Testing
*taps the mic*
Are we working?
*loud feedback through the PA*
Yep, working.
The format seems "loose," but overall pretty clean. Could use a bit of visual formatting, though.
Might get kind of frustrating to Preview, and then Post... this functions just like IMDB.
Thanks Giza. This might take some getting used to, but overall, I think that it might work out.
I find it pretty easy on the eyes and pleasantly laid out. Once the subject line matter is resolved, it'll be very useable.
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I don't bite, I purr!
Allrighty, I just hacked the source to comment.module so that a link called "link" is displayed with each comment, similar to what LiveJournal does. Then I removed the annoying subject line.
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Women, children, and the elderly should avoid Claws and Paws
Excellent, I like how this is all forming together. I also really love the responsiveness. I truly believe this to be faster than the other board.
I like this format personally. I think its better than what we've had to use in the past.
the auto subject filling in is kinda bugging me....wotn support just a blank subject unless specificly set? redundent text is well, redundent
Okay, so much for that idea. Turning it off just automagically fills it in anyway.
I'll look into hacking on the template or something.
well we got the thread to tree.....thast pretty damn cool....
only problem is what happenes when new people come in, makes it lil harder to navigate but not too bad...but as the subject is the link to expand...what happens now if blank....
i dunno if the tree aspect is such a good diea considerign the voluem of posts we'll see. since it splits it into pages at user defined number o fcomments anyway, i think it should just stay expanded .
The threads need to be easy to read when somone new to the topic enteres weeks after it was started
Yeah, you're probably right, all the indenting will confuse people. So I just changed it.
Note that you (and anyone else with an account) will probably need to change your comment viewing options to "Flat List".
what about the colapsing of posts down to subject only, with only the last few being poped out, thats more what i was refering to.
I like the threaded aspect of being able to reply to a comment and have it up near the parent enstead of all the text quoting
but more importantly I like the fact the software gives you the choice of layout.
Whats really nto goign to go well though is the collapsing, not of the topics..this is hard to explain....
Ok you have your parents to teh main topic, then those parents have children. I like and see how you can expand or colapse the parents and children groups. What i do not like nor see a way to change is that the individual comments collaspe to their subject once a certian number of posts is reached.
Feels pretty good so far, though I would like it if my signature would appear with some kind of separation bar so that it isn't just merely inserted as text in the comment box.
Yeah, I find that aspect of the forum module irritating as well.
But, there's nothing that stops you from adding in a seperator like I did. 
See below.
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Women, children, and the elderly should avoid Claws and Paws
Can't you use the hr width=80% tag? Works great as a separator.
If I add it to the list of allowed tags for the "filtered HTML" mode, then sure.
Sometimes I think that it would be best if the signatures were a smaller, italicized font. I don't often read signatures, I find them to be a distraction, so if people can somehow effectively separate their signatures, that would be good.
I'll look into that, but since the signature is actually part of the message that the user can modify, our options are limited in that respect.
Alright. I guess we'll just have to keep an eye out for such things. If people abuse the signature privilege, we'll have to turn it off, but as far as I can tell, most people here are generally responsible.
Honestly, I didn't use the forum this past time, didn't know about it. But I do like the way that this one is laid out.
Hmm. There is something about this forum layout that seems to be a bit faster than the previous because of its clean interface.
When I first took a look at this page I completely missed the first post. I guess since it was so different from the comments I just passed over it as perhaps a title or header.
I see that the threaded view was changed. Looks a lot better.
As far as the subject line goes, this might have to be changed within the interface itself, not something that you can just turn off like a switch.
Well, here's the problem: I can remove the subject line from the template, but if I do that, then there is no place to click on an individual comment.
It's not a big deal to me, but I could see some folks having a problem with it, so I'm not sure if I'm going to remove that line yet or not.
Who created this messageboard software, Giza?
Someone from the Drupal project, I would guess. The forum module is part of the core Drupal distribution.
Okay, yeah, Drupal is a bit new to me. I was thinking that there might be some third-party modification that can work on top of the system to modify the appearance of the comments/posts, something that could eliminate the subject line from each reply.
Maybe I wasn't clear on this. Let me explain in more detail.
Drupal renders its pages based on an XHTML template. Can I remove the subject line from comments? Oh yeah. In fact, I did this briefly last night.
The problem that resulted is that if you move your mouse over the subject line, you can click on it and access the individual comment. If I remove the subject line, we lose this capability. Then again, I don't know if people actually /use/ that capability.
all it does is shift the page so it's fairly useless....but it is important for moderation and if you have specific moderation levals viewed, and that might be useful.
why can't though the subject be auto filled in ro say spaced or ____ so it's "clear" but still clickable for the other functions
and hey i can't add a manual subject anymore...(or ever, i dont recall)
dont have an option for subject box
Having "___" as the subject name would be Really Bad[tm] as far as UIs go.
As far as scalability, the forums scale pretty well. Check out the traffic over at http://drupal.org/forum. And if you see anything they're doing that we're not that you think we should, lemme know.
Come to think of it, you might as well re-enable the subject field, because there may be some people who use it, for branching from the original topic.
What the messageboard looks like is basically a news bulletin to start followed by comments. Doesn't give it a uniform look until there are a couple of replies. I didn't know what the think of it at first, being slightly misdirected, not knowing what the original post was because it didn't look like any of the replies, so naturally, I overlooked the original post.
After playing around with it, I got used to it.
> What the messageboard looks like is basically a news bulletin to start
> followed by comments. Doesn't give it a uniform look until there are a
> couple of replies.
I agree. Being used to phpBB myself, I found it a little weird at first.
On the other paw, I am slightly irritated that phpBB does not differentiate comments from the original post. I think that can be confusing, too.
this si basiclaly "live journal" foruming, so it's an easy transition fo rme...but i dotn consider lj coment a "forum"
i consdier them just that comments , a message board has a certain look feel and layout this seems to miss.
they achive the same things just in differnt ways.
it works, it's a little weird for a "forum" as titled, but it works
Part of the reason for the weirdness is that you can, if the proper permissions are set, post a comment on ANY webpage on the system. To see an example, check out http://www.saveardmorecoalition.org/ (another Drupal site I run), where you can post replies to articles that are on the front page of the site.
I'd like to have something like that on our site some day so that this becomes less forum centric, and has more of an "interactive" feel.
a good idea and if thats what you're heading for then you're achiving it.
and that type of setup is probably good for this site as iit's alla botu info dispersion and question answering
as long as you're nto goign for a forum feel then you're fine
Come to think of it, the ability to comment within anything on the site or designated areas would be beneficial to those of whom are looking for additional information.
Testing, Eh?
I think that its great that you can modify how many posts are on a single page. Although it would be nice if the subject of each post wasn't the first few words of the post.
the forum looks quite attractive...
Soon it shall appear more attractive... to cockroaches and gryphons. ^^
Looks good to me!
What do you think of the interface for making posts and/or comments? Was there anything you had difficulty with?
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Women, children, and the elderly should avoid Claws and Paws
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