SDN wish list
******
<b>Attention:</b> This thread was started in September of last year.
The first five posts refer to the old forum software.
Message was edited by: Mark Finnern
******
Here are some random ideas that can be used for the next forum development cycle. Maybe other people also have special wishes. I hope that it helps with some interesting points that one can consider.
(*) Rename "Collaboration" to "Forums". Both are in the dictionary, but only one is on everybody's tongue.
(*) Save the numbers! For the number of posts per page, plus the numbers in the list. Alternative ideas is to just make this customisable with my profile. Or just to set a cookie for this.
(*) Remove the annoyance button after posting. Especially when one has to scroll up to find it.
(*) Speaking of scrolling, white screen is nearly as bad as blue screen. Every time that we are way at the bottom of the scroll bar, and trigger an action that gives little output, we have white screen. Now where did I leave my mouse (probably at the same place where that dead frog is:)?
(*) Something is wrong with the initial forum page. It states at the top, sorted on "Last Post Date", but gives two undated posts, plus three more from July/August. If we now change the number of posts per page, then suddenly we have the last posts for this forum. The initial start-up page is not correct.
(*) When in forum mode, would recommend to remove the "Development Areas" tree from the display. It just moves the forum tree to the bottom, resulting in scrolling again.
(*) Slight annoyance: Select a forum causes tree to first collapse, and then expand again. In a world of flicker-free rendering, this additional flicker is just jumping in the eye.
(*) On the topic of tree: once reading inside a forum, the real estate of this tree is wasting until we want to switch forums (might be a long time). Why not put the threads/topics of the current forum on the left in the tree, so that one can pick out topics to quickly read and/or answer. This is especially nice when doing selective reading.
(*) Searching in one forum.
(*) Support a set of formatting characters for posts. Either allowing these HTML sequences explicitly (preferred), or with some other script-like convention. Typical sequences are bold, underline, lists, chapter/section headings, and code example blocks. This makes for easier writing.
(*) Show complete thread when posting something new. Well at least the last N appends.
(*) Support of a "recommend? button. If one likes a post, it can be recommend. For other readers, if a forum is very busy, it is easier to sort and read recommendations. Also nice for the author to get some feedback, without all these "me too" appends. This also opens up interesting aspect of having the most recommended posts, etc. I find this the best way to see what is happening in another area of the SDN, by looking at what people are reading and recommending.
(*) Support a black-list (not that we need it yet), and a white-list (which we need urgently:). On the black comes people that I don't want to read. Their appends are shown only in the first line, and the rest skipped. White entries are high-lighted. These people earn their respect, and we hang on their lips. Call them "myFavourites".
(*) Navigation via "people". Once I find somebody whose writing I like, I often would like to see what other forums this guy/gal visits and what else has been written. Then it is nice to click on the name, and get a list of the person's last N posts over all forums.
(*) Read/unread appends. How do I know which threads have posts which I have not read? Especially if we are to be in power mode to answer more than ask. Then I would like to click the "shown only unread threads" checkbox. Also the next/previous navigation should work in unread mode.
(*) What is the meaning of the "chequered flag" in some forums? Maybe add a link behind it to help, or a tool tip.
(*) In the lists, always the name of the last appender is shown. My preference would be the name of the person that started the thread. This allows me to quickly find my own questions. Especially when a number of answers are written, the "last append name" is not very significant in the overall scope of the thread.
(*) Preview mode for total forum. Show for each thread all appends, plus a few lines of each. So one can easily quickly fly through the thread.
regards, brian
Message was edited by: Mark Finnern
Message was edited by: Mark Finnern
Message was edited by: Mark Finnern
Message was edited by: Mark Finnern