[nohuhu]

Originally Posted by AndrewD

Thanks very much, these are very helpful suggestions and I will see what I can do. I do not plan to make a new release until vb 4.x is available, because this is likely to require a lot of work. I add specific remarks below.

well i didn't intend to force your decisions or something, as i said i just made some suggestions for future versions. whenever they be.

I fully share your impression, and I have felt for some time that the settings page needs further effort. (It is a lot better than it used to be ) However, is it more difficult that the main vb admin options page? (That's a serious question.)

yes, i found it quite difficult to configure LDM properly, at least initially. this mod is a system unto itself, its complexity can be easily compared to the main vbulletin forum software and the learning curve after installing this mod is quite steep. vb admin options are divided in several pages, making them a lot more manageable. of course there's an option to display all settings at once but frankly i only use it rarely to find some option if i'd forget on which page it is located. otherwise i always use separate pages, it's much easier to navigate and it takes a lot less effort to concentrate on settings themselves.

I think that I should review the entire integration of LDM with vb, and the use of Ajax code to allow this type of feature to work 'on the fly'.

well that would be lovely. i, for instance, plan to use thread view extensively and i think it would be much easier for users to see rated files. right now it can be a bit unintuitive, so i think i'd better turn off thread ratings for announcement forums to avoid threads being rated differently from files themselves.

also, i think it would be beneficial to have tighter integration between LDM and vb for comments and discussion. maybe i have something configured wrong in my test setup but it appears that comments are not stored as announcement thread messages but rather as separate entities viewable only on LDM entry page. i'm not sure yet if that can be done without code changes using only templates but it would be good to display thread replies as comments on LDM page and vice versa, LDM comments as thread replies in announcement thread. better yet, store comments as posts in announcement thread and display the same messages both on LDM entry pages and in announcement thread. this way, it would make a perfect place for users to discuss files without undue confusion as to where to post their comments.

Again, this is a good idea and I will give it some thought.

thanks. this feature could spare me from constant headache of tracking user uploads, moving and adding them manually with respect to their original uploaders. i think i must elaborate a bit on my setup for you to understand it better: i run an automotive forum dedicated to technical matters, mostly DIY diagnostics and repair. some of my users are very experienced mechanics and they just love to add to the forum, they make up these "do this and that" manuals with lot of pictures, spare parts replacement sheets and such, these documents can get very large - especially when an user is more like auto mechanic than computer literate user, if you get my meaning. so Word documents with uncompressed photos within are not that uncommon and they can easily grow over my max_post_size limit that is set by hosting provider. i just don't have time to pre-process all those documents before uploading, i'd rather give users some reliable way to add large documents so they could do that themselves. ftp is good for uploads but i can't control downloads the way i want and i won't give free anonymous access to my ftp. i have an unlimited traffic hosting plan, in theory, but once the traffic from anonymous ftp soared up to 1000 gb in a month i got a bit uneasy and had to stop that.

I have tried to be consistent, but also to keep the number of phrases to a reasonable minimum to limit the memory overhead and the work needed to provide a translation. I will certainly review the separation of menu item/error message/information.

well i'm not php expert but i don't think that making phrases unique will place unbearable burden on servers with regards to memory. LDM phrases are only used on LDM pages, or so i perceive vbulletin's phrase management. also phrases can be divided in more sections to lower memory load. as for work needed to translate a mod, i've done quite a few already and i can tell you, i spend a lot more time trying to think up an elegant way to translate an English phrase when it is used in several places than simply translating sheer bulk of used-once phrases. if i'm sure that a phrase is used only once, like in help sections or admin sections, i just type. it's fast. when i have to stop and think, it consumes time. and with mods this large, it consumes a lot of time.