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Lothy's Ramblings

About Me

I've got a lot of opinions about ways to improve the services Zathyus Networks has to offer. I've also got some general advice for board owners and theme designers that might end up being useful some day. For now, these thoughts are kept here where curious minds can find them if they look.

Categories: Service Feedback (2); Tutorials & Documentation (3)

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Feb 27

ZetaBugs (ZB Pros & Cons)

I made this gigantic list of bugs, quirks, and features I'd like to see incorporated when I was first investigating switching from IF to ZB. This is my public record of those concerns. I also have a supplemental blog post that shows which of these issues have been resolved. There are a lot of these concerns that I haven't gone back to see if they've been resolved or not over the years, so they may be stale. If they are, just leave a comment and let me know!

Bugs - Things that don't work like they should, miscellaneous quirks. Ones in red or orange are serious issues.
Spoiler: click to toggle
When you warn someone by clicking the warn bar next to a post, it quotes that post. Which is fine, but it spaces out all the BBCode and stuff in a very sloppy way.
Admins can't remove people from joinable groups unless they are the leader of that group.
Sometimes when you first hit the preview button the preview box will show up but it's empty. Hitting it again will fix it.
Regular members can see when I'm viewing the staff-only Trash Can via the online list. They can't, however, see when I'm viewing the topics that are in the trash.
Registration page -> TOS -> 1 Accepting the Terms of Service -> link to the TOU links to to http://zetaboards.com/index.php?p=tou instead of http://www.zetaboards.com/tou/ .
The portal has a lot of issues:
I have the portal's recent topics and poll blocks both set to the right side. I have the poll made to be on top and the recent topics on bottom. But instead the poll block doesn't show at all.
I switched the recent topics block to the lower main section with low priority and it disappeared.
Still doesn't re-appear if moved to upper main or footer. Works fine on the left side.
Portal poll disappears if set to footer.
When the poll and board stats are both on the right side, with poll on top and stats on bottom or medium, the stats still show up on top. Ditto for poll vs. online list.
When the online users and board stats are both in the upper main, lower main, or footer, no matter what your settings, the online users will appear on top.

For some reason I can't adjust the c_mark width. It's width is set to 1%, so any image inside should stretch it to fit just right. There's no padding and the width isn't hard-coded, so why won't it change?
Changing the posts per topic page number doesn't do anything.
Sometimes a person's avatar is centered, and other times it's left-aligned. I haven't figured out why yet. It's not that a single person's changes, it's that some people are left-aligned and some are centered. I must inspect member titles and icons to see if they are factors.
The default category for the avatar gallery is called "Basic Avatar Gallery." When you choose to put avatars in there, they don't show up anywhere in the gallery.
ACP -> Board Customization -> Preferences -> Posting Prefs -> Maximum images per post. The slider has a maximum value of 100. I want more than 100 as an option and would prefer I be allowed to enter whatever number I want. I've got tons of icons in my shops that might very well have more than 100 items in each post.
Topic Auto Moderation Tool option "Require this post to be edited before posting. If this option is enabled, this AMT can only be applied to 1 topic at a time." doesn't do anything. (Confirmed bug.)
ACP -> Users & Groups -> IP Address Manager -> Enter all or part of a username: If you enter only part of a username and not the whole thing, you get: "Error: The member you have selected can not be found. Error Code: 62078:161"
Password reset link on failed login doesn't work.
[staff] BBCode doesn't work in sigs.
Non-root admins can edit the profiles (and change passwords) of root admins. The only exception is member #1.
If blogs allow guests to post comments, other guests are able to delete their comments.
Special Data Feeds - Shoutbox: Once a forum of this data type is created, its settings can't be edited. No name change, no permissions changes, nothing - it can only be deleted. When I added one as a sub-forum to a top-level forum, its name showed in the sub-forum listing on the outside of the forum, but the forum didn't show up on the inside. When I clicked the link to the forum, I got a permission denied error. I recreated this twice making sure each time to select the appropriate permissions for my group but it didn't help. The permissions I selected were general members and staff, no guests.
Portal Member Status Update Field - When creating this portal block, there's a "Content" textarea for you to fill in. The actual portal feature doesn't use or display that content though. Get rid of the textarea. [This is the same for the ShoutBox block.]
Portal Shoutbox Block - The same problem as above with the Member Status Updates. The theme for the portal version of the shoutbox doesn't match the theme for the version on the board index.
Portal Calendar Events Block - Doesn't show up anywhere when enabled.
Signatures started breaking in Chrome. The content doesn't stretch the cell area, it spells out onto the adjacent cells. For now, it can be fixed by adding the following code in ACP -> Themes -> Board Template -> Javascripts
<style type="text/CSS">
/* Fix Chrome brower signature placement problem */
td.c_sig,td.c_nosig {
height: .5%;
}
</style>

Portal Shoutbox Special Feed Block - If you enable this special feed in the portal, the ShoutBox will become visible to guests even if you have guest permissions turned off in ACP -> Board Customization -> Shoutbox -> Shoutbox Permissions. Probably the same for all different permission masks that don't normally have access.
If you report a post and then approve it, reporting it again later will still send it to the RCP but the post itself doesn't get the "hidden" tag applied and get flagged for review while viewing the topic itself. When testing this, I then reported a different post by the same member in the same topic, and that post was successfully reported but also NOT styled with the hidden tag. THEN, I reported a new post in that topic by a DIFFERENT member and it went to the RCP but didn't get the hidden tag applied to the post itself.

holy rusted metal, Batman!.

^ Ok, which one of ya'll put that batman bit in here? Lmao. Your attention is for naught, I'm just dumb and forgot the "hidden" tag gets applied for members who are on mod-queue, not reported posts...
Links to events in the calendar are hard-coded with style="color=#000" for some godforsaken reason. If you're a guest, some events still show up in the calendar as text that is also hard-coded like this with a span tag. You can fix these with an !important style but still... knock it off. Here's the style I used to customize my colors without changing the calendar header link colors.
.calendar tbody a {color:#989898 !important}
.calendar tbody a:hover {color:#3582E7 !important}

Sometime when you switch themes the URL of the page you were viewing breaks when it reloads. I was viewing the blog, and also the portal I think, when I changed themes. All the child directory /'s became %2F's instead.
Group Reply Banning Options Overwritten By Permission Masks - In ACP -> Groups you have the following Y/N option: Post in own topics. Regardless of what you select here, a member in this group's ability to reply to their own topics is determined by their Permission Masks instead. It should NOT be this way. I have a group for retired accounts that I want to be able to view the board but not post at all, so I set these options to No. I happened to also make their own permission mask for that group that had no abilities so I thought this option was working. However, these accounts that are still able to view the board were able to get into Joinable Groups. Joinable Groups are required to have a permission mask assigned to them, so if they get into any of the joinable groups, especially the Open To All types, they gain those regular member masks and that overwrites the group settings. This nullfies the point of them even existing - do they even work at all? I bet they don't. If someone has a banned group that has this option disabled but still has the ability to view the board, they're in for a nasty surprise when that banned member gets into an Open To All Joinable Group with normal member permissions.

The Post new topics and Post in others' topics options DO override permission masks.
Along the same lines as the above issue. I have my validating group set to only be able to see 1 forum, wherein they can start topics and reply to their own topics there if they need help completing the validation process, but that's it. They are still able to access the Joinable Groups sections though and get in on additional members-only permissions without having to validate, making the validation process somewhat moot. It shouldn't be like this.
Both of these last 2 issues could be partially resolved if you also include a Y/N Group setting that says "can join Joinable Groups?"
If you create this group option to solve this problem, what happens when someone is already in a Joinable Group and then gets moved into a member group that has the Joinable ability disabled? Does it actively remove their joinable group status? Suppress the permissions? What if they're the leader of the group?

FAQ Search TR Colspan - On the FAQ page, the TR containing the lists of links has 2 data cells - one for "Profile & Account" and the other for "Advanced Features." The TR after that has 1 TD that only contains the FAQ search feature, but it's set to have a colspan of 3. This isn't immediately noticeable because tables, by default, have a table-layout:auto setting that adjusts everything to look nice. I changed table#faq to have a table-layout:fixed style and that split everything out to make this error obvious. I had to revert back to the auto layout because it looked so bad with the empty space from the fake extra column created by the colspan=3 declaration.
I added a repeating event to the calendar and it doesn't show up. I made sure to click permissions for all groups and verified the date, still to no avail. If you managed to keep a link to the event after viewing it upon successful creation, you'll still be able to find the event that way.
The event date(s) should show while viewing the event itself, as well as the timeframe in which it repeats. (Right now you can see that it repeats, but not if it's daily/weekly/monthly/yearly.)

Using AutoTools to move a topic from a source forum with data in its "Custom Topic Option" settings to a destination forum that also has data in its "Custom Topic Option" settings creates a database error, presumably due to some mismatching between category selections.
Alternately, topics can be successfully moved manually. However, there are still issues with the category selections between forums. The category selected in the source forum can change even if the destination forum has identical categories. Has yet to be tested on forums with totally different category names.

TheEnigma's Bugs
You can request a name change to the name that you are currently using.
In custom profile fields, when you create a textbox (i.e. in HTML, a textarea), you get a slider to choose the max length (5-200). When you go to edit this profile field, it changes to a text box that you can type the maximum length into (max of 50,000 characters, min of 0).
Borders around many sections of the board do not appear, or only partially appear in Firefox.
Messages sent to yourself go straight into the Archive folder. If you decide to track this message for whatever reason (you may have it set to automatically track all messages), the message appears as being sent by Guest, and remains as "Not Read Yet" indefinitely. Trying to open this message, you get an error.
[me] BBCode adds a space after itself.
When you click to add a poll to a topic, you are taken to a screen which displays a strip which says "Poll Setup (Add Poll)." You have to click the "(Add Poll)" link again to get any options.

Cons - Anything I don't like, big and small. Ones in red or orange are serious issues.
Spoiler: click to toggle
Unlike IF, my New Arrivals promotion to Member after 1 post doesn't work all the time. On IF, if a person posts in a forum where the post count is off, it still counts as their 1 post to gain promotion into full membership, but not here. I liked the IPB sneaksy way. I would have to do manual promotion after searching the ACP using group and last post date combo.
When you preview your posts the BBCode buttons get lost at the top, which is problematic if you make a long post. Well, it's really too much at any time, these boxes are big.
The PM fast reply box is at the bottom of the page but the latest message is at the top. This makes a lot of scrolling to try and read back and forth while you type.
Forum rules still cannot be added while creating a new forum.
Forum rules only allow BBCode. Problem could be solved if [doHTML] or an equivalent is added. The presence of table BBCode drastically reduces how much this aggravates me.
HTML / BBCode in the forum rules gets shifted around?
All this transparent PNG junk that doesn't work / has a delayed load (like any JS).
I can't allow an admin's alternate account to see the trash just by giving them the staff permission mask.
Custom profile info that shows up in posts is twice as long as it needs to be. You don't need one line for title and choice, they can be side by side in a single row of a table or they can be done like Title: Choice. I've kinda made it better with CSS.
Still no way to post HTML. <_< If everyone's so darn afraid of script exploitation then enable it as an admin-only feature. Because admins can put scripts in the wrappers already, there's no point in restricting them.
PM conversations are really annoying. If the convo is long it scrolls and scrolls, you can't cut out any of the old junk.
Viewing a single category doesn't show the users online list of the entire forum. This is, of course, because it's technically just another forum. But I don't like it!
Each forum gets its own CSS ID using something like #forum-ID. This is useful for not only skinning but also for utilizing js. However, the sub-forum listing and c_info blocks don't get their own CSS IDs, like #subforum-ID. This would be nice. Especially if you're skinning one particular forum to be a different color, you want the sub-forum listing to match. Or if I want to use jquery to append links to important pinned topics! Rawr!
The colorization of HTML tags in the HTML BBCode block cannot be changed, it's hard-coded. So basically it's gonna look like crap in any custom skin. For now I've blacked it all out with CSS.
When you make a new calendar event you *have* to choose a text and background color. The backgrounds have a "no color" option but not the text. This means that most links are the default color, which is black, and that is hard to see on dark custom skins.
Is it intentional that the HTML and code tags don't work in sigs?
When editing your signature, hitting tab once takes you to the logo link instead of to the submit changes button.
People that register new boards get an e-mail but it doesn't tell them their username. Trust me, people get confused and need it. Especially if they didn't understand the form they were filling out when registering.
The ACP home page doesn't have any quick search options, a shortcut to member searching or forum-making.
Everyone keeps saying there's a "restore default CSS / images etc" option but it's not in the themes section of the ACP.
Ditto the above for the "sorted emotes" feature.
The language selector only has English as an option!
I miss these e-mail options:
Include a copy of the post when emailing me from a subscribed topic
Enabling this option will send a plain text version of the post in the subscription email.
Send a confirmation email when I receive a new personal message
Enabling this option will send an email confirmation of any new personal messages sent to you.
Enable 'Email Notification' by default?
Enabling this option will automatically subscribe you to any topic you start or reply to.

The "track topic," "print topic," "subscribe to this forum," and "new announcement" links are almost invisible hiding down there at the bottom of the page. I've overlooked them many, many times and I know they're there! >_<
When you make a global announcement, hitting the post button then takes you to the board index instead of letting you see your newly posted announcements. It kind of makes you wonder if you even made the post!
When I log in I can't use the name "Lothlomendil", I have to use "Lothl¨Žmendil" exactly, with the accent.
Members with special characters in their names, such as mine, can have someone register the same name, only without an accent.
When creating a redirect forum, it lets you leave the site URL section blank. If you then leave it blank it becomes a normal forum, which is confusing.
Already-existent forums cannot be turned into redirects.
No e-mail notification of new PMs.
Permissions for redirect forums aren't properly checked. If a guest doesn't have permission to view the forum but is given a link, they can click it and are still redirected. It should check permissions before redirecting so that guests clicking the link of such a forum are given the permission denied message.
There are some things that need consideration due to having a skin changer. They neglected to think of having multiple sets of:
Group icons.
~~Online list colors.~~
Emoticons. (Can be remedied with Helena's Cheshire emote system to a degree, emotes with additional parts like yellow hands and animations can be incompatible.)

Forum rules don't appear while viewing topics inside that forum. They do, however, show up on the reply / edit post / new topic pages. 0_0
Forum rules box is above the sub-forum listing instead of below.
The third c_info box, viewers, is only on the board index and not any sub-forums.
The only way to un-globalize one of those global announcements is to delete it. So uhm, what if I want to keep the info!? There should be some way to turn it into a regular topic.
After editing the portal options under Board Prefs, your focus is changed back to the main board prefs page. It's annoying when you want to continue editing the portal area.
No character counter. (I wonder what the limit on post size is, if any.)
There's no PM reply option, only quick reply, which is annoying.
No topic icon key.
The search isn't very advanced. There's just one function, search for keywords in topics. But I want to look at something like "all active topics with x days." Or to be able to search within the "find all posts / topics by member" thing to have the board find keywords within those results instead of reading through 10 pages of stuff looking for what you want.
The trashcan forum doesn't have a "viewers" column in the c_info section, so it's set to colspan of 2. One wonders why it doesn't have a viewers column. This makes it so that if I choose to have one of the c_info bits set to display:none, as I have done with the viewers column, then it horribly breaks things in the entire staff category.
The portal's imported news has the option to show x number of posts, but it always only shows one. And it' not even be the most recent one, it's seemingly random.
Once you add an avatar to the gallery in the ACP, it doesn't disappear from the "add" list, so you will have a stupidly huge amount of avatars in that list at all times. It's cluttered.
There's a discrepancy regarding the borders around custom and default content blocks in the portal.
ACP warning history has the option to "remove" warnings older than x days, but it needs an option to "lower" the warnings without removing them! Jeeze.
Moderators (global+) can't edit sigs!? Even when there's one present. -_-
PM toast off by default.
Status Updates are permanently sorted by the order in which the members first posted updates. There is also no pagination. This results in only new accounts showing up in the status feed, while oldies who may still be constantly updating get lost in cyberspace.
Custom Topic Fields - They have to be created on a forum-by-forum basis. You can only have one custom field. It's just a drop down selection. This is a poorly developed feature.
The Portal's Latest Posts feed needs its own ID, like #latest_posts so that it can be individually skinned like all the other unique parts of the portal.
The content of #portal_foot isn't contained within the #portal div, so styles you may have thought would work for the entire portal actually need to be replicated for the foot. Kind of annoying, doesn't make sense to exclude this but if you change it now all the existing themes will need tweaked.
New comments on blogs don't show up in the board activity feed.
The following elements are used in the board despite being deprecated in HTML5:
[big] --> <big>
[u] --> <u>

I was reading a PM conversation in which someone had messaged me, and I had sent 1 reply back making me the most recent message at the top of the conversation. In the .c_postinfo cell, my username didn't have the group style applied to it, but the other member's original message did. Wut?

TheEnigma's Cons
Case sensitive emoticons.
When people comment on your blog, you don't get notified. When someone makes a new blog post, you do not get notified. You can't subscribe to blogs. So all up, you need to constantly check people's blogs if you want to see if they've said anything.
There appears to be no way to change a theme's author or license, though I guess this doesn't won't matter when they implement code for sharing themes across boards.
Post tags cannot be searched for, ~~and lack the ability to be seen or edited by admins~~.
Functionality for adding polls to topics is easy to miss.
When logging in, after entering your user name, one tab will take you to the password reset link. You need to tab again to get to the password input box.
The +/- buttons for changing the size of textareas are nice, however, they would be more useful above the post, so that you can click them multiple times without having to change where you click, as they move up or down the page.
When logged out, if you try to access a topic for which you need to log in, logging in through the supplied login form at the top will take you to the board index, rather than the topic which you tried to view.
Post data is not saved when you get logged out, and you return to the board index after logging back in.
Many of the error codes are meaningless and do not adequately describe the situation which has caused some invalid action.
There are still several areas where the style information for tags have been placed within the HTML, rather than the elements being given classes to allow you to change them in CSS.

Eratta - Miscellaneous notes.
Spoiler: click to toggle
In ACP -> Directory Options it needs to tell board admins the rules regarding the directory [e.g. not putting test boards in the directory].
ACP -> Forum Management -> Edit Forum -> Forum Description. If they're gonna make it HTML-only, there should be a note. It needs to tell you if you use HTML or BBCode. (BBCode is dumb.)
I put my Tulk account on mod preview the other day, and set it to last 1 day. It worked fine. The next time I warned the account, the ACP Warn History log stated "Ended Post Preview" in the actions log. Weirdness.
Viewing your inbox resets the count to zero. However, you can still have unread messages in your inbox that you may not notice, but the zero leads you to think you don't. Maybe have it be an "unread message" counter instead of "new messages since you last checked the inbox" counter.
ACP -> IP Address Manager -> Username Matches: Can we please add to the query results something that displays the IP you just searched for? So you know what you're looking at etc.
ACP Staff Security Portal doesn't say what kind of score is good and what kind is bad, or how big the scale is. E.g. 1-10 with 10 being best?
Should have the option to add a note to banned email addresses, just like you can for IPs. And for reserved names too, why not?
Can't edit any of the banning entries.

Desired Features - New features they don't have that I want. Ones in red or orange are highly desired.
Spoiler: click to toggle
Users online today.
Advanced / more in-depth statistics page. Graphs and charts that show this data. Members should be able to perform queries similar to those in the ACP about date ranges for browsing info.
Total board topics.
Total users online today/this week/month/year, with accounts listed and linked.
Total posts/topics/registrations made today/this week/this month/this year.
Average posts/topics/registrations per day/week/month/year.
Most active forums/topics today/this week/month/year/ever.
Total number of accounts using each theme.
Include list of names with links to the accounts.
This feature will allow you to determine the popularity of each theme so that you can better determine which ones should be removed or if new ones need added. I have themes that come with wide and narrow margin options and would like to know what people generally prefer. There are many other uses for this, such as showing which additional visible features people prefer - chat boxes and special codes that only show up in certain themes, for example. ZNR's' Theme Spotlights are a good code example.

Total number of accounts using each profile field.
List who is using it and who is not using it. This way, if a field is required to be filled in according to the board's rules, we can find who hasn't filled them in and send them a message asking them to remedy it. Or we can edit it in ourselves if necessary.
If they're using a list type profile field, stats should be able to show who has selected which options, with total members using each stat shown and listed. This allows you to determine popularity of each option in case some should be removed, or to assess if a change made to one of these options may not be advisable because of its high use.

Per-forum statistics on usage of that forums "Custom Topic Option" categories.

Mass uploading of emotes, perhaps uploading a .zip package. Emoticon management is a pain in the arse.
Re-arrange emote ordering. With a nice GUI, like wordpress.com's widgets. Niiiice.
Mass avatar uploading for the custom gallery. One at a time is dumb.
Allow multiple codes per emote instead of having to upload the emote multiple times.
I'd also like to be able to have multiple emoticon sets due to the skin changing.
Ditto the above for group icons.
Add color to topic titles with HTML. And other stuff.
Ability to edit sigs, avatars, or photos when you click on a member's avatar to edit their profile. Or maybe inline sig editing / a link to editing a member's sig while viewing a topic.
Hidden categories.
I would like for the "trash individual posts" feature to put the original topic's ID into the topic description, along with the username of who split it.
Ability to arrange the order in which the custom fields appear in the profile.
Report CP logs.
Custom FAQ pages. It's been said that this won't happen, if we want an FAQ we can just make a topic or webpage about it and add the link to that page to the submenu or something. But who wants two FAQ's? "Go read the FAQ." "I did, but it didn't have any info in it." "Oh, go read the other FAQ."
A "system overview" section in the ACP like that in the IF ACP. It shows how many total topics, posts, and members the board has.
A showing of total board topics in the "board stats" section of the index.
Inline post editing!
Ability to customize the list of colors in the BBCode color drop down list.
Ability to add a repeating calendar event that occurs on the x'th weekday of a month. Like how Thanksgiving is always on the last Thursday of November.
Character counter on posts.
Word counter on posts.
Built-in spell checking.
Report information about people that tried to register but were not able to because of the ban settings (e-mail, IP, username, etc). The report should include the time, the user's e-mail, their IP, and username.
Since visitors with banned IP's wouldn't be able to try and register, perhaps also have a banned IP visitor report. Including time, IP banned, and any possible usernames associated with that ban. For example, you ban all of Dayton with an overly strong IP ban (*glares at the SZ*) then you can see that Member 1, 2, 5, 700, and Lothy were all banned as a result. Or sommat.
Ability to do a member search on more criteria than those listed. Eg. "avatar contains," "x custom profile field contains," "location contains," etc.
Recount post count (by group at the least).
The "Moderated By" section of forum descriptions doesn't have its own class (I want to make it a little smaller than the c_forum text).
Sub-pages in the website maker pages.
Automatic resizing of images larger than specified dimensions for the board. Inspect this.
"Hidden" warn notes that staff members can see, but no one else is able to (not even the warnee).
Warn notes that automatically reduce themselves after a period of time, with the option to disallow lowering.
If no doHTML equivalent, I want BBCodes that allow the following:
Abbr
Acronym
Additional tag properties [title, target, alt]
Drop down lists
Marquee
Scripts! Bwaha.

An indicator in each forum that says "post count is on / off in this forum."
Built-in moderator tools that let you hover over a member's username and see a dropdown list of quick-edit / warn / PM / etc. options for that member.
ACP option to have all deleted posts automatically trashed instead of deleted.
Theme settings or images should have a section in it to edit the display picture to give a preview of the skin, like the default ZB displays. [/phailed explanation]
"View Warnings" page should say what moderation actions were taken along with the warning, such as Member Auto Tool used, suspension added, mod-queue added, etc. It does this in the ACP, but it should say in the onboard warning page too.
Add the ability to use Member Autotools through the inline moderation options while viewing a topic.
Report CP should show info on posts and topics awaiting approval.
InvisionFree has that post icon feature that's full of smilies that don't mean anything, its lack of inclusion in ZB is understandable. However! I would like to see a post icon feature added to ZB that is customizable so you can create your own meanings for your chosen icons. This would entail:
ACP section for adding each icon (topic state) to the board.
Choose custom image for each "state" that gets globally prepended to the link on the topic title. (Shows up in forum listing, active topics page, topics by all member page, portal, etc, maybe topic view.)
Choose custom title/text for each state's drop down selector.
Topic Auto Tool to quickly change topic icon.

Admin CP -> Themes -> Image Sets -> Editing Image Set: Add a "View Preview for All" button that expands them all.
Append / Prepend to Sig AMT option.
On-board Edit Member's Profile page should allow editing of sigs too, for admins and Global Mods.
Ability to subscribe to a topic while posting it / posting in it (like IF).
Member Auto-Tool categories, just like you have for Topic Auto-Tools.
The ability to organize the files in the upload manager. The organization and interface there suck.
The ability to upload multiple files at a time in the upload manager. This is seriously frustrating to upload an entire set of theme images one at a time, it's unnecessary.
After uploading a file in the Upload Manager of the ACP, it'd be nice if it did the following:
Take you back to the upload dialogue in case you want to keep uploading.
On the upload dialogue page, show a confirmation of successful upload (already a feature) that actually shows you the links to all the images you just uploaded. (Currently, for that last part, you have to navigate to the General Files section and dig them all up manually. It's a huge waste of time when working on installing theme images.)

Alternate row highlighting for lists in the ACP (li.odd). Lists of uploaded files, theme images, filters, emoticons, ban settings, custom profile fields, etc. all need visual differentiation.
A "Save Draft" feature that lets you save an unfinished reply or new topic that you were working on for later. It would remember which forum or topic you were posting in so you didn't have to fish it all back up. Would need to remember posts selected for quoting and multi-quoting, along with any alterations made to those quotes.
Revision tracking for post edits.
Mobile stylesheet.
Zathyus app for Apple/Android. I want push notifications on my iPad when I get new PMs, new replies to my subscribed topics, new topics in my subscribed forums, etc. I'd also like it to be organized in a similar way to the Twitter app. It allows you to have multiple accounts all in the main interface so you can manage all of them with ease. This would be useful for multiple accounts on a single board, but also for using multiple ZB forums.
Multi-Login - This feature as it exists is neat but it doesn't really do much beyond fast account switching. I'd like to see it get more features though. I imagine being in the post form, starting a new topic or posting a reply, and having a drop down option that says "From which account would you like to post this?"
Topic Auto Tool - Edit Custom Topic Field - An AT that applies a particular choice to a topic's selection from the Custom Field.
Footnotes from BBCode should get their own div container and ID/style so that they can be themed differently. And then maybe kill the need for the horizontal rule above the footnotes.
Ability to sort a forum by its Custom Topic Options.
Topics in forums where you have "Custom Topic Option" fields filled out should display the category selected for that topic when viewing it, ideally at the top of the first post like the topic's name and description.
Topic AutoTools that change the Custom Topic Options.

TheEnigma's Desired Features
Having a default board actually pass w3 validation (currently 8 errors).
More control over skins, e.g.;

Ability to change the HTML for posts in a way similar to how you can edit a theme's layout. This would involve giving you variables such as , , , , etc. to intertwine with your own HTML, allowing a much greater control of layout.
Ability to upload/download themes packaged into .zip files or some other format to ease the distribution of themes. (Will become redundant if/when cross-forum theme functionality is completed)
Options for allowing only certain groups to view specific themes.
Due to having multiple themes, one should be able to choose a select few colours which users may use in their posts. These colours could change for each theme to ensure that they are always legible. (Probably what Lothy was suggesting, but idea expanded a little)

RSS feeds for blogs/announcements/custom news feeds.
Autotools for individual posts--if you want to warn a member for a particular post, and make an example of this person, you could have an autotool which appends some message to the post (e.g.; "User banned for stupidity"), then performs some action to the offending user. These could be useful for triggering joining of groups, bans, warns, probations, etc.
Highlighting for tracked topics.
Differential highlighting for read/unread posts in topics.
Ability to rate threads, i.e.; a 1-5 star rating or similar.
Post icons for threads would be nice, though only if they were customisable.
Ability to append/prepend the forum name or some other text to the title of the page.
Some way to easily identify the OP's (Original Poster) posts in a topic, either through highlighting of their posts, adding some icon next to their name, or some other way.
Ability to hide insignificant details about users, e.g.; post count and member number. (Easily done through JS, but I'm not going to slow down my forum with extra bloat.) (Could be done with my editable HTML theme idea, mentioned above)
More options for poll, e.g.;

Allow users to change their vote within x minutes of voting.

Custom BBCode tags.
When posts are modified/deleted/created, store a diff of each change, allowing you to roll back to a particular state in case of vandalism.
Have some way to delete/trash/hide all posts for a particular user.

Upgrade Concerns - Annoyances when converting and potential losses.
Spoiler: click to toggle
Breakage of tricky doHTML magic with scripts in posts.
Breakage of all things that used to be in HTML (forum descriptions, forum rules, etc.) that now must be done in BBCode.

Pros - Favorite features of ZB.
Spoiler: click to toggle
Joinable groups.
Custom profile fields.
Receive emailed board announcements? is on by default.
Forum rules editing is there in the edit forum page with everything else.
Unlimited sub-forums.
PM reporting.
Report CP.
Skin changer.
Website maker.
Collapsible categories.
Username change history.
Find all posts by member.
Inline moderation (especially trashing).
Lists all current members who will be affected by an IP Ban.
Automatic PM tracking option.
Working highlight + click BBCode.
Can disable specific BBCode tags.
Can choose which tags to show in the BBCode list on the reply page.
Spam protection.
Member Auto Tools.
Topic Auto Tools.
IP Address Manager.
Staff Security Portal.
Admin assistants.
General Web 2.0 appearance.
Double post merging.
New "recover deleted post" feature! However, it appears to be half-baked in classic ZB style. It appears to only be an option immediately after you delete a post, so if you navigate away from that page you lose the option. There is still no "confirm delete" option! It MUST confirm that you're not deleting on accident first, BEFORE moving into "recover deleted post" mode. Prevention is key, not damage control after the fact.
"Custom Topic Option" on forum settings that allows for custom categorization of topics.

Posted in Service Feedback on Feb 27 2013, 04:07 PM · No comments

Feb 27

Former Pros and Cons of ZetaBoards (ZetaBugs)

I made this gigantic list of bugs, quirks, and features I'd like to see incorporated when I was first investigating switching from IF to ZB. This is my public record of which of those concerns have been resolved. It is the supplement to another blog post of mine which is the running record of ongoing issues I'd still like to see resolved.

Bugs - Things that don't work like they should, miscellaneous quirks. Ones in red or orange are serious issues.
Spoiler: click to toggle
~~Preview button stopped working.~~
~~Whichever "include sig in this post" option you initially choose can't be changed later (check/unchecking the box does nothing).~~
~~Don't know if it's just for converted boards, but on IFS when you click a category to view only forums in that category, not all the forums show up.~~
~~Skin changer doesn't work.~~
~~Skinning system is messed up. When you make a new skin its CSS replaces all the other sets of CSS.~~
~~Skinning system is messed up. When you edit the layout for one theme, it overwrites the layout for all themes.~~
~~Forum rules don't show up in the forum!~~
View Full Theme Preview in custom themes doesn't work (probably because of broken skinning system).
When you're at Admin CP → Themes → Image Sets → Editing Image Set, the "Image Sets" link is clickable but when you click it you get "Error: The ID you selected is invalid. Error Code: 58008:161"
~~The link to ZetaBoards at the bottom of the ACP has the address of "#".~~
While member managers can't promote themselves to the root admin group, if there is another group in existence with full admin rights (co-admins, for example) then they can promote themselves to that group.
~~When viewing a member's profile their avatar gets eaten.~~
The "new poll" button doesn't show up in forums that have polls enabled. Why have a "New Poll" button in the Images section if the only poll-starting options are in a link on the "New Topic" page? Which is hard to fricking find. (They removed this button from ACP.)
~~I still have to log into the ACP using the name "LothlĂłmendil" instead of "Lothlómendil".~~
~~When you have a member group listed as forum moderator, clicking the link just takes you to the full member list.~~
~~The old ZB logo is still in the ACP.~~
~~The main ACP page still has information about the beta.~~
~~The ACP's BBCode page's examples are messed up.~~
~~When I view this page in IE the title is "BBCode#new#new#new#new#new" :huh:~~
~~Using the "Topic History" moderation option gives you an error. "Invalid Input - Error Code: 17087:161"~~
~~Blog appearance is screwed up in IE6. There is a whole page of empty space where the blog should be, adjacent to the ads. Then the blog is at the very bottom.~~
~~They are still using border-collapse, which is buggy in Firefox.~~ (Did Firefox fix this bug?)
~~Automated (non-HTML) line breaks in forum descriptions don't work.~~ (Forum descriptions are HTML-only?)
Can't edit a member's signature or profile (interests etc.) if they don't already have information entered. This is especially annoying when you have a text custom profile field that is admin-only editable. The member can't edit it ever, and neither can an admin because the member hasn't put any data in it. Admins can now edit blank signatures.
~~ACP -> Board Customization -> Preferences -> Posting Prefs -> Maximum images per post. I set the slider to 100 and hit save, but it keeps defaulting back to 50.~~

TheEnigma's Bugs
~~Avatars get cropped in profiles and PMs (caused by the .av_wrap class).~~
Bold, italics, underline, and other formatting buttons for creating posts do not work in Firefox. edit: Ok, they're working correctly on this computer, will try again when I get a replacement power supply for my dead PC.

Cons - Anything I don't like, big and small. Ones in red or orange are serious issues.
Spoiler: click to toggle
User group online list pre/suffixes have to be done in BBCode. Because we have a skin changer, and the colors that go with one skin may not be visible on another skin, the lack of the ability to use CSS classes is a pain in the ass. Problem could be solved if [doHTML] or an equivalent is added. [class] tags added, they work in the online lists.
Trash can permissions aren't adjustable enough. I would like for admins, global moderators, and only some of the forum moderators to be able to view the trash. I have 2 moderator groups: global and per-forum (though it is most of the forums). Then some people can "buy" their own forum (guilds) and they get some small moderator abilities in there (pin, unpin, close, open), but they should not be allowed to see the trash or any other staff forum because they are not staff.
~~You can only bulk mail one user group at a time.~~
~~Can't use special characters in passwords.~~
~~Can't delete PMs.~~
~~All links to view a topic still always go to the last unread post instead of just letting you read the damn topic form the start.~~
~~No forum jump!~~
~~No IP address option in the member search page.~~
~~Admin doesn't receive e-mail notification of new registrations. (The admin digest solved this.)~~
~~Can't disable a member's ability to edit their own member title?~~
~~If you choose to remove sig / emotes / edit by line in a post, those options aren't remembered when you re-edit the post.~~ (They're "remembered" now, you just can't ever change them!)
~~No e-mail notification when subscribed topics get replies.~~ (The option is there but I'm not sure if it works.)
~~No e-mail notification when subscribed forums get new topics.~~ (The option is there but I'm not sure if it works.)
~~Forum moderators (individuals & groups) still don't appear in the moderating team list.~~
Profile field list options are not stored as arrays with unique identifiers. If I remove an item in the middle of the list, all the options shift and screw up what has been entered in people's profiles. This means I cannot remove any options from list-type profile fields! It's creating a mess on my board that is confusing and irritating for me and members alike.
~~In the "today's posts" list, where it lists the forum the topic was made in, the forum name isn't a link to that forum. It's not a link at all, which is annoying!~~

TheEnigma's Cons
~~It acts as though you can change the default theme's CSS, but any changes you make do not stick.~~
~~Theme selection dropdown appears even when you have no alternate themes to choose from.~~
~~There is no BBcode for numbered lists, e.g.; [list=1][*]blah[*]blah[/list]~~

Desired Features - New features they don't have that I want. Ones in red or orange are highly desired.
Spoiler: click to toggle
~~Pre-register member option.~~
~~"View topic history" option.~~
~~Automated PM tracking.~~
~~Certain text areas, especially those in the ACP, should have a width of 100%.~~
~~Post delete confirmation.~~
An IP / e-mail auto-matching "member tracking" system. It would display info such as IP addresses used to post with, most recent IP address used, matches to other accounts that share the same e-mail address, matches to other accounts in the same IP range for both registration and posting (to identify secret duplicate accounts [despite AOL repeats...]), and uhm... maybe some other stuffs.
~~IP address in PM's (visible to only admins, and carried on from a forwarded / reported PM).~~
A comment field for IP and e-mail address bans. Mostly to keep track of *whose* IP is being banned. It's often the case that the IP banned is not the IP registered with, so it's impossible to track down.
~~Change member's password via ACP.~~
~~An actual "view today's posts" page that shows all the day's posts one at a time, instead of just links to today's active topics. [Like SMF]~~
Joinable group leaders don't have an easy way of knowing if there are new requests for membership. They have to go to their preferences and then click on joinable groups to see, and I know people well enough to know that they will never check there. It should have a notification system like that of the report CP.

TheEnigma's Desired Features
~~Functionality for easily quoting multiple posts.~~

Upgrade Concerns - Annoyances when converting and potential losses.
Spoiler: click to toggle
~~Multi-Mod loss.~~
~~Post / forum / member ID confusion because of the new server-wide IDs.~~
~~PM loss.~~
~~Old BBCode conversion into new BBCode, for example, [align=center] -> [center].~~
~~Loss of ACP logs.~~

Pros - Favorite features of ZB that seem to have disappeared or stopped working.
Spoiler: click to toggle
~~Working directory.~~
Seems frozen in time, doesn't remove offline/deleted/shut down/inactive boards.
Directory has stopped updating altogether.

~~Custom board e-mail messages.~~
~~Working search function.~~
Stops indexing if your board excedes 150,000 posts.
May have another type of bug as well that has ended its ability to update.

Posted in Service Feedback on Feb 27 2013, 04:04 PM · No comments

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