Idle Chatter | A General Discussion Community

Gemma · Oct 19, 2024

We've made some little improvements and tweaks to our layout over the past week...

Our thread starter addon sections (game, music, movie, tv) have been updated and the layout slightly modified (improved?)

I've also tweaked our toplist gaming section

I've made some final adjustments to profile posts/profile post comments

And slightly tweaked our forum view layout (again)

I know a lot of admins don't like post comments but they are quite popular on our site, especially in the sports forum. I've tweaked the layout a little to work better on desktop and mobile devices

There's been a few small tweaks to our navigation system

Fixed a couple of errors in the layouts of our Showcase (recipes) and IMS (book club) addons by Bob - hopefully they display correctly across all browsers now!

And tweaked our Social Group widgets a little to give the addon some exposure

Nothing major this time but as always, thanks for looking. Any feedback is welcome.

Gemma · Oct 22, 2024

Finally managed to finish off our Social Groups Discussion List layout.

Unfortunately, I couldn't 100% replicate our thread list layout as the last three poster's avatars addon isn't compatible with the social groups addon but I've managed to replicate almost everything else

Also, did some tidying of our Events Calendar and refreshed bits of our arcade games pages

I think our layout is now complete and Idle Chatter 2025 is live.

stromb0li · Oct 23, 2024

Your events calendar looks awesome! Did you write your own add-on or are you using a specific one? Would love to chat if you are willing on how your community is leveraging the events and their needs if you don't mind as I'm mid-planning a solution for ours.

Gemma · Oct 28, 2024

stromb0li said:
Your events calendar looks awesome! Did you write your own add-on or are you using a specific one? Would love to chat if you are willing on how your community is leveraging the events and their needs if you don't mind as I'm mid-planning a solution for ours.

I'm currently using the Events Manager add-on by @Veer, which has some minor customisations. If I update to XF2.3 that may change, I'm not sure yet. I actually use an external booking system for my events, the system on my site just complements it and allows my members a place to discuss the event and ask any questions, post feedback etc.

stromb0li · Oct 28, 2024

Is this the list view offered by Events Manager? If so, did you customize the template as part of your theme, or did you have a new list type developed as part of an add-on? I'm looking for this exact formatted view.

Gemma · Oct 29, 2024

stromb0li said:
Is this the list view offered by Events Manager? If so, did you customize the template as part of your theme, or did you have a new list type developed as part of an add-on? I'm looking for this exact formatted view.

The list view is part of the addon. There are different views available for the index and calendar.

The index page has a card grid view and a list view (or you can set the calendar as default)

And in calendar view you can have the calendar grid (monthly)

Or list views for weekly or daily events

There are also some display options in the AdminCP

I'm not sure if there are more options or not in later versions as I'm not using XF2.3

Gemma · Nov 7, 2024

It's all about games today! Gave some extra love to our Video Game Database (Game Thread Starter addon by Ozzy47).

"Improved" the layout of the thread list, thread view and your account sections for desktop

And mobile devices

And also the Gaming section of our Toplists on both desktop and mobile devices.

Gemma · Nov 24, 2024

Made some small updates after updating some addons.

We've reactivated our chat/messenger system. The chat system now has dedicated rooms

We've updated our Artificial Intelligence Bots. There is a host of new features and the quality of response is notable. The image creating tool is also MUCH better than the previous bot model.

And I've slightly tweaked my trending content page (again) and also my Community Page with some work on the layout, blocks design and the entertainment widget. We've also done some more work on our Forum Index layout.

As always, thanks for looking

CedricV · Nov 27, 2024

Gemma said:
Made some small updates after updating some addons.

We've reactivated our chat/messenger system. The chat system now has dedicated rooms

View attachment 314515 View attachment 314516 View attachment 314517

We've updated our Artificial Intelligence Bots. There is a host of new features and the quality of response is notable. The image creating tool is also MUCH better than the previous bot model.

View attachment 314518 View attachment 314519 View attachment 314520 View attachment 314521

And I've slightly tweaked my trending content page (again) and also my Community Page with some work on the layout, blocks design and the entertainment widget. We've also done some more work on our Forum Index layout.

View attachment 314523 View attachment 314522 View attachment 314524

As always, thanks for looking

That messenger system sure looks nice. Great work as always Gemma.

Gemma · Nov 27, 2024

CedricV said:
That messenger system sure looks nice. Great work as always Gemma.

Yeah, all @021 addons are fantastically coded and presented - shame he is no longer part of the community but I'm glad he has updated them recently.

Gemma · Dec 2, 2024

And we have now upgraded to XF2.3...

We've lost some addons that weren't compatible and stripped out some of the ones that weren't being used - a few others have bugs and are disabled for the time being.

I think I'll probably work on a new style in the new year or maybe wait until XF3.0 comes out.

Fair to say I cursed the XF developers quite a lot over the weekend with the amount of changes I had to make to templates - I MEAN I REALLY CURSED A LOT!!!

CedricV · Dec 2, 2024

Gemma said:
And we have now upgraded to XF2.3...

We've lost some addons that weren't compatible and stripped out some of the ones that weren't being used - a few others have bugs and are disabled for the time being.

I think I'll probably work on a new style in the new year or maybe wait until XF3.0 comes out.

Fair to say I cursed the XF developers quite a lot over the weekend with the amount of changes I had to make to templates - I MEAN I REALLY CURSED A LOT!!!

I take it you didn’t make a duplicate to test first?

Gemma · Dec 2, 2024

CedricV said:
I take it you didn’t make a duplicate to test first?

Yes I did. Still didn't stop me cursing though.

Thanks to @MattW for his help setting that up. I couldn't have attempted upgrading without testing first. I've so much extra template coding (over 30,000 lines) that it was always going to be a big job.

Some missing addons will return when the developers have XF2. 3 versions so that's no biggie.

CedricV · Dec 2, 2024

Gemma said:
Yes I did. Still didn't stop me cursing though.

Thanks to @MattW for his help setting that up. I couldn't have attempted upgrading without testing first. I've so much extra template coding (over 30,000 lines) that it was always going to be a big job.

Some missing addons will return when the developers have XF2. 3 versions so that's no biggie.

Curious to which add ons you rely on that still aren’t updated.

Gemma · Dec 2, 2024

CedricV said:
Curious to which add ons you rely on that still aren’t updated.

I've deleted all the Themehouse addons except one but I've found alternatives to minimize any feature loss.

The chat/messenger addons aren't XF2.3 ready yet but I wouldn't say I rely on them because I have alternatives set up on my other site.

Some of the Ozzy/Painbaker addons don't work yet either but those aren't essential.

Rangers Fans · Dec 2, 2024

Gemma said:
Fair to say I cursed the XF developers quite a lot over the weekend with the amount of changes I had to make to templates - I MEAN I REALLY CURSED A LOT!!!

If need be, I done so and it worked perfect. Made a fresh install of 2.2.18 and used the official importer tool (i guess you call it) XF has in the members area and was able to import anything not 3rd party addon data back from 2.3.

Gemma · Dec 15, 2024

A little update to end the year.

We've added a Quiz section to our site and done a little styling to suit our site

I've also managed to get our Member Stories running on XF2.3

And slightly tweaked our gaming database section (I think I'm finally happy with the layout)

As always, thanks for looking. I hope you all have a lovely festive season however you choose to celebrate or spend your time.

Gemma · Dec 19, 2024

Here we are again, silly me, for a minute I thought I'd finished tweaking for the year

The music addon had been updated so I've done some styling to the new features in the member account page and also tweaked our music forum's thread list slightly

I've ~~re-added~~ relaunched our Classified section but have not tweaked much here, @Bob does an amazing job so there is really no need for this addon to be tweaked. It's a massive addon with a ton of features so I'm still working my way through them to get the maximum out of it.

I have, however, done some more tweaking to another of @Bob addons (IMS), my book club index is back to being a work in progress. My OCD is running riot and I'm not happy with it....but I'll play around some more

My quiz section has been updated and I've further tweaked the index page layout. I even captured a screenshot of a quiz where I got a semi-decent score

I've made some little changes to my thread list layout (OCD again)

And, I'm playing around with a couple of new widgets....just because I love widgets!

Once again, thanks for looking, liking, or hating. Merry Christmas and all that nonsense. I've banned myself from any more updates until 2025.

Edit: I forgot to say that in the next week or so we will be deleting the accounts of anyone who signed up from here and hasn't been active on the site for some time either visiting or posting (except developers). I think there are about 8 people. The aim of my showcase threads has always been about showing what I've been able to achieve, good or bad, using the software and addons available (which I actually believe is the proper use of this forum section), it has never been about boosting statistics or generating new members.

Also, I hate keeping details of members who aren't around any more.

Gemma · Jan 2, 2025

Happy New Year all!

Small update to bring in 2025.

I've been playing around with pages and created my own membership/courses page which I will be linking to @Bob's Classified Ads System

This is the first time I've used pages and this is a first draft but I don't see much changing (famous last words) - I've separated the two sections

Then the full page layout looks like...

Elsewhere, I also gave my "Toplist" section a little update

I know we will be getting a new editor soon, but I liked some of the suggestions I'd seen about moving the editor toolbar to the bottom of the editor instead of the top, so I decided, "Why not, eh?"

I'm not really one for using this section to talk about statistics but we made over 40,000 post target a few days before the end of the year. We also had two public meet-up events, one for Christmas and one on Hogmanay which were attended by 48 people in total. And we had another meet-up for one of our groups which was attended by 38 people - much food was eaten, alcohol drunk and good fun was had all round.

Anyway, here's to another year of growth. I've got a few add-ons to buy and integrate so, as they say, "no rest for the wicked"

As always, thanks for looking.

Gemma · Jan 3, 2025

Some further little tweaks and integrations today

Our Classified section is now set up - the images are temporary until I get new ones made. I've tweaked some areas of the classified addon to suit my needs too.