Whatever happened to the Fluid display?

[WebCMS]

There used to be a Fluid layout - dynamic listing with Forum filter box that can include topics from Forums and Clubs on a single page. The setting is still there in the ACP but it doesn't render the Fluid switch button on the frontend.

Please advise...

By the way, what is the size limit on this forum for attachments? Yesterday it was saying 35KB (I uploaded only one screenshot so far) and today it says 8KB.

Here is the screenshot of Fluid layout shared by your Sales team last year -

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1h3s4hkxFbNF6gYR1rP_b_UpbweZDqO-h/view

By the way, the Fluid display is available for guests (topics from all forums+clubs in one list without the Fluid/Grid/Table switches) but when logged in, it defaults to Condensed/Expanded switches and no Fluid switch. Grid view doesn't work at all.

Edited October 18, 2023 by WebCMS

[Randy Calvert]

Have you checked the member groups to make sure they are allowed to switch views?  If the group does not have permission, they would get assigned the default view and not be able to select another.
 

Also on this site there is an attachment limit of 50MB. Thats of ALL attachments ever uploaded. So each time you upload a file, your total quota of available space drops.  You can manage your attachments in your account settings. https://invisioncommunity.com/attachments/
 

Edited October 18, 2023 by Randy Calvert

[WebCMS]

22 hours ago, Randy Calvert said:

Have you checked the member groups to make sure they are allowed to switch views?  If the group does not have permission, they would get assigned the default view and not be able to select another.
 

Also on this site there is an attachment limit of 50MB. Thats of ALL attachments ever uploaded. So each time you upload a file, your total quota of available space drops.  You can manage your attachments in your account settings. https://invisioncommunity.com/attachments/
 

My members are able to switch the view between Condensed and Expanded. But there is no Fluid view option to select as shown in the screenshot. It would be great if the Fluid view can consolidate the topics in all forums and clubs into a single list with a filter check list.

My total attachment limit is 250KB for ALLL attachments ever uploaded (not: 50MB). I ran out of it by uploading 3 downgraded screenshots

Edited October 19, 2023 by WebCMS

[Joel R]

Fluid view is definitely still an option.  You can see it in action on my website 

https://www.invisioneer.org/forums/

(It's actually my default view for guests).

If you don't see it, switch to default theme and make sure you enable it for all groups.  

[WebCMS]

4 hours ago, Joel R said:

Fluid view is definitely still an option.  You can see it in action on my website 

https://www.invisioneer.org/forums/

(It's actually my default view for guests).

If you don't see it, switch to default theme and make sure you enable it for all groups.  

I set Default Forum View to Fluid in ACP > Community > Forum > Settings and switched "Members can choose..." to ON. I don't see the Community Hub widget anywhere and no Fluid view button to toggle. This settings renders ALL topics from the Forum+Clubs on the single Forum page (home) for Guest users only (no View toggle buttons and no check boxes to toggle their filters) but after login, it renders just the Forum topics on homepage without Club topics and no check box filters (just Condensed/Expanded view buttons)

Is it because I have just one forum? But i have multiple Clubs which should be good enough to render Fluid view to toggle Forum+Clubs filters on the Forum page to choose - like it does for Guest users. It would be ideal to render checkbox filters in the Clubs widget to save space so Clubs widget could be reused for filtering the topics + Forum topics.

Edited October 19, 2023 by WebCMS

[Marc Stridgen]

I suspect here that guests actually have access to content that members do not, meaning indeed you only have one forum. If you would like for us to take a look, we can certainly do that, but would need the name of a member you are logging in as in order to check for you

[WebCMS]

On 10/19/2023 at 2:28 AM, Marc Stridgen said:

I suspect here that guests actually have access to content that members do not, meaning indeed you only have one forum. If you would like for us to take a look, we can certainly do that, but would need the name of a member you are logging in as in order to check for you

When I go to Display Settings of the forum, the "Enable Combined Fluid View?" switch is disabled with a warning -

Combined fluid view cannot be enabled as this forum does not have any sub-forums

Multiple forums will fragment discussions negatively. I used clubs to categorize popular topics but would like to offer an option to users to consolidate the forum/clubs content in a Fluid view. I guess it would be ideal to consider the Clubs as sub-forums and allow to enable Fluid View of the single forum in conjunction with Clubs. The Clubs widget (on the Forum page) could be reused/repurposed with checkboxes prefixed before each club name to filter the Fluid view along with the single forum (to save space in the widget sidebar). It is like "View the forum along with these optional Clubs".

This is just extending the functionality across topics of forum/clubs instead of enabling Fluid view only for subforums. After all, Clubs are forums and the club content is just topics (similar to forum topics).

Thoughts?

Edited October 22, 2023 by WebCMS

[Marc Stridgen]

There isnt any way to do that in the way you are trying to there. You are looking for the club forums to be something that they arent (they arent subforums of that forum)

[FanClub Mike]

Hey @WebCMS. I'm using the Fluid Mode as an option for members, Club forums included. If the club forums aren't displaying, it may be disabled in the Admin section.

Community > Clubs > Settings > Show Club Content Areas > Enable 'Throughout the community'

[WebCMS]

Hi Mike,

I have the setting exactly like yours above but the Fluid view button doesn't render on forum page. Maybe it is because I have only one main forum and no subforums. I do have multiple club forums.

How many forums do you have? Can you show me your frontend forum page where it renders Fluid view button with forums & clubs forums consolidated in a list with checkboxes?

Cheers!

[WebCMS]

Mike,

I see what you are saying. I saw before that all the topics from all the forums and club forums are consolidated into one view on forums page with this setting. I saw this consolidated before for guest users (without any View selection buttons apparently because they want to save that preference for the user) but after login, it defaults to Table view and no Fluid view button (I mentioned this before). Apparently, the forum data and club forum data are stored in the same table otherwise, they would have to do a SELECT UNION with some poor performance.

However, the view mode apparently gets cached once switched to Table view and it does not render the Fluid view button.

But the shortcoming with this approach (even if it works without hiding the Fluid view button) is that it does not render the forums widget to filter the topics by forums/club forums. If this forums widget with filter checkboxes is rendered without hiding the Fluid view button, this issue will be resolved gracefully.

Without the forum widget to filter topics, this consolidated view mode won't be much useful as users won't be in control of what topics they want to view.

Edited October 25, 2023 by WebCMS

[FanClub Mike]

On 10/25/2023 at 12:54 PM, WebCMS said:

Hi Mike,

I have the setting exactly like yours above but the Fluid view button doesn't render on forum page. Maybe it is because I have only one main forum and no subforums. I do have multiple club forums.

How many forums do you have? Can you show me your frontend forum page where it renders Fluid view button with forums & clubs forums consolidated in a list with checkboxes?

Cheers!

The subforums aren't required for clubs to show. I have 12 (main) forums and I have the club checkboxes hidden via CSS. I have all the club forum content show in fluid mode if a member switches to that. I'm using the Combined Fluid Mode for categories though which is accessible for guests. Here's an example of the General Entertainment category.

On 10/25/2023 at 1:07 PM, WebCMS said:

Mike,

I see what you are saying. I saw before that all the topics from all the forums and club forums are consolidated into one view on forums page with this setting. I saw this consolidated before for guest users (without any View selection buttons apparently because they want to save that preference for the user) but after login, it defaults to Table view and no Fluid view button (I mentioned this before). Apparently, the forum data and club forum data are stored in the same table otherwise, they would have to do a SELECT UNION with some poor performance.

However, the view mode apparently gets cached once switched to Table view and it does not render the Fluid view button.

But the shortcoming with this approach (even if it works without hiding the Fluid view button) is that it does not render the forums widget to filter the topics by forums/club forums. If this forums widget with filter checkboxes is rendered without hiding the Fluid view button, this issue will be resolved gracefully.

Without the forum widget to filter topics, this consolidated view mode won't be much useful as users won't be in control of what topics they want to view.

Reading your next post, this sounds a bit above my technical knowledge though without seeing it, but if you want to send me a DM, I wouldn't mind chatting it out and seeing if I can lend a hand. 

[WebCMS]

On 11/1/2023 at 12:42 PM, FanClub Mike said:

The subforums aren't required for clubs to show. I have 12 (main) forums and I have the club checkboxes hidden via CSS. I have all the club forum content show in fluid mode if a member switches to that. I'm using the Combined Fluid Mode for categories though which is accessible for guests. Here's an example of the General Entertainment category.

Reading your next post, this sounds a bit above my technical knowledge though without seeing it, but if you want to send me a DM, I wouldn't mind chatting it out and seeing if I can lend a hand. 

I was able to list topics from all club forums in a single main forum view.

However, I needed to disallow users from switching views - it will always be Fluid view (until the issue is resolved). If I allow users to choose view, the Fluid view button does not get rendered for some reason and it reverts to Table view. For a new user, I once saw Fluid view button rendered but as soon as the view is switched to Fluid view (and maybe the user preference stored in cookie), the Fluid view button does not get rendered anymore and switches back to Table view. For this reason, I had to disallow switching views. Glitch?

The Filter Widget does not get auto-rendered maybe because I don't have category-forums in clubs to act as parents, and I had to add the Clubs widget to the sidebar (but there are no checkbox filters in the Clubs widget to filter topics). For now, users will have topics from the main forum + topics from all club-forums OR topics from a single club-forum (when clicked on a club in the Clubs widget, it goes to the first forum in the club). If Clubs widget (on the Forum page) can have filters checkboxes, that would resolve the issue.

I have to try grouping club-forums under category-forums to see if I get the Filters widget auto-rendered but many of my clubs have only one forum so the category-forums will have just one forum under them.

Edited November 8, 2023 by WebCMS

[Marc Stridgen]

1 hour ago, WebCMS said:

However, I needed to disallow users from switching views - it will always be Fluid view (until the issue is resolved). If I allow users to choose view, the Fluid view button does not get rendered for some reason and it reverts to Table view. For a new user, I once saw Fluid view button rendered but as soon as the view is switched to Fluid view (and maybe the user preference stored in cookie), the Fluid view button does not get rendered anymore and switches back to Table view. For this reason, I had to disallow switching views. Glitch?

Its not clear what you are doing there. Could you please give me step by step to replicate this, as it seems to indicate there may be a glitch somewhere, yes.

[WebCMS]

On 11/8/2023 at 4:24 AM, Marc Stridgen said:

Its not clear what you are doing there. Could you please give me step by step to replicate this, as it seems to indicate there may be a glitch somewhere, yes.

I realized Clubs are not fully featured compared to regular forums, blogs and calendars.

I added just one subforum to the General category and boom, the filters widget got auto-rendered with all the club-forums in it. But they were all over the place sorted by activity with no structure as there are no categories in clubs to group them and club-forums are not fully featured like regular forums.

Club-events have issues too in that they display in just one color on the event calendar and they don't get listed in topic list like regular events. Club-blogs had similar issues.

I went with subforums instead and changed the language strings from Forums to Clubs.

 

Apparently, the issue I encountered with clubs (no way to switch to Fluid View) is an existing one -

 

 

[Jim M]

4 hours ago, WebCMS said:

I realized Clubs are not fully featured compared to regular forums, blogs and calendars.

I added just one subforum to the General category and boom, the filters widget got auto-rendered with all the club-forums in it. But they were all over the place sorted by activity with no structure as there are no categories in clubs to group them and club-forums are not fully featured like regular forums.

Club-events have issues too in that they display in just one color on the event calendar and they don't get listed in topic list like regular events. Club-blogs had similar issues.

I went with subforums instead and changed the language strings from Forums to Clubs.

 

Apparently, the issue I encountered with clubs (no way to switch to Fluid View) is an existing one -

 

 

It is worth mentioning that what was described there in the topic you linked, is now a feature. Categories can have fluid mode enabled for their sub-forums.

However, this is not available in Clubs because there isn't really that concept of sub-forums here thus, I am a little confused on what you're seeing and trying to accomplish. As mentioned by my colleague, we need an example and step-by-step to how to get there.

[WebCMS]

1 hour ago, Jim M said:

It is worth mentioning that what was described there in the topic you linked, is now a feature. Categories can have fluid mode enabled for their sub-forums.

However, this is not available in Clubs because there isn't really that concept of sub-forums here thus, I am a little confused on what you're seeing and trying to accomplish. As mentioned by my colleague, we need an example and step-by-step to how to get there.

Not using club-forums now because of some limitations and no grouping.

Using subforums now that resolved the issue with Fluid Mode on categories.

Edited November 11, 2023 by WebCMS