Forum suggestion.

[Thor]

Hello!

I've been looking through the forum a few times a day now for some time, and I'm starting to find it bothersome to find all the latest threads and as well active threads that i find interesting and important..
So I got an idea, not original in anyway.. But none the less an idea.. That in my opinion would improve the forum navigation and over all experiance.
My thought was that this forum lacks a recent activity index, that shows you some of the newest thread and some of the last commented threads..

I made an example picture with my amazing wizard like paintskill.
I moved the news section and just put in something that is suppose to look like an activity index.. Of course this could be made in any other way, perhaps there already exist one that I havn't found yet?  This is only an example picture as i said and it could been done in -many- different ways.

But I believe it would help alot.. Any questions just ask away

Spoiler

[Aeronwen]

Nice idea Thor, not sure it would be worth the time taken to do it though as I think most of us just use the 'view the most recent posts on teh forum' link

the only problem is that I do not always register which forum section the post is in.

Maybe it should just be made more obvious?

[Kekn]

There's two links at the top left for all unread posts as well as replies to your own posts. This seems to work just fine for me.

There's also a link at the bottom of the forum that reads View the most recent posts on the forum.

Those satisfy my needs

[Folms]

What about those who aren't registered on the forum, Kekn?

[Kekn]

What about those who aren't registered on the forum, Kekn?

How about they just do it already!? 

[Thor]

I still think it would make for a better layout and ease the use of the forum, it would take some work to implement this however.. But I truly dont see any downside in this..
The work around might work well, but it isn't as clean this you've to admit Kekn

[Kekn]

Anything for user satisfaction 

[SCGavin]

I still think it would make for a better layout and ease the use of the forum, it would take some work to implement this however.. But I truly dont see any downside in this..
The work around might work well, but it isn't as clean this you've to admit Kekn

Thank you for the idea / initiative.

It shouldn't be the full list of replied to threads / unread posts shown at the top, as that could get quite long and hence make your screen very scroll-intensive. But if it is limited and if you only have the five most recent posts or something, why not just use the present features? Also, the implementation would require quite some work. Personally I have no idea how to implement this and I don't think it is necessary or beneficial enough to warrant the effort of finding out. Between looking at the forum sections and the new post markers there, the 'unread posts since last visit' and 'new replies to your posts', I think that we have a sufficient system. If you find a mod at http://custom.simplemachines.org/mods/ that does this and it works with this forum version, I see no problem, but I don't think it warrants the effort of creating it.

Lastly, and this applies to everyone: please cut out restricted forum sections from your screenshots. I did that in this case, but for the future please keep this in mind and do it before posting.

[Thor]

Spoiler

Thank you for the idea / initiative.

It shouldn't be the full list of replied to threads / unread posts shown at the top, as that could get quite long and hence make your screen very scroll-intensive. But if it is limited and if you only have the five most recent posts or something, why not just use the present features? Also, the implementation would require quite some work. Personally I have no idea how to implement this and I don't think it is necessary or beneficial enough to warrant the effort of finding out. Between looking at the forum sections and the new post markers there, the 'unread posts since last visit' and 'new replies to your posts', I think that we have a sufficient system. If you find a mod at http://custom.simplemachines.org/mods/ that does this and it works with this forum version, I see no problem, but I don't think it warrants the effort of creating it.

Lastly, and this applies to everyone: please cut out restricted forum sections from your screenshots. I did that in this case, but for the future please keep this in mind and do it before posting.

I didn't say the current system was sufficient.. About the scrolling, as I showed in the example it would be a minor index.. so the length the forum start site wouldn't be effected at all..   I'll look into it myself whenever I find the time and work-will

[Lady R.]

La-la-la, la-la-la.... didn't i mention i am a php programmer? 

Have done such a thing for a Vbulletin engine couple of years ago, and it was very usefull feature on our forum (like news feed in any social network). I belive i can made such a mod for SMF. In fact, i have not much free time in next month, but i belive there is no hurry, so i can try.

[Ivarr]

If it can be fit in there without making the page longer then I believe there's no harm in having such a thing. However, since it'll be fit into limited space, its content will be limited, and I'd still have to rely on the 'Show unread posts since last visit' link to keep myself up to date with forum activities.

[Lady R.]

I'll explain how it works on our forum.
First of all, its not a "last replays" feed, but "last updated threads" feed, so 1 reply (or 10 replyes in one thread) fill only one line of content. I mean 1 row of the table, becouse its a table actualy. Each row contains couple of cells - name of the forum  (forum section), name of the thread, last poster name and last post time, so its quite compact. It has about 10 or 15 rows on main forum page, but also there is "view all answers on separete page" link, and that page, actualy, quite more usefull. It has auto-updating system, so people use it like a news feed, spending all day on it. In fact, there is a couple of people who still prefer "Show unread posts since last visit", but  99% of people use this new page.
Also it is useful on our forum becouse sometime there is a dozens new replyes in some specific threads, and not all people interestetd in reading them.

Here is a screenshot of that separate page, and main page has identical table but limited by 10-15 rows without all that additional functionality. Ofcourse i cant repeat this feature identicaly on SMF becouse it was a great job done there, but base functionality is quite simple. And we can allways make it srollable or something on the main page.

[Alene]

If you need just "5 last posts" visible, you can do it from Admin -> Configuration -> Current Theme -> Theme Settings -> put '5' to Number of recent posts to display on board index. Other option could be to use PortaMx mod and configure a block there, but that requires some work, and maybe PHP coding.

[SCGavin]

If you need just "5 last posts" visible, you can do it from Admin -> Configuration -> Current Theme -> Theme Settings -> put '5' to Number of recent posts to display on board index. Other option could be to use PortaMx mod and configure a block there, but that requires some work, and maybe PHP coding.

Thanks for the tip. I did that; it shows it at the bottom of the main page.