Planned Features / Feature Requests / Bugs

[El_Goretto]

Going to keep track of Planned Features and Requested Features during the test phase. Although we cannot promise all requested features will be added.

Planned Features:

• Post Ratings: being able to like or dislike or anything in between - WIP

• Import old smilies - Done
• re-design the charter member and cager banners - Done
• make links more obvious - Done
• Forum List sidebar should be duplicated into New Posts/Recent Posts sidebar - Done

Requested Features:

• Add a new posts/what's new link on pages other than Forum.
• More formatting options - Work In Progress
• Ability to ignore specific thread/forum

• Add a post number link above each post on mobile version - Done
• Add a navigation bar at the bottom of page (or at least a quick link arrow back to top?) - Done
• Make moderator banner more prominent - Done
• Thread rating - Done
• Need a link to send PM (start conversations) from the profile page of each user. - Done
• Being able to search for words with less than 4 letters. - Done
• Being able to select which forums to see new posts from. - Cancelled, not possible at this stage
• Review poster information for each post in a thread on mobile version to tighten things up a bit more like the default style. - Done
• A better solution for posting images (this one's a long shot because our hosting resources are limited) - Done
• Add corresponding Date and Time of posting at the top of each post - Done
• All caps words in thread titles should be allowed (for KITAS, EPO, MERP types of abbreviations) - Done!
• What's the deal with points and trophies. Hard cap? - Done
• Force Desktop version on mobile - Done!
• On mobile, make "new post" available in one click rather than two - Done!
• Add a Recent Posts link in the navigation tab. Equivalent of "What's New". - Done!
• Make it more obvious who is participating in a conversation on screen sizes other than desktop - Done!
• Change the side bar for new posts and new threads so it reads "latest" instead of "new" to avoid confusion. - Done!

Bugs:

• Liveleak embedding doesn't work - Fixed
• link color too dark in profile card overlay
• On the right, New Post shows them but New Threads just says "loading." - Fixed
• Increase forum title max length - Fixed
• No report button - Fixed

 

[El_Goretto]

Force Desktop Version on Mobile:

I've added a link at the bottom of the page to force Desktop version when on Mobile.

 

[El_Goretto]

On mobile, make "new post" available in one click rather than two:

So the way XF works is a bit weird and a bit difficult to explain.

In a nutshell, the navigation bar has 2 levels:
- the primary navigation bar: where you see HOME, FORUMS, EXPAT INDO WEBSITE, MEMBERS, etc
- If you click any of the primary nav bar items, you see the secondary navigation bar. In the case where you click FORUMS, you will see: MARK FORUMS READ, SEARCH FORUMS, WATCHED FORUMS, etc

When using responsive design, aka automatic re-arrangement of items when viewing the forum on a small screen device, both Primary and Secondary Nav Bars don't fit in the screen width. To remedy this, some items are moved into a drop down menu.

This is where XF made a design decision that I don't agree with:

When deciding which items from the nav bar get placed in a drop down menu on a mobile screen, the least important go first. Ok, fine.

For the primary nav bar, the order of importance is from left to right, which makes sense. Most important on the left, least important on the right. So the ones on the right get sent to the drop down menu.

For the secondary nav bar, it's the opposite! XF decided that the items from the right are more important than item from the left. So when resizing for a mobile screen, the items on the left get sent to the drop down menu.

I disagree, I think for consistency, the secondary nav bar items should arranged in descending order of importance from left to right.

But because the whole forum is designed that way, I can't really change that priority. Every time we install a plug-in or activate a function that adds items to the nav bar, it's going to be messed up.

So I've decided to embrace XF's philosphy and use their order of importance. Which is why New Posts and What's New are on the very right side of the Secondary Nav Bar so that when viewed with a mobile they don't disappear in a drop down menu.

For what it's worth, XF 2.0 will offer easier navigation bar management that will give the choice to the admins to arrange things in the order of importance they see fit.

 

[El_Goretto]

Add a Recent Posts link in the navigation tab. Equivalent of "What's New":

This what very easy, thank you for pointing it out CaturMuka. I did not notice it because I exclusively use New Posts.

To keep things in line with vBulletin, I've called it What's New as well.

 

[El_Goretto]

On the right, New Post shows them but New Threads just says "loading."

This has been fixed.

 

[El_Goretto]

Change the side bar for new posts and new threads so it reads "latest" instead of "new" to avoid confusion.

This is also done.

 

[CaturMuka]

Add a Recent Posts link in the navigation tab. Equivalent of "What's New":

This what very easy, thank you for pointing it out CaturMuka. I did not notice it because I exclusively use New Posts.

To keep things in line with vBulletin, I've called it What's New as well.

That's great, thanks, but can it more like the VB "What's New?"?. Balipod.com have a very similar layout called "Recent Activity". I don't like that it includes all the forum activity, but it's still workable. Possibly that comes with their choice of theme, not sure. See here: https://balipod.com/forum/recent-activity/

I'm a big fan of the preview blurb you get from each post. It gives you a good idea whether you'd be interested in reading the full post. Without that it'd become too tedious to check every new post and I'd miss interesting snippets of information simply because the thread title wasn't interesting.

 

[El_Goretto]

That's great, thanks, but can it more like the VB "What's New?"?. Balipod.com have a very similar layout called "Recent Activity". I don't like that it includes all the forum activity, but it's still workable. Possibly that comes with their choice of theme, not sure. See here: https://balipod.com/forum/recent-activity/

I'm a big fan of the preview blurb you get from each post. It gives you a good idea whether you'd be interested in reading the full post. Without that it'd become too tedious to check every new post and I'd miss interesting snippets of information simply because the thread title wasn't interesting.

Yes, we do have recent activity too. I talked about it in the FAQ.

Recent Activity: https://www.expatindo.org/testdir/recent-activity/

FAQ: https://forum.expatindo.org/showthread.php?2129-Frequently-Asked-Questions

I've been looking at including a post excerpt in What's New but I haven't found a solution yet. The best compromise I found in the mean time is what I implemented.

 

[El_Goretto]

Increase forum title max length

Fixed! No more truncated forum category titles.

No report button - Fixed

Also fixed, it was a permission issue.

 

[Anglian]

Well it does seem well planned, I'm sure after all your effort and inputs it's going to work well, perhaps the other lot should take note on how it's really done

 

[El_Goretto]

Make it more obvious who is participating in a conversation on screen sizes other than desktop

I've added a small info box at the top of each conversation to show who the participants are at a glance.

 

[El_Goretto]

Well it does seem well planned, I'm sure after all your effort and inputs it's going to work well, perhaps the other lot should take note on how it's really done

Awww... thank you, it means a lot!

 

[Bad_azz]

I have to throw some flowers at you too El G... you are doing a wonderful job. Well done, all the work you put in to the forum is greatly appreciated. Fine work sir !





*no flower icons- so you win pompoms

 

[fastpitch17]

I have to throw some flowers at you too El G... you are doing a wonderful job. Well done, all the work you put in to the forum is greatly appreciated. Fine work sir !





*no flower icons- so you win pompoms

Agreed. Great work.

 

[El_Goretto]

Thanks guys...

 

[El_Goretto]

make links more obvious

Done. Just matched the behavior of vbulletin


What's the deal with points and trophies. Hard cap?

Actually no, the 48 points which seem like a hard cap actually means that the next milestone to increase the points is more difficult to reach.

Each Trophy (milestone) is awarded once and it looks like nobody has been able to get more Trophy than that so far. If we keep the trophies the way they are, eventually someone will get one of those trophies and break the 48 point barrier.

 

[El_Goretto]

All caps words in thread titles should be allowed (for KITAS, EPO, MERP types of abbreviations)

Done. Easy peasy, just a little setting switch to flick.

 

[El_Goretto]

Add corresponding Date and Time of posting at the top of each post

I did better, I removed the username, date and time stamp as well as post number from below each post and added it to the top of each post.

I will now do this on conversations as well.

 

[El_Goretto]

re-design the charter member and cager banners.

Banners have been re-tweaked, this is what they look like in desktop mode:

And in Mobile mode:

 

[fastpitch17]

That seems to work just fine.