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Support Forum
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Quotes:
Can we allow multiple messages to be quoted? Currently, it's possible, but it requires you to copy and paste one quoted message into another. That's a little unintuitive. It'd be much better if you could just click on the quote button of another message in order to include it's quote into the message. Currently, I have people double-posting on a forum in order to respond to two different messages.
Post Linking Option:
Currently, when linking posts, we have the option to post an excerpt of a certain size to the forum when linking. It is a number of words. Could we also have an option to post everything before the wordpress "Read More" link? That seems like it would be rather handy.
Space Options:
I'm not really a fan of the way SPF does spaces in the editor. If you hit enter, it essentially double spaces. Most people are used to hitting enter twice to being a new paragraph, including myself. So I end up with really spacy posts on my forum. And if you want a list of items without spaces between them, you have to use shift-enter. Would it be possible to have an option of how the forums handle the enter key? I'd prefer a more "traditional" option be available.
Spell Check
Spell Check doesn't work so great. When I click it, it remains highlighted as if it is staying on. However, it ignores anything typed after it's turned on. Any way to fix that, or give us the option to leave it on all the time?
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Quoting: I can raise that and take a look at it. We have a couple of issues to look at in that area so may as well include this if possible.
Post Linking: This is a change that will be available in 4.1
Spaces: Using the Enter key in this editor does not create a double space. It creates a new paragraph which is exactly what it should do. The way that is displayed - both at editing time AND in the final forum display, is entirely down to your CSS styling and the amount of padding you place between paragraphs.
Spell Check: This is a TinyMCE plugin and outside of our control. If you feel that it requires some changes it would be best to take it to the authors or the Moxie forum.
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YELLOW
SWORDFISH
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Thanks for the responses. I don't agree with the spacing issue, as it's vastly different on nearly every forum I use. However, it's eerily similar to the Wordpress official stance, so it's expected. IMO, enter should be a line break, not a new paragraph. Shift-Enter is what Enter should be, currently. If it make a difference, I was just encouraging the option, not asking for it to be changed for everyone and everything.
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I 100% disagree with your here. This is HTML not a word processor. Paragraphs are the correct way to display HTML text and it is right and proper that paragraph tags should be used.
Shift > Enter will insert a line break and this is common not only on many HTML text editors but also on many desktop text handling programs.
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YELLOW
SWORDFISH
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I would agree with you if we were writing webpages. But we aren't. We are basically using a glorified chat program. I don't recall any of the big forum software solutions forcing paragraph breaks with the enter key. phpBB, Invision, SMF, etc. Every one of them that I have used in the past take a wordprocessor approach to the forums. Just to verify this, I went in and did a view source for a message. Line breaks, not paragraph tags. This is the only forum software that I've ever seen that forces paragraph tags, rather than line breaks. Obviously, it's your software, so what you say goes. But, this is a suggestion forum, and my suggestion is that there be an option of what setup you want. Or at least an easy way to hack in a change.
People generally type in a different style when they are communicating. IMs, Emails, Forums, etc. They all allow the person to have control over what their typing looks like. And to me, that is a tool. You said that this is HTML, which is true, but again, that doesn't mean we have to treat it like it's writing an actual webpage.
Anyway, enough with that discussion, you've heard my point of view, you either understand my issue or you don't. Either way. I had a couple more suggestions:
Allow Admin Post Styling
Could we have some css styling options for Admin posts? It'd be nice to be able to style a post differently if an admin is posting. Whether it be the post itself, or the area around the avatar (Preferrably both). Just setting a class there would be really handy in allowing us to make admin posts stand out a bit more on our forums. There is a similar thing for Wordpress with post authors in comments. But when it comes to admin, you have to do some checks with WP functions to see if the user is an admin. But that's not even feasible in this sense. Anything we did would need to be hacked in, and that's not logical with a plugin that is going to be updated.
Don't make the edit line part of the post itself
Every time an edited post gets quoted, the edit information also gets quoted. Is this intentional? It quirks my OCD a bit. Could that be excluded from quotes, possibly?
Make Forum Stats Interactive
Lots of users are listed in the forum stats. For instance, the top posters, or the people currently logged in. It would be nice if you could click those users to bring up their profiles and/or most recent posts. Also, as a side note, some of the things in the forum stats could stand to be customizable. I have no moderators, so it doesn't need to display the lack of them. And maybe I'm overlooking something, but is there a way to customize how many Top Posters are listed? I seem to have 6 showing, which seems like an odd number. Is it determined based on the height of the table? Or is 6 just the number that was chosen? Etiehr way, some customization there would be nice, though not really important.
Don't want it to seem like I'm complaining. Just trying to give input and suggestions. People are loving the integration with Wordpress on my forums. It's sad that you guys can do this so well, and the bbPress software can't even get it right. IMO, anyway.
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Maybe I'll remember to login before posting next time. 😛
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Including the edit data in a quote is an error and a ticket is raised for this.
The real problem with many requests, such as your suggestions for forum statistics, is the overhead it causes in both compiling time (i.e., wait time and cpu work) and, more importantly, in database queries. (You have to remember that this is a WP plugin and as such there is already overhead that a stand alone forum would not have to wait for). As it happens, the stats box is pretty expensive and I have already done work for 4.1 to reduce the query count to make it more efficient which was badly needed. I do not really want to add a whole bunch of new features to slow it down again.
Down the road I am toying with the notion - which is a far better solution - of introducing a framework for 'plugins' (yes - plugins for the plugin). This would cater for users who may want a more advanced statistics display to have that without penalising the majority who do not.
The problem with that of course, is that the development team on this project consists of two people - one of whom is also in full time employment and we also man the support forum. So time is not a factor on our side.
I like the notion of CSS id's for different types of users or ranks etc., and will raise a ticket on that for discussion.
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YELLOW
SWORDFISH
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Totally understandable. In most cases, I make these suggestions as further options, not necessarily replacements of things already there. You mentioned Plug-ins, which will be great whenever that happens. Essentially, that's what I mean by optional things anyway. If you have the “option” to make users clickable in the stats box, then it's pretty much a plugin that you turn on or off. And actually, if you have the option to turn things off, that should in theory actually save on some queries.
But in any case, none of these issues are major. Cosmetic and preferential, mostly. I appreciate the work you guys have put into things. It has been great, and I look forward to future versions.
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just committed changes for 4.1 for the post row styling based on forum rank...
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