Forum Features

MarkersMake

Hey everyone,

I thought I would take a break from PvE and took a quick look into some of the issues people have been having with the new forum. Some people may already know most of this, but for the rest, here's a list of what I found:


Recent Discussions

Some people only want to see the most recent discussions, rather than go through each forum.  This is an actual feature of Vanilla - you just need to bookmark this link:
https://forums.d3go.com/index.php?p=/discussions

It would be nice if that link were accessible by clicking the gear icon beside your profile name as it is in the default installation, but it may have been removed  because MPQ shares the forum installation with other games, and all the other sub-forums show up in the list as well.  

Fortunately, there is an easy workaround. You just have to go to the main forum page (https://forums.d3go.com/) and "mute" (see link to screenshot below) each of the other subforums; then they won't show up in the Recent discussions page . It'll probably take you about 2 minutes to mute all the ones you don't care about. 



NOTE that the recent discussions page will show you the most recent posts, regardless of whether or not you have read them. Posts that you have not read will have the orange "New" flag on them, though.

Mark Forum Read

You may have noticed in the above screenshot that there is also a "Mark Read" option for each forum listed on the main page. It's also there when you are actually in a forum too "Mark Category Viewed". The "Mark All Viewed" option will mark posts in all forums as read, not just the one you are viewing.

Font Colors

Font colors are handy for a lot of guides and references, but they don't seem to be an option in the new forum.  Fortunately, they are indeed built into the editor - they just have to be enabled.



I installed Vanilla Forums (2.3) on my local webserver (XAMPP on OSX), and installed the Advanced Editor Config plugin (https://open.vanillaforums.com/addon/aeconfig-plugin), which allows you to enable some of the additional features on the editor, including colors. Yay!  

Naturally, since I had gone to the trouble of installing it anyway, I thought I would check into...

Custom Icons

Yep, they can be set up too.



There are two options: 
1) Create your own custom set of emojis and use the Emoji Extender (Emoji Sets) plugin to set it as active, or
2) Just modify the current default one (Apple Emoji) and add the icons to that emoji set

Either option requires putting the custom icons in the appropriate emoji folder (/vanilla/plugins/EmojiExtender/emoji/<emoji set folder name>), and modifying the manifest.php file in that folder.

Hopefully people find this useful.  

@Brigby, maybe this might get your web dev person pointed in the right direction on some of the requested forum features. I know there's always a to-do list, and a production environment is never as simple as a local test server, but this might cut down some of the time it takes to get a few of these things implemented. I can post the code changes I made if it helps - it's mostly just editing an array to include references to all of the custom icons.

ajfahre

Is a custom Emoji Extender the only way to get the character, gem, color flag icons?  I see a ton of people using them, especially in the character discussion section.

There is no BBCode Guide, the links that refer to one don't go to an active page.

Brigby

@MarkersMake

Thanks for this compiled list! It will definitely help us in identifying ways to implement those sought after features. While I'm not sure if they are 100% translatable to a production environment, I'll be sure to pass it along to the team for reference.

bigsmooth

ajfahre said:

Is a custom Emoji Extender the only way to get the character, gem, color flag icons?  I see a ton of people using them, especially in the character discussion section.

There is no BBCode Guide, the links that refer to one don't go to an active page.

They're only available through the workaround of directly linking to the images from the old forum. A couple of us did some research to find (almost) all of them. It's kind of torturous to use them, though.
It would be way easier if they were actually in the current forum as custom icons, as pointed out by the OP.

See this thread for all the icons: http://forums.d3go.com/discussion/63526/forum-formatting-question#latest

smkspy

Don't forget an ignore feature. For a forum so concerned with not hurting anyone's feelings, you would think a feature that let us block those people that could potentially "set off" a user would have been priority number one in the redesign.

It would be extra sweet if that feature not only blocks what they post, but totally erased their presence on the forum if we choose to ignore them. 

Brigby

@smkspy

That should already be a feature. Go to the player's profile, click on the dropdown menu next to "Message" and there should be an Ignore option there.

smkspy

Thank you for the info, @brigby. 

MarkersMake

ajfahre said:

Is a custom Emoji Extender the only way to get the character, gem, color flag icons?  I see a ton of people using them, especially in the character discussion section.

Yeah, you have to paste the URLs directly, so you need a text file with all the links in it handy. 

The Emoji Extender is a core function of Vanilla, so it's just making a custom Emoji set (i.e. copying the icons into a folder and editing one file to list them all) and enabling it. Nothing too "hacky". :-)

DaveR4470

I'd like the indicator that you've commented in a thread to return.

Dragon_Nexus

I want a colour change option for the whole forum.
I accidentally stumbled upon a loading glitch of some kind that made the forum black with light grey text and it was a lot easier on the eyes. I'm annoyed I didn't take a screenshot of it.

It does sometimes blink into existence for a half second when loading a thread, but I've been unable to replicate whatever I did to make it happen before.

Pylgrim

Here's my vote/demand/request/supplication for font colours and icons to be added to the forum. They are almost a must in making organised, easy to understand guides and analysis.

MarkersMake

DaveR4470 said:

I'd like the indicator that you've commented in a thread to return.

That *should* be pretty straightforward to add.  There's a class called "Participated" for each thread that you've already posted in, so it's just a matter of adding a style rule for it.

For example, adding:

.Participated {
    font-style:italic;
    background-color:#EEEEEE;
}

produces:


(The one shaded gray is the one that I've posted in already)

vinsensual

In the old forum, I would use my posting history to catch up on threads that I've commented on.  Now it's just a list of my previous entries, without linking to the actual threads. 

MarkersMake

vinsensual said:

In the old forum, I would use my posting history to catch up on threads that I've commented on.  Now it's just a list of my previous entries, without linking to the actual threads. 

Try hitting Select All (ctrl-A) on your posting history page to reveal an embarrassing styling issue (and a link to each of those threads).

abominatrix

Stupid question:

How do I delete a comment I haven't yet posted? Occasionally I'll start typing a comment and either somebody will make the same point or I'll think better of it. But, when I go back to the same topic, my partial comment still shows up... Leaving the page doesn't delete it, and neither does removing the text.

So, how do I do this. If it matters, I'm using Chrome.

bigsmooth

@abominatrix In the right hand column at the top of the page when reading a thread, there is a link to "My Drafts". Go to that page and click the "X" to delete the drafts you don't want.

abominatrix

Thanks!

See, I knew it was a stupid question

MarkersMake

Just a quick update here:

I found an open-source plugin for Chrome (and Firefox) called Stylus that lets you alter the appearance of the websites you view. You just specify your own style sheet rules that override the site's stylesheets.  Anyway, I made a few changes (removed some UI elements that I always have to scroll past, made the Recent Discussions link visible, tightened up the line spacing, highlighted threads that are unread (light background, bold text), and threads that I have participated in (italics, indented title).

Here's what the forum looks like for me now:

If anyone is interested, the plugin is here:
Firefox: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/styl-us/
Chrome: https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/stylus/clngdbkpkpeebahjckkjfobafhncgmne?hl=en


Just click create a new style, give it a name, and apply it to URLs on the domain "forums.d3go.com" (see pic below)

and this is the CSS code I used:

<br>/*<br>Remove page background<br>*/<br>body {<br>&nbsp;background-image:none;<br>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; background-color:#CCC;<br>}<br><br>/*<br>Remove Top Nav<br>*/<br>.navbar-static-top {<br>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; &nbsp;display:none;&nbsp; &nbsp;<br>}<br>.navbar-header {<br>&nbsp;display:none;&nbsp;&nbsp; <br>}<br>.menu-main-menu-container {<br>&nbsp;display:none;&nbsp;&nbsp; <br>}<br><br>/*<br>Remove Promoted Content<br>*/<br>.promoted-content {<br>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; display:none;&nbsp; &nbsp;<br>}<br><br>/*<br>Remove Page Description<br>*/<br>.PageDescription {<br>&nbsp;display:none;&nbsp;&nbsp; <br>}<br><br>/*<br>Remove MPQ Header Image<br>*/<br>.d3go-game__header {<br>&nbsp;display:none;&nbsp;&nbsp; <br>}<br><br>/*<br>Remove Guest Box ("Howdy Stranger")<br>*/<br>.GuestBox {<br>&nbsp;display:none;&nbsp;&nbsp; <br>}<br><br>/*<br>Remove Footer<br>*/<br>footer {<br>&nbsp;display:none;&nbsp;&nbsp; <br>}<br><br>/*<br>Tighten up the spacing<br>*/<br>.navbar {<br>&nbsp;margin-bottom:0px&nbsp;&nbsp; <br>}<br>.PageControls {<br>&nbsp;margin:10px 10px ;&nbsp;&nbsp; <br>}<br>table > tbody > tr > td {<br>&nbsp;padding:7px;&nbsp;&nbsp; <br>}<br>.Message {<br>&nbsp;line-height:1.5em;&nbsp;&nbsp; <br>}<br><br><br>/*<br>Highlight Participated Threads (Indented)<br>*/<br>.Participated div {<br>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; padding: 0px 0px 0px 15px;<br>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; font-weight:bold;<br>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; font-style:italic;<br>}<br><br>/*<br>Highlight Unread Threads<br>*/<br><br>.Item {<br>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; background-color:#DDDDDD;<br>}<br><br>.Unread {<br>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; background-color:#EEEEEE;<br>}<br><br>/*<br>Show Discussions Link<br>*/<br>#vanilla_categories_index .page-sidebar {<br>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; display: block;<br>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; position: absolute;<br>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; left: 772px;<br>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; top: 48px;<br>}<br>.page-content {<br>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; width: 100%;<br>}<br>.page-sidebar li.Discussions {<br>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; font-size: 12px;<br>}<br>.AllCategories, .Activities, .MyBookmarks, .MyDiscussions {<br>&nbsp;display:none;&nbsp;&nbsp; <br>}<br>.BoxNewDiscussion, .BoxCategories, .Tags, #WhosOnline {<br>&nbsp;display:none;&nbsp;&nbsp; <br>}<br>.page-sidebar li.Discussions {<br>&nbsp;display:block;&nbsp;&nbsp; <br>}<br>