UBB.Developers Forums General Discussion Chit Chat Help Wanted: reply within.

We have been discussing how to organize this site to make it easier to use and more informative in regards to the information you want. Please let us know what you find of most interest here and what more can be done to improve things. Also let us know what you don't find of use as well. (tactfully please)



What I see as a problem is that modifications for older versions of .threads are basicly taking up space. The V5 board has had very little use since the release of the V6 series. The "How do I" board seems to get a number of questions that could have been better served in topic related boards that already exist. Is this because these questions seem to be answered more quickly there or is this because the poster of the question wasn't quite sure where it fit? I think the posted index of modifications with links to the related mods in "V6 Beta Modifications" is a better solution than the "Finished Modifications" board because there always seems to be changes needed at some point.

These are just my opinions though. I'm looking forward to hearing what everyone has to say.

I personally don't mind with the way the forum is set up. As for the v5 mods.... well I am using 6.1 so it doesn't apply to me...

What I would like to see - and here is where we can all help - is a more structured way of uploading our modifications and all modifications to have a "life"

We have two boards, one for the finished and one for the beta. It appears to me that most of us post on the beta rather the finished ones.

Here is what I suggest:

We have only one board for all modifications.

This board should have a new link - something like "Post Modification" which will lead to a new post entry screen. In that screen we will have combo boxes etc to allow the poster to enter version number for the modification, name, credits, alterations to the database etc. and then upload the file. The script behind it will create a new post and format it appropriately (visual formatting) and attach the file in it. This way we can have uniformity in all the modifications.

Additionally a new table can be created which will hold all information concerning modifications etc. If a user has to upload a new updated version, then the edit screen of the initial post (where the first version of the modification was uploaded) will allow you to select a new version, upload a new file etc. and update the comments on the original post to alert the users on what has been done.

The versions of each modification can be decided before hand and a sticky post at the top of that board can query all the modifications and present them in a list view with sort options, version, poster etc.

I hope I didn't give anyone a headache...

If you guys/girls think that this would be useful, I can start working on a design and present it here. After agreeing on the design we can start implementing it.

This is my 2 drachmas (wait a minute - it is now cents ) worth

Warm regards

Nikos

thank you It's been 3-4 months since the v5 forums have been posted in, we can probably archive them at the bottom, choose to not show them with 6.2 but allow them to still be available as read-only in case someone needs something

I think less posts are in the 'finished' forum because they are more stable and in less need of support I do think we need some way of identifying mods that reach 'stable/finished' stage so those with more mission-critical sites can feel a bit safer in installing them. Face it, with a database solution, some mods can make your whole forum go bye-bye if they aren't stable

If we get a general consensus on this, I'd love to see a mockup of what you are proposing Nikos, I could understand it better

For everyone, this is a chance to have great input into the direction of the site for 2003.. please let us know with constructive criticism how you would change things - examples please

I agree that the modifications need better orginization. I was also thinking of creating a script that could be linked to froma sticky post that would open a new window and display all main posts with files attached so that there would be no need to try and maintain a list of modifications manually. I'm not sure how heavy we want to hit the database up on this though. It shouldn't be to hard to have an option to load a different template to format modification posts in a simular manor to keep things uniform. There would be a small amount of coding needed in addpost.php to make it work but it wouldn't be to much.

Thanks for the input Nikos

This is a small sample of what I had in mind. The Revision history will be populated automatically and the input screen will be similar to the one attached.

Make no mistake, this will need careful thinking before implementation to allow for many things to be integrated in the future but I believe it is worth it.

Let us hear what the others say about this and other issues we might need to address.

Warm regards

Nikos

I really like that a lot Nikos


Your right in that it would need a dedicated table of it's own for us to place and manage modifications but I dont think there is any way around that.

My thought was to make a forum to hold all of the "Final" hacks and mods. Basically like a download section. Have the user only post the mod and instructions, but don't let anyone reply. This would keep things organized as far as when they were uploaded, and always stay in the same order.

Then keep discussion about a hack in a seperate forum. I don't know, I just find it hard to find hacks when people sometimes reply to 2 month old hacks, they appear at top, always bumping off to the second page, people uploading attachments within 5 pages of discussion...

So if the way hacks were made available a bit easier to find and download, that would be great

That might be a good idea. Maybe provide a link within the final hack to the discussion about the hack. That way the hacks stay nice and clean and each hack has it's own discussion.

If we keep all modifications in a separate table, we can easily parse that table and provide all the mods in a list, searchable by keywords and categorized.

Indeed a "locked" post with the original modification would be nice, but I fear that discussing about the particular modification elsewhere (in another thread) might cause confusion....

Warm regards

Nikos

It's possible that such a setup would cause some confusion but it would probably be the same amount of confusion caused by a seperated modifications table. Would the mods be discussed and tracked in this special table also?

Perhaps doing as msula/Scream suggested would be the cleaner route?

I remember asking for help with an email client in the 'How do I?' forum. It felt odd because it's for threads related questions, but it was technical so I didn't want to put it in the chit chat forum. Maybe a 'How do I?' forum for non-threads questions could work. That's my thoughts. As far as V5, I got my licence just about a month before they went to V6 so I really don't care. If no one reads or posts in the forum, I say delete it

I don't think so Dave. I was moving towards having a table specific for the mods to track their version, revisions, etc but the main discussions to be with normal posting.

How about extending a bit what Scream said: If we have all our mods in one place, and the original post is "locked" - so to speak - for the author and admins/moderators, then for the discussions concerning the modification itself, we can alter a bit the post screen to include a combo box, which will list all the modifications. Once the user selects a particular modification, a link to the original post is passed at the top/bottom of the post, so we keep track on what is where....

Warm regards

Nikos

I'm not quite clear on how the combo box should work. Is this to be in frames? (mod post/ discussion post)

is it possible to have a seperate page displaying the mods in alpha order with a short description/keywords next to it, but this page is jsust reading what's been posted in the mods forum? (Something like what you are doing with the attachments pal, dave ) We have already made changes here so people can keep the latest version in the first post. I think discussion should remain in the mod's thread tho.. the suggestions so far are beginning to lean to having discussion in this seperate table, which is going back to our current setup No matter where we have the mods stored, if there are more than 25 or so of them, they are gonna be read across more than one page, so some searching will still need to be done

Alpha-ordered with a short description/keywords in a clean table-style page(s) would be easier to scan. (Similar to the attachmentspal).

We gotta remember the developers too... if they aren't gonna update the first post of a thread, I don't think you'll get them to update a seperate database table either.:p

This was what I was thinking of also. Along the lines of the attachment list pal display. But dedicated to a specific board and displaying the main posts so viewers can see what the mod is all about. This would be an easy script to put together.

I agree with what Allen and you said with regards to the File attachment pal approach - screen for the mods.

If we are going to take this approach, forget about the combo box that I mentioned earlier.

Warm regards

Nikos

I like Allen's idea for the Alphabetical list.

Also... discussions and problems etc.. with the mod need to be in that forum. Otherwise it's too difficult to find out what it does and doesn't do etc....

I also thin that there should only be one forum for mods.... the two forums are confusing.

Maybe a new set of post icons there.... specific to just that forum. One icon could indicate beta... another finished etc....

You can edit the post and change the post icon.

I've hacked the templates before to display a certain template in a certain forum. I bet the same could be done with the post icons template.

[]
Maybe a new set of post icons there.... specific to just that forum. One icon could indicate beta... another finished etc....

You can edit the post and change the post icon.
[/]

that might workout well...

What do you think about the length of threads? So many people ask the same question over and over in longer threads because they don't stop to read what has gone before... should we set a 5-7 page limit and start new threads for the more popular mods?

Maybe the more popular threads /mods - can have different version numbers.

Therefore, as each modification is made to the original file, then the version number is changed slightly - then we can either start a new thread each version, or every few versions. (depending upon the number of revisions / length of thread).

I realise some mods already have different verison numbers, but others do not, and it may be better to stick to one method.

Also - I am not too keen on just one forum for both beta and finished - simply because several people would be happier sticking to the finished mods forum, and never venturing to the beta section - if they were combined, then (even with different icons), it would be harder for that person to search out the finished mods - which could easily be on page 2 or 3.

If a mod went from beta to final, the icon might change, but the thread would contain all the beta questions - yes it could be closed, and a new thread opened, but then surely the one forum will get even bigger...

(unless I have missed the whole gist of the messages above, and mis-understood the theory )

Re: long mod threads

I agree with closing long mod threads and starting new threads. The new thread should contain a summary of any errata concerning the mod that was brought up in the old thread, so that you don't have to read the old thread to find out if there are any issues with the mod.

By the way, when I publish a revision to a mod that someone else wrote, I like to list the revision history, including author(s). For example:

...
AUTHORS: sixpack69, Dr_Manhattan, Max Fisch, Lisa_P, Astaran, Dave_L
...
HISTORY:
2001-05-04 sixpack69 - Original release (UBB.threads version 5).
2001-07-14 Dr_Manhattan - Reworked.
2001-11-09 Dr_Manhattan - Revised.
2002-02-13 Max Fisch - Modified to include more database conversion.
2002-05-29 Lisa_P - Adapted for UBB.threads version 6.
2002-06-25 Astaran - Added fix so that hack would work correctly when old and new usernames differ only in alphabetic case.
2002-07-06 Dave_L - Expanded displayed information on entry form, and added same checks that are in adduser.php.
2002-07-10 Dave_L - Added more columns to username conversion.
...

REFERENCES:
Plug-in: change username
Change Username Hack, reposted
Change Username Hack
Welcome Message, Username Change

It's hard to pick this info out of the existing mod threads. Maybe this is more an issue of people keeping the mod documentation up to date as they revise it.

I like this method. As I have gone through the beta forum and I get lost at times to figger out what has changed to some mods as I am new to php. I know this would be a lot of work but for some of us that have little to no exp in php we would have a better idea on what is going on with the mod.

Totally agree with this approach. It not only gives you the revision history but also gives credit to the ones that worked on the modification.

It would be great if we can automate this (the revision history I mean).

Warm regards

Nikos