PDA

View Full Version : Feature request



Guy Tal
17-Sep-2003, 12:31
Something for those who developed this software - instead of listing the date of the last response, can you list the total number of responses?. The date doesn't tell me whether or not there are new replies to a topic I visited earlier in the day.

Thanks!

QT Luong
17-Sep-2003, 12:56
Isn't it the function of the "New responses" link which is one click away ? The function of the main page is not give an update on the last activity, but to list what is currently (ie this day) active. I suppose both could be merged and the "New responses" dropped, but wouldn't the result be too cluttered ? Any opinions welcome.

Bob Salomon
17-Sep-2003, 13:10
Why not have New Questions, Unanswered Questions and New Responses?

Sal Santamaura
17-Sep-2003, 13:21
We hashed this over during prototype testing. "New Responses" lists both the date and time 'Last updated' for each thread. Knowing what time you visited earlier in the day gives as much clue as to whether there have been new replies as would listing total number of responses.

I like things the way they are. Let folks visit a thread based on their interest in and/or knowledge about its subject; crowd size should not become an attraction.

Sal Santamaura
17-Sep-2003, 13:33
Was I composing when Tom put "Total Replies" back on that page? Or has it been there since Monday and I missed it?!?

QT Luong
17-Sep-2003, 13:53
Sal, it's been there for a while. In fact I think I suggested it. Knowing that's there has been at least one answer since you last visited is different from knowing that number of answers, and I do not think it is irrelevant. Anybody is free to use this information or ignore it, but I thought it should be provided. This was in Lusenet anyways.

Tom Westbrook
17-Sep-2003, 14:01
I'm not very enthusiastic about putting counts on the front page. You can always bookmark the "New Responses" page and use it as your "home" page if you want to see the counts first thing.

Bob, I'm not sure what you mean by New Questions, as disticnt from new responses or unanswered questions. Or did you mean just to label the pages that way, since it sounds the same as what we have now?

Also, I'm not sure people have tried it, but on the front page, you can click on the 'Last Reply' column header to resort the page in the order of recent responses, but there's no message count there. You could also bookmark it that way, too.

James Driscoll
17-Sep-2003, 14:06
since i know nothing about software i have a "looksie question"

look, at www.V8buick.com I feel it has a very nice layout.

How its posting system works- is when something is responded to- it bounces up to the top. It also tells you who and when and how many response a topic has. Also with email responses.

It is similar to this site in theme only buick (only large format) and there are diff. catagories one can post to and it also has a general forum.

If tom, or Qt, or sal would take a look that would be great. I am dying to know how hard a site like that is to setup.

Sal Santamaura
17-Sep-2003, 14:45
James, I just visited the site you mention. I have no clue how difficult creating one like it would be, but share Tom Westbook's opinion on the desirability of "fancy" approaches versus this one. For more information read this thread:Forum software (http://largeformatphotography.info/lfforum/thread.php?topic=496586)

Guy Tal
17-Sep-2003, 14:56
I didn't mean to start a huge debate so I'll just answer Tuan's question and leave it up to the administrators to decide.
"New responses" does not live up to its name (here or on photo.net). I can read a thread top to bottom, and it will still be listed under "new responses". The function is just looking at timestamps for all messages and is not aware of when *I* last visited or read a given thread (this can be implemented using cookies).
I want to be able to tell at a glance whether a specific issue I'm following has new responses. If the first page told me how many responses are per thread I can easily tell whether or not this is the case without having to sift through a second list of "new responses".
Just my 2c... not a big deal really. I apologize for the wasted bandwidth/

Guy
Scenic Wild (http://scenicwild.com)

QT Luong
17-Sep-2003, 14:57
James, the site you mention is based on the UltimateBB software. Photo sites
that use this sofware include robgabraith.com and luminous-landscape.com.
We have taken a look at it, and it appeared to be the only serviceable package
out there which was ready-made. However, there is nothing that it can do that
our current software doesn't, and on the other hand there is quite a bit of clutter with the interface. Another problem I have with UltimateBB is that you
cannot create categories, only sub-forums. So either you have too many sub-forums
and it is difficult to follow, or you don't have enough of them and then the
archives become difficult to browse.

I suppose it is fairly easy to set-up such a site since it's just a matter
of configurating the software.

Henry Ambrose
17-Sep-2003, 15:12
Sometimes its good to be happy with things just as they are given to you. I enjoy this forum as it is, straightforward and simple. Many thanks to everyone who worked on it.

QT Luong
17-Sep-2003, 15:16
Guy, you are raising two issues. On the first one,
note actually on photo.net "New answers" is cookie based. There was the
problem that if you click on new answers twice at a short interval, the second time you wouldn't see anything at all. So they introduced a second cookie, but
in some other circonstances, this would also lead to undesirable behavior.
Introducing thread-based cookies (instead of site-based ones) would be very complex. That's why we have chosen to have a time-stamp based approach.
The user knows at what time he last accessed a given thread.
I suppose it is a bit more work
but at least the information is presented in a repeatable way.

On the second, I agree there is a case for having the count, but I am sure
people who prefer it the other way have also valid arguments that'd like to hear.

Peter Galea
17-Sep-2003, 15:18
It's perfect the way it is.

James Driscoll
17-Sep-2003, 15:33
about my previous post....I was not implying that this forumn change, I was just curious about how that site worked.

I honestly see nothing wrong with the way this is setup...but since we were on the topic I figured I pop the question.

I am very grateful for all the work that was done, and if there is anyway I can help out please let me know.

QT Luong
17-Sep-2003, 15:45
James, I have not tried to install the UBB myself, but you can find information at http://www.infopop.com/ They say it's been used on 300000 sites, so it must not be too hard to install.

Mike Sisk
17-Sep-2003, 16:36
Actually, the V8buick.com site is running another popular PHP-based bulletin board called vBulletin (http://www.vbulletin.com).

The vBulletin and UBB (from infopop.com) are the two most popular bulletin board systems used on the web. And both are pretty easy to setup and scale well.

But I think they both suck.

Their table-based page layouts can take forever to load and it seems users of these systems take a lot of pride in bandwidth-wasting icons and signature lines that jiggle and make noise.

This forum layout doesn't do any of that and focuses on content rather than presentation. It's also readable on nearly any platform with any browser. Heck, I just checked this site with a text-only browser called Lynx and it's quite usable that way. I wish more sites would layoff table-based layouts and stick to the thing that matters: content.

But, FWIW, when the code behind the bboards at greenspun.com was redesigned by the OpenACS.org folks it was templated (to control the look) and they added a replies line that lists the number of replies in a given thread. I don't think that's such a bad idea as it enables you to quickly sort out which threads are popular or not.

Bob Salomon
17-Sep-2003, 16:59
Tom, I see:

Forum Home | New Responses | Unanswered Questions |

Which one would I click on to see newly posted questions?

Forum Home does not seem to describe newly posted questions and Unanswered Questions may be quite old.

Or am I missing something?

Sal Santamaura
17-Sep-2003, 20:01
Bob, "Forum Home" = "Recent Topics." They're two names for the same page, which displays newly posted questions. It's not called "Recent Questions" because some topics are not questions.

Tom Westbrook
18-Sep-2003, 04:47
Bob, I see what you mean--the menu should match the page description. I'll look into fixing that.

I did include any unanswered questions in the New Responses page, so maybe the Unanswered Questions page is redundant now. As for excluding old questions from Unanswered Questions, it's a matter of how old is too old. I included the date so readers can decide that for themselves.

Guy, I did try to do something like you descibe, but it was fairly lame and didn't work all that well. I may try again for the next version.

Thanks

Lars Åke Vinberg
18-Sep-2003, 06:30
Hmm, I think that maybe what James Driscoll was originally getting at was to sort the listing of questions based on the time of the last reply, as opposed to today's sorting based on time of initial posting.

The "New Answers" page does exactly that, except it only lists to the presumed time of your last visit. That might not always be what the user wants.

I see no significant reason for change. Possibly it would have been nice to not limit the time scope of the "New Answers" page, sometimes I come back to the forum more than once a day and then might lose part of the listing at "New Answers".

Sal Santamaura
18-Sep-2003, 08:24
The "New Responses" page displays threads that have been responded to starting from the moment you select that page and going back 10 full screens, i.e. the 300 most recent responses. It has nothing to do with the time of your last visit. It is a vastly superior mechanism to the cookie-based mess at photo.net. Please leave it as is.

Lars Åke Vinberg
19-Sep-2003, 00:41
Sal - I apologize, I did not check the facts properly before posting, mixed it up with the photo.net software.

The "New Responses" page works exectly the way it should, I see no reason for changes.