Official forum feature request thread (in General)

As explained over in Changelog, I'll award a prize to the best suggestion for improving the CB forums.

This is the right place to leave suggestions. Not in Changelog, not in some other thread in General; just here. :)

1) Allow individual post edits, possibly even thread deletion (by original author). Maybe limit either or both to where the thread is posted (very useful in FS/WTB for example).

2) Merged plain text (auto formatting for spaces and lines) and html capability like most forums are. As opposed to now where in html mode you can't automatically hit enter enter to space between paragraphs without using html to do it (formatting wise). Hope you understand and I'm not just crazy.

3) Built in smilies?

allow personal edits to all forums except FS/WTB, but allow admins the ability to see original post if necessary

This is a tough one. How about re-arranging them a bit? have a list of the top 5 that you have posted in last, then the rest based on activity, unless it meets the previously mentioned requirement. Other than that, adding more CB related words to the Spell checker would be awesome.

<br><br><br>How about adding an HTML editor for some basic functions like Tab, Line Breaks, Bold, Font, Color etc.

definitely a feature that prevents me from posting with HTML in plain text >:P

allow BB code?

One other thing I've always struggled slightly with is how forum threads are presented. Say I'm just looking at all the last replies- this is what I see:

# Prophecies fulfilled before our very eyes? 97 replies; last by Johnnywas at 3:37 PM EDT
# Comments on Curse of Immortality 8 replies; last by Last Gasp at 2:46 PM EDT
# March 19 - Black Market Voting Guide - Cornuthaum 11 replies; last by Last Gasp at 2:45 PM EDT
# Your Avg. CB income? 26 replies; last by Kultur at 11:08 AM EDT
# Did not get a BA Refresh 30 replies; last by {cb1}smallpau1 at 7:14 AM EDT
# and we're back... 10 replies; last by Karmic Mishap at 1:33 AM EDT
# Make BoNE 100! 18 replies; last by Pop-SICKLE at March 26 2007 1:18 AM EDT
# one hour requests...? 3 replies; last by tscm at March 25 2007 7:35 PM EDT
# server clock 13 replies; last by DiabloSpawn at March 25 2007 5:47 PM EDT
# LER: Mar. 18 - Mar. 25, 2007 2 replies; last by [TH]Ringmaster at March 25 2007 5:30 PM EDT

It would look nicer and be easier to sort through if it was shown in a more structured table with columns for the # of replies, last poster, etc.. Where we can look straight down a column instead of through the giant swaying block of info. Possibly even show the original thread starter? I guess the only issue here is with space. Though you could always move the "older threads" area to a different part of the page.

Allow people to edit only their Changelog, General and Off-Topic threads.

All other forum parts obviously not due to scamming reasons

Titan:

"As explained over in Changelog, I'll award a prize to the best suggestion for improving the CB forums. "

I see already. Waiting for edyit to delete.


Though, I would really like a New Player section for forums.

Color-code the different forums, or allow us to choose colors for each.

A way to keep track of certain threads. Perhaps a bookmarks thing, like Verifex's script has.

List of smilies for us to use. Like the ones GB always uses. I like them. :)

Heres a simple one that we could use easily: Cross-Browser rich text editor

User stats under their portrait eg. no. posts, date of last post, etc.

Stickies :)

Less strict spell checker (!)

option of adding misspelled words to the spellchecker

ignore!

I don't know how hard this would be. I play another online game its a forum based RPG. the HTML there is really easy to use (even i can use it) for an image posting you just type [img]link to the pic[/img] and for links to other posts you just type it out http://www.yaddayadda.com and it automatically makes it into a link for you. same thing with bold, italics, colors.

The creator of a thread should be able to edit the first post of that thread.

This would be very useful for some Sales, Forging Services, Loan Services, Contests, etc...

For example, the "What Am I?" contest thread could have the contest status in the first post and all the questions, guesses, and comments in later posts.

It would make some threads a lot 'cleaner' and definitely a lot smaller.

Good one Talion

Talion, that would be ok for contests, but definitly not FS/WTB, as it could easily be used to scam people and/or get people banned. Maybe even the same for contests.

for example:
Post 1
Selling HGs base at 1.5 mil

Post 2
confirmed by blah blah

Edit-Post 1
Selling HGs base at 2 mil

Post 3
blah blah never sent me the last 500k, please someone reset him as he has not responded to my CMs

verifex: i actually wrote code to integrate TinyMCE a while back, but I couldn't figure out a way to add the <nospellcheck> functionality.

visiting other game forums, it's amazing how much (mandatory) spellcheck improves the signal:noise ratio here. I don't want to give it up.

Jonathan: Link

well, what I was trying to say was, I'm not willing to give up server-side spellcheck, but I don't want to give up the "override of last resort," the nospellcheck "tag."

ah i see ;)

Typical rules for post editing are that editing is allowed within a small window after hitting submit (5 minutes or so) and the window is closed immediately upon a post being followed up on. So, you can only edit a post if 1) it's yours, 2) no one else has posted since you did, and 3) it hasn't been more than 5 minutes.


I put in the 1-hour request thread a request for a real searching function. You could probably get away with just having google do it.

Can I put a hand up and say I like the forums as they are; right down to the no-edit. You either think very hard about what you want to right or you leave your mistakes up there for everyone to see. That having to think before you post thing? That's your self edit right there. You have the option to go back and change things before you confirm.

Anyway - the one thing I would change, being from the UK where we spell armor correctly ;) - is the spell check. Might be difficult to do, but I'd like CB to confirm the spelling we are trying to post as correct and let us add it to spellcheck.

Oh, and a more functional search would be nice.

Otherwise.... I like them. Which is not surprising, considering I live on the forums while I'm here. ;)

see, a mistake for all to see "you think very hard about what you want to right"


Lol, it's late. I'm tired.

*write

Have the Bast police correct and punish people who don't check what they "right"?

Jon would it be impossible to add a tag to it's library of recognized tags?

Regarding the Search Function:

• Be able to search for the "Thread Title Only" or maybe "Phrases in Original Post Only." That would be very helpful since I sometimes search for a particular thread and get hundreds of hits, the majority of which are irrelevant and only brought up because somebody said my "search term" somewhere in the thread...
• Maybe narrow it even further and have options such as date range, author, etc.
• If possible, eliminate all the "Response to <thread>" results... Finding the original thread is good enough, if you're looking for a particular post in that thread people use Ctrl+F.
• Or, can you at least make each of those results take you to the post it is referring to, and not to the top? Because then it is just absolutely pointless having a dozen or so hits all taking you to the same place.

Other than that, I, too, think it would be nice to be able to edit your posts in Changelog, General, or Off-Topic, as long as the original can still be seen. Even if you're not scamming anybody, people can still abuse a feature like that!

smallpau1 wrote: "Talion, that would be ok for contests, but definitely not FS/WTB, as it could easily be used to scam people and/or get people banned. Maybe even the same for contests."

Good point.

This could easily be prevented by adding something like a checkbox to "Allow first post editing" that would be presented when a thread is created. This way, the seller could edit the sale status in the FS/WTB forum and the buyer could post a confirmation in the PR forum that could not be edited.

An easy Quote button for quoting someone else in their exact form and context...

A change in color for the forums/threads you have read and haven't had anything new added since last time you read it...

A whole menu of easy HTML buttons for adding spaces, bold, font etc like when you are using word pad...

A search feature so we can search the forums for certain articles...

A request feature so we can request certain threads reopen after they were automatically closed, for threads that were closed to early and weren't finished off...

More to come...

Talion: Another fix for the FS/WTB issue is to just have the server store all versions of the post, and have a link see all of them. Which is what I'd like to see.

There would also be timestamps on all, so if it was changed after the chatmail's or PR posts, you know tharr be a scammin' afoot.

Sorry to double post, but there has been a matter of hours, and I have a forum feature request!

Live updating of Public Record subjects.

One way to do this is have a link on the player profile page "Make PR Post" which would make the subject
<myName>/<theirName> <threadName>
The other is to enter their player Number. So to make a PR thread with me, you click on the link in my profile, or enter 319 in the thing.

example;
Daz/Bast Deal -- afterwards, I change my name to happyExample
happyExample/Bast Deal -- so the thread name is changed.

Of course, you also have to be able to make a normal, non-live subjects.

The reason I'd like this is because, looking through the PR posts, if someone has changed their name, unless you have been paying attention, you don't know what it was. Pretty much every other name in the game updates at the same time, so having the PR posts do the same would be nice.

Creating the post is the hard part :(
Let me know if I have worded something badly, or not thought of something obvious. I have been programming solid for nearly a full week and had such a tiny amount of sleep...

Daz: Your suggestion makes more sense than mine. A "See edit history" link on a owner-editable first post would be a great solution.

The use of anchors to go to the right post, when navigating from a user's page or search page to the forum thread.

I'm pretty sure I could modify this to add a nospellcheck tag in there. And then we could use it here on CB :)

Why not just continually edit the forum software until it functions exactly like real form software (simplemachines, phpbbs, invision, etc). Then someone can make the case that you should just install one of those.....

Allow the admins to edit the spellcheck content.

I promise not to add too many Scottish words :)