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Should We Move To A New Forum Platform?

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Gary Lewis

Re: Should We Move To A New Forum Platform?

Administrator

Interesting! Good find, Jeff. So the issue is with Chrome, not InVision.

Gary, AKA "Gary fellow": Profile

Dad's: '81 F150 Ranger XLT 4x4: Down for restomod: Full-roller "stroked 351M" w/Trick Flow heads & intake, EEC-V SEFI/E4OD/3.50 gears w/Kevlar clutches
Blue: 2015 F150 Platinum 4x4 SuperCrew wearing Blue Jeans & sporting a 3.5L EB & Max Tow
Big Blue: 1985 F250HD 4x4: 460/ZF5/3.55's, D60 w/Ox locker & 10.25 Sterling/Trutrac, Blue Top & Borgeson, & EEC-V MAF/SEFI

BigBrother-84

Re: Should We Move To A New Forum Platform?

phpBB testing: I do not find how to create a new topic (outside of the general topics already listed there).

InVision testing: Is there a way to “pin” general topics, so a member’s new topic won’t go at the top of the list (similar to Nabble)?

Jeff / 1984 F350 Crew Cab 4x4/5.8L w351 4V/ T18/ D50 4.10 front/ 8' bed.
Restored 2019-2022.
Nicknamed «Big Brother 1984», due to its soooo-looong shape & nod to George Orwell's 1984 famous novel.

Gary Lewis

Re: Should We Move To A New Forum Platform?

Administrator

Jeff - In phpBB you should be able to start a new topic by selecting one of the existing forums.

For instance on the home page, the first page you get to when selecting Test Forums/phpBB Test Forum in the menu, it says "Forum" and then lists the forums I've created starting with New Members Start Here and ending with General Discussion. You can select any of those forums and then start a new discussion in it. But you may not be able to create new "forums" as you aren't an admin. I don't know, but you can tell me.

As for InVision, I don't see a way to pin things, although I could easily be missing it. But you can filter things by: recently updated; title; start date; most viewed; most replies; or custom. However, that doesn't mean that what you see is what I see.

So it looks like phpBB is very structured. You have a set of forums and post topics within them. And InVision doesn't look structured at all. But I've not set InVision up the way I have phpBB so I'm guessing that it could be structured as well. Maybe I need to take some time to structure InVision like phpBB is?

Your thoughts, please.

Gary, AKA "Gary fellow": Profile

BigBrother-84

Re: Should We Move To A New Forum Platform?

Gary, I am confused, sorry.

I propose to start with Nabble example, and maybe name things correctly.
In the picture below, Nabble titles things as «Sub-Forums» and «Topics» (red oval).
Correct me if I am wrong, am I ok understanding that there are three levels of publications:
1- Sub-Forums - green square (here all pinned, don’t know if they can be “lose”).
2- Pinned topics - blue square (by admin).
3- Members topics - yellow square (the more recent on top, pushing older publications down the list).

I personally find Nabble structure clear and easy to consult.
Entering the Forum in Nabble enables at a first glance to identify what’s new.
This structure seems the more efficient IMHO.

InVision is more “free for all”, all recent publications on top. It needs to be more structured.

phpBB is too rigid. Only «sub-forums», new things aren’t easy to identify, everything looks scattered. We need to visit each sub-forum to dig in and find new topics, or topics we are participating to or reading at.

Jeff / 1984 F350 Crew Cab 4x4/5.8L w351 4V/ T18/ D50 4.10 front/ 8' bed.
Restored 2019-2022.
Nicknamed «Big Brother 1984», due to its soooo-looong shape & nod to George Orwell's 1984 famous novel.

Gary Lewis

Re: Should We Move To A New Forum Platform?

Administrator

Jeff - I don't think your understanding of Nabble is exactly right. There really are only forums, sub-forums, and topics. Pinning just keeps things at the top of the list and has nothing to do with the structure.

Something with a folder icon is a forum and can have another forum within it, which would be a sub-forum. And forums can have topics within them, meaning threads.

BUT, don't get hung up on understanding Nabble as both InVision & phpBB are different from Nabble and from each other. And I'm struggling to understand them.

I don't know that it is phpBB's fault that it feels too rigid. That may be my fault for the way I've put it together. Ditto for inVision.

So what I'm trying to do at the moment is to structure both of them essentially the same way - the way we have Nabble structured. I'm pretty much there on phpBB, but the biggest difference to Nabble is that it doesn't appear that you can have topics/threads in the main section. So I created General Discussion for everything that doesn't fit in the forums above.

Does that make sense? What suggestions do you have?

Please remember that many of the issues you are seeing are not problems with the platform but the way I've implemented it. And since I don't have any experience with that platform I may well not have done a good job and need HELP!

Gary, AKA "Gary fellow": Profile

Gary Lewis

Re: Should We Move To A New Forum Platform?

Administrator

I've made some progress wrapping my head around how InVision works. Still not quite there, but this page on the InVision Community has helped. It says:

Before you begin, it is important to know the difference in the various types available.

Categories - Containers in which you would place forums. Every forum must be within a category of some description.

Discussions - A forum built for classic topics

Questions - A question and answer type forum, where users can vote up/down the answers to those questions

Redirect - This would place a link in place of a forum location, which can link to any location of your choosing.

I've not played with Questions or Redirects yet, but have done quite a bit with Categories & Discussions. Turns out that Categories are what I'd call a folder that will hold Discussions. You cannot start a thread in a Category but you can in a Discussion.

The issue is that Discussions must be in a Category. Given that I've set up an overarching Category called Bullnose Forum and within it I've added things we recognize, like NMSH, Projects, etc. But since you can't start a thread in a Category you cannot post directly in Bullnose Forum. Given that I've created a Discussion called General Discussions which houses WHYDTYTT as well as all other threads.

Does that make sense? I'm really struggling to figure this out, so please tell me if it should be done differently.

And, by the way, you can pin topics. WHYDTYTT is pinned to the top of General Discussions.

Gary, AKA "Gary fellow": Profile

BigBrother-84

Re: Should We Move To A New Forum Platform?

In reply to this post by Gary Lewis

Gary Lewis wrote

I'm pretty much there on phpBB, but the biggest difference to Nabble is that it doesn't appear that you can have topics/threads in the main section.

Ok, I now understand why my first impression is that phpBB is more rigid and a bit “cold”.

Gary Lewis wrote

So I created General Discussion for everything that doesn't fit in the forums above.
Does that make sense? What suggestions do you have?

That’s a bypass, we can certainly deal with it. But I’ll search if there’s a way to have members topics on the main page. Who knows.

About the Platforms Comparison Chart, I would add in the « Ought To Have» section:
When navigating in a thread, ability to directly jump to a specific page number.

Jeff / 1984 F350 Crew Cab 4x4/5.8L w351 4V/ T18/ D50 4.10 front/ 8' bed.
Restored 2019-2022.
Nicknamed «Big Brother 1984», due to its soooo-looong shape & nod to George Orwell's 1984 famous novel.

Gary Lewis

Re: Should We Move To A New Forum Platform?

Administrator

Ok, we have "When navigating in a thread, ability to directly jump to a specific page number" in the comparison. But please tell me how you want each rated.

And the General Discussion thing is in InVision also. Appears to be across both platforms if I'm not missing something.

Gary, AKA "Gary fellow": Profile

BigBrother-84

Re: Should We Move To A New Forum Platform?

Gary Lewis wrote

Ok, we have "When navigating in a thread, ability to directly jump to a specific page number" in the comparison. But please tell me how you want each rated.

Well, I suppose it’s 100% or zero.
It’s possible, or it’s not.
For this feature, Nabble gets zero. We can’t jump to a page which number isn’t displayed.
Not sure for the other platforms.
I’ll have to test.

Gary Lewis wrote

And the General Discussion thing is in InVision also. Appears to be across both platforms if I'm not missing something.

Yep, I did see that.
But I’ll have to play around and look how it works.

Question: Is there a way to see if we read or not the most recent interaction that have occurred in a thread? I mean similar than the blue vs purple in Nabble?
For the moment, seems that we only have the date in InVision (and phoBB if I’m right) no way to see if I have read or not.
If so, there’s a certain loss of time to go back to a thread in order to verify if we already read it or not.

Jeff / 1984 F350 Crew Cab 4x4/5.8L w351 4V/ T18/ D50 4.10 front/ 8' bed.
Restored 2019-2022.
Nicknamed «Big Brother 1984», due to its soooo-looong shape & nod to George Orwell's 1984 famous novel.

Gary Lewis

Re: Should We Move To A New Forum Platform?

Administrator

Jeff - If I understand what you mean by "We can’t jump to a page which number isn’t displayed", this issue is that there are 368 #'s to display and not enough real estate on the page to do it with. So Nabble shows you seven pages around the page you are on, three pages ahead of and three pages behind.

I don't know of a better approach, but I agree it isn't ideal. Maybe the problem is with the guy that wrote so much?

Don't know how either phpBB or InVision handle that as we obviously don't have that many pages to test. But both of them do show the pages. In fact on desktops InVision shows you a list of page numbers when you hover over the thread so you can pick where to start.

And the InVision post/page limit was set at 25 so I took it down to 10 so we could have more pages.

As for the notifications that someone has posted, it is hard to tell with so few of posts. Maybe you and I need to post more on both platforms?

Gary, AKA "Gary fellow": Profile

BigBrother-84

Re: Should We Move To A New Forum Platform?

Gary Lewis wrote

If I understand what you mean by "We can’t jump to a page which number isn’t displayed", this issue is that there are 368 #'s to display and not enough real estate on the page to do it with. So Nabble shows you seven pages around the page you are on, three pages ahead of and three pages behind.

Yep, not really often but sometimes it happened that I was searching for something and wanted to jump couple of pages ahead (or back) of the listed ones. The only way in Nabble is to click one by one. That could be a plus for easier browsing, even though not a major issue.

Gary Lewis wrote

As for the notifications that someone has posted, it is hard to tell with so few of posts. Maybe you and I need to post more on both platforms?

Yep, you’re right.
And this is a more important issue (IMHO). Seeing at a first glance what’s going on is a major point.
Nabble offers that.

Jeff / 1984 F350 Crew Cab 4x4/5.8L w351 4V/ T18/ D50 4.10 front/ 8' bed.
Restored 2019-2022.
Nicknamed «Big Brother 1984», due to its soooo-looong shape & nod to George Orwell's 1984 famous novel.

Gary Lewis

Re: Should We Move To A New Forum Platform?

Administrator

I'm confused with phpBB. Below is my view of the "board index" and it would seem to show that there are several threads I've not read because they are in bold. But that's not true as I've read the ones in red and even created the one in green. And after going to read them all again it still looks that way.

Please post a time or two on phpBB so I can see what, if anything, changes.

Gary, AKA "Gary fellow": Profile

Gary Lewis

Re: Should We Move To A New Forum Platform?

Administrator

Also, what's your view of both phpBB and InVision's board index/main page? Do you see my recent posts highlighted?

Gary, AKA "Gary fellow": Profile

BigBrother-84

Re: Should We Move To A New Forum Platform?

In reply to this post by Gary Lewis

Gary Lewis wrote

Please post a time or two on phpBB so I can see what, if anything, changes.

Done.
I posted in “General Discussion/Kicking up the post count” and in “Ford Forum”.

Jeff / 1984 F350 Crew Cab 4x4/5.8L w351 4V/ T18/ D50 4.10 front/ 8' bed.
Restored 2019-2022.
Nicknamed «Big Brother 1984», due to its soooo-looong shape & nod to George Orwell's 1984 famous novel.

BigBrother-84

Re: Should We Move To A New Forum Platform?

In reply to this post by Gary Lewis

Gary Lewis wrote

Also, what's your view of both phpBB and InVision's board index/main page? Do you see my recent posts highlighted?

Here is what I see on my iPhone, Main page and General Discussion page:

EDIT: Just for testing purpose, I will create a second user in each platform, to see how "others" appear in discussions, reactions. I'll discuss with my "alter ego".
So Admin please don't be surprised!

Jeff / 1984 F350 Crew Cab 4x4/5.8L w351 4V/ T18/ D50 4.10 front/ 8' bed.
Restored 2019-2022.
Nicknamed «Big Brother 1984», due to its soooo-looong shape & nod to George Orwell's 1984 famous novel.

BigBrother-84

Re: Should We Move To A New Forum Platform?

I made some tests in phpBB and InVision.
Both have kind of "already read" flagging feature.
Not sure to well understand how it works exactly, I mean that the "mother" thread «General Discussions» aspect changes in phpBB but not in InVision.

What I understand :
• phpBB changes if you click on the title, no matter if your read all the content or not (turns from red to black);
• InVision changes (lose the bold) if you read all posts included in the main thread, to the last page of each.

Jeff / 1984 F350 Crew Cab 4x4/5.8L w351 4V/ T18/ D50 4.10 front/ 8' bed.
Restored 2019-2022.
Nicknamed «Big Brother 1984», due to its soooo-looong shape & nod to George Orwell's 1984 famous novel.

Gary Lewis

Re: Should We Move To A New Forum Platform?

Administrator

BigBrother-84 wrote

What I understand :
• phpBB changes if you click on the title, no matter if your read all the content or not (turns from red to black);
• InVision changes (lose the bold) if you read all posts included in the main thread, to the last page of each.

Jeff - I'm seeing the same thing. But I'm finding that it is far easier to see the red vs black on phpBB than the bold vs plain on InVision.

And I'm liking the layout of phpBB more than I am that of InVision. I like the clean look of phpBB, shown on the left.

But what do all y'all think?

Gary, AKA "Gary fellow": Profile

Gary Lewis

Re: Should We Move To A New Forum Platform?

Administrator

Jeff - I need your help. I'm coming to the conclusion that phpBB is not going to do what I think we need it to do because:

I can't figure out how to get a permalink to a post in phpBB. I think Chris said he'd see what he can do when he gets back from his trip, but maybe you can?

The ability to post a link is poor. Yes, you can click the chain link icon and it'll drop in the html code with the curser between the two brackets so all you have to do is paste in the link. But I'd like you to try to cause it to make a link out of a word instead of having the whole link showing in the post.

And creating bulleted or numbered lists is not happening for me. Could you try?

So if we can't get the permalink and link things working I think we shouldn't go any farther with phpBB. The bulleted & numbered lists things are just "ought to haves", but permalinks and the ability to turn a word or words into a hyperlink are required.

Gary, AKA "Gary fellow": Profile

Gary Lewis

Re: Should We Move To A New Forum Platform?

Administrator

Jeff - There is a way to get a permalink on phpBB. Just right-click the title of the post, the one circled in red below. Then click Copy Link Address and you have it.

However, that's certainly not intuitively obvious to the casual observer, so I gave it an orange thumbs-down in the spreadsheet. On the other hand, clicking the three dots on InVision isn't the most obvious thing either, so might that be an orange thumbs-up?

And, how do either of those work on an phone?

Gary, AKA "Gary fellow": Profile

BigBrother-84

Re: Should We Move To A New Forum Platform?

Gary Lewis wrote

Jeff - There is a way to get a permalink on phpBB. Just right-click the title of the post, the one circled in red below. Then click Copy Link Address and you have it.

Thanks Gary… But I found it since that post.

I agree it is not very intuitive. And less with an iPhone, in which you don’t have the “right-click”. But it works if you maintain the pressure on the title, and then a menu appears enabling to copy the link.

Jeff / 1984 F350 Crew Cab 4x4/5.8L w351 4V/ T18/ D50 4.10 front/ 8' bed.
Restored 2019-2022.
Nicknamed «Big Brother 1984», due to its soooo-looong shape & nod to George Orwell's 1984 famous novel.

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