✅ Forum Migration To Do List

[djensen]

To Do

• Stabilize the server to prevent software 503 and sporadic session time outs
  • Serve static assets from nginx (sigh)
  • Upgrade frontend server to 2GB/2CPU and setup 2 clusters
• See if we can have a “compact mode” skin/setting/plugin
• Fix the colors and labels for all badges
• Run script to set default Unwatched for game threads for lists
• Install the dice-bot plugin
• Disable posting on old forums, turn off maintenance mode, and share the URL.
• Find out why you have to set notifications to none, then back to “Notifications only” in order to stop the email notifications
• Add banners for our wonderful sponsors
• Add Google Ads
• Turn off Google Ads for Patrons
• Blank out default birthdays (if only all of us were so young!)
• Find plugin to allow a limited set of colors on text. Needs to work with both light and dark skins.
• Look into adding a skin. First idea would be something called square. Next would be monochrome.
• Look into @simon33 's issue re: post list not getting updated while composing. Firefox Quantum 63.0.3
• Set up self hosted iframely server
• Install new dbsearch plugin and re-index
• Unwatch games categories for all users
• Create Unwatch plugin for newly registered users

Code Change to be done by @djensen

• Add ability to exclude categories from index thanks to @baris!
• Make user iconBackgrounds more flexible
• Update the Persona theme to use the bookmark icon instead of the heart.

Done

• Customize email headers
• Get TripleA working here (Get Write API access working)
• Fix images not being displayed
• Change the upvote icon to a heart, awwww
• Change bookmark icon to a bookmark
• Add more file types that can be uploaded
• Highlight pinned posts
• Allow files to be uploaded
• Fix downloading uploads (If you need an upload, copy the URL and add
  /forums to the front of the path
• Redirect non-www to www
• Change default sorting to “Newest to Oldest”
• Add Google Analytics
• Update the dice-bot plugin so that you can do more than one roll at a time
• Redirect old URLs to new URLs
• Post about how people can change which badges are seen
• Rearrange the forum categories (It’s kinda messy right now)
• Find out if the Recent/Unread/Popular lists can ignore the games threads
• Fix everybody having the same IP address

Items that will be fixed in the next version of NodeBB

• Reset online status (for some reason everybody is invisible)
• Going to https://www.axisandallies.org/forums (without a trailing slash) causes an error
• Clicking the “responded to button” goes to the proper URL

Open Questions

• If you follow people, can we have a stream of posts from people you follow (like Twitter/Facebook)
• Can we set “Ignored” as a default for certain categories, like “Play games”?
• Can we have a list of “New replies to posts I’m watching” in addition to or in lieu of an alert

If there are other issues, please reply and I’ll add it to the list.

[Panther]

By default the postings are sorted starting from old ones to new ones. While this is easy to change when logged in, it is problematic when not logged in. I would recommend to change the default order to “from newest to oldest”. So everyone can see the latest postings, even when not logged in.

[djensen]

Oops:

[Panther]

On my mobile I only see the “Popular Topics”.
There is an error message saying

/forumscategories not found
This site does not exist. Return to Homepage.

When klicking “homepage” I see the forums list.

The error occurs when browsing to
https://www.axisandallies.org/forums

It does not occur, when browsing to
https://www.axisandallies.org/forums/

[Panther]

URL that cross-reference inside the forums are no longer valid.

For example in this posting
https://www.axisandallies.org/forums/post/1234063
I referenced another posting in another thread that in the old forum had the URL
https://www.axisandallies.org/forums/index.php?topic=43693.msg1824014#msg1824014
but in the new forum is here:
https://www.axisandallies.org/forums/post/1234065
or here:
https://www.axisandallies.org/forums/topic/32350/axis-allies-and-zombies-q-a/3

Consequently the original URL now gives an error message.

[Gargantua]

If there is a way (like on the old forums) to highlight posts that are stickied - that would help immensely.

At current if I go to an area it’s not immediately apparent to find what the latest post is.

[djensen]

@Gargantua Good idea. I think I can change the CSS to do that. I’m actually considering making a “Child Theme” to make a bunch of changes.

[Panther]

What are the criteria for a topic to be a “Popular Topic”? There are very new ones listed. I could think of various older but still very popular topics being more popular than those listed. (Not talking about the game threads that already are in the above list.)

[djensen]

@Panther You can change the criteria here:

It defaults to all time.

Oh, you’re talking about the sidebar. :smile:

[Panther]

@djensen said in Forum Migration To Do List:

Oh, you’re talking about the sidebar. :smile:

Yes, indeed.

[djensen]

@Panther The criteria is time (day|week|month|all time) and number of posts. That’s it. I might remove it.

[Panther]

@djensen Yes, maybe that is a good idea - I don’t see how this adds any additional value to the site - at least not as it works now.

[Panther]

@djensen Another item for the list: Add “Donation”

[Panther]

@djensen said in Forum Migration To Do List:

• Find out if the Recent/Unread/Popular lists can ignore the games threads

This is what I found out:
Every user can filter the categories that are relevant for him on those screens. It defaults to:

Now click on that button and you can uncheck “All categories” and check those you are interested in:

Leaving the box changes the button to:

The problem with these settings is, that selecting categories acts as filters for the current list of threads. Next time you look at one of those screens the selection is back to “All Categories”.
So it would be great if there was a way to save those selections.

Also changes here do not affect the Popular Topics - box (sidebar).

[djensen]

@Panther That’s NodeBB functionality. If you want, post some of these ideas at community.nodebb.org and @ mention me. I’m djensen47 over there. That would actually help me out a lot.

[Panther]

@djensen I’ll take a look.

[Panther]

@djensen Another small cosmetic issue for the list:
Arrange Patron Badges so that they appear together (look at my 2012 badge that is a bit “disturbing” between the others).

[djensen]

@Panther I don’t think I have control over that either. That’s a feature request for NodeBB.

The NodeBB folks are actually quite responsive and are open suggestions for improvements.

[Panther]

@djensen
Another one:

My answer to this posting:
https://www.axisandallies.org/forums/post/1235902

Suddenly looks like

Maybe related to number of badges?

Edit:
It IS realted to the number of badges. After removing the 2012 patron badge, everything looks fine again.

So the task is to find a solution for correctly displaying text when many badges are present.

[djensen]

@Panther said in Forum Migration To Do List:

So the task is to find a solution for correctly displaying text when many badges are present.

Not a task for us, that’s a bug and needs to be reported to the NodeBB team.