Arantor

  • As powerful as possible, as complex as necessary.
  • Posts: 14,278
Re: Calendar
« Reply #60, on January 14th, 2013, 11:36 PM »
Read a few posts up, reply 54. That's where I'm going.
When we unite against a common enemy that attacks our ethos, it nurtures group solidarity. Trolls are sensational, yes, but we keep everyone honest. | Game Memorial

Powerbob

  • Posts: 151
Re: Calendar
« Reply #61, on January 14th, 2013, 11:41 PM »
hmmmmm, Bob bumbles off to dig out his "paid but not used" IPB software and see what Arantor is on about :whistle:

Arantor

  • As powerful as possible, as complex as necessary.
  • Posts: 14,278
Re: Calendar
« Reply #62, on January 14th, 2013, 11:43 PM »
Exactly what I've just asked about, essentially. You don't link to posts, instead you have a big old textbox for describing the event and people can reply to it - without having a physical linked topic.

Not having the linked topic means bypassing all the crazy hooking into topics which has a fairly beneficial performance saving.

Powerbob

  • Posts: 151
Re: Calendar
« Reply #63, on January 15th, 2013, 06:09 AM »
I see what you mean now (installed test copy IPB to check ::) ) works for me :lol:

Nao

  • Dadman with a boy
  • Posts: 16,079
Re: Calendar
« Reply #64, on January 15th, 2013, 07:20 AM »
But it also bypasses the ability to search for posts in these...

Arantor

  • As powerful as possible, as complex as necessary.
  • Posts: 14,278
Re: Calendar
« Reply #65, on January 15th, 2013, 05:21 PM »
You realise I'd already thought of that? ;)

When I said about IPB, I really meant looking at *everything* it does. Their quick search has a dropdown, to be able to select forum/blogs/calendar, as well as that being in their main search, something we can't do.

The whole point of pulling the calendar topics away from main topics is very seriously about performance - adding another query to every topic view to fetch linked events is not cheap however you slice it.

Having dedicated calendar topics would solve that particular little performance hiccup.

Common sense suggests that having a 'calendar board' would be the way to go, except that I'm not convinced it would be particularly intuitive - it would require users putting the board in, setting visibility on it and so on, not to mention having to actually implement some fashion of actually diverting things between custom board types; the way MessageIndex works thus far is fine for what it does but we will need to expand upon that in future, and this would certainly pre-empt it.

The thing is, though, even doing that doesn't really solve the issue related to search, it might actually be an improvement to, instead, have the calendar search as a separate dedicated routine that's integrated from the search (the way IPB does it), which means the experience can be tailored better for the user and allow them to search things that can't be done currently.

live627

  • Should five per cent appear too small / Be thankful I don't take it all / 'Cause I'm the taxman, yeah I'm the taxman
  • Posts: 1,670
Re: Calendar
« Reply #66, on March 17th, 2013, 10:23 AM »
I have here two layouts which I would like to show everybody. One has the two mini calendars on the bottom (SMF style) and the other with them in the sidebar (which I really like, tbh)..

Let me explain something: the blue highlight is where the mouse  hovered and  the white square with the red text is  today.. Clicking a day updates a sidebar block with the appropriate date and any events, holidays, attached to it.

Which do you like better?
A confident man keeps quiet.whereas a frightened man keeps talking, hiding his fear.

Arantor

  • As powerful as possible, as complex as necessary.
  • Posts: 14,278
Re: Calendar
« Reply #67, on March 17th, 2013, 03:11 PM »
I suppose you already got the sidebar so it's not like you'd gain any width on the matter. The bit that bothers me is that for folks like me, I keep the sidebar collapsed to the bottom, so I'm not going to see things... :/

godboko71

  • Fence accomplished!
  • Hello
  • Posts: 361
Re: Calendar
« Reply #68, on March 18th, 2013, 06:54 PM »
Quote from Arantor on March 17th, 2013, 03:11 PM
I suppose you already got the sidebar so it's not like you'd gain any width on the matter. The bit that bothers me is that for folks like me, I keep the sidebar collapsed to the bottom, so I'm not going to see things... :/
If he made it the first items on the sidebar it would be no different then the "classic/smf" look really. I dont think anyway never used calendar much.
Thank you,
Boko

Arantor

  • As powerful as possible, as complex as necessary.
  • Posts: 14,278
Re: Calendar
« Reply #69, on March 18th, 2013, 07:03 PM »
True, it wouldn't - but I was referring to the fact that if they were on the sidebar, that would be at the very bottom of the page for me since I always have the sidebar folded below. The other problem is that it might be possible to have them aligned oddly depending on exactly what order they're in the sidebar.

Powerbob

  • Posts: 151
Re: Calendar
« Reply #70, on April 5th, 2013, 09:35 AM »
Quote from Arantor on January 15th, 2013, 05:21 PM
You realise I'd already thought of that? ;)

When I said about IPB, I really meant looking at *everything* it does. Their quick search has a dropdown, to be able to select forum/blogs/calendar, as well as that being in their main search, something we can't do.

The whole point of pulling the calendar topics away from main topics is very seriously about performance - adding another query to every topic view to fetch linked events is not cheap however you slice it.

Having dedicated calendar topics would solve that particular little performance hiccup.

Common sense suggests that having a 'calendar board' would be the way to go, except that I'm not convinced it would be particularly intuitive - it would require users putting the board in, setting visibility on it and so on, not to mention having to actually implement some fashion of actually diverting things between custom board types; the way MessageIndex works thus far is fine for what it does but we will need to expand upon that in future, and this would certainly pre-empt it.

The thing is, though, even doing that doesn't really solve the issue related to search, it might actually be an improvement to, instead, have the calendar search as a separate dedicated routine that's integrated from the search (the way IPB does it), which means the experience can be tailored better for the user and allow them to search things that can't be done currently.
Sounds good to me.