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Arantor

  • As powerful as possible, as complex as necessary.
  • Posts: 14,278
Recents posts as formerly on the board index
« on November 11th, 2011, 11:34 PM »
Been thinking about this today, and it's bugging me.

It occurred to me that there are a ton of tiny variation mods on sm.org for altering this stubby little block of posts, not to mention it being discouraged to even be used in the first place due to performance issues with it.

So it occurs to me, I could rip it out, turn it into a plugin and make it much more flexible than the core could be. It could show in the sidebar, or not, it could show with a variety of layouts etc, because that can all be handled more nicely through a plugin than it can in the core (since in the core we pretty much have to roll with one overall look, which is 'in the sidebar, not very flexibly')

Thoughts?

(And no, this isn't just because I'm trying to slowly divest the crap I never use into plugins or anything :whistle:)
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Nao

  • Dadman with a boy
  • Posts: 16,082
Re: Recents posts as formerly on the board index
« Reply #1, on November 12th, 2011, 12:10 AM »
Yeah, sure, why not :P
I don't use it either, I prefer to place my list of recent posts outside of the info center anyway.

Additionally, we could release this one as BSD, and people could easily release variations of it, if I'm following your suggestion. So, everybody wins.

Now, back to killing dragons...
Posted: November 12th, 2011, 12:08 AM

Unrelated, but can't bother to find the topic: Post.php still has a few references to the word 'event', the calendar one.
It's in the comments, though... But I feel they still don't belong in here any longer.

Arantor

  • As powerful as possible, as complex as necessary.
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Re: Recents posts as formerly on the board index
« Reply #2, on November 12th, 2011, 12:13 AM »
I did all kinds of searches on 'event' and most of them seemed unrelated after that, e.g. "...in the event of". I really thought I'd got everything but guess not :/ Still, as it gets purged, I'll move it out into the plugin and be done with it.
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I don't use it either, I prefer to place my list of recent posts outside of the info center anyway.

Additionally, we could release this one as BSD, and people could easily release variations of it, if I'm following your suggestion. So, everybody wins.
*nods* I was thinking more that I could just throw the most common style variations into the mix, but yeah, no problems with it being BSD. If I was feeling really brave I could stick it on GitHub.

Nao

  • Dadman with a boy
  • Posts: 16,082
Re: Recents posts as formerly on the board index
« Reply #3, on November 12th, 2011, 12:20 AM »
Or mpl. Whatever ;)

I did notice the size of the removals. Hence my care for checking for anything you might have forgotten. It's way easier to be the 'finished work inspector' (French expression probably) than to do the actual work ;)

Arantor

  • As powerful as possible, as complex as necessary.
  • Posts: 14,278
Re: Recents posts as formerly on the board index
« Reply #4, on November 12th, 2011, 12:26 AM »
Of all the code I've removed from SMF, that one felt more like an endurance trial than the others did. Purging PGSQL and SQLite? Tricky, maybe taxing. Pruning non-UTF-8 support? Fun. This... Mayhem.

(1 internet cookie for who gets the reference.)

It's a bit different also to previous removals because here I actually have to go back and look up what the other removals were to integrate them back into the calendar plugin :/ All kinds of fun, yay.
Posted: November 12th, 2011, 12:23 AM

Also on a similar note for things in the sidebar that could/should be plugins I've been thinking about the membergroup legend that's currently in alphabetic order under who's online.

Part of me thinks it just needs tidying up and letting the admin set the order of items and part of me thinks it really needs to be spun back off into a plugin where it can be let loose properly (with aforementioned options, plus alternate layout like having it as a bullet list instead of the current list)

spoogs

  • Posts: 417
Re: Recents posts as formerly on the board index
« Reply #6, on November 13th, 2011, 03:39 PM »
+1 to removing the News fader - my only argument is that I dont use it :P

As for recent post I'm for whatever would allow recent topics, with a [new] icon linking to first unread post since I last visited the topic. I personally dislike recent post since if a topic is active enough all the recent post could be just from that topic and I find the list redundant since I'm likely to read all the posts from where I left off once I visit a topic.
Stick a fork in it SMF

Arantor

  • As powerful as possible, as complex as necessary.
  • Posts: 14,278
Re: Recents posts as formerly on the board index
« Reply #7, on November 13th, 2011, 03:41 PM »
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+1 to removing the News fader - my only argument is that I dont use it
Do most people?
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As for recent post I'm for whatever would allow recent topics, with a [new] icon linking to first unread post since I last visited the topic.
I see no reason why I wouldn't make that an option.
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I personally dislike recent post since if a topic is active enough all the recent post could be just from that topic and I find the list redundant since I'm likely to read all the posts from where I left off once I visit a topic.
*nods* I've seen that. It wouldn't be so bad if it were 'most recent posts, unique by topic', but that's actually near enough the same thing when it gets down to it...

spoogs

  • Posts: 417
Re: Recents posts as formerly on the board index
« Reply #8, on November 13th, 2011, 03:49 PM »
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Do most people?
I've seen a site or 2 that does use; needless to say the 'news' displayed is hardly worth being considered news.
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I see no reason why I wouldn't make that an option.
Sounds like a winner to me  :cool:
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but that's actually near enough the same thing when it gets down to it...
Indeed; the lick displayed for recent post would be a link to the most recent post in the topic while the [new] icon takes you to where you left off.

Arantor

  • As powerful as possible, as complex as necessary.
  • Posts: 14,278
Re: Recents posts as formerly on the board index
« Reply #9, on November 13th, 2011, 03:53 PM »
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I've seen a site or 2 that does use; needless to say the 'news' displayed is hardly worth being considered news.
I've often wondered whether or not the actual 'news' shouldn't instead be taken from a board rather than some arbitrary bit in the admin panel.
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Indeed; the lick displayed for recent post would be a link to the most recent post in the topic while the [new] icon takes you to where you left off.
Don't see why I can't do that without too much fuss. Though it will be slower than simply returning links to the most recent posts on their own; perhaps that should be optional.

spoogs

  • Posts: 417
Re: Recents posts as formerly on the board index
« Reply #10, on November 13th, 2011, 04:12 PM »
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I've often wondered whether or not the actual 'news' shouldn't instead be taken from a board rather than some arbitrary bit in the admin panel.
I share that same view... I have yet to use the actual news section in the ACP as we just use a news and announcements board and be done with it
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Though it will be slower than simply returning links to the most recent posts on their own; perhaps that should be optional.
Either way is fine actually and you know me, I'll always be in favour of performance friendly options.

Arantor

  • As powerful as possible, as complex as necessary.
  • Posts: 14,278
Re: Recents posts as formerly on the board index
« Reply #11, on November 13th, 2011, 04:15 PM »
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I share that same view... I have yet to use the actual news section in the ACP as we just use a news and announcements board and be done with it
There is actually an SMF mod that will let you select a board to use the topics from as news items.
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Either way is fine actually and you know me, I'll always be in favour of performance friendly options.
I try to be performance conscious, but I have no problem with offering both provided that the greedy version isn't default (since there are benefits to both)

I could, incidentally, do something pretty similar as a WedgeDesk plugin for tickets... hmm...

spoogs

  • Posts: 417
Re: Recents posts as formerly on the board index
« Reply #12, on November 13th, 2011, 04:25 PM »
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There is actually an SMF mod that will let you select a board to use the topics from as news items.
SSI Multiple Board News I presume? If so yep I'm well aware of it and use it for a while til we just merged all new into 1 board (might even still have it installed).
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I try to be performance conscious, but I have no problem with offering both provided that the greedy version isn't default (since there are benefits to both)
Options are always  a good thing in my book when they can be proven useful
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I could, incidentally, do something pretty similar as a WedgeDesk plugin for tickets... hmm...
Interesting and that would actually be quite nice since users only see tickets they have access to regardless of department a list of the most recently replied to ticket would be quite handy.

Arantor

  • As powerful as possible, as complex as necessary.
  • Posts: 14,278
Re: Recents posts as formerly on the board index
« Reply #13, on November 13th, 2011, 04:29 PM »
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SSI Multiple Board News I presume? If so yep I'm well aware of it and use it for a while til we just merged all new into 1 board (might even still have it installed).
Nope, I actually mean a mod that replaces the News items in the header with the list of topics from a board. http://custom.simplemachines.org/mods/index.php?mod=825 if you're curious (no, it's not updated for current versions but it shouldn't need *that* much work other than converting the query to 2.0 style)
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Options are always  a good thing in my book when they can be proven useful
Too many options are not always a good thing and I know I've removed options in Wedge as well as added them, but yes, it's whether they can be proven useful.
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Interesting and that would actually be quite nice since users only see tickets they have access to regardless of department a list of the most recently replied to ticket would be quite handy.
The logic and code is virtually identical, too.

spoogs

  • Posts: 417
Re: Recents posts as formerly on the board index
« Reply #14, on November 13th, 2011, 04:38 PM »
Never notice that particular mod, more-so never used SMF 1x, started off with 2.0RC1.2 IIRC so never paid much attention to anything 1x.

I agree that too many options wouldn't be a good thing... precisely why I added "when they can be proven useful" ;D
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The logic and code is virtually identical, too.
Where where you figuring on displaying said list, boardindex, a block in WD, or sidebar?

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