Suggestion to change the display of likes in SMF 2.1

Started by jsx, December 08, 2021, 09:52:15 AM

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jsx

Hi,

In SMF 2.1, the post shows (link): 1 person likes this. 2 people like this and so on, but I think it would be better if users who liked the post were shown immediately. In this way the likes are displayed in the Invision Community software. Example: Username, Username2, Username3 and 7 others likes this. XenForo also displays the names of users who have liked a post in the same way. ElkArte also has a simple method; Liked by: Username, Username2

What do you think about it?

Doug Heffernan

Quote from: jsx on December 08, 2021, 09:52:15 AMHi,

In SMF 2.1, the post shows (link): 1 person likes this. 2 people like this and so on, but I think it would be better if users who liked the post were shown immediately. In this way the likes are displayed in the Invision Community software. Example: Username, Username2, Username3 and 7 others likes this. XenForo also displays the names of users who have liked a post in the same way. ElkArte also has a simple method; Liked by: Username, Username2

What do you think about it?

I like this idea. It is a better way imo of showing who liked a post. 

Aleksi "Lex" Kilpinen

I think the idea has some merit, but I also fear it easily makes actually displaying the likes a lot more complex than it currently is really.
Slava
Ukraini!


"Before you allow people access to your forum, especially in an administrative position, you must be aware that that person can seriously damage your forum. Therefore, you should only allow people that you trust, implicitly, to have such access." -Douglas

How you can help SMF

Mick.

I looked into just showing an empty/full heart like Instagram with just the number of likes. But got distracted on something else lol

jsx

Quote from: Doug Heffernan on December 08, 2021, 09:59:47 AMI like this idea. It is a better way imo of showing who liked a post. 

Exactly.

Quote from: Aleksi on December 08, 2021, 10:37:02 AMbut I also fear it easily makes actually displaying the likes a lot more complex than it currently is really.

Why do you think so?

There may be a problem with translating this information into other languages. I mean conjugation of the verb. Therefore It would be good if SMF 2.1 could display the names of users who liked the post in a simple way. So I think the Invision Community software and XenForo have it well done.

Invision Community



XenForo


Aleksi "Lex" Kilpinen

Quote from: jsx on December 08, 2021, 11:59:15 AM
Quote from: Aleksi on December 08, 2021, 10:37:02 AMbut I also fear it easily makes actually displaying the likes a lot more complex than it currently is really.

Why do you think so?
Just thinking of the amount of data needed to form a page inside a topic.
Currently, you only need the total like counts for each post displayed on a topic page - until a user clicks on a counter and is then presented with likes for that individual post.

Showing screen names by default would have to mean loading also the user info for each like given to a single post, and this repeated for each post displayed on a topic page, and this repeated for each page load....
Slava
Ukraini!


"Before you allow people access to your forum, especially in an administrative position, you must be aware that that person can seriously damage your forum. Therefore, you should only allow people that you trust, implicitly, to have such access." -Douglas

How you can help SMF

Kindred

Addionally, changing a feature in such a major way, at this point in RC is not likely to happen
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."

jsx

The likes system in SMF 2.1 is the likes system that vbgamer45 created for SMF 2.0. @vbgamer45 would it be easy to make such a change? I don't mean it now, but sometime in the near future.

Quote from: Kindred on December 08, 2021, 05:21:02 PMAddionally, changing a feature in such a major way, at this point in RC is not likely to happen

I understand. I just added a suggestion, I think it's a good suggestion to change this layout one day, several SMF members liked my suggestion. So they support such a change.

Thanks to everyone who liked my suggestion. :)

Diego Andrés

Quote from: jsx on December 09, 2021, 10:31:10 AMThe likes system in SMF 2.1 is the likes system that vbgamer45 created for SMF 2.0. @vbgamer45 would it be easy to make such a change? I don't mean it now, but sometime in the near future.

It's not the same... I think 2.1 was Arantor, not sure.

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jsx

Quote from: Diego Andrés on December 09, 2021, 12:30:18 PMIt's not the same... I think 2.1 was Arantor, not sure.

I understand, I thought it is the same system, because the information about who liked the post looks the same as in the vbgamer modification. So I thought that this modification was adapted to SMF 2.1, therefore I wrote that it is the same system in 2.1

jsx

This is a question for the people managing the SMF 2.1 project

What happens next with this suggestion and this one? :)

Kindred

it gets added to the backlog for consideration in future development branches.
It may get worked on....  it may not, depending on the discussions of the developers and the coding.

When the 3.0 branch opens for commits (after the release of 2.1), then external contributors may choose to submit code for the requested change
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."

jsx

We want this change in SMF 2.1, not in SMF 3.0, which is not known if it will come out at all and if it comes out, not earlier than in 5 years.

Aleksi "Lex" Kilpinen

Not likely to happen in 2.1 at this point, but then that is what mods are for.
Slava
Ukraini!


"Before you allow people access to your forum, especially in an administrative position, you must be aware that that person can seriously damage your forum. Therefore, you should only allow people that you trust, implicitly, to have such access." -Douglas

How you can help SMF

jsx

I understand, maybe someone will release a mod. I think that as the people responsible for SMF 2.1 development, you should discuss this topic regarding the likes system in 2.1

Will you leave it as is, will you decide to cosmeticize this system in the near future in some 2.1.x release or just decide to release an official mod from SimpleMachines Team.

Wellwisher

I disagree, I hope this doesn't happen. Forums need to look simple & clean. It's about doing away with unnecessary clutter. Imagine if social media websites began listing usernames as appose to tallying the numbers up? If a topic is popular, it could generate 100's of likes. Are users really going to read them? You're better off using that screen real-estate in a much more productive way.


Kindred

It is unlikely to be an official mod

It is unlikely to go into 2.1.x

The next version for functionality enhancements is 3.0

If you want it in 2.1, then ask, perhaps pay, for a mod from one of the mid authors - unlikely to be the smf team
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."

jsx

Quote from: Wellwisher on December 28, 2021, 03:53:08 PMI disagree, I hope this doesn't happen. Forums need to look simple & clean. It's about doing away with unnecessary clutter. Imagine if social media websites began listing usernames as appose to tallying the numbers up? If a topic is popular, it could generate 100's of likes. Are users really going to read them? You're better off using that screen real-estate in a much more productive way.

All forum software has it built this way. This has Invision, XenForo, MyBB, phpBB 3.3, ElkArte. This way of displaying who liked the post does not make any clutter. If that were the wrong solution, these forums giants would not have implemented it.

Quote from: Wellwisher on December 28, 2021, 03:53:08 PMImagine if social media websites began listing usernames as appose to tallying the numbers up? If a topic is popular, it could generate 100's of likes.

The point is not that all users who like the post should be shown immediately. Only a few users should be displayed and the rest in the window.



Quote from: Kindred on December 28, 2021, 06:47:29 PMIf you want it in 2.1, then ask, perhaps pay, for a mod from one of the mid authors - unlikely to be the smf team

I've noticed that SMFPacks Likes Pro has an advanced liking system, so this could be it.

Arantor

I guess it never occurred to you that I might have had a reason to implement it the way I did.

IPS, XF, etc. store the list of likes on a post twice to achieve what they do, once in a format convenient for looking up and once in a format convenient for displaying. This means it consumes vastly more database space - which is less of a problem since users who pay for their forum script tend to pay for better hosting.

But in SMF's world this is a problem because there's a lot more people on worse hosting that have issues around performance and database size.

More importantly, if you, me and Kindred all like a post, that list then says "Arantor, jsx, Kindred". As in, the names, written out.

Now, on XF and IPS, your username is your display name and you can't change these very often (they're time limited and it's not an option you get just arbitrarily whenever you feel like it) - and this is because every time the username changes, you then have to go through and update *every single liked post* to rebuild that list.

And for bonus points, that's something you have to do with individual queries every single time, there is literally no safe way to write that as a single UPDATE query. Which means if you like 100 posts, that's now 100 database queries to change it. Which on a lot of hosts will be problematic.

Especially since on SMF, username and display name are separate and the latter is much easier to change on a whim... it's also good for security since my username *isn't* Arantor, you can't use that to log in as me here.

But sure, let's only focus on how you don't get to have it look how you want, and have zero consideration for how complicated it might be. I'm sure you'd have been thrilled if adding it meant you'd have to spend more on hosting, but I guess that's what I get for trying to not make things worse for people.

Then again if I'd had my way about everything, you'd have had reactions as a core feature in 2013 instead of likes when I added this to the core.

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