Mark thread as unread - Side map - checkbox right hand side

[AbteriX]

Hi mouser,

1.)
i want to bookmark this or that thread.
I get lost in all this forums and sub-forums.

Perhaps we could get an option like "mark as unread"
so i see this or that post next time again
if i use "Show unread posts since last visit. "


2.)
Maybe your forum soft could generate a kind of side-map ?


3.)
For what are this checkboxes on the right side of  my threads ?

[mouser]

bookmarked threads would be kind of nice idea.

there is a "mark as unread" button already

what checkboxes are you talking about?

by the way, there is a forum for the software that runs this board, Simple Machines Forum (SMF):
http://www.simplemac.../community/index.php

and list of mods available (if you see one you want here, let me know):
http://mods.simplemachines.org/index.php

[Carol Haynes]

Hi interesting link.

Can I ask some dumb questions ? ....

I have never set up server side scripting etc. before but would like to do something useful with my website (it has been dormant for too long).

I have had an unused forum on that website for the last couple of years which is run by www.network57.com and it is either paid for or add supported. I don't like it too much and want to change it when I get round to a new web design. I like this forum but am not too sure how to proceed.

I have looked at Simple Machines website and it appears that provided my server supports PHP scripts and MySQL (it does) all I need to do is upload the files, run the server side installer and the forum is up and running. Is it really that simple?

Also is all the traffic restricted within my own webspace or do Simple Machines 'manage' any aspects of the forum? I suppose what I am asking is  is it a free standing package once installed?

Cheers.

In response to your question I couldn't see any extensions that I particularly want. As Stefan said it might be a nice extension to have a personalise favourite threads page (or a watched threads page) and I have already mentioned the idea that it would be nice to have the option of jumping to the first unread message in a thread rather than always starting at the first post - especially in multipage threads.

[Carol Haynes]

Never mind - installed, up and running in less than 20 minutes (including download, upload and basic config). Excellent - and free!!!

FWIW You can get most recent posts at the top of threads (which solves my problem) by editing your profile.

One last question - is there anyway to turn specific child boards into separate mailing lists that you know of?

What I want to be able to do is to set up a number of private forums for my local outdoor club to quickly exchange messages regarding planned activities and some people prefer a web board and others prefer email. I want to be able to make individuals able to receive all messages (not replies) from a specific forum (or child form) and not others. I also want to make it so that some forums are only accessible by certain people (eg. club committee members).

Any ideas?

[mouser]

congrats carol!

its very easy to make only certain sections available to certain people.
you just set up some member groups,
then you put people in different groups,
and you can say for each section of the forum which groups are allowed to access which sections.

[mouser]

as far as using email,
i understand that the lastest version beta 1.1 of smf (which we don't use here - we are using the standard 1.0.x series here), has good support for being notified by email about replied to threads.
and there is a mod that lets people post by email.

however, i don't know any forum that's really set up well for making the forum work perfectly both as a forum and as an email mailing list, which is kind of a shame since that would be a cool feature.  maybe there is some forum that will do this but i don't know of any.

[AbteriX]

bookmarked threads would be kind of nice idea.

there is a "mark as unread" button already

-mouser (September 02, 2005, 04:58 PM)

huumpf, from where comes there suddenly 
I have overseen them 
Sorry!

what checkboxes are you talking about?

If i go to an sub-forum, all threads i started have an checkbox.
Now i seen i could do an action with them, what is at the moment only "lock"
I have add two shots for this at the end to see what i meant.
Question is now answert on myself, i think.

by the way, there is a forum for the software that runs this board,
Simple Machines Forum (SMF):
http://www.simplemac.../community/index.php

and list of mods available (if you see one you want here, let me know):
http://mods.simplemachines.org/index.php

I check this out, thanks.

[Carol Haynes]

Thanks - trouble is there are loads of 'managed' forums out there that do precisely this but you end up with advertising in each email. SmartGroups is one such forum (www.smartgroups.com) which is free and pretty full featured. The disadvantage is that you can't set up a hierarchy of boards on the same forum - you have to set up totally separate forums.

One of the nice things in this forum software is you can restrict access to sectioin forums and not others, so I can set up a private  'club members' area within my forum structure and an even more private 'committee' forum within that.

I went over to SimplyMachines support forums and there does seem to be a lot of demand for full email support, but the developed working on it is reluctant to give a full blown interface because he argues configuration would be too difficult for administrators and too open to spoofing and other forms of abuse causing spamming, virus and other malware problems.

As you say the new beta has a mod which allows posting replies from email, but you can't globally set notify me by email for each user, and you would need to go to the website to set notify on individual threads - which rather defeats the object of mail based access.

Personally I can't see why it shouldn't be possible to allow a 'secure' type of posting in the form that:

• Only registered emails can be used to post
• No attachments by post
• Only pure text messages by post
• For each user during sign up a 'pass phrase' could be set up which would have to prefix every email subject, but is then stripped by the server. That way spoofing would be pretty difficult

If you are interested shall we head over and start badgering for this to be implemented?

[mouser]

it does sound like something that would be really nice to have, and yeah i can't see why it would be hard to do security wise at all.
but it does sound complicated to install and configure.

[mouser]

ah i see what you mean now stefan.

[momonan]

Sometimes it's helpful to go to the beginning of a thread and scan through before reading the message, but I, too, often wish to get right to the point of reading a message when I already understand the thread.  I expect you all know that, when you're on the unread posts page, you can get right to that message by clicking on little page thingy at the RIGHT of the post (rather than clicking on the link, which would lead you to the beginning of the thread).

It would be possible to lists the posts in reverse chronological order (which I've seen on some sites), but that is very disorienting.  I see nothing wrong with leaving things as they are, so long as we can get to the listed post by clicking on the little page thingy at the right.

I second the requests for these, though:

1.  ability to bookmark favorite posts or threads

2.  ability to mark individual posts as "read" or "unread."  As it stands now, clicking on "mark as read" removes ALL posts from the unread posts screen.

[Carol Haynes]

Ah, I hadn't noticed the 'page thingy' on the right.

That's what I wanted

[mouser]

hey, i didn't know about the page thingy either - nice find 

[mouser]

this is not a perfect solution by far but for bookmarking you could do as stefan did and set up your own little thread where you post links to your bookmarked posts, etc.  it's a bit unorthodox but definitely an interesting idea.

see stefan's private post here: https://www.donation...ndex.php?topic=787.0

[Carol Haynes]

Since you have got them to work can you tell me how to setup to allow users to upload avatars or link to URLs.

I have set permissions for all groups and the the options page but it just doesn't  seem to want to do it ???

[mouser]

you might not have noticed the special avatar configuration screen?

go to admin your forum, then click "Edit Features and Options" on left
then at bottom  there is an expandable tab for Avatar Options.

[Carol Haynes]

Yes the options were set but wouldn't work.

For some reason the URL is now working, but I can't get upload to work at all.

[mouser]

where does it fail? it won't let users upload? or it lets them upload but no effect?

[Carol Haynes]

It allows you to enter the filename/path but when you save the settings it reverts to no visible avatar. The radio button for "I will upload" says selected but the field is blank.

In Internet Explorer the Avatar is replaced with a graphic not available placeholder (the square with a red X inside) in Firefox there is no evidence of an avatar at all - not even a placeholder or a blank space where it should be ???