Emoticons area needs work

[Kman_]

Some features I suggest implementing for the emoticon area:

1. Different emoticon groups. What's the point of having different emoticon folders if only one of them works? You should be able to organise the smilies into different groups.

2. Reorder smilies. Simple scroll-down boxes like used with the reorder forums would be a sensible idea. You should also be able to reorder the different smilie groups, if the groups idea is implemented.

3. Ability to move smilies between different folders. Say I uploaded a smilie and accidentally put it in the wrong folder. I should be able to move it to another folder.


Not necessary, but good as an extra:

4. Permissions for smilie groups. You can change the permissions for using certain smilie groups. Say someone becomes an elite member. You can permit them to view and use a new smilie group as a reward.


Just some suggestions. I still don't understand what the different folders are for.

[parentsworld]

I love the idea of the folders. I do different smilies for christmas/easter/thanksgiving/halloween... and so on. I used to hate uploading all the seasonal ones then reloading the default later on.

SO - I've got folders for all of these now - each special occasion has their own folder. However, I can't figure out how to assign a folder! It only reads the default and I can see nothing to assign the Thanksgiving one.

I'll try and rename the folder to "default" and see if that works - but there has to be a way to assign which folder that you want used. Anyone have any clues?

[Black Prowler]

It currently only uses one folder at a time(Default) ;)



Add one more idea....



Please add a numbering system so we can organize the emotes in the order we want to display them(I currently use a mod for this on a 2.0.4 board but I don't think it works for 2.1.x :( )

Please consider ;)

[parentsworld]

It currently only uses one folder at a time(Default) ;)

Yeah, renaming the folder that I wanted to use "Default" made it the active folder. I seem to be the rarity who likes and uses this feature.

I do, however, agree with some system is needed to re-order the emoticons. At the very least they should re-alphabetize when you upload new ones.

[Black Prowler]

There was a hack for reordering emotes for 2.x boards but I haven't seen it for 2.1.x boards yet. I have it on my 2.0.4 boards and it reorders them by numericle order which the admin assigns...great hack! Now if IPB would integrate this or an update to the previous hack comes out I cn use ot fopr 2.1.x :thumbsup:

[Lemon Head]

I totally agree. I started a successful topic on Group Emoticons a while back which attracted a lot of support but not one single reply from IPS, even when I submitted it as feedback. It is long overdue. Someone posted a link to an Invisionize mod that did something similar to grouped emoticons but before I tried it 2.1 came out. We have over 100 emoticons that are in desperate need of grouping into folders. As you say, the facility is already there in the AdmicCP to have different folders of emoticons, so why not do the same when posting?

[fernis]

Great Idea Kman2 :thumbsup:

Not having control over what order the emoticons are placed on the forum has bothered me for a while.

I think the permissions idea is also excellent. It would be great to have you elite members be able to use exclusive emoticons to set themselves apart and make them feel good.

[Kman_]

Thanks for the support.

Another idea:
The smilies should be set for each skin -- e.g. same as with the image macros. If you change a skin on the skin selector, the smilies can change with it if you have an exclusive image set for that skin, otherwise it will just use the default set (which is not set to any particular skin).

[Tedy]

I agree with kman2, emoticons area needs work since the user view remains the same as in 1.x versions.
The Show All window should be enhanced, at least adding a setting to tweak the number of cols and to browse emoticon groups.
I hope we will see these features in the roadmap.

[bfarber]

fyi, if you need to change the smilie folder that your skin is using, you edit the skin's properties/settings to change this. You don't have to rename the folders or anything manually. ;)

A buddy of mine had a lot of good ideas for the emoticons area too. Stuff like time-specific ranges smilies could be used (i.e. automatically set XMas smilies available Dec 1-Dec 31), hidden smilies (code works, but the images don't show up anywhere in the popup, etc.), per-group smilie permissions (admins can use special ones, code isn't parsed if user group doesn't have permissions), and so on.

[Lemon Head]

Some great ideas there! Do you or Matt plan on implementing any of them for IPB?
I'd be happy with just the option split emoticons into different groups that are selectable in the Smilie Box for now! Perhaps it could be done by simply putting them into subfolders within the smilie folder for a particular skin. Then the folder name could be displayed in the Clickable Smile Box, simple! I wish I could do it though!

Thanks for taking the time to reply to a topic about the Emoticons, which are normally ignored! I think Emoticons are seen as non-important which is why they haven't changed much over the various versions of IPB. No offence, genuine thanks.

[bfarber]

Not a problem. I was just reading through some topics and happened across this one.

I can't really say what's planned to be added to anything in the future at this time. I'm just working on 2.1.3 for right now, trying to get everything as stable as possible for the current version (2.1). We'll worry about future versions after 2.1 has all the bugs worked out and such, and we try not to add features for point builds. :)

[thetakerfan]

I actually made my board use the folders the way they SHOULD be, as an organizational tool (does anyone actually use the folders the way they're built, as a skin specific thing?).

It's just sort of hack and slash, I've been meaning to go back in and make it a little cleaner.

It basically replaces the smiley box in the post screens with a div, and has a dropdown selector for the different folders, and changes the smileys accordingly.

[Lemon Head]

I actually made my board use the folders the way they SHOULD be, as an organizational tool (does anyone actually use the folders the way they're built, as a skin specific thing?).

It's just sort of hack and slash, I've been meaning to go back in and make it a little cleaner.

It basically replaces the smiley box in the post screens with a div, and has a dropdown selector for the different folders, and changes the smileys accordingly.

Sounds great! Feel free to share it! Perhaps some who has the time could clean it up for you!

Regards,
Graham.

[thetakerfan]

I'm pretty busy this week, but I'll take a look at it sometime next week (I dind't exactly make any comments, so I have no idea what files I even changed, lol)

[leotan]

ya....would like to see the emoticons be organised in groups.
as loading 100+ in one shot could take sometimes...

[ZeroSum]

I have written an Emoticon Category Browser for 2.0.x. I will be releasing a version supporting 2.1.x shortly. The Browser (1.0 and 1.1), as it is, currently only supports category separation and no significant additions will be made prior to version 2.0.

Some features I have in mind for version 2.0 include:

1. User ability to rate emoticons
2. Various sorting options for emoticons (e.g., sort by rating, by popularity as measured by frequency of usage or some combination thereof)
3. User favorites (bring up emoticons that a user likes the best or uses the most often)

If you have any suggestions for version 2.0, you can send them to the email address below.

Chris
chris@roundtabledebates.com

[simfreak]

I second these requests. Specifically I was looking for a way to organize a large group of smilies. I have been trying just about everything to dig up a way to order smilies. I found that I could export the ibf_emoticons.sql file but there was no way to import it. I didn't really understand the point of an export feature without an import feature, honestly. A simple importation feature would allow a temporary solution to this problem as I could manually reorder the file and import it. A backup option might be necessary if implemented.

But, that said. How about having folder groups for smilies where we could create additional customizable "folders" for the members to browse in order to find smilies for specific occasions. Such as, if I had food smilies, I could make a customized Food Smilie folder (with art).

I know this seems like a minor request with major work. But smiles add a lot of personality to a post and more graphic based communites do appreciate these.

Thank you for hearing our requests.

Heather Castillo

Some features I suggest implementing for the emoticon area:

1. [b]Different emoticon groups.[/b] What's the point of having different emoticon folders if only one of them works? You should be able to organise the smilies into different groups.

2. [b]Reorder smilies.[/b] Simple scroll-down boxes like used with the reorder forums would be a sensible idea. You should also be able to reorder the different smilie groups, if the groups idea is implemented.

3. [b]Ability to move smilies between different folders.[/b] Say I uploaded a smilie and accidentally put it in the wrong folder. I should be able to move it to another folder.

[i]Not necessary, but good as an extra:[/i]

[b]4. Permissions for smilie groups.[/b] You can change the permissions for using certain smilie groups. Say someone becomes an elite member. You can permit them to view and use a new smilie group as a reward.

Just some suggestions. I still don't understand what the different folders are for.

[AJArend]

This thread was started a year ago. Any word on this? Is any improvement planned?

Please, please, please tell me there is. I can no longer go to my Emoticon section without getting an "unresponsive script" error and it takes forever to load. If I could only be able to categorize the emoticons, that would mean less emoticons in each folder, and the folders would be much easier to manage (hopefully ending the "unresponsive script" error).

Considering how popular smilies are, (just look at the smiley request thread here and the many IPB smiley forums there are out there), I would think making this section easier to organize would be important.

AJ

[thenewbreed]

I too am looking for emoticon assistance. I have upgraded from 1.something to 2.1.6 and thought now we could group emoticons or SOMETHING... nothing yet?

Grouping would be great... it was not until I had my emoticons neatly organised into folders in the Admin that I realised it was all for naught.

Also, how about more of a grid view in Admin that would allow me to 'check all' to make clickable, etc?

And what about allowing a bulk upload that does not need an xml file! Right now I had to manally upload the emoticons then go back and make them clickable and assigned. Phew!

[AJArend]

2.

Reorder smilies.

Simple scroll-down boxes like used with the reorder forums would be a sensible idea. You should also be able to reorder the different smilie groups, if the groups idea is implemented.

I remember there was a mod for IPB 1.3 that allowed you to re-order either by name or by popularity. The re-order by popularity feature was so handy, because I could see which of the smilies were used the most, and make those clickable. Plus, I could also see which smilies were rarely used, and get rid of them.

AJ