IP.Board 4.0 Wishlist

[Aussie Cable]

Ok, so I have been thinking about the things I would like to see in IPB Suite 4.0.

I wanted to see some other great idea's that people want to see implemented in 4.0, anyway, here is my list:

1. Better quoting system (quote selected text ability, single line between quote and cursor in editor)

2. Better emoticon system, where you can bulk add, and organise further into folders

3. Drag and drop images/attachments to the editor (fast reply and full editor)

4. Removal of the profile feed (do we really care what people are thinking?)

5. Automatic Gallery album creation when adding/drag/drop image to editor

6. Light/er on images (and/or heavily optimized - see #8)

7. Profile privacy (for those members who do not want any personal information available to members)

8. Better optimized images/.js/.css (have seen some really nice results from Smush.it)

9. Simplify adding of images/attachments/files (for all of IP.Board/Gallery/IP.Downloads/Blog - right now, too many clicks)

10. More standard login methods (Google etc)

11. Softer ACP colours

12. Notes section

13. Make administrator posts uneditable by moderators (even if they have ACP access)

14. Administrator everything ACP/profile make uneditable by moderators.

I reserve the right to add to this list as time goes on :thumbsup:

I would really like to hear about what you would like to see in IPB Suite 4.0 (and why).

[Weppa333]

Add some privacy

- make "quotes" something "soft" and not "hard" (I mean by that to do replicate the text beeing quoted in the response, link to it by some ajax process for example, just like discourse does). or remove quotes altogether.

- removal of accounts by user himself , for me. Add soft deletion of everything they said, including quotes (see 1 for feasability).

- remove viewing profiles (and avanced searches allowing a guest to track what someone said) for guests. It makes no sense in a facebook world anymore. You're either IN or OUT of the community.

As an admin, I'm sick and tired of those privacy paranoïd freaks that subscribe to dozens of contests and games on facebook but treat you like $* because you're a forum administrator and "keep them hostage" and threaten you with pseudo legal BS because of their "privacy".

And add some 90s SEO

- blah.com/forum-name/thread-name-pageX.html

- stop using rel=canonical to try to fix ugly urls. It's either crawlable or it is not. robots=noindex for anything that is not supposed to be crawled or is redundant.

Cut the fat

- (ability to) remove stuff that most people will never use, namely status updates, fancy forum results sorting, the entire editor tools (an empty text box with smilies underneath is more than enough). Some people, like me, would like to shut down the entire quoting system too. Not the quote tag, just the button and stuff. Powxer users will now how to do it.

Srsly, did anyone click on the "underscript" button of IPB's editor in the last decade ? :smile:

[Thom4s]

+ these 3 features : sub-forums accesibility, favorite emoticons, repeat last post of the page X :rofl:

[Ichirō]

Add some privacy

- make "quotes" something "soft" and not "hard" (I mean by that to do replicate the text beeing quoted in the response, link to it by some ajax process for example, just like discourse does). or remove quotes altogether.

- removal of accounts by user himself , for me. Add soft deletion of everything they said, including quotes (see 1 for feasability).

- remove viewing profiles (and avanced searches allowing a guest to track what someone said) for guests. It makes no sense in a facebook world anymore. You're either IN or OUT of the community.

As an admin, I'm sick and tired of those privacy paranoïd freaks that subscribe to dozens of contests and games on facebook but treat you like $* because you're a forum administrator and "keep them hostage" and threaten you with pseudo legal BS because of their "privacy".

And add some 90s SEO

- blah.com/forum-name/thread-name-pageX.html

- stop using rel=canonical to try to fix ugly urls. It's either crawlable or it is not. robots=noindex for anything that is not supposed to be crawled or is redundant.

Cut the fat

- (ability to) remove stuff that most people will never use, namely status updates, fancy forum results sorting, the entire editor tools (an empty text box with smilies underneath is more than enough). Some people, like me, would like to shut down the entire quoting system too. Not the quote tag, just the button and stuff. Powxer users will now how to do it.

Srsly, did anyone click on the "underscript" button of IPB's editor in the last decade ? :smile:

A lot of members like to comment on each others status updates, walls etc... it makes it more of a community when members interact with each other in such a way.

Most peoples uses arent just aimed at " power users " and rely on ease of use for the masses, so removing buttons that actually make things easier for the " newbies" is a welcomed thing in my opinion.

[Richey]

My wishlist:

- Activity Feed (Page or Hook) to get informed about all new stuff (user changes avatar, new answers, status updates, etc...)

- Improved Search (Better search algorithm + optional ajax live search)

- Better looking quoting system

[Marcher Technologies]

Add some privacy

- make "quotes" something "soft" and not "hard" (I mean by that to do replicate the text beeing quoted in the response, link to it by some ajax process for example, just like discourse does). or remove quotes altogether.

- removal of accounts by user himself , for me. Add soft deletion of everything they said, including quotes (see 1 for feasability).

- remove viewing profiles (and avanced searches allowing a guest to track what someone said) for guests. It makes no sense in a facebook world anymore. You're either IN or OUT of the community.<--this is an option, and has been since minimum 3.1......

As an admin, I'm sick and tired of those privacy paranoïd freaks that subscribe to dozens of contests and games on facebook but treat you like $* because you're a forum administrator and "keep them hostage" and threaten you with pseudo legal BS because of their "privacy".

And add some 90s SEO

- blah.com/forum-name/thread-name-pageX.html<--while as an option this I can see/respect the want of, the 'id' not being in that url will make the whole script heavier. I *would* like additional flexibility as well here, for instance, I would prefer to kill that 'parent' nesting in a certain application that is heavier in part due to no 'id'.... technical tradeoff. :rofl:

- stop using rel=canonical to try to fix ugly urls. It's either crawlable or it is not. robots=noindex for anything that is not supposed to be crawled or is redundant.

Cut the fat

- (ability to) remove stuff that most people will never use, namely status updates, fancy forum results sorting, the entire editor tools (an empty text box with smilies underneath is more than enough). Some people, like me, would like to shut down the entire quoting system too. Not the quote tag, just the button and stuff. Powxer users will now how to do it.

Srsly, did anyone click on the "underscript" button of IPB's editor in the last decade ? :smile:

Just thought I would point out a few things in response(in italics), carry on. :smile:

[Weppa333]

When I say URL like

blah.com/forumname/thread-page.html

I have absolutely no problem with

blah.com/forum-name.ID/thread-name.ID-pageX.html

It makes little difference. I'm not really into "wordpress-like" URLs either because they can be more of a problem if you decide to change platform, and make it more difficult to simply url-rewrite with {.*}.(0-9+).html -> migrationscript.php?id=$1

Sorry if I made you think I was in favor of completely ID-less URLs, that's not what I meant. But I believe URLs with forum name are important, urls easily readable and copy-pastable are important ( don't tell me about UTF8 in URLs ! ) I also believe thread IDs should be at the right, certainly not at the left. It creates confusion. We read from left to right in my continent, why put the non human readable first to the left ?

I don't see the SEO value of an URL like IPB wants us to use :

ford.com/topic/17817-new-windshield/?page=2

versus

ford.com/mustang-1967/new-windshield.html?page=2 ( or new-windshield-17817.p2.html?args )

which url would you click if you're interested in 1967 Mustang windshields ? For the time beeing, URL do show up in search egnines results and are an important part of the user's decision to click on a link instead of another. Also keywords from the query are put in bold, even in urls.

thanks for your other comments, MT. I think there's a consensus about which additional options are needed for URLs (again I'm not here saying I'm right, I'm just asking for user to at least have a choice between a-la-vbseo-urls and ipb-management-decided-urls .)

As for the word "topic" in each and every thread URL... it's a waste of precious characters, especially at the beginning of an URL.

[MarcusH]

1. Better quoting system (quote selected text ability, single line between quote and cursor in editor) YES
2. Better emoticon system, where you can bulk add, and organise further into folders Yes
3. Drag and drop images/attachments to the editor (fast reply and full editor) Sounds good
4. Removal of the profile feed (do we really care what people are thinking?) No, My gaming site needs this, we can post a status saying we are about to play a game, then others that see it can join. You can disable this per group.
6. Light/er on images (and/or heavily optimized - see #8) Sounds good
7. Profile privacy (for those members who do not want any personal information available to members) YES, each custom field to also have Hide/Show
8. Better optimized images/.js/.css (have seen some really nice results from Smush.it) Sounds good
9. Simplify adding of images/attachments/files (for all of IP.Board/Gallery/IP.Downloads/Blog - right now, too many clicks) Haven't Noticed
10. More standard login methods (Google etc) Think google login is in MarketPlace
11. Softer ACP colours. Doesn't bother me, but would be nice to be able to pick.
12. Notes section YES
13. Make administrator posts uneditable by moderators (even if they have ACP access) Not sure about this, sounds good for some boards, but don't think i want it on mine.
14. Administrator everything ACP/profile make uneditable by moderators. ?

[Marius]

Promoted topics in sidebar

Promoted topics in sidebar, similar with ”Recent Topics”, but adding topics to be made only by administrators.

I think it would be a good way to monetize some topics.

[Jυra]

I don't understand why someone would hide profiles from other users and give a false sense of security. "Personal" information is in topics. That would mean people would have to friend each other to read replies without threads being full of notices like people are on ignore lists. Useless.

[BigStamp]

I'd like to see more integration between the software for networks of sites.

Ip connect is a good start, but it needs to be taken to the next level, with more a more active transfer of data, syncroning warnings and profile information across sites, sso across domains not just sub domains. Being able to move topics across sites, etc. being able to use nexus to sell ads on each site from from one store ect, basically like Wordpress multi site but on steroids.

[Survivalist80]

Does anyone know if the following is currently possible with Nexus (maybe using API & hooks) or any other IPS app/plug-in?:

I am having a new forum designed, and want members to be able to buy virtual currency in order to gift other members w/ virtual gifts/rewards. For instance, if a member wants to gift a beer to another member (maybe for a great reply or something), they would need to buy the virtual beer for (hypothetically) *5 forumbucks. 5 forumbucks may equate to $0.10 US currency.

Is this sort of thing even possible? I know that virtual worlds like Second Life use something like Linden Dollars (which users pay real $$ for), but haven't seen it on forums.

[mromero]

I would like to see better management of RSS / ATOM Feeds so that we can truncate the items to X characters with a READ MORE link.

I would also like to see the ability to include snippets of text such as Copyright Notice, as well as JS for advertisement such ADSENSE in the Feed.

[Lase]

Sidebar Image uploader

Gallery is great. Well, it has a lot of drawbacks actually. But the notion of browsing images is great. What's not great is the fanny-about it takes to upload an image. Seriously who can be chewed. My demographic are professionals they'd like to share images, but they certainly don't have time to' click this page, click that page, this page that page, select image, tags, upload, this page that page. There's about 5 or 6 pages loading just to upload an image.

What's needed is a sidebar hook. Browse button, text input field for tags and title, select button for album, upload button, BAM. Done. The user isn't even directed off the board index.

I'm too busy with other stuff but paying for this to be designed is on my agenda. Save me the trouble. My user's aren't going to use the gallery in any great capacity until i have this.

[Weppa333]

image upload, as a whole, should be simpler. And possibly unified ( image from forum go to gallery if gallery present)

[Aussie Cable]

Just adding a few more.

1. Ability to upload images to not just your own board (Flickr/Imgur API would be great).

2. Simplifying ease of use - many of my members say (via a survey I have done) that the whole community is difficult and not easy to use.

I shall leave that to some better inclined minds to look at.

[miraclesun]

URL/HTML Parsing in Custom Profile Fields. And have "inputs" for Custom Profile Fields be able to be limited depending on the member group. Example is what I requested here: http://community.invisionpower.com/topic/376502-download-mt34-wordpress-ipsconnect/page-9#entry2382905

Also, please add FB, Twitter and Tumblr "contact" profile fields as default.

[Aussie Cable]

Adding another idea:

Ability to be able to have a threshold on how many people can click ads via Adsense, so administrators do not end up having their Adsense accounts disabled.

For instance:

1. You select how many number of Adsense ads can be clicked by any member/guest, then that ad is hidden from that member/guest

2. Auto show replacement adverts if that threshold has been triggered by member/guest

3. Ability to enable how many page views per Adsense adverts per member/guest

4. Ability to have second/third/fourth advert section, if the threshold has been triggered, for instance:

This would be of course once your threshold has been reached on ad #1 and so forth.

This will help stop Adsense accounts being disabled due to click fraud and click bombs/bots (and proud mothers etc :tongue:)

[Neil2]

The current software is so much easier to use than the older stuff, but with the ease of use it sure has had a lot of good items cut out of it.

My suggestions are:

Bring back the default trash can, that soft delete stuff is okay, but the trash can was the best period.

User infopane / post profile card as it use to be known as, is a wreck and completely unorganized, go back to the default and keep it neat, organized and to the left, not scattered to the wind or not working:

Group:

Member No:

Posts:

From:

Online Status:

Ban filters to work properly, using the wildcard feature

Bad word filter to work with one listing and not have to list out each word normally, in caps, or plural so the system will catch the words.

Make the default administrator group king again where it cannot be edited by members with ACP access.

IPS add on applications

Give back permissions and editing control to the root admin for assignment, not default permissions carried over to global moderator groups same as the forum.

Fix the gallery back default to allow private albums in other categories just not allow this in one default category.

Fix internal search and not have to refer to a third party search app like sphinx.

[GreenLinks]

Please make major changes to User Group permissions. I highly suggest checking vBulletin 3 permissions and make sure IPB is flexible enough as vBulletin 3 regarding permissions. There are many limitations currently on permission system that should be corrected imo.

[Mark]

There's a lot of great ideas in this topic - though it's much better for us to manage if each idea/suggestion gets it's own topic :)

[Pieter K]

Please make major changes to User Group permissions. I highly suggest checking vBulletin 3 permissions and make sure IPB is flexible enough as vBulletin 3 regarding permissions. There are many limitations currently on permission system that should be corrected imo.

I feel that IPB's permission system is too "over the place". XenForo has a very straight forward, long list of "Allow, Deny, Pass", which saves a ton of headaches later on. In IPB, you have very grouped together permissions (I'm talking about how several things are in one setting, and many settings in one group). It's chaotic, and I have issues once every blue moon trying to fixing permission conflicts.

[Thom4s]

+ Suggestion: Better Tagging

[Wolfie]

Before I address posts that I have quoted.. It's generally not a good idea to group multiple ideas into one topic. If they are highly related in concept/function/whatever, then having a few in the same topic I think isn't too bad, but ideas 'all across the board' in one topic can actually HURT more than help.

Ok, so I have been thinking about the things I would like to see in IPB Suite 4.0.

I wanted to see some other great idea's that people want to see implemented in 4.0, anyway, here is my list:

Addressing them one at a time, your items in bold...

1. Better quoting system (quote selected text ability, single line between quote and cursor in editor)
Quoting selected text, I believe there is an add-on for that, though I can see that being useful as a core feature.

Since line between quote and cursor? I'm confused. Do you mean forcing a blank line to show up in posts between the end of a quote box and the reply? If so, then no, I am extremely against this. I actually despise when this happens, because then if there are multiple quotes within the same post, it can cause confusion as to what the text is really a reply to. If you think I'm crazy, then think about this. Ever notice how some people reply to something with the quote BELOW their reply? Yeah, that. I have multiple quotes that I'm replying to and there's a gap, that can cause confusion. Forcing a space between the quote and the reply is an absolutely HORRIBLE idea. If you want a blank line to appear in a post you make, then hey, go for it. That's your choice, but don't force me to follow that same mistake.

2. Better emoticon system, where you can bulk add, and organise further into folders
Bulk add, easy to enable/disable one or more from being 'available', option to use the same image for multiple replacements (like : P and : - P with the same image instead of the same image uploaded twice).

3. Drag and drop images/attachments to the editor (fast reply and full editor)
I could see the usefulness of this.

4. Removal of the profile feed (do we really care what people are thinking?)
Some of us do care, so yes, we need it. Veto to removing the profile feed.

5. Automatic Gallery album creation when adding/drag/drop image to editor
What if Gallery isn't installed?

6. Light/er on images (and/or heavily optimized - see #8)
Doesn't #8 cover this, making this a needless mention?

7. Profile privacy (for those members who do not want any personal information available to members)
To a degree I could see this. Each profile have a certain amount of information available to everyone who can see profiles. But beyond that, let the member decide who can see what. Might want to hide contact info from everyone except those who are their friends or only allow staff to see it, etc.

8. Better optimized images/.js/.css (have seen some really nice results from Smush.it)
Here's something that perfectly matches your comment.

9. Simplify adding of images/attachments/files (for all of IP.Board/Gallery/IP.Downloads/Blog - right now, too many clicks)
This is #3 again, just slightly different.

10. More standard login methods (Google etc)
Nah. At least, not part of the core. Instead, have drop in modules that add the login methods. That way there aren't 20+ unnecessary items cluttering up the list.

11. Softer ACP colours
You planning to take a nap on the ACP or something? The colors seem fine to me.

12. Notes section
Huh?

13. Make administrator posts uneditable by moderators (even if they have ACP access)
How is the system supposed to know that someone is a moderator if they have ACP access? Technically, someone with ACP access is an administrator.

14. Administrator everything ACP/profile make uneditable by moderators.
You mean, make it so that anything done by an administrator cannot be altered by someone with lower access. I can see that being useful. Only limitation I would put on that though is to allow a moderator to hide (but not delete) content. What if an admin made a post that needs to be hidden from view and it can't wait until another admin is online to do it? Let moderator hide content by an admin and if it was a bad decision, then let the admins sort it out with that moderator. Better safe than sorry.

I reserve the right to add to this list as time goes on :thumbsup:
By the powers invested in me, the Grand Poohbah of Wolves, I hereby discontinue that privilege to add to the list. :lol:

I would really like to hear about what you would like to see in IPB Suite 4.0 (and why).
Many things, but let's make separate topics about those instead of letting it get lost within one topic.

Add some privacy

- make "quotes" something "soft" and not "hard" (I mean by that to do replicate the text beeing quoted in the response, link to it by some ajax process for example, just like discourse does). or remove quotes altogether.
- removal of accounts by user himself , for me. Add soft deletion of everything they said, including quotes (see 1 for feasability).
- remove viewing profiles (and avanced searches allowing a guest to track what someone said) for guests. It makes no sense in a facebook world anymore. You're either IN or OUT of the community.

1. Do you mean make it so that if a post is hidden or deleted, that if it was quoted in another post, to automatically 'hide' it from within that post? I can see that as being useful but also confusing and potentially resource consuming.

2. You mean to let a user remove their own account? If so, I can see that, provided that I can disable that function on my communities.

3. Why not just toggle the option for the guest member group so they can't see member profiles?

And add some 90s SEO

- blah.com/forum-name/thread-name-pageX.html
- stop using rel=canonical to try to fix ugly urls. It's either crawlable or it is not. robots=noindex for anything that is not supposed to be crawled or is redundant.

1. What if a topic is moved from one forum to another? That URL would no longer work. What if there are multiple topics with the same name? Yes, you could check to make sure it's a unique URL, but if the community has over one million topics and is rather busy, that could cause some serious issues. Bad idea.

2. If you're going to say to use one method vs another when it comes to 'fixing' something in regards to search engines, provide data/proof for your reasons. Maybe using rel is a bad idea and is already going to be fixed, or perhaps it's a great method but for some reason people are under the wrong impression that it's bad. I honestly don't know so I'm not going to take sides on it. Provide evidence to support what you say, so that if a needed, it's out there and easy for the devs to understand it. Right? Right.

Cut the fat

- (ability to) remove stuff that most people will never use, namely status updates, fancy forum results sorting, the entire editor tools (an empty text box with smilies underneath is more than enough). Some people, like me, would like to shut down the entire quoting system too. Not the quote tag, just the button and stuff. Powxer users will now how to do it.

status updates - people still use that. Just because YOU don't doesn't mean it's something that people will never use it. I've seen it used, even recently, on other sites running IPS software. So your saying that it will 'never' get used is already invalidated right there.

'fancy forum results sorting'? I don't get what you're talking about.

You want the editor tools to be removed? Nuh uh. I tend to make use of 'My Media' and often the left/center/right justification buttons. Sometimes the font and size options as well. For certain things I will type in the [b/u/i] codes myself, or highlight a section and use ctrl + (b/u/i), but those buttons are there for a reason and many people use them. No idea why you think that no one ever uses them, but if that's seriously what you think, then you are mistaken to an extreme degree.

Srsly, did anyone click on the "underscript" button of IPB's editor in the last decade ? :smile:

Huh?

When I say URL like
blah.com/forumname/thread-page.html

I have absolutely no problem with
blah.com/forum-name.ID/thread-name.ID-pageX.html

Again, topic moved to new forum, then the URL is invalid presuming it fixes itself by redirecting to the new/correct URL... Well, when a URL does a redirect, that in turn causes a sites rankings to sink, doesn't it? I'll hand you the can of worms and let you sort it out.

Sorry if I made you think I was in favor of completely ID-less URLs, that's not what I meant. But I believe URLs with forum name are important, urls easily readable and copy-pastable are important ( don't tell me about UTF8 in URLs ! ) I also believe thread IDs should be at the right, certainly not at the left. It creates confusion. We read from left to right in my continent, why put the non human readable first to the left ?

Very good point, but let's not stop there though. Let's do the same for numbered lists, where the number is at the very end instead of at the beginning. Example of this where I am listing the street light colors at an intersection.

Green.1.

Yellow.2.

Red.3.

That makes a lot more sense. Please note the heavy sarcasm and the fact that I fail to see how the ID at the left can cause confusion. The ID at the right can be just as confusing.. Someone reading it and then seeing a number will be like.. "Huh? What's that number for?" Either they understand the purpose of the number or they don't. If they don't, then it won't matter if it's on the left or the right. At least logically, with it on the left, sorting wise, they will be in proper order.

I don't see the SEO value of an URL like IPB wants us to use :
ford.com/topic/17817-new-windshield/?page=2
versus
ford.com/mustang-1967/new-windshield.html?page=2 ( or new-windshield-17817.p2.html?args )

I don't see the point of including the forum name in the URL when the forum name is already part of the breadcrumbs. I've seen the search results of sites using IPS software with the breadcrumbs preserved and the name of the forum (and the topic) as part of the result. Why is someone going to decide to ignore that and read the URL itself to decide if it's what they are looking for when the summary of the content does that for them?

which url would you click if you're interested in 1967 Mustang windshields ? For the time beeing, URL do show up in search egnines results and are an important part of the user's decision to click on a link instead of another. Also keywords from the query are put in bold, even in urls.

I would click on the result that has a a mention of 1967 Mustangs within the title or the summary. You really don't know how to use a search engine, do you?

Oh and by your own rules, it would be "Mustang windshields 1967" not "1967 Mustang windshields."

As for the word "topic" in each and every thread URL... it's a waste of precious characters, especially at the beginning of an URL.

There are no thread URL's.

Adding another idea:

Ability to be able to have a threshold on how many people can click ads via Adsense, so administrators do not end up having their Adsense accounts disabled.

That's the responsibility of the Adsense account holder to tend to.

For instance:

1. You select how many number of Adsense ads can be clicked by any member/guest, then that ad is hidden from that member/guest
2. Auto show replacement adverts if that threshold has been triggered by member/guest
3. Ability to enable how many page views per Adsense adverts per member/guest
4. Ability to have second/third/fourth advert section, if the threshold has been triggered, for instance:

Why not just use an ad delivery product/service that tracks clicks and such in a more advanced way? Use those same ad fields for calling on that product/service. Like OpenX for example? Better yet, get Nexus and use both of them together, for more options and control.

[Profissionais da Cozinha]

HI!.

In liveleak site, have one cool feature.

Is sound in image profile.

The user can put a little MP3 file together with image, and when some one put the mouse arrow on the picture the sound played.

Is very cool feature, the user put some mensages or cut sound from movies or record yourself the sound.

Sorry for my BAD English.

http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=5dc_1365862126

( Go em "View Comments", and look the image with sound icon )