Upcoming Feature List

Off-topic Announcements
#1

So we’ve got a new site and it’s focusing on the basics at the moment. We’re going to release new features early and as often as we can to keep things rolling. Over the longer term we’ve got plans for some bigger and newer things, though in the short term we need to get in a number of things which are essential but we couldn’t wait for before launching. These things are (and I’ll factor in suggestions as they come):

  • [strike]Multi-recipient private-message/chats[/strike]
  • [del]Search[/del]
  • [del]Profile photos[/del]
  • Profile information
  • [del]Preferences[/del]
  • Photo uploads
  • Better posting/editing controls to allow formatting, smilies, etc.
  • [del]Links to first unread reply in indexes and notifications[/del]
  • [del]Paging controls at top and bottom of all pages that have them[/del]
  • [del]Topic link highlighting improvements ie show topic links with unread replies in better, etc.[/del]
  • Intercom unread message notifications
  • Real-time, on-site notifications
  • Better moderation controls
  • Likes, favourites, profile reputation and voting
  • Hashtags
  • @username mentions
  • Bring the photo galleries back somehow, there's a decade's worth of incredible photos in there
  • Rideout type posts, ie with dates that would allow for a calendar view
  • RSVP / I'm coming for event type posts

Other improvements:

  • [del]Redirect /forums/recent from the old site to /forums/latest on the new one[/del]
    - [del]Amend the /change page to include more information on how to sign-in and why we have less features at the moment.[/del]
    - [del]Fix a templating issue with plain-text notification emails[/del]
    - [del]Fix an issue with some old forum image attachments not showing[/del]
    - [del]More YouTube video links automatically displayed as videos[/del]
    - [del]Get old emoticons showing in older posts[/del]
    - [del]Fix a bug where deleting replies can result in broken topic pagination[/del]
    - [del]Notifications made opt-in as opposed to opt-out by default[/del]
    - [del]Don’t allow nonsense usernames, i.e. too short or just characters[/del]
    - [del]Enabled your browsers spell-check on post controls[/del]
    - [del]Added advisory information about embedding images to the post control[/del]
    - [del]Make it so duplicate posts aren’t possible - disable submit button on press[/del]
    - Message-user button on user profiles
    - Intercom notification mute option
    - Intercom photo messaging
    - [del]Intercom to tell you when user has been added or removed[/del]
    - [del]Stop long links from breaking page layouts[/del]
    - Add quote option for desktop users
    - Add quote option on all posts for mobile and desktop users
    - Edit post subjects
#2

Could you please look at making the sticky posts a bit different from the rest? Either different colors or in italics would do. :blush: :slight_smile:

#3

All this was surely highlighted on that test site we wasted hours on. Shame this launch happened without it all being ready. Especially go straight to last post, PMs, quotes, photos.

#4

Jetstream it wasn’t a waste, the beta was essential for working out the kinks and getting us to his point. To launch without addressing those issues would have been disastrous. Everyone’s help was hugely appreciated.

We had to launch now due to other reasons, ie hosting contracts. We’ll get the rest of the features in asap.

Photos can be added to posts now manually. I’ve post as public on Facebook, imgur, etc and then copy and paste the URL into your post. The site will take care of the rest. It’s not perfect but it’s only for a short while.

Cheer up, there could have been no LB at all and I don’t think any of us would have wanted that. :slight_smile:

#5

Silver6, yep post highlighting is recognised. At the moment sticky posts have a pin icon next to them.

#6

A few things that’d be nice:

  • the redirection from old to new URLs is to a “we are changing” page that doesn’t really offer any info. Could it at least explain that there is a new forum now, and here’s where you go to log in and here’s how to use your old account etc.? Ideally, /forums/recent would redirect to /forums/latest for logged-in users, too :slight_smile:

  • Also, could that explain why we’ve migrated to an unfinished forum? I expect you’ll be asked that a lot :confused:

  • I’d like to be able to minimise/shrink that top bar. You can’t really get monitors in 4:3 any more, so It’d be nice to not lose a bunch of vertical space to a logo and three links. Couldn’t they go in a sidebar?

  • Threads with unread posts seem to be emboldened, but not all the time. I’ve not worked out a pattern to it yet, but sometimes threads I’ve read all of are still marked as bold.

  • The plaintext part of the mails isn’t interpolating the template properly; they look like “{0}, someone’s replied to a topic you’re following:”

I’d offer to help with some of this, but given that I don’t do JS or ASP I think I’m useless :confused:

#7

Thanks for the recommendations Big Red S.

We have url redirection in place for forum topics, sign-in and registration pages. Anything that is temporarily not available goes to the /change page. I’ve added in a note about the old recent page though, thanks.

Link highlighting is using basic HTML/CSS highlighting for now, i.e. if you’ve visited the page, it’ll show low-lighted. Obviously this isn’t ideal as it doesn’t show when you have unread posts in a page you’ve already visited. That’s already in the list above.

Will look at the plain-text issue, thanks.

The site is built using JS, Knockout, MVC, C# and SQL Server. ASP hasn’t been around for over a decade. Heck we didn’t even use it with the last site :slight_smile:

#8

On the list of sub forums, the Updated column has the date. Would it be possible to have Today, and Yesterday?

#9

Kevsta, the way the date is written varies. If it’s near then it’s relative, i.e a few minutes ago, 2 hours ago, if it’s under a week then it’s Last Friday at x and then beyond that it’s a date. Have you seen this?

#10

Nope just shows the date for me. Copy and paste:

Motorcycling Stats Updated
Motorcycles 235,649 posts Apr 28, 2015
Stolen! 2,564 posts Apr 28, 2015
Modification Showroom 717 posts Jan 15, 2015
Newbies 46,484 posts Apr 27, 2015

#11

Hrm. So you don’t see this:

#12

Could we have this bit:

First Prev Page 1 of 3 Next Last

At the top of the page as well as at the bottom?
Please???
(NB will try to be positive only from now on)

#13

Thank you Jetstream, you’ll help calm my mood :slight_smile: I’ll add that to the list. It was meant to be there already but has slipped.

#14

Jay, i think i have a small issue with the notifications. although unclicked it keeps sending me emails notifications when someone posts. not all the time though, couple here couple there. its getting a bit herratic :smiley:
also notifications are not coming straight away, sometimes after an hour on that post being posted. thanks!

#15

and i keep getting logged off :frowning: :frowning: :frowning:

#16

Mark all as read (useful feature which I would vote for)

**R

#17

I think I’ve found the trick. Although the notification box is unclicked the ‘follow post’ on top was highlighted. I didn’t press it to begin with though, not sure why it decided to make me follow a thread by itself :confused:

#18

Paging buttons now at the top of all pages that have them (unless there’s less than one page of results, then they’re hidden).

#19

Good morning Jay, I do see what you posted at home, at work it doesn’t work. Old XenApp system about to be retired, so not going to investigate that problem. You can scrub that issue from the list.

thanks

Kevsta

#20

Good, I’ll take that :slight_smile: The site is designed for modern systems. We’ve been quite stern with deciding not to support older browsers. I don’t have the time to bother mainly!