Hi all,
following issues:
Installed Version: 7
Shout Box (issue 1): Can this be made to be visible only by registered users? More explanation on the reason for this further down under 'Reasons'.
Shout Box (issue 2): could it be made to be minimized to the right or the left, so that the forums are displayed full screen and without loosing all the space for the left or right column, and without the need for the user to go all the time into Preferences to switch the entire column on or off? I created a layout where i have the Shout Box alone on the right and everything else like Who's online on the left so that users can let the shoutbox vanish if desired, but without losing anything else from visibility (such as the Who's online CI). Just annoying to go every time into preferences to minimize the box to the right (in my case right, others might prefer left).
Who's online: Unless it is displayed as Content Island it is not accessible. Here again as with the Shout Box it takes quite some space away from the screen. We have many users still on old PCs with old monitors that can't do more than 1024x768 (which would be just about OK) or even 800x600 (not OK). It would be better in my opinion to have a switch to the classic layout of V6.x, or if one has a configurable option to either display a 'Who's online' link in the top navigation (or bottom, but i think top would be prefered) or to display it as Content Island. Also a configurable option to display Who's online for registered users (some might want it, not me though) only would be great and disabling of invisible status for users as an option (could be interesting for me).
Private message limits: Great that we have a limit, but in certain situations one needs to keep as Admin more messages or messages over a very lengthy period of time because of legal reasons (Data Retention comes to mind and more) or simply private preferences, however i don't want to allow every user to have hundreds of private messages. Disabling limits for Admins/Mods would be absolutely great, or even seperate limits (ie. Users get 50, Admins get 500, Mods get 200), or even better both as option. Completely disable Admin and/or Mods limits and seperate limits for each.
Now to the reasons:
I administer a charity site dealing mainly with depression/anxiety and Stigma. Some users are on Income Support, which is lousy in the UK to say the least. They can't afford the newest computers and biggest monitors. Some users get PC's provided under a special council scheme, but these are the oldest PCs you can possibly get and should rather be in a museum. Some users don't only suffer from mental illnesses but also from disabilities such as poor eye sight. As the forum deals with mental illness some users must or would like to see who is online prior to logging on. I know it might sound strange to many but that is what mental illness can cause in a sufferer. See it as sort of a safety net and the users feel more comfortable. It is like walking on raw eggs sometimes but nothing that i can change or want to change. Now if you have a huge portion of the screen already taken up by the who's online CI and by the shoutbox there is not much left for the actual forum or the content. It is already bad enough when users need to use huge fonts to read the messages but with the CI's it is impossible without screwing the entire layout up. Due to the nature of the forum users would love the shout box, but not if it is visible to every monkey out there so that everybody can read what they type. They feel comfortable in the small but excellent community we have but not outside of it. Again it is the mental illness causing this. There are also some additional privacy issues. The shoutbox is not really an option for me, because it would possibly do our community some harm and instead of posting in the forums, users would rather use this, but then we lose all the good advice that other members give. Only fixed messages on the boards can give us a history and allow us to 'monitor' a users progress as in 'Look the sad messages you posted 4 years ago and nowadays you are happy'. BTW i don't delete old messages
. Sorry that everything is a bit strange put together but i worked this week over 100 hours already and am absolutely brain dead. Most of above issues were found out by my admin team and they just mentioned these, i verified and came to the same result. Everybody says 6.5.5 is much better, even though some of the V7 functions are very nice.
For me version 7 is currently not an option
