Invision devs forgot # of views in Topic Summary?

[TheWorldNewsMedia.org]

Because popular days is what posters and readers really wanted to know about a post and definitely not the # of views it has had. Plus, where could they even have fitted that enormous info?

 

 

Edited September 6, 2020 by TheWorldNewsMedia.org

[Matt]

I don't think that number of views is a particularly useful metric and doesn't reflect how beneficial the topic may be.

Also, which guest page caching, the topic view isn't entirely accurate and will only accurately count member (logged in) views.

[AlexWebsites]

I think topic views can be very helpful, especially for the topic starter. We have sponsors that create topics and seeing that metric is very important to them while comparing that to replies. Someone can probably create a plugin for that.

[BankFodder]

I tend to agree that topic views can be very helpful – and of course it is for forum administrators to decide what they need for their particular community.

 

[TheWorldNewsMedia.org]

On 9/7/2020 at 7:35 AM, Matt said:

I don't think that number of views is a particularly useful metric and doesn't reflect how beneficial the topic may be.

Also, which guest page caching, the topic view isn't entirely accurate and will only accurately count member (logged in) views.

Agreed. I will call ALL the major social media and forums and let them know that this thing called "# of views" is useless and they should consider removing it from their platforms.

We all really wanted to know what day a certain topic was popular.

[BankFodder]

On 9/7/2020 at 4:35 PM, Matt said:

I don't think that number of views is a particularly useful metric and doesn't reflect how beneficial the topic may be.

Also, which guest page caching, the topic view isn't entirely accurate and will only accurately count member (logged in) views.

Sorry Matt, but I've seen quite a few instances now where you have tended simply to pronounce that you don't think that something is useful or that it has an undesirable effect and that seems to be the justification removing certain features to the extent of depriving your customers of – Choice

We've been down this road before and you know what I'm talking about.

I don't see what is wrong with providing – Choice – and allowing your customers to decide how they want to run their own forums.

 

Edited October 2, 2020 by BankFodder

[Adriano Faria]

18 minutes ago, BankFodder said:

I don't see what is wrong with providing – Choice – and allowing your customers to decide how they want to run their own forums.

They’re right:

...”we'dlove to accommodate every request vs an on/off setting, I'm unsure why there's a limited perception that we strip things out just to alienate folks. The reality is, everyone has their own "thing" and unfortunately, accommodating them all leads to a bloated management interface, increased development time via implementation, maintenance, etc. -- a "simple" setting doesn't seem like much on an individualized basis, but cumulatively it adds up”...

 

[BankFodder]

Quote

I'm unsure why there's a limited perception that we strip things out just to alienate folks. 

I don't know where anyone gets this from. It would be ridiculous and quite childish to imagine that Invision is simply trying to alienate people. I'd love to know where this has been said. Maybe somebody can give us a source link please

[TheWorldNewsMedia.org]

1 hour ago, Adriano Faria said:

They’re right:

...”we'dlove to accommodate every request vs an on/off setting, I'm unsure why there's a limited perception that we strip things out just to alienate folks. The reality is, everyone has their own "thing" and unfortunately, accommodating them all leads to a bloated management interface, increased development time via implementation, maintenance, etc. -- a "simple" setting doesn't seem like much on an individualized basis, but cumulatively it adds up”...

 

"Accommodate everyone"'s requests?  

So you would have us believe that the majority of Invision users decided that the "Day a certain post was popular" was MORE USEFUL than "Total # of views" on a new TOPIC SUMMARY feature they rolled out with fanfare? 

Why do I doubt that?

And you support this view by posting and example of a user asking for each post to be numbered? (which is obviously unique request)

 

At this point no admin / user should ask for ANYTHING because the answer could always be: "We can't accomodate everyone's requests" .....

"Umm .... sorry sir but italics aren't used by everyone..... you'll need a dev to enable that"

 

[Runar]

Isn’t this easily fixable by editing the theme yourself?

[bearback]

On 9/7/2020 at 3:35 PM, Matt said:

I don't think that number of views is a particularly useful metric and doesn't reflect how beneficial the topic may be.

Also, which guest page caching, the topic view isn't entirely accurate and will only accurately count member (logged in) views.

In your opinion 

Sorry Matt but i have to disagree,  Once again a feature has been removed because you thought it wasn't useful or seams to read tat way.

My members like to see the number of views on a topics and so do sponsors, its getting a little tiresome where i have to find a why of putting feature back or hope a developers has the time to create a plugin.

[Runar]

You don't need a plugin to show the number of views in the topic summary. Simply add the following four lines to the theme file forums > topics > activity:

<li class='cTopicOverview__statItem ipsType_center'>
	<span class='cTopicOverview__statTitle ipsType_light ipsTruncate ipsTruncate_line'>{lang="views"}</span>
	<span class='cTopicOverview__statValue'>{number="$topic->views" format="short"}</span>
</li>

Insert the code on line 18, and the number of views will be shown next to the number of replies:

[Adriano Faria]

17 hours ago, Runar said:

ou don't need a plugin to show the number of views in the topic summary.

Yes you need. Otherwise you won't get any modification IPS can make in this template until you click in the REVERT button in this template. Unless you don't mind to be outdated.

[Runar]

1 minute ago, Adriano Faria said:

Yes you need. Otherwise you won't get any modification IPS can make in this template until you click in the REVERT button in this template. Unless you don't mind to be outdated.

It'll only take you a few minutes to click "Show default" after an update and make the necessary changes to the template.

[Adriano Faria]

I don't like to waste even a few seconds and people tend to forget. Anyway, just a friendly notice to anyone else: edit a template isn't the best way to go, in any situation.

[Runar]

Then we've got different priorities, and that's obviously okay. For me it's a waste of time to look for, install, and keep updated a plugin when all it does is add four lines to a template.

Also, I fail to see the issue with editing the templates. Why wouldn't that be okay, if you're comfortable with it and know what you're doing (and what it means when you update)? The updater will tell you exactly which templates are outdated, and with two clicks you'll see what's new and what changes you'll have to make. The whole point of the templates is being able to customize them to your liking. It shouldn't be necessary to install a plugin to move a button to another location.

[Adriano Faria]

1 minute ago, Runar said:

Then we've got different priorities, and that's obviously okay. For me it's a waste of time to look for, install, and keep updated a plugin when all it does is add four lines to a template.

Seriously? Are in 4.5?  All you have to do is click in a button on ACP and you're updated.

Anyway, I really don't need (or want) to waste all day long trying to proof something to you. I'm talking to OTHERS who may edit a template and showing to them that it isn't a good way to do it.

👍

[Runar]

2 minutes ago, Adriano Faria said:

Seriously? Are in 4.5?  All you have to do is click in a button on ACP and you're updated.

Until the plugin isn't updated anymore, as the numerous topics here over the last weeks have shown.

2 minutes ago, Adriano Faria said:

Anyway, I really don't need (or want) to waste all day long trying to proof something to you. I'm talking to OTHERS who may edit a template and showing to them that it isn't a good way to do it.

I don't want to argue with you. I respect you and highly appreciate your valuable work. You have your opinion on this and I have mine, and we'll probably never agree and that's fine. I only want to tell others reading this topic that editing a template file isn't necessarily a bad thing, as long as you know what it means for future updates. Your argument is that editing the template means you'll have to do it again after every update or risk being outdated. My counterargument is that editing the template is perfectly okay, because you'll be given clear instructions on how to make sure it's up to date.

I have no intentions of making you change your mind, or having you change mine. I only want to offer a second view.

[clearvision]

Plugins are not always available for what you need done or updated quickly.   If you code your own (cloud users don't have that option anymore) you still have to spend time developing it and maintaining it.  For cloud users you can't test plugins on a demo cloud site, so you have to go live and see what happens after each upgrade.  

A reasonable number of template edits seems no worse than a similar number of plugins to deal with.  You are told if there is a difference directly and can quickly fix only those that need it.  I use my own template "bits" if more than a single line of code so the edit is simply a single line easy to recognize using a template insert {template=""....}.

At one time I rolled my own plugin for template changes, but found maintaining it more difficult than just modifying the templates and had to carry a source license, even though main site is cloud hosted, to keep it up to date.

[TheWorldNewsMedia.org]

On 10/3/2020 at 11:00 AM, Runar said:

You don't need a plugin to show the number of views in the topic summary. Simply add the following four lines to the theme file forums > topics > activity:

<li class='cTopicOverview__statItem ipsType_center'>
	<span class='cTopicOverview__statTitle ipsType_light ipsTruncate ipsTruncate_line'>{lang="views"}</span>
	<span class='cTopicOverview__statValue'>{number="$topic->views" format="short"}</span>
</li>

Insert the code on line 18, and the number of views will be shown next to the number of replies:

Thank you SO much!!!

And to think it would be SO simple for them to have included this..... 4 little lines of code. Sigh.

And they would probably have a blog post about how they are releasing a "new feature!" .... 

[Fast Lane!]

# of views is critical for readers to know what's more popular in a relative sense when your forum has hundreds to thousands of posts a day. In fact hot topics can be deduced by considering post post count and views within a certain time. 

Edited October 9, 2020 by Fast Lane!

[Malwarebytes Forums]

# of views is a top item by Google Analytics as well 

 

[Morrigan]

Everyone does realize that Google's # of views is different than actual number of views (that IPS calculates, and therefore is different than google's number of views and people are constantly upset about) which makes the number completely irrelevant right?

Sure My tik tok video gets X number of views but the only time they count is when its a "full" watch..... which neither google nor IPS can say is accurate because they can't tell you if the user is reading the whole thread (thus Google's bounce rate.....)

Honestly views is about as useful as.... NM that was a really dirty joke I shouldn't say but views aren't useful to an end user. All it says is that someone clicked on their post not that they read it.

[Matt]

One thing to keep in mind with topic views is that with guest page caching, most guest views will not be counted. In addition to that, if you have a CDN in front of your web servers (as you would want to do, and we do with our cloud plans), then it's even less frequently that guest counts are recorded.

So while we can add the topic view count in there, it's not really reflective of the actual traffic that one topic gets.

Google Analytics is much better for getting statistical data on this level as it records every hit via a JS API.

I'm not against adding topic views in that block if it's clear what the number represents. 

[BankFodder]

Then put some hover-text over it.