XF 2.2 Forum and thread types

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Forums contain threads and threads contain posts. It's been the essential framework of forums on the Internet since the public migrated from usenet to the web.

The structure is well known and well understood - though the origins of some of the terminology are lost in the mists of time. Who ever came up with the notion of your site being a forum, but these separate containers for related threads also being forums? 🤷🏼‍♂️

But back on topic, and we all know that visiting a forum (the second type) will usually show a list of threads ordered with the most recently updated near the top, and that clicking on any of those threads will show a page with the oldest post first and newer posts underneath and on subsequent pages.

Bending discussion forums to varying purposes

Over the years, forum administrators have been inventive and used the simple messages-in-named-containers structure of forums to build all sorts of content - let's look at the XenForo community as an example.

First, we have announcements and these "Have you seen" threads. These are quite focused on the initial post (or first few posts in some HYS threads), with these posts containing a lot of information... a bit like an article with subsequent comments.

Then we have the suggestions forums, where we ask people to up-vote the ideas they're interested in.

There are also support forums where people are looking for answers to questions or solutions to problems.

And of course there are also forums for general chat and discussions, which most closely fit the original notion of a discussion thread and where you can't really say the threads fit the same model as the other types.

Up until now, these forums and the threads within have all been displayed the same way.

But not any more

With XenForo 2.2, we are introducing the concept of Forum and thread types. This is a massive change with enormous ramifications for forums. Today, we're only really going to talk about the admin and user experience of the new systems, but in a few days we're going to follow up with a developer-focused HYS where we will talk about what's going on behind the scenes here, because we're really rather excited about the potential it unlocks.

There is a lot to talk about, but let's just dive into some examples...

tl;dr

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It will be great if the XF staff release a full admin manual of how all these new Thread types work.

A proper manual not just what this option does etc.

So that we know all the ins and outs and possible ramifications etc.

Rather than just finding it out on the go.
 
For the article types, will we make sure the FBOG info is somehow set?

Want to make sure I can share my "article" on social media and get a big pretty preview image :)
 
You guys are ramping up with better and bigger things each post :D

Question Threads - Not really relevant for me, but can see it being hugely useful for some types of forums.

Articles Threads - THIS is awesome, and handy for forums where news articles are often discussed. Can see this being a massive hit and really working well.

Suggestion Threads - THIS is awesome too, and comes in handy when you are trying to gauge popularity for multiple suggestions where a poll is restrictive or not really going to work.

Tabs are a great idea for the various content types, but might confuse some users, albeit limited by nodes helps, and eliminates the need for things like "NEWS" Prefixes.

My potential concern is in regards to how these interface on mobile browsing, where real estate is at a premium.

Oh my goodness... amazing news! Great job!

Whilst secretly thinking "this is going to create a HEAP of work to style" :D?
 
It will be great if the XF staff release a full admin manual of how all these new Thread types work.

A proper manual not just what this option does etc.

So that we know all the ins and outs and possible ramifications etc.

Rather than just finding it out on the go.
You expect the docs to be updated prior to the release?🤨
 
yes so that we know how to use the new features properly and so that we know how to set them up

I'm stil waitig for a mnaul on
Reports
Emails
Titles and Trophies

Have you looked int the manual?

Trophies
Trophies add a light gamification element to your forum. They allow you to define certain thresholds and criteria for when a user is awarded a trophy and the associated points. The top trophy point earners are then displayed in the notable members list.

When defining a trophy, you will specify the number of points it is worth and the criteria that is required to receive it. Once a user meets that criteria, it will be automatically awarded. Note that once awarded, a trophy will not be revoked, even if the user no longer meets the criteria.

Deleting a trophy will remove the points from any user that has received it.

If you prefer not to use trophies, you may disable them using the option at the bottom of the trophy list.

User title ladder
The user title ladder allows you to define a progression for the title that is displayed below a user's name in their posts, on their profile and in various other locations. You may select whether the ladder is based on the number of messages the user has posted, likes they've received, or trophy points they've been awarded. As these values increase, they will receive a different title from the ladder.

Note
The user title ladder is only used if a user does not have a custom user title specified in the profile or in their display styling user group. Those will take priority if specified.
When a user's title comes from the ladder, their title will be the highest value on the ladder that's below their value for the selected field. For example, if you have entered titles for 0, 50, and 100 messages and and the user has posted 80 messages, they would receive the 50 messages title.

To ensure that all users receive a title, we recommend that you specify a title with a minimum value of 0, however this is not required.

Email
Immediately after installation, XenForo will be able to send email on most servers using PHP's default mailing settings. However, if you wish to control more aspects of the mail sent by XenForo, log into your admin control panel, go to Options and into the Email options group.

Transport configuration
The Email transport method controls the approach to sending mail. The two methods supported by XenForo are:

  • Default – This uses the default configuration of PHP to send email. In general, this is the preferred option as it offloads the actual act of sending the mail to a dedicated program on the server, giving you better performance.
  • SMTP – This uses an outside server to send emails. In some situations, this can reduce the likelihood of your mails been seen as spam. While this option does give you a lot of flexibility when sending email, sending emails with this method will be slower than in the default method. This is because each mail is sent by XenForo, rather than handing it off to a dedicated program.
Additional options
There are several additional email options that you should consider setting.

  • Default email address – Most emails sent from your XenForo installation appear to be sent by this account. This must be a valid email address.
  • Bounced email address – When an email cannot be delivered, a message indicating this will be sent to the address you specify here. If you don't specify anything, it will go to your Default email address.
  • Default email sender name – Normally emails sent via XenForo will have a sender name of your Board title. This option can override that with a more reasonable name.
Email users
The email method will generate an email and send it to all the users that match the criteria you specify. You may send a plain text email, or a full HTML email.

To create a consistent look for your email, you may optionally wrap it in the standard XenForo system email wrapper.

You may also include an unsubscribe link with your email, in case any of the receiving users do not wish to receive any further emails of this kind.

Finally, you may opt not to actually send an email, but rather just generate a list of email addresses that match the criteria you specify, in order to send a message using a different email system, outside of XenForo itself.
 
They are certainly not going to update the manual before release. Nobody is on that version yet and many people do not read the forum to know it is coming. They will update it either upon release or shortly after.
 
Article forums

Ideal for site news or a blog, using the additional navigation options, you can easily set this up to display as the "home" part of your site or in another navigation section entirely.

this is a great improvement!

Question:
is it possible to display a certain number of "articles" directly at the "Homepage" ? Without the need for the user to first dive into a "Forum" ?
 
this is a great improvement!

Question:
is it possible to display a certain number of "articles" directly at the "Homepage" ? Without the need for the user to first dive into a "Forum" ?

I suspect you'd need a portal page add-on (assuming they add support for articles) or bash something out yourself. Not sure that base XF would have this capability.
 
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