Forum Issues List

Forum Issues List

Introduction

The following issues list is intended to be an objective summary of issues identified by the EverQuest II community regarding the official forums, how they function, hierarchy, and similar. In-game issues are out of scope.



Functionality Not Working Right

These issues describe where something the forum software advertises to do is not working correctly. Note that this is for actual bugs and not features the community simply dislikes the implementation of.

• Read vs Unread Posts
  • Logging out or closing browser and reopening seems to cause all posts to be marked as read. Forums seem to have poor/buggy tracking of read posts.

• WYSIWYG Editor does not always result in identical post
  • Particularly when more complex formatting is used in posts, what is displayed in the WYSIWYG editor is not always what appears after the post is submitted. See example of one case here.

• "target=_new" being used for links
  • The post editor adds a "target=_new" to open links in a new window. This may work with IE, but all other browsers use "target=_blank" for this. The _new results in multiple links all being opened in the same page called "_new".

• Horizontal size of the browser window being calculated improperly
  • Possibly due to using "large system fonts" or other tweaks the forum software seems to be miscalculating the width of the browser window and is resulting in having to scroll horizontally to read an entire post. See this thread. Opera users also reporting several instances of having to scroll horizontally.

• Signature links open in the signature frame
  • If anyone uses links in their sig and they don't specify a "target" attribute, all links try to open in the tiny 500x150 sig iframe.

• Double line spacing happening
  • Several posters have noted that pressing "enter" in a post results in double line spacing.

Desired Functionality Lost

This is a list of functionality present in the Lithium forum software but was lost after the forum transition that the community feels is important.

• Timezone setting
  • In the profile, the community would like the ability to specify the timezone to display posts/threads in.

• Post preview
  • While the post editor is quite nice looking, it does have some quirks and a “post preview” would be nice to prevent any issues.

• Spell checker
  • The non-perfect spellers in the community would like a spell checker function (WORKAROUND: Browsers such as Firefox have built-in spell-as-you-type functionality)

• Different icon for threads you have replied to
  • After replying to a given thread, there is a desire to see a different icon that would indicate the individual has participated in that thread.

• “Messages posted” in tracker format
  • Posters would like a tracker-like view (similar to the “topics created by” or Dev Tracker) for the “Messages posted by” link in a profile.

• Friends list
  • Ability to track posts and online status of a defined list of friends.

• Ignore list
  • Ability to ignore PM's of a defined list of posters.

• IMG/URL indicator
  • Would like an indicator that shows whether the original post in a thread has an image or URL in it in the forum view.

• Makes names link to profile when viewing a thread
  • While viewing a thread, the forum name displayed in a post is not clickable as it was previously. This should link to the poster's profile.

• Read status on private messages
  • Posters would like the ability to see whether the recipient of a private message has read the message or not.

• Quote within a post
  • Posters would like to have the ability to quote from within the post editor rather than from only outside the post.

Wishlist

This is a list of functionality the community would like to see but was not present before nor is it something that is currently bugged.

• More forum skins/variety
  • More/different forum skins are desirable. The current skins all have a dark background with light foreground and some more variety/choices are desirable.

• Date/time format
  • International posters would like the ability in the profile to be able to specify the format for date/time.

• Ignore list

• Ability to ignore posts/threads of a defined list of posters.

• Table Editor
  • The ability to create/edit tables in the WYSIWYG editor is desirable.

• Replies to PM's add too many "Re:"
  • When you reply to a PM, the forum software prepends "Re:" regardless of the number of times it has been replied to. This can result in several "Re:" prepended to the subject.

• Replies to PM's prepends "Re:" to the subject without space
  • When you reply to a PM, the forum software prepends "Re:" before the subject, but does not include a space after the colon.

• Ability to ignore forums
  • Some members of the community have expressed a desire to hide forums they have no interest in from the main forum listing.

Changelog

• 27-July-2008: Removed indent/outdent issue as well as issue about not being able to post as an unguilded character. Both issues seem to be fixed!
• 22-Oct-2007: Removed Safari issue. Unable to confirm this was still an issue
• 20-Oct-2007: Removed several items, added item for double line spacing
• 22-August-2007: Removed several items due to forum software update
• 12-July-2007: Added item for missing avatars (Erudite, Fae, and Arasai)
• 6-July-2007: Removed a few issues that no longer seem to be an issue after recent forum software updates.
• 11-May-2007: Removed issue regarding some posters having to repeatedly login (seems to have been fixed)
• 10-May-2007: Removed several search related issues (new search functionality added)
• 04-May-2007: Removed issue about colored text (appears to be fixed)
• 30-April-2007: Added issue for seeing read status on PMs, removed "duplicate post submission" issue (seems to be fixed)
• 21-April-2007: Added Opera browser as another example of horizontal size issue, added font/color issue, added session logout issue, added signature "target" issue, added request to hide forums
• 31-March-2007: Removed item regarding broken abuse reports. Seems to be working again!
• 19-March-2007: Added item for horizontal width of posts being miscalculated. Added new example for WYSIWYG editor not resulting in identical post issue.
• 14-March-2007: Added items for "Re:" prepending annoyances, clickable poster handle in thread views, "don't show signatures" preference
• 08-March-2007: Added item regarding "-1" answers
• 07-March-2007: Added item about first/last link in threads
• 06-March-2007: Removed item about PM indicator (fixed in software), added issues about "target=_new" and previous/next thread links
• 05-March-2007: Minor changes based on initial feedback
• 04-March-2007: Initial post

Great list! Looks like you've got most (if not all) of the bases covered... I can't think of anything on my own personal wish list that you haven't covered here. I hope it helps to bring about some of the changes / fixes we've all been itching for since the transition.

yeah PhPBB gets it right why not this forum?

Good post. I've made some remarks here: http://forums.station.sony.com/eq2/posts/list.m?start=0&topic_id=350031#3967920 [hr]Rorion@Lucan DLere wrote:

It seems SOE thought the need to develop their own message boards from the ground up. While I can see why they decided against using shareware boards like phpBB or small-fee boards like vBulletin in order to develop one they can directly tie into their games, developing such a tool from scratch will always result in encountering many issues and playing a lot of catch up to the capabilities of boards that have existed since the mid to late 90s. I just hope this isn't considered the 'higher level of quality' that SOE has mentioned as the reason for their price hike of the SA subscription

Picture url icons. Bring them back I want to know if theres gona be a picture in a thread before I view it. Makes threads get more attention as well. Also my PM isn't always showing I have a new PM

Verdance@Mistmoore wrote:

It is my understanding that the forum software we are now using is actually based on Jforum (somewhat modified I gather). SOE has some pretty unique needs that aren't going to always plug in easily to any existing forum package (Station login, post as in-game character, huge user base, etc.). I will say, however, that I am a bit surprised to see so many issues still needing attention. MxO, for example, transitioned to the new forum software over 6 months ago I believe.

chrystolred wrote:

Oh good one! I'll add this to the list.

In my opinion, this is a fairly low priority issue compared to some of the other things, but it was nice having this indicator.

chrystolred wrote:

I already had that one in the list. I *think* it was working when we first transitioned (but broke in an update), but I couldn't remember so I put it in the "Desired Functionality Lost" section.

Frequently, I am getting automatically routed to this page - http://www.google.com/hws/gateway/a..._id&rdr=afe - while reading the forums.
This seems to happen mainly on threads that have a lot of graphic signatures.
Anyone else having this issue? I don't know if it's something caused by the new forums, or if it's something to do with my browser settings, but it never happened on the old forums.

• Read vs Unread Posts
  • Logging out or closing browser and reopening seems to cause all posts to be marked as read.
  This one irritates me to no end =(

Nice compilation! One to add: The post editor adds a "target=_new" to open links in a new window. This may work with IE, I don't know, but all other browsers use "target=_blank" for this. The _new results in multiple links all being opened in the same page called "_new".

[p]That is a great list, I however have 1 to add to it. [/p][p] Please bring back the links for Previous and Next Thread. I used those to keep from having to go back to the main window to select another thread to read.[/p][p] [/p][p] [/p]

Johnathon@Crushbone wrote:

Me too...it happens even if you leave browser open and its just idle for like 10 minutes

Separate the Expansion forum into their individual titles, such as Fallen Dynasty, Echoes of Faydwer, etc. instead of throwing them all into one.

Rhyanna@Mistmoore wrote:

I haven't seen this personally. I suspect it is something you have installed on your computer that is doing it.

Let's start a new thread to discuss this one as I suspect there will be differing opinions. If we can reach a reasonable consensus, I'll add it to the list. The thing with this one is that the old forums had different forums for each expansion and Grimwell decided to consolidate. We'd need to give him good reason to re-expand them again (I am not saying this is not possible).

Surroth@Nagafen wrote:

That isn't something I ever used, but it sounds like a fair functionality request to me. I'll add it to the list.

So it does (I had to look for myself). I don't claim to be an expert in such things, but I'll add it to the list.

On threads with more than 7 pages of posts, we need First and Last hyperlinks on the appropriate pages. Otherwise you have to go back to the thread list and navigate to the first or last page depending on the page you were originall viewing OR you navigate to multiple pages using the page number hyperlinks until you get to the first or last page.

I'm not sure it is. Lacks a ton of the common tools/functionality of Jforum. And, if it is, I wonder why they've disabled them. With the shape it would be in now, I would consider the forums its own application and not one that can be upgraded in coordination with the Jforum updates. Jforum is an okay forum tool, though. Good version of phpBB2 using JSP. We're using it for our AddUp client at work.

I personally miss the post highlighting. As far as I can tell, I don't see an option.