Ran Yefet

I would like to suggest that you add functionality to pop-up a lightbox with a "Registration" or "Sign-In" screen whenever a guest tries to access something that requires a user to be logged in. Rather than showing the error message screen, pop-up this registration lightbox so you get more members to join your website. Some people think the error message screen means that the website has an error and they may leave the website.

Example:

- Click on link that requires user to be logged in (Chat, etc.)

- Pop-up registration lightbox that says:

"Oops, you must be signed-in to do that. How about you register now? It's Free!"
[Display registration input fields here]                       [Display sign-in fields here]


I think this registration lightbox pop-up (rather than an error message screen) is more user friendly and better for site owners. This will surely get more people to register on your site.

I use TwitterFeed with my article RSS feed to have articles automatically posted to Twitter. I haven't been able to figure out how to do the same for my Facebook page, but it's a start. But having better integration built in would be nice, I agree.

Quote

That's the first I've heard of that . I know of a lot of websites that actually do this, and to me it would make sense to cache the image when the address itself doesn't change... You're right, that is ridiculous!

Would it be possible to do all the Geocoding with Yahoo behind the scenes and simply display Google Map (as an option), or is there more to it? (Yes/No?)

I love the product, but the way IPC present the content is to me a mystery and I would like to suggest that IPC take a look at the most used content databases and how they work as well as rethink some design aspects.

• Rethink the {parse database = my database}. It makes sense that you can output this is as a list, like a forum, but it is probably not the most useful way to present the database. Right now I have to add this tag for the database even to show and if you build a blog, article section or FAQ database it does not exactly make a whole lot of sense to have a forum like section when you aim for a normal view like that of an article manager or wordpress setup. Give the option to pares the database in different ways to make it more useful, perhaps by adding a variable {parse database='my database' layout='posts'} in order to have the output show all posts in the database, paged and with filtering options.  This way you have the option to use a feed block, or the whole database as well as a list of categories looking like the forums.  This should satisfy most people's needs.

• Rethink the Articles - Just give an option to choose between the archive version and the more common setup that most databases use. It makes absolute no sense to me from a users point of view to have the strange archive that is default now and after checking with several usability experts I can say for sure that it confuses the hell out of people The common way to present databases is pretty much the way Wordpress and other blog software show their content with all posts in a list that is paged and each category display all posts in that category with paging. Considering that this setup is pretty much industry standard it would make sense to at least offer it as an option.

• Make all features available on every template - make all features (ratings, number of comments...) available in every template, regardless if they are database templates, article templates or page templates. Adding features should be easy and always look the same regardless which template you add them to.  Right now fetaures from the articles does not seem to work well with databases and vice versa without recoding. You should be able to strip away all design and just cut and paste where you want, but it's not so straight forward right now. I should also be able to add any code found in the forum templates into the different IPC templates and it should work, this is not always the case now.

• Breadcrumb... this must be fixed if the wrapper will ever be useful because it does not work at all right now. Just add it to the the forum template so that if IPC is installed it will be added to the basic breadcrumb structure?

• Make it easier to work with the wrapper. Using the wrapper you are pretty much forced to add a whole lot of css and js that you are probably not going to use in regular pages. Make it possible to separate the css so it only contain the css needed in the wrapper (this should be done with the forum as well btw) and allow us to add css and js directly to the head area. In order for me to use IPC now in any workable way I have to recreate the header and footer in a template so I can control which css and js file should be used for that page since it's pretty silly to add the monster CSS from the forum just to get the wrapper to work. It's also the only way I can get a decent breadcrumb by adding it manually to each page    Unfortunately the navigation does not display anything else than forum and members for some reason so this is not really working anyway....

If the database and article system was more like the industry standard it would make the system much more useful and just like Wordpress it could be used to present all kinds of information like articles, faq databases, movie databases, portfolios, posrtals and so on. This is not possible today without a steep threshold for the users that does not understand the structure that IP.Content present. I don't want to confuse my visitors, I want to make it easier for them

(A.) Iron It Out: I know that most of the staff on IP. don't like it when people try to ask what coming up, or what new, etc. But having a idea for the customer base to look at helps to see what in the future for IP and it products. Now, such a thing would be call, I dare say it, Roadmap.  (A roadmap defines the proposed structure of the development.) This feature in IP. will help people to get interest in more of what IP's goals are what your working towards. I mean right now I feel like I'm in the dark on what going on. Reading through some of the information on the forums here I see, a blog post will be coming out soon for the next part of IP. Content, or were looking into that, or if you + (plus) me or add to the post we look over it. I would like to see a better idea as a whole on what IP is working on and would like to sell to me. In this way I could say that these features could be added or give some ideas on what could be added to a project that is coming up. Thus, the staff can have their meeting on XYZ project bring their ideas to the table, then the customers ideas to the table and then plan out what going to be the next big thing. As of current, I believe, IP. Nexus is being bug test and then will be release soon. It was nice with all the blogs, telling us feature and information. But having a central place for all the features and what the product is would be better. As of now I go to the blogs and click here, or go here and get this information, then off to this place and then to that place. Well it nice the blogs cut it all up but hey it really not a way to learn more of the project when I or someone else has to go all over the place in the blog system to fine everything that should be on one page.  

(B.) Documentation Area: This area should be put back in the resource area or the way it was before the move. First I go to services and then to the documentation section. The newest documents that are listed mostly give out an #10CCS88 We could not find the article you were attempting to view. But its the newest article, the others below that give the same area. The way it was help to tell me how things were organize and find easy(er). Currently the way things are in this area are not develop that well. An example would be I have to go the development page the down to the bottom then click on Error Codes, then go to the bottom of that page and then click search. Now looking at the page now it looks like even the Pages for the error codes don't even line up correct their (Page 1, 2, 3, etc.). The way it was before was that I just went to the resource area and then I saw a box which said search for error codes nice and neat on the side and I found what I was looking for. Bringing the documentation page back into the Resource area of IP would be a better deal. Because it is a resource should be in the area were people would want to look for more information. The Resource page could be clean up and all can be added. Help and documents for IP products and all the information could have a nice layout. I did say something about this before in a thread. I guess my option landed on death eyes. I was going to say ears but your not hearing me say it.

   (C.) Help: The help for documents should be iron out more. I know and posted about this before and the come back is how can we improve it. Well I'm about to let it out on ya. Sorry, it needs to be done. First the documents for users to read and understand your products better should be lay out with more information then what is given. Pictures and how to's will greatly help the customer base. People see IP and say wow that nice looking then buy it and install it then it drops off the cliff. Trying to find this or that through the help menu is good now that the clear version of the search in ACP works good. But trying to find the how to's sort of don't cut it. I would suggested an outline that all the how to articles will follow so that the same information format is through out. I mean even use the article system IP. Content has work this out. But more information and images would help the user understand what it does and how things work. Use more images, pictures to show how this or that. I mean even allow people to submit help articles in a pre made format that you want to give through out. If the staff can't keep up with the demand. Through out the IP forums users have request more clearer and better documentation then what is their. But I have yet to see  more standard be done with the current system or any changes at all.

    (D.) Order!!!!: Don't just make the front page pretty and looking nice, bring it to the back end to. The front is great and looks nice, but when you come to the back pages it BAD!. At the very top you see "IPS Home Page,Our Suite, Hosted Communities, Services, Support, Client Area, Store, Contact Us" When you go to different areas I have to come back to the forums to go else were on the menus and then when I want to go to Error Codes, I can't even get back to the Documents page were I came from. Makeing this more user friendly would help out a lot. Trying to find one place were I was just at to get to another place I was just from don't help. It gives me a headache and maybe with other people to.      This is my feedback and I'm trying to give as much information as I can, but of course I could be lacking something so please do add stuff if I didn't cover it. This is not a rant just something I would help IP Staff can improve upon and not just it slip on the way side.

I noticed that the html output when opening any page is very messy:

• lots and lots of tabs and indenting
  
• useless javascripts for guests (LOTS)
  
• all css parts are loaded, even those not used at all

I highly request a nice mod/hook to clean those or even better ipb them selfs to start cleaning out their mess! it is a shame to see an unoptimized site.
regarding javascripts, it should be solved in every hook installed, why the status update for guests require javascript and ajax?

I hope this take some attention here. Let me know what you think!

Honestly, I think the banning system is one of the worst things about IPB. Moderators can't ban members and have them moved to a banned group, bans can't be set to expire and move the member back to their original group (although "suspensions" can), there are both bans and "suspensions" which just ends up making things way more confusing than they should be, and there's no obvious indication anywhere at all that a member is "suspended" which can easily lead to confusion about whether someone is banned or not.

And the warning system, I think it's useless. It should be able to give bans and restrictions based on warning points, and it should log all warnings in an obvious place.

I really think that this whole "just because vB has it doesn't mean IPB should have it" attitude is holding IPB back. Face it, vB does some things a lot better than IPB does, yet there seems to be this resistance to changing some features to be better just because it happens to be like how vB does it.

Don't get the wrong idea, I absolutely LOVE IP.Downloads, but its pretty limited right now... I hope IPS will take some time to work on it and hopefully add some of my suggestions below. I know for a while IPS was doing alot of requests from the members, give Im sure you all are busy with IP.Nexus it would be amazing if you could fit this in in the next few point releases.

• Currently there is no option to remove "uploading" content. I would like to use some section for external linking only and alot of the time people will use the browse function anyway and it makes it alot of work to go to each person explaining not to use the browse and only the "link to". So if you could add the option to allow ONLY the link to file that would be fantastic.
• The downloads are great... download a single file or add more files... nice. However what if they want to upload a series? For example, someone made a book with 30 chapters... they want to link to their book uploads chapter by chapter.. but when you click "download" it just shows a huge list of "download" buttons. How about the option to title the download. Such as "My Life - Chapter 1" -Download (Mediafire)" and "My Life - Chapter 2" -Download (Mediafire)"etc. The way it is now downloads are really messy and unorganized.
• What if they have multiple series, chapters, and mirrors? Can you take the organization even further and allow sub lists. For example:

Book 1 Title

• Chapter One

• Download Mirror 1
• Download Mirror 2

Book 2 Title

•    Chapter Two

• Download Mirror 1
• Download Mirror 2

• On the downloads page, it only has one section called "categories". It would be nice to have multiple categories and "download forums" under each one. Such as "Music Downloads" for one section and "Modification Downloads" for another section. For now all download forums are under the same section and its not as organized as it could be.
• Another huge option to help out with downloads is a mass uploader. Like right now you can only upload one link at a time.... is it possible to make a huge text section so you can copy and paste links in a row so that one line is one url and it will automatically separate them into single downloads instead of having that add new link, add new link, add new link over and over again.
  
• Same for uploading downloads. Have a mass browse uploading system like photobucket so you can highlight what you want to upload and do it all in one step.
  

Anyway thats all for now, I hope you decide to do a few of these things!

Plus Rep This Post If You Agree, Or Leave A Comment Please!

Having just upgraded to 3.1.2 I was dismayed to find that the "Systems Statistics" block had been moved from the Dashboard area to being hidden under the Support tab... and being hidden is I have to say a retrograde step that compromises ease of use. Having this information available upon logging into the ACP was a very useful set of indicators that were immediately to hand concerning the status of accounts, topics and posts. Actually having to go look for this information means that things requiring attention will now get missed.

Is it just me or does this seem a little degrading for IP.Board?
Its an alert box and yes you did get alerted that the message was sent. But just reminds me of Windows 98 TBH. I hardly see those anymore yet alone in a web script.
Maybe make it look like a notification or something... Maybe just a rant but yeah just annoying. Alert Boxes that is.

Actually, scalability is very high on the list. One of the bigger features we're talking about for 3.1 (again, nothing is set in stone) is post archiving to move old posts to another table (outside ibf_posts) to reduce the primary post table size.

I imagine once we finalize our list of features we'll announce it, but I can't say for sure.

I'm just getting into modding by adding some jQuery plugins to my board (there are tons of them out their and they are very easy to integrate).

But, IPB uses Scriptaculous/Prototype (which doesn't seem as active as jQuery plugins are).  My wish is that IPS would provide an alternate set of js that would use jQuery/jQuery.ui and allow us to select which version we want IPB to use.

I know this is unlikely to happen (as it duplicates work), but it would help to be able to easily plug in jQuery modules and not require both to be loaded.  I worry that loading two different js libs for a page will lead to conflicts and poor performance (jQuery has a call to eliminate most conflicts, but I have had to modify the jQuery plugins to not use the shortcut '$' which is a bit of a pain).

Or, since jQuery seems to be the front runner and seems to be very easy to use, maybe IPB could just switch over to it in some future release.

Being able to do something with the navigation bar has been requested and talked about many times.  Here are just a few topics that have some mention of it.

http://community.inv...gestions-thread
http://community.inv...avigation-links
http://community.inv...s-a-application
http://community.inv...-for-the-navbar
http://community.inv...d-apps-ordering
http://community.inv...-praise-for-ipb

Why this awesome BB system doesnt have Birthday Greeter feature?

Well then I would suggest that it should be a built in feature, not something external. The existing statistics in the system lack anyway.