Forum links (redirect links) in ACP to work in Custom Pages

[victory1]

The Forum Links (redirect links) in ACP are not versatile. They have a lot of flaws since they need the complete url. I recently added a mobile style to my board. It can't be seen unless you are browsing with a mobile device less than 9-in and you automatically will get the mobile style. From there, there's a link in Index to browse with the full default style. The problem is I used Forum Links (redirect links) in a couple of sub-forums (I did not want a menu item and a forum link accomplished exactly what I needed to get to the custom page). People who click to use the full style are fine until they click one of these links and it reverts back to the mobile style. You can not use a {U_APPLICATION} link in there so the "append_sid" can not be applied. That's a hindrance since I want to redirect to a custom page and like I said, a menu item will not work. So can the links in ACP be more versatile? I really needed that link in a subforum and the way you have to hard coded the link in ACP is very limited. Example below.

[naderman]

I'll move this to the discussion for new features in 3.2 for now since it sounds like a rather big change to forum links. I'm not entirely sure how you imagine this working in the future? Can you elaborate a bit more?

[victory1]

The problem is if you have more multiple styles, using an internal link (non menu) for a custom page reverts back. It does not do that when using a menu link and I think it's because we are able to use append_sid as well as hard coded address url ( 'U_APPLICATION => append_sid("{$phpbb_root_path}application.$phpEx")! The way the forum links in ACP works now, they really limit you to link off site urls. We should be able to use these links to redirect to internal custom pages and they should work like a menu link.

I think we are coming to a point were all boards are going to have to offer some type of mobile style. Since the mobile device detect script automatically route you to the mobile style, the only way to get back to the full style is to add a link on index to redirect you to the full style. I discovered putting <a href="{U_INDEX}> without the style# just takes you back to the mobile style (like a refresh), so it had to be more specific, like <a href="{U_INDEX}?style=3"> to make it work. So while the user is browsing with the full style on a mobile device, when one of these links are click, it automatically reverts back to the mobile style since that's the default style on a mobile device.
Example, I run a Sony Reader Forum and Sony has 6-inch readers and 7 & 9 inch tablets. The mobile detect takes you to the mobile style no matter which of these 3 devices you are using. While the person using the 6-inch black & white reader web browser might be perfectly content and prefer the strip mobile style, the person using the 9 inch tablet might prefer the full the style. It's irritating that it reverts back to the mobile style when it's click when if you add the same link in the menu that it does not do that.

There's a lot of things that I would prefer as a Forum Link instead of a Menu Link (I think a menu link is to important to have a bunch of them taking away from the user experience). Example attachment below of the Classified mod and Sudoku link- sub-forum is really a link to the Sudoku game. I don't think they are important enough to be menu links since I'm not running a sale or game board.

These are just example of different ways we might want to use the ACP forum links to show that it really needs to allow us to use both internal & external coded links. Thanks