1 (edited by Tobi 2005-11-03 18:45)

Topic: Drag & Drop Category/Forum sorting

Thought I open a topic here because it's not really a feature request.
Going from Rods enthusiasm of all these DHTML/JavaScript toys I found this on the net:
http://tool-man.org/examples/sorting.html
It shouldn't be too dificult to modify it so it's possible to sort categories/forums with it.
I am not too sure though if I will find enough time son to do someting about it.
So if somebody else is already planning this feature maybe the link is worth looking at.

The German PunBB Site:
PunBB-forum.de

Re: Drag & Drop Category/Forum sorting

is it too hard to click a button a few time?

that AJAX stuff, while cool, just adds bloat.

3 (edited by Tobi 2005-11-03 19:50)

Re: Drag & Drop Category/Forum sorting

Well, is it too hard to climb 3 flights of stairs although there is a lift?
No, it is certainly not but most people would prefer the lift anyway wink

You are right anyway, ajax does add bloat so I agree that it should be used with care.
When have the choice to submit a simple form the old fashioned way or with ajax, just to show users the "Thank you for sending" screen a second earlier I will always go with your opinion.

However, for the board admin it's great.
In order to resort your categories and forums you really have to click a lot - and wait a lot.
It is much easier and more intuitive to just drag and drop.

BTW
This has not too much to o with ajax anyway. Even worse, it's just JavaScript and DHTML.
The result can/should still be submitted the old way.

The German PunBB Site:
PunBB-forum.de

Re: Drag & Drop Category/Forum sorting

I think it should not have to be submitted, for the plain reason that if i dragged it i would never think of pressing submit tongue

5

Re: Drag & Drop Category/Forum sorting

Why not?
I mean, when you do a layout in, say, Illustrator, don't you save your work? Or do you expect the layout program to do that for you?
I think people actually expect to find something like a "Yes, save this beautiful sort order" button somewhere. I for one would not believe that it has been done in the background. People want to be reassured, that's why. But that's just my opinion, I guess it can all be done flexible enough with or without dynamic saving.

The German PunBB Site:
PunBB-forum.de

Re: Drag & Drop Category/Forum sorting

I did a page on a website som time ago where the users changed some settings and as I did a post-back on each change anyway I didn't make a submit button. Sure enough, the users came back complaining about the lack of a save button. I wrote a small notice on the page explaing that there was no save button and everything would be saved anyway. No luck, people still complained so I ended up adding a button without any function whatsoever...

Re: Drag & Drop Category/Forum sorting

CodeDuck wrote:

I did a page on a website som time ago where the users changed some settings and as I did a post-back on each change anyway I didn't make a submit button. Sure enough, the users came back complaining about the lack of a save button. I wrote a small notice on the page explaing that there was no save button and everything would be saved anyway. No luck, people still complained so I ended up adding a button without any function whatsoever...

Hahaha

"Programming is like sex: one mistake and you have to support it for the rest of your life."

Re: Drag & Drop Category/Forum sorting

lol, but... this is for admins and i think people are more likely to forget to press submit than to be confused by there being no submit tongue

9

Re: Drag & Drop Category/Forum sorting

Dunno... first of all, I think pressing submit has become quite automatic.
Second, there are admins and there are admins... smile

I think CodeDucks solution is ideal. Pretend there is a highly important button and leave it up to the user (admin) to use it or not wink

The German PunBB Site:
PunBB-forum.de

10

Re: Drag & Drop Category/Forum sorting

I need your opinion on this:

I am working on a mix between the toolman functions, some xajax and of course the category/forum admin.
Now I ran in to the following issue:

When I allow to move all elements freely then this can happen:
User drags the first category somewhere down and leaves the forums of this category on top.
Now, if xajax immediately saves this state then we have orphaned forums. This is illegal I think.
So, while moving categories without their forums across can be good if you want to assign other forums to it but it can not be a valid state.
This means I will have to introduce a submit button.

The other option:
I group the categories with their forums and only allow to move the forums inside their categories, and the categories as a whole, including their forums, between each other.
This way it would be assured that we always have a valid state and we could use xajax - but it would disable the possibility to move forums to other categories.

So, which one do you think makes more sense?
Or does anybody have a really clever ideas how to solve this?

The German PunBB Site:
PunBB-forum.de

Re: Drag & Drop Category/Forum sorting

I think this is a  fantastic idea (thanks Tobi) and that the 'no function' button is a great solution to the problem of submitting changes.