Quote to new topic

Quote to new topic Started by emanuele · February 07, 2013, 10:29:57 am · Read 425533 times 0 Members and 1 Guest are viewing this topic. previous topic - next topic

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Quote to new topic

February 07, 2013, 10:29:57 am

A while ago someone asked that at sm.org and I made a small mod:
https://github.com/emanuele45/Quote-to-new-topic
The idea is that frequently discussions derail. Diligent users (yeah, we know are very very few...), may find useful to start a new discussion from a quote, this mod facilitate this operation giving a button that quote the message and instead of bringing the user to the "reply" page, it brings to the "post new topic" page. Additionally the mod tracks the origin of the quote and the newly created discussion cross-linking the two with a note somewhere: for the message that generated the new discussion I used the space usually reserved for custom profile fields "below (or is it above?) the signature", while for the newly started topic I put the link to the original discussion within the "discussion" buttons (reply, add poll, etc.) to avoid template edits.

Another thing Feature Cat may find interesting.

emanuele is throwing here all his mods so that he can stop to support them

Re: Quote to new topic

Reply #1 – February 07, 2013, 12:11:03 pm

I could certainly see that as being quite useful ... may save the moderators the effort of the constant topic split when they go off in a new direction ... on the rare occasions that happens

Re: Quote to new topic

Reply #2 – February 07, 2013, 01:09:22 pm

I like this idea too. Sounds pretty useful. Why don't we have likes here on this forum yet?

Re: Quote to new topic

Reply #3 – February 07, 2013, 03:14:10 pm

Quote from: Spuds – February 07, 2013, 12:11:03 pmI could certainly see that as being quite useful ... may save the moderators the effort of the constant topic split when they go off in a new direction ... on the rare occasions that happens

On my forum, last time I had to split 7 pages of completely OT discussion from a 9 pages topic... LOL
Unfortunately this button wouldn't help much in such situations, because the OT grows slowly with posts both belonging and not belonging to the discussion...but that's another issue.

Re: Quote to new topic

Reply #4 – February 07, 2013, 04:36:49 pm

That's the only problem I can see with it in practice. Still could be useful though.

Re: Quote to new topic

Reply #5 – February 08, 2013, 07:39:41 am

Just thinking out loud, that same solution (i.e. link to another topic), may be used also when splitting: it would be easy to attach to the new topic "something" that says "this come from here", not sure where put the information on the original topic (i.e. from this topic another one has been created...maybe just a post from a bot...hey, wait I think I did that too somewhere else...yes, here: https://github.com/emanuele45/Split-and-move (see also the description on the mod site).

I think I should combine the two, it may come out something nice!

Re: Quote to new topic

Reply #6 – February 13, 2013, 10:30:14 am

Dis rreminds me of the behavior of mailing lists interrfaces: you starrts a new thrread frrom a quote, by changing the subject of the next email.
Easy, handy, yummy.

Quote from: emanuele – February 07, 2013, 10:29:57 amThe idea is that frequently discussions derail. Diligent users (yeah, we know are very very few...), may find useful to start a new discussion from a quote, this mod facilitate this operation giving a button that quote the message and instead of bringing the user to the "reply" page, it brings to the "post new topic" page.

Dis behavior is also consistent with Post select boarrd mod, that lets you to post into a different boarrd than where you starrted the post...

Feature Cat thinks that the user interface for these related features has to be consistent too.

Feature Cat likes consistency.

QuoteAdditionally the mod tracks the origin of the quote and the newly created discussion cross-linking the two with a note somewhere: for the message that generated the new discussion I used the space usually reserved for custom profile fields "below (or is it above?) the signature", while for the newly started topic I put the link to the original discussion within the "discussion" buttons (reply, add poll, etc.) to avoid template edits.

QuoteJust thinking out loud, that same solution (i.e. link to another topic), may be used also when splitting: it would be easy to attach to the new topic "something" that says "this come from here", not sure where put the information on the original topic (i.e. from this topic another one has been created...maybe just a post from a bot...hey, wait I think I did that too somewhere else...yes, here: https://github.com/emanuele45/Split-and-move (see also the description on the mod site).

Thing is, must choose then, for all links to "dis continues der": either a link in a reserrved space in the origin post, or an automatic message.

Feature Cat thinks that a reserrved space in the origin message is the best, if we cans make it into a sub-section of its own, templating-wise too. Think of "follow-up here" links...

Brrr... but in the other dirrection ("dis comes frrom der") ain't so useful, is it? Do you care, when you split off-topic without a quote, you probably do dat cuz it ain't relevant...

Re: Quote to new topic

Reply #7 – February 13, 2013, 03:26:32 pm

Also, what about when someone changes the title of one posts just for fun, or whatever reason, as people sometimes do? They don't necessarily want it split to a new thread. Sometimes it's just a way of accentuating a post within a thread.

Now admittedly, like changing message icons, this is not essential functionality and could probably be ditched. It is something people are used to, though. So, if we are going to ditch it we'd better make sure we know what we're doing and why.

rrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr < extra r's, just so Feature Cat can understand post. Yer welkum.

Re: Quote to new topic

Reply #8 – February 13, 2013, 03:32:48 pm

I don't think Feature Cat suggested to do the same thing. But Ema's quote to new topic is the equivalent functionality. (well, roughly offering a similar opportunity to change the topic)

Although...... now that you say that... People sometimes use the title change to accentuate something, yes, but if I think of it: it goes mostly unnoticed. The title just isn't that visible when changed randomly in the thread...

Re: Quote to new topic

Reply #9 – March 06, 2013, 07:08:31 pm

https://github.com/emanuele45/Dialogo/commit/303bebaa622a53210f54f13e6e426e749cd0a3f9

That is not the main part of the topic, but just the option to move the newly created topic while splitting.

ETA: at the moment the code doesn't give any warning if the user has move_own, but he is not the owner of the new topic...not sure if it makes sense to use fatal_lang_error, since it would just force the user to come back, I'd say a nice error/warning message would be enough.
Any opinion?

Re: Quote to new topic

Reply #10 – March 06, 2013, 07:14:34 pm

Part of that behavior would be a good doc comment

Re: Quote to new topic

Reply #11 – March 08, 2013, 10:39:47 am

And that's the main subject of the topic:
https://github.com/emanuele45/Dialogo/commit/f826df90ffac14458d2dbed25c324ee17a4b6e74

emanuele now goes back kill some other template.

Re: Quote to new topic

Reply #12 – March 11, 2013, 04:52:55 pm

This afternoon I realised something was not nice: the boards dropdown included all the boards visible to the user, having to make him guess where to post, so:
https://github.com/emanuele45/Dialogo/commit/cd1e33c8c5d515628271aa8b6881b6a634df2eec
I changed a bit allBoard to accommodate also permissions checks

emanuele likes stuff many things together...

(and since Spuds liked it's now on his way to the main repo)

Now, there is still just one minor thing left: the button is currently displayed only if the user can post in the board, while it should be displayed if the user has post_new permission on at least one board, easy to do.

I'm not sure if this will be in core, if not, it will for sure become an addon.

Re: Quote to new topic

Reply #13 – March 21, 2013, 10:55:04 pm

Thank you!

Quote from: emanuele – March 11, 2013, 04:52:55 pmNow, there is still just one minor thing left: the button is currently displayed only if the user can post in the board, while it should be displayed if the user has post_new permission on at least one board, easy to do.

Right, this should be default behavior, methinks.

Re: Quote to new topic

Reply #14 – March 24, 2013, 07:59:50 pm

Quick note: I'm sort of rebasing the branch to the new master because I realised I merged a branch I didn't need for that specific job (and that may require further work), getTopicsInfo.
As soon as this and the couple of other small issues are fixed I'll push it again and send the PR.