German Racers CMS - Changelog (English)

Forum Evolution

• Structure & Topic Formats: The forum has grown into a complete community platform with nested categories, role- and team-based areas, configurable topic types and metadata, announcements, and integrated polls.
• Modern Editor & Racing Context: Posts support a rich-text/BBCode editor, @mentions, and personal telemetry snippets from the member's own valid laps.
• Community Features: Topics can be followed with individual notification and mute settings. Reactions, permanent post links, reports, and ignore actions are available directly on each post.
• Live & Recognition: Active readers and members currently typing are shown live. Marking answers as solutions creates solved topics, reputation points, and awards for helpful members.
• Moderation & Management: Moderators can edit categories and pin, lock, move, or merge topics. Individual posts can be moved or split into new topics; a report center, edit history, and notifications complete the moderation tools.

Driver DNA

• Telemetry-Based Driver Profile: Driver DNA calculates pace, consistency, safety, aggression, trail braking, and car control from lap and telemetry data.
• Archetypes & Signatures: It creates a driver archetype, strengths, and dynamic signed SVG banners for profiles, forum signatures, and Discord – including favorite tracks and recent laps.

German Racers Support Shop

• Standalone Shop: The new support shop provides a product catalog, detail pages with galleries, variants, stock management, shopping cart, and coupon codes.
• Checkout & Account: Members can save billing and delivery addresses, order via bank transfer or PayPal Friends, and view order history including payment and delivery status.
• Shop Administration: The separate backend manages products, variants, images, orders, shipping and payment details, discounts, and coupons. An audit log records security- and administration-relevant activity.

Profile Hub Completely Redesigned

• New Overview & Driver DNA: The profile overview was reorganized and now shows the personal Driver DNA directly in the account.
• Extended Statistics: A dedicated forum statistic was added alongside racing statistics, making community activity visible in the profile as well.
• Choose the Public Record: A dropdown lets every member choose which server or track record appears on the public profile. This also makes intentionally longer laps, such as on the Nürburgring Nordschleife, visible instead of automatically showing only the shortest best lap.
• Teams & Events Reorganized: The team area was fully rebuilt, including clearer lists and a direct button to team settings. The events tab now clearly separates running and completed events.
• Communication Centralized: Messages, contacts, and formerly separate communication paths are bundled in one communication hub; a separate friends tab is no longer needed.
• Account Settings Structured: Personal data, game information, and site settings are now organized as clearly separate areas instead of being mixed with other account options.
• Identity and Discord Mapping Fixed: A bug that could display another user's name in the current profile was fixed. Discord names are no longer incorrectly adopted as driver names, restoring clear and reliable profile and driver assignments.

T-Admin & Team Permissions

• Co-Admin Permissions Fixed and Simplified: The role logic for co-administrators was cleaned up. With the co-admin role, team members can now reliably process applications, manage team and server data, and use the intended team areas.
• No More Duplicate Per-Feature Permissions: Separate permissions for servers, forum, downloads, bans, and other individual areas are no longer additionally required. The co-admin role is now the central and reliable permission.

Events & Registration

• Admin Direct Access: Administrators can now open the administration view for the current event directly from the public event details.
• Registration State Clean-up: Registered drivers now only see the appropriate unregister action; duplicate registration indicators were removed.
• Complete Translations: Missing text on the events page is now available in the German and English page language files.

Ranking

• Load More: Server rankings still start with 100 entries. The new button loads 50 additional results at a time until every available driver is visible.

Language Files & Localization

• Translations Thoroughly Cleaned Up: Numerous missing, incorrect, or unresolved language keys were corrected across the frontend, home page, administration areas, and further modules. German and English interfaces now use consistent, understandable text again.

System & Presentation

• Logo Refresh: The German Racers logo and related browser icons were modernized and unified.
• New Page Layout: The three-column system is now reserved specifically for the home page. All other pages use a focused two-column layout with navigation or modules on the left and the relevant page content on the right.
• Favicon Updated: A dedicated, tightly cropped browser icon replaces the former header logo.
• Changelog Connection Fixed: The changelog page now loads the German and English files from the correct docs directory.

🎨 Theme Management (Tab System Redesign)

• Tab-based Structure: The theme management page was completely rebuilt into a clear 4-tab system:
• Tab 1 — Themes: Theme grid with live preview and activation (unchanged).
• Tab 2 — Header & Banner: Banner upload, URL, height, and Name/Subname/Tagline each with font and size grouped side by side.
• Tab 3 — Hero Section: Visibility toggles (Left, Right, Bottom, Discord, Live) as clear toggle cards.
• Tab 4 — Advanced: Custom CSS textarea and footer text.
• Custom CSS Field: New textarea for global custom CSS directly in the admin panel.
• All Inline Styles Removed: All style="..." attributes replaced with CSS classes.
• Theme Colors for All 10 Themes: New CSS classes (.tcf-section, .tcf-input, .hero-toggle-card, etc.) added to all theme files with individual color schemes.

🔧 System Settings (Tab System Redesign)

• 5-Tab Structure: The settings page was split into clear tabs:
• Tab 1 — Website: Name, URL, Logo, Tagline, Footer, Email.
• Tab 2 — Interfaces: Discord (all IDs/Tokens), Steam API, Xbox/Azure, MOTD.
• Tab 3 — Features: Maintenance mode, Results/Page, Ranking, Downloads role, ACC path.
• Tab 4 — Live Timing: Inactivity timeout, Stagnation timeout, Offline behavior.
• Tab 5 — License: CMS License Key.
• All Inline Styles Removed: Fully converted to CSS classes.
• Sticky Save Button: Save button stays visible while scrolling.

📅 Event Manager (Server Deployment & Discord Sync)

• Fully Automated Server Deployment (event.json & eventRules.json): The "DEPLOY JSON" button now not only transfers the entrylist, but completely configures the ACC server! All event settings (ambient/track temperature, rain, cloud level, weather randomness) as well as the sessions (practice, qualifying, race including ingame time, day and multiplier) are written live to the event.json. In addition, all pit stop rules are exported to the eventRules.json.
• Settings.json Integration: The fields for max_entries (maximum drivers), password, spectator_password and the vehicle class (carGroup) are now seamlessly transferred to the server's settings.json during deployment.
• Round-Specific Deployment for Cup Events: For Cup events with multiple tracks/rounds, a dropdown menu now appears during deployment. This allows you to select exactly which Cup round (including the specific track and sessions) the server should be configured for.
• Rich Discord Integration: The Discord Scheduled Event is now fully automatically enriched with important metadata in the background. The description on Discord now includes (invisible to the website) the selected vehicle class, max. driver count, track, event type and a detailed list of the sessions (e.g. "Practice: 30 Min | Qualifying: 15 Min | Race: 60 Min"). In addition, this info was added to the neat embed box (channel announcement).

📅 Event Manager (Overhaul & Cup System)

• Season Races & Cup Calendar: Implemented a comprehensive cup system for ACC events. Admins can now create and manage pre-defined race calendars with multiple rounds and tracks directly in the backend (saved to event_races).
• Team Balancing & Driver Swaps: Added a new feature to enable team balancing. Admins can select specific drivers in generated teams and directly swap their roles (starting driver vs. co-driver) using a dedicated swap button.
• Entrylist Generation: Fully integrated entrylist creation. ACC server JSON files can now be generated automatically based on the configured teams and deployed directly to the target servers.
• Architecture Splitting: The monolithic event_admin.php file (1,200+ lines) was decoupled into manageable, modular sub-components (tab_acc.php and edit_event.php) to maximize maintainability and scalability for future games.
• UI/UX: Custom Multi-Select: The old, clunky multi-select dropdown for car selection (ACC) was replaced by a modern, space-saving custom checkbox dropdown UI.
• Premium DateTime Picker: Native date and time input fields were replaced with an interactive dark-mode calendar pop-up (Flatpickr), making the scheduling of events and cup rounds significantly more comfortable.
• Theme Synchronization & Hardcode Cleanup:
• Dynamic Design: All hardcoded color values (#333, #FF007F, rgba(...)) within the event modules were completely removed and replaced with official theme CSS variables (var(--adm-bg), var(--adm-red), etc.).
• Theme Update: Missing variables (--adm-danger, --adm-accent) were injected into the configuration files (admin.css) of *all 10 themes*, ensuring flawless and consistent backend layout rendering regardless of the active theme.

👥 Members Management (Merge Fix)

• Account Merge Logic Stabilized: Fixed a critical Duplicate entry database error during user account merging. Secondary accounts (including discord_id) are now safely cleared and prioritized before data is transferred to the primary account, preventing unique constraint violations.

📝 WYSIWYG & BBCode Editor (Real-time Formatting & Downloads Integration)

• Real-time BBCode Parser (Typing & Pasting):
• Paste Interceptor: Pasting raw BBCode blocks (e.g. [b]...[/b], [size=...]) now intercepts the clipboard, parses it into styled HTML, and inserts it seamlessly without breaking layout.
• Caret-Preserving Live Parsing: Typing BBCode tags manually now automatically triggers formatting on typing closing brackets (]), Enter, or space. A virtual caret marker keeps the text cursor at the exact typing position.
• Auto-Formatting on Blur: Leaving the editor container (blur event) automatically converts any remaining raw BBCode syntax into styled visual elements.
• WYSIWYG Integration in Downloads:
• The shared WYSIWYG editor has been fully integrated into the downloads area (both frontend pages/downloads.php and backend admin/modules/downloads.php).
• Redundant inline script blocks and outdated legacy color pickers were fully cleaned up.
• Dynamic Path Resolution:
• Image uploads and emoticon asset paths within rich_editor.php now dynamically adjust context based on location (detecting /admin/ vs root directories) to prevent 404 pathing bugs.
• Screenshot Drag & Drop Compatibility:
• Refactored insertAtCursor helper for screenshots: dynamically detects active WYSIWYG canvases and inserts files inline as HTML rather than plain text BBCode tags.

🎨 Theme System (Complete Overhaul)

• Admin CSS fully externalized: Removed all inline