[RFC] Topic Title Prefixes / Subject Prefixes

[phynixx]

I think that's a great idea.

[imkingdavid]

I agree that topic title prefixes and tags are really the same thing. Tags simply allow more than one prefix per topic. This is probably going to come up as a feature request sooner or later anyway, so we might as well just implement a tag system directly.

The main difference between common tagging system and prefixes is then, whether tags are administrator defined or created by users. Either system could be accomplished with the same database layout. So I'd opt for an admin only implementation in core with a possible extension for user defined tags that simply extends this feature.

Something to keep in mind is that sometimes there can be confusion on what "tags" means. In a blog, for instance, a tag is simply a word that is associated with a certain blog post to make it easy to group posts and search for posts that talk about the same thing. These tags are normally not displayed with the blog post title, however, but are display in a "tags" area beneath it or to the side.

Prefixes can be used like that, but imo the main point of this feature is to be able to display a certain text prefix (or multiple) before the topic's actual title. Of course sorting and searching by "prefix" or "tag" or whatever it's called is a great idea, but that's, in my mind, not the main point of it. So by calling it tags, there could be some confusion there.

EDIT: So, the main features I can see important are:

• Administrators can create "tags" via the ACP
  • Tags can be made a certain color, font, style, etc. (possibly allow raw HTML for this purpose only, and only because it's exclusive to admin)
  • "Tokens" to allow dynamically adding date/time of when the tag was applied and username of person that applied it, etc.
• Depending on how permissions are set up, certain users (e.g. moderators, topic author, etc.) may apply topic "tags" to topics, either on viewtopic or in the MCP. Topics may have multiple tags, but not multiple of the same tag
• In viewforum and on viewtopic, users can click tags to view a list of all topics within the same forum that have the same tag (not taking into account specific values of "tokens" within the tag)
• In search, add a "Tags" list of all tags that are available. Users can select one or more tags to narrow down the results. In search list, individual tags can be clicked to display all topics within the forum containing the topic in question that have the tag applied.

As for SQL setup, would it be best to have a relational table set up to associate a topic ID with a tag ID, or should there simply be added a "tags" column containing a comma-separated list of tag IDs? The former option would require more SQL queries, but would make it easier to reorder the placement of tags before the title, as I have seen people request in topic prefix MODs (including my own).

[ecwpa]

I suggested tags because its way more powerfull and usefull than just prefixes. For example, a tag with an indicator like prefix:Solved could easily be featured in the topic title and also ignored in the tags section (if you want). Both features can coexist just fine without altering the database structure of tags.

[charafweb]

Hi, I was on the way to start a discussion about this feature but I discovered that there is already an RFC about it, so I just bump it, hopping that this very important feature will be merged into the core in the next phpbb version.
Thanks a lot
(sorry for my english )

[ABDev]

Hi,
I bump that topic in order to know if this feature can be integrated to phpBB 3.2

[ephemeraboy]

Hi,
I bump that topic in order to know if this feature can be integrated to phpBB 3.2

[brunoais]

There's an extension, ATM.
Let's see how popular it is first.

[Rhino.Freak]

Any reason why this wasn't implemented? :/ I miss this feature ever since I came from forumotion.