Last year (a few weeks ago 
) we mentioned that new features were going to be implemented in Discourse. Now that time has come. We are running Discourse v3, and it has a bunch of new features.
Side Bar
The most obvious new change is the side bar. The side bar has a show/hide toggle button ( three stacked horizontal lines) immediately to the left of the site logo. That's great for smaller screens, you can use it then hide it. The content displayed in the side bar can be customized to suit your preferences.
User Menu
In the top right corner is the user menu. It now has pictograms with unread counts for notifications, replies, direct messages, and so on. It's a great heads-up display and really functional.
User Status
This is a cute widget. It allows you to describe your current state. It could be "Holiday", "Lunch", "Happy", "Sad", or anything that you want to say. An icon is attached to your atavar for everyone to see - and you can select the icon to display. When you are setting your status, just click on the icon that is visible and the icon selector is displayed. Browse or search for the appropriate icon, and click to select it.