Loved Kunena 2.0 - a moderator's view

Some of you may remember a topic that I created in the early days surrounding the release of K 1.6 which I called Kunena 1.6 - a moderator's view . We expect that interest in some of the new features of K 2.0 will likewise be just as keen as it was with K 1.6 and so we thought we should show you some of the new, cool, features that are planned to be available when K 2.0 is released as a stable version.

Before we begin, it's important that we get two important ground-rules properly established.

1. Any images that we post in this topic are based on a work-in-progress. These images are not an official endorsement of what the finished product will look like. They are merely an illustration of people may encounter with the new version.


2. I don't know everything!

You will have already seen a few cosmetic changes at this site including the use of new topic icons. Perhaps one of the biggest changes we expect will be the introduction of new tableless templates, the first of which is called Mirage. The two images below illustrate parts of the Kunena forum, here at www.kunena.org , rendered using the Mirage template.





As you can see, one of the neat features is the ability to mark all topics "read" on a category-by-category basis instead of marking all topics "read" on a whole-of-forum basis.

Quite apart from being more "colourful", the individual category index pages make the possible actions more clear for the users of your forum, as the following image shows:

The next image that I wanted to show is a partial screenshot of a topic view using the new Mirage template. Notice how the user actions are highlighted when the mouse hovers over the message?

I thought I would present the latest work on one of the new templates that we're working on:

The importance of downloading, installing and evaluating test versions of K 2.0 before the public stable version is available:

A test/sandbox site is always necessary - it usually takes about one hour to build one. Any serious site manager understand the importance of having a test site, separate from a production site and with its own database, as a place to evaluate new versions of software.

If people have a sandbox/test site now then, when the K 2.0.0 stable version is released it should only take a hour for people to verify that everything is all right. We estimate that K 2.0.0 will be released (barring major mishaps, etc.) very soon - two weeks - after K 2.0.0 RC2. Even with the cautionary advice that we always issue to people who use RC versions, we do not anticipate introducing any changes between this last RC version and the final public release; that's not say that further changes will not be introduced, of course.

Therefore, to "cut to the chase", a test/sandbox site is always necessary to have on hand. It usually takes about one hour to build one.

It is vital that people the test site quarantined from their production site. If your test site shares the same database as your production site, changes on your test site could seriously compromise your business-as-usual operations. The database for K 2.0 is structurally different to the database to K 1.7; the upgrade process makes structural alterations to an existing K 1.7 database. Please read through the release notes for K 2.0 in the Wiki.

We recommend that people not wait for K 2.0.0 stable to "happen" but that they download and install a release candidate (or beta version) of K 2.0.0 on a test site in order to evaluate (a) the upgrade process, (b) the overall reliability, and (c) the differences between K 1.7 and K 2.0. The sooner that people expose themselves to any potential issues, and the more experience that people gain, there will be a lower chance of people reporting problems on the day when K 2.0 stable happens.

Hi sozzeled

I really like the new design. Compared to the Blue Eagle template it's waaay better. You're doing a great job!

I've taken a look at your attached pictures and I have some suggestions - it's only suggestions, and I know that you may not agree with all of them. Sorry for my slightly bad english..

1) I like the template as clean and simple as possible. In my opinion there's no need to write the text 'Topics' and 'Replies' on the front page to the right of each category title. It is already stated in the header what the numbers mean. Same goes for the 'Replies and 'Views' in the category view.

2) Under Last Post (Front page) I would like an option to not show the profile picture, thereby making more space for the topic title (more important in my eyes).
Same goes for the Last Post in the category view.

3) I think the categories should be directely below the section title, with no white space between section title and categories (as in the Blue Eagle template). Also I think the categories should be the same width as the section title; i don't like the way that the categories is inclosed in a frame (from the section title).

4) The top menu bar (Index, Recent Topics, etc.) should also have a memberlist link.

5) I don't get the idea of showing 'Time to create page'. I guess my users really don't care (they can feel it themselves)...

6) I would like to be able to disable the "mark all topics "read" on a category-by-category basis". The botton takes up to much space, and makes the forum look a bit messy.
I rather prefer one button in the bottom of the forum, for example with a drop down menu to the left where you can assign which sections/categories the button should be assigned to.

7) In the category view there is a lot of white space to the right of the top buttons (New Topic, etc.) and the page numbers. I would prefer them to be gathered into the same line. For users with small screens this otherwise causes a lot of (or some) scrolling..

In the category view in the Last Post coloumn the text 'Last post' should be removed - OR the text 'by username' should be moved up to the right of the 'Lasp post' text.

9) In the category view if a post has more than 10 replies the page numbering takes up a lot of space. I would prefer it like on phpbb, eg. small buttons at the right of the 'Topic started' text.

10) In the category view the text 'Topic started on x year x month ago by xxx' should be replaced with 'by xxx » x year x month ago'. Takes up less space and look more clean and simple.

11) In the topic view there is to much framing going on. I would prefer the topic title not to have a frame inclosing all the replies. Instead the topic title should just be a horizontal bar, and the with of the replies should be the same as the topic title bar.

12) I don't get the text 'If you benefit from our help you can show your appreciation by using the Thank You feature.'. Why not just have a facebook-ish like button instead.

Best regards
Lasse

Thank you, Grubbe, for your suggestions. I've passed them along to members of the Kunena design group.

I would like to make two quick comments at this time:

Grubbe wrote:

5) I don't get the idea of showing 'Time to create page'. I guess my users really don't care (they can feel it themselves)...

This is configurable in K 2.0 and you can switch it off.

Grubbe wrote:

12) I don't get the text 'If you benefit from our help you can show your appreciation by using the Thank You feature.'. Why not just have a facebook-ish like button instead.

That's just me! :laugh: It's part of my signature!

Hello Grubbe,

I am the lead designer/coordinator on the new template Mirage. Thank you for your feedback on the new template, I greatly appreciate your effort. As a few words of caution, Mirage is in a state of development so any images you may see may be incorrect. Many of your analyses are very important in user interference design. I have talked internally with many members of our team about some of the issues/concerns you brought up about the template before you created this post. I am very concerned about the requirements, perceptions, and customizations needed for forum software. Yes you are right I might disagree with what you outlined, however do not feel I am not taking the things you brought up into consideration. Your feedback is very important to us.

To address your points, I like to make responses to your listed items. As a disclaimer, any features I mention may or may not be completed. They are simply there to expresses my desire for the design of the template. Also it is important to consider that many site administrators may have different preferences according to the scope of the design needs of their project.


1) The template Topics/Replies and Reviews/Views was a big issue we talked about internally with our team. We were set on only using the list header only to convey the definition of the column, however I decided to bring this to someone with no experience with Kunena to be sure. The person brought up the point that if the listing of the categories/topics was very long and the list header was not in the current view window of the browser, the user might loose some information about what the numbers meant without scrolling back to the top to find the list header. An extra event of scrolling to the list header at the top and back to their last location is created. The other columns do not have this problem because some information is implied with the content. Sometimes people scroll really fast to find some general information on a webpage and might end up in this situation with the list header is not in view upon the scroll. The situation is more of a problem when a user is very new the forum. It was decided to include both with the intention of allowing the header to provide some eventual sorting, while preserving the integrity of what the numbers meant inside the column.

2) Yes we have the same concern. The Avatar does add some artistic value for users, but generally some site administrators do not need it. I plan to have this configurable.

3) I believe this is more of a site administrator preference. We actually do use the spacing/framing whitespace in Mirage to convey some information about what category the user is in by inheriting the color from the category list background. However, I felt some site administrators would want to take full advantage of the space. As a result Mirage is designed to include spacing control, which is usually absent in template configurations. Our template heavily reuses around 10 spacing CSS classes that generally applies to the entire site. Mirage is fit together like a puzzle. As a result spacing/framing will be made configurable allowing to theme many of the general spacing elements that occur throughout Kunena. You will be able to eliminate many of these framing concerns you brought up.

4) Good point. I agree that a more general location to access that information should exist in the menu.

5) As Sozzled mentioned, we agree and is configurable.

6) We had some similar concern and decided this would be site administrator preference. Our reasoning, on long discussion boards its difficult to scroll and remember information about what categories would need to perform the action. We also plan to add more buttons in the future. However I agree on shorter discussion boards this extra button-bar does not make sense. As a result I will consider to make the button-bar to be disabled in configuration options and include a global header option, which was planed in some form anyway. The intention of the buttons where they are now is to make clear to the user what block/portion of the discussion board he or she is able to affect on a case by case basis. The result is the ability to have more immediate active actions.

7) We are missing some filtering control have not decided how to include this in the design. This will alter where buttons and pagination are positioned and styled.

The Last Post text is a link to the last post of the topic. I agree this portion could be considered for an adjustment.

9) Pagination length is configurable, and is why we include it in a single line. The pagination buttons are too big and need to be adjusted.

10) I believe this is more of a site administrator preference. Some site administrators have difference preference about how dates should be displayed based on country customs.

11) Please see number 3 about framing.

12) As Sozzled mentioned, it is a signature. The section needs to be styled.


I hope this gives you a bit more insight about these issues and concerns. We share many of the same. Feel free to ask some questions. Again things are subject to change. For everyone this is a good opportunity to make feedback about what is available, not what could be available.

Hi sozzle and coder4life

Thanks for your answers and your involvement in my suggestions. It is greatly appreciated.

@sozzle
That's really an annoying signature you have I'm glad it's just you and not a part of the template! I did however made me click the Thank You button.

@coder4life
It seems that we share many of the same thoughts. I get you points and I agree that it's difficult to please all users as they have different opinions and needs. Bottom line must be that as many things as possible should be configurable. And I can see that you already planned that a part of the way, so that's good..

Once again thank you guys!

For general information.

In the (less than) two weeks since K 2.0.0 was released, K 2.0.0 has been downloaded 10447 times.

Since K 2.0.1 was released (around 12 hours ago), K 2.0.1 has been downloaded 972 times.

Thank you everyone.