214 replies to this topic

[China J]

BASHERS33, on Apr 10 2008, 07:07 AM, said:

If this is releasing alongside IPB 3.0, that may be 10 years from now, by the way.    so I would suggest even bigger features to be in it by then such as it being able to read my mind or something.

*Sigh* That's how I feel. Highly doubtful that 3.0 will be final this year including beta/rc testing and all. Seriously we have 2 new topics for minor 1.4 blog and Major 2.0 Blog which the minor isn't going to boost my member response nor make any of us happy at all so why close the IP.Blog is dead topic? The whole point is for a big change and you are pretty much telling us that we have to wait another year in addition to the two years we already waited? If that's the case why don't you just waive our next renewal for being so darn patient?

Anywho, sorry to vent but here is my original suggestions from the dead topic

• Allow users to modify own theme(simple css maybe with background image upload)
  
• Add better management for Uploading/resizing images(currently impossible within blog)
  
• Add word wrap feature on images
  
• Add social bookmarks
  
• Add special formatting options for titles
  
• Add Keywords per blog entry
  
• Add tag cloud feature
  
• Add Recent Visitors w/avatars
  
• Add Article Create options
  
• Add Voting per blog entry
  
• Add Copyright option in footer for blog owner
  
• Add Attachments options
  
• Add blog security section in acp for possible blog threat issues.
  
• Last Comments/Visitors should show their mini avatar in block
  
• Categories block should have a numerical value for how many entries there are for each cat ie Vactions (6)
  
• Add Ability to reorder categories
  
• Add a field to display my friendly blog url when active ie. [ http://forums.invisi...om/blog/china_j ]
  
• Blog should have Date in corner similar to profile view section reading latest posts/topics (visually better).
  
• Calendar Block should be clickable as in clicking a certain day will allow you to see all entries that day.
  
• Allow member to decide if guests can view there blog.
  
• Allow changing of viewmode? (hard code yes and remove from acp)
  
• Allow Content Blocks editing (hard code yes and remove from acp)
  
• Allow Custom Content Blocks? (hard code yes and remove from acp)
  
• Allow RSS feeds? (hard code yes and remove from acp)
  
• Override permissions for RSS feeds? (hardcode no and remove from acp)
  
• Rating threshold (everyone wants their blog to be hot so remove this)
  
• Allow multiple votes? ( hardcore no and remove from acp)
  
• Maximum number of members in a Private Club?(Remove this setting and let blog owner decide)
  
• Guest Commenting Bot Control (remove from acp and allow blog owner control)
  
• Enable Blog Ratings? (remove from acp and allow blog owner control)
  
• Give blog owner a page for viewing various stats/traffic to their blogAdd a view counter to the blog owners index page
  
• Allow member to add Polls in entries?(hardcode yes and remove from acp)
  
• Allow member to create private Blogs?(hardcode yes and remove from acp)
  
• Allow member to assign members to view his private Blog aka Private Club Blog? (hardcode yes and remove from acp)
  
• Allow member to assign editors to his Blog? (hardcode yes and remove from acp)
  
• Prevent member to publish entries? (hardcode no and remove this from acp)
  
• Allow all contents blocks to be available (remove admin choice from acp)
  
• Add widget for adsense that user can input account details to activate.
  
• Add widget for youtube videos
  
• Add import/restore feature for blog owners to backup and restore their blog
  
• Add Podcast widget or support for podcasts
  
• Comments should be limited to a mini avatar and member name of commenting (no signatures & bla bla. I can't think of a blog system that does display forum like info and IMO it's too much much info when I can just click there name and see profile).
  
• Report comment should be sent to blog owner and not admin. At which blog owner can contact staff for action
  
• Blog owner to have control over allow comments, trackbacks and etc... That way they get all the pms and have to maintain there blog themselves.
  
• Blog owner to control quoting in comments (last response or none - not quoting 5 posts that's insane for blog view)
  
• Allow blog owner to ban users from viewing their blog and maintain list ie bad members, spammers and etc(of course admins and moderators can't be banned).
  
• Breadcrumb "Complete" enabled (hardcode yes and remove from acp). It's annoying and even at this site it's disabled making it irritating to navigate between blogs or back to forum home. Like I'm purposely stuck in the owners blog.
  
• Allow user to retain publish date on edited blogs
  
• Latest blog entries in user profile view
  
• My Blog link in topic view render_row
  
• Redo blog index to be more like a portal view to show like latest blogs, top rated, most viewed and maybe a built-in admin managed banner system for ads.

[DSCramer]

China's list is quite comprehensive so I thought I'd use it as a starting place.  Thanks for the list - it's nice to see all these features i none place.  

My use of the blog component is probably not very common but I really think the product ads something to my forum.  On my site I am the only one who publically uses the blog but several groups do use the private club feature and that has been a draw.

China J, on Apr 11 2008, 12:21 AM, said:

• Allow users to modify own theme(simple css maybe with background image upload)
  Agreed!
  
• Add better management for Uploading/resizing images(currently impossible within blog)
  I would like the attachment posting system to be the same as IPB
  
• Add word wrap feature on images
  Would be a nice feature
  
• Add social bookmarks
  I am indifferent
  
• Add special formatting options for titles
  Very low on my list
  
• Add Keywords per blog entry
  Yes!!!!!! Should work with any upcoming IPB system as well.
  
• Add tag cloud feature
  Yes
  
• Add Recent Visitors w/avatars
  Personally I am not a fan of this but if the user or admin can turn it off what the heck.
  
• Add Article Create options
  Not sure what this means.
  
• Add Voting per blog entry
  Sure
  
• Add Copyright option in footer for blog owner
  Sure
  
• Add Attachments options
  ??
  
• Add blog security section in acp for possible blog threat issues.
  Of course, any specifics?
  
• Last Comments/Visitors should show their mini avatar in block
  Sure
  
• Categories block should have a numerical value for how many entries there are for each cat ie Vactions (6)
  Yes!
  
• Add Ability to reorder categories
  
• Add a field to display my friendly blog url when active ie. [ http://forums.invisi...om/blog/china_j ]
  
• Blog should have Date in corner similar to profile view section reading latest posts/topics (visually better).
  
• Calendar Block should be clickable as in clicking a certain day will allow you to see all entries that day.
  Yes!!!!
  
• Allow member to decide if guests can view there blog.
  
• Allow changing of viewmode? (hard code yes and remove from acp)
  
• Allow Content Blocks editing (hard code yes and remove from acp)
  
• Allow Custom Content Blocks? (hard code yes and remove from acp)
  
• Allow RSS feeds? (hard code yes and remove from acp)
  
• Override permissions for RSS feeds? (hardcode no and remove from acp)
  
• Rating threshold (everyone wants their blog to be hot so remove this)
  
• Allow multiple votes? ( hardcore no and remove from acp)
  
• Maximum number of members in a Private Club?(Remove this setting and let blog owner decide)
  
• Guest Commenting Bot Control (remove from acp and allow blog owner control)
  
• Enable Blog Ratings? (remove from acp and allow blog owner control)
  
• Give blog owner a page for viewing various stats/traffic to their blogAdd a view counter to the blog owners index page
  
• Allow member to add Polls in entries?(hardcode yes and remove from acp)
  
• Allow member to create private Blogs?(hardcode yes and remove from acp)
  
• Allow member to assign members to view his private Blog aka Private Club Blog? (hardcode yes and remove from acp)
  
• Allow member to assign editors to his Blog? (hardcode yes and remove from acp)
  
• Prevent member to publish entries? (hardcode no and remove this from acp)
  
• Allow all contents blocks to be available (remove admin choice from acp)
  I like the Admin having first choice
  
• Add widget for adsense that user can input account details to activate.
  Indifferent to against.
  
• Add widget for youtube videos
  Mods are available
  
• Add import/restore feature for blog owners to backup and restore their blog
  YES! Not just back up but backup in a format they can take elsewhere. (ie Word document)
  
• Add Podcast widget or support for podcasts
  Low on list
  
• Comments should be limited to a mini avatar and member name of commenting (no signatures & bla bla. I can't think of a blog system that does display forum like info and IMO it's too much much info when I can just click there name and see profile).
  I agree completely!
  
• Report comment should be sent to blog owner and not admin. At which blog owner can contact staff for action
  Admin shoud determine if admin should get reports
  
• Blog owner to have control over allow comments, trackbacks and etc... That way they get all the pms and have to maintain there blog themselves.
  
• Blog owner to control quoting in comments (last response or none - not quoting 5 posts that's insane for blog view)
  Not an issue for me
  
• Allow blog owner to ban users from viewing their blog and maintain list ie bad members, spammers and etc(of course admins and moderators can't be banned).
  Yes
  
• Breadcrumb "Complete" enabled (hardcode yes and remove from acp). It's annoying and even at this site it's disabled making it irritating to navigate between blogs or back to forum home. Like I'm purposely stuck in the owners blog.
  Sure
  
• Allow user to retain publish date on edited blogs
  YES!!!
  
• Latest blog entries in user profile view
  
• My Blog link in topic view render_row
  Yes.
  
• Redo blog index to be more like a portal view to show like latest blogs, top rated, most viewed and maybe a built-in admin managed banner system for ads.

Not a fan of this.

[Lindsey_]

China J, on Apr 10 2008, 07:21 PM, said:

• Redo blog index to be more like a portal view to show like latest blogs, top rated, most viewed and maybe a built-in admin managed banner system for ads.

+1

[Teddy Rogers]

My one and only lonely feature suggestion for IP Blog:

Quote

Clicking View New Posts in IPB shows up all new blogs and entries since last visit.

Ted.

[TestingSomething]

Teddy Rogers, on Apr 11 2008, 03:30 AM, said:

My one and only lonely feature suggestion for IP Blog:



Ted.

I set mine up to show a link on the front page when there are new blog entries since last visit (someone showed me how, then I changed it some and used it for other things also), although it would maybe be better the way you're wanting because then the index page would have less queries.

I may make something how you want since they probably won't do it officially since it would be needing edits of IPB files.

[Teddy Rogers]

That would be cool, thanks.

My suggestion also applies to the Gallery and Download components which, I already made a topic on prior to me purchasing IP Blog. bfarber said in that topic:

Quote

These are things we'd like to see as well, however they require massive overhauls to IPB itself. Something we'd like to shoot for with 3.0.

One can hope and I hope...

Ted.

[bfarber]

China J, thanks for the great list.  It's helpful.

The only drawback I see on your list is your extensive requests to REMOVE settings.  I don't see why you couldn't just configure them how you mentioned ("hard code yes" and "hard code no") rather than us actually remove those settings.  Just because you want it working one way, why should we force everyone else to do so as well when there are already settings to control those areas?

Other than that the ideas are great.

[zigs]

Is it possible for IP Blog to have the abiility to have tables and graphs? EG if you copy and paste a word document, with graphs and tables they will show up?

[bfarber]

zigzag*, on Apr 11 2008, 09:45 AM, said:

Is it possible for IP Blog to have the abiility to have tables and graphs? EG if you copy and paste a word document, with graphs and tables they will show up?

That's a problem with the RTE, not with Blog specifically.  We strip out HTML that we don't have bbcode equivalents of for security reasons.

[China J]

bfarber, on Apr 11 2008, 09:45 AM, said:

China J, thanks for the great list.  It's helpful.

The only drawback I see on your list is your extensive requests to REMOVE settings.  I don't see why you couldn't just configure them how you mentioned ("hard code yes" and "hard code no") rather than us actually remove those settings.  Just because you want it working one way, why should we force everyone else to do so as well when there are already settings to control those areas?

Other than that the ideas are great.

Sorry about that. These were pulled out of another topic that pretty much agreed that the blog owner not admin should have more say about their blog capabilities. That post was more geared to weeding out unnecessary settings and replace with more upto date and competitive features.

However, this thread here is a feature thread but again why should admin be able to say whether guests is allowed to view someone's blog? There is quite a few settings like this that really make no sense. That would be like opening a WordPress Blog and some "Forces to be" would say guests are not allowed to view your blog... Unheard of right? This would also cause issues with blog spiders being able to index, rss feeds, feedburners and etc which defeats the purpose of most users intentions for creating a blog.

Ok hardcode yes or no? RSS feeds for example? Admin is going to decide that a blog user can't have rss feeds? Or can't have private blog, can't change style, can't have editors, can't change view & limit members in private club? Sounds like military sex "Left! Right! Left! Right!" instead of freedom for user to have something personal which a blog should be.

Last suggestion aka "Old fart Rule of Thumb": Some clients may be stuck in their ways and be cool with blog the way it is and some might not want to see the blog change at all... However, those are not the individuals that will help you advance the blog technology to keep up with the rest of the world.

I for one love new technology and always will want and desire the latest coolest things. Some people are just content/comfortable with old things like IE5, IP.Board 1.3, cassette players and 8 tracks. I am not one of those persons unless I have it listed on Ebay making a few grand from a vintage or antique item



http://www.fckeditor.net/  - This is a global suggestion maybe for admin use only.

[bfarber]

China J, on Apr 11 2008, 12:05 PM, said:

Sorry about that. These were pulled out of another topic that pretty much agreed that the blog owner not admin should have more say about their blog capabilities. That post was more geared to weeding out unnecessary settings and replace with more upto date and competitive features.

However, this thread here is a feature thread but again why should admin be able to say whether guests is allowed to view someone's blog? There is quite a few settings like this that really make no sense. That would be like opening a WordPress Blog and some "Forces to be" would say guests are not allowed to view your blog... Unheard of right? This would also cause issues with blog spiders being able to index, rss feeds, feedburners and etc which defeats the purpose of most users intentions for creating a blog.

Ok hardcode yes or no? RSS feeds for example? Admin is going to decide that a blog user can't have rss feeds? Or can't have private blog, can't change style, can't have editors, can't change view & limit members in private club? Sounds like military sex "Left! Right! Left! Right!" instead of freedom for user to have something personal which a blog should be.

Last suggestion aka "Old fart Rule of Thumb": Some clients may be stuck in their ways and be cool with blog the way it is and some might not want to see the blog change at all... However, those are not the individuals that will help you advance the blog technology to keep up with the rest of the world.

I for one love new technology and always will want and desire the latest coolest things. Some people are just content/comfortable with old things like IE5, IP.Board 1.3, cassette players and 8 tracks. I am not one of those persons unless I have it listed on Ebay making a few grand from a vintage or antique item



http://www.fckeditor.net/  - This is a global suggestion maybe for admin use only.

I understand your points in why YOU would want to configure your site the way you are talking about.  But again, the option is there for you to let your users control those.  There ARE admins, I assure you, that do NOT want any guests whatsoever getting into the site - so yes I can see why they would want the ability to control that.  Or they may not want RSS feeds of blogs (for similar reasons).  The point is, why take away control?  

At the end of the day, Blog is not Wordpress, and doesn't aim to be.  This is a community blog - it is a component for IPB meant to add additional blogging functionality to your board.  It is not exactly meant to do the same thing as wordpress, so while some comparisons are natural and make sense, IP.Blog likely will never (by design) work the same way as Wordpress.

[China J]

I understand. I think that is one of the reasons for IP.Blog is dead? topic is because most of us was expecting & wanting some major features similar to other systems. I wish I could think of some enhancements that would entice existing members and new members to create a blog or join up to create a blog instead of utilizing blogspot, facebook, myspace, wordpress and other sources that would fit in the realm of IPS's vision for IP.Blog... Something to make it more fun, interesting and easier for them to build something personal and keep them active. I'm not asking for it to work the same as wordpress and others but I am asking for enhancements that could compete with them even if on a different level.

Thanks for your time & consideration reading this.


PS. Is it possible that you can enable the "Gallery Image Block" here at this site? I've created a blog and want to add my images from gallery to it. Right now only "Gallery links" block is available which doesn't really add any viola effect I'm looking for.

[Josh]

China J, on Apr 10 2008, 07:21 PM, said:

• Add special formatting options for titles
  
• Add Article Create options
  
• Add Attachments options

Could you elaborate on these suggestions?  What sort of options are you looking for?

[BryanH]

China J, on Apr 11 2008, 10:00 AM, said:

I understand. I think that is one of the reasons for IP.Blog is dead? topic is because most of us was expecting & wanting some major features similar to other systems. I wish I could think of some enhancements that would entice existing members and new members to create a blog or join up to create a blog instead of utilizing blogspot, facebook, myspace, wordpress and other sources that would fit in the realm of IPS's vision for IP.Blog.

If IPS really isn't aiming to make Blog more like WordPress, Blogger, etc., then I HIGHLY suggest the RSS import feature.  That way our members can still use their other blog services and just import their blog entires into IP.Blog.

That AND my other suggestion of IPS writing a plugin that will share the IPB user database with WordPress via Converge.  THAT would be huge, and could be sold.

[zigs]

bfarber, on Apr 11 2008, 03:04 PM, said:

That's a problem with the RTE, not with Blog specifically.  We strip out HTML that we don't have bbcode equivalents of for security reasons.

Okay, I thought it was a dull suggestion  

[China J]

Josh, on Apr 11 2008, 02:44 PM, said:

Could you elaborate on these suggestions?  What sort of options are you looking for?

• Add special formatting options for titles -  Right now you can't format the post title or for that matter any of the content block titles to give them distinction so they all just really appear bla and bleed in together without any uniqueness for each area.
  
  
• Add Article Create options - Simply allowing user to create simple pages that won't get lost in the weeds such as "About Me" page which they can attach links to a custom navigation block that would link to these articles or pages. In theory it can be done now however doing so adds them as a latest blog entry/latest entries and the only way to get around it is if they created them  after a blog entry is to go back and republish your blog entries which the down side is the blog entry dates will be off and misdated. Another downside is the links in the custom nav opens in a new window instead of self window. If you could impliment a way to give user option to use as "Page" with perhaps a few other options like *Remove Date, Remove Author Name, Allow/disallow Comments, open in self, parent, blank, etc, Add Tags and etc. That way normal blog entries would remain intact and the pages won't show up in the latest entries list. That would be a major improvement IMO. Visit My Blog
  
• Add Attachments options - Even as admin there is no option to use an attachement such as a youtube video. Currently can can be done via bbcode, but would be a lot simpler if a inline method could be used for non tech savy members.

Keep in mind I'm only experimenting at this point so some users will see somethings at my blog that are not actual plugins or mods, just simple mockups use of blog for effect. If they can be implimented so that not so savy web user can impliment in their blog that would be fantastic!

PS. Again it would be nice if you guys can enable other items for us at this site such as "Random Image" and etc so I can further push the limits on the blog sorta say. Thanks

[Josh]

China J, on Apr 11 2008, 07:46 PM, said:

• Add Attachments options - Even as admin there is no option to use an attachement such as a youtube video. Currently can can be done via bbcode, but would be a lot simpler if a inline method could be used for non tech savy members.

Regarding this one, currently 1.4 will embed a youtube video if it detects a youtube url in the post, as well as embed an mp3 player if it detects an mp3 url in the post

[China J]

Josh, on Apr 11 2008, 09:28 PM, said:

Regarding this one, currently 1.4 will embed a youtube video if it detects a youtube url in the post, as well as embed an mp3 player if it detects an mp3 url in the post

Even if only bbcode is allowed? Is it possible to update first post with the list of current/planned features? This is the first that I've heard about autodetect youtube and mp3 urls?

[Josh]

China J, on Apr 11 2008, 09:34 PM, said:

Even if only bbcode is allowed? Is it possible to update first post with the list of current/planned features? This is the first that I've heard about autodetect youtube and mp3 urls?

We haven't announced any features yet, we'll be doing that next Friday, so just think of the youtube/mp3 detection as a teaser

[Teddy Rogers]

Josh, on Apr 12 2008, 02:44 AM, said:

We haven't announced any features yet, we'll be doing that next Friday, so just think of the youtube/mp3 detection as a teaser

Oh! Don't tease us just get coding...  

Ted.