New Forum structure

Mary · 2006-03-04 01:50:59

I could’ve sworn I had posted this earlier this afternoon… Oh wait, Firefox crashed, so I must’ve still been posting, and then forgot. Ah well…

Those asking about expand/collapse categories: if you had read my post (it’s been linked above, posted shortly before this thread was started) you’d have seen that (among other things) I had already considered that, but had difficulty getting it to work. At the time, I felt it more important to roll out the working changes, rather than potentially hold things up because I really didn’t know how long it would take me to resolve the problem. It’s since not an issue – I’ve got it working.

Scrolling wasn’t a real issue before, because of the category anchor links, but I think we can all agree it’s even less of an issue now with the expand/collapse working.

I noted in my post that signatures would need to be updated, if they used BBCode. BBCode has not been available on this forum for a very long time, a decision not made by me. All I’ve done is made this more obvious to the casual observer.

I agree about making the external links less like the forum links, that was the intent all along, but I wasn’t sure how to proceed. I’ve tweaked this a bit, how does that work now?

Regarding forum feed auto-detection, that’s already in place, and has been for several months, actually. They are on the index and thread list pages, but not individual topic pages; putting them there may lead people to believe it is a single topic feed, but PunBB doesn’t have that ability built-in. I would consider adding this functionality if I can see that it is wanted, would be used by more than a couple people.

With regard to having to switch forum styles: that would be because of your browser having cached certain files. A forced refresh or clearing your browser cache would have the same effect. You may want to do this again if you can’t see the changes I’ve mentioned in this post.

The Dead Letter Office forum has always been there, but there hasn’t been any real set procedure as to when threads get moved there. Last month I moved threads there which had not been replied to (that is, the date of the very latest post to the thread) in 5 months, and which did not consist (as far as I could ascertain) of info still relevant. Many of the threads I moved then were for the various release candidates for the first stable version of Textpattern, and we had available to us the stable version for a while. Moving those outdated threads did a lot to stem the tide of successive threads over confusion of how Textpattern works (section placeholders, and so on).

From time to time I’ll do this sort of thing, the idea being to keep the latest, accurate info available. Having quite old general discussions around can be neat to go back through, but it’s not exactly vital for them to appear in the very back pages of a thread list where they’ll rarely get viewed anyway. I’m aware I’m not infallible, so if a threads gets moved there which you feel shouldn’t be, feel free to discuss it with me.

At some future point, I imagine very old threads may need to be otherwise archived, but I don’t see that happening anytime soon. I make no secrets about what I do with regard to managing the forum, so you’d know before I did that.

Any other comments? :)

Mary · 2006-03-04 02:46:28

Edit: ah, problem fixed.

Last edited by Mary (2006-03-04 04:43:51)

NyteOwl · 2006-03-04 02:48:28

Great job Mary, well done! Collapse is great!

My only remaining “issue” is the paragraph one. Clearing the browser cache does not solve the problem.

hcgtv · 2006-03-04 03:37:13

Mary,

The expand collapse is a nice a feature, don’t know why the toggle doesn’t work.

I spend all my time on the Show new posts since last visit page, as probably many advanced forum users do, so I don’t have access to the external links from where I hang out.

One suggestion may be to use the PunBB feature of Additional menu items and add them to the menu items that already exist, something like:

Textpattern.com Index Docs FAQ Plugins Themes Sites DevBlog User list Search Profile Logout

The order and wording is up to you, it wouldn’t occupy a lot of space and the links would always be available to us from anywhere on the forum.

maniqui · 2006-03-04 05:05:31

hcgtv wrote:

> One suggestion may be to use the PunBB feature of Additional menu items and add them to the menu items that already exist, something like:

> Textpattern.com Index Docs FAQ Plugins Themes Sites DevBlog User list Search Profile Logout

jajajajaja. hcgtv!

Did you forget the last forum organization (two days ago)?
The top menu was exactly as you are suggesting!! :D

It seems not only new users didnt notice that!

My suggestion is: it can be a merge between the old menu (the one that hcgtv is suggesting) and the place and size those items are right now.
I mean: bit link menu items, but inline.

Well, with the collapse/expand isnt bad at all as it is right now.

Last edited by maniqui (2006-03-04 05:06:07)

Destry · 2006-03-04 10:26:53

I like it a lot. Everything. Everytime I come back it gets better. The collapsing category feature is great, as well as the ability to preview posts at any point.

alexandra wrote: @placenamehere….to me it is not link crap. I am very happy links are now so present. After posting a hundred times and more those links to newbies i am just tired to do so.

I wholeheartedly agree. And I love the more explanatory descriptions; they were simply necessary in this new age of Textpattern culture, expansion, and diversity.

Elenita · 2006-03-04 16:53:51

<blockquote>Regarding forum feed auto-detection, that’s already in place, and has been for several months, actually. They are on the index and thread list pages, but not individual topic pages</blockquote>

Thanks for clarifying, Mary.

neutrino · 2006-03-04 17:55:04

Destry wrote:

I like it a lot. Everything. Everytime I come back it gets better. The collapsing category feature is great, as well as the ability to preview posts at any point.

Me too! Love the new Announcement across the top — it’s like a breaking news feature. Neato!

Skubidu · 2006-03-04 21:23:13

wow! I have been away for a short holiday and now these great improvements in the forums! It always happens when I’m on holiday: it was the same with Textpattern 4.0…

I have one question: Would it be possible to add a field to the profile, where every user can specify the languages he/she understands? This would be quite usefull (in my opinion).

David_1cog · 2006-03-04 22:07:38

Nice. :)

Mary, could you make one little tweak to base.css for those of us stuck with IE? base.css:

.conr {
float: right;
clear: right;
width: 49.9%;
text-align: right;
}

That removes horizontal scroll bar. The good browsers are unaffected.

Also, the ‘collapse’ / ‘expand’ is not available in IE. Couldn’t see a solution for that. :/

I’d vote for making the ‘Resource Links’ further defined apart from the forum categories. Maybe put them in a < ul > and then something like:

ul.externals li{
display:block;
float:left;
margin:0 20px 20px 0;
padding:20px;
width:120px;
height:150px;
}

That’d make it obvious they’re not forum cats.

Last edited by David_1cog (2006-03-04 22:08:55)

neutrino · 2006-03-04 23:41:02

Only one thing from me so far — the Show new posts since last visit and Mark all topics as read links disappear when I move from forum listing to topics listing.

Nice little touches, Mary. Like the >>> on external links

Last edited by neutrino (2006-03-04 23:45:42)

Mary · 2006-03-05 04:00:43

hcgtv: I’m working on a solution for text links to the resources to be available globally throughout the forum, for the rest of us that know what the links are for.

neutrino:

Love the new Announcement across the top…

That’s actually always been an option (it’s a PunBB feature for admins), it’s just rarely been used. I plan to make use of it more often. Not too much, so everyone doesn’t become blind to it, but it should help make sure everyone’s aware of, as you put it, “breaking news”. :)

I can’t take credit for the little arrows >>> either, that’s something else PunBB does already too.

…the Show new posts since last visit and Mark all topics as read links disappear…

That should be fixed now.

David_1cog: Thanks for the IE fix. The expand/collapse should be visible now too.

Nils:

I have one question: Would it be possible to add a field to the profile, where every user can specify the languages he/she understands? This would be quite usefull (in my opinion).

~~Working on it.~~ Done.

Speaking of languages, I was thinking of including additional forum ui language options: German, French and Spanish, as they are starting to get more users so make the forum a little “friendlier” to them. As other non-english forums increase in size, I could add that forum’s language too. What do you guys think of this? If I do this, I’ll need help with it from time to time (keeping it accurate and updated), since I only know english so I won’t know if one of them needs updating or not.

Last edited by Mary (2006-03-05 07:26:58)

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#13 2006-03-04 01:50:59

Re: New Forum structure

#14 2006-03-04 02:46:28

Re: New Forum structure

#15 2006-03-04 02:48:28

Re: New Forum structure

#16 2006-03-04 03:37:13

Re: New Forum structure

#17 2006-03-04 05:05:31

Re: New Forum structure

#18 2006-03-04 10:26:53

Re: New Forum structure

#19 2006-03-04 16:53:51

Re: New Forum structure

#20 2006-03-04 17:55:04

Re: New Forum structure

#21 2006-03-04 21:23:13

Re: New Forum structure

#22 2006-03-04 22:07:38

Re: New Forum structure

#23 2006-03-04 23:41:02

Re: New Forum structure

#24 2006-03-05 04:00:43

Re: New Forum structure

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