Since 2016 BitBuilt has continuously evolved from humble beginnings. Hosting services have changed, themes tweaked and redone, features added/removed, and the site has even changed hands to new owners. The last major batch of changes or "2.0" happened in 2020 with an upgrade of the forum software, themes, and discord integration.
BitBuilt over time. Left to right: 2016, 2018, 2025 (2.0), 2025 (3.0).
Today, @cheese and I are revealing BitBuilt "3.0" - the latest iteration. If a change wasn't immediately obvious, good! We've spent a few dozen sleep-deprived hours over long days and nights to mostly preserve the look and feel that you've come to expect.
As for a list of everything that has improved, I don't have a comprehensive change set, but the list would be very lengthy - an upgrade has been long coming. In no particular order, here are a few notable changes:
New Server and Hosting
BitBuilt has completely moved to new hosting that's better in every way from what we had before. As part of this, we've taken the opportunity to move away from some of the tech stack we inherited in 2021 and migrate to industry standard alternatives that are vastly more customizable and more familiar to @cheese and I. No more banging our heads against desks (repeatedly) from dealing with OpenLiteSpeed - it will not be missed.
New Theme
We've spent hours creating a new theme, from scratch, that unlocks the benefits of our upgraded forum software while staying true to what we were. This also means getting rid of a ton of hacky customizations we inherited and paves the path to more seamless upgrades in the future. The addition of more themes in the future is also on the table thanks to this entirely in-house theme.
The new theme, BitBuilt Unified is styled after our 2 previous themes, BitBuilt Green and BitBuilt Dark. By default, the appropriate light or dark variants will be used depending on your browser/device's settings. If you're one of those people with a device configured to change between light and dark themes automatically, the forums will follow suit! This default can be overridden by explicitly by choosing a style variation from your account preferences or by using the picker present at the top and bottom of every page.
Drastically Improved Search
Ever tried searching "Wii" or "MGC" in our global search? Bet that didn't work out for you; no longer is this the case. Search is now powered by a completely new back-end purpose-built with search in mind. These search enhancements also tie into several other new features such as displaying related threads, search suggestions, and more.
There are many, many, MANY, levers and knobs that can be turned to change the new search logic. This first iteration is a definite improvement but we'll be working to improve it as time goes on.
General Improvements
Way too many to list! Many being performance related. In terms of experience improvements:
BitBuilt Staff
BitBuilt over time. Left to right: 2016, 2018, 2025 (2.0), 2025 (3.0).
As for a list of everything that has improved, I don't have a comprehensive change set, but the list would be very lengthy - an upgrade has been long coming. In no particular order, here are a few notable changes:
New Server and Hosting
BitBuilt has completely moved to new hosting that's better in every way from what we had before. As part of this, we've taken the opportunity to move away from some of the tech stack we inherited in 2021 and migrate to industry standard alternatives that are vastly more customizable and more familiar to @cheese and I. No more banging our heads against desks (repeatedly) from dealing with OpenLiteSpeed - it will not be missed.
New Theme
We've spent hours creating a new theme, from scratch, that unlocks the benefits of our upgraded forum software while staying true to what we were. This also means getting rid of a ton of hacky customizations we inherited and paves the path to more seamless upgrades in the future. The addition of more themes in the future is also on the table thanks to this entirely in-house theme.
The new theme, BitBuilt Unified is styled after our 2 previous themes, BitBuilt Green and BitBuilt Dark. By default, the appropriate light or dark variants will be used depending on your browser/device's settings. If you're one of those people with a device configured to change between light and dark themes automatically, the forums will follow suit! This default can be overridden by explicitly by choosing a style variation from your account preferences or by using the picker present at the top and bottom of every page.
Drastically Improved Search
Ever tried searching "Wii" or "MGC" in our global search? Bet that didn't work out for you; no longer is this the case. Search is now powered by a completely new back-end purpose-built with search in mind. These search enhancements also tie into several other new features such as displaying related threads, search suggestions, and more.
There are many, many, MANY, levers and knobs that can be turned to change the new search logic. This first iteration is a definite improvement but we'll be working to improve it as time goes on.
General Improvements
Way too many to list! Many being performance related. In terms of experience improvements:
- Images now lazy load, massively improving the initial page load & responsiveness of picture heavy threads (looking at you MGC and Secret Santa threads)
- An improved media viewer makes viewing all images you've loaded in a thread a breeze
- All new post message editor and preview.
- Friendly URLs. Look at the URL of this page!
BitBuilt Staff
