I think having a customizable time scale would be an excellent feature. It doesn't have to be something open ended either, a drop down (Daily, Weekly, Monthly, etc).
This is already doable, XF Options -> Daily goals -> "Periodicity"
Also, having the ability to change the wording of the titles would nice. This is probably done through Phrases? I'm not sure, (I only started using XenForo two days ago). For example, instead of Members, I'd say Registrations or to even fit my forum's theme, I'd use the term Recruitments.
Yes, the titles are hardcoded to the respective content types phrase. So to change the title of the Poll goal, you would have to change the value of the
poll
phrase which would of course affect other usages of the phrase outside the addon.
I'll add the ability to input your own titles to the todo list
Being able to change the background color of the bar would be great. This is probably based on the Color Palette? Again, I'm not sure yet.
Style properties -> Daily goals -> Progress bar background
Something off in la-la land would be a simple text blurb motivating about the goal. "If we register 100 members this {month}, then a special discount of 15% will be offered on everything!", for example. This of course assumes other extensions are installed to provide said compensation, but the point is having a motivation right there in your face is pretty compelling to go for it.
I'm not sure how well this would fit inside the small widget box, assuming its placed in the sidebar (which is
usually where admins put it)
It could be in a tooltip when hovering over each goal (assuming they had separate incentives), but it wouldnt be "in your face" then and in fact could be easily missed
.
Try out the notice system in XF itself (Communication -> Notices), this might be what you're looking for already.
Have an option to calculate based on Scheduled Job (Cron) or Instant Calculation. Simply setting this option to a more instant gratification would really help smaller, newer, forums increase participation.
If it's a togglable option then maybe, I don't think it would scale well depending on the size of the forum and how many of the supported addons they have installed because each action would require 1-2 new queries (making a post, thread, new user etc).
But I know you're suggesting it as an option, so I wont rule it out entirely since it'd be up to the admin which way they want it to work.
Is there some place I can set the exact time I want this Widget to reset for the day? Like I would prefer if it would reset at midnight (EDT), instead of at 20:44.
Tools -> Cron entries -> [AP] Daily Goals: Reset counters at midnight
Though it should be running at 00:30 the following day, so today (the 4th) would actually get calculated at 00:30 on the 5th. Unless I'm mistaken this is how XF calculates its own daily statistics.