Requested Site Features

Posted onAuthorTalkLeft18 Comments

Tiny Pass is helping me with some registration issues related to site permissions. Until that’s settled, hopefully by tomorrow at the latest, I don’t want to post new content. Instead, I am going to open up the posts we already have to everyone. Since I’ve seen several requests for additional site features in the comments, I thought I’d start this thread asking readers who have subscribed what additional features they’d like to see. I assume the login issue is part of the TinyPass issue, so let’s put those aside for now. So far, I’ve seen:

  • ability to be notified of comments to a particular comment or post by e-mail
  • bolding unread or new comments
  • putting a link to TalkLeft’s main site on the front page
  • having a more visible link to purchase access or a subscription from Tiny Pass

Any other suggestions?

On the site access issue, what I may need to do email everyone access to a different “RID” permission than the one they signed up for yesterday, which apparently only grants access to the Guantanamo post. If anyone is online, let me know in comments and I’ll try that on an individual basis first to see if it works. I’m going to test with the Keys post rather than the Guantanamo post, since no one registered for access through that post. So it may become inaccessible for a while, or alternatively, viewable to all.

As soon as I get the registration fixed, I’ll post some new content, which is now just sitting in the draft section, ready to go. Thanks for your patience!

18 Replies to “Requested Site Features”

  1. Jeralyn, we had them early at EW, but now more spartan. Here are the functionalities we had at FDL (all Word Press, so they are available):

    Bold, Italics, Underline, Strikethrough, Blockquote and Link.

    They all turn out to be pretty useful, especially if writing about things legal in nature which is, of course, the case here.

  2. I like the “My comments” feature of TL and being able to go to the “Comments” page for other users. Sometimes if I don’t have time to read a link (or need sound) I just remember who posted it and search their comments later.

  3. My kingdom for a “Preview” button!

    And an “Edit” button would be great for those times when you think you caught all your mistakes before posting, and then see one as soon as you hit the “Post” button. Hate when that happens.

    Formatting options are a nice feature – the easier you make that kind of thing, the fewer messed-up comments to wade through!

    A couple of things I’ve thought of over the years:

    (1) An “Ignore” feature, specific to each individual commenter, that would allow us to ignore commenters of our choosing; this would result in seeing a message like, “this commenter is on your Ignore list,” in place of the actual comment. You would always know that someone had made a comment, but you’d only be able to read it if you turned off the ignore feature for that commenter. It would be great for those times when two commenters get into a p!ssing contest over something not particularly relevant to the thread, and neither one will give up.

    (2) A way to send private messages to commenters without having to get their e-mail.

    1. Great suggestions.

      I live in preview, but that is because hyperlinks really clutter the comment, if the comment appears like it will post, then that would work.

      I would add that adding the average poster’s comment ratings by their screen name would be really good. Right now there is no penalty to adding a comment that are meant to inflame. Maybe stars with the color indicating their longevity at TL. It’s pretty common on technology blogs like XDA.

  4. Oh – I noticed there’s no “Home” link, which would be nice. I know one can always click on the TL banner

    I second the suggestion for new comments to a thread to be highlighted in some way, so that one can jump right to new comments without having to read all the comments again.

    1. You can click on the link in the copyright statement at the bottom of the page. I always wanted this at TL classic. Yes, I know that you can click on the banner, but it never made sense to me that I had to scroll back to the top to go back.

        1. Oh, I WAS replying to Anne, but the indentation is weird. I’m using IE8 on XP. No further comments about that, please 🙂 It’s not my choice.

          Also we seem to have lost the “quote” and “link” attributes.

  5. Edit feature would really be nice, as Anne said.

    I see we don’t have a comment ‘title’ bar here…It all comes across as a reply to the main post. That is OK except for Open threads.

    1. I see we don’t have a comment ‘title’ bar here…It all comes across as a reply to the main post. That is OK except for Open threads.

      Ha! Blockquote is back.

      I hadn’t noticed the missing title bar, but as you say it’s only a problem for Open Threads which will stay on the other site.

      I’d preview this comment if I could.

    2. And what stands out isn’t the name of the commenter, but the date and time of the comment…now, if those were red – or some other color – for new comments, that would be helpful.

      As would a comment number.

      And I just realized there’s no “Parent” button, and with the nesting/indenting being kind of weird, it isn’t always easy to figure out which comment someone is responding to.

      I think that on a blog where commenting is sparse, these kinds of things are not such a big deal – but when you can rack up 200 comments quickly on a hot topic, I think it’s important that they be organized and identified for real ease of use – and in such a way that there isn’t a lot of “who are you responding to?” and “wait – I wasn’t the one who said that!”.

      Are we being too picky? I think we all want things to look and feel like they do on the original site – and I don’t think that’s a terrible goal, actually, but if it can’t be done, I’m sure we’ll all get used to the new way things work here.

  6. there is also an italics button right under the Comment tab (to the left of link) –It’s the “comment” tab that is preventing the other buttons from showing. I’ve enabled the plugin for them, but they won’t show unless I figure out how to get rid of the comment tab.

    Also the there should be a notification button for being notified of comments on a thread or on a particular comment and I’m not sure why it’s not showing up. Same thing for page numbers at the bottom.

    I’ve sent a support request to the theme developers. Since this isn’t a free theme, hopefully they will respond.

    I’m also testing other plugins for other requested features.

    1. I found this plug-in that inserts markdown in the comments. The question mark on the right explains the buttons. Also, if you scroll to the bottom, you will see a preview of your comment. To make the comment box bigger, just drag the bottom right corner of the comment box.

      It’s not a perfect solution, but better than others I’ve seen.

      One other option would be to use the built in forums comments intstead of WP comments, which might work, but I havnen’t figured out how to make the forums full-width yet, so they are too small to be a good solution yet. And I have to color code them.

      Let me know what you think of this comment box and whether you prefer it or the original one with just the bold, link and quote buttons, and no preview.

      1. Oh, this is much better, Jeralyn – I like the fact that you can see the comment as you type it, so no need to take a separate step to preview.

        Thanks for all the work you’re putting into this – it has to be hard enough to work and do the regular blog postings to “old” TL, but then trying to find the time to tinker with the Premium site must be daunting.

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