Discussion thread for XenForo 2.2 upgrade - Your input requested

ryanschristmaslights

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Discussion thread relating to XenForo 2.2 upgrade. See below for details:

Update: Your input requested, details at post #9.
 
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ryanschristmaslights

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@darylc: Chat does appear to scroll correctly with new messages in Firefox, so I'd say yes that seems fixed.

@Mark_M: No dark mode in 2.2 sadly, but never say never. I have looked into this and there are some tricky contrast problems that are not yet handled very well from the theming side of things.
 

AAH

I love blinky lights :)
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Not sure if it's related to the upgrade but there was a guy on the FB page who had tried to join but was having no luck getting the conformation email.
 

djgra79

My name is Graham & I love flashing lights!
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Not sure if it's related to the upgrade but there was a guy on the FB page who had tried to join but was having no luck getting the conformation email.
I've PM'd Ryan with a screenshot to have a look, I can't see anything from my end.
 

ryanschristmaslights

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@AAH The missing email issue is unrelated to the upgrade. Sometimes an ISP will decide to reject our emails at their end, and despite contacting them to request unblocking this can drag on and on. Until the ISP responds and takes action, there is a targeted notice pinned to the top of every page for any accounts with affected email addresses. The person that you're referring to did complete their registration with a confirmed email address :).

Also thanks @OzAz, I adjusted the wiki editor shortly after you posted this. There's potential confusion as the wiki page and regular URL button both use the chain icon. So what I've done is change the wiki page icon to use a heavier, bolder icon variant. Another option might be to instead use the 'W' icon (as in Wikipedia). Which of these options makes the most sense to you? I have reorganised the buttons within the wiki section so that the third group is exclusively for wiki commands. Other buttons from this group not unique to the wiki were moved into the second group.

Wiki editor button tweaks



I have some additional site tweaks that could be introduced but first I'd like your feedback on whether any/all of them should be implemented.

  1. Notable members section: Proposing two new lists, one for Generous elves and another for Community project designers. I'm particularly interested in hearing from current/past Generous elves and Community project designers for whether you'd be happy (or not) with these potential additions to Notable members.
    • A Generous elves block would consist of members with Generous elf shown beneath their name in posts. This would be a way of offering greater recognition to our current Generous elves in return for their contribution towards site costs. I could set up this list to either be sorted alphabetically or by last seen date. My preference is last seen date as then the names would shuffle around regularly. This would not be a leaderboard.
    • A Community project designer block for members with Community project designer beneath their name in posts. The aim of this list would be to make it easier to know who is one. The order could be alphabetical or sorted by last seen date, with the latter IMO being more useful as it promotes those who were most recently logged in. This list could also include a very short (e.g. 2-3 words) description of the designer's involvement (E.g. The broad category of item or project that this person is known for that fulfills a particular need in the community). The reason this has to be short is that it would display alongside their name (like the number of messages for members in the most messages list) and there is not enough room for anything longer.
  2. XenForo 2.2 Giphy exampleForum and chat messages and Giphy: Included with XenForo 2.2 is Giphy support, although it is disabled by default. This is an additional editor button and works similarly to the smiley/emoji search menu. The difference is that the results are animated GIFs. Does anybody want this Giphy feature or do you think it could get annoying? I think that I'm inclined to keep this off unless there is a reasonable amount of feedback requesting for it.
  3. Display videos and commenting: Has anyone ever wanted to leave a comment on a display video? Right now you can't, but it is something I could implement at a later stage. This would not be a trivial change, so your responses would help me determine whether it is feasible to add this functionality.
  4. Chat to forum idea: Ever since chat was rolled out many years ago it continues to be home to interesting and/or helpful discussions, such as from sharing progress on a prop you're building or offering suggestions to someone's query, just to name a couple. One ongoing limitation is that only the people who are logged into chat at the point a discussion unfolds will get to see it. But what if moderators in the chat were provided a tool that lets them copy some of these discussions into the forum? The aim of opening up some chat discussions to a wider group of members via a forum thread would be to give more people the opportunity of reading and learning from them. Copied chat room messages would be posted under the original author's account, just as if they posted it in the forum themselves. For those that do utilise our chat room, do you have any concerns with this 'chat to forum' export idea?

    Two sorts of chat discussions come to mind that copying to forum thread might make sense for:
    • Showing off construction of a prop (e.g. pictures and follow-on discussion) - perhaps someone else will see and like how you made it and will want to do something similar with their own display, and
    • Helpful solutions and suggestions to some queries - this might be the sort of thing that other members may face and so it could be a help to them with copying the discussion into the forum.

    Please do tell me what you think of this. If a chat room discussion you were a part of was copied into the forum would you be OK/happy about that or is it all a bad idea? Would it discourage you from chatting (I'd hope not)?

So what do you think? Thanks for reading 🙂.
 

AAH

I love blinky lights :)
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I'm all for notable members to get higher priority. Not for the purposes of self aggrandisation but to make them easier to find. With regards to that it would be good if the staff members were easier to find. Maybe even as a direct option on the members pulldown.
I need to get back to chat more often. I find I'm on and off the computer far more often than I used to be and I just don't get the time to sit and chat. It is great seeing the chat tags that come up. Chat is also definitely where a lot of the site, prop, xlights and product developments happen.
 

AAH

I love blinky lights :)
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The staff make the bottom of that list. Personally I'd like to see them at the top of the list. If anyone has a problem it should be easy to find them. It's not real hard but I'm always for making things as easy as possible for people.

While we are discussing the forum upgrades what does the push notifications do? It sends a message to a device but what 1? I generally access ACL via laptop and Firefox but can also do it via Chrome and on my Android phone and have used all 3. Does it use the last logged on device?
 

ryanschristmaslights

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It sends a message to a device but what 1

Any and every device you enable them for. Unfortunately, there is no concept of read tracking or ability to recall sent push notifications. XenForo push notifications are supposed to stop trying to reach any further opted-in devices past 24 hours. As I alluded to in the upgrade announcement, if someone does decide to enable push on multiple devices, each one of those devices gets its own notification, meaning that person might start accessing a particular piece of content before realising they've already read it on some other device.

TL:DR: Push notifications on/off is a device setting. However what types of notifications you'd like is an account-based setting (select one/both/none of Alert and Push for each type)
 
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djgra79

My name is Graham & I love flashing lights!
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I'm getting push notifications on my phone (Samsung Android) and I get a little bell icon to tell me when i'm tagged in chat or threads, as well as thread posts I have commented on. As I cant access ACL through work laptop anymore I find this a good trade off to appease my FOMO :D

I'm all for chat to forum exports, as I think its a great idea to more permanently capture "ah-ha" or good details that would be benefit to users of the site that aren't in chat. So long as the chatters themselves are OK to have the conversation documented forever, I think its fine.
 

Zuseleets

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1. I agree with all that Alan mentioned. Especially that it is difficult to locate where the current notable members are, it feels a little like a rabbit warren trying to locate it.
2. I like Giphy. Moderators have the ability to delete them if need be, and we are all good at voicing our opinion in chat if they become annoying. No one has over used the feature, yet I feel?

3. YES! Comments on display videos is a excellent option, especially for members who dont know how to use the site very well and can easily get in contact with the owner of the video. It would be cool if we get notified when someone comments on our video, or when a comment is replied to. Similiar to YT, it would be good to have a "like" option on a comment so that the people get acknowledgement for their comment if the owner of the video doesnt wish to reply.

4. I am in two minds about sharing chat messages to the forum. I feel as though it's a "You snooze you lose" moment when people aren't in chat to see messages... Maybe encouraging chatters to share their idea to the forum as well? I think also that some prefer to share to a small crowd in the chat room, knowing that it won't be publicly displayed? Then again, I look at it from another angle - I've been intended on sharing progress on my build this year to the forum, but find it all a little overwhelming to share. If a little elf came along and did it all for me, that would be sweet!
 
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