Wish List for Version 3

[Big Hairy Jimbo]

Ok, I dont know if these have been made before, but what the hell.

1) Forums Permissions. (ie Groups)
I think this needs some serious work. It would be nice if we had a simple edit screen, where you could make up a GROUP, then go through a list of forums, stating Write Access, Read Access, and simply tick the ones you want. It would also be nice if a GROUP could inherit the access rights of other groups by choice, as well as have individually specified rights. Not sure if I got the right end of the stick, but I find the current setup unuseable. (Dont get me wrong I love the product, but it could be better). I guess I'm after something like NOVELL access rights. Under novell it is very easy to choose a user, and see what groups they have (ie more than one group is permissable), and what individually assigned rights they have. It is easy to say that group "FRED" has access to forums A,B,C,D. Thus user JOE BLOW, could have access to group "FRED", as well as having individually assigned rights to forums F,G and H, all contained on the one screen.

2) Forums List.
If you assign individual access rights to users, then often new users, have no idea of what forums are available. It would be nice if there was a VIEW WHAT FORUMS ARE AVAILABLE LIST. You could then specify which forums would appear on this list. Hence a new user could check that list, and thus ask for access rights to those forums.

3) vbulletin 2.2.0 does not seem to have a FORUM JUMP on the front screen. (Well mine doesn't!!!) Would be nice if it did!!! (Also forum jump doesn't always seem to list all the correct forums either. Sorry this is a bug report!!!!!)

4) The avatars list, allows anyone to choose the same avatar!!!! It would be nice, if once an avatar had been selected by someone, then it became locked, so no one else, could select that avatar. ie I thought avatars should be individual, you dont want several people all using the same avatar.

5) Anyway of improving the COLOR, FONT, SIZE drop down boxes in the MESSAGE ENTRY screens. Would be nice if it worked like WORD. (this might not be possible, but hey it is a wish list!!!!!)

6) Permit the attachement of multiple files, not just one.

7) A survey feature would be nice. Like your polls. If you could make up a survey screen, where you could choose drop down boxes, free text areas, option boxes, etc, and the info would be stored in the database, for later review.

8) I want to use my vbulletin board, for use as a helpdesk for my customers. Would be nice if I could have some sort of report feature, so I could produce graphs of how many messages I received in a given time frame, in a given forum, that contained the word "blah blah" in the subject line, or was posted by "fred smith" etc etc...... This would be really handy!!!!!!!! I need some stats!!!

9) Calendar Permissions.
It would be nice, If articles posted on the calendar could only be seen by certain groups. Thus if I had a FINANCE group, then only articles posted by those people with the FINANCE group could see the calendar events posted by those with the FINANCE group.
You should still have PUBLIC events. Does this make sense??

10) Would be very nice, if I could configure what questions appear on the registration screen, as many of the options are just left as defaults, and it confuses my poor users having so many options.

Well thats it for now. If I come up with more, I'll let you know.

[tubedogg]

3) It is assumed that since most of your forums are listed on the front page you won't need the forum jump there. It can be hacked in.

4) This will probably not be changed.

5) We are looking at ways to do it but it will probably be WinIE5+ only.

9) Already under development.

10) Just edit the registeradult template.

[ACB]

After only a month on line .. still very difficult to make changes regarding table bg colors or .... even, addition of a bg image. I accept - still getting to know my way around!

Templates hard to find way around - could be some useful help matters added for this. We are not all experts on PHP!

Would be handy if the ''styles'' area in control panel extended to give more options the ''easy way''!!!

[Big Hairy Jimbo]

Thought of another one.

Recently, on my friends VB, he asked me to moderate the jokes section, as there was a bit of so called "offensive" material on it. So I went in, and deleted a post, then I went and deleted the first post which started the thread. Hmmmm, as soon as I clicked delete now, I realised what I had just done. I killed off the entire thread, of over 120 jokes.

It would have been nice, if a warning message had been displayed, to remind me of what I was about to do, by deleting the the post which started the thread!!!

Also, I have seen other comments regarding a recycle bin. Put me down for this one, as I would really likely an UNDO feature.

As for comments above (an earlier post) regarding the Avatar bit not getting changed, WHY NOT???? Surely you dont want multiple people choosing the same avatar? Doesn't this seem logical?? It doesn't sound a hard thing to do to me. (Keep in mind that I am ignorant to the ins and outs of PHP and MySQL, or is that CIN and COUT)

[Tolitz]

Frankly, I don't have a problem with templates, and I have very little knowledge of PHP - everything is pretty straightforward ... I think a good suggestion would be improved documentation - like which templates control which aspects of the forums, so that customization would not be a trial-and-error or seek-and-modify affair ;)

[ACB]

Good points Jimbo and YES .... and undo feature sure would be useful ....... or a dialog saying ''you sure you want to ........'' etc!!!!!

[Tolitz]

Originally posted by Big Hairy Jimbo
As for comments above (an earlier post) regarding the Avatar bit not getting changed, WHY NOT???? Surely you dont want multiple people choosing the same avatar? Doesn't this seem logical?? It doesn't sound a hard thing to do to me. (Keep in mind that I am ignorant to the ins and outs of PHP and MySQL, or is that CIN and COUT) Hmm, let's see a scenario ... let's say your board has 1000 members ... they all want avatars ... unless you have 1000 images in your libary, you have to convince at least 50% of them to either link or upload their own avatar ...

Besides, what would prevent them from, say, saving the avatar they want (that's already taken), and then using vBulletin's upload or link feature to use it as THEIR avatar ... In order for this not to happen, one would have to disable custom avatars ... but in disabling custom avatars, you would have to come up with a very huge avatar library to satisfy all members who didn't get what they wanted ...

so I agree with tubedogg - it's a pretty useless feature in the long run ;)

[ACB]

Originally posted by Tolitz
so that customization would not be a trial-and-error or seek-and-modify affair ;)

Yes indeed ... that is a point. I find I have to (so far) use a very hit'n'miss trial and error approach sometimes.

Expand all the templates list and wow!!!! take yer pick!!!

And that style sheet file .... at 400kb plus .. how to find what you want in that too!!!!!

[Chen]

I have a feeling this is gonna be a long, long thread... :D

[Fusion]

Originally posted by FireFly
I have a feeling this is gonna be a long, long thread... :D Just as long as it don't get so winding that it'll end up thoroughly ignored. :p

[Chen]

I hope it won't end up just like Bira's thread:
http://www.vbulletin.com/forum/showthread.php?s=&threadid=17767&highlight=suggestions
;)

[Fusion]

Originally posted by FireFly
I hope it won't end up just like Bira's thread:
http://www.vbulletin.com/forum/showthread.php?s=&threadid=17767&highlight=suggestions
;) Yeah, I recall that one with a certain amout of youthfull glee. :)

[thewitt]

Originally posted by ACB


Yes indeed ... that is a point. I find I have to (so far) use a very hit'n'miss trial and error approach sometimes.

Expand all the templates list and wow!!!! take yer pick!!!

And that style sheet file .... at 400kb plus .. how to find what you want in that too!!!!!
How about using the search function...

I don't find it difficult to locate a template to edit at all. There always seems to be something unique in the page that I can find with the search fucntion.

-t

[tubedogg]

Originally posted by ACB


Yes indeed ... that is a point. I find I have to (so far) use a very hit'n'miss trial and error approach sometimes.

Expand all the templates list and wow!!!! take yer pick!!!

And that style sheet file .... at 400kb plus .. how to find what you want in that too!!!!! I would not recommend editing the .style file. There is a search (and also a search and replace) function built in for the templates - Admin CP > Templates > Search. You can also turn on the option (Admin CP > Options > Templates) to show template name in HTML comments on the page the end-user sees to aid you in finding what template does what.

[ACB]

tubedogg .. thanks . i am beginning to realize now ....... having scoured some threads here etc.

Mind you .. early attempts at search did not bring up what i had hoped for ... must try and persevere.

It's hell being a VB newbie!!! :o

[Fusion]

Ouch, here's a must for V3. Have you ever subscribed to a thread/forum aeons ago, then later changed your default notification choice? Those need to be included in the subscribed listings so that it is possible to change those settings without having to un-sub/re-sub.

[Wayne Luke]

There is a comprehensive Template Reference Guide in the Members area that tells you exactly what template is used in what file and on what page.

There is an option under vBulletin Options -> Templates to put each and every template name in the generated HTML.

There is a search and replace feature in the Template Editor.

Currently you can preview your templates directly from the template editor.

The global template can be referred to in a new window.

You can copy templates and find within a template.

What more would have to be added to eliminate the "trial and error" process?

[Wayne Luke]

If you want each member to have a unique avatar then don't give them any. They will have to supply their own and the amount of unique avatars will increase.

This is what I do at SitePoint Forums. I currently offer only a few avatars but I don't think anyone is using them. Instead everyone creates their own and uploads it. However without building in a rich-media graphics editor, it would be darn near impossible to keep up with a high-traffic site and the avatars the members want.

[ACB]

Originally posted by wluke
There is a comprehensive Template Reference Guide in the Members

Forgive my ignorance wluke .. ''members area'' .... where is that??? The ref guide is something I would like to find and browse.

[tubedogg]

It's where you download vBulletin. :D

Bottom of the page, click the Member Area link. It's on the Support page IIRC.

[Hooper]

1) A Who's online administrative CP page that allows you to add links to your Who's online.

2) A spellchecker.

3) Full blown statistics.

4) A vending machine (pop and chips for the members :D) This one may be difficult.

[Big Hairy Jimbo]

Originally posted by Tolitz
Hmm, let's see a scenario ... let's say your board has 1000 members ... they all want avatars ... unless you have 1000 images in your libary, you have to convince at least 50% of them to either link or upload their own avatar ...

Besides, what would prevent them from, say, saving the avatar they want (that's already taken), and then using vBulletin's upload or link feature to use it as THEIR avatar ... In order for this not to happen, one would have to disable custom avatars ... but in disabling custom avatars, you would have to come up with a very huge avatar library to satisfy all members who didn't get what they wanted ...

so I agree with tubedogg - it's a pretty useless feature in the long run ;)

Well yes your scenario is true. However in my case it would be useful. It is true you cant stop people from saving down someones Avatar and then uploading it, however if a person does this on the same board, then its gonna be bloody obvious that they have ripped someones avatar. Now my experience with avatar ripping, suggests thats its considered bad karma, and not the done thing!!!! I take your point, that on a large board with many members, there will not be enough unique avatars for people to choose, thus they will be forced to upload their own. A few posts have suggested forcing upload, so in either scenario put forward so far, you still arrive at uploading your own if you want a unique Avatar. I still think this feature would be useful (to me anyway!), as I just cant see the sense in allowing people to choose the same avatar.

[Sinecure]

My 1 wish would be be make te navbit (breadcrumb) template so that it edits the entire vbulletin. Right now you have to manually go through tons of templates to do it, and I tried but there are just to many.

So if you could do that, I would worship you :D
Oh, tubedogg, if you did it you would be my Hero for the week, maybe even 2 weeks!!! :D heheh