XF 2.2 A root-level forum with sub-forums - not possible?

[Steve Freides]

I am reorganizing our forum and having a problem.

When I move a forum out of a category by changing its parent node to "None", it works only if the forum did not have sub-forums.

When I move a forum out of a category by changing its parent node to "None" and there were sub-forums, all the sub-forums then appear as children of "None" and not children of the original parent forum.

If someone could explain and/or tell me what I need to do there, that would be great. My directive has been to simplify our forum's structure, and to that end I am aiming to have only a few forums with parent of "None", remove all my current Categories, and have any child forums live below a parent forum - that's what doesn't work for me now, as explained above.

Thanks in advance for your replies.

I am running v2.2.6 Patch 2

-S-

 

[Paul B]

Child nodes of nodes which are in the root and have no parent are displayed as siblings - at the same level.

It isn't possible to have them displayed as children.

 

[Steve Freides]

Child nodes of nodes which are in the root and have no parent are displayed as siblings - at the same level.

It isn't possible to have them displayed as children.

I request that this be made possible in a future version, please. Why it works this way makes no sense to me. Thank you.

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[Seeker-Smith]

I think if I understand you you are trying to do what I've done. I created a master node and then I was able to do lot's more with display.

 

[Steve Freides]

I think if I understand you you are trying to do what I've done. I created a master node and then I was able to do lot's more with display.

Ah, that sounds like a good workaround and I will try it shortly.

Why does this limitation exist, though, I wonder? XF is such brilliantly flexible software, IMO - seems odd that it can't do this one thing.

-S-

 

[Steve Freides]

@Seeker-Smith, in your picture, "Home Page" is your top level, your master node?

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[Seeker-Smith]

No home is a "page" with site info, then "Welcome" is a category node. The page does not effect the rest. I use the blanks because I use THnodes and I want to fill a section.

 

[Alan_SP]

Why does this limitation exist

You can then edit child forums and make them again child from the original forum. More work, but it should work. Most important is that you don't lose forums. Then you can sort them as you prefer.

 

[Steve Freides]

You can then edit child forums and make them again child from the original forum. More work, but it should work. Most important is that you don't lose forums. Then you can sort them as you prefer.

I tried exactly that but it didn’t work. They remained appearing as children of the root even though I specified something else. That’s what got me so puzzled.

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[Alan_SP]

From what @Brogan wrote, you should use category, then move forum there, then child forums would go where you want them.

 

[Steve Freides]

From what @Brogan wrote, you should use category, then move forum there, then child forums would go where you want them.

That is what I've done, and it's working well. Thanks!

-S-

 

[beerForo]

I had the same issue and some of the answers are here as to why they do it.

Design issue - Forum node issue

If you have a Forum node as the parent, and one as the child, the child does not act as a sub-forum, it acts as a forum in the same list. It should follow the sub-forum display rules you choose but it does not, it acts as a forum with same size row size and descriptions, like parent forum nodes...

xenforo.com

 

[Orit]

Child nodes of nodes which are in the root and have no parent are displayed as siblings - at the same level.

It isn't possible to have them displayed as children.

I think I may have figured a way to get it to work (still using XF 2.1):

In the node_list_forum template do the following:

Search for the line:

<xf:if is="$depth == 2 AND property('nodeListSubDisplay') == 'menu'">

and before the </xf:if> closing tag add the following:

<xf:elseif is="$depth == 1 AND property('nodeListSubDisplay') == 'menu'" />
<xf:macro template="forum_list" name="sub_nodes_menu"
arg-children="{$children}"
arg-childExtras="{$childExtras}"
arg-depth="{{ $depth + 1 }}" />

Then comment out the following (i.e place it within the <xf:comment></xf:comment> tags):

<xf:if is="{$depth} == 1">
<xf:macro template="forum_list" name="node_list"
arg-children="{$children}"
arg-extras="{$childExtras}"
arg-depth="{{ $depth + 1 }}" />
</xf:if>

Good luck,
And please let me know if there are any problems with this approach...



(I posted my workaround in a different thread https://xenforo.com/community/threa...-type-node-with-no-parent.188450/post-1536192 , but this thread is more recent so it may be more useful...)

 

[FTL]

I'd like to see them listed as sub forums too, but I've noticed that there's still a difference in presentation.

If a node is at the top level and not attached to any other forum, it appears with a space above and below it. If another top level node is created, then there's a gap between those two nodes. If a child node is then attached to one of them, or one of those nodes is made a child of the other, then the gap disappears, so one can still see that they're related.

Still, I think that we should have the option of making them look like second and third level links if we so choose, which is what I'd like to do. It makes for a more compact home page view, if nothing else.

I could put it as a formal suggestion in the upvote forum, but I doubt it's gonna happen. Maybe it's already been suggested, I dunno.

 

[Steve Freides]

@Orit and @FTL,

Thank you both very much for these suggestions and comments. The kind of change @Orit suggests is something I would leave to our developer as I admin our forum but don't make these kinds of changes - I've has passed along a link to this thread to him. And @FTL, yes, it would be nice for us to have control over this very fundamental kind of thing about what our forums look like to our users.

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[FTL]

Child nodes of nodes which are in the root and have no parent are displayed as siblings - at the same level.

It isn't possible to have them displayed as children.

Damn, I was just testing this and saw that behaviour. I want the subforum to sit under General Discussion and take up minimal space, but that won't be possible. Perhaps a future XF feature...

I might create a category to get around this limitation. I'll have a think.

 

[Steve Freides]

Damn, I was just testing this and saw that behaviour. I want the subforum to sit under General Discussion and take up minimal space, but that won't be possible. Perhaps a future XF feature...

I might create a category to get around this limitation. I'll have a think.

We are pretty happy with our current solution, which has been in place since last Fall. Feel free to poke around and see if it works for you. The basic gist of what we did is: we created a forum called Discussion, and the default view is of that forum, with a link called "Other ...." where some less popular but nonetheless necessary other sub-forums exist.

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[FTL]

We are pretty happy with our current solution, which has been in place since last Fall. Feel free to poke around and see if it works for you. The basic gist of what we did is: we created a forum called Discussion, and the default view is of that forum, with a link called "Other ...." where some less popular but nonetheless necessary other sub-forums exist.

-S-

Thanks, I'll check it out. As it is, I've created a category called NERDZONE GENERAL and put the existing General Discussion into it. Now, the child threads to GD appear small, as I wanted. Check it out.

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