http://i.imgur.com/SSIzONC.png
I wanted to let everyone know about a slew of new features that I added to the site over the last few weeks that I can finally talk about. I've wanted to add this stuff for quite some time and have been really happy with how it turned out. Let me know how the new features work out for you and if you run into any issues with them.

Steam Login

Most of us use and love Steam. Steam is constructed such that the Desktop and web client are pretty much the same. One cool part of Steam on the web is that you can authenticate to a website like Cheerful Ghost through Steam. Facebook, Google and Steam have provided websites like Cheerful Ghost with the ability to authenticate for quite sometime so you don't have to manage yet another set of login credentials. I've liked this approach to authentication and recently added the ability for people to login to Cheerful Ghost using Steam. If you have an existing Cheerful Ghost account start by linking your Steam account before you authenticate to Cheerful Ghost with Steam. You can link your Facebook, Google and Steam accounts to your Cheerful Ghost account by following the link below.

http://cheerfulghost.com/user/link

After your Steam account is linked to your existing Cheerful Ghost account you can login to the site with Steam.

Enhanced Avatar Integration

Since we launched Cheerful Ghost we have only supported avatars using the Gravatar service. Since we require people to authenticate with Steam, Facebook or Google we now automagically import your avatars from those sites. So starting with the next time you authenticate or when you link your accounts you can select any of your Avatars from the Google, Facebook or Steam accounts you've linked. I recommend people link up their accounts and select an avatar from Steam, Google or Facebook.

We still support Gravatar but it is now officially deprecated. We will be removing it in a few months so I recommend selecting one of your avatars from Steam, Google or Facebook to use on the site.

Recent Activity

I've been hearing from people that when you come to the site people notice there is a lot of discussion happening but don't know where to find it. To allow people the ability to see the latest chatter on the site i've added the recent activity stream on the right column on Desktop and certain tablet orientations.

Spright Gets A New Look

I spent some time integrating the new Cheerful Ghost look into the site and I am really happy with how it turned out. Over the years Spright the Cheerful Ghost has evolved and i've taken some time to catalog that. If you are interested in look at how the Cheerful Ghost came to look the way it does over the years you should check out the link below.

http://cheerfulghost.com/spright

I want to thank everyone for making Cheerful Ghost a great community to be part of. Let me know what you think of the new features and if you run into any issues let me know.