Darren Gordon

3.8 Feature Spotlight: More Discussions, Private Messaging

49 Comments

on Fri 22nd Aug '08 at 7:38am (22732 Views)

Discussions
Last week I was talking about Social Group Discussions. As RvG rightly pointed out, there was no screenshot of the discussions themselves. Mostly the view within a discussion is a lot like the message wall was previously, with the messages now being a little more self contained (like the comments here). Messages are now viewed from top to bottom like threads, with quick replies being added at the bottom. Social bookmarking is also available, and of course inline moderation.

When viewing a discussion, the group information is no longer displayed; allowing the user to focus on the discussion itself.

Attachment 323

The discussion list is much like forum threads, or the group list view and has full inline mod, a quick select menu as well as a quick title search.

Attachment 319

Private Messaging
This week I want to talk more about a few improvements to Private Messaging.

Previously PM's were only sorted by date. Most people will find this best for their default view, but sometimes you want to see what messages you've had from other people. PM's can now be sorted by sender and title as well as date. Interestingly, the PM's continue to be grouped based on the chosen sort method. For example, if you select Sender, each message will be grouped by the username of the person who sent the message.

Attachment 322

...and if you select title, the messages will be grouped within A-H, I-P, Q-Z, 0-9 et cetera.

Attachment 321

You can also find messages with a new filter that has been added to select messages within a date range, or by searching the sender or the message title.

Attachment 320

Previously you could select several messages to perform an action on them (such as move to folder or delete). However, your selection was limited to a single page. Now you can search through all of your PM's, selecting multiple messages from multiple pages and folders before performing an action on all of them.

The 3.8 release is gaining momentum and you'll be able to see it in action here on vbulletin.com soon. As always, feedback and comments are usefull and welcome

P.S. Quick Edit is now available for Visitor Messages and Picture Comments, making moderator's lives that bit easier.

Tags: 3.8, private messaging, social group discussions

Categories: ‎ vBulletin 3.8

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Comments

PitchouneN64ngc - Fri 22nd Aug '08 7:53am

I like improvements in Private Messaging system (especially the 'grouped by x' feature)
pipin - Fri 22nd Aug '08 8:06am

Great, pm improvements were needed badly. I just begun feeling lost in my ~ 4.000 pms.

Would be good if things like pm to all members of usergroups or social groups could be added, too.

With the advanced capabilities of the social groups you should think about the management of this groups. Adding co-founders would be a great start. Founder message to all social group members per PM/email. ....
Chousho - Fri 22nd Aug '08 8:52am

I notice PMs will be organized in groups of A-H, I-P, etc.
Where does this leave for special characters such as @, &, $ etc.
What about other languages? What group would we see 中國 or 한국말 show up in?
Kinneas - Fri 22nd Aug '08 9:17am

Awesome
It's good to see an improvement to the PM system. Quickreply and the ability to search through PMs is something that's been missing for some time.
---MAD--- - Fri 22nd Aug '08 9:35am

I guess no PM reporting system will be added in 3.8. Quite a shame as it's becoming a big problem with users spamming via PM etc.

Anyway, good work .
Fusion - Fri 22nd Aug '08 9:58am

Nice work, Darren.
pipedreams - Fri 22nd Aug '08 10:12am

WOW, just love the new improvements!
Razasharp - Fri 22nd Aug '08 10:35am

Looks great Darren - Look forward to seeing 3.8 here!
Taragon - Fri 22nd Aug '08 11:59am

1st I prefer the chosen layout of the sg discusions more than I like the layout of the memberprofile visitor message function.
Either way, would it be possible to match them at least?
Ranger375 - Fri 22nd Aug '08 12:35pm

Very nice, but as MAD said, a "report PM" feature is really necessary!
Darren Gordon - Fri 22nd Aug '08 1:14pm

Thanks for the positive feedback!

Originally Posted by Chousho

Where does this leave for special characters such as @, &, $ etc.

There is another group for non latin-alpha-num characters, it just isn't in the screenshot.

Unfortunately the title grouping only supports latin characters for 3.8.

Originally Posted by ---MAD---

I guess no PM reporting system will be added in 3.8

Keep guessing
Reeve of Shinra - Fri 22nd Aug '08 1:34pm

Darren,

Long shot but any chance of a

a) Forum to Group Discussion importer?
b) Usergroup Members to Group Members importer?
Razasharp - Fri 22nd Aug '08 3:16pm

If we do get a report PM feature it would be great if an exact copy of the PM is sent (so it's not just 'forwarded' via the normal forward function, as I think some sneaky sods may edit the forwarded version! lol) perhaps the same way as posts are reported so they appear in the reported post forum we currently use for reported posts.

Also, it sounds like a lot of 3.8 is done.. maybe we won't get a 3.7.3 after all :lol: (unless there are more features to be announced!)
Floris - Fri 22nd Aug '08 3:20pm

Is it possible to get all unread messages in a group, so unread msgs from a year ago are easier to find?
---MAD--- - Fri 22nd Aug '08 5:42pm

Keep guessing

:O - Looking forward to hearing more then .
cheat-master30 - Fri 22nd Aug '08 6:57pm

Looks excellent so far, especially the new PM features and the layout of the improved social groups.
Ryan Ashbrook - Fri 22nd Aug '08 9:58pm

Looks great, can't wait to get it live.
kapoor22 - Fri 22nd Aug '08 11:32pm

Eagerly waiting for this to go live.
sweetfunny - Sat 23rd Aug '08 1:17am

Excellent stuff guys, the amount of time i have spent searching for PM's over the years is incredible. We really need this PM sorting functionality yesterday.

I can't wait, i can ditch my Control + F and trying to remember words in the title to quickly scan PM pages to find a PM method.
Michelle - Sat 23rd Aug '08 7:36am

Nice work!

...and if you select title, the messages will be grouped within A-H, I-P, Q-Z, 0-9 et cetera.

Please take upon consideration foreign languages as well for this.