Forum Optimization Updates and Suggestions

I don't like the New Forum Topics which only reports new topics. I liked it when it reported new posts.

I've got one. Can we have the Shoutbox in the New Post area too? I hate having to jump between Fourm and New Posts to see what's newly posted, and what's in the shout box.

I miss how subscribed threads jumped to the top of the page, in your user control panel, whenever there was a new post in that thread.

And spell check.  Firefox's doesn't work.

I think monkeywright should bring back sad pirate monkey avatar.

Can the mods make that happen.

Also, is there a way to bring back the ability to have your mouse hover over a thread title and see a preview of what the Original Post is? That was a simple-but-nice feature.

Perhaps far too geeky, but it would be fun to have twitter links in our profiles ... maybe?

I'd like to know what is going on with the search

is it working the way you intended it to?

because I have a hell of a time using it successfully, specifically using it to locate old posts

second that

the best bet is to click on the dropdown "Format" menu and just click on the Formatted option.  It's much more consistent in allowing line breaks.

I don't like to complain about user created artwork for the site, but can we please get rid of this one? http://www.chuckpalahniuk.net/gallery/v/?g2_itemId=11725

It's the most awful thing I've ever seen and i hate it when it keeps popping up in the random image box.

 I suggest mirka come back and regulate.

Defolutely.

Riddlegimp, 2008.

HAHA!
 

I heard Paris Hilton tried and failed to trademark "That's Hot" a few years ago.

.

i miss this more and more, it seems

also, i very much miss seeing who posted last. there are many nights i dont have much time to read through threads and just dont log in at all. i really miss this feature.

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Hey guys,

Sorry we've kept you all in the dark for the past few months.  So let me take this time to update you on what we're doing to fix some of the problems around here.

Let me start by saying that, we have not forgotten about all the proposed changes, and that many of them are in the works as we speak, or were already being worked on, before we hit a wall. 

As you may remember, we hired someone to code all the new Forum fixes:

See last post
Memberlist
Who's Online
Invisible Mode
Jump to last page
Who posted last

Some of these above features have even made it onto the site.  But the person we hired grossly miscalculated his original estimate, and what was originally supposed to take 4-6 hours for him, dragged into 4-6 weeks!  In the end, we parted ways with him, with not even a third of the work done.  And the features we DO have done, aren't even fully polished yet.

During this 4-6 weeks, Kirk (our site programmer) took a much needed break.  I'm sure Kirk will jump in here and tell his side of the story, but let's just say a combination of new clients at work, a serious flu, and massive site burnout left him out of commission during the time we were working with the Drupal expert to update the forums.

Kirk and I had a good conversation yesterday about how best for him to return to working on the site and catching up on the Fix List, as well as all the promised Forum fixes.  We're both gung ho to get rolling on this, but it's not going to be easy.  It's not just the Forum that needs attention.  Constant unforeseen updates to our server have thrown some of our code out of whack.  This resulted in the Gallery getting broken again (to where you can't navigate to Page 2!).

So Kirk has proposed a plan where, he'll attack specific sections of the site, one by one.  Rather then getting frazzled with the prospect of jumping from page to page... feature to feature...bug to bug.  He'll start with the priority issues.  Situations where, something is preventing a person from basic functionality on the site (such as the Gallery bug).  He'll then most likely move onto the Forums and pick up where the guy we had hired left off.  It's not going to be easy though.  Drupal is great, but it's very different from VB.  And it's sometimes very difficult to tweak and customize it's core.

I just wanted to let you all know that we haven't forgotten any of this.  Mirka and I spend hours and hours talking about the website every week.  We have an unofficial deadline in that, 'Snuff' is coming out in May, and our traffic will probably double around that time.  So we'll need to have everything updated and ironed out by then. 

So stay with us.  And continue to point out any new or older bugs you found/remembered. 

Thanks for the patience.

At least we know that someone is sailing this ship. Thanks for the update, we (me !) trust you to make good work.

Can you make is so that on the "New Post" page, instead of it listing as "Forum Topic" it says the actual forum its from? There are threads that say "new review *Spoilers*" but i dont know what they're spoiling with out reading it and getting spoiled.

also, on the formatting topic, would it be possible to make the default "Formatted"? i forget most times to change it and then everything gets all wonky and messed up if i try to fix it.

scanning the comments above, i didn't notice html formatting but if it is there, i'm reiterating it.

if possible, add an option to edit/post comments using html. some tags like [strike] for instance can't be accessed from the RTF (?) default edit/post comment option. i know this makes it easier for people not familiar with html to format comments but some options like [strike] aren't accessible.

i'm using [] by the way because the site is wonky again and i'm actually editing in html which is kinda weird and prompted my comment in the first place or maybe you guys are already working on this.

testing strikethrough.

edit: it works in html mode. cool.

I really have no complaints, it seems like a good site. One little suggestion, though: could you set it up so that clicking on new replies ("43 new" etc. in the replies field under "new posts")  takes you directly to the replies, instead of the beginning of a thread?

Thanks!

Oh, and high up on my list is setting it so you can view all posts by a member. Right now you can only see all threads they started.

this is for anyone to answer, not just the big wigs...

Can anyone post a link to a Drupal website that is, like, fully-functional? So we can get an idea of how it's [i]supposed[/i] to look and feel when alls said and done?

Hey Kirk, I think Nate is talking about a fully functioning forum. The rest of the site is awesome! You and Clay kicked butt on it and I know you are constantly tweaking and improving it. It's just the forums continue to be difficult to navigate.

well

and i know peoples are tired of hearing me babble on about the shop

and den hasnt responded to any of my workshop pms in receint months

probably waiting on an answer to give

but i still cant download story submissions

from either the Recent Submissions box or the Browse All box in Find Submissions

and the reviews once written and submitted still lose all format so they turn into rambling line after line of thoughts consisting of letters and odd characters

and that kinda blows..

-kabol

I'm checking them out Kirk, and my favorite is rockband.com so far and it's vb dammit! ;) I gotta go to work but I'll look at them more fully in the next couple of days and get some feedback for you. I took a quick look at the last one you posted and it seems all their threads are just one long page. I was trying to find the longer threads to see how they navigate. I think I have to register an account to see how it really works. Thanks for the links! I have renewed hope. :)

Just sent you an email with a lot of !!! and :) :) :) So I apologize in advance. :) (last one!)

I'm pretty sure I can't do it.  I just tried to mess with it and I can't figure it out.  So either - I don't have that skill or I just can't figure it out...