Quick reply box

[ladyx]

Anyway I can put a quick reply box on the bottom of each topic??

[ladyx]

?

[GregChapman]

There is no option built into Nabble and it would involve a significant amount of coding if it was to be done well.

Consider this...

The fundamental trouble is, that it wouldn't create a reply, would it?

The forums that that offer a quick reply box are very different from Nabble in their structure. They don't offer the Threaded view. They don't allow you to subscribe, post or reply by email. They don't allow you to restructure your forum as a Blog, Newpaper, Gallery and more. They don't have an equivalent of Nabble's Universal Back-End.

Unless you can link a "quick reply" to a particular previous post then it will destroy many of Nabble's benefits for your users, and perhaps you.

Making that link with a previous post will involve clicking on some option somewhere and that will take as long as clicking an existing "Reply" link.

In short, to code the "Quick Reply" box well will also require you to remove or make significant adaptations, to all the facilities for email use of your forum, e.g. subscriptions, posting and replies and it will probably not make using it any quicker for your users.

On the plus side, one of the great advantages of Nabble is that you can edit the NAML code, so if you want to tackle the job yourself, you can. Good luck! :-)

[GodlyPerfection]

Copy and pasted from the other thread:

GodlyPerfection wrote

We have actually created our own Quick Reply box using NAML (courtesy of our tech admin DavidJCobb). In addition we built a Quick Edit box using the same system and the quote option goes straight to the quick reply box first and any time you hit quote on a post it just tacks on the quote to the end of the quick reply box. You can see and try out how it works in our Spam Perfection forum (made for miscellaneous things and for people to chill and do whatever they want). Anyone can create topics and reply to topics without registering so feel free to create a topic and then try replying to it and/or quoting it or editing it.

http://forum.reachingperfection.com/Spam-Perfection-f1846623.html

[GregChapman]

GodlyPerfection wrote

We have actually created our own Quick Reply box using NAML (courtesy of our tech admin DavidJCobb). In addition we built a Quick Edit box using the same system and the quote option goes straight to the quick reply box first and any time you hit quote on a post it just tacks on the quote to the end of the quick reply box.

On the basis of your description I feared that your system would not work as I would wish, so I checked it out...

First I registered on your forum and subscribed to it. I took a look at a post and saw the Quick reply box. The first thing I noticed was that the caption clearly says "Quick Reply to OP", so that overcame my first concern. Use of the quick reply box does reply to a specific post and, after testing, I can confirm that it works with a reply using it properly threaded in my mail client. (Of course, it doesn't stop an ignorant user posting there when it is not a reply to the original poster but rather some message later in the topic, but there are enough people around who abuse their mail client that I guess we must let that pass.)

Next, I logged out, and took a look at the topic in question - Result: No Quick Reply box! Great News! It means that means that those using the Quick Reply box must have an associated email address. I used the standard reply link. Result: A Quick Reply box pops up (without the "to OP" legend) All good so far!

After a little more playing the only problems I could find are these:

# There is no longer the message "In reply to this post by ..." when responding to messages earlier in the topic. (This, I feel, is an important feature as so often people do not quote from messages and it helps put responses in context.)

# If you use the "Quote" link and then change your mind about which message you are replying to, then the original quote is retained, (whether "Quote" or "Reply" is used) although the QR box moves to be beneath the message in question.

In summary:
This represents some really excellent enhancements to the standard Nabble code with all messages properly threaded in my mail client. Sort out the two bugs I've identified and I'd say Nabble would do well to incorporate these features in their main code. Well done David, Some excellent work!

[GodlyPerfection]

Glad you like it Greg. Feel free to check out our testing forum. Below is a link to our official NAML changes thread that Cobb has been keeping up to date and the link after that is to the test thread of the Quick Reply box and a couple other topics about it. Feel free to look around.

http://testing.reachingperfection.com/List-of-NAML-changes-td3924753.html
http://testing.reachingperfection.com/Test-Thread-A-td3924285.html


EDIT: As for the "person replied to post" option... we might have removed that across the board. I can't seem to remember where we discussed it if we did though. I'll direct Cobb towards this thread.

[DavidJCobb]

GregChapman wrote

After a little more playing the only problems I could find are these:

# There is no longer the message "In reply to this post by ..." when responding to messages earlier in the topic. (This, I feel, is an important feature as so often people do not quote from messages and it helps put responses in context.)

We specifically removed it, because most people at RP just scrolled down to the box at the bottom and typed there.

A lot of the kind of forums that users there have been to aren't threaded (i.e. Bungie.net, Halo Waypoint), and the forum display is in List view by default, so they didn't feel like bothering with the individual Reply links. Some of them thought the "in reply to" bit was a bug or a feature they didn't understand, so based on that and Threaded view's apparent disuse, we figured it'd be easiest to remove that bit entirely.

The removal is, of course, optional and not built into the QR system itself. IIRC it's one override that empties out a default macro.

GregChapman wrote

# If you use the "Quote" link and then change your mind about which message you are replying to, then the original quote is retained, (whether "Quote" or "Reply" is used) although the QR box moves to be beneath the message in question.

This is something that could easily be changed in the JS, but so far our users haven't pointed it out as an issue (and some may even see it as a feature -- hard to predict), so I've left it alone for now.

GregChapman wrote

In summary:
This represents some really excellent enhancements to the standard Nabble code with all messages properly threaded in my mail client. Sort out the two bugs I've identified and I'd say Nabble would do well to incorporate these features in their main code. Well done David, Some excellent work!

Thanks. :)

When RP 3.2 is up and work starts on 3.3, I might start documenting more of our custom macros, to help anyone who wants to use the features on their own app.

[GregChapman]

I fully recognise the reasons for not needing the changes I suggest and, in your case, I'd agree your response is justified. It reflects users who are used to the forum environment and not used to a mail list environment.

All I would say is that should Nabble choose to adopt your changes then I feel that, in the standard code, those two points would be regarded as bugs by those whose primary use of Nabble is as a mail list archive.

Of course you could always take them out!

[GodlyPerfection]

GregChapman wrote

# If you use the "Quote" link and then change your mind about which message you are replying to, then the original quote is retained, (whether "Quote" or "Reply" is used) although the QR box moves to be beneath the message in question.

Actually we are counting this more as a feature... this is how some people multi-quote posts. First they quote/reply to one post the move up and quote another post so it gets attached to the end of the quick reply to continue replying. At the very least that's how I intended the system to work.

[GregChapman]

As I said, I fully understand this from the perspective of a forum user, I just have a niggley doubt about the implications for threading in a mail list.

However, the quote facility does credit the original author every time, so it's certainly not all bad.