Geek Articles - Codename: Shorthorn

HowdA All,

I thought I would start a new thread here instead of watering down the current release of Geek Articles 2.0

Basically, I released Geek Articles as a cheap and cheerful way to give explicit forums an 'Article system' feel without all the hullabaloo with adding a major addition and hacking your vB code within an inch of its life.

I was aslo desperate for an Article System that actually integrated with vB in the sense that it would be searchable (with the other threads), use vBs user permissions, Attachment system, wysiwyg, etc...

Well, Geek Articles 2.0 does that. However I quickly learned that as soon as you release a hack, about 502.3 people start asking it to do things it wasnt designed to do (anyone know what I mean?).
I dont mean that to sound like a drag as I thought most of the ideas were actually quite good - however they were out of the scope for Geek Articles 2.0

In to your life walks Geek Articles codename: Shorthorn.

This is a project aimed at merging the best of Geek Articles 2.0 (the simplicity, searching, permissions, etc...) with a heavier duty article system (adding a byline option, multiple pages, etc...).

I have my first milestone in beta and has the following features:

• Everything Geek Articles 2.0 has
• Byline addition
• Multiple page support

Once I have finalised these features (I want to give them a test over the next few days on my site) I will then release it for private Beata testing and then finally on this thread for open beta testing.

What I would like to do is to get feedback on the direction that it is taking. Does it look sucky? Is the functionality crappy? Are you really just after a really neat Hangman system for vB?

Here is a live version of a multi page article

So please, come one, come all and let me know if I am wasting my freaking time.

Toodles

[Snow]

Originally Posted by Nick0r

How about an add on for http://www.daniweb.com/tutorials/tutorial12725.html to make url's like article-title-name-here.html

Have you seen Dani's mod-rewrite tutorial that will do just that?

[hockyfan]

Is it still an option to have the add comment and rating on the first page with the article?

h

[The Geek]

Originally Posted by hockyfan

Is it still an option to have the add comment and rating on the first page with the article?


h

h- I hard coded it to try and get a green light from everyone on the layout however I plan on it being optional.

[rlamego]

NG, looks great!
The only thing now that needs some improvement now is the page links. Are you using the "regular" vB pagination thingy?

[TCB]

Originally Posted by the nail geek

OK guys... I have implimented what I think your suggestions were.


Take a look and tell me if that is what you had in mind -> http://www.thenailgeek.com/showthrea...t=8801&conly=0

Changes:
No comments link/button on article pages (except for last page)
Moved rating to last page (makes sense with the comment move).
Last page previews first 5 comments with a link to read the rest of the comments. In a way... I like this a lot better. I feel that with only a 5 post preview of comments, you will get people that will keep their comments related to the article instead of the other comments. If there are no comments previewed, they may be more apt to read all the comments before posting.

Actually... who knows? there are pros and cons.

Just tell me what you think.

You nailed it

At first I was hesitant towards having no comments on page 1, but looking at your preview it gives so much more focus to the article (and the fact that there's more than 1 page).

To notify people that the article contains more pages, it might be an improvement when the 'page x of y' info IN the article table (see attachment).

[rlamego]

TCB's thumb shows very well another aspect that might create some confusion (although it's just a visual matter), page links vs article links.
There must be a good visual distinction between both.

One neat thing would be a user definable "next page link". This would allow article writers to entice the reader to follow that link by asking a question or other literary teaser.
Alternatively, one could also "name" each page with a title and instead of:
Page 2 of 3 < 1 2 3 >
one could have:
And then she took her panties off >

Just thinking out loud =)

[eva01_]

don't know if this has been addressed but you may want to make it work in Safari :/ takes up about 1/5th of the width of the window. and replies on it take up even less

[The Geek]

Originally Posted by eva01_

don't know if this has been addressed but you may want to make it work in Safari :/ takes up about 1/5th of the width of the window. and replies on it take up even less

Eva - I was working on the live version around the time you posted this... can you just double check that it is working OK? Firefix is a-ok so is IE... cant seem to find a safari emulator

rlamego- I was using a custom one in the first inception, however I now use the standard vb pagination thingee
I WAS also doing the named links... however page breaking the way I have decided to go for has negated the real ability for me to do that in the way I wanted to. The only other way I can think of off the top of my head is to make the bbcode something like [BREAK=Go to the next freaking page] and then extract it out of there.
The problem there is 2 fold: 1- the exploding of the page breaks becomes more difficult and time consuming and 2- it will only give you 1 side without a lot more logic to extract the info needed.
Any ideas on how to do it SIMPLY is more than welcomed.

TCB - check now... is that what you were thinking of?

[The Geek]

hmmm. on thinking about it... maybe bb code for pagebreaks should look like this:

[BREAK][BACK="Reverse order"][FORWARD="Next Page"][/BREAK]

Then I can explode the post with a regular expression (which I suck at so if someone want to throw out the expression... I would kiss them).
Actually, I would need to expolde it into an array of back and next, then an array of pages.

If anyone wants to put forth some suggestions... I am more than open.

I am now running a bit low on time as I am at a conference all weekend and I need to get ready!

[hockyfan]

Originally Posted by the nail geek

h- I hard coded it to try and get a green light from everyone on the layout however I plan on it being optional.

Well I'd probably try out both, but I definately would go for it being optional, just in case.


h