Extending functionality of the forum

Master

Location: Warsaw, Poland

Friday, September 24th 2004, 1:02pm

I see that there are some people that get annoyed by new users asking same questions over and over.
I don't know the inner workings of Burning Board, but maybe it is possible to add an information
displayed to user when he starts his first thread (and don't forget about guests).

Such information should contain links to the tutorials, Qt Documentation, Qt Wiki, inquiry to use
search feature or google before posting, choosing the right board, adding essential information (like
platform and Qt version) and so on.

What do you think about it? Is it possible?

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djanubis

Professional

Posts: 1,370

Location: Moulins France

Occupation: Software ingeneering

2

Friday, September 24th 2004, 2:15pm

RE: Extending functionality of the forum

Should be possible modifying some of the templates.
But, by exprience, I doubt this will have a positive result, except on a minority. Most users never read the docs, even if written in huge chars and blocks.

And more often, they think their problem is unique

even if the question arises ten times a day.

Never patch not working code. Rewrite it !
Never patch badly designed classes. Recreate them cleanly.
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wysota

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Location: Warsaw, POLAND

3

Friday, September 24th 2004, 2:42pm

RE: Extending functionality of the forum

Well... I've been thinking. If the forum was divided into smaller parts, it would be much easier to find things there. Let's take Qt Programming as an example (as it is the bigest one here). It could be divided into General, Networking, Database, GUI, container classes. This way it'd be much easier to find solutions if someone doesn't want to dig into the archives. Of course it also has a disadvantage - I bet many people would post to the wrong forum and mods would have more work with it

But, hey! That's what are mods for, right?

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jacek

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Posts: 2,729

Location: Warsaw, Poland

4

Friday, September 24th 2004, 2:47pm

RE: Extending functionality of the forum

AFAIR this week someone post a question, because he didn't find the solution by searching the forum.
The problem was that he searched only one forum and the question was answered on the other one.

Update (I forgot to add a conclusion):

Subdividing forums may cause some problems for new users. Maybe adding something like "Search in
all forums" functionality on the main page will help?

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This post has been edited 1 times, last edit by "jacek" (Sep 24th 2004, 2:52pm)

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wysota

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Location: Warsaw, POLAND

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Friday, September 24th 2004, 2:54pm

RE: Extending functionality of the forum

If you make a search on some forum, you automatically search all its subforums, so that's not a big problem. Besides, the default for seach is "All Forums", so one has to explicitly change it to look on the wrong one...

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jacek

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Location: Warsaw, Poland

6

Friday, September 24th 2004, 2:59pm

RE: Extending functionality of the forum

Quoted

Originally posted by wysota
Besides, the default for seach is "All Forums", so one has to explicitly change it to look on the wrong one...

Go to Qt Programming forum and search for "canvas" and then go to Qt Designer forum and search again.

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wysota

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Friday, September 24th 2004, 3:04pm

RE: Extending functionality of the forum

Both forums are subforums of "Qt" category. It's the quick search box on the bottom that causes that only the current forum is being searched. If you use the search button from the upper bar, you can search in all boards. Besides, if we had a forum "Canvas", all questions and answers concerning it, would (or rather should) be put there.

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jacek

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Location: Warsaw, Poland

8

Friday, September 24th 2004, 3:15pm

RE: Extending functionality of the forum

Quoted

Originally posted by wysota
It's the quick search box on the bottom that causes that only the current forum is being searched.
If you use the search button from the upper bar, you can search in all boards.

The problem is that the quick search box is easier to spot. Maybe admin could add a link labeled
"Advanced search" and pointing to search.php page or even another button like "Search in all
forums".

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tuxipuxi

Unregistered

9

Friday, September 24th 2004, 5:30pm

Hi,

I don't really understand the problem with the search functionality. When I want to search for something, I click on "search" in the header, which is visible in all forums. By default, it searches in "All Forums" and subforums, which is what you would expect.

Though, splitting "Qt Programming" in subcategories would make sense. I'll discuss this with the other mods.

Michael.

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wysota

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Location: Warsaw, POLAND

10

Friday, September 24th 2004, 5:43pm

Quoted

Originally posted by tuxipuxi
Hi,

I don't really understand the problem with the search functionality. When I want to search for something, I click on "search" in the header, which is visible in all forums. By default, it searches in "All Forums" and subforums, which is what you would expect.

Yeah, we know you do

We do too

But some people don't and they are unable to find answers already given to their questions, because they use quicksearch (I have to say that I didn't notice the quicksearch box until today

).

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jacek

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Location: Warsaw, Poland

11

Friday, September 24th 2004, 6:14pm

In my opinion it's easy to overlook that search tab. Maybe adding some information like "you
are searching only in forum xxx, you may try searching the whole site using..."

These are just loose ideas, but it is better to discuss problems, than say that there is no hope.
I know that some people will still ask common questions, but we can try to find a solution to
reduce their number and therefore preserve our time for solving real problems.

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djanubis

Professional

Posts: 1,370

Location: Moulins France

Occupation: Software ingeneering

12

Friday, September 24th 2004, 6:35pm

Such simple infomation changes are really easy to create and implement. The quicksearch feature is in /templates/thread_search.tpl.
It would be easy to add a simple sentence to this (or a global search link).

A test in thread.tpl can be added and display some "start reading FAQ, studying tutorials and use the search button with coherent query would help you before asking the same question for the 1,000,000,000 time. Hav a nice time in the forum." stuff.

To whom should I submit the patches

Never patch not working code. Rewrite it !
Never patch badly designed classes. Recreate them cleanly.
(Excerpts from Computing Bible)

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wysota

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Location: Warsaw, POLAND

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Monday, October 18th 2004, 2:01pm

I have a suggestion... why not disable the ability to create new threads on the announcement board? This way only moderators could spawn new threads there. The possibility to reply should be kept, though.

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Christian

Unregistered

14

Monday, October 18th 2004, 4:15pm

Hi,

here are my suggestions (some are just adapted):

make the announcement board read-only for users/guests - writeable for mods. If you wanna announce something just contact a mod or write me an email - because many 3rd party companies and users should be able to make Qt related announcements there too...
you could add a big link (like I do) in your signatures to http://s.qtforum.org/.
I could edit the templates a bit that a small search field is visible in the header
[/list=a]

I am against splitting Qt Programming into more diffentent forums. If you have a Qt related questions you have only two forum where you could post - Qt Programming and Qt designer. Easy

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wysota

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Location: Warsaw, POLAND

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Monday, October 18th 2004, 4:40pm

Quoted

Originally posted by Christian
If you have a Qt related questions you have only two forum where you could post - Qt Programming and Qt designer. Easy

Yeah, that's why many people post elsewhere - just too few choices

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