New contacts (Telegram), Customize contacts from ACP idea.

[Raheem]

Hello, I ask why you don't add Telegram in contacts? I see there is WhatsApp and other kinds and i really like Telegram and use it so why not adding it as default option in next versions?

Or better idea is to make contacts can be customized from ACP like managing ranks. So i can add new contact with it's photo same as ranks. Hope this is good idea

Thanks.

[DavidIQ]

Never ever heard of Telegram, not sure that we need to add that or any other contact type. There's tons of them... Also custom profile fields have been possible since 3.0 and you can set them up as contact fields.

[Raheem]

Telegram is used by 100,000,000 - 500,000,000. You can check about it here.

There's tons of them...

So why you add WhatsApp and Messenger and Yahoo? Why these only?

Also custom profile fields have been possible since 3.0 and you can set them up as contact fields.

It's not possible all that i can do something like in the photo:

• 

I can't add it to contacts with it's icon.. If there is a method i don't know so why you don't tell it me?
And my idea to make customize simple like manage ranks and make it with icons, What the problem in this suggestion?

[3Di]

All you need is a more advanced profile fields extension, there is one, validated.
Have a look at phpbb dot com for it.

[DavidIQ]

I checked a 3.1 and a 3.2 board and there was the option to set the custom profile field as a contact field and this without any extension at all so you need to check your custom profile field settings as you probably have it as just a profile field and not a contact field. (I'm sure Marco's Extension suggestion will likely let you set an icon though)

And there isn't a huge problem with your suggestion except that there will always be some new communication protocol. Google alone has Hangouts, Alo, Google Talk, Duo, and who knows what else (guess where Google Talk is now). Facebook has its own three messaging apps with Messenger, Instagram and WhatsApp. Microsoft has Skype. And the list goes on and it changes too. These days I think we've leaned more towards removing some of them rather than adding more.

Also WhatsApp is NOT in the default set of profile fields of phpBB so not sure where you got that from. If you have a field for WhatsApp then you added it since was not included in the default install, never has been.

And finally your estimate of users of Telegram is based on the number of downloads from Google Play so it's completely wrong. Their own official website states that in a given month they see a total of around 100 million users. If we had added WhatsApp as an included contact field I'm pretty sure their over 1 billion users would be ok with that and would be more justified.

[Raheem]

All you need is a more advanced profile fields extension, there is one, validated.
Have a look at phpbb dot com for it.

I search and found this: https://www.phpbb.com/community/viewtop ... &t=2327001
But i don't see that i can change or add new contact via it.

@DavidIQ,

Oh sorry about WhatsApp i wrong in this it's Skype not WhatsApp.

As there is many communication protocol i extended my suggestion to be more general so i say:

• Make it possible to add new contacts with it's icon in the way same as setting new ranks with thier icons. This what i suggest in this topic.

• And it's not default so i suggest to be default.

[javiexin]

Hello Raheem,

You may define new "contact" fields in the core phpbb, no need for anything else.
However, for what I have been able to see, the ICON used to present the contact is HARDCODED, and therefore not so easy to include such a new icon on new contact fields (at the very least, would require very strict naming convention and specific CSS rules).

Using the above mentioned extension "as is" it may be done, but requires some extra significant configuration. I will look into it, and try to provide a new "example" use case for the extension, with this in mind. But won't be soon though...

Regards,
-javiexin

[javiexin]

Ok, further investigation on the topic.

The way icons for contact profile fields are treated is not easy to mimic, as all images are embedded in a single file, and "indexed" for a position by strict naming conventions.

To hack this, you would need to:

1. Create the custom profile field (usually as type STRING), mark it as "contact", and fill in the special fields for Contact profile fields (in the first step of configuration); the name is very important, say you call it my_telegram
2. In Step 2 (Profile Field Type Specific configuration) enter the restrictions for the User ID in such a contact field (length, allowed characters...)
3. Get a 16x16 px png image with transparent background as the representative icon to be set in the contact bubble (no margins around)
4. Upload it to styles/<yourstyle>/theme/images and name it EXACTLY THE SAME as the profile field you created, with -icon.png; so in this example case, it would be my_telegram-icon.png
5. Add the following rule at the end of styles/<yourstyle>/theme/colours.css (example using the name specified above; change if needed, but ONLY the name, and change it EXACTLY):

   Code: Select all

   .contact-icon.my_telegram-icon {
   background-image: url("./images/my_telegram-icon.png");
   background-position: 0 0;
   }

This should work for 3.1 and 3.2, but I have not tested it.

I will try and make it more "automatic" from within the above extension, but that will take time... This way, you can do it now.
-javiexin

[hanakin]

yes the icons are horrible to work with. The contact system needs a re-write eventually to allow for the front-end to completely control the icons.

[Raheem]

@javiexin, Thanks for help i'll try your method and tell you if it works or not.

yes the icons are horrible to work with. The contact system needs a re-write eventually to allow for the front-end to completely control the icons.

I hope it was easy to deal with icons like ranks. Hope this to be done in the near future in next versions.