CTA Featured Threads & Portal [Paid] 2.17.0

[jauburn]

Just feature a resource discussion thread.

Ah, I see.

 

[Mike Edge]

Maybe to consider for the future: Ability to select multi featured threads and display one of them random so it is a different one each refresh.

 

[Paul B]

I'm not sure what you're suggesting.

You can already feature as many threads as you want, up to the limit you set in the ACP.
The display is already randomised each page view.

 

[Mike Edge]

I'm not sure what you're suggesting.

You can already feature as many threads as you want, up to the limit you set in the ACP.
The display is already randomised each page view.

Oh thanks! Missed that. I thought you could only feature one thread!

 

[Paul B]

I would recommend reading the release notes for all three versions

 

[Mike Edge]

I would recommend reading the release notes for all three versions

Yeah, I should have updated from release 1 to release 3 before making suggestions

 

[Paul B]

That functionality has been present since the first release.

From the resource description:

Each page load of the forum list will display a random thread from the list of available threads.
If there are no threads available, the block won't display.

The maximum number of threads which can be featured at any one time can be set in the options.

 

[The Sandman]

I've had a request on AdEx to allow users to hide/dismiss featured threads. Any thoughts on adding this as an option?

 

[Paul B]

I can't see the purpose of that personally.

The featured threads are going to constantly change based on the threads being featured and the duration.
So it's not really like dismissing a static notice.

I will however add it to the list for consideration.
If it is implemented it will just be a check box to completely remove all featured threads, not selectively dismiss each one.

 

[The Sandman]

I can't see the purpose of that personally.

The featured threads are going to constantly change based on the threads being featured and the duration.
So it's not really like dismissing a static notice.

I will however add it to the list for consideration.
If it is implemented it will just be a check box to completely remove all featured threads, not selectively dismiss each one.

While I tend to agree with you, I do realize it's from the point of view of a forum owner who wants to promote the forum's content. From the perspective of a member who visits regularly though, it might not be necessary and simply take up valuable space above the fold.

 

[DRE]

Can attachment thumbnails be used for the featured image yet?

 

[Paul B]

No.

 

[HenrikHansen]

Any chance to see "stacked" featured threads in a forum, ie. more than one featured thread at the same time?

 

[Paul B]

It has already been suggested and is on the list for consideration but at this point in time I don't think it's going to be implemented as it is going to push the node list too far down the page.

 

[Martok]

I'm very impressed with the Featured Threads add-on so far. I love the fact that it is so configurable in Style Properties.

I have a couple of issues I want to mention.

One minor issue I have is when featuring a thread that contain smilies in the text I want to display. I am using ones which are 26px high like this

What then happens is that for the standard setup in Style Properties for Thread Text, the last line in the Featured Thread box will be cut off at the bottom (due to to overflow: hidden. Removing this can work though could have the effect of the last line going over the Read more... link. Changing the text size or increasing the height in Miscellaneous for Thread Text solves it for that particular post but then posts with no smilies have the last line cut off at the bottom.

The easy solution of course is for me to simply stick with the standard settings and just remove any smilies. However, I just wondered if I am missing something that would easily solve this or if there is a way to get the Featured Threads to automatically expand to always fit in, say 4 or 5 lines of text?



The second issue is when trying to edit a Featured Thread - the Save Changes & Cancel button disappear off the bottom of the screen, as shown below.



Of course if you edit the text in here in the first place to display just what is required in the Featured Threads block then this won't occur. However, I know that some users won't edit anything at all and just leave the text as it appears when they feature a thread.

 

[Paul B]

I'm not sure I understand the first problem as smilies aren't parsed in the overlay or the output, they just appear as the replacement text.
Can you post an image to show what it is you mean?

The overflow:hidden is required to keep the display at the specified height - that can of course be changed in Style Properties.
You can try removing the fixed height and setting a max-height in the Miscellaneous box - I haven't tested that though.

As for the second issue, the overlay uses the standard code which is used elsewhere in XenForo, in that it automatically expands to a maximum of 300px high if there is enough content to warrant it.
The simplest solution would be to reduce the amount of characters pulled from the post - it is set to 1,000 by default. Try changing it to 800 or so and see if that works.

 

[Martok]

I'm not sure I understand the first problem as smilies aren't parsed in the overlay, they just appear as the replacement text.
Can you post an image to show what it is you mean?

Here's a screenshot:



As you can see, the smilie is parsed and displays in the block.

As for the second issue, the overlay uses the standard code which is used elsewhere in XenForo, in that it automatically expands to a maximum of 300px high if there is enough content to warrant it.
The simplest solution would be to reduce the amount of characters pulled from the post - it is set to 1,000 by default. Try changing it to 800 or so and see if that works.

I checked the text in my previous screenshot and it is 717 characters so already below this (though there are 5 blank lines too). The issue seems to have arisen because of the additional Do not change feature duration option plus the two lines of who/when featured and current feature duration text in the overlay when editing a featured thread (as you can see from the previous screenshot) which makes the overlay bigger than the overlay that is used when first featuring a thread.

 

[Paul B]

Oh so it is
I removed smiley parsing - it must have snuck back in after I changed the code to parse URLs but I never tested it again

I can't really do much about that as the smiley height is much larger than the standard line height for text.
Whatever you do is going to have an impact depending on whether there are smilies or not and how tall they are.

That was why I originally stopped them parsing, so I will have to update the code to stop that once again.

For the overlay, the 300px max height is the standard elastic css so you can either edit that or you can edit the cta_featuredthreads_edit template and add a max height to the overlay, like so:

<dd><textarea name="message" class="textCtrl Elastic" autofocus="true" id="ctrl_title_feature_thread_message" rows="@ctaFtOverlayContentRows" style="max-height: 250px">{xen:raw $featuredThread.featured_message}</textarea></dd>

I'll see if I can add some additional style properties for the max overlay heights for each template.

 

[Martok]

Oh so it is
I removed smiley parsing - it must have snuck back in after I changed the code to parse URLs but I never tested it again

I can't really do much about that as the smiley height is much larger than the standard line height for text.
Whatever you do is going to have an impact depending on whether there are smilies or not and how tall they are.

That was why I originally stopped them parsing, so I will have to update the code to stop that once again.

Please don't remove smiley parsing on my account. I just thought I would mention it in case there was something I was missing or something that could easily be done. I'm happy to just remove smilies from my Featured Threads due to my large smilies so that others with standard sized ones can use them.

For the overlay, the 300px max height is the standard elastic css so you can either edit that or you can edit the cta_featuredthreads_edit template and add a max height to the overlay, like so:

<dd><textarea name="message" class="textCtrl Elastic" autofocus="true" id="ctrl_title_feature_thread_message" rows="@ctaFtOverlayContentRows" style="max-height: 250px">{xen:raw $featuredThread.featured_message}</textarea></dd>

I'll see if I can add some additional style properties for the max overlay heights for each template.

It does seem odd behaviour for one of these overlays to 'misbehave' and the other not.

Here's some steps that you can try to see what I mean.

1. Select a thread and in Thread Tools click on Feature Thread
2. Delete the text in the overlay and it will shrink as expected
3. Type in some text and it will grow as expected
4. Continue to type in more text. The overlay will continue to expand until the Feature Thread and Cancel buttons are at the bottom of the page. Typing in more text will still keep these in place and a scroll bar will appear in the text box.
   
   All of the above is as expected. Now do the following:
   
   
5. Delete most of the text, leaving just 3-4 lines
6. Click on Feature Thread
7. Now in Thread Tools click on Edit Featured Thread
8. Type in some text and the it will grow as expected
9. Continue to type in more text. This time, the Save Changes and Cancel buttons disappear off the bottom of the page.

Now I might be wrong, but I wouldn't think that this is expected behaviour?

 

[Paul B]

Please don't remove smiley parsing on my account.

I'm making it an option so the admin can decided whether to display smilies or not.
With odd line heights though there are always going to be issues with text cut off so the only solution would be to have all identically sized smilies, as is the case with the XenForo default smilies.

1. Delete most of the text, leaving just 3-4 lines
2. Click on Feature Thread
3. Now in Thread Tools click on Edit Featured Thread
4. Type in some text and the it will grow as expected
5. Continue to type in more text. This time, the Save Changes and Cancel buttons disappear off the bottom of the page.

Now I might be wrong, but I wouldn't think that this is expected behaviour?

Which browser and OS are you using?
It works as designed for me - once the height of the overlay reaches 300px, a vertical scrollbar appears and the overlay remains at that height no matter how many more lines of text are added.
I can't reproduce the problem you have described.