By florin on

On the drupal.org forums, when i post a new topic, my signature is not displayed (although i do have a signature defined in my user profile). I'm not sure about the cause - is it a 4.5 bug?

Comments

Steven’s picture

Steven commented

This is by design. The first message in a topic is a forum node, the rest are comments.

florin’s picture

florin commented

This is by design. The first message in a topic is a forum node, the rest are comments.

Hm, it might appear natural for those who are familiar with Drupal's architecture, but from an "average Joe" perspective (plain user who knows and wants to know nothing about the underlying technology) it appears as an artificial difference.

I'm just a normal guy posting on a forum, i don't really care if my post is the first in a topic or not (well, i do care, but only like 5%). However, i do care about a uniform look of all my posts.

I guess there is no better way to put it, but it does seem like it's something that seems to go without saying for the geeks who hack away at the code, while it's something that appears totally unnatural for everyone else.
If i can figure out a better way to explain it, i will.

Ok, wait, how about this? If it's a node in a forum, then attach the signature to the first post, otherwise (if it's the first post in something else than a forum, say, a blog) attach the signature only to subsequent posts.
Perhaps Drupal needs to make some further distinctions between forums, blogs, books, etc.?

--
Florin Andrei
http://florin.myip.org/

Bèr Kessels’s picture

Bèr Kessels commented

It is "by design indeed". But like you, I, and some others do not like this sort of behaviour at all. I agree with you when you say that "Joe user cant be arsed about technical differnences between the first item and the other ones".
But since its the nature of Drupal (a post, with comments) it cannot be changed.

The only option would be to create a forum module that uses nodes only. I suggest, if you are really bothered by this, you develop (or get people to do so) such a module. That would be the only solution to the problems with the difference between first and later posts.

And if this solved you problem, would you be so kind to report back that it helped? This will help others whom are looking for the same solution.

[Ber | Drupal Services webschuur.com]