[Suggestion] ACP

[Alfrеdo]

I'll try not to make this post: "Forum software X has this, so you should too", but I'm afraid these are things I would like to see in IP.Board (or similar things, which provide the same ease of use). I won't be mentioning the features I would like to see in IP.Board 3, this post is about the ACP usage only.
Oh and please forgive the language, it's a mix of (bad) English and Dutch, with some Chinese leftovers.

Sitemap: Clicking at the top right button brings up the sitemap, which displays all main functions of the ACP. It makes it easy to go straight ahead to the correct section. At the right hand side (under Menu Beheer), you can add your custom links for things you use a lot. All the way to the left, you have the most recent used sections. This is only displayed on the Index tab, the rest just has the links you see in the sitemap.


Arrange forums: An easy to view and manage feature which allows you to create (Javascript, create all your forums at once), modify and arrange forums. To the right side of newly created forums, you have a dropdown box (Test). This allows you to set predefined templates, if you have lots of forums that will have the same settings anyway. You can also copy settings from one forum to another one, or use a multi selection box to add the same settings to all your forums.


Basic skin: People often want to change small things about their layout and this makes it easy to do so. You need very little knowledge of CSS of HTML, since it's explained what these settings do. For more advanced stuff, you can bring up the template editor or just edit the template files manually (via FTP).


Can't add more images here, so I'm starting another post.

[Alfrеdo]

Translate: You should be able to do translations from within the ACP. There's a search feature, as well as the option to use different languages in different skins. The latter isn't really necessary for me though.


FAQ: The ability to add/remove/change parts from the FAQ from within the ACP is another thing that I would like to see. This is done the same way as for the forums, you can add new questions or change existing ones with Javascript.


Database: If you want to export only part of the database, you're forced to use phpMyAdmin. Here, you can just select which tables you'd like to export.


Extra info: Although the explanation of features is usually done well in IP.Board, I'd also like to see what features will do to my performance. In this example, URL rewrite will decrease your performance, so it's something you can keep in mind on big boards. Every setting that either decreases or increases server performance has this warning. At the top of each page, you also see additional tips for that section. Because lets face it, who reads the documentation anyway?


Flexibility: And finally, the most important one for me. I need to be able to manage a forum the way I want to. If that means disabling a whole bunch of settings, then please let me do so. In this example, you can modify the Captcha to fully suit your needs. If you want to change where it is displayed, you can. If you want to change the type (Flash, Voice, GIF, language, ...), you can. If you want to change its overal appearance (background, shapes, colours, fonts, shadows, size, angle, ...), you can (not on this printscreen). Anyway, you get the idea. :)



I hope this brings across the idea, which is to make the ACP more user friendly, while at the same time offer more features for advanced users.

[Cool Surfer]

This looks cool. Less confusion if you have many subforums.

[henke37]

No complaints here. But I am a bit worried about being able to pull the skin part off while keeping the real skin editing working.

[Alfrеdo]

It's a bit like the easy and advanced CSS editor we have now. Only in this case, easy is really basic and allows you set change the board width, font size, background colour, ... And you actually know what everything there does, unlike having to change .row1, 2 and 3.
The advanced editor still allows you to edit HTML and CSS from their respective source files, like we have now in IP.Board 2.3.

I don't know how the new template editing works of course, it may be way better than what this has to offer.

[OpenWare]

Actually the way the forums are laid out, nested like that, is just how vBulletin does it, and its a method I prefer, it makes it very easy to change the settings for any of your forums and subforums. It also has the advantage of hierarchical permissions. You could for example, apply your read/show/reply permissions to the category, and have all your forums in that category inherit. You could apply a staff-only permission to a staff category and any new forums you create in there auto-inherit those permissions. And if IPB3 brings out more granular permissions, like, members only being able to see their own topics in a forum (handy for support/feedback forums), then those too would auto-inherit. I believe this (the forum layout) and the advanced and more granular permissions available in vBulletin, to be that particular system's strengths.

The nested forum-layout you suggested, which is very similar to vB and some other systems, is a feature I would like to see myself. I would propose a few additions, to the ACP Forum Management.

1. Add an option to, remove all moderators in selected forums in the same way you can currently add them.
2. Like the forum-permission edit screens.. add a "Save and Edit Next" option to the moderator edit screen, say if you want to update all your moderator's permissions.
3. Inheritable permissions.. have subforums and forums inherit the permissions and moderators of the forums above them. If for example, you assign a moderator to a particular category or forum, and they are automatically a moderator for all the forums or subforums below.

[TrixieTang]

Actually the way the forums are laid out, nested like that, is just how vBulletin does it, and its a method I prefer, it makes it very easy to change the settings for any of your forums and subforums. It also has the advantage of hierarchical permissions. You could for example, apply your read/show/reply permissions to the category, and have all your forums in that category inherit. You could apply a staff-only permission to a staff category and any new forums you create in there auto-inherit those permissions. And if IPB3 brings out more granular permissions, like, members only being able to see their own topics in a forum (handy for support/feedback forums), then those too would auto-inherit. I believe this (the forum layout) and the advanced and more granular permissions available in vBulletin, to be that particular system's strengths.

The nested forum-layout you suggested, which is very similar to vB and some other systems, is a feature I would like to see myself. I would propose a few additions, to the ACP Forum Management.

1. Add an option to, remove all moderators in selected forums in the same way you can currently add them.

2. Like the forum-permission edit screens.. add a "Save and Edit Next" option to the moderator edit screen, say if you want to update all your moderator's permissions.

3. Inheritable permissions.. have subforums and forums inherit the permissions and moderators of the forums above them. If for example, you assign a moderator to a particular category or forum, and they are automatically a moderator for all the forums or subforums below.

+3

Also, Discuz and phpWind both have stuff I'd like to see in IPB 3, one thing is ability to put x many forums per row, another nice feature would be x many subforums per row.