1) When there is a private message, make this very clear at the header of every new screen.
For example, in the header bar, make "Check Private" red, bigger, flashing, if there is a new message. This way, real time conversations are already feasible
2) if you do not do this, just make some place holders, some $variables where people can insert their custom made text in certain places, for example in the header bar
3)I asked this before: to have a few additional pulldown items,like "sex", "age", or "operating system", or whatever. Alternatively, if you allowed total customization of the "Post icon" pulldown menu, that would help. I find these categories you offer totally useless, I would rather put my own categories in there (for a dating service it could be marriage, relationship, sexual adventure, pen pals, friendship, gay, kink, phone sex, etc.). Or on a travel board, there could be a country list in this place. Later this should be integrated into the search form (show only posts seeking marriage), but this is easy to hack.
Ideally, there would be more than one such pulldown list. Rather a flexible number of them. But just the one that is there, with a customization option, would really help
I would also like to have an option for the "Post Icon" to output text, instead of the icons (it is hard to make a bunch of new icons)
The notification "You have got a private message" must be on absolutely every screen, no matter what the person is doing, admin, spellcheck, reading messages, whatever.
I suggest to accompany this with some sound (the user can turn this feature on or off).
Only then the communication can be instant and is just as useful as fancy popup windows or so. So users will start talking to each other, this simple feature will greatly change the interactivity of the board.
Of course the next logical step would be "invite to private chat", but this is additional work and not necessary, hurling private messages back and forth is a good start. Of course, the correct way would be to logically separate messages and online chat. For example, if you exchange 20 messages and you send out 20 email notifications, this would be obnoxious
Right now, I can see who is online, but there is no easy way to contact those people.
I insist so much on these types of changes to be done by YOU, because they permeate the entire program, so user hacks are not feasible.
if ICQ is on, you can link it to [email protected] like [email protected]. This email sends an instant page message to the icq number. But if you have the direct paging option, the icq paging is probably redundant and unnecessary
As usual I agree with you! specially on 3 and 1. The changes on "who's online" are very logical. Changing online.pl, showflat.pl etc to more meaning names seems too easy to have to be hacked!.
BTW I just bougth a copy of this software. If anyone has done the kind of customization that I want to do (see all posts sent by me) and wants to contact me, give me some tips, or just show me some customized boards (to try to figure how they did it), it would be very helpul. I noticed that there are a few of us here who would basically want to see the same features added, maybe we can do some kind of "help group" for this....
One thing you need to take into consideration. A SQL backend is a good thing it makes for a very reliable way to store things. But if it isn't used properly the benefits aren't that great. To keep a program running quick and smooth, you always want to keep the number of SQL calls to a minimum. Every time you have to do an extra SQL query it adds overhead. That is why the you have private message screen is only on the main page. To add this SQL call to every script adds extra overhead, and on busy sites this ends up being a bad thing.
The main goal whenever I spend my time optimizing the code is to cut down on the number of SQL calls needed, not add to it.
It is possible to add this as an option, and that might be something I will look into. But it won't be in 5.0. The feature list for 5.0 is pretty much set, beta will be coming out later this week. If I start adding new features while the program is in beta it will make the beta period last much longer.
I'd just like to remind everybody that this is a BBS we're talking about here. All the Chat stuff can (and should) be done as an extra add-on later for those (not me) who want it.
I agree with Eileen. WWWThreads is a message board, not an online chat system. Real-time chatting is handled by ICQ, AIM or any of the other realtime message services, not by a discussion forum such as WWWThreads.
Except for her *morbid* love of threaded views;), I have to agree with I've seen Eileen post here.
It would be nice to have the Private Message display show up on very page, but people I want to talk to all the time have my AIM name, anyway.
I've always looked at a private message feature as something to let people know things you don't want to post in public view, not as a chatting function. If you want chat, it can be tied in as an add-on.
Interesting opinions that I have not thought about (I am as far from an sql expert as you can get) but I have to agree with you, knowing that. What do you all think of 3 mentioned by Mario2?
Yes, user customization of the "Post icon" pulldown menu would save me having to hack it myself as I'm doing now. <img border="0" title="" alt="[Smile]" src="images/icons/smile.gif" />
