As you will notice, there is a new Recent Forum Activity Module on the portal page. It looks pretty different than the last one did, but does have a bit of familiarity.
Obviously the style is different. More modern. More color. Less prominence to the avatars. The topic creator is on the left in the background with each most recent reply avatar on the right and smaller. Topic stats on replies and views. The first post before any replies will be on the left, all replies on the right after that. Fairly straight forward, will take a bit to get used too.
Banner's... You will see a "New Topic" banner in the upper right corner until there is a reply for a given topic. You will see a "UNREAD" banner when their is an unread post for you. Just like how the "NEW" button used to work in the past.
The biggest change is that there are only TWO links available to click. If you look at the image below, I have highlighted the two URL areas. Basically the entire card will go to the first unread or most recent post depending on the status of that topic for you personally. For guests/un-logged in users will always take them to the most recent post. That is the part in light purple. The small green area will take you to the forum listed. That's it. No more accidental clicks on a username or something you did not mean to click. It is much more simple in that area and should really help the majority on mobile. 60-70% of the visitors these days.
The topic stats will be by the Topic name up top on desktop and in the bottom right on mobile. The forum icon is in the upper right which give a small visual of the category the topic it is from. The left border color also depends on where the topic was created. So this particular topic will be pink on the left in the module.
On desktop it will show 200 characters of a reply, on mobile it will be 100 characters. If you see [image/video/other] that basically means the first part of the reply was something like that. I was unable to get it to show wpForo message big emoticons, but regular Emoji's from your phone and whatnot should come through. (Not sure)
At the very bottom of the module you will see a load more which loads 5 more topics each time you click the button. I think some have wanted that feature for a very long time.
I now have the option to keep a sticky post at the top of this module for X amount of days, so this particular sticky post will remain at the top of the module for 3 days. It makes it easier for returning users to notice this topic and figure out what this new module is all about.
The nerd stuff: This is a custom WordPress block that I created with the help of Gemini Code Assist AI. Took a few days to get it complete. The biggest "lift" was definitely the URL to take a user to the first UNREAD post. This took probably 40 different attempts to fix. Needed to do extra research to figure out the true code that is use to get this to work. It was rather buried in the code.
Creating this custom block allowed me to do things I have wanted to do for years. Especially on the design side. It will take some time to get used to, but hopefully you like the update.
What do you think? I can make future tweaks, but I need to work on some other things for a few days and just let this sit for a while. Need a break from this particular custom addition.
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Night mode is wicked cool!
“When your best friend is the son of God, you get tired of losing every argument.”
― Christopher Moore, Lamb: The Gospel According to Biff, Christ's Childhood Pal
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BRIGHT SHINY COLORS! 😛
Kidding, love that you are working this hard on what is basically a "free" site for users.
When you tell somebody somethin', it depends on what part of the United States you're standin' in... as to just how dumb you are.
Just to be clear, as a logged in user I don't have a way to jump to the most recent post, only first unread?
I use that occasionally for topics in don't go into very often but see a post that has drawn my interest (or I just want to catch up). I can live with it but it just will keep me out of some of those topics unless I want to navigate to the end.
Just to be clear, as a logged in user I don't have a way to jump to the most recent post, only first unread?
I use that occasionally for topics in don't go into very often but see a post that has drawn my interest (or I just want to catch up). I can live with it but it just will keep me out of some of those topics unless I want to navigate to the end.
I can bring it back.... But I am not sure where to put it. One of the previous issues was so many links in that area. Making it way too easy to click the wrong ink on mobile. I guess I could make a 3rd URL space for it near the most recent post that is showing. But I really wanted to get away from that. I am open to suggestion to make this easier. But I want to keep it easy on mobile.
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FYI... It will say NEW TOPIC for 24 hours. It will change for you only if you have something UNREAD.
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When I get to the last post of a thread and continue to scroll down, it still has the old style thread list but without unread post notifications; I have to go all the way to the bottom of the page and click portal to get back to the new list. For instance this is what I see after scrolling below the last post in this thread even though several of these topics have unread posts for me:
Is there another way to get back to the “new” version without having to scroll down and re-enter the portal at the end of each thread?
Looking good though, thanks for all your continued work to upgrade and keep this the best college hockey site!
@cowgirl That is built in by the forum software. This is what I am getting away from because too much of their little widgets are not working properly. I can remove that, but I cannot fix it. I tried to put this new module in it's place but because their "sidebar" is written so badly it really messes up the formatting of our new module. It is a sidebar on desktop that ends up being below on mobile.
But my goal is to replace that, but we are stuck with it for a little while.
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Not a huge deal!
I am finding though that threads I have not looked at in awhile are defaulting to the first post of the thread - is that expected?
I should clarify this seems to happen with threads with unread posts (that I haven’t looked at in the last few days).
I am finding though that threads I have not looked at in awhile are defaulting to the first post of the thread - is that expected?
Once in a while for me for some older posts. But you seem to have more issues that most users.
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I see that happen when it's been a while since there was a post in that thread, usually about two weeks or more, I think it seems to be? Stuff that's had recent activity, I don't think I've seen it from.
I see that happen when it's been a while since there was a post in that thread, usually about two weeks or more, I think it seems to be? Stuff that's had recent activity, I don't think I've seen it from.
Yeah... I believe that is the wpForo software itself. Completely out of my control.
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I am finding though that threads I have not looked at in awhile are defaulting to the first post of the thread - is that expected?
Once in a while for me for some older posts. But you seem to have more issues that most users.
I am cursed with technology and am convinced there are gremlins in my devices. I have more issues with my computers at work too - they’ll just shut off on their own or randomly switch WiFi’s for no reason when this doesn’t happen to anyone else. I do think there is a ghost at my work though too so maybe that’s it. 😬
Yeah, I think we came to that conclusion a while ago. A very very minor annoyance, but nothing worth fighting, especially when it's just inherent to the software in use.I see that happen when it's been a while since there was a post in that thread, usually about two weeks or more, I think it seems to be? Stuff that's had recent activity, I don't think I've seen it from.
Yeah... I believe that is the wpForo software itself. Completely out of my control.
I am cursed with technology and am convinced there are gremlins in my devices. I have more issues with my computers at work too - they’ll just shut off on their own or randomly switch WiFi’s for no reason when this doesn’t happen to anyone else. I do think there is a ghost at my work though too so maybe that’s it. 😬
😎 😆
“When your best friend is the son of God, you get tired of losing every argument.”
― Christopher Moore, Lamb: The Gospel According to Biff, Christ's Childhood Pal
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Just to be clear, as a logged in user I don't have a way to jump to the most recent post, only first unread?
I use that occasionally for topics in don't go into very often but see a post that has drawn my interest (or I just want to catch up). I can live with it but it just will keep me out of some of those topics unless I want to navigate to the end.
So I have made some changes.
The main url for the entire "cell" as it would be will be the Go to the FIRST UNREAD post. If you are already caught up, it will go to MOST RECENT post.
But for some flexibility I also added some small icon areas that give you the option of where to go. The left icon at the bottom brings you to the VERY FIRST POST. The right bring you to the MOST RECENT POST. The middle Belle icon will show up if the post is unread and take you to the FIRST UNREAD POST.
So we have the best of both worlds. The entire cell brings you to what most people want, but you can get granular with the icons.
"QUOTE" addition. I added some code for quoted posts that show the most recent person a user is quoting. Many times a reply would show blank if they were quoting a person with an image or something. So I have cleaned that us as much as I could and then added the user the person is quoting.
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Tweaked a few more things.
- Reactions totals now on each topic next to replies and views
- Move the topic stats back to the top on mobile
- Limited the "Load More" button to 30 total topics to prevent large database queries
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Not likely to come up very often for myself, but, with that "load more" limit at 30. If there are more than 30 unread posts, someone would need to go to the "Forum" section to find them?
Pretty much. There are a few forum related stuff in the Community menu. Recent Topic/Posts, Unread Posts that you can check out.
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Seeing a bunch of database error stuff now (on mobile if that helps).
Seeing a bunch of database error stuff now (on mobile if that helps).
I have not run in to any errors, so hopefully I do so I can see what is happening. I did have an issue earlier when I replaced some code and the entire portal page had a critical error, but that was it.
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This is what I’m seeing when using my iPhone (portal)
I wonder if some sort of cache is not cleared or something like that. Let me clear the site cache and see if that changes anything. It is very strange because the code it is showing is actually working in your case because you can see the count in the post. Let me just on my laptop and check a few things.
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@trixr4kids I was able to reproduce the error. I am woprking through it now.
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This is what I’m seeing when using my iPhone (portal)
Also an issue on desktop. Here is what I am seeing:
If I hit LOAD MORE I do not see the database error message on the additional topics.
@trixr4kids how about now?
For guests it was causing this problem since i made the update this afternoon. Strange that you were seeing it being logged in. I could only see it within incognito mode.
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Now it looks great, none of that coding error stuff.
Now it looks great, none of that coding error stuff.
Great to hear!
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