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5 votes

IP.Board 3.1.0 Dev Update: Topic Preview

Posted by Matt, in Beta, 3.1.0 18 February 2010 · 401 views

We read virtually every piece of feedback we receive, even if we don't reply and we often see the same requests coming up. The ability to 'preview' the topic by viewing an excerpt from the first post is often requested and we've added this into IP.Board 3.1.

We've made it a little more useful by also including the last time you read a topic (if applicable) and the number of unread posts so you can quickly review how much activity has taken place since you last read the topic.

Posted Image

When you 'mouse over' a topic entry, you'll see a little 'pop-up' icon. Clicking this loads an excerpt from the first post along with some data underneath. This is very useful for moderators who can quickly review un-approved topics and well as being useful for normal members who can quickly decide whether they want to open the topic or not.

Technical Details:
- Icon appears for moderators / admins and normal members. If there are no moderator tools, it shows on its own.
- When you mouse over the cell, the icon is "faded" until you mouse over the actual icon.
- Data is loaded via Ajax to reduce mark-up required in the templates.
- The post excerpt is stripped of all BBCode and mark-up to prevent it breaking out of the pop-up.

This feature adds a little more functionality and polish to the forum index allowing you to perform your daily routine a little quicker and a little easier.

Telemacus2
Feb 18 2010 01:15 PM

It's looking great!

Adriano Faria
Feb 18 2010 01:15 PM

Guests can't see it, right ?

AtariAge
Feb 18 2010 01:16 PM

Matt, on 18 February 2010 - 12:14 PM, said:

Al,

I had considered that actually. The backend code has the ability to return the first unread post already. Just needs some JS to tie it together.

Sounds promising.

Camoo
Feb 18 2010 01:28 PM

That simply a beautiful new feature :thumbsup:

.Ian
Feb 18 2010 01:29 PM

Matt, on 18 February 2010 - 05:41 PM, said:

Do we really need a "per group" and "per user" setting for everything? Why not see it in action and you'll realise how unobtrusive it is. I agree that settings are needed when it changes functionality, but this doesn't. It's a little 16x16 icon that appears on mouse over. It's not in the way and doesn't change how you interact with topics.

When we first introduced this a year or so ago on other software, we had a number of people who complained about it - likewise we had people who thought it was great. Because it has no way to be turned off for those who hated it, then we had to remove it.

We would not be able to enable this if it was not switchable at user level.

edit: However I missed the fact that it was an 'onclick' feature - not as useful as a mouseover.

With a mouseover it would really need to be switchable, but with an onlclick then users might as well click on the topic and read the post - little point in clicking an icon, then deciding to view the post.

Matt
Feb 18 2010 01:35 PM

Yes, its onclick so each user can decide whether they want the preview or not, hence no need for an off switch.

3DKiwi
Feb 18 2010 01:51 PM

Very cool. I'm sure my members will love it.

just*me
Feb 18 2010 02:12 PM

I would like to see Youtube videos about using new features of IPB as user and as moderator.

Phillyman
Feb 18 2010 02:17 PM

You guys are killing me! You keep adding more and more kickass features to 3.1.....which is going to force me to break my "dont install beta's" rule!

DarkGizmo
Feb 18 2010 02:40 PM

Awesome!! cannot wait til IPB 3.1!!!

Ditchmonkey
Feb 18 2010 03:10 PM

bfarber, on 18 February 2010 - 08:50 AM, said:

I've been sitting here trying, and I'm coming up at a loss. Why would you possibly want to enable or disable this sort of thing on a per-group basis? :unsure:

I can't think of any reasons whatsoever. Even for sites that give upgraded members additional benefits, this seems like something cheesy to offer to upgraded members only.

I'm curious what your intentions would be for per-group permissions for this feature.

Well I for one would consider disabling this for guests to encourage people to register for additional functionality.

simon2
Feb 18 2010 04:30 PM

I think its located on the wrong place. It would be better to place it closer to the topic title, maybe the orange icon? Good feature tho!

Razasharp
Feb 18 2010 04:32 PM

This is great news!

Any chance you can just get it to show on mouse over of the title itself? (Or could we make a template change for this to happen?)

CalendarOfUpdates
Feb 18 2010 04:37 PM

Razasharp, on 18 February 2010 - 05:32 PM, said:

This is great news!

Any chance you can just get it to show on mouse over of the title itself? (Or could we make a template change for this to happen?)

The said a template change can make it a mouseover.

Logan
Feb 18 2010 04:51 PM

Looks great, glad to finally see this!

As previously suggested in this topic, I too would prefer that it showed the first post of the topic instead of the latest (which could be very uninformative of what the topic is actually about)... a per-user setting wouldn't be a bad idea. However I do think the the default should be the first post in the topic, I think that's how most people would expect this to work.

Ditchmonkey
Feb 18 2010 04:53 PM

.Logan, on 18 February 2010 - 01:51 PM, said:

As previously suggested in this topic, I too would prefer that it showed the first post of the topic instead of the latest (which could be very uninformative of what the topic is actually about)... a per-user setting wouldn't be a bad idea. However I do think the the default should be the first post in the topic, I think that's how most people would expect this to work.

Agreed.

Jaggi
Feb 18 2010 05:06 PM

AtariAge, on 18 February 2010 - 05:03 PM, said:

Thank you.

This is interesting considering you just added mouseover popups to your site recently (the menus at the top of the page).

I understand that you wouldn't be able to "click" on the title to display a popup (since that takes you into the thread), so a mouseover would be required. This really would be nice as a user-toggable option, since it makes browsing through threads faster than stopping over an icon and clicking each time.

..Al

charles did this, the rest of ips still hate them

Razasharp
Feb 18 2010 05:15 PM

Ditchmonkey, on 18 February 2010 - 09:53 PM, said:

Agreed.

Actually why not go the whole hog and offer both first and last :D think that would be neat.

Steve H
Feb 18 2010 06:28 PM

I'm guessing if a user has the ability to view a forum but not the actual topics this facility will not show?

Wolfie
Feb 18 2010 06:42 PM

This has been a highly requested feature.. Nice to see it finally made it in (even if I was never a huge fan of it, I still like it none the less).

Here are a few of my thoughts...

First, I like the idea of a preview button/icon being on the left, as it would get a members attention and they would more likely click on it and then when they realize what it is, they'd use it.

Second, what about a "mouseover preview" when hovering over the icon? That way it's not a mouse-over when getting ready to click the topic itself, but someone wouldn't have to go down the list with click-click-click. Instead just move the mouse over and it's preview-preview-preview.

Next, having it per group could be very beneficial. Enable it for admins and mods, but disable it for everyone else (for example). On an extremely busy board, this might cut down on resource usage. After all, having 1000 people online at once (which some boards have), if a lot of them are doing previews, then that's a major resource hog.

As gutterape mentioned, could disable it for guests, making it a benefit of registering. Could also be seen as an incentive to participate, if new members can't use it but those who have shown some activity get promoted and can use it. At the very least, an ACP setting with "Off | Admin & Mods | Registered members | All" would work. I agree that charging to have it would be a bit of a cheesy move.

Finally, the idea of first/new/last post previewing sounds a bit much but I can see the usefulness in it, so that would be a nice touch to it as well.