As far as BN goes, I really love what you guys have done for us! I've had my forum for at least 3-4 years now, and I've never had any problems with it breaking down or not getting fast support by e-mail for all my questions and requests.
However, it would be great to have an easier way to modify parts of the forum as an admin without having to learn difficult coding (Javascript, etc) and figure out where to put it in your template.
I know some people would say this is a prerequisite if you're going to run a forum, and you should know this stuff, but there are definitely times when it would be easier to have perhaps a beginner's mode of selecting colors for backgrounds, fonts for the forums, and changing icons and smilies all set up in an easy-to-use form. It would remove a lot of the support questions like "I just ruined my board, fix it for me >_<" etc, and beginners to the forum modifying world would have an easier time at doing the same things that experts do.
I'm not sure how SMF works on the admin side, since I've only ever used BN, but this is something that has continually bothered me and taken up much of my internet time while trying to figure things out. =/ I don't know if it is actually do-able, but if something like a form or page could be created for beginners to modify their template on basic design, it would be absolutely fantastic. =3
Oh, and something else I had posted years ago, that I was wondering could be included in these forums:
I wanted to know if there was a way I could do two things. I looked over the faqs and the guides, but I couldn't find anything that mentioned these small, handy little features. So, I am asking the users. ^^
I have free board, so it is pretty basic, and still in the default template.
First: Is there a way I can get statistics to display something like "Users Viewing This Topic" and "Users Viewing This Thread"? I have seen other boards where it shows that small statistic at the bottom of the page, and so you can tell who is checking out which topic and thread. It is really handy in my opinion, since you'll know if you will get a fast reply or not.
Second: I would like to change my code so that each time I or someone else replys to a thread, they don't get led straight back to the topic area. I want the reply button to lead back to the thread they were replying in, as it is much easier instead of having to backtrack iinto the thread again. This one is a preference of mine, but it makes it easier for users to read over what they have posted and whatnot. I would like it to be default on the board, not just an option like under "additional options" here. Is that possible?
I know these two requests might just be simple, but I really do not know anything about templates or html yet. ^^; Please help me out if you can, or at least tell me what I can do, if anything, to find a way to get these two small features.
The reply that I got said that neither of these things were possible, but would they be possible with SMF?
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