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Marking a discussion thread response as Favourite

 
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narayanamoorthy_k



Joined: 19 Jun 2014
Posts: 142
Location: Chennai, IN

PostPosted: Sun Jan 14, 2018 6:58 pm    Post subject: Marking a discussion thread response as Favourite Reply with quote

Dear Paul,

Greetings,

I have this suggestion with regards to our FTN95 Forum discussion threads.

I always spend time in searching for a specific topic in this Forum Index, Some time I will reach out the right discussion thread quickly and some other time, it is not, but too-many query results will be listed out. Sometime, our query search key words also do not help and ignore the search further in this Forum, might tend user to do Google through general search engine. This might even cause the user to go out of FNT95 also for very quick help. This is my general experience, I am sure, all users will have this experience.

I have a suggestion here to overcome this difficulty and to sustain the interests of the FNT95 users in this Forum. This is applicable, when they generally read / browse through our FTN95 forum discussions.

Quote:
Is it possible to declare a discussion thread, or any specific response in the thread can be marked as "FAVOURITE or STARRED"?


Due to this, users can keep any particular discussion thread response/answers as "favourite" response in their login and it helps to refer them back anytime in future, which will help in savings a lot of time. Ofcourse, this "favourite" should only be possible to the registered users only here in FTN95 forum.

Is this sounds good, towards improving our Forum features. Can this be made available at a sooner date?.
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Moorthy
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John-Silver



Joined: 30 Jul 2013
Posts: 1520
Location: Aerospace Valley

PostPosted: Wed Jan 17, 2018 1:41 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Moorthy, one of the admins might be able to confirm but ...

I think the forum is of the type phpBB2 (you can see that from the date 2005 a the bottom of forum pages), which is a freeware forum package.
I don't think phpBB2 has any capability to do what you want.
Since 2006-7-ish there has been a new major release, phpBB3, which has a capability to make a post what it calles 'Sticky' however I think that might be a facility for mainly admins only to 'tag' a post, although I have found mention that it's possible when you make the initial post to mark it as such.
I don't think there's the capacity for individual users to create their own proìivate 'tagged' favourites list in this way, or at least I haven't come across it.

In any case it's all dependent on using phpBB3.

So, why not update to phoBB3 I hear you ask ?
Well, because there isn't an update, you have to install phpBB3 and convert the phpBB2 forum to that format, and as is often the case I don't think that's risk free !
You can appreciate that by reading these instructions for a conversion ...
https://www.phpbb.com/community/docs/INSTALL.html#convert

Google iround and you'll find many tales of disastrous loss of the forum concerned !


Not as seamless and risk-free as one would like - because obviously there are some important changes fronìmk v2 to v3 that make 'backward compatability' impossible and the transfer from one to another let's say 'delicate' at best.

I guess better safe than sorry' is a good philosophy, especially for a forum packed with valuable info as the silverfrost one(s).

I suppose the only other alternative is to create a new forum (with phpBB3) and keep the existing one for reference.
Not an ideal solution either and with the need to justify doing so being more than the possibility to have 'sticky favourites' option.

Having said all that ... Cue someone to now come up with hoe to do exactly what you want ! LOL
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narayanamoorthy_k



Joined: 19 Jun 2014
Posts: 142
Location: Chennai, IN

PostPosted: Wed Jan 17, 2018 3:35 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Hi John

Having what you explained, is very much true, that I am able to realize it now..

Quote:
I guess better safe than sorry' is a good philosophy, especially for a forum packed with valuable info as the silverfrost one(s).


As you rightly said as above, might be the reason to remain to continue as here. Our Silverfrost Forum has a tremendous and the Best Packed Valuable information/live discussions on various topics, should be continued, however, what I have suggested, is another wings to improve upon, which we can pick up the discussion in a ready-to-glide in quickly way. However, I have never seen in any such intensive discussions to the core deep dive-in in FORTRAN features, in any other Forums as such.

Considering these risk factors, while I completely agree with you, I am getting the below alternative approach ideas on how to do this considering the scope within phpBB2 norms. Pls. go through below.

Atleast, with the least minimal risk, if we can include such a "STARRING" feature, either through "name-Tagging" or "number-indexing" way, is good enough. But, I am thinking, whether to include through the BBCode like for example

  1. [Star].........[/Star]
  2. [NumTag-xxx]............[/NumTag-xxx]
  3. [NameTag-abcd..]........[/NameTag-abcd..]

where
    "Star" denotes a representation of a STAR * symbol only
    "xxx" denotes a number from 001-999, where user can assign any number
    "abcd.." denotes a alphanumeric name, where user can assign any specific name he wants..

I think this is very much well in compliance with our phpBB2, of what features available right now.

What is additionally required is to PICK-UP Live Discussion in Forum Dashboard and then SELECT IT and do the assignment in any of the above three way.

How to do this?Idea
Only the challenge is that how to do this as the forum discussion dashboard is a HTML page, where we should be able to select and assign any of these three modes. Then this should assign that chosen texts-in-discussion parts should be tagged in his profile as a combination of URL+BBCODE (anyone of the three) and keep it as a running index. When user want to view that quickly, he should go to his profile page, say a mailbox as explained below, and pick up from there, where it will land in the main discussion page.

In this way, we are not loosing any information of the present ongoing discussion contents and it is just adding indices covering URL+BBCODE in user private pages, like how we maintain the Message Inbox, Sentbox etc. Even, we can keep one more mailer-thread within the Inbox, saying "#StarDiscussions" and keep it permanently in the Inbox itself and continue to use it for this purpose.

Hope this IDEA sounds good, and see how best we can code this feature, which is one more strengths to our Silverfrost forums.

Now we need someone with a Magic-Wand to make this to happen. Smile
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DanRRight



Joined: 10 Mar 2008
Posts: 2813
Location: South Pole, Antarctica

PostPosted: Thu Jan 18, 2018 12:06 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Since this is my 1666th post I will be kind of a devil's advocate.

Guys, it is good that you are suggesting something which may improve the site and get more users so the compiler will get more features, will be better and faster but I do not quite understand what you suggest. Give me a link on such sites which do what you suggest. Is it about better and faster search? But I usually find what I need on this forums pretty quick.

I'd like posting images from this exact forum not from Postimage, larger allowed CODE sizes, the new "Users Examples" section, better looking or even customizable color scheme.
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narayanamoorthy_k



Joined: 19 Jun 2014
Posts: 142
Location: Chennai, IN

PostPosted: Thu Jan 18, 2018 1:11 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Dan,

Wow, with 1666 posts, you can suggest more features as well and also, who can take this up too?

Quote:
Is it about better and faster search? But I usually find what I need on this forums pretty quick.


How do you get the search so quick? Spotting your desired discussion in a particular thread - Are you able to find it so quickly every time.

The search you need to do everytime again and again. Will it be a convenient one, if you preserve it? Won't you feel, that makes an appropriate need to save our time and energy on a longer run.

Quote:
I'd like posting images from this exact forum not from Postimage, larger allowed CODE sizes, the new "Users Examples" section, better looking or even customizable color scheme.


I feel that this needs more storage space in our Forum for posting, storing images in the thread itself. The other points are very much essential and good one for the users. Your questions are appropriate to post/ask to Admin of this Forum to seek for better and right answers towards implementation.

But, what do you mean by "better looking or even customizable color scheme". Pls. elaborate.
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DanRRight



Joined: 10 Mar 2008
Posts: 2813
Location: South Pole, Antarctica

PostPosted: Thu Jan 18, 2018 2:40 pm    Post subject: Re: Reply with quote

narayanamoorthy_k wrote:
Dan,
How do you get the search so quick? Spotting your desired discussion in a particular thread - Are you able to find it so quickly every time....The search you need to do everytime again and again. Will it be a convenient one, if you preserve it? Won't you feel, that makes an appropriate need to save our time and energy on a longer run.


How do I get the search so quick? 'Elementary my dear Watson' , sorry, Moorthy. With my 1666666666 posts I just somehow managed to remember what I have said as all the posts here are mostly mine. No search needed. Smile

Jokes aside, with so many years here I just remember who said what and search particular user. I use both fields to search - used words and the OP who said them.

Plus, the most important ideas, code examples etc I have heard here I keep in my computer under the Year/User/Ideas folder. For example most %pl examples for Paul, or testing of parallelization with Mecej4 or John Campbell, or nice toolbars or POP codes of Eddie, the Compiler bugs, Suggestions, Results of testing etc etc etc, even if I did not used or adopted them, I keep in the computer folders till better times. And everything valuable has to be used in my codes ASAP where CWPlus self-explanatory GUI menu structure allows them not to be lost

narayanamoorthy_k wrote:
....But, what do you mean by "better looking or even customizable color scheme". Pls. elaborate.


Here is an example of much more pleasant looking forums
https://forums.mmorpg.com/. Click through many of them, look at amount of graphics they allow to post, at nested replies, fonts, designs etc. These games forums, Google "best gaming forums", there are tons of them, all look better then our obsolete 1980-90sh telephone modems era bulletin board style of the best forum and the best Fortran computer in the world.
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John-Silver



Joined: 30 Jul 2013
Posts: 1520
Location: Aerospace Valley

PostPosted: Sat Jan 20, 2018 4:21 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

I think what Moorthy was looking for in his original quetìry was akin to having the equivalent of a web browser 'favourites drop down, quick access menu.

As for forum 'style' (theme) that's a highly particular personal preference.
Always a trade-off between simplicity and flashiness.

All these forum building sites have options for the theme (at least at the beginning for initial selection, and maybe can be changed retrospectively).

A wordpress based one (free) could be customized by Silverfrost and go foot in sock with a new Wordpress-based website ..... but again it's a question of huueee-man reeeee-sources availability, the will to do it, and the risks of a cock-up (everyone is human) along the way.

I don't have any experiemce whatsoever of the practicality of actually putting a forum into action or I might create one, tweak it according to feedback and then hand it over to Silverfrost if deemed useful enough for launching.
As I think I said before much might depend on the possibility to convert the existing forum into whatever new flavour was deemed best.
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narayanamoorthy_k



Joined: 19 Jun 2014
Posts: 142
Location: Chennai, IN

PostPosted: Thu Jan 25, 2018 8:54 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Quote:
but again it's a question of huueee-man reeeee-sources availability, the will to do it,


John, I agree on what you said. Since the resource availability is a BIG Question and Doing like a magnanimous favorite menu require someone to volunteer, which I feel that it will never happen here, as all are very busy, nor know this customization.

Hence, I suggested the approach with the very minimal tuning, using the "messages" way, as explained. Truly, it is very simple and very effective way with no customization further on the existing forum. The Silverfrost Forum Admin can take up this by adding one more mail message (fixed) "#StarDiscussions" for storing the favourite discussion urls.

Let me show you an example here. I refer to this discussion in Support

  1. http://forums.silverfrost.com/viewtopic.php?t=3691
  2. http://forums.silverfrost.com/viewtopic.php?t=3682
  3. http://forums.silverfrost.com/viewtopic.php?t=3677

But the respective discussion titles, with forum references are:

  1. Support==> Import External DLL published function () into FTN95 .f95
  2. Support ==> Program aborts with spurious error report
  3. General ==> Passing Common Block from Main to DLLs

The above discussion titles only be saved in the mail thread "#StarDiscussions".
How this is possible? Let me explain below.
Right now, our discussion pages show two buttons. i.e. newtopic, postreply. Next to this, one more button, should be given like "save", which should transfer the url address with title name to "#StarDiscussions" message item.
When you go to mail box, and open this particular message item "#StarDiscussions", all the saved discussion titles with hotlink URL reference will be listed, like how we are seeing in every discussion title page.

Preserving the discussion URLs separately, based on individual interests, that to manually, is very difficult to continue in a longer run. I am seeing our members are there since 2006, that you can imagine the amount of the contents to be preserved since then.
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John-Silver



Joined: 30 Jul 2013
Posts: 1520
Location: Aerospace Valley

PostPosted: Mon Jan 29, 2018 12:15 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

I'm not sure who the forums admin is exactly. well Paul is an admin , from the user interaction point of view but in terms of changing the forum I'm not sure who it is.
Requests for much simpler (logically) changes, such as:
a) increasing the size of allowable comment lengths
b) introducing various additional forum topics
... etc ...
have been made in the past without being acted upon, so I assume it's either: resources, or maybe even a lost password ! which creates the inertia.
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