Q&A Forums, Content Count, etc.

[esquire]

I haven't been here in a long time, focusing on other things productive. I noticed that Gallery was missing and that you're deprived of all the artistic demo pictures that I felt needed to be shared with the world. Thankfully I hear it's coming back. But I'm unaware where we are with things like the Q&A forums and whether they have been made functional in a way that makes them worth using - don't see a demo. Same goes for Content Count, which I think was a noble idea but one that is completely useless to me in every situation without the ability to reward for each type of content and also determine the number of each type added at a quick glance.

I really like activity streams but don't know why you wouldn't include all of them in just one "Activity Streams" dropdown (which I'd just name "Activity" for brevity and valuable navbar real estate.) I guess that's easily enough done if you know how.

And then there is IP.C or Pages. I've long since created my long laundry list of needs before I personally would use it for any type of CMS. Is there a shortlist of significant changes? Off the top of my head I remember:

• can only have long URLs which include all cat/subcategories and has a letter before article number (don't think this will change and Kevin's add-on is a must... essential IMHO)
• I don't recall there being a field for excerpt or teaser text
• Layout issues where Pages was presented like a forum instead of a layout you'd expect for articles

There are others I can't recall, wondering if a couple of you also have a good short list of sites that utilize most of these things.

[Morrigan]

Example of Question/Answer forum:

https://invisionpower.com/forums/forum/505-product-guidance/

 

You can customize your navigation bar to do exactly what you are asking, they just put those there as a default.

For the Pages stuff:

The first I don't know.

The second you can make one by using truncate or max-length when setting it up.

You can have templates that make it as custom as you want but I would recommend maybe a main page and then the actual category pages.

[esquire]

Thanks. My concern with the QA forum was more about threading to keep conversations coherent. It doesn't seem to be the case and it's just whatever is voted up and down so replies to quotes to posts can appear above the original posts themselves.

I opted with another solution on other software that works better for me. It allows voting for best answer and shows the best answer (or 2) below the first post question and the rest of the topic is unchanged in order so you can read through the thread and it makes perfect sense.

[chilihead]

1 hour ago, esquire said:

Thanks. My concern with the QA forum was more about threading to keep conversations coherent. It doesn't seem to be the case and it's just whatever is voted up and down so replies to quotes to posts can appear above the original posts themselves.

I opted with another solution on other software that works better for me. It allows voting for best answer and shows the best answer (or 2) below the first post question and the rest of the topic is unchanged in order so you can read through the thread and it makes perfect sense.

Sorting by date by default is heavily suggested, and marked Planned here:

In the meantime you can make this modification:

The problem is, Best Answer is also sorted by date and is no longer first. Please copy the BA post so it is sorted by date and first.

[esquire]

Thanks for the suggestions. For me I'd rather not have to force to user to figure out sorting as that is much too complicated for most users and not typical. If you sort threaded you lose the BA where it is most convenient - right below the question. I'm guessing that if you ever get sorted by date by default then someone might be able to create an add on to also put the BA or BAs below the question.

Most BA type sites do either of two things - the manner in which I suggested or they are threaded like stack exchange. And when you respond in the threaded option you choose either an attempt to answer the question or to respond to a post. Hard to believe that even vBulletin 5 got this right, lol. I just don't know if I'll ever see myself using this as is except under limited circumstances.

OK, content count and posts still mixed together. I just cannot understand why the suggestion I made wouldn't be a no brainer for this. It has been that way on virtually every site I've ever seen and makes it easier for users to break down what a user contributed. And at the same token I don't know why the reward/award system isn't hooked into it. Every addon does the same thing to the old sites and they are available for all the other competitive scripts. Being built in here would seem easy and a huge advantage. Alas we still have neither and a content count in the profile that doesn't lead to anything.