Adding forums is way too time consuming

[Myke]

Adding forums and moderators is way too clunky and time consuming. I run a forum in which every few weeks I add around 10 forums. Each of these forums has 3 sub forums. It takes hours and hours to add all of them, set all their permissions, name all of them correctly, put them in the correct forums and locations, rearrange them (this screen shows over 150 forums!!! ahhh). Dont even get me started on having to add mods to each and every new forum and sub forum created.

I really, really wish the process to add forums had more dhtml. It should function more like Windows where you create a forum "folder", you can click it and rename it on the spot, you can drag and drop forums into eachother, you can drag and drop to rearrange forums, etc.. this would make life SOOOOOO much easier.

It's 6AM, i just spent the 4 hours adding forums. RRRR

[AtariAge]

I agree, this process could be streamlined quite a bit. I don't often have to add new forums or change the way my forums are laid out, but it can be a chore to do so. Most tedious is having to change permissions and manage moderators. I can't even imagine having to do this as often as you do. Maybe this will be addressed with IPB 3.0. :)

..Al

[whitetigergrowl]

I don't find it hard at all. But what on earth kind of forum do you have that you have to create 10 forums and 3 subforums for it every few weeks. As a member I would probably get confused in that sort of mess. Sounds to me like you might be making it more work than it should be. Whats the url to the site so we can take a peeksee?!

Either way, there really is not much more of a way to simplify. You still have to create the forum/forum name. You still have to set the permissions for each forum unless you want guests doing crazy things (And inherit feature would be nice though if its not there.). You still have to set up how you would features or abilities you would like that forum to have, unless you want something different. (Although I don't know if there is an inherit feature so each forum below the main one can have the same features turned on/off by default.) And you would still have to point to which forum/category you want that forum to go to. Dragging and dropping would take just about as much time as simply choosing and dragging and dropping which place you want to put that forum at. IMO, I don't see much for any other way of speeding it up. Vbulletin is almost the same in this respect. As are most other forums.

[Myke]

Boadway forum. New musicals, new forums. (and sometimes old musicals)

[whitetigergrowl]

Gotcha.

But ever thought of merging some or maybe re-evaluating the layout or how its being done? Especially for older ones? I know I hate going to sites that have layer after layer of forums. Gets confusing.

[DyCyn]

I agree, it could be faster. I just made a script that does it for me now. For example, today I have about 1,200 forums to add (don't ask - I do content management with behind the scenes subforums). Doing it by hand isn't even an option.

[NickTheGreek]

ever thought of adding topics instead of forums ? scale this one step lower and make your size move compact and strongly built ?

[DyCyn]

Yeah, I do that with topics within each of the subforums. It sounds ridiculous, I know :) - initially I was just going to use a different database, but I thought I might as well integrate the two so I don't have to code a seperate submission approval system.

[ZeRoRaVeN]

There's a modification out there by dean(I think) that lets the forum you create inherit perimissions from the parent forum/catagory, something similiar would be interesting to see implented.