Dear John,
since the traffic in your forum seems to be growing and growing it might be due to re-design it a bit, no? Please think about some changes.
There are three things which make the use of this forum a severe inconvenience, especially because of the need to scroll almost indefinitely:
1. The "Last post"-section lacks a button behind the name of the last poster which actually leads to the last post of each thread directly.
2. The number of posts on each page of a thread is way to large, which causes one to scroll and scroll and scroll...
3. 2. is even worse since one has to scroll all the way down in order to be able to go to the next page of a thread since the page-buttons are located at the bottom of each page only (instead of having another row at the top of each page).
Not to bad all this, you think?
Well go to the "PortableAppsMenu Modr10 - Outdated"-thread in the "Beta Testing"-section and try to have a look at the very last post there and you will know, what I am talking about...
BR
zikarus
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2. The number of posts on each page of a thread is way to large, which causes one to scroll and scroll and scroll...
Actually, this is a good thing since the latest page isn't pulled up automatically. Better to "scroll and scroll and scroll" than to go through a punch of pages. Also, there's a button called "End" on your keyboard. PgUp and PgDn are nice too.
Vintage!
No, 1. + 2. + 3. is just a tad to much imho
The number of comments per page is fixed at 50. The last link only works on one page threads. There is no way to fix this until it is fixed in the CMS that runs this site.
Sometimes, the impossible can become possible, if you're awesome!
As long as this is not fixed - in Drupal I guess - would it be possible to reduce the number of posts per page down to e.g. 25? Otherwise it is quite impossible to have at least a bit of fun when taking part in active discussions in which the number of posts grows quite fast (like in the mentioned)...
Drupal seems to be one of the least user friendly CMS by far. You should seriously consider a change if your traffic keeps on rising...
Setting it to 25 increasing the problem of the whole click the link to see new posts thing.
Drupal is the *BEST* open source CMS out there... by a wide margin. It's just that its built-in forums work a bit differently than normal forums. But, most normal forums suck usability-wise (with 10 million buttons and everyone having blinking animated avitars) so that's not such a bad thing.
Sometimes, the impossible can become possible, if you're awesome!
There are so many problems in the current setup. Look into having Drupal show page numbers for each thread in the forum page and having a thread view frame in the comment page (so a poster can have some context without going back). There are ways of having Drupal function more like a "normal forum" (there is such a discussion (with a link) somewhere in here). Don't like avatars? Fine.
Vintage!
You can't do much of what you ask without hacking core modules. Which means upgrades are a nightmare and require rehacking on each upgrade. Don't have the time for it. The only options for forums that are modules (no hacking required) just allow you to do flat forums (unthreaded). That's about it.
Most threads are only 20 to 30 posts max, which are dead easy to follow. The avg number of posts in a thread is probably around 5 or so. Only about a dozen of the 7,000 threads here expand beyond one page.
We've discussed this about 5 times now. The answer is still the same.
Sometimes, the impossible can become possible, if you're awesome!
"Drupal is the *BEST* open source CMS out there... by a wide margin."
If that isn't a bold opinion then nothing is. I would have to totally disagree with that. One man's treasure is another man's junk. Plus most forum software is configurable enough to turn off or on anything you wish.
This layout has gotten on my nerves from day one but it's all we get so we deal or we don't. Never liked spinach either and mom's made me eat it when I was little.
_______________________________________________
pkeffect.com
"We exist in a multidimensional polymorphic hyerspacial internode of neurotranslinguistic manifestations subjugated by hyperbolic quantum entanglement."
Note that I said CMS. Drupal's forum ability does leave quite a bit to be desired... and it's only intended to be a simple forum setup. But, I stand buy my statement that it's the best CMS out there. I tried several before settling on it and it's just been getting better with each release.
There are other options forums-wise, but I'm sticking with keeping it integrated and using Drupal's forum module for now. I could switch to a flat-style forum layout (Drupal supports that), but I prefer the threaded setup. I am planning to go semi-threaded (ala Digg) once I get some time to develop a theme setup for it. I have the ability to use avatars and embedded images off as that's a distraction from content with most forums.
Sometimes, the impossible can become possible, if you're awesome!
I'm sorry to resurrect such an old post, but I had one additional question. First I'd like to say I accept all your answers to the previous poster, so I will not bring that up
My question is if it's possible that when replying on a page > 1 in a multi-page thread that the forum can return you to your reply instead of the first page of the thread? Thanks!
That isn't supported in the current Drupal release. But it's pretty rare. Especially since I increased the number of comments per page.
Sometimes, the impossible can become possible, if you're awesome!
Thanks for that BTW.
--
Life is about the journey not the destination!
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The Kazoo Spartan
Life is about the journey not the destination!
The Kazoo Spartan