Add-on Glossary / Monetisation / Usability Mod

[Rob]

After a chat with Ashley the other day he has urged me to post a request for this mod due to the power it would give forum owners and for the multiple uses it could have.

In the absence of stock functionality for this I would like to propose a modification that will enable a forum owner to:-

• Improve site usability and readability (especially for niche sites)
• Help monetize a site with sponsored keywords
• Improve on-site SEO / crosslinking
• Extend the FAQ system with a Glossary of Terms that links site-wide
• Much more.... your imagination is really the limit

The mod could essentially do all these things and more if it were written to be flexible.

What should the mod do?
Administrator can define a keyword or keyword phrase and where a page where more info can be found. Any occurrences of the keyword/phrase in user content is turned into a hyperlink.

Global Options Required

• Global on/off switch for the system
• Specify which content types the system works on, eg... posts/conversations/profile posts/pages/etc/etc
• Specify if only plain text should be transformed or if text within bbcode markup and hyperlinks should be marked up also
• Limit the number of times the same keyword on the same page should be transformed. Occurences over this limit are left as is
• Mod should function on the fly without altering content in the database

Keyword / Phrase Options Required

• Ability to add/edit/remove a keyword or phrase
• Ability to link the keyword/phrase to a thread/page/node/FAQ Item or any custom URL
• Ability to make active / inactive each phrase (this is helpful at times)
• For pages and FAQ items, specify if content will load in an overlay (useful for glossary use)

Future Improvement Ideas

• Ability to specify a regular expression find/replace instead of a keyword/phrase
• Define templates and allow each keyword to use a template (eg, the replacement could be a snippet of HTML to allow the link to show in a different color, have an icon prefix or maybe even return a widget etc)
• Ability to specify replacement HTML instead of URL

Possible uses:-

• Define a site-wide glossary:- Useful for tech / niche sites where acronyms or industry terms are common place but may not be understood by average members... linking terms to a definition page could really help usability and help the users to understand posts in the context of how they are written
• Allow advertisers to sponsor keywords:- Improve monetisation by allowing an advertiser to sponsor keywords in user generated content... eg, a hosting company could sponsor the keyword 'hosting'.

Possible uses with implemented future improvements:-

• Transform product url's into affiliate links - Turn ebay/amazon/etc links into links containing affiliate id's
• Transform product urls or mentions into product widgets - as above but show the relevant ebay / amazon widgets
• Correct commonly misspelled words - ok, not exactly that brilliant but some would use it
• Assist embedding of many widgets - example, transform twitter links into twitter widgets
• Unlimited uses where replacements need to happen dynamically

I hope that some developer sees the power of this modification and can implement it. It could be free or paid or perhaps a mix of the two with a lite and pro version.
Thanks to anyone who is interested
Rob

 

[gordy]

Ability for the user to disable if one chooses.

If the built-in word censor would allow HTML that would be a fast path to get this started at the very least.

 

[ArnyVee]

I had something similar already custom coded based on the vBGlossary mod for my transition from vB to xF for WDBoards.

I agree, this is a must-have for lots of sites and can nearly take over the need for separate 'info' pages for products or services, etc.

 

[Digital Doctor]

If the built-in word censor would allow HTML that would be a fast path to get this started at the very least.

Great suggestions gordy.

So in a forum discussing music ...
The text: Britney Spears
when used in a post
would "parse" and turn into a link
Britney Spears

Note: if you could get the Text to turn into the LINK ... then I think the link could be styled.
I wanted links to look like "Buttons"
http://xenforo.com/community/threads/native-button-like-links.18263/

Another use: Giving Links to Support Documentation

example - someone is asking about Spam Management in Xenforo, Brogan could link to the Spam section of the manual with easy to remember Text: Manual.Spam . The text would parse into a link, say: Manual: Spam Management. (And maybe with some custom styling ..Maybe the Manual links could have a little Manual icon preceding the text ?)

Your example of Glossary is merely one example.

It looks like this idea has two main components:
(1) converting Text into Links
(2) A Glossary Tab.

Note: A cool linking method I've seen is with xfrock's Tag Me addon. By typing the @ symbol, it triggers Text to be converted into a link to generate an alert to that person. It works very well, <a href="http://xenforo.com/community/threads/suggestion-native-wiki.1636/page-9#post-343565">See here</a>.

This raises the option of MANUAL triggering of Text to Links. Your suggestion is the automatic parsing of Text to Links. If you want to "get started" on this idea, I suspect xfrocks could modify his addon to incorporate links ... or just release a tweaked version of his.

Suggestion: The big request here is converting / parsing Text into Links.
Make a new Topic, call it: Convert Text into Links

I'd be happy to help pay for an addon that Converts Text into Links, especially if xfrocks does it.

Once that is done, alot is possible.

 

[Rob]

Well, Waindigo is already working on a flavour of this.... let see what he comes up with

 

[Digital Doctor]

Well, Waindigo is already working on a flavour of this.... let see what he comes up with

Get him to break this project up into two parts
(1) parsing text to URLs
(2) Glossary

 

[Rob]

Glossary is already in existence if you use a) threads or b) library

parsing text to urls....

This has been implemented where you enter a keyword or phrase then choose to replace it with a) html b) url c) overlay

 

[Digital Doctor]

Hmmm ... might get quite hectic if you keep using keywords ! That works better for me, but it the glossary contains popular words it could get very cumbersome.

For instance, let's use xenforo.com as an example. If you had the words SEO, tags, or spam in a list of keywords .... I would have to deal with a popup every time I type one of those words ?

wait, I think I know what you mean. the text is converted into whatever you already previously chose and it is converted upon posting.

 

[Rob]

Say I have a glossary page / definition page (thread or library item) which explains all about the hyper text transfer protocol.
In my admin area under keyword replacements I can define 'http', 'hypertext transfer protocol' and 'hyper text transfer protocol' as keywords all pointing to the definition page.

I need to set up keywords manually in the admin area.

Hope that makes more sense.

 

[Digital Doctor]

Does the text to URL work like the word censor in that text 2 URL is done after post submission ?


What about bbcodes ?
if I had a wiki bbcocde ..
could I replace
wikiSEO
with
[wiki]SEO[/wiki]
?

 

[Rob]

It works EXACTLY like the censor function.... in fact, it's just an extension of it as far as Im aware.

I will test the bbcode in replacements now

You cannot use bbcode in the replacement... needs to be fully qualified URL as a direct link or overlay OR HTML.

 

[Jon W]

http://xenforo.com/community/resources/keyword-replace-by-waindigo.635/