Jared, Thanks! I will check this solution out.
Regarding configurations: I don’t know if 347374 is an actual number or if you use it just to make a point, which I do get. If bbPress included everything in configurations, then there will be way too many configurations, and would delay next releases a lot. That’s fair enough.
But let’s look at it from the perspective of added value and break from forum convention.
bbPress is billed as a lightweight forum. Hence, when it breaks from forum convention to make it lighter (have fewer functions), that is at least understandable. e.g.
– No signatures in core (plugin exists)
– No icons (e.g. http://www.phpbb.com/community/styles/prosilver/imageset/forum_read_subforum.gif ) by forums and posts showing useful information (ripe for plugin)
– No emoticons in posts (ripe for plugin)
– No attachments in posts (ripe for plugin)
– No “topic started” date in list of topics (e.g. on forums page or topics archive page)
– No “read count” for topics (ripe for plugin)
– No forum specific search (plugin exists)
– No post count for posters
etc
However, when bbPress breaks with forum convention to add something without evident added value, that is a bummer. e.g.
– Freshness instead of Last post in list of topics (e.g. on forums page or topics archive page). I don’t understand the reasoning behind this. bbPress is making an additional calculation, bending over backwards, just to calculate how many seconds, minutes or days have passed since last post. Why? Why not simply display the date-time of last post like most major forum software do? I don’t see the reason and I don’t like it this way, but if it is like this then I assume that there are other bbPress users who do. Hence I say…perhaps this should be configurable.
– The notification This forum contains 5 topics and 7 replies, and was last updated by some-author 5 days ago. Why? What is the thinking behind this? What purpose does this serve? I mean, on the same page, topics are listed, there is pagination (and total number of topics) above and below the list of topics, the user can see which post is on top and who last updated it, so why is this notification important to have? I don’t get it. But since it’s there, I assume somebody does, and hence I request that it be a configuration.
– Similarly, I wonder if a lot is achieved performance-wise by not showing the name of OP in lists of topics, considering that date-time of original post is being retrieved anyway.
– Formatting/styling of original post and replies is different by default on the topic page. From a user perspective, I don’t see why. You don’t have different styling for original post and replies on bbpress.org or wordpress.org What makes you think that everyone else would want it? Perhaps there is not much additional work is being put into it because replies have to be assigned a formatting anyway, and this way bbPress users know that this is possible. But if so, then even if styling of replies has to be defined separately, it should be same as that of original posts by default, and users should be able to see in documentation that it is possible for them to have different styling. If, on the other hand, you have discovered that a large number of bbPress users want to have different styling for original posts and replies, then I say make it configurable.
– In freshness, the number of days/hours/minutes is linked. How does that make sense? (yes it takes to the last post, but linking hours is odd…phpBB’s approach where they have a tiny icon next to the date-time is better) If it does to a lot of bbPress users, I say make it configurable.
(Through all this, remember: There aren’t that many bbPress-supporting themes, and most of bbPress users will end up using bbPress with their generic WordPress themes)
Lots of people use WordPress despite the performance hit (as opposed to say, Drupal) because it is so easy to use and customize without having to do (or even know) any coding. All bbPress users are WordPress users and so there is a similar expectation from bbPress.
I know it’s not fair to compare bbPress to WordPress, which has so many more developers and contributors, not to mention forum moderators.
On the other hand, it is a fair expectation, for bbPress is billed as a forum software from the makers of WordPress. If Matt wants this to take on phpBB, vBulletin and SMF, he needs to put some resources behind it, instead of making JJJ toil alone.
