Make it easier to edit terms & rules

[Mr Lucky]

I think it would be better if there was a more user friendly way to edit terms & rules.

It would be best if there was a WYSIWYG editor and the terms were in a more obvious place for admins and mods to find e.g. under the help pages menu item in ACP > Home

 

[Mr Lucky]

Suggestions which change existing functionality, if implemented, should to be of benefit to all, not just for a few and detrimental to others.

I agree, but I did not say anything about it being detrimental. I'm not in a position to tell developers how they implement my suggestion.

It would be great if it could be more user friendly without being detrimental to those who want it in different languages. The technical solution for this is not my remit.

Of course I was not serious about Google translate, I was just saying if people do need different languages on their forum, if you follow that Logic, then you would actually need some kind of dynamic translation as posts would also need to be in those languages.

In other words, if a forum is multilingual, yes people can choose their language style so the may see "Post Reply" as "ncej teb" but the post itself is in the language of whoever posted it.

 

[Divvens]

With very, very basic CSS and the 'page' node, one can easily create their own terms & rules page pretty easily. Example: Community Guidelines

 

[Mr Lucky]

With very, very basic CSS and the 'page' node, one can easily create their own terms & rules page pretty easily. Example: Community Guidelines

Yes of course this is true, but I'm talking about for admins/mods who would like something user friendly. On all my forums they are volunteers, and I'm grateful for that so I don't feel like saying "thank you very much for giving up your time for this thankless task, BTW you must now learn to programme with html and css"

I'm aware of a WYSIWYG editor for pages, so that could be useful as a workaround, but this is a suggestion for xenforo.

 

[Martok]

As a temporary solution whilst you wait for something more user friendly, your moderators could use the rich text editors that are on below (use them there, no need to download) to type their text, then use the source buttons to get the HTML to use in the ACP.

Redactor WYSIWYG html editor
CKEditor demo
Online HTML Editor

 

[Zynektic]

I wrote a message for my terms and rules in a standard thread, copied the plain text into an HTML editor and had my code within a second and new terms and rules page by editing the content of the current phrased one.

Took a matter of minutes (if that) and how they currently do it is very easy. I even know HTML but it was quicker to do it this way.

 

[Mr Lucky]

I wrote a message for my terms and rules in a standard thread, copied the plain text into an HTML editor and had my code within a second and new terms and rules page by editing the content of the current phrased one.

Took a matter of minutes (if that) and how they currently do it is very easy. I even know HTML but it was quicker to do it this way.

Alterenatively you can use the browser "view source" to get the html

As a temporary solution whilst you wait for something more user friendly, your moderators could use the rich text editors that are on below (use them there, no need to download) to type their text, then use the source buttons to get the HTML to use in the ACP.

Redactor WYSIWYG html editor
CKEditor demo
Online HTML Editor

Thanks guys, I am aware of these workarounds, I just wanted to suggest that a user friendly way becomes part of xenforo. And of course, without causing any detriments to other users.


A recent post from an admin on my newly migrated forum from vbulletin:

can we make a small change in the rules, this paragraph is now dated:
.......
BTW, I haven't found a way to access the terms and rules in a way that I can edit them..

This is from a beta tester of a quite complex software application, he was not able to intuitively locate the right place. As I said, you wouldn't expect a whole raft of rules to be called a "phrase."

Yes I know you can do a search in the ACP, but even then it is not inutuitive because the ACP search is called forum search. But that will be for another suggestion (which will probably be shot down in flames)

 

[Mr Lucky]

The bit about moving it elsewhere and effectively not being a phrase is the contentious point as you haven't taken into consideration how others use this.

Bit of a misunderstanding, and maybe not being clear on my part. When I said " the terms were in a more obvious place" I should have said "a link to..."

Would it not be possible to still have them in phrases for people who need them there, but additionally a link in ACP>options (e.g. just below Help Page) would be useful.

Then a WYSIWYG editor for the "phrase"

 

[Martok]

Yes I know you can do a search in the ACP, but even then it is not inutuitive because the ACP search is called forum search. But that will be for another suggestion (which will probably be shot down in flames)

I know it's off topic, but where is the ACP search called Forum search? If you look at my previous screenshot, it simply says Search.

 

[Mr Lucky]

I know it's off topic, but where is the ACP search called Forum search? If you look at my previous screenshot, it simply says Search.

You are right, it just says search. It would be good if it said ACP search or similar.

 

[RDR]

Bit of a misunderstanding, and maybe not being clear on my part. When I said " the terms were in a more obvious place" I should have said "a link to..."

Would it not be possible to still have them in phrases for people who need them there, but additionally a link in ACP>options (e.g. just below Help Page) would be useful.

Then a WYSIWYG editor for the "phrase"

A link to is a great suggestion and this kind of stuff would make the software that much more user-friendly so kudos to @Mr Lucky for bringing this up.

 

[Rob]

I'm struggling to see an issue here. The phrase system is used in order to have those terms and conditions made available in other languages - should you use multi-language that is.

Whilst I agree that terms and conditions could be made a little more user friendly, it has to be noted that the terms of service URL can be explicitly defined. If you want more control over look, colours, fonts, etc then why not just make the terms of service a page and hide it from the node list.... you can then set the ToS url to the page you just made.

It's really not such a big deal is it?

 

[Mr Lucky]

...it has to be noted that the terms of service URL can be explicitly defined. If you want more control over look, colours, fonts, etc then why not just make the terms of service a page and hide it from the node list.... you can then set the ToS url to the page you just made.

It's really not such a big deal is it?

It is not a big deal for people who already know the software inside out, I'm talking about for people new to administrating a forum with little tech knowhow.

But anyway, what you are sayings is not the default behaviour.

user friendliness and/or intuitiveness is helped a lot by consistency. You see one thing in one way and expect similar things to be the same.

For example, it has been explained why terms has to be a translatable phrase. In that case (and I accept that entirely and unconditionally) so should the contact page, privacy policy and help pages.

These are the standard site info pages people expect to see in a menu, often at the bottom of a page.

Yet these four are treated differently:

Help page is a separate menu item in the ACP home tab - nicely obvious

Privacy, terms and contact are all mentioned in basic Board information, but each one is different.

Privacy is only available as a page you make yourself (so not available in different language
Terms and contact both have a page already (by default) but only terms has its text as a translatable phrase.

Surely if terms is deemed to have to be translatable for multilingual forums, so should the help and privacy?

 

[Rob]

I have to agree, things are not very consistent with those largely static pages.

 

[dieketzer]

i guess i dont understand why it isnt possible to maintain the terms & rules as a phrase, but present it differently and separately to the admin. why can there not be a page in the acp for terms and rules with a language dropdown, a text field with the phrase in it, and a button that says save?


...and an option to make people agree to updated terms on their next visit.

 

[Fred.]

I agree, a WYSIWYG editor for help pages would be very useful and save us some time.

 

[ibrian]

I think it would be better if there was a more user friendly way to edit terms & rules.

It would be best if there was a WYSIWYG editor and the terms were in a more obvious place for admins and mods to find e.g. under the help pages menu item in ACP > Home

Just going to agree that it would be great if there was simply an "Edit" link on the Terms page to edit it. For the majority of XF users, this is all that's required and would be more user friendly overall.

For the same reason that when we edit a post or thread, we don't expect to have to edit the database to do so.

 

[EEmerson]

@Mr Lucky would you mind if I used a modified version of your personal conversations disclaimer? It's really clear!

 

[Mr Lucky]

@Mr Lucky would you mind if I used a modified version of your personal conversations disclaimer? It's really clear!

Thanks, no problem at all if you use it