Release Notes – Seasonal Effects Suite Update: Day/Night Mode + Weather Forecast Overlay
Concise Version (Short + User-Friendly)
New Features
- Automatic Day/Night Mode
- Forum visuals now adapt to local time or real sunrise/sunset data from OpenWeather.
- Includes smooth ambient lighting, moon/sun overlays, and configurable brightness levels.
- Enhanced Night Environment
- Added dynamic twinkling stars across the entire screen and optional moon image overlay.
- Weather Forecast Overlay (NEW!)
- The OpenWeather API now displays real weather conditions, temperature, and location directly on the forum.
- Supports rain, snow, fog, clouds, and clear skies with matching animations + image sprites.
Improvements
- Seasonal effects and weather effects now coexist seamlessly without visual overlap.
- New admin options for brightness, color depth, and effect intensity.
- Performance optimizations reduce CPU load across all animated overlays.
Fixes
- Weather and holiday effects no longer override each other.
- Adjusted brightness levels to prevent overly dark night mode.
Full Detailed Release Notes (Professional / Developer-Focused)
Major Feature Additions
1. Advanced Day/Night Mode
A brand-new system that adjusts the forum’s atmosphere based on:
Local system time
Automatic sunrise/sunset using OpenWeather
Manual override (Force Day / Force Night)
Features include:
- Soft global tinting for both day & night.
- Night sky populated with animated, randomized twinkling stars across the entire viewport.
- Optional image-based moon and sun overlays replacing CSS shapes.
- Fully integrated with all existing Seasonal & Weather overlays.
- CSS brightness tuned to preserve forum readability while still giving an immersive night ambience.
2. Weather Forecast Overlay (Powered by OpenWeather API)
Users now see a small, elegant weather forecast label, showing:
Current temperature
City / location
Weather description (e.g., “Light Rain”, “Overcast Clouds”)
The overlay automatically syncs with the animated weather effects.
Supported conditions:
- Rain (CSS raindrops + image sprites)
- Snow (CSS flakes + snowflake icons)
- Fog/Mist (CSS fog + optional fog icons)
- Overcast/Cloudy (CSS drifting clouds + icon overlays)
- Clear skies (sunburst effect + sun icon)
All conditions scale with the global Intensity Setting.
Enhancements & Improvements
Night Mode Visual Upgrades
Expanded starfield now covers the entire viewport, not just upper header.
More natural star twinkling with randomized timing + variable brightness.
Reduced background darkening to improve content visibility.
New Admin Options
Day/Night mode toggle & override
Brightness control for night shading
Enable/disable moon + sun image overlays
Custom star density selector
OpenWeather API style (CSS-only vs. image-enhanced overlays)
Performance Improvements
All overlays now use optimized DOM batching.
Reduced layout thrashing by consolidating animations.
Improved visibility checks to prevent off-screen animations from wasting resources.
Bug Fixes
Fixed issue where weather icons would not render if holiday effects were disabled.
Corrected layering so stars and weather effects no longer disappear behind XenForo UI elements.
Adjusted z-index relationships across all effect types for consistent behavior.
Fixed over-darkening of night mode on some themes.
Ensured fallback behavior when OpenWeather API returns errors.
Developer Notes
Fully backwards compatible with all previous versions.
Template updated with new modular regions for easier overrides.
All star, moon, and sun overlays autogenerate on DOM load for max compatibility.
Weather forecast supports graceful failure messaging when API conditions are invalid.
