[More info] All group forums in a container bug
| Project: | OG Forum |
| Version: | 6.x-1.x-dev |
| Component: | User interface |
| Category: | feature request |
| Priority: | normal |
| Assigned: | paulbooker |
| Status: | closed |
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I`m tryin to get a nice organization for the forums in my site, and i mean all forums, those that belong to groups and those that aren't from any group (the site-wide forums). I thought the option "Group forum container" would solve my problem, but it doesn't.
I've noticed diferences in the way the module behaves when this option is enabled:
WHEN NOT ENABLED: the module succesfully creates a container named after the group and a default forum inside it called "general discutions" (or whater you chose from og_forum settings). that way i get, in my og "manage group forums" page, listed: the container with an "add forum" link beside it, and the "general discutions" forum indented below it with a "edit forum" link beside it.
This actually looks pretty good here, but not in the site-wide forums listing, we could think this would create an neat ordered listing, but in the future, when you have decens, hundred, or even thousends (ok, i'm exagerating) of groups in the site, the forums listing could get very messy. Thast's what i beleive was what the "Group forum container" option intented to prevent. but...
WHEN ENABLED: when this option is enabled and a container (let's say: "all groups forums") is chosen. then the module behaves in a diferent way that the above described. instead of creating a container named after the group, it just creates a FORUM named after the group. this causes that in the "manage group forums" page the only thing that appears in the list is that forum with a "edit forum" link beside it. and this causes that there won't be any chance to add more forums, since the container with the "add forum" link doesn't show up (it wasn't even created).
Back in the site-wide forum listings, the forum actually is inside the "all groups forums" container, but, again the same situation (or even worse) because inside that "all groups forums" container there would be all the forums from all the groups but no containers for each group, just the forums all messy with no real clue wich group it belongs to.
I believe the behaviour when this option is enabled is a bug, since we lose the chance to create new forums and the "Default forum name" option gets overrriden by the group title. and no group container is created.
The logical way this should works is create a container named after the group, NESTED INSIDE the "Group forum container" container chosen, and inside that container the actual forums for each group.
Espected estructure:
Site-wide forums (container)
-"General" (container)
--"News and stuff" (forum)
-"Support" (container)
--"Bug reports" (forums)
Groups Forums (container)
-"Group 1" (container)
--"general discutions" (forum for group 1)
-"Group 2" (container)
--"general discutions" (forum for group 2)
#1
#2
This is not a bug. There was a feature request quite some time ago to have the feature as it is now, and that's what I provided. It intentionally limits the forums for each group to one. Instead of what you think should go on with the global group forum container, I'd rather just do something to clean up the forum list at www.yoursite.com/forum. For starters, perhaps there should be two or three tabs, one for site-wide forums, one for group forums (only public or subscribed), and one for all (which is what we have now).
I really don't see the point of moving what on some sites is a big mess into a single container. You'd just be moving a mess from one place to another. Plus, as it stands now, you'd have to give the group container a name that is last in the alphabet for it to show up after all of the site wide forums, unless you put all of your site wide forums in their own container, I guess. Most of my installations don't even use site-wide forums, so I'm afraid this isn't a high priority for me.
But like I said, I think there are better ways at visually organizing a huge list of forums.
#3
ok, then at least you should add some help text in the settings that explains that. i mean, that when you enable "Group forum container" it limits to one forum per group only and the default forum name is overriden by the group name.
i can see that now that this configuration actually creates nice ordered list, since there is only one forum per group, and there is no need to distinc which forum is from which group. i can understand that that is a good configuration and could be useful enough for some sites. but it only takes one simple request to make unusable: the need for groups to create MORE that ONE forum. then indeed, it is now an ofitial feature request. i'm not an experience programer but i believe (correct me if i'm wrong), this wouldn't be a dificult change/add to do.
something more: if this is a feature request that you provided, then that means in older versions it worked the way i'm asking? if so which one?
#4
In past versions you were not able to move the group forums into a single container at all. So there is no version that allows a single container and multiple forums per group. The feature was all-in-one - i.e. single forums per group inside a global group container.
As for adding to the docs, I think that is a good idea. And it seemed like you were not opposed to my idea of tabs or other organizational changes. Unless I'm mistaken, such organization could solve your original issue. Am I correct? If so, I'll throw that on the pile. However, I will check to see what wold be involved in the two methods (i.e. my way, or your way).
#5
Yes, the tabs idea sound good, but will it be posible to have multiple forums per group then? if so, yes that would solve my original issue, if not, it still is a good idea. so go for it.
#6
The tabs would simply be a filter of how things work when you DON'T use the all-in-one container thingy, so yes, all groups would still have as many forums as you want. The single forum per group thing would only happen when you use the all-in-one container, just like it is now.
#7
great, i'll be waiting for that feature then. just to know, when can we espect to have it? will it be a patch for current version or will it be incorporated in a new version of the module?
#8
The planned new feature sounds really interesting - but I'd also have been interested in the first version, is it completely out of the question?
What I'm trying to do is I have three sorts of group nodes and I'd really like to be able to group each type under a container so all TypeA groups would be under a TypeA container (but I don't want to lose the ability to let them create new forums underneath)
eg
TypeA container
-VariantA
-- General Discussion
-VariantB
- General Discussion
TypeB container
-VariantA
-- General Discussion
-VariantB
- General Discussion
TypeC container
-VariantA
-- General Discussion
-VariantB
- General Discussion
Does that make sense?
#9
tracking. i am also interested in the tabs idea in #6
#10
subscribing
#11
@Ryan
Shall we implement the tabs feature in to OG Forum @ D6 ?
Currently the "Group forum container" functionality does not appear to be functional in our working copy that were currently developing.
#12
#13
@Paul
It's not functional? Email me a reminder to test that this weekend. I could have sworn it was. But to answer your question, yes, postpone this until D6. It doesn't seem like too many people are trying to use this feature.
#14
#15
That is a shame as I would want to use this on several sites - but admittedly it is possible to hide the various group containers using CSS, which from a users point does something similar.
#16
I'm not convinced at present of the needs for tabs or multiple containers as i would imagine even for sites with lots of groups each group would contain a small number of forums and a subscriber would normally subscribe only to a small number of groups so the list of forums a user would see on forum/ should not be that long.
On spreadfirefox.com (which i currently help manage) where we have hundred of groups and thousands of users to my knowledge nobody has ever complained in the past 3 years or more about the list of forums on forum/ that they are subscribed to as being too long.
#17
#18
I