A little new suggestion for this forum

[Eros Olmi]

Hi José,

sorry if from time to time I bother your with those posts but to make little changes every now and then in forum.
Every forum have an image icon: that goes to when an unread post is present. As you can see, color difference is not so evident. Considering this board has a lot of forums and sub-forums, when you see all together, it is not immediatelly evident when a forum as an unread post. What about making the on.gif a little more colored? Maybe you can mix between different theme colors

Ciao
Eros

[José Roca]

 
Unfortunately, to make these kind of changes to this theme you have to modify 12 templates (one for each color). Instead of looking at the icons, i always click the "Show unread posts since last visit" link.

You can also modify your profile and choose the SMF core template, that is the one that you use in your forum.

[Theo Gottwald]

When I enter the forum, the first thing i do noramlly is, to click on "HOME".
Then scroll to the bottom.

There are all the newest posts. Then I choose some to write a comment :-).
I really thought everyone would do somehow like this ...

[Eros Olmi]

I too use "Show unread posts since last visit". It is the only way to get all new posts correctly.
The forum icon is not correct all the times. The list of recent posts in the bottom is useless, too short, especially considering this forum is getting more "famous" so many new posts will be made very quickly.

Another option I made in my forum was to have a right "Recent posts" panel with the 25 most recent posts but you need a new package installed (TinyPortal) and I know José do not like new packages due to bad SMF theme handling when upgrading (and this is the only real problem I've been able to find so far in SMF).

Anyhow, thanks
Eros

[Theo Gottwald]

You know, Eros that we like all these sugestions.
The problem is that we have noone to keep an eye on the php-stuff.

Jose is concentrated on the PB-things and thats what he shall spent his time for. Because this is his field of excellence.
Therefore he actually does not want to risk to break with general Upgrad compatibility for some new features.

Maybe if he had someone who would take responsibility for the php-stuff an do all the changes in his spare time, maybe he would think implementing more features. Anyway the person would have to stand straight to do all necessary changes if there are security updates for the forum, to be able to keep it updated and upgraded.

Let me finally say that I personally like all these suggested features, and Jose knows, I have mailed him long ago some of these things also, myself.
And if on one good day, we have someon in here who is really PHP and MySQL-Wizzard, its thinkable that we use his features and improve on these sides. So long I understand Jose that he doesn't want to take these risks that can go with some of these updates and enhancements.

[Eros Olmi]

No problem at all. If I see something can be done (maybe because I've done), I suggest. That's all.
You can even not give any reason why not. For me is already Christmas having this forum

In any case, it is about 4 years I fully deal with CMS and forums but I do not think a high level php or mysql experience is needed to solve possible problems.
What is really necessary is:

• a FTP connection to the web site
• a remote MySql access to the DB, for example using phpMyAdmin or the official MySql Administrator
• a continuous backup of your db (you can easily set up using MySql Administrator) and done it with a mouse click
• an idea on your CMS or forum internal API logic
• a test web where to test changes before done in live web. For example I have a side web where I test all the new features I would like to implement and where I can make any damage. Every now and than I refresh test web with current one so I'm sure I can test in real situation. And refresh is really easy, just copy file on the server (via FTP or remote control if you have) plus backup/restore from live DB to the test DB

If you do not have something like that and you have a community like the current one, than I agree with José: better to stay away from installing new features or cheking new opportunities.

In any way there can be situations, for example when SMF realease new versions, where a test site is really welcome. For example SMF is testing SMF Version 2.x. Now we are at 1.1.3. When released 2.x it will be a big jump. How do you will make the upgrade? Just hoping all will went fine? Of course I'm sure you will wait some weeks (or month) before jumping on it but if some important security holes will be fixed, better to upgrade asap.

OK, sorry, better to stop asking those things again.
Ciao
Eros

[José Roca]

 
We have another installation of SMF 1.1.3 for testing purposes. When SMF 2.0 will be released (it has been announced for October) we will try to install it in that forum first to see what happens. All of your suggestions are worthwhile, but it has been announced that version 2.0 will uninstall all the modifications, that will need a rewrite. The backup option provided by the forum doesn't work at all, so we are using MySQLDumper, that is working fine so far.

[Eros Olmi]

Thanks for bigger "recent history" post!