in the PowerShell world. We hope it’ll be a great way for you to update the community on your activities. Along those lines, you can specifically follow whomever you like in the community, so that their updates will bubble up to your feed. Again, your profile page is the key to accessing all that new functionality.
Once you’ve friended someone, we also now have private direct messages. From your profile, click Messages and then Compose to start creating a new message.
It’s worth spending some time poking around and see what else is available - there’s quite a bit of functionality. For example, from your profile page, choose Settings and then Email - there are quite a few email notification options that you can opt into, if you want to keep up without having to visit the site continually.
I’ll note that photo uploading from your profile page is a little touch-and-go - that’s one of the things we’re still figuring out.
**Let me give you a reason to really populate your profile: **We’re working to make this a central location for you to showcase everything you’ve accomplished in the community. Kind of like a very specialized LinkedIn profile, your PowerShell.org profile will eventually include recognitions for contributions, achievements, and more. It’ll be something you can show to colleagues, hiring managers, and peers to help show the positive impact you’re making and the milestones you’re reaching. Now’s the time to start!
We’re working hard to bring more functionality to PowerShell.org that can help you keep up with our fast-moving world, and we hope you’ll find it all useful. There’s still more to come, and we always welcome your suggestions in the Web Site Feedback forum!