[RFC] Ability to @mention specific users in posts

[ecwpa]

What about + symbol like Google+? @ probably is still the best option. If a username start with @ then the easiest solution is just typing @@

[MichaelC]

What about + symbol like Google+? @ probably is still the best option. If a username start with @ then the easiest solution is just typing @@

It could start with @@ too?

[ecwpa]

Well, if an username starts with @@ the it's going to be the first one to pop out as a suggestion if you type @@ and it's going to end up looking like this @@@etc , if you type @a then something starting with A like @aetc.

[callumacrae]

Both + and @@ are horrfic, imo.

[drathbun]

I think to make it bullet-proof it needs to have an insertion algorithm / hidden link text like the user_id that I mentioned earlier. Rather than having a user type @ or + or anything, have them run an insertion process that is requested, not automatic. What I mean is, don't assume that as I'm typing an @ or whatever that I'm starting to type a reference, because frequently it will not be one. Have an "insert user" option along with the quote, and have it pop up a list that can be auto-reduced, and when I pick the name to insert then display it as @username but behind the scenes store it using some sort of syntax (apparently bbcode is already out) that can be properly parsed. By doing that, you could even build a cross reference table that contains a post_id and a user_id, call it phpbb_post_mentions or something like that. From a user then you can immediately, easily, and very efficiently get a list of posts where they are mentioned. The opposite is also true, you can take a post and know immediately which users are mentioned in the post. You could tie a notification (if you want to do that) to the same table, and get a list of all of the latest "mentions" into a single PM.

But I think it has to be done differently than just trying to guess if a user is typing in a username or not.

[AliasM2K]

I think to make it bullet-proof it needs to have an insertion algorithm / hidden link text like the user_id that I mentioned earlier. Rather than having a user type @ or + or anything, have them run an insertion process that is requested, not automatic. What I mean is, don't assume that as I'm typing an @ or whatever that I'm starting to type a reference, because frequently it will not be one. Have an "insert user" option along with the quote, and have it pop up a list that can be auto-reduced, and when I pick the name to insert then display it as @username but behind the scenes store it using some sort of syntax (apparently bbcode is already out) that can be properly parsed. By doing that, you could even build a cross reference table that contains a post_id and a user_id, call it phpbb_post_mentions or something like that. From a user then you can immediately, easily, and very efficiently get a list of posts where they are mentioned. The opposite is also true, you can take a post and know immediately which users are mentioned in the post. You could tie a notification (if you want to do that) to the same table, and get a list of all of the latest "mentions" into a single PM.

But I think it has to be done differently than just trying to guess if a user is typing in a username or not.

An insert user option is not bad, but then a custom bbcode like [user=###]User Nickname[/user] might have to be implemented.

Going with mentions using @ or + would be better as it is already familiar to almost everyone as everyone these days have a Facebook, Twitter, Github or Google+ account

[Atramez_Zeton]

quote is kind of tagging IMO
and if @username is used to mention someone to see a post it doesnt have to be in the post itself -its a waste of other people's time to read a new post for a tag- and it can be "send to a friend" link if they want to see some topics or replies with a notification not PM.

still using @username in a post is nice but i dont think people wont abuse it in the way i mentioned above.

[Pony99CA]

An insert user option is not bad, but then a custom bbcode like [user=###]User Nickname[/user] might have to be implemented.

Actually, I'd like to expand upon that BBCode idea. If something like this is used, let's generalize it to allow linking to other items. For example:

• {user:xxx} links to the user with user name (and/or user ID?) xxx.
• {forum:xxx} links to the forum with forum ID xxx (displaying the forum's name in the link).
• {topic:xxx} links to the topic with topic ID xxx (displaying the topic's title in the link).
• {post:xxx} links to the post with post ID xxx (displaying the post's title in the link).
• {date:+/-something} adds the current date plus or minus the "something".
• {time:+/-something} adds the current time plus or minus the "something".

We should also allow any of those to be used in Custom BBCodes and allow a "this" option to reference the current forum/topic/post/user (being quoted?). User tags would generate notifications to the user, but forum/topic/post tags could also generate notifications (if we wanted) to the subscribers.

Yes, this is more than this topic asked for, but let's make sure whatever we pick is generalizable to support other things. Just a thought....

Going with mentions using @ or + would be better as it is already familiar to almost everyone as everyone these days have a Facebook, Twitter, Github or Google+ account

I don't have any of those.

Steve

[Oleg]

@ works for github most of the time, it's probably good enough.

From my experience @ does the right thing on github at least 95% of the time. There are however definitely some users you don't want to register as (@return, for example).

I estimate @ works a lot more than 95% of the time on twitter.

[ecwpa]

• {user:xxx} links to the user with user name (and/or user ID?) xxx.
• {forum:xxx} links to the forum with forum ID xxx (displaying the forum's name in the link).
• {topic:xxx} links to the topic with topic ID xxx (displaying the topic's title in the link).
• {post:xxx} links to the post with post ID xxx (displaying the post's title in the link).
• {date:+/-something} adds the current date plus or minus the "something".
• {time:+/-something} adds the current time plus or minus the "something".

That looks interesting. But I was wondering if that's how it's going to be saved in the database? If not why using that format? In the case of @mentions it would be more practical to replace it with a tradicional url bbcode, no?