Author Topic: Forum's added features/improvements/changes  (Read 5274 times)

Varti

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Forum's added features/improvements/changes
« on: July 27, 2020, 11:10:38 am »
Hi,

I'm opening this thread to keep you informed about all the changes/new features on the forum. These are the latest changes:

- every board and sub-board has now its own RSS feed which can be now subscribed to individually by clicking on its RSS icon after the boards' name. I have also removed the global RSS feed link at the bottom of the main page which was hardly visible and useless anyway
- I have moved the Embedded Linux Hardware / Software Index board under the Archived Forums board and set it to read-only. The ELSI was a online directory of all the software published for the old Sharp Zaurus handhelds. It it now not reachable anymore since some time, we have a ticket opened to our host asking to get again access to that account, the board will be moved out of the Archive section once we will managed to set it up again
- I have added a favicon on the forum, though for some reason it fails to display under Firefox unless the favicon's URL is directly loaded in the address bar, under Chrome it seems to be loaded as expected

Varti
Planet Gemini PDA WiFi/LTE with Mediatek x27
SL-C1000 running Arch Linux ARM May2017, K30225 Wi-Fi CF Card, 64GB SDXC card
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speculatrix

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Re: Forum's added features/improvements/changes
« Reply #1 on: July 27, 2020, 11:29:15 am »
is there a way to turn on a thanks or approval feature, so that people can upvote a comment or post without having to leave a comment?
thanks
Gemini 4G/Wi-Fi owner, formerly zaurus C3100 and 860 owner; also owner of an HTC Doubleshot, a Zaurus-like phone.

Varti

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Re: Forum's added features/improvements/changes
« Reply #2 on: July 27, 2020, 12:07:13 pm »
is there a way to turn on a thanks or approval feature, so that people can upvote a comment or post without having to leave a comment?
thanks
I have added it now; you should see a "like" image at the top right part of each post, at the left side of the "quote" image. All the likes will be shown as a separate row under each post. Thanks for this suggestion, I like this feature too (pun intended  ;D)

Varti
Planet Gemini PDA WiFi/LTE with Mediatek x27
SL-C1000 running Arch Linux ARM May2017, K30225 Wi-Fi CF Card, 64GB SDXC card
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gymbo

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Re: Forum's added features/improvements/changes
« Reply #3 on: July 27, 2020, 01:32:37 pm »
is there a way to turn on a thanks or approval feature, so that people can upvote a comment or post without having to leave a comment?
thanks
I have added it now; you should see a "like" image at the top right part of each post, at the left side of the "quote" image. All the likes will be shown as a separate row under each post. Thanks for this suggestion, I like this feature too (pun intended  ;D)

Varti
No, there isn't!

(It obviously is there on some browsers, or it might be related to admin rights, as Varti has "liked" a post already, but not for me. Curiously though, I'm seeing "Quote" and "Modify" on every post. The "Quote" is OK, but I REALLY should not have the right to modify every post on this forum?? It MIGHT get stopped if I actually POST the changes, but I at least could start editing a post...)

How does the implementing of different languages on the forum go? It might be "troublesome" to update the forum if you use a lot of modifications and add different languages, but otherwise it should be a simple question of just selecting which to add... Might consider (if you haven't done so already) changing text-code to utf8, as most other seem to produce quite a bit of "gibberish" (see for example the Swedish or Danish parts of the forum in the archives, but that again might come from text-coding on the previous platform) for letters in some languages.

Varti

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Re: Forum's added features/improvements/changes
« Reply #4 on: July 28, 2020, 10:19:43 am »
No, there isn't!

(It obviously is there on some browsers, or it might be related to admin rights, as Varti has "liked" a post already, but not for me.
What browser are you using? This is how the like button should look:

 


Quote
Curiously though, I'm seeing "Quote" and "Modify" on every post. The "Quote" is OK, but I REALLY should not have the right to modify every post on this forum?? It MIGHT get stopped if I actually POST the changes, but I at least could start editing a post...)
Thanks for reporting this. This might have been a side effect of the migration of the permissions for regular members from the old forum. When checking the Regular members permissions the Modify any post option was unchecked, but it was checked in the permissions' list of any regular member. To fix this issue it was enough to set it, save the changes, unsetting it again and save again the changes.

Quote
How does the implementing of different languages on the forum go? It might be "troublesome" to update the forum if you use a lot of modifications and add different languages, but otherwise it should be a simple question of just selecting which to add... Might consider (if you haven't done so already) changing text-code to utf8, as most other seem to produce quite a bit of "gibberish" (see for example the Swedish or Danish parts of the forum in the archives, but that again might come from text-coding on the previous platform) for letters in some languages.
I have already added 4 languages on the forum: French, German, Italian and Hungarian, which are the languages of the regional boards in the Gemini PDA one. I have now to find a suitable mod to allow the selection of a language, I'm trying to figure out what mod has been used here: https://www.simplemachines.org/community/ (see the Select language pulldown menu on the top right side).

These are all the available languages that can be added: https://download.simplemachines.org/index.php?languages

The whole database has been set as UTF-8 during the database migration, and I have done a HTML tags-to-UTF-8 conversion on it, though some gibberish still remains in older posts, as you have already seen. I'll fix this at a later date.

Varti
« Last Edit: July 28, 2020, 10:48:04 am by Varti »
Planet Gemini PDA WiFi/LTE with Mediatek x27
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gymbo

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Re: Forum's added features/improvements/changes
« Reply #5 on: July 28, 2020, 06:13:20 pm »
No, there isn't!

(It obviously is there on some browsers, or it might be related to admin rights, as Varti has "liked" a post already, but not for me.
What browser are you using? This is how the like button should look:

 


I've got the same results with Seamonkey (a Firefox clone/Netscape successor) and Vivaldi, have not tried other browsers. I now see only the "Quote" button, so at least the "modify" "privileges are gone. So for now I neither can GIVE, nor see, any "thumbs up" here   :'(

Regarding the "select language" for the user, I thought that was/is a base function in Simple Machines forums? It is somewhat "hidden" in your profile, but should be relatively easily available there. (I've seen the setting, and opportunities, for changing it here already, but unless you add Norwegian, English is definitively my second choice for language... Of course, it is then only available when you are a member and logged in, but other than for "apply" for a membership, it really shouldn't matter what language the forum is "presented" in, and most of the posts are in English as well...?)

Varti

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Re: Forum's added features/improvements/changes
« Reply #6 on: July 29, 2020, 05:44:32 am »
I have found the reason why the Like button wasn't visible: there's a Like posts setting in the Profile Permissions which I have overlooked, it was checked only for Admins, I have now enabled it for regular members and mods too.

I have also installed the Select language dropdown menu and made some fixes to make it more visible, you can find it under the Search textbox. I have also added the Norwegian language :) Please let me know if you'd like to have any other language installed!

As for the reason to have different languages installed... I remember a German user asking me for a german version of the forum, he didn't speak english and he was only using the german regional Gemini PDA board, so I guess the support for different languages might be useful for someone  :)

Varti
Planet Gemini PDA WiFi/LTE with Mediatek x27
SL-C1000 running Arch Linux ARM May2017, K30225 Wi-Fi CF Card, 64GB SDXC card
and many other Zauruses!

gymbo

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Re: Forum's added features/improvements/changes
« Reply #7 on: July 29, 2020, 06:20:59 am »
....
I have also installed the Select language dropdown menu and made some fixes to make it more visible, you can find it under the Search textbox. I have also added the Norwegian language :) Please let me know if you'd like to have any other language installed!

As for the reason to have different languages installed... I remember a German user asking me for a german version of the forum, he didn't speak english and he was only using the german regional Gemini PDA board, so I guess the support for different languages might be useful for someone  :)

Varti
Yeah, it is "never" wrong to have/give options, so long as it doesn't "mess up" updating, or getting modifications to work, you might want to have as many languages as possible available. But if it was because of "poor" mods, or the languages I had installed, I don't know, but I got some files listed as "old" (mainly related to languages), when updating my Simple Machines forum in the past with some mods and different languages (and somtimes trouble updating at all, but THAT I'm pretty sure was because of mods, not languages...). I think I've seen some remarks that it should be more "streamlined" now though, so hopefully it is a thing of the past. (And if not, you guys managing THIS forum seems to be far more knowledgeable than me, so you should probably be able to handle it anyway.)

By the way, when you are logged in, the setting in your profile for language overrides the pulldown menu under "Search", but that is how it should/ought to be I guess? Is language one of the things one can/do set up when you register a profile, by the way? Otherwise it will still be a bit "hidden", and the setting in your profile will, as I said, override the pulldown menu when logged in...

And now I CAN actually start liking things here as well. And that might be very good, as I have never liked anything here before! ;D 8) ::)

(No, of course I have, I just couldn't resist the pun...)

Varti

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Re: Forum's added features/improvements/changes
« Reply #8 on: July 29, 2020, 11:48:41 am »
Yeah, it is "never" wrong to have/give options, so long as it doesn't "mess up" updating, or getting modifications to work, you might want to have as many languages as possible available. But if it was because of "poor" mods, or the languages I had installed, I don't know, but I got some files listed as "old" (mainly related to languages), when updating my Simple Machines forum in the past with some mods and different languages (and somtimes trouble updating at all, but THAT I'm pretty sure was because of mods, not languages...). I think I've seen some remarks that it should be more "streamlined" now though, so hopefully it is a thing of the past.
I guess that the installed language files are automatically set as old after a forum upgrade, since every added text string remains untranslated until the language add-on is updated. I anyway take care to write down every change I manually do on the forum's files; when I'll do an upgrade I'm planning to revert these changes and uninstall all the mods, then I'll reinstall all the mods and re-apply every change, I hope this way to minimize any issue during the upgrade procedure.

Quote
(And if not, you guys managing THIS forum seems to be far more knowledgeable than me, so you should probably be able to handle it anyway.)
I have learned everything I know about forum maintenance here on OESF in the last few years, with no prior knowledge except for some programming skills. What you need is motivation and the will to learn new things :)

Quote
By the way, when you are logged in, the setting in your profile for language overrides the pulldown menu under "Search", but that is how it should/ought to be I guess? Is language one of the things one can/do set up when you register a profile, by the way? Otherwise it will still be a bit "hidden", and the setting in your profile will, as I said, override the pulldown menu when logged in...
Yes, that is intentional, the pulldown menu is meant as a temporary setting in case someone doesn't speak English and needs help to find the language setting in his profile. The language setting isn't included in the registration procedure, but there are some mods which add this, and it would indeed make sense to have this. I'll add this to my to-do list.

Quote
And now I CAN actually start liking things here as well. And that might be very good, as I have never liked anything here before! ;D 8) ::)

(No, of course I have, I just couldn't resist the pun...)
You got me scared for a couple of seconds...  ;D

Varti
Planet Gemini PDA WiFi/LTE with Mediatek x27
SL-C1000 running Arch Linux ARM May2017, K30225 Wi-Fi CF Card, 64GB SDXC card
and many other Zauruses!

gymbo

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Re: Forum's added features/improvements/changes
« Reply #9 on: July 29, 2020, 02:46:48 pm »
Yeah, it is "never" wrong to have/give options, so long as it doesn't "mess up" updating, or getting modifications to work, you might want to have as many languages as possible available. But if it was because of "poor" mods, or the languages I had installed, I don't know, but I got some files listed as "old" (mainly related to languages), when updating my Simple Machines forum in the past with some mods and different languages (and somtimes trouble updating at all, but THAT I'm pretty sure was because of mods, not languages...). I think I've seen some remarks that it should be more "streamlined" now though, so hopefully it is a thing of the past.
I guess that the installed language files are automatically set as old after a forum upgrade, since every added text string remains untranslated until the language add-on is updated. I anyway take care to write down every change I manually do on the forum's files; when I'll do an upgrade I'm planning to revert these changes and uninstall all the mods, then I'll reinstall all the mods and re-apply every change, I hope this way to minimize any issue during the upgrade procedure.
Really sounds as you should be "safe" then!
Quote
Quote
(And if not, you guys managing THIS forum seems to be far more knowledgeable than me, so you should probably be able to handle it anyway.)
I have learned everything I know about forum maintenance here on OESF in the last few years, with no prior knowledge except for some programming skills. What you need is motivation and the will to learn new things :)
Yeah, I know that, but don't really have the "will" to make the effort. I will probably be able to understand some/what I need to of php-code if I really put my mind to it, but the forum isn't really that important, or much used, to warrant the effort for me...
Quote
Quote
By the way, when you are logged in, the setting in your profile for language overrides the pulldown menu under "Search", but that is how it should/ought to be I guess? Is language one of the things one can/do set up when you register a profile, by the way? Otherwise it will still be a bit "hidden", and the setting in your profile will, as I said, override the pulldown menu when logged in...
Yes, that is intentional, the pulldown menu is meant as a temporary setting in case someone doesn't speak English and needs help to find the language setting in his profile. The language setting isn't included in the registration procedure, but there are some mods which add this, and it would indeed make sense to have this. I'll add this to my to-do list.
As I said, the setting in the profile overrides the setting in the pulldown menu (at least for me), so when you are logged in it would not help you change languages temporarily, so you can easier "find" the setting in the profile in "your" language. So (But?) if it is added to the registration, that should really help, and it would be more visible as well.
Quote
Quote
And now I CAN actually start liking things here as well. And that might be very good, as I have never liked anything here before! ;D 8) ::)

(No, of course I have, I just couldn't resist the pun...)
You got me scared for a couple of seconds...  ;D

Varti
Well, that kind of reminds me, but somewhat in the opposite, of when I was working as a coach for a different group of youths quite a few years ago: They were getting ready to run to do something, I would make some kind of silly comment about something, and they would make just a few steps before collapsing on the floor when they realized what I actually said... ;D If it was because they where "slow" to understand, or because they where (initially) focused on the task at hand, I don't know, but it was kind of fun to watch anyhow. (No, I didn't "set out" to break their concentration, but "life" is serious enough as it is, so I think one should have as much fun with/in it as possible...)

Varti

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Re: Forum's added features/improvements/changes
« Reply #10 on: July 30, 2020, 04:07:50 am »
I have now added a new mod which adds the preferred language selection during the registration procedure.

Varti
Planet Gemini PDA WiFi/LTE with Mediatek x27
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Varti

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Re: Forum's added features/improvements/changes
« Reply #11 on: January 15, 2021, 04:11:08 am »
We have now 3 new tags when writing or editing a post: spoiler, changelog and off-topic.

 


An additional feature for all these new tags is the ability to set the included text as hidden to unregistered users, so only registered users can expand and see the tag's contents. This can be done by adding a guests=no parameter inside the opening tag, e.g.:

Code: [Select]
[spoiler guests=no]Text to be set as hidden[/spoiler]
I have installed this mod in order to have the invite link for the Telegram channel in the IM thread hidden to spambots. It seems that they are able to join private Telegram channels like ours by harvesting invite links published on forums, this should avoid it to happen.

Varti
« Last Edit: January 15, 2021, 04:37:35 am by Varti »
Planet Gemini PDA WiFi/LTE with Mediatek x27
SL-C1000 running Arch Linux ARM May2017, K30225 Wi-Fi CF Card, 64GB SDXC card
and many other Zauruses!