CTA Featured Threads & Portal [Paid] 2.17.0
- Thread starter Paul B
- Start date
tommydamic68
Well-known member
Just a suggestion - the "share" buttons on the newest version in my opinion are making the FT on the home page very "noisy" or perhaps even cluttered. Perhaps just a "cleaner" look - small icons like below or even a "share" button like the New York Times website uses. 
OR...
When clicked - you get this...
OR...
When clicked - you get this...
FredC
Well-known member
Mr Lucky
Well-known member
Just installed it on a test. Looks wonderful so far.
But I may have missed something in the instructions.
I have enabled the home tab, and as in the instructions the URL of the home page is domain.com/threads/featured.
The link to the demo is http://cliptheapex.com/threads/featured however it redirects to the root. That is what i would like (and what people would expect of a home page) what is the best way to do that?
But I may have missed something in the instructions.
I have enabled the home tab, and as in the instructions the URL of the home page is domain.com/threads/featured.
The link to the demo is http://cliptheapex.com/threads/featured however it redirects to the root. That is what i would like (and what people would expect of a home page) what is the best way to do that?
Mr Lucky
Well-known member
Not publically, it's a password protected test site. I'll do some more work on it tomorrow and get back to you via conversation if I can 't sort it.
Bram
Well-known member
Hardcode/Add me as well to test 2.8 and future releases pleaseGreat stuff!
Just added you to the conversation
petertdavis
Well-known member
Brogan asked me to post some suggestions I made to him to open them up for comment.
The first couple I hope would be easy.....
1. Could we get a 'Feature' button at the bottom of the first post in a thread, down where the 'Edit' and 'Report' button are found?
2. In the box that pops up when you click feature, could we get the 'Feature indefinitely' option defaulted? Or better yet, in the admincp have the option to turn off that choice and automatically make all of them indefinitely.
A few more….
3. An RSS feed for featured threads Would be really wonderful to be able to feed these into our Facebook page, Twitter, etc to help promote our best content.
4. An easier way to use thumbnails from pics in the thread. Right now, if I understand correctly, I have to download the picture from the thread, then re-upload it when I’m featuring the thread.
Pie in the sky stuff......
5. When we do a search on a forum we get options for 'Search this thread only' and 'Search this forum only' how about a 'Search featured threads only' option?
6. I like the Similar Threads addon, and think it would be killer to be able to limit the similar thread to listing only featured ones.
Out of these, the RSS would be the one I want the most. 1, 2, and 4 will make it much easier to feature threads. 5 & 6 will make it easier for people to discover the best content on the forums, which is the real reason I wanted to use this addon.
The first couple I hope would be easy.....
1. Could we get a 'Feature' button at the bottom of the first post in a thread, down where the 'Edit' and 'Report' button are found?
2. In the box that pops up when you click feature, could we get the 'Feature indefinitely' option defaulted? Or better yet, in the admincp have the option to turn off that choice and automatically make all of them indefinitely.
A few more….
3. An RSS feed for featured threads Would be really wonderful to be able to feed these into our Facebook page, Twitter, etc to help promote our best content.
4. An easier way to use thumbnails from pics in the thread. Right now, if I understand correctly, I have to download the picture from the thread, then re-upload it when I’m featuring the thread.
Pie in the sky stuff......
5. When we do a search on a forum we get options for 'Search this thread only' and 'Search this forum only' how about a 'Search featured threads only' option?
6. I like the Similar Threads addon, and think it would be killer to be able to limit the similar thread to listing only featured ones.
Out of these, the RSS would be the one I want the most. 1, 2, and 4 will make it much easier to feature threads. 5 & 6 will make it easier for people to discover the best content on the forums, which is the real reason I wanted to use this addon.
Martok
Well-known member
Why? It seems like unnecessary duplication to me when it's available in the top right already. If you're suggesting it as a way for members to suggest a thread to feature then the Report link is fine for this (obviously you'd have to explain this to members) - a Feature link for this purpose seems unnecessary bloat as the 'feature reports' would have to go somewhere, either the moderation queue or a new 'feature' centre.
Definitely not a default of 'Feature indefinitely'! I never feature threads indefinitely so would hate this. I have no objection to an option in the ACP to set the default duration as long as any length can be set, not just indefinitely.
Could be useful to some I suppose.
This would be useful but I suspect it would be a lot of work. What about linked images too, would you want to be able to re-use these as well as uploaded ones? What about if the images aren't the correct dimensions for the Featured Threads icons?
Not convinced this would be that useful. Unless there are dozens of Featured Threads, (which you may have if you feature indefinitely but I suspect that most people don't), it's just as easy to look through the Featured Threads page to look for what you are after.
I'd say no to this. It creates a dependency on another add-on, something that I know Brogan isn't keen on. Besides, I think this is something you on should be asking the Similar Threads author rather than Brogan.
Lisa
Well-known member
The Feature/Update/Unfeature links don't really fit in either the public or private control areas as they are common to all posts. It would be non-standard to have some links there which only appear in the first post.
They are thread tools and therefore more suited to the tools dropdown.
As you can see from the post above, people want different things.
Someone else also asked for a different duration for featuring so to please everyone would require multiple new options.
I can look into that but it's going to result in quite a bit of bloat so in the meantime, the easiest solution is to edit the cta_featuredthreads_feature template.
Change this:
Rich (BB code):
<dt><label for="ctrl_create_feature_thread_indefinite"><input type="radio" name="feature_duration" value="indefinite" id="ctrl_create_feature_thread_indefinite" /> {xen:phrase cta_ft_feature_indefinitely}</label></dt>
<dt><label for="ctrl_create_feature_thread_expiring"><input type="radio" name="feature_duration" value="expiring" id="ctrl_create_feature_thread_expiring" checked="checked" class="Disabler" /> {xen:phrase
Rich (BB code):
<dt><label for="ctrl_create_feature_thread_indefinite"><input type="radio" name="feature_duration" value="indefinite" id="ctrl_create_feature_thread_indefinite" checked="checked" /> {xen:phrase cta_ft_feature_indefinitely}</label></dt>
<dt><label for="ctrl_create_feature_thread_expiring"><input type="radio" name="feature_duration" value="expiring" id="ctrl_create_feature_thread_expiring" class="Disabler" /> {xen:phraseThat has already been suggested and is on the list.
As has that.
I'm not sure how useful this would be really as the featured thread content is, in most cases, an exact copy of the first post (snipped).
I wouldn't store the duplicate content in the search index as that is just going to bloat the index unnecessarily.
I can look into adding a new tab and make the search results only return hits from the thread IDs which are featured.
I'm not sure how feasible (or useful) that is though.
I wouldn't be able to add functionality from another add-on. That add-on would have to hook into this.
I'm not going to say if or when any of them will make it.
But other than the first and last ones, the rest are on the list.
petertdavis
Well-known member
I didn't mean to make anyone butthurt over my suggestions. Obviously my agenda is different than some other people and my suggestions are meant to make the addon work better for my sites. The problem I'm trying to solve with this addon is helping my members find the best content on my site. We have millions of posts, hundreds of thousands of threads and many thousands of those threads are worthy of being featured. So, something as simple as having to click to change the option from temporarily featured to permanently featured is going to cause me enough extra clicks to wear out a mouse. Same thing with the picture upload thing, if you're facing doing that hundreds, or thousands of times, then you'd want something more streamlined as well.
A more interesting thing is the search function. When I suggested that, I wasn't thinking that we'd have to have duplicate copies of the data in the index. My thought was that if we can limit what we're searching based on things like which user posted, or which forum it was posted in, why can't we limit our search by if it was featured or not? Maybe that doesn't make sense the guy who codes it, but it would be a killer new feature for forums with tons of content and members who need to cut to the best content. The search functionality in XF is lacking overall, it's difficult to find good stuff, and I think this would really help my members uncover really helpful content that gets buried.
A more interesting thing is the search function. When I suggested that, I wasn't thinking that we'd have to have duplicate copies of the data in the index. My thought was that if we can limit what we're searching based on things like which user posted, or which forum it was posted in, why can't we limit our search by if it was featured or not? Maybe that doesn't make sense the guy who codes it, but it would be a killer new feature for forums with tons of content and members who need to cut to the best content. The search functionality in XF is lacking overall, it's difficult to find good stuff, and I think this would really help my members uncover really helpful content that gets buried.
Lisa
Well-known member
I don't think anyone was butthurt
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