At some point, the UGO Forums will (I assume) come down. It would be nice to have some sort of replacement solution in place before then, so I've installed a WordPress forum for the site that I'd like to test out.
If you're so inclined, give them a test run here, noting of course that this is all just a test and so nothing in there is going to be permanent (probably).
Let me know your thoughts as to ease of use, functionality, and just what you think of them overall. If they'll work, great, and if not I will try something else. The advantage to this particular forum from my perspective is that it was really easy to install and works within WordPress itself, but that doesn't mean anything if it doesn't do what you need it to do.
Thanks in advance for anyone who wants to offer their feedback!
One question for the moment. Will we be able to upload images to the site or will we have to host the images elsewhere?
One slight problem: If we were to try to port/repost all out stuff from the Custom Item archive, there is no way to attach the txt file (at least no way that I found). Posting those as plain text on the post itself will make it unreadable. Unless we AREN’T doing that, in which case this post is moot.
Looks good, I think. Might need some time to get used to it, but shouldn’t be too difficult.
Jeff, I created a topic on the forums themselves for people to critique the system in as well. It’s in the “Forum Support” section if you want to check it out…
You could alway post the file to a Box.net account or a dropbox account or similar web service then post a link to that file.
It’s a tad annoying to have to host our own files on other sights before posting them to the forum, if that is how the end result is going to be, which we don’t know yet, however if it is I can see the reasoning behind it. I’m sure that all that extra information pics text file ect would inflate the Cost to Jeff to keep the site up and running.
I try out the img and spoiler commands.
The img is working in the edit mode and after if someone want to quote the post. But i think in this forum no needed the img. But the spoiler command don’t worked. But personally i like this forum mode, need a little time but i think it’s easy to use.
I just tested the “spoiler” tags in the thread that Gero posted, and it seems to work fine — it hides the big long text string so you just get a gray box with a “show spoiler” link in it. I’ll poke around in the admin stuff and see if there’s an easy way to allow the posting of txt files as well as images.
In terms of having to host an image elsewhere, you don’t — in the “add image” box, there’s an icon of a folder with a magnifying glass over it that says “browse” when you hover over it, right next to the “Image URL” box. Click that and you can upload images directly from your desktop.
Give it a try and let me know what you think.
I’m gonna say I dislike this.
1. You can’t have full sized images.
2. Looks ugly (subjective, I know).
4. No attachments (but I don’t think anything outside of a paid for forum has attachments to my knowledge.)
If there’s no other options, fine, whatever. How about Zetaboards though?
http://www.zetaboards.com/
I think it looks a lot better. Plus there’s a better posting method (full or short, like UGO).
I’ve only had a quick look, so feel free to correct me if I’m wrong.
/twocents
I am not seeing that folder Jeff, maybe it is just enabled for Administrators ?
Jeff i try out the spoiler command only work if i use the lovercase. The capital letter writing mode don’t work it.
Hm, I think maybe the upload thing is a user-group level permission. Let me poke around a bit and see if I can figure that out.
I think it must be. I checked my permissions (little key icon next to my user name) and I had big red “Xs” next to “Can upload media”, “Can upload files”, and “Can upload images”
After many alarums and excursions (to channel Mr. Shakespeare), I managed to find where the setting was I had to change to make “Members” have upload ability. Which I have now enabled, and when logged in under a dummy account (aren’t all my accounts dummy accounts, ha ha) I can now see the little browse icon that lets you get to the place where you can upload stuff.
However, there’s nothing IN the little upload tab, and I don’t know if it’s due to some weird interaction with the caching plug-in or what. So I’m giving up for now and will revisit it later tonight or tomorrow.
It’s working now. I will warn other that it is not like the attachments on UGO forums. You upload an image to a folder on these forums, and then need to select the picture you want to add to the post from that folder to get the URL which is then auto added to the url box to post into your post.
Looking at the Permissions for a member I think one more permission needs to be granted “Can Delete Your Own Post”
i fail to see a custom item archive?
Yeah, I think I set these up before I did the ones in the UGO Forums, maybe? I should add them.
how i change my pic?
on here? go to Gravatar.com.
thanks
Seem to work good for me. I like it, it was smooth once I figured things out. I would like to have a post preview, if it is possible.
OK, I added all the “custom item” folders from the UGO site, though not the content.
I like the actual layout of the site, but I’m having a problem registering. I’ve tried two different emails and neither has gotten the confirmation password.
Vampyrist, you should be able to use the same email and password as you registered with WordPress for originally, you oughtn’t need to register again. But I’ll double check the user list and see what’s up.
Vampyrist, I checked and I do see you in the user list, though I don’t know what your status is. I sent you an email directly, post here if you don’t get it.
I got your email, but the email from wordpress with the password still is not there.
Hm, since that one would come from the heromachine.com domain (I think) it might be blacklisted or something. Make sure it’s not in your spam filter. In any event, I’ll send you an email from my gmail account with a password I’ll make up for you, and which you can change once you log in. I’m sorry for the hassle, this is all kind of new to me.
It worked, thanks for the help
Found a problem. I messed up the spoiler tag while making my signature (the little thing that appears at the bottom of each post you make), and have two problems, one bigger than the other. The small one (which I’m not sure if you can fix) is that there is no way to preview the signature, so you have to save it, and then go check one of your posts or refresh that page to see how it looks. The larger and more immediate (to me at least, with my messed up spoiler tags) is that once you save the signature the first time, you don’t have permission to edit it. So I’m stuck with a giant block of pictures with screwed up spoiler tags around them after each of my posts, taking up roughly half the page, and probably screwing up people by making the page load slower, and there’s no current way to fix it…
Just poking around a bit. Nothing major to report since it is all brand new. I do like the “image upload” function. The duplicate titles that don’t provide active links seem a smidge confuddling.
I assume that the HeroMachine Account is different than regular WordPress? Seems that it is set up only to work within the HM Forums. Which is fine because I am thinking of re-working WordPress for more commercial endeavors.
Don’t know how difficult it might be to do, but a link to Member Art Galleries would be nifty directly alongside the name in the Members list.
Moving any future observations to the Forums. See you there!
Gero, I responded to this on that forum post using a test account I made up. I’m able to edit my signature on that account by going up to the top of the forum page under the title. There’s a box there that goes all the way across the page, with the name and gravatar I’m using on the left, and then way over on the right there’s a link for “profile” next to the three big red boxes with numbers in them. Clicking on that “profile” link brings me to a page where I can edit my account info, and the rightmost button there is for “signature”. Try dinking around with that.
I was able to add an image and then I could still go back later and edit it. I wasn’t able to figure out how to hide stuff with the spoiler tag, though. But at least that ought to get you to where you can get the whole thing more manageable.
The account you set up here is only for this heromachine.com WordPress installation, yes. So if you have a WordPress.org account, for example, that’s not related to this one. But the Simple Text Forums I am using here shares the base WordPress heromachine.com installation’s account info — those are the same thing. So you only have one account and password for everything on heromachine.com, from the forums to the basic posting stuff, none of which is related to any other WordPress installation on any other site.
The exception to that is, of course, your Gravatar, which is tied to your email address via Gravatar, but that’s a totally separate thing from anything having to do with WordPress.
I hope I was able to muddle that sufficiently to cause mass confusion.
There is a permission set for that, several, actually. They range from “can delete own post forever” to “can delete own post until a reply is made to it” to the current “can never delete own post”. I’m inclined to stick with the latter, just because I can see how it would get confusing if someone went in and deleted or edited a comment from months prior, making all the replies a bit nonsensical.
But I’m certainly open to changing that down the road, definitely.
That’s the button I went into to do it, but after the first time I did it I couldn’t change anything. There’s still a signature box, but you can’t click inside it or select any of the text or images inside it. Also, across the top of the page are these three symbols (which also can’t be clicked on): “Required Data” (with a pencil writing on a piece of paper icon next to it), “Displayed on Profile to Other Memebers” (with a silhouette of a person and a speech bubble icon next to it), and (and this is the one I think is causing the problem) “Data Cannot Be Changed” (with a sheet of paper with a red lock in the bottom right corner icon next to it).
I think that maybe regular users (or maybe just me) do not have permission to edit the signature after it is first created…
Now, I did go ahead and try to edit yours, and what I noticed is a weirdness where you have two boxes that aren’t at all obvious as boxes. The top one allows you to edit it but the bottom one doesn’t, like the bottom one is supposed to be a preview pane or something while the top one is the editor. I was able to make edits in the top one on your account, but not the bottom one.
The post I did was from a test account that doesn’t have admin privileges so it’s just like everyone else’s.
If you want, I can go into your signature as the admin and just delete it all so you can start over. But you definitely should be able to edit it after the fact.
Just looked at it again. Still can’t change anything, but somehow there is a correct spoiler tag in it (but around the whole thing, instead of one around each picture). Did you fix that, or did wordpress somehow partially correct my messed up tags?
One cool thing, there are RSS feeds for the whole forum set (http://www.heromachine.com/forum/?group=1&xfeed=group&feedkey=fc71a202-0543-47b8-99e9-9576ae5934e5) on down to individual threads if you want to subscribe to them via an RSS reader (I use Google Reader).
That’s how I think I am going to keep track of posts to the forum, through Google Reader and the overall RSS feed.
I tried to fix it, but the spoiler wasn’t working right — by default it was expanded and clicking on it made it hide. While I think what you wanted was for it to be hidden by default, no?
I don’t think they intended links to be used in signatures, I noticed a thread on their help forums about that. The user wasn’t able to edit his signature after putting in a link but I really think it was the doubled box thingie.
I think I got it working. Didn’t see the little top one before, but you’re right about it being the “edit” box. I guess the big one is just a really weirdly done preview that shows the tags instead of their effect. Thanks for the help!
Gero, looking at it again, when I go to edit your profile I see doubled boxes, one at the top that has all the edit buttons in it, then half-a-Deadpool further down, another horizontal blue bar labeled “path: p” that then shows the entire sig. I can edit in the top one, but nothing below the blue “path: p” bar. Are you seeing that?
Cool, glad it worked out! This is a learning experience for all of us (me included), that’s for sure.
I do like how it all seems more integrated into the site, as opposed to the UGO Forums which were always standalone.
I’m not happy with the layout and visual design, but I don’t know how much time I’m going to have to tinker around with it to get it right.
Only thing still weird is that, as you said above, it seems to work in reverse, but I can try to look that up on wordpress’s faq site. I’m just glad it’s working at all…
Wait, now I get the second box too!
Cool! I haven’t had much of a chance to poke around on the WordPress forum yet, but one of my most used functions on Ugo was the “Newest Posts” button, so I could see what I missed since my last visit. I don’t know if the new forum has a similar feature, but the RSS feed should make a vialble alternative.
Hopefully I can find a suitable RSS reader for my phone.
I just use the Google Reader on my iPhone and it works. It’s not fancy or anything but it’s complete.
Duh, I’m using an HTC Android. You’d think I might actually stop and say, “Myro, you dunderhead! Of course there should be a version of Google Reader for your phone. Google made the Android OS!”
I’ll go over there and try not to embarrass myself any further.
The Forum does have an a feature to show you threads that have had new posts in them since the last time you visited. It is on the Right side of the screen just a tab bit down from the top. It says # Topics with unread Posts.
Oh, thanks Kaldath. I’ll check it out more when I get back to my computer. I would rather get myself acquainted on there than try exploring on my phone at first.
Can someone take a look at my most resent post in the forum (Forum Critique section)? I think something very strange happened to it, and I have no idea, why.
I gave it a quick spin, nothing serious, but it all looks good so far. Maybe I’ll try an image upload later.
Noooo. I like the old forum. This new one is complex, the old was easy. :'(
I’ll try to take the time and check it out later. A new start may be nice. Though with it in testing and possibly only temporary at the moment, I’ll probably keep it rather limited.
I don’t mean to get back to my old habits and change subject of topic, but since it is related, I was wondering something.
I posted in the ugo forums about an idea for a public domain/open source style universe. Admittedly it hasn’t drawn much attention, and the details are mostly nonexistent. However I was wondering if something like this could work? If other users would be interested? It would require its’ own section (the reason I bring it up). The details I have are here
http://forums.ugo.com/showthread.php?t=42196
as is it’s just a rough concept, if that.
if noone is interested sorry for bringing it up.
Hi Jeff. good to see the forum up and running. I have a couple of questions. firstly, how do i delete my tag from a thread? Also how do i delete a thread altogether? I don’t seem to see or have and delete functions. Cheers
Scorp
Scorp, users don’t currently have the ability to delete threads or tags. If I need to change that I will, but it’s the default setting. Is there some other setting you usually see on forums that you think I should change it to?
It would be good to be able to delete your own thread if you could. i ballsed up my tag on the topic i put in, if you could delete that off it would be appreciated mate.
OK, I changed it to where users can delete their own posts. I don’t see an option allowing you to delete your own “topics”, just an option to be able to delete ANY topic, which seems a bit too much.
The software only allows admins to edit topic tags as well, so I went ahead and changed your tag to “Brotherhood of the Axe”. Strangely it wouldn’t let me delete the tag completely, at least not that I could see.
One really big question, are you going to limit the number of threads a person can have in each section? Not making a new thread for every picture you post is where I’m going with that. UGO said that there was a limit of one each in the gallery, to make it easier to find peoples art work. That is one of the reasons I backed away from there. When Isia and I first started it was like you were killing someones cat if you started another tread, the Admin made it clear, only one. But after a while (before you took over) it was like they didn’t care any more. I’d go to the forum and see that people had five or six new threads, sometimes in one day, but nothing got said. It made it hard to find your own thread sometime, but it was harder to keep up with other peoples threads too. Please can we limit the threads, to keep it clean and easy to use. Plus keep it a nice place to go, no fighting, bad mouthing, and the likes, because there are young people that are there. HM is a real nice neighborhood, can we keep it that way. Keep the bad stuff to PM’s and not out in the open. One big soap box tonight.
HK, I don’t know if I know how to limit each person to just one thread in a particular forum (or group, I think these guys call them). I mean, I guess I could just say that’s the preferred policy … But I suppose that’s only for the Archives section, right? That certainly seems like a good idea for there, that way each person has one place with everything they’ve done.
In terms of community, I definitely would prefer to keep it friendly and supportive like the blog has been. My bullshit tolerance threshold is pretty effing low these days.
Yes in the Archives. All the other “groups” are kinda maded for more then one thread.
I would certainly make it a Rule ( though on UGO it never was an “Official Rule” that you couldn’t have more then one thread. It was Officially frowned on, but never forbidden. So yes I would if it were up to me make it an official rule but I would make it more along the lines you can not have more then one Thread in the Archive unless there was an acceptable reason to do so, like you wanted a Separate Thread for Fantasy and SuperHero pics. Admins and or Moderators can delete or Merge threads if need be to enforce this.
Yes, please! Sorry, I’m being catty. I, personally, all of your favorite alternative lean trim sexy tiger… ok, just me personally… I’m under a lot of pressure at work, too.
I empathize, Jeff. You’re going through a huge transition. We really appreciate your work. If you’re like me, the changes are a welcome release. A chance to escape and try new things, or at least expand upon untested ideas and escape drudgery.
How often do people get a chance to add content and provide direct input into a product? Let alone that you built this all from scratch. Pheh, there is more feedback here than Facebook would probably care for.
Our world-wide community ranges from 12-60 year-olds. Not all speak English. And I know there are at least a couple of 500 year-old wizards in the mix.
Not trying to suck up or blow smoke. If you feel under-appreciated and over-whelmed, I understand. It’s why we’re here. We jumped on your lilly pad and found it to be the biggest, softest, and warmest place where a prince might find us.
Good works and don’t be discouraged!
Thankyou kind sir, appreciate it.
Scorp
I think the separate thread for fantasy, super hero, etc. could go to far. Some people would be making threads for every genre they could think of. But an Archive for the different genres may work. That way if you are not a fan of the fantasy stuff you could just go to the Superhero Archive. But there could be to many archives,some main ones, Fantasy, Sci-fi, Comic Book(superhero), Horror,etc. But like Isia just told me she would want all of her characters in one spot. Which could be a General archive.
Hey Jeff one thing i realized our new forums cant do is have like i direct link i guess to a specific page. On the UGO ones my first page was a lis of all my characters and creations and u would be able to click the name and it would take you right too the specific post.
The text i had too use was [post=#]NAME[/post] If we cant get that then thats ok it was just convinient for orginization thats all.
There is a tiny little Icon on each post located right between the Report this Post and Print this post that will give you a link to go directly to that post. For Exanple: http://www.heromachine.com/forum/the-heromachine-art-gallery/kaldaths-creations/#p43
Will adding a poll function be possible? I make use of it every week for my item creation polls so I hope it’s within the realm of possibility.
You can do that here, CKnap — there’s a little “link” icon next to the Print icon in the headline for the post that you can cut and paste, like:
http://www.heromachine.com/forum/the-heromachine-art-gallery/kaldaths-creations/#p10
The link to the first page of your entire archive is what’s in the browser address bar, like:
http://www.heromachine.com/forum/the-heromachine-art-gallery/cknaps-character-gallery/
Let me know if that’s not what you meant.
There’s not native support for it in Simple Press, but you can use your own PollDaddy account to create a poll, then use the WordPress shortcode it gives you, I think … We’ll have to test that.
I was just thinking about dblades polls today and was considering talking to you and he about maybe moving them to the main blog page as a weekly feature to add more content to the blog.
That’s probably a good idea, if you’re up for it, dblade. Either I could make you an “author” which would let you make actual posts, or you could do the polls in PollDaddy and just send me the short code. The nice thing about PollDaddy is that it lets you put images in if you wanted to give people reference art.
I love the button, “#of unread post”, it helps you surf the forums smoother.
This sounds like a good idea. I’ll take a look at PollDaddy and see what it can do. Thanks
I tested it out earlier and it does work — after you make a poll it gives you a “share” dialog box; pick the WordPress option and it’ll give you a polldaddy= code inside brackets. That’s what you want to copy and paste into your comment. It should work for anyone.
Yeah thats basically what I ment, The only difference is in the other forums you could change the name of the link instead of being a URL you could add a characters name for the post, is that possible in this one? But yeah it does what I was talking about.
I do like your idea martian, people are going too have to give up characters but it sounds like a great idea. That way everyone can share ideas weather it be on story attributes like certain elements, races or even items. It would be worth exploring.
Would it still be okay to give it to you to post on the blog page? I would probably get a lot more voter participation. 🙂
I understand if you would like to keep the blog Hebert pure, though. So no pressure.
Sure thing, however you want to do it is good with me.
I think what I was talking about is called text links, I was looking up about them but still havnt figured anything out.
CKnap, if you mean you want your link to look and read a certain way to the person looking at the link, then use the html anchor tag, which is [a href=”http://www.whateveryourlinkactuallyis.com”]The Way You Want Your Link To Look[/a] — only you use angled brackets — <>instead of square ones. The link goes inside quote marks after the href= part of the statement.
So I could make a link to HeroMachine.com look like this:
CKnap’s awesome “Captain Planet” redesign
Thats exactly what I was talking about, I tried using it in the new forums but i cant seem to get it too work. I copied it and just changed the link and the brackets. But it doesnt seem to wanna change. :/
Somewhat off topic, but I was trying to access the forum from my phone. I must have hit the HM3 button by accident, and imagine my delight when I find that for the first time, it loads. I’ll admit, a touch screen smarrphone with a 3.5 inch screen isn’t the ideal platform for the program, but the fact that I actually can do it has intrigued me.
on the forum you need to use the [] brackets instead of the ones
CKnap Use this format on the forum: [URL=”http://www.heromachine.com/wp-content/legacy/forum-image-uploads/kaldath/Charthea-HM3.PNG”]Charthea[/URL]
It is basically the same as the one above however you replace a href= with url=
Genius! It worked thank you.