My SMF 3.0 Dream

Started by Xarcell, October 06, 2011, 01:51:46 AM

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Xarcell

Personally I think 2.1 should be skipped and go straight into developing on 3.0.

My 3.0 Dream:

1.| Use HTML 5 especially with the use of microdata. The way I see it, but the time 3.0 comes out, there will be a lot more support for it.

2.| Go Object Oriented.

3.| Keep your ground on not supporting third party software. jQuery "might" being the only exception, as some don't consider it third party. However, it should be discussed publicly on whether to support it or not. The pros may out-weigh the cons greatly.

4.| Add a BBC manager and a Menu Manager.

5.| Rename "Default Theme" to "Master Theme", and use the term "Default Theme" when applying a theme to run as the site default. This makes things a little clearer for newcomers.

6.| Remove most of the profile fields in profiles and let the custom profile fields do the work. If the admin wants them, he can create them.

7.| Remove the Calendar. I actually have mixed feeling about this, because I use the Calendar. I think it should be an "official" mod.

8.| Permissions need a make-over. Current system is to complicated to understand for newcomers. Adding options like "Accept" "Deny" and "Revoke" can be a game changer and help people understand it better. Using "Deny" means no permission, but can get permission that allows you from another group. However, using "Revoke" means no permission, regardless if you get permission from another group.

9.| Full UTF8 support by default.

10.| Look at "PHP Speedy"(uses GZIP compression to reduce browser overhead), this idea has potential. Can SMF have something similar by default, that combines all JS files into one file and CSS files into one file(including additional JS/CSS files from mods), and removes white-space and comments. This will reduce HTTP requests and file sizes. Not speed up not only page loading by a little bit, but increase browser load speed greatly on slower computers.

11.| Make notification a numbered queue like facebook alerts, rather than sending an email.

12.| Add user tagging, meaning I can tag a user in a message(@Xarcell) and receive an notification that my name was tagged. It lets me know a comment was directed towards me. To cut down on abuse, you should only be able tag users that are participating within that topic. Also have an option to ignore those notifications for a particular topic.

13.| More CSS3 support, less IE6 support.

14.| Default theme(or "Master Theme" if you will), should have better smart-phone/tablet support out-of-box. Heck, look at windows 8.

15.| Eliminate as many images as you can. SMF uses way too many icons. Many of them can be created using pure CSS, like the "new" button. Reduce HTTP requests and page load.

16.| Eliminate post page, expand Quick Reply and use ajax.

17.| Continue support for multiple database types.

18.| URL's need to be prettier. Site domain followed by the category name, numeric topic id, and then numeric reply id if any. Example: "simplemachines.org/smf-development/feature-requests/topic=31689/". Each reply go in numeric order, example: "simplemachines.org/smf-development/feature-requests/topic=31689/reply=1/".

19.| For the love of GOD, don't add a sidebar, it won't be flexible enough. All or nothing. If you want to do such as thing, then do it properly. Allow blocks of content to be displayed around the forum. Much like your common portals. Top, bottom, left, and right.

20.| Option to apply any age, gender, or custom profile field into a membergroup, so that it can be given permissions. This would allow sites to restrict content by age, gender, or custom profile field. This is something I have not seen any software do, but is always asked for as a mod/add-on.

21.| No more gifs! SVG should be used with a PNG fallback(javascript needed to do this until it becomes fully supported) where applicable.

22.| Scrap karma system for users and add like/dislike system based on posts.

23.| Use overlays where applicable.

24.| Profiles need a make-over, add more information and ditch the old YaBB look. Be sure to add page views a profile, and show what the user is currently viewing.

25.| Full Litespeed support.

26.| Allow multiple polls per topic.

27.| Expand buddy system to include following their activity & posts.

28.| Add option to appoint a membergroup moderator, which add add/remove users from that particular membergroup.

29.| Option to use custom on/off images per board.

30.| Use jQuery as library of choice and/or jQuery mobile.

31.| Add "drag & drop" for arranging for categories/boards, and profile fields. Also any other areas where useful.

32.| Option to add attachments in PM's.

33.| phpinfo should be shown in admin section.

34.| Add default avatar, brings uniform to forum.




Help Forums Evolve!

1.| There should be an option to display a topic as an "article", "page", "file", "thread", or "blog". Really if you think about it, the only different between the four is HOW the information is displayed. Selecting between the five options merely changes which template can be used to display that information.

Membergroup permissions determine what type can be used, along with what code such as BBC, HTML, or PHP. An example of default restrictions would be Page & PHP is allowed by the admin only.

If your wondering what "file" type is, then it's nothing more than taking a post with an attachment and display to look like a item download page. All the information is there, it's just a manner of how to display it.

It would also make it easier to make an add-on for it. Someone might want a custom "reviews" add-on, that mainly just displays the information within the post to look like a review page.

2.| All content of any type can all be found within the forum. No need for separate sections. Actions(such as the calendar) show even be allowed to placed into a forum category. So there should be an option for every action to do this or not(Google doesn't like redirects). Either way though, everything that a forum has, should have an option be able to be found within the forum itself, including the member base. The forum index should be the sitemap!

3.| I'm not for third party support, but I think people should be able to login and post using their Facebook, Twitter, OpenID, Yahoo, Live, and Google login's without registering or creating a profile.


Fustrate

1. Of course.
2. Confirmed.
3. I'd rather use something that is known to work than try to reinvent the wheel. Everyone here knows the mess we call the SMF WYSIWYG editor :P

...

7. Yep, I agree.
8. Yep, I agree, though it would be "Allow, Deny, No Action" or something like that.
9. Of course.
10. I'd like that.

...

13. Yep, I agree. IE6 people should know to expect a more basic experience (though it should still work).

...

15. Agreed.
16. I wouldn't eliminate the post page, but I'd certainly expand QR.
17. Yes, but let's not reinvent the wheel, as I said earlier.
18. Yes, but there are better formats.

...

21. PNG for most little images, CSS3 for most other things. Why mess with SVG?
22. Karma should be removed.

...

30. jQuery, yes, jQuery mobile, no. jQuery mobile is much more suited to themes that want to use it.
31. That's just aesthetics, not a big deal.
32. Bad idea - what happens when two members decide to send child pornography to each other? It's illegal, and because it's a private message, you wouldn't be able to find out about it.
Steven Hoffman
Former Team Member, 2009-2012

KensonPlays

The ones that I keep in the quote are the ones I agree with:

Quote from: Xarcell link=topic=454917.msg3178169#msg3178169 date=1317880306
b]1[/b].| Use HTML 5 especially with the use of microdata. The way I see it, but the time 3.0 comes out, there will be a lot more support for it. - Yes, HTML5 is the new standard, so HTML5/PHP would be a great combination!

2 - I'm not familiar with OOP, so meh...

3.| Keep your ground on not supporting third party software. jQuery "might" being the only exception, as some don't consider it third party. - I completely agree with jQuery.

4.| Add a BBC manager and a Menu Manager. - Menu Manager might not be NEEDED unless you have a portal, or pages to connect them to. I'm sure a lot of people only use the forum feature by itself.

5.| Rename "Default Theme" to "Master Theme", and use the term "Default Theme" when applying a theme to run as the site default. This makes things a little clearer for newcomers. - I totally agree

6.| Remove most of the profile fields in profiles and let the custom profile fields do the work. If the admin wants them, he can create them. - Yes, I agree

7.| Remove the Calendar. I actually have mixed feeling about this, because I use the Calendar. I think it should be an "official" mod. - Yes, I agree

10.| Look at "PHP Speedy"(uses GZIP compression to reduce browser overhead), this idea has potential. - Yes, I agree

11.| Make notification a numbered queue like facebook alerts, rather than sending an email. - Yes, I agree

12.| Add user tagging, meaning I can tag a user in a message(@Xarcell) and receive an notification that my name was tagged. It lets me know a comment was directed towards me. To cut down on abuse, you should only be able tag users that are participating within that topic. Also have an option to ignore those notifications for a particular topic.  - Yes, I agree

13.| More CSS3 support, less IE6 support. - Yes, I agree

14.| Default theme(or "Master Theme" if you will), should have better smart-phone/tablet support out-of-box. Heck, look at windows 8. - Yes, I agree

15.| Eliminate as many images as you can. SMF uses way too many icons. Many of them can be created using pure CSS, like the "new" button. Reduce HTTP requests and page load. - Yes, I agree, with CSS3 less and less images are needed for greater pageloads.

16.| Eliminate post page, expand Quick Reply and use ajax. - Yes, I agree

17.| Continue support for multiple database types. - I'm kind of in the middle here. MYSQL is the most popular, maybe the top 2 database types, because the others really aren't used.

18.| URL's need to be prettier. Site domain followed by the category name, numeric topic id, and then numeric reply id if any. - Pretty URLs modification can do this well enough IMO.

19.| For the love of GOD, don't add a sidebar, it won't be flexible enough. All or nothing. If you want to do such as thing, then do it properly. Allow blocks of content to be displayed around the forum. Much like your common portals. Top, bottom, left, and right. - Yes, I agree

20.| Option to apply any age, gender, or custom profile field into a membergroup, so that it can be given permissions.
This would allow sites to restrict content by age, gender, or custom profile field. This is something I have not seen any software do, but is always asked for as a mod/add-on. - Yes, I think this would work. Age or custom profile field will be good enough, I don't wanna be sexist!

21.| No more gifs! SVG should be used with a PNG fallback(javascript needed to do this until it becomes fully supported) where applicable. - Yes, I agree

22.| Scrap karma system for users and add like/dislike system based on posts. - Meh, maybe both, you can select if you want a like/dislike or a karma (rep) system

23.| Use overlays where applicable. - ?_?

24.| Profiles need a make-over, add more information and ditch the old YaBB look. Be sure to add page views a profile, and show what the user is currently viewing. - Yes, I agree

25.| Full Litespeed support. - Yes, I agree even though I don't know what litespeed is, it sounds great :P

26.| Allow multiple polls per topic. - Yes, I agree

27.| Expand buddy system to include following their activity & posts. - Yes, I agree

28.| Add option to appoint a membergroup moderator, which add add/remove users from that particular membergroup. - Yes, I agree

29.| Option to use custom on/off images per board. - Yes, I agree (BUT... Custom Board Icons mod can do the trick well enough)

30.| Use jQuery as library of choice and/or jQuery mobile. - Yes, I agree. jQuery is awesome, I played around with it for a tiny bit and loved it!

31.| Add "drag & drop" for arranging for categories/boards, and profile fields. Also any other areas where useful. - Yes, I agree. This would make SMF more modern, take a look at Concrete5's system. In-page editing. Click a button in the admin menu bar at the top to edit the page. Same with boards/categories. This would make SMF awesomer :P

32.| Option to add attachments in PM's. - Yes, I agree, basic attachments at least...

33.| phpinfo should be shown in admin section. - Yes, I agree, you wouldn't need to code a custom page using phpinfo(); because new users/non-coders won't know how.

34.| Add default avatar, brings uniform to forum. - Yes, I agree




3.| I'm not for third party support, but I think people should be able to login and post using their Facebook, Twitter, OpenID, Yahoo, Live, and Google login's without registering or creating a profile. - Yes, I agree

ascaland

A lot of great suggestions, I wont reply individually, but know that you have my support for most of these points.

Kindred

pretty urls are pointless....

and attachments in PM is a bad idea.   If someone distributes illegal or copyrighted material via PM, this now makes the ADMIN responsible....   and the admin can not (easily) scan PMs.

Слaва
Украинi

Please do not PM, IM or Email me with support questions.  You will get better and faster responses in the support boards.  Thank you.

"Loki is not evil, although he is certainly not a force for good. Loki is... complicated."

KensonPlays

OK. What do you think about the others?

Kindred

most of them are a toos-up for me.  I can see some of them being useful - many of them are already mods.

I have no specific argument with them and would leave it up to our developers to decide if they wanted to do it or not.
Слaва
Украинi

Please do not PM, IM or Email me with support questions.  You will get better and faster responses in the support boards.  Thank you.

"Loki is not evil, although he is certainly not a force for good. Loki is... complicated."

DoctorMalboro

I don't agree in 17 and 18, mainly because people are not likely to use SQLite and PostgreSQL and for me, MySQL can work in both ways perfectly...

Then, Pretty URLs shouldn't be standar, because it's just a matter of the user, maybe as an option but disabled, kind of like many CMS do...

Then, in 21, I don't see the point of using SVG when they weight pretty much the same as PNG (in my experience using it, of course)...

I would add a better support to multimedia attachments (like videos with popcorn.js and multiple images with a slideshow) and if the use of CSS3 is likely to happen, create a basic color changer with JavaScript would look great (and remove all the default simple variations)...

Oldiesmann

Quote from: Xarcell on October 06, 2011, 01:51:46 AM
Personally I think 2.1 should be skipped and go straight into developing on 3.0.

My 3.0 Dream:

1.| Use HTML 5 especially with the use of microdata. The way I see it, but the time 3.0 comes out, there will be a lot more support for it.

2.| Go Object Oriented.

3.| Keep your ground on not supporting third party software. jQuery "might" being the only exception, as some don't consider it third party. However, it should be discussed publicly on whether to support it or not. The pros may out-weigh the cons greatly.

4.| Add a BBC manager and a Menu Manager.

5.| Rename "Default Theme" to "Master Theme", and use the term "Default Theme" when applying a theme to run as the site default. This makes things a little clearer for newcomers.

6.| Remove most of the profile fields in profiles and let the custom profile fields do the work. If the admin wants them, he can create them.

7.| Remove the Calendar. I actually have mixed feeling about this, because I use the Calendar. I think it should be an "official" mod.

8.| Permissions need a make-over. Current system is to complicated to understand for newcomers. Adding options like "Accept" "Deny" and "Revoke" can be a game changer and help people understand it better. Using "Deny" means no permission, but can get permission that allows you from another group. However, using "Revoke" means no permission, regardless if you get permission from another group.

9.| Full UTF8 support by default.

10.| Look at "PHP Speedy"(uses GZIP compression to reduce browser overhead), this idea has potential. Can SMF have something similar by default, that combines all JS files into one file and CSS files into one file(including additional JS/CSS files from mods), and removes white-space and comments. This will reduce HTTP requests and file sizes. Not speed up not only page loading by a little bit, but increase browser load speed greatly on slower computers.

11.| Make notification a numbered queue like facebook alerts, rather than sending an email.

12.| Add user tagging, meaning I can tag a user in a message(@Xarcell) and receive an notification that my name was tagged. It lets me know a comment was directed towards me. To cut down on abuse, you should only be able tag users that are participating within that topic. Also have an option to ignore those notifications for a particular topic.

13.| More CSS3 support, less IE6 support.

14.| Default theme(or "Master Theme" if you will), should have better smart-phone/tablet support out-of-box. Heck, look at windows 8.

15.| Eliminate as many images as you can. SMF uses way too many icons. Many of them can be created using pure CSS, like the "new" button. Reduce HTTP requests and page load.

16.| Eliminate post page, expand Quick Reply and use ajax.

17.| Continue support for multiple database types.

18.| URL's need to be prettier. Site domain followed by the category name, numeric topic id, and then numeric reply id if any. Example: "simplemachines.org/smf-development/feature-requests/topic=31689/". Each reply go in numeric order, example: "simplemachines.org/smf-development/feature-requests/topic=31689/reply=1/".

19.| For the love of GOD, don't add a sidebar, it won't be flexible enough. All or nothing. If you want to do such as thing, then do it properly. Allow blocks of content to be displayed around the forum. Much like your common portals. Top, bottom, left, and right.

20.| Option to apply any age, gender, or custom profile field into a membergroup, so that it can be given permissions. This would allow sites to restrict content by age, gender, or custom profile field. This is something I have not seen any software do, but is always asked for as a mod/add-on.

21.| No more gifs! SVG should be used with a PNG fallback(javascript needed to do this until it becomes fully supported) where applicable.

22.| Scrap karma system for users and add like/dislike system based on posts.

23.| Use overlays where applicable.

24.| Profiles need a make-over, add more information and ditch the old YaBB look. Be sure to add page views a profile, and show what the user is currently viewing.

25.| Full Litespeed support.

26.| Allow multiple polls per topic.

27.| Expand buddy system to include following their activity & posts.

28.| Add option to appoint a membergroup moderator, which add add/remove users from that particular membergroup.

29.| Option to use custom on/off images per board.

30.| Use jQuery as library of choice and/or jQuery mobile.

31.| Add "drag & drop" for arranging for categories/boards, and profile fields. Also any other areas where useful.

32.| Option to add attachments in PM's.

33.| phpinfo should be shown in admin section.

34.| Add default avatar, brings uniform to forum.




Help Forums Evolve!

1.| There should be an option to display a topic as an "article", "page", "file", "thread", or "blog". Really if you think about it, the only different between the four is HOW the information is displayed. Selecting between the five options merely changes which template can be used to display that information.

Membergroup permissions determine what type can be used, along with what code such as BBC, HTML, or PHP. An example of default restrictions would be Page & PHP is allowed by the admin only.

If your wondering what "file" type is, then it's nothing more than taking a post with an attachment and display to look like a item download page. All the information is there, it's just a manner of how to display it.

It would also make it easier to make an add-on for it. Someone might want a custom "reviews" add-on, that mainly just displays the information within the post to look like a review page.

2.| All content of any type can all be found within the forum. No need for separate sections. Actions(such as the calendar) show even be allowed to placed into a forum category. So there should be an option for every action to do this or not(Google doesn't like redirects). Either way though, everything that a forum has, should have an option be able to be found within the forum itself, including the member base. The forum index should be the sitemap!

3.| I'm not for third party support, but I think people should be able to login and post using their Facebook, Twitter, OpenID, Yahoo, Live, and Google login's without registering or creating a profile.



1. I agree.
2. Fine with me as well. Might make things more flexible.
3. I agree here as well. jQuery can be quite useful, and is very well supported, so I see no reason why we can't use it.
4. Not really sure on this one. Menu options are easy enough to add now - they just require a file edit. BBCode on the other hand would be nice, as our current system is much too confusing for those not familiar with PHP and such.
5. Agree here as well.
6. Agree, but we should have some standard fields defined by default, and let the admin change/remove them if they aren't wanted.
7. Mixed feelings on this as well. The biggest request in this area over the years has been to add more features (recurring events and the like), so removing it, even if it's kept as an official mod, might annoy people.
8. Agree. SMF's permissions system is quite powerful, but the current setup tends to confuse people more than anything.
9. Definitely. MySQL 4.0 is so ancient now that we should have no issues with dropping support for it in order to have full UTF8 support out of the box.
10. Interesting idea, but removing linebreaks, etc. from generated source might make it harder to debug things.
11. I agree as well. IPB has already moved in this direction and I love their current notifications system.
12. Agree, as long as it won't add a lot of overhead and can be disabled (not everyone wants to get notified when they're tagged)
13, 14 and 15: Agree
16. I would prefer to keep the post page. Adding more features to the Quick Reply is a good idea as long as we have control over it (some of us like the bare-bones quick reply :P).
17. Agreed. Just because Postgres and SQLite aren't as common as MySQL doesn't mean we shouldn't support them.
18. Disagree. Let's leave this one to mods.
19. Agree as well. Everytime I go to a forum which has a sidebar, the first thing I do is figure out how to get rid of it. There are portals for this if the admin really wants them.
20. Nice idea. Would definitely be popular. Question is whether it can be done without making things too complicated.
21. On the fence here. SVG is great for larger images that need to scale well, but I'm not sure how SVG would be better for the smaller images that we currently use GIFs for.
22. Like/dislike is all the rage these days, so go for it. Karma system never has been that useful since we never bothered to do anything with it, and very few mods actually use it for anything.
23. No idea what you mean here...
24. I agree as well.
25. Agree. Litespeed is becoming more and more popular, so we should do our best to support it.
26. Yes, especially if we can make dynamic polls (eg the second poll's options are based on what you voted for in the first poll)
27. Yes. Definitely.
28. Already exists :)
29. It's easy enough to replace the images now, so I don't know why we need to dumb it down any further...
30. Yes to jQuery. Don't know enough about the "mobile" version.
31. Yes, as long as it doesn't add a lot of overhead.
32. No, for the reasons already pointed out by others. There are plenty of file-sharing and image-hosting sites for this sort of thing.
33. Yes, as long as it's only available to admins (mainly to prevent whining about possible targeted attacks due to outdated server software :P)
34. Yes


1. Not sure about this. Might make things more confusing in the long run.
2. I think that would make things more confusing. A built-in XML sitemap might be good, but non-forum content should be kept out of the forum itself.
3. I agree here as well.
Michael Eshom
Christian Metal Fans

vbgamer45

1. Use some html5 but not make the forum depend on it. Microdata is good.
2. No OOP there is no major gain and you will just end up rewriting all the code with the same bugs and that will take another couple years to get done. You can do parts that make sense.
3. jquery is nice as long as major parts of the code are not javascript based and depending on what you include does increase the page load time. Would like to see it optional.
4. Agree
5. Can go either way
6. Agree
7. We have the code already no need to remove it.
8. I think that is how it used to be in 1.1.x
9. Tables should be utf8 by default would help with some issues.
10. Looks nice I am big into reducing page loading time
11. Somewhat agree but I think it would be better have a summary either hourly or daily for certain events
12. Net idea
13. CSS3 on the fence it is not even completely defined yet. Would need to see the benefits and what browsers support what.
14. Agree mobile/tablet is needed.
15.Agree
16. Disagree maybe add a couple extra options to quickly
17. Disagree but keep the abstraction layer. Have hardly seen any posts in the other database type forums.
18. Agree.
19. Could go either way
20. Agree
21. Never seen a svg image with a web app. I would be in favor of PNG's over gifs. I don't even know what programs make svg files.
22. Not a big fan of scraping existing features but do like the idea of adding likes/dislikes to posts.

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1 Yup.

2 Yup.

3 We have already decided to support jQuery as using a pre-existing library makes a lot of sense, and jQ is the de facto standard these days.

4 Yup.

@Oldies: I realise menu edits are easy for us. "Oh, all you have to do is delve into the depths of Sources and edit a complex PHP array. Make sure to get your syntax right or you'll crash your whole site. Have a nice day."

It's not the way to go if you really want to support a broad user base. Most people are not coders and do not want to be coders. They don't feel they have the time to learn coding on top of everything else in their lives. If you want to enable them to run their own forum, you should be making it easy for them.

5 Makes a certain amount of sense.

6 Ditto. Never been a fan of lots of profile fields anyway. Just a few basic ones would do me.

7 Bit of a toss up on whether to keep it as core or not. Not sure at the moment.

8 I agree that permissions need an overhaul.

9 Definitely.

10 I'm all for reducing http requests, and I often merge custom js files and css files when doing custom work anyway. The one exception would be jQuery itself, as calling that from Google CDN makes the most sense since a lot of people will already have that cached. To my mind, the best way of handling jQ would be to call from Google by default, with a fallback to the forum's own copy if the Google file happens to be unavailable for some reason.

11 Never use notifications anyway, so am personally ambivalent about the whole thing.

12 Ditto. I'd probably want an off switch for that one.

13 Definitely. IE6 is only going to be minimally supported. Same for IE7. IOW, we'll probably do a quick check to make sure critical functionality is still operational, but we wont care what it looks like.

14 Yup, or it should come with a separate mobile version (which is probably better, really).

15 Yup.

16 Would keep the post page, but have an option of bare bones or advanced quick reply for those who want it.

17 Yup.

18 Not in favour of pretty url's by default.

19 The plan is to keep it without a sidebar. Anyone who wants extra blocks can install a portal.

20 Not a bad idea.

21 Will be using mainly png, but possibly SVG for some things. PNG's are very light if used sensibly (often lighter than gif).

22 Speaking for myself, I would happily scrap karma and not replace it with anything.

23 I'll leave that one to the back end boffins. Me do templates n css. :P

24 So you want fewer profile fields but more stuff in profile? Ok. How does that work? :D

25. Sounds like a good idea.

26 Would be fine with that.

27 Same as notifications. Couldn't care less, so will see what others think.

28 Not sure I'd use it myself, and it does complicate an already complex system, but I can see the sense in the idea.

29 Probably better as a mod. Certainly not something I'd prioritise for core.

30 Already been over that. :)

31 Yes. Menu manager and file uploads are obvious places for this too.

32 I'd like it myself, and will probably add custom code for it so staff can use such a function, but not a good idea for general use/inclusion in core.

33 Makes sense.

34 Ditto.




Help Forums Evolve!

Quote1.| There should be an option to display a topic as an "article", "page", "file", "thread", or "blog". Really if you think about it, the only different between the four is HOW the information is displayed. Selecting between the five options merely changes which template can be used to display that information.

Membergroup permissions determine what type can be used, along with what code such as BBC, HTML, or PHP. An example of default restrictions would be Page & PHP is allowed by the admin only.

If your wondering what "file" type is, then it's nothing more than taking a post with an attachment and display to look like a item download page. All the information is there, it's just a manner of how to display it.

It would also make it easier to make an add-on for it. Someone might want a custom "reviews" add-on, that mainly just displays the information within the post to look like a review page.

Interesting thoughts, but offhand I'm inclined to think that this is where portals start to make sense as they allow similar things already. Not entirely sure it makes sense for a forum core module.

Quote2.| All content of any type can all be found within the forum. No need for separate sections. Actions(such as the calendar) show even be allowed to placed into a forum category. So there should be an option for every action to do this or not(Google doesn't like redirects). Either way though, everything that a forum has, should have an option be able to be found within the forum itself, including the member base. The forum index should be the sitemap!

Not sure how well that would actually work.

Quote3.| I'm not for third party support, but I think people should be able to login and post using their Facebook, Twitter, OpenID, Yahoo, Live, and Google login's without registering or creating a profile.

Meh, with the obvious exception of OpenID (even though hardly anyone uses it AFAICT).

bloc

All of them would be nice to add for SMF 3.0. though I highly doubt most of them will ever make it.

(curiously its a similar wishlist of what I like ViennaBBS to be - except JQuery, Mootools is my choice. But def. the options to show topics as "types" is a "must")

CraftyLion

Regarding the option to send attachments in PM, while I agree with what people have said, I'd like to think it is nice to be able to send files to each other. The reason I say this is because people might not want their email address to be public to anyone.

One example this option could prove beneficial would be in a forum such as this one where members might want to send coding scripts to mod/theme creators for review or editing.

However, I do agree that it can cause some legality issue regarding its contents ...

Kindred

send scripts using the CODE tag....

Even if attachments in PM was ever included, it would definitely be turned OFF on a forum like this one.
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Украинi

Please do not PM, IM or Email me with support questions.  You will get better and faster responses in the support boards.  Thank you.

"Loki is not evil, although he is certainly not a force for good. Loki is... complicated."

Oldiesmann

I personally do not see a need for PM attachments. There are plenty of sites available for sharing whatever it is you'd need to share via PM without having to allow attachments (Pastebin for code; Image Shack, Photobucket and many other sites for images; Pipe Bytes, Dropbox, etc. for files).

The other problem with PM attachments is that we'd have to include a way for admins to manage them just like regular attachments, only with a bit more functionality since the files would be shared between specific members instead of posted in the forum where the admin can see them. We have always been against allowing admins to view their members PMs, and it would be difficult to properly handle PM attachments without allowing admins to view the PMs.
Michael Eshom
Christian Metal Fans

Account Abandoned

Quote from: Kindred on October 26, 2011, 11:08:39 AM
pretty urls are pointless....

and attachments in PM is a bad idea.   If someone distributes illegal or copyrighted material via PM, this now makes the ADMIN responsible....   and the admin can not (easily) scan PMs.



People can do this through email. I think not adding it because of that reason is a bit paranoid, lol.

Kindred

I don't think it's paranoid at all.

If they do it through email, then I am not responsible for any illegal behavior. If they do it on my site, then it could be argued that I am responsible.
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Please do not PM, IM or Email me with support questions.  You will get better and faster responses in the support boards.  Thank you.

"Loki is not evil, although he is certainly not a force for good. Loki is... complicated."

青山 素子

Quote from: Kindred on November 03, 2011, 07:47:47 PM
If they do it through email, then I am not responsible for any illegal behavior. If they do it on my site, then it could be argued that I am responsible.

Exactly.

Given the ramming through of the PROTECT IP Act currently going on in Congress in the US, I'd rather not take any chances. The last thing you need is PM attachments containing copyrighted material causing ISPs to remove your entire domain from DNS, advertising companies dropping you and refusing to deal with you, donations being frozen, etc. because a company complained and used the items in this act to shut your site down completely.

(It's like the DMCA take-down process on steroids, and with no judicial oversight.)

Let the e-mail provider handle it, I don't have time or money to file a proper counter-claim and notify all parties that then have to restore me, etc...
Motoko-chan
Director, Simple Machines

Note: Unless otherwise stated, my posts are not representative of any official position or opinion of Simple Machines.


Account Abandoned

Quote from: Kindred on November 03, 2011, 07:47:47 PM
I don't think it's paranoid at all.

If they do it through email, then I am not responsible for any illegal behavior. If they do it on my site, then it could be argued that I am responsible.

If you have a proper terms of service, this can be avoided of course pending the country you live in.

Kindred

no, it really can't.   Regardless of what you want to CLAIM in your TOS agreement, *YOU* are held responsible for what is one YOUR site.  Your hosting company will hold you responsible and will shut down your account, if someone even sneezes a DCMA call in your direction.  It won't matter (and they won't even bother to look) - even if you have a ToS that says "you agree that I am not responsible for your actions on my site"

Neither would that legally hold up if someone ended up taking it to court.
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Please do not PM, IM or Email me with support questions.  You will get better and faster responses in the support boards.  Thank you.

"Loki is not evil, although he is certainly not a force for good. Loki is... complicated."

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