Kessil

New Forum Add-ons

denzil

denzil

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Hello BAR members!

I wanted to enlist all of your help regarding our new forum. XenForo, our new forum software platform, has many add-ons that are available to for us to integrate into our new forum. Please check out the XenForo add-ons and list the ones you're interested in seeing. Please keep in mind that we will consider all add-ons and not all will be implemented.

The ones that I have in mind already are:
User Facing:
[list type=decimal]
[*]Nodes as Tabs
[*]Tag Me
[*]Quick Reply Preview
[*]Showcase (potentially useful for tank journals)
[*]User Albums
[*]Bookmarks
[*]XenPorta
[*]Rotating Ads for our sponsors


Admin:

Template Modification System
Add-on Install & Upgrade
XenUtiles
Registration Form Timer
Image Attachment Optimization & CDN Support
Ad Manager
New Registration Email
[/list type=decimal]

Remember, if there's something you're interested in seeing, here's your chance to speak up! Please let us know what you want to see and we'll see what we can or want to implement. :)
 
It's good to have input on the new forum software platform., thanks for asking. From your User Facing list the ones that most appeal to me are:
Nodes as Tabs
User Albums
Showcase
Quick Reply Preview.

Also the Enhanced Recent threads add-on looks interesting if allows you more control on recent new threads than just the current chronological order we see today.
 
CookieJar said:
It's good to have input on the new forum software platform., thanks for asking. From your User Facing list the ones that most appeal to me are:
Nodes as Tabs
User Albums
Showcase
Quick Reply Preview.

Also the Enhanced Recent threads add-on looks interesting if allows you more control on recent new threads than just the current chronological order we see today.
Click to expand...
Awesome, appreciate the prompt feedback! This is what we need to hear!

For easy referencing, here's the Enhanced Recent Threads addon that CookieJar was referring to.
 
What is the plan as far as allowing members to upload images and video to the site itself?
(Lots of pros/cons involving that)
I am not sure all the extensions will work well with external links.

The user album and showcase seem interesting.
Although it is unclear how easy it is to use.
Remember that we have enough troubles with people confusing chains/polls/regular threads.
Priority 1 : Keep it simple.
 
rygh said:
What is the plan as far as allowing members to upload images and video to the site itself?
(Lots of pros/cons involving that)
I am not sure all the extensions will work well with external links.

The user album and showcase seem interesting.
Although it is unclear how easy it is to use.
Remember that we have enough troubles with people confusing chains/polls/regular threads.
Priority 1 : Keep it simple.
Click to expand...
Yeah, I think I understand our demographic pretty well. I'm still up in the air about uploading images and video to the site itself as it'll (specifically videos) tax our server and database. The upside is that everything is archived and hosted but the downside is that if it's going to serve up multiple requests, let's say a video is "viral" or gets many hits, our site performance will degrade or cost us additional capital to keep it in top running shape. My current stance is to just leverage what's out there, specifically YouTube, Vimeo, or other third party service that we can hotlink outside of our site. The only problem behind that is that we're navigating our users outside of our site but that can be easily fixed with supporting embedded videos which YouTube already does. In fact, if you just copy-paste the URL from a YT video, it automatically embeds those videos. I don't think it can get any simpler than that. :)
 
gimmito said:
Having YouTube videos upload automatically would be great since converting them over manually can be a chore.
Click to expand...

What do you mean by YT videos upload automatically? Do you mean add them to our actual server or just link/embed them like I described above?
 
In most other reef sites there is a video icon you press and then you just paste the imbed code and it automatically loads. We have to add the [youtube] [youtube] manually.

And yes, the way you described in your post.
 
Good point about videos eating up server bandwidth!
That could be a problem.
In theory, you can distribute the video from somewhere other than the control sever,
but that is not a small task, and costs $$.

For pictures, I would argue it makes sense to upload them.
The storage and bandwidth issues are pretty low for just pictures.
The BAR site is pretty good about dead links, but there are still quite a few.
You can also default to a standard size, which really helps readability.
For simple threads, perhaps not.
But if you really want to encourage showcases and user albums, it might make sense.
 
gimmito said:
In most other reef sites there is a video icon you press and then you just paste the imbed code and it automatically loads. We have to add the [youtube] [youtube] manually.

And yes, the way you described in your post.
Click to expand...
Not sure if we're on the same page but on the new site, all you have to do is copy the URL from your browser and paste it into the new forum and voila, the video is present!
rygh said:
Good point about videos eating up server bandwidth!
That could be a problem.
In theory, you can distribute the video from somewhere other than the control sever,
but that is not a small task, and costs $$.

For pictures, I would argue it makes sense to upload them.
The storage and bandwidth issues are pretty low for just pictures.
The BAR site is pretty good about dead links, but there are still quite a few.
You can also default to a standard size, which really helps readability.
For simple threads, perhaps not.
But if you really want to encourage showcases and user albums, it might make sense.
Click to expand...
Yeah, I think it's fine just keeping videos to YouTube, Vimeo, and others out there. Copy-pasting the videos' respective URLs into the new site will automatically embed it into the forum so it's the best compromise.

As far as pictures, I think we can make it work. I'll just have to figure out what's the general best practice for most forums and hope that folks aren't on dial-up service (do people even use that stuff anymore?). Otherwise, maybe I can configure it so that folks can set the setting to on or off to automatically download photos in a thread. This could prove useful for those on a slow connection that want to view a thread that's full of full tank shots.
 
denzil said:
gimmito said:
In most other reef sites there is a video icon you press and then you just paste the imbed code and it automatically loads. We have to add the [youtube] [youtube] manually.

And yes, the way you described in your post.
Click to expand...
Not sure if we're on the same page but on the new site, all you have to do is copy the URL from your browser and paste it into the new forum and voila, the video is present!
rygh said:
Good point about videos eating up server bandwidth!
That could be a problem.
In theory, you can distribute the video from somewhere other than the control sever,
but that is not a small task, and costs $$.

For pictures, I would argue it makes sense to upload them.
The storage and bandwidth issues are pretty low for just pictures.
The BAR site is pretty good about dead links, but there are still quite a few.
You can also default to a standard size, which really helps readability.
For simple threads, perhaps not.
But if you really want to encourage showcases and user albums, it might make sense.
Click to expand...
Yeah, I think it's fine just keeping videos to YouTube, Vimeo, and others out there. Copy-pasting the videos' respective URLs into the new site will automatically embed it into the forum so it's the best compromise.

As far as pictures, I think we can make it work. I'll just have to figure out what's the general best practice for most forums and hope that folks aren't on dial-up service (do people even use that stuff anymore?). Otherwise, maybe I can configure it so that folks can set the setting to on or off to automatically download photos in a thread. This could prove useful for those on a slow connection that want to view a thread that's full of full tank shots.
Click to expand...

Key for pictures on upload : Limit size, and re-size the image on the users computer before upload, not on server.
Probably limit to 1024x768 or 800x600.

For download, I am not sure there is a difference. Usually a dial-up person would un-check
the "download images automatically" option in their browser. It should not matter if image is internal or external.

My suggestion: Have more buttons for posting:
1) Upload 800x600 image. (new)
2) Insert Link to image (like now. In case people want a large image)
3) Insert link to video (new)
4) Insert generic web link (like now)
 
OH OH OH

How about http://embed.ly/embed?

I use that on a few forums I secretly help run and LOVE how you simply paste the video, pdf, etc URL and it anticlimactically embeds it onto the page. If we don't hit 5,000 hits in a month, its free. If not, $20 a month.
 
How about one of the variouys blog add-ons for tank journals? Don't have a lot of time to look at each of them but thought that might be a good way organize the tanks journals.
 
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