[Nms-cgi-devel] NMSBoard ideas

[Dadi J. <da...@si...>]

I really look forward to see the first official version of NMSBoard. I have
seen what you guys have done with Tfmail, so I have high hopes about this
new script. I downloaded the pre-alpha and got it running. I tried to post a
message, but it didn't show up (no error message, everything seemed normal).

I see that in data.nml you store the <date>, but not time. I definitely want
to show the time and date in my message index, and I believe that it may
also be useful for other purposes to have the exact time of posting.

I have been running a "threaded" message board for some years, and below I
have made a list of useful things to have in such a message board. Hopefully
you will put some of these on the "to-do" list for NMSBoard. I realize that
some of the items are already planned for NMSBoard.

I see that recently you have mostly been discussing the more technical
aspects of the script, but I hope that its not too early (and not too late!)
to suggest new ideas.

*Users*

1. Allow users to easily change the "look" of the board (like fancy list in
the pre-alpha, choose another CSS etc.)

2. User profiles (See more about this in 19 below) : Name, e-mail, password,
descriptive text, optional link (and description), optional image URL,
optional graphic upload. This might require a config for the profile and
graphic directories. Also allow the users to exclude old messages from their
message listing (Only show the last three days, one week etc.). This setting
should also be stored in the profile.

3. Only allow one profile per e-mail address. This has really cut down
problems with posters on my current board.

4. User Preferences, allowing users to change the preferred order of
messages in the message list etc.

5. Easy changing of message list order (threaded, chronological or
guestbook-style lists). The more flexibility and choices in this area the
better.

6. Mark new messages in message list since last visit (different color,
icon... configurable)

7. Allow users to mark all messages as read.

8. Easy use of smilies when writing messages (icons)

9. Allow easy formatting of message text (bold, italic, highlighted...)

10. Easy recovery of lost user passwords (e-mail to the address in the
profile?). The most frequent problem my users have is losing/forgetting
their password.

11. Search function

12. Paged message index with user selected timeframe for each page.
(Requires page links similar to those in the advanced guestbook of the
Tfmail script).

13. Reply with or without quoting (different links/buttons). Both choices
should be available when responding to a message.

14. Allow preview of messages before posting

15. Automatically hotlink URLs and e-mail addresses (maybe configurable)

16. Allow users to delete their own messages. Maybe it would be easiest (and
least confusing for the users) if a placeholder for the deleted message is
shown in the message list if it had followup messages.

17 List of most active posters (top n list)

*Administration*

18. Admin module (Manage profiles, delete/modify messages, admin posts,
archiving, rebuild database...)

19. Allow the admin to limit posting to those who have a user profile. Also
allow the admin to prevent certain users (e-mail addresses) from posting.

20. Multiple message boards using only separate config files.

21. Allow the admin to choose to have the post message form on the index
page or on a separate page.

22. Same as above for a post message form on individual message pages (like
when reading a message).

23. Configure the message index to show if a message contains a picture or a
link (separate icons, so a message with both a link and a picture would
display both).

24. Configure the message index to show how often each message has been read
(This has proved to be very popular on my board).

25. View statistics (Number of posts per week...)

26. As much flexibility as possible through CSS

*Script modifications*

27. Hooks for custom code (Before message is saved, before it is
displayed... probably many other places). This would be _really_ nice.