New Forums

Vault Feedback/Tech
1

Hello.

These are new forums that are infinitely better than the old ones.

Discourse has a lot more features, is way more usable (even on mobile), and I think everyone agrees it’s the best choice to move forward. Thus, we’ll stick with it.

FAQ

How do I log in?

Click the “Log in” button, which will take you to the vault home page. If you are already logged in, you will be straight back with your user account in place; if not, just log in (or create an account).

Where is my forum signature?

We’re using Discourse as the forum software. Discourse does not support per-post forum signatures. You can add some discoverable information in your user profile though.

What is going to happen to the main vault page?

Nothing. This forum software is just better and replaces the Drupal forums. Nothing else will change: Projects should/will still be posted on the main page. I will be looking to integrate the two better in the future.

I’m missing a forum cateogry! Why did you delete it?!

The current setup is the bare basics and is not the forums final form. If you need a category, we’ll add it on demand! Just post in the Vault subforum: https://forum.neverwintervault.org/c/vault.

My moderator access is gone.

Permissions and group associations are not transferred automatically. If you want to moderate parts or all of the forum, with all the trouble this brings with, say so!

The theme looks default-y.

Yes. It’s a time issue, but don’t worry: Will be done. Discourse doesn’t support per-user themes at the moment, but a future update will bring them, at which point everyone can set their preferred theme … as soon as they exist, of course. I will be trying to improve the theme meanwhile and make it a bit less boring.

Import existing posts/threads.

This was not possible for various reasons (mostly because of SSO accounts and storage format, if you must ask). The old forums will remain read-only and never be deleted. If you wish to continue a discussion or have something over there that should be in here, I would ask you to do a simple copy/paste and fix up the formatting as a one-shot.

And finally …

This thing is still pretty bare with regards to configuration (for example, the Trust Levels feature might need some tweaking). Never fret. If you find something to your dislike or are in disagreement with something, post here.

– niv

1 Like
5

Will the existing forum posts be moved over?

Also this is a post to test the forums

:smiling_imp:

1 Like
6

That’s a complicated question. For now, I’d like to keep it a manual process: Pick the important/sticky ones and repost them via means of copy/paste/reformat. I don’t think that’s a huge effort, as there should not be that many.

The issues are mostly: Post formatting/content transform (drupals wacky html/xml->discourse), SSO account association (would need to prepopulate all accounts), and associating old forum categories to new.

This is certainly doable, but a few hours effort at the very least. If there is really a great point to be made to import ALL old data, I can look into it, but I don’t think the gain/effort ratio is high enough at the moment; so I was just going to leave the old forums linked here and turn them read-only.

7

When you make themes, please make one that is dark. All this bright white is hard on my eyes.

3 Likes
8

Can you move the old Bioware forums over here?

9

That is being worked on: Old Forums Archive? | The Neverwinter Vault

10

You rock–hard. :smile:

11

My vote goes to having a dark theme as well… Otherwise - very nice work Niv.

12

Definitely a dark theme… it’s currently like sitting outside the shack in Antarctica without polarized shades and thus going steadily ice-blind. Please make allowances for those of us who are largely Nocturnal Predators.

1 Like
13

Yeah, make it all dark and grooovy, like the goth old bioware forums.

14

Question:
There is currently a column, approximately a fifth of the screen width (are Fifth-Columnists present?), to the right hand side of these Forums. It is, essentially, more or less, empty. Thus it appears to be waste space.
I assume there’s probably some high, incomprehensible purpose to this space and that it will have something put in it at some point… but if not, any chance of the Forums being full screen width?

15

Like the vault, discourse can be followed on twitter. This was posted today and may be of interest to those who don’t like the current white background. Click on the picture to view the various parts larger. Bear in mind that it should be present in the next update to discourse.

I also came across a tutorial on a feature of discourse that looks very interesting even if I don’t think I’ll have a use for any time soon.

TR

16

The forums are looking good to these old eyes. The one thing that would be nice to have though is a way to add a signature. Other than that, it seems just about ready for prime time.

1 Like
17

Is it possible to make a clearer distinction between unread and read threads? At the moment, the only difference is a slightly bolder font for the title if the thread has unread content, which is hard to see. OK, the unread stuff lists first if you choose a sensible view, but it’s still easy to miss new contributions.

18

@PLUSH_HYENA_of_DOOM The forum is limited to a max width for readability (not my design, but I stand behind it). Imagine opening the page on a ultra-wide screen (or even just standard 16:9) and the text would go all across. You’d have to scan each line and it would be a nightmare to read. I think the recommended width is about “bookish”, or 80 columns, for paragraphs to remain pleasantly readable.

@Tarot_Redhand has it right: Per-user themes are coming in a future Discourse version. Meanwhile, I will be looking into making it more nuanced on a global basis, but I’m not sure if having a black theme as the default/only choice is wise from a UX standpoint.

@Proleric I think unread topics also get the blue activity icon, no? I’ll have an eye out for it and see if it can be improved!

19

Here’s a page full of tutorials that is probably only really of interest to niv. One of the pages linked to that is full of interesting little hints and tips. Still can’t find a user manual though.

TR

20

Will we be able to delete a user from the admin panel on the vault and have all related content they posted remove a spam post on these new forums like it currently does on the old?

EDIT: looks like it may not. After making this post, the logs do not show any related CONTENT posted as it did with the old forum.

You know, like this forum post from this morning I saw.

content 2017-04-29 07:54 forum: added This makes loans more open for borrowers.

This was spam. By deleting the user, it removes everything they ever posted, cleaning up in one smooth motion.

I am not seeing any content forum posts in the admin logs anymore with this forum software.

Gee, it doesn’t even TRACK this post under my own account as posted content :confused:

21

Is there a screen like this ?

76a144c79c03d27576fd9356fb3ede4004d73cf4.png1142×609 9.32 KB

Depending on the amount of posts the account has, I think you need to delete the posts before the user.

22

@FP I think this page answers your question with a big fat yes.

TR