[BETA] 'Olympus-Style' Forum Rules 0.7.0

[chilling]

.. and once that's finished I can take up work on my MODs again.

How is work progressing - I was about to implement this on a number of other forum on our board - but I would like to get rid of the "Forum Rules" words - shall I just change the HTML for the moment?

[mad-manne]

How is work progressing

I'm almost finished ...
... took me a while to upgrade one of the boards I'm running from 2.0.4 to 2.0.13 and re-apply all the MODs I had. Some of them had to be adapted to the latest version of phpBB, and because I couldn't get hold of the original authors, I had to tweak them myself

I was about to implement this on a number of other forum on our board - but I would like to get rid of the "Forum Rules" words - shall I just change the HTML for the moment?

I think I can make the upgrade until tomorrow evening .. so if you feel it's worth waiting 2 more days you could hopefully install the next version of this MOD on friday morning

Cheers,
Manfred.

[chilling]

... took me a while to upgrade one of the boards I'm running from 2.0.4 to 2.0.13 and re-apply all the MODs I had.

It did not work immediately for me and I have just been too busy to look at this in detail .... As I will need to move to CH when Hater release's his osCom MOD - I thought I might do it all at the same time. "In for a penny in for a pound"

install the next version of this MOD on friday morning

No hurry - they won't go away!

[mad-manne]

No hurry - they won't go away!

Yeah that's right

BTW ... things might again slow down one gear. Our daughter is now "happy" enough to suffer from chickenpox and she keeps me a bit busy so maybe count in one or 2 more days

Cheers,
Manfred.

[mad-manne]

i think a good idea would be instand of having 'Forum Rules' have a admin configuable title on each forum

But to make that fully compliant to the idea of a multi-language enabled board .. I'd have to make that a bit more sophisticated.

There would have to be a new module in ACP, where you would setup "Titles" for the "INFO-table" on top of the fora. All the "titles" you'd setup in here would make a dropdown-list appearing in the forum-ACP, where you'd have to pick one for each forum!

In the new module, you'd have to enter the "title" in all languages installaed on your board!

So I have started working on implementing the above feature ... plus

Hi Manfred .... is there a way of turning off displaying the words "Forum rules" title within the frame. I want to use the box for more general information about the forum ....

I will also implement this feature, which will bring the MOD to 0.7.0


The first step will come with a list of possible titles to pick from, while the ACP-part to handle these titles(add, edit, remove) will follow with the next release of 0.8.0. That will also include the logic and ACP-part to handle multi-language features for these titles!

But in order to start with a good set of titles that should come with 0.7.0 ... I need user-feedback
Take a look at a screenshot of the new ACP-part in 0.7.0 to get an idea:


As usual with my screenshots, clicking the thumbnail will lead to the big pic 8)

So far the list would contain these items:

• Forum Rules (by nature )
• Please notice
• Don't forget
• ATTENTION

Let me know what you'd like to see in that list ...

Cheers,
Manfred.

[chilling]

But in order to start with a good set of titles that should come with 0.7.0

Are you proposing to cashe this setting for the duration of a session .... because you are adding a number of extra SQL lookups for a forum. .... especially if you have this turned on for Forum, Topic and Posting - for instance a local cookie wih the rules text which has a life as long as the user is accessing that forum (ie only looked up once for each visit to a forum - just a thought )

Re the list ....
Subject Conventions

[chilling]

...for instance a local cookie

would not make sense but cached on the server would ... ie similar to the CH methods

[mad-manne]

... cashe this setting for the duration of a session .... because you are adding a number of extra SQL lookups for a forum. ....

Well, YES ... I will gladly accept cash for every SQL lookup this involves


But seriously:
I have just started to code on this issue, but so far I think that in viewforum and posting I will just need to enhance the SQL by a JOINed select to find the title, and maybe this can even be made in viewtopic as well.

If I'm wrong with this .. I'm still sure, that there will only be one additional query to get the title, and thus I don't think that there will be any need for caching?!

Cheers,
Manfred.

[chilling]

... I will gladly accept cash for every SQL lookup this involves

... 1 EUR a go - if only

...I will just need to enhance the SQL by a JOINed select

... it might be worth floating it past Ptirhiik or Hater as they are / have been doing a lot of work creating sensible class structure and caching when ever it is prudent to do so in their projects. I know that Hater has spent a long time researching this for the PHPBB + OSCOMMERCE MOD that he is creating.

[mad-manne]

... it might be worth floating it past Ptirhiik or Hater as they are / have been doing a lot of work creating sensible class structure and caching when ever it is prudent to do so in their projects.

I will think about it, or at least ask Ptirhiik or Hater if I have my SQL ready. With their knowledge they should be able to tell, whether it would be worth doing any caching-tricks at all!

Anyway I think that I will release 0.7.0 as soon as I have it running and stable, so that those already using this(including you?) can get the new feature as fast as possible.

Tweaks for better performance can then be added in a later version

Cheers,
Manfred.

[chilling]

Anyway I think that I will release 0.7.0 as soon as I have it running and stable, so that those already using this(including you?) can get the new feature as fast as possible.

Totally agree .... it is installed on the main forum but not yet implemented as I never got arround to changing the template to remove Forum Rules ... was going to do it earlier this week but you suggested waiting for 0.7.0 - which I am with eager anticipation

Tweaks for better performance can then be added in a later version

... agree I was just helping you plan ahead I'm knid like that. It is just that I have noticed quite a decrease in performance on our site since added a couple of MOD's last week. (Not yours )

[chilling]

Anyway I think that I will release 0.7.0 as soon as I have it running and stable, so that those already using this(including you?) can get the new feature as fast as possible.

... what I am really waiting for is the new version of NT-RAF ..... but that is another story!

[mad-manne]

i think a good idea would be instand of having 'Forum Rules' have a admin configuable title on each forum

But to make that fully compliant to the idea of a multi-language enabled board .. I'd have to make that a bit more sophisticated.

There would have to be a new module in ACP, where you would setup "Titles" for the "INFO-table" on top of the fora. All the "titles" you'd setup in here would make a dropdown-list appearing in the forum-ACP, where you'd have to pick one for each forum!

In the new module, you'd have to enter the "title" in all languages installaed on your board!

So I have started working on implementing the above feature ...

Well ... the tipps Chris gave as regards to reducing SQL-load, made me start thinking again 8)
Although I don't think that one more SQL would massively increase load, I have come up with another thought ... my implementation is a bit "overdone".

So my new idea goes as follows:

• By default the title for the ForumRules-BOX will be 'Forum Rules', and this is a language-variable and as such will support the multi-language idea already present in phpBB
• For each forum you can define a custom-title. This one will just read as you input it into the textbox, and thus will not be language-specific.
  Anyway, I think that this isn't even necessary, as the Rules(or better the informative text) you enter as ForumRules is also most likely to be in your board's main language!
• If you leave that custom-title field blank, the title will be 'Forum Rules' and as said before, that's language-specific.
• Ability to turn off the display of the title for each forum
• And if someone dislikes the term 'Forum Rules' in general, he doesn't have to enter a different custom-title on each forum, but rather he just changes that term in the language-file!

If anybody can still explain demand for my old idea .. please tell me soon OR otherwise I will implement this like I have just explained.

Cheers,
Manfred.

[EDIT] Last option in my list has just been added to make it even clearer[/EDIT]

[EDIT: one more edit to get the correct link to this point in the topic ]

[Ptirhiik]

An easy way to use a lang key entry as well as direct text within the same field :

Code: Select all

function _lang($value)
{
	global $lang;
	return !empty($value) && isset($lang[$value]) ? $lang[$value] : $value;
}

Using this function, you can allow multi-language support for the title and for the rules themselves.

[chilling]

By default the title for the ForumRules-BOX will be 'Forum Rules', and this is a language-variable and as such will support the multi-language idea already present in phpBB

... I know you have done all the work .... but as you have give Admins the ability to create HTML in here (BBcode would be easier for most, but I saw the discussion above) they can create their own headings etc within the free text box (one for each language supported ?) ...just a thought