A Couple of things I would like to see if phpbb4

[Highway of Life]

I suspect they are slightly different... one being author chosen background color, and the other being color based on permission, but I still got a chuckle out of it.

[MichaelC]

I suspect they are slightly different... one being author chosen background color, and the other being color based on permission, but I still got a chuckle out of it.

Yup. that basically it as I just explained to you in a PM.
Can we go back on-topic now before I get sued?

[Highway of Life]

Sued how can you? oh nevermind...

Back on topic.

Regarding the MCP: The MCP is really ugly from both a programming perspective and a usability perspective. I know how to use it, but it’s not really the issue. The MCP does not make moderating an easy job. I think that is what these guys are referring to. More in-line tools would be nice, and the ability to perform common moderator tasks much faster.
For example, banning consists of: (from viewing a post - viewtopic)

1. Click on username to view profile.
2. Click [ Banning ]
3. Enter ban information and click submit.
4. Confirm [ Yes ]
5. Ban list updated [ click to go back ] -> this takes you to the ban screen (again).
   
   At this point, we’ve gone through 5 steps to ban the user, but we still have a couple of things left to do:
   1. Delete all of the users posts, or move them to the trash can.
   2. Set user rank or put the user into a “banned” group.
   3. Remove user information - signature, website, etc, that they put in their profile for spam purposes.
   Generally, we would do a and b for most spammers...
6. Unfortunately from the ban screen, there is no decent way to go back to the user’s profile, so we’ll copy the username or go to history and go back to the user’s profile.
7. Click on Administration Control Panel (if copied username), or click Administrate User (if at user profile).
8. Login to Admin -> Submit
9. Proceed to ACP
10. Go to ACP -> Manage Users -> Paste username (if not already on ACP Manage Users)
11. Select to move (or delete) all posts and click submit.
12. Choose which forum to move posts to and click submit. (or confirm delete)
13. Successfully moved (or deleted posts), click here to go back.

Now, if done properly, the ban procedure should be as follows from viewtopic:

1. Click on the username to either take you to the user profile, or bring up the drop down menu with options.
2. Click banning.
3. Choose actions: (checkboxes)
   1. [√] Move/Delete posts to “trash can”.
   2. [√] Delete signature and website URL
   3. [√] Add user to “banned” group.
   4. Enter reason for ban
   5. Enter reason shown for ban
   6. Select ban time. (e.g.: permanent)
   -> Click submit. Done.

Step 3 would not need to be in a completely new page either... brining the page loads down to a total of 1, and a maximum of 3 instead of 12 or 13 with the current process.

[davaguco]

I agree, every process should be on one same screen.

When approving a topic or message, the same thing happens. First, knowing that a message needs to be approved, is not easy for any moderator is the forum is big enough (my forum is not easy to moderate). Once you enter the moderator panel, you need to go to the right section, but you don't see the pending messages to be approved yet, you still have to click on "messages pending approval"... then you click on the message, but that was not right, you needed to click on details... wtf? you go back, then realize you don't have a clue how to get to the approve button from the moderator panel. So you go to forum index, then go to the board that contains the message, and click on the green question mark. Then you finally get to approve message.

You get back to the moderator panel to approve more messages, as you saw there were more earlier on. However... they have dissapeared!!! no more pending messages!!! Has another moderator approved them while you were approving the other ones? Nope, that wasn't right, you didn't realize there is a very smal hidden mark that is filtering only the topic you already approved... what is the logic inside this????? You already approved the message, and you didn't set up this filter, the system did it for you. No sense doing this, if you ask me.

(sorry if my english is not correct, I live in Spain)

Edit: some more things:

Sorry to post in several posts, I really write as I recall every time I have thought "phpbb should be able to do this".

Another thing that should be built into the system is some kind of reputation system that:

1) Allows to rate posts, and allows posts ratings to affect user's ratings (optional)
2) Allows to rate users.
3) Allows to set permissions based on user ratings (like some boards that you can only post in when you have a user rating above x points); Or:
4) Allows to auto-include users on groups and ranks based on their user ratings (this would allow to do the above easily).

Some more things:

- SEO Friendly dynamically created meta tags
- Friendly URL's (FURLs) - for ease of use and improved Search Engine Indexing
- Generic Member Import/Export Tool - Import and exportmembers from/to other databases including other forum systems
- RSS built in: you can create RSS feeds from your forum threads, AND also you can show other RSS feeds from other websites on your board header / index.
- A fixed amount of user account warnings can automatically suspend a user account for a given amount of time, or it can get bannned permanently.
- Polls should also be able to become Global Polls. If this is the case, then they should also be shown on the index page for people to vote them as they enter the forum. Voting on global polls should give reputation to users (optional). If more than one global poll is active, then they should be shown to the user randomly.
- Built-in "simlar posts" feature. Forum shows you similar posts to the one you entered. This should work in 3 modes (settings in the ACP): 1) It shows similar posts as links to any user that reads your post. 2) Once you hit submit, you are shown similar topics and require confirmation to submit this thread, to avoid duplicate threads about the same subject. 3) As you write your post, there is some field somewhere on the write window that keeps changind, suggesting dynamically a few links to posts related to your post content. This feature should be carefully set, as it might produce some resource-intensive queries.
- Allocate disk space quotas for each user's files.
- The built-in AutoMoD feature should be able to show you what MODs you have installed that are out of date, with a button to automatically upgrade it (not a link pointing to the download, I don't want to keep all those patches on my hard disk, I want to press a button and the MOD to be automatically updated, as it happens for example with Wordpress "mods"). The AutoMoD should know what each forum file should look like, and keep the file contents on some kind of log, so that any hack or failed mod installation should be able to be reversed.
- When I have written a 200- lines post and I hit submit, I shouldn't loose all my work due to some connection issue, or anything else. The forum should be able to be configured to save drafts of still not submitted posts every x minutes. You should be able to recover these drafts easily (as in relogging again and forum detected you had a draft from your last session that hasnt been submitted, so it shows it, like it shows when you have private messages).
- "Expert" and "Basic" interface modes. They should both work for the user interface, user panel, moderator panel, administration panel. Some options that are complicated or could potentially do some damage to the forum would only be shown on the "Expert" modes. There should be some kind of permission set as: Can work in expert mode.
- Forum logo and favicon should be easier to change on the administration panel.
- ACP security center: should be able to run a few security checks (like file CHMODs correctly set, index.php modified without being reported by your AUTOMOD built-in feature, and some other things (I'm not a security expert)).
- Some of the features of the support tool kit should be included on the ACP (probably only shown on expert mode). Additionally, some kind of "Emergency Recovery Panel" should also include some of these features, plus probably some more related to fixing corrupted files and databases (ftp is not very reliable, installing mods sometimes goes bad, hacking happens...). The Emergency Recovery Panel should be able to read the AutoMod logs, to check what should the files include and what they shouldn't.
- Improved communication from and to other common internet platforms, like: publish my post on my facebook wall too. Or twitter, etc. Use my facebook account (or others) to register on this forum, share user profiles. Share my post on several social websites (digg it, etc.). Publish all my phpbb messages on my blog. Also accept incoming posts from other websites, like: transform all my facebook actions into phpbb messages, get all my blog entries (from any user) into phpbb posts. Post wordpress articles into some board. Get an external RSS Feed and post all contents into my phpbb forum. Get content of some online newspaper and post it on some board. Etc.
- Some basic styling should be "tweaked" from the admin panel. Like background colour or pattern, message text default colour, and a few others.

(more to come)

[Nelsaidi]

A few issues with what you said:
"- RSS built in" - doesnt that already exist in phpBB as of now? Display other forum RSS feeds in your header - leave it for a mod or widget and not as default, you want peopel to be on your site and not any others.

- A fixed amount warnings" - That should be in, and will be possible with the events system in an advanced way.

Autmod - phpBB4 will be plugin based, so hopefully much less modifying files, but - such a feature should be exist - But you seem to be saying "use Automod to detect changes" - If i want to make a private modification to my forum, I will hate to go through Automod. Second, if someone hacks your forum and Automod logs - they wont be stupid, they'll just fool your automod or do something much smarter. "index.php modified without being reported by your AUTOMOD built-in feature" - See previously, and theres much more than just index.php, infact - index.php will be a small file for phpBB4 since its based on symfony, works of MVC structure. Making it 'Autmod' based many people imo will abandon it - writing a whole modx for a few lines of code and file uploads is extremely annoying.

"simlar posts" - If every time someone submits a topic a query which takes a few seconds is run (will be much longer on a very large board, no matter how powerful the software is or optimised the table is) - and ask them "would you not want to post in this topic isntead" - users get frustrated, people stop using phpBB. vBulletin has such a feature which is rather basic, not sure how it works; but it displays similar topics in threaded view, the latter is suitable. Anything before it, never.

"Global Polls" - Nope - phpBB will be a forum, not a CMS, the 'index' will be the forum view most likely. Second of all this isnt sometihng needed, make a global announcement or install a portal mod or CMS and put it there -as standard, no.

""Emergency Recovery Panel" - What if you cant access your ACP - theres a reason the STK is standalone - makes it more secure and almost guaranteed access even if your board is down. THAT is the STK.

""Expert" and "Basic" interface modes. " - Permisions should NOT be based on "can use expert mode" - and if someone doesnt know there way arround the ACP, why make them admin? Likewise with the MCP. And the fact you want users to be able to select a simpler mode for the forums says alot about its user interface, implies its bad - another reason to hate phpBB (if done)

"When I have written a 200- lines post and I hit submit, I shouldn't loose all my work due to some connection issue ..." - Hit the back butotn, the post is there - Although such a feature woul dbe nice and I have considered implementing one for my board, but the users have said a) in a year they havent had a single connection issues (thats with million of pageviews), b) they can use the backbutton and c) If they are writing an essay, they do it in MS word or similar - Would be good but not necesary - also realise how big the DB will become with this, very rapidly will increase. If you delete it once a post has been made, query on a large table = slow, if you time it at a few hours for example, users will be annoyed it didnt save their post when they come back to post it, and also DB size increases. A manual draft feature exists and works perfectly.

Again about Autmod - Please no ... People like to manually edit stuff, it will be plugin based- orientating the whole board arround Autmod, please NO

Improved communication - No no no no no, reread what you said and think about it. Whilst social integration would be good, submitting posts to facebook, twitter, blogs, other forums or whatever from phpBB is something which would make me hate it. Also, think about performance, bandwidth and all of that - would be excessive ....

"Some basic styling should be "tweaked" " - that would be nice for new admins with limited knowledge of CSS and html - easily create a customised theme, with he template hopefully being very CSS based it will be possible.

Please think about what YOU WANT and what MILLIONS NEED.

[davaguco]

"When I have written a 200- lines post and I hit submit, I shouldn't loose all my work due to some connection issue ..." - Hit the back butotn, the post is there - Although such a feature woul dbe nice and I have considered implementing one for my board, but the users have said a) in a year they havent had a single connection issues (thats with million of pageviews), b) they can use the backbutton and c) If they are writing an essay, they do it in MS word or similar - Would be good but not necesary - also realise how big the DB will become with this, very rapidly will increase. If you delete it once a post has been made, query on a large table = slow, if you time it at a few hours for example, users will be annoyed it didnt save their post when they come back to post it, and also DB size increases. A manual draft feature exists and works perfectly.

Improved communication - No no no no no, reread what you said and think about it. Whilst social integration would be good, submitting posts to facebook, twitter, blogs, other forums or whatever from phpBB is something which would make me hate it. Also, think about performance, bandwidth and all of that - would be excessive ....


Please think about what YOU WANT and what MILLIONS NEED.

On internet explorer, when you hit back, most of the times you are left with a blank message. That doesn't happen with firefox, for example. Many users report missing messages. So hitting back won't always work.

Improved communication is something I still think is needed on a forum that will be released on 2011 or 2012. Both to and from other platforms.

[Nelsaidi]

Really? As far as I'm aware in IE8 and i believe 7 it stays, IE6 should be obsolete by the time it comes out (late 2012) -

Improved communictation, yes - some integration with Facebook and that open login thing i forgot the name of should exist, but going to the lengths of syncing your facebook account with your phpBB account and vice versa is in my opinion stupid (no offence) - if its a post, what meaning is a post without knowing the original post, or posts that precede it? - Further more if you are posting to facebook the admin is allowing discussion to move from the forums onto other medians, so people may comment on it on facebook as opposed to the actal forum. Then you want to sync blogs that users will specify as posts, that effects SEO, google and other engines see you as copying content - you get affected. Also makes spam, almost gives non members the permision to post. If you limit it to specified blogs, the blog owners may sue or something and not let it, and thousands of forums will hae the same content, more SEO. Also self contradicts your similar posts - if you are posting from a blog, what if another post exists?

Someone can make a mod for that, but as standard then no.

[davaguco]

I think we're not doing it right. Instead about discussing several random features to be implemented, maybe we should first ask ourselves:

What is phpbb3 being used for? And much more important than this: What is phpbb3 NOT being used for? Why?

For example. Phpbb3 is NOT being used to discuss very complex documents or projects between a large group of people, because the threaded view of each participation would end up in a 20 page long thread from a large number of random participations that would prevent any project from advancing on any subject. As the project advanced, older posts would be obsolete, and would contaminate new project stages.

Let's say I want to write a piece of legislation (some law that has to be voted). This is only an example, it could be a software design project. We must both discuss:

- What is the goal of the law.
- What is the purpose of each law chapter.
- What is the purpose of each law article.
- How should each article should be written.

Additionally, some users should be able to get reputation by adding interesting comments, and some should get demoted. Any user should be able to view only comments with users that have reputation above a fixed threshold, for example, or posts that have been rated high enough.

The project should have some fixed "stages" that would set when some users are able to participate, according to their law skills and reputation, etc. that would be included on their profiles. A calendar would be required to show what stages are achieved for each project.

This is only an idea of what future discussion forums would require to do in the future.

[Nelsaidi]

phpBB is a community based disucssion forum and not a project management system.

[davaguco]

Please try to be more open-minded or phpbb4 will be too similar on its features to phpbb3. And I must tell you that users don't mind if the entire code has been revamped and rewritten from scratch or not, they only care about new features. If a new modular approach has been taken that makes phpbb4 technically great, won't matter if some other open source forum creators decide to include new exciting features that allow them to do more things.

Some other suggestions:

- Maps: I should be able to refer to a map when speaking about some event, shop, restaurant, etc. and include it on the forum. A map should be able to be either static (only show one direction) or dynamically modified by several users, so that they can add whatever they want (if they have permission to do so). On their profiles they should also be able to show where they are located.