Wedge
Public area => The Pub => Features => Topic started by: Arantor on February 29th, 2012, 05:17 PM
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So Nao suggested a change of the Configuration menu to:
More like... (When it comes to entry names.)
Configuration
Features and Settings
General
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Pretty URLs
Moderation
Settings
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Anti-Spam
Warnings
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Filters
Add filter
(I'm also positive Pretty URLs configuration could still be moved somewhere else, so that Features and Settings could let go of the sub-menus.)
OK, here's a thought.
Move Pretty URLs to under Server (as a top level item), then look at moving the items in Features and Settings > General to other pages (creating new pages if necessary, e.g. Who's Online is virtually at enough items to warrant a small page of its own, especially if permissions is moved there too, and the page can be used for admin information purposes too)
That would get rid of Features and Settings entirely (which also suits me quite a bit). As far as Moderation goes, I'm inclined to push that in different ways, moving the warning system stuff under Members > Warnings (since I've talked about putting more options in there anyway)
After that, I'd probably put Filters under Forum somewhere as a top level item (with Add as a sub item in the menu) and Anti-Spam in Members too (again as a top level item, I figure people are going to want to get there in a hurry, and I do imagine there will be mods that will expand that section anyway should they choose to do so; they don't *have* to use the plugins area though it is of course encouraged)
Part of the problem is that most of the Forum stuff is forum specific configuration while what the Configuration area is for is really for 'not forum but *site wide* stuff', except that we don't have much that it is site wide without being quite specific to the forum areas of the installation - there's languages and themes, because they don't deal with the acts of posting etc. and the forum content.
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Thoughts?
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Agreed buy I also would like to see a page that gathers all of the options one might want to set on first setup. Like shortcuts or so.
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I'm slightly wary of having a page of 'what one might want to set on first setup' because it seems like it'd be different in every case, and I'm eager to not clutter the page more than is necessary - that's why I didn't commit the 'favourites' thing I tried out, because I found it didn't really add anything that useful to it (even if it were at individual subpages, it doesn't add anything *that* useful)
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Multiple pages = longer to go through them all... :(
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Oh, sure, but what do you set up first on a site?
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Plenty of stuff!
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But what?
You see, the odds are quite strongly in favour of setting up different things depending on the forum's use.
Mind you, I have an idea about that, that's quite a bit separate to what you're suggesting but should achieve the same result.
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Here's a (bad) mockup of the idea I had for doing this.
Thoughts?
The idea is to point you in the directions of stuff you're likely to want to change up front, rather than anything else.
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That is a good idea and could be expanded on, maybe have messages like that to remind admins to preform maintenance tasks like changing spam settings and other stuff from time to time.
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Interesting idea. I'd want to be very careful about it because it could quickly get irritating, but the idea's pretty sound, I think. The way this is currently implemented is that once you hit the 'don't show me again' button, it's spirited away and won't come back without a DB edit.
The thing I'd want to avoid in particular is having something date related, e.g. 6 months since last change of x, and admins electing to skip it a few times, until they get to the point where they either subconsciously ignore it, or ask how to make it go away.
I would also note that my original question to Nao hasn't been answered - namely what key things you'd put in there for 'newcomers', but I'm certainly not averse to growing this into a bigger feature, perhaps even as far as a wizard for helping you find things if you're a newcomer?
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I always find wizard type things to be helpful, something like "create your first category" and then create your first board. Perhaps an interactive tour of the posting/board handling as well along with management. Also, something like "If you want to do x, you can go at y".
As far as the menu goes, I like the proposed ideas. It can use some re-organising.
Just me 2M$.
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Well, it'll come with a category and a board pre-defined, so you won't ever have to go through 'create your first' as it were... while I think wizards have a place, I don't want to throw them in everywhere (not just because of the non-trivial development time it would take)
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Would it be ok to add a hook there for extension? Someone might want to us e it in their plugin (dvunno what)
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Sure, I can do that. Right now it's not even using language strings, it's simply hacked into the template directly, but with the positive feedback I guess I can commit it properly.