By michelle on
I am in planning mode for Advanced Forum 2.x. This is pie in the sky time, gathering all the ideas, which I'll then sift through to see what is within my capabilities. So I'm looking for your wishlist items that fit these two critera:
1) Not already possible with existing core/contrib. I'm not going to re-invent the wheel adding stuff already covered by other modules.
2) Something that you actually will use. I can (and have) compare feature lists of forum apps. What I'm looking for is what people who run forums really use that just can't be done in Drupal right now.
So let's have it. What can't you do in your Drupal forums that you desperately need? :)
Michelle
Comments
1. allow upload of screen
1. allow upload of screen dump.
a screen dump is very very helpful for many cases.
good day.
Images
There are already a variety of modules for attaching images.
Anyone else? For all the complaining about Drupal's forums I thought this would be a hot post. LOL
Michelle
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I wouldn't say "desperately need", but it would be nice to be able to lock forums (lock all threads + make it impossible to start new threads). Actually, that's not something I need on my own site, but wish we had it here on drupal.org.
A somewhat related feature is that I'd like more control over the forum landing page. For some containers, I want to only show the container, not the subfora.
To be specific: On my (very small) forum here, I have one container for archived forums (called "Arkiv"). I would prefer to only show the subcontainer under that one, not the forums within the subcontainer. But for active forums, I would prefer to show all subfora, just like today.
Oh, and while I'm writing to you, I want to say thanks a lot for advanced forum! :-)
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Thanks for the thoughts. I have an issue about handling subforums better but it's still pretty vague. I hadn't thought of having it be different per forum.
Boy, not much activity on this thread. I guess folks are happier with Drupal's forums than I thought. :)
Michelle
Hi Michelle, Thanks for
Hi Michelle,
Thanks for starting this thread. What would be great to have (my dream):
= on every level of the forum is: a block with related posts to the subject, a block with other posts from the same poster, the latest posts on the forum on every level and sublevel.
=Next to this on every level possibiltiy to have threaths or clicktrue posibiltiy with off course every url pathauto support
= theming of all forum pages
= views2 handling and support of all forum pages so fields can be added or deleted easily
= panels3 support using contexts, to be able to go diagonal through the forumposts to show for instance with an url like johndoe/potatoos all johndoe posts on the subforum potatoos. And with views2 the fields can then be selected to show for this particular view.
Hopefully this wishlist is of use!
Greetings,
Martijn
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= on every level of the forum is: a block with related posts to the subject, a block with other posts from the same poster, the latest posts on the forum on every level and sublevel.
There's a related posts module that provides a block. Not sure about other posts from the same poster. That's an interesting idea. Latest posts on the forum has a block but not forum specific. That could be done with a view, and I have an issue to add some default views.
=Next to this on every level possibiltiy to have threaths or clicktrue posibiltiy with off course every url pathauto support
I don't know what this one means.
= theming of all forum pages
They are already themed...
= views2 handling and support of all forum pages so fields can be added or deleted easily
Not sure what you mean here. Are you talking about turning the topic list into a view? That might happen... Still up in the air at this point.
= panels3 support using contexts, to be able to go diagonal through the forumposts to show for instance with an url like johndoe/potatoos all johndoe posts on the subforum potatoos. And with views2 the fields can then be selected to show for this particular view.
I'm not following this one at all.
Thanks,
Michelle
Hi Michelle, thanks for your
Hi Michelle, thanks for your quick answers.
=Next to this on every level possibiltiy to have threaths or clicktrue posibiltiy with off course every url pathauto support
I don't know what this one means.
===> I mean being able to set forum posts under each other on one page, or be able to go in depth through different pages. Like taxonomy pages and taxonomy depth.
Off course would already be great to use normal taxonomy to be able to make pages with forumposts, weblinks, stories on same category
= views2 handling and support of all forum pages so fields can be added or deleted easily
Not sure what you mean here. Are you talking about turning the topic list into a view? That might happen... Still up in the air at this point.
===:> Yes I mean building views instead of current topiclists
= panels3 support using contexts, to be able to go diagonal through the forumposts to show for instance with an url like johndoe/potatoos all johndoe posts on the subforum potatoos. And with views2 the fields can then be selected to show for this particular view.
===> When forum id's and forum names, username, userid are like taxonomy id and taxonomy name used in views, they can also be used as contexts in panels.
Then the panel-panes can show content of the views related to the contexts (forumid/name and userid/name).
Greetings, Martijn
Hmmm
This is getting pretty far out there. Not sure how to address it at this time, but it's written down for future reference. :)
Michelle
Hi M, Here's a few from the
Hi M,
Here's a few from the top of my head - I'll try to add more later.
Forum listing page
- thread icons, that show whether you have already posted in a thread or not
- thread icons that also show when a thread is new, or contains new posts
- thread preview text on roll over of thread links
Thread page
- userinfo such as location, number of posts and/or any other info from the users profile (such as from custom fields) to show in the users poster info (post bit)
- Users signature
- Linear mode, newest post at the bottom
- Thread tags (via taxonomy system)
- ability to show info from profile or options either in users signature (from custom fields) or with postbit. (Eg if the user has ticked a box that says its ok to edit their pictures I'd want to display an icon with their posts to show that).
General
- latest forum posts link (showing all the latest posts/latest threads that have been posted in)
Will add more later, please do let me know what you think of these.
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These already exist:
- thread icons that also show when a thread is new, or contains new posts
- userinfo such as location, number of posts and/or any other info from the users profile (such as from custom fields) to show in the users poster info (post bit)
- Users signature
- Linear mode, newest post at the bottom
- Thread tags (via taxonomy system)
These I have issues for:
- latest forum posts link (showing all the latest posts/latest threads that have been posted in) [Would use views for this]
- thread preview text on roll over of thread links
These are new:
- thread icons, that show whether you have already posted in a thread or not
- ability to show info from profile or options either in users signature (from custom fields) or with postbit. (Eg if the user has ticked a box that says its ok to edit their pictures I'd want to display an icon with their posts to show that).
The first one I never thought of. That's a good idea. The second I'm not sure I'm understanding. Could you explain that more?
Michelle
Thanks for the reply
Thanks for the reply Michelle.
Yes the first one - letting you know whether you've replied in a thread or not - is an invaluable feature, vBulletin has it as standard.
Re the second one, in vbulletin, we can create custom profile or 'options' fields which users fill in via their usercp, so for eg I could have one that says: 'Do you want to allow users to edit your photo and repost it on this site? Yes | No' then if they say yes (I can just use some PHP to check for it, eg, [if profilefield[10] = yes] do this) which then simply shows a bit of html to show an icon with their posts.
Here's a few more:
- Reply notifications - get sent a reply when someone posts in a thread I am subscribed to
- Forum subscription options - automatically subscribe to a thread when you post in it or not
- Subscription notification options - send reply instantly, update once a day or once a week
I really do recommend joining a vBulletin forum to see which features you think users would love too. Are you into Dogs, Cats, Gaming or Photography? If so I can point you in the direction of some very good forums you can take a look at :-)
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All the subscription options you mentioned are already available.
I see what you mean about the photo editing now. I thought you wanted an option in the signature for admins to edit photos that violate the site rules. That's why I was totally confused. Hmm... Interesting option but not sure how easy that would be to do.
I am actually a member of a few vBulletin forums. But just as a normal user, not a moderator or anything. As a normal user, the only features I use that isn't already available in Drupal is the ajax quick reply and searching in threads. There's a lot of "stuff" there that clutters the UI up a lot. I'm not looknig to clone vB but to find out what of it's plethora of features (as well as other forum apps) people actually use.
Thanks,
Michelle
Tbh, I think most of the vB
Tbh, I think most of the vB features are used by someone or another. I posted on my largest board a few weeks back about which options/features people like most about the forum (as I was considering moving to Drupal) and some of the things mentioned I never ever use myself. Which brings me to my next suggestion... the feature that cropped up a lot was... preview text (first 100 or so characters of the thread) when you hover over the link on the forum listing page.
Thanks again for your work on this Michelle.
Wordpress Forum
I was in a 'new' (to me) wordpress forum recently and really liked the feature where you could add any thread to your favourites and receive that as a combined rss feed.
Tags and Simple Shift
Michelle
Two further ideas:
Tags - it would be useful I think for a poster to tag or identify via hierarchical menu selection, more accurately than simply the Drupal release version, which core/components/modules their query is in regard to; and for the maintainers of those parts to be notified of a post in the forum.
Simple Shift / Re-assign
I have seen several times in my short while here the type of response of "stop hijacking this thread" or "that's not my department" or as a challenge "are you sure that it is this module?" which in my opinion creates a wee bit of tension and animosity that could be avoided if certain forum maintainers had the option to simply, courteously and easily shift the question into the right place, re-categorise or set it up as a new thread of its own.
Edge case
That's really an extreme edge case. I don't think there's many sites that would use a forum for a ticket system in that way. You would be much better off using something like the project module, like we do here on d.o. You could do something like that either with taxonomy or maybe cck fields but that's really out of scope for AF.
Michelle
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just browsing-- Michelle, you have done such a fantastic job with the forums so far, it's difficult to think of more goodies.. I would have to let this work my brain for a few days.. But don't give up on this thread, I am sure some intuitive minds will rise up sooner or later..
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I haven't given up. I'm still gathering ideas. I'm reading all the posts even if I don't answer every one directly. I have some other projects I need to finish up and then I'll start gathering all the ideas into a comprehensive plan for 2.x. I build 1.x in a very random mannor adding stuff here and there and it made the development take a lot longer than it should have. I want to have a solid plan for 2.x before I start coding.
Michelle
forum header
I am a bit of a beginner with Drupal.. so bear with me.
I was just messing with the forums on my site.. this may a views thing..
my thought is some way to add some text in the top of the forum page where it simply says "forums".
I was thinking of some inviting words to make the page more friendly in some way that might get more people to actually submit a post or open some of the forums to have a look see...
and maybe being able to add a different heading other than just the word "forums".
thanks,,dave
edit.. one(two) more thoughts. Is there a way to make the height of the post box shorter.. or more compact when there is just a few lines of text posted.
and maybe,, have the signature reside at the bottom of the post box, rather than just below the text.
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friendly text can be added to the .tpl.php handling that page
the title of the page (heading) can be changed in the same manner.
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@VeryMisunderstood . thank you very much, I will do it.
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I did run into something, I think it's been talked about already someplace on Drupal and i had a hard time understanding all that was involved. It is not a must have, but would be nice to have. Possibly being able to have a label under the author picture stating if the person is a moderator.
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you mean like: http://drupal.org/project/user_badges ?
Based on: http://drupal.org/node/227121
Advanced Forum.mdoule already makes use of user badges.
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I am such a dummy.. I have that loaded, but haven't turned it on yet.. duuuuu
Update
I haven't answered here in a while but I wanted to assure you I still am reading this thread. I've added all the new ideas here to the master wishlist. At the moment I'm caught up in the DruBB project which will bring tons of improvements to Drupal's forums but they are being driven by the needs of the company sponsoring it and I'm just helping out. Once the immediate needs are satisfied (by July), I'll re-asses the future of Advanced Forum and see what's left to do.
Michelle
Forum import
My #1 wish for Advanced Forum would be a way to import forum threads and posts from CSV files (comma-separated values). Maybe it could be done in cooperation with the Node Import module, which currently does not support forums.
it would be great if advanced
it would be great if advanced forum should also work with node-comments, so all node-stuff can be used with comments.
this way advanced forum can be the +forum on drupal.
greetings, Martijn
Project page
You haven't looked at the project page lately, have you? ;)
Michelle