Forums » Suggestions & Development Discussion » Help me plan the next version of Groups

We are approaching the time for the next major push to develop groups. I thought I'd muse about it out loud here, so current group owners have a chance to prepare, anticipate, or throw tomatoes.

Moving to a fixed width layout for the main site has resulted in vastly fewer display errors and vastly less maintenance work for me. I would like to do the same for default group layouts. This should alleviate some development burdens, and make it easier for me to add new decorative content group owners can use to customize the look of their groups.

Yes, at some point we will be adding an epic-like ability for groups to have their own CSS, which would mean anyone who really wanted a liquid layout could whip up their own.

Groups will also be acquiring a calendar widget, in addition to a timeline widget (also going to add these for characters, too).

I'm currently looking into various ways for both groups and characters to have more and better organized pages. As much as people covet this ability for characters, it seems even more crucial for groups, who might have huge amounts of world setting data that would benefit from a structure like:

• Our World
  • Major cities
  • Flora & Fauna
  • The Gods
  • Holidays
• Character Creation
  • Playable races
  • Picking stats
  • Buying skills
• Past & Present
  • Calendar of upcoming events
  • History
• Members
• Forums

In addition to new features, I will be spending a lot of time rewriting and improving old features. We've had months of data gathering that has been most informative in terms of how people use groups and how people would prefer to be using groups, which puts me in a better position to make improvements.

So please tell me before I embark on this project, I am dying to know: What would make groups most useful for you and your members?

Updates have begun being released. Jump straight to the posts about them by clicking here

Let me add: It has been swilling around in my head for awhile that sometimes, people have one character in multiple groups, and that character is a tiny bit different for each group. I am trying to figure out the best way to make joining a group "unlock" an extra page only viewable to other members of that group, so that you can enter info there that's specific to the group.

The details of this plan are still quite mushy. If anyone has thoughts, I'd really appreciate them!

Approving members.
What has been really bugging me is the inability to mass-approve members. CF gets multiple applications sometimes, and I have to wait for the page to load every time I accept one character. For bigger groups who rely on approval and get many members, this is a huge pain.

I'd like to be able to select all pending applications and approve them or deny them at once.

Application forms.
Right now the application is just a text box with BBC. I'd like to be able to set up an actual form for members.

I'd like to ask them questions like:

What is your motivation in two sentences?
[ _____________________________________ ]

Are you 18 years or older?

• Yes
• No

Please check the awesomes: Or Please check up to four of the following awesomes:
[ _ ] Supercake
[ _ ] Bacon
[ _ ] Whales
[ _ ] Trees
[ _ ] Kim
[ _ ] RPR

Enter biography here:
| . |
| . |
| . |
| . |
|_____________.________________|

Besides a neat form like this with only checkboxes, input boxes or text boxes, I'd like to be able to add a widget into the page with extra info. Just a regular text widget like we can on char pages. Right now I have a huge chunk of text in the application itself that most people don't read properly because it's cluttered and messy, so some don't join because they have no chubby alts, realizing it's not necessary to have them.

Editing members needs to be easier.
Groups are still fairly small right now, but what in two years? 500+ members per group? We can feature a character or member, make them mods etc. But what if your mods and featured members are spread throughout 25 pages? What if I want to alter their settings? I'd have to go through 25 pages to find perhaps one single person.

I'd like to search for a specific member in the manage group members page. I'd also like to sort members based on what is checked on them, i.e. all moderators listed in ascending or descending order, all featured members, GM privileged etc.





That is really all I have at the moment. It's the things that I noticed are troublesome already or may pose big problems in the future, especially for larger groups, so I hope this is helpful to you.

Also, if a player has joined a group, I think they should be able to display this on their profile page if they choose to. Just like how characters gather group tags and can display them, members need to be able to do this too. It helps get groups noticed if particularly active players are part of them and it may help people find friends with similar interests more easily.

Editing members, yes! Or even being able to edit them right from the members page instead of going to Dashboard and then to edit. It'd be nice if moderators were 'stickied' at the top of the page or at least a way to search, as Sanne said, for people that are moderators.

I'm one to put a big push for the calendar, that'd be incredibly helpful as well.

Thank you, that is very helpful to know.

I like the setup you noted in your example. A layout like that would prove quite useful especially for my group since I'm creating a whole world for it including details of various cities such as mayors/ presidents and what not. Granted not everything in the example would be applicable to my group itself but the basic idea of it is what catches my fancy.

And I'm also very keen on Sanne's suggestions as well. I would enjoy being able to fully customize and app as well as do a mass approval/denial on new potential members to my group.

LOVE LOVE LOVE THIS!!!

A few quirks I am finding.. Im trying to edit the look of the group.. and its very easy to use as is, however my changes are never saved (this has happened the past three times).

Otherwise, Im still playing and poking around. I'll let you know how I get on.

*leaves offering of Gummi Berry Juice to the brilliance that is Kim*

Sorry, have to ask, but are you remembering to hit the "update look" button after you've picked the colors?

Yep. And Ive figured out the widgets I think.. its just the outside background colour Im having troubles with now.. LOL Im still playing around.. but its awesome babe. So good!!

Super Awesome! .

How about some more varied use of the group forums, such as removing, moving and locking posts and having the ability to create a forum just for moderators / certain "special" members? I know that the group forums are limited as RPR contains forums, but it would be nice to have those little advantages :p.

All of that is available to groups right now, with the exception of forums for "special" members, although that is a planned feature.

You never cease to amaze me. *grins*

Quick question:

Our forum is looking at creating a library of sorts, a public records place to record the endless tomes of information regarding characters, blood lines, clans, wars etc... would it be possible to arrange the space on the page as easily as you have managed to create the current set up pages?

What I envision is a filing cabinet of sorts. Clicking on one (A- E) would open up a page filled with folders, each with a heading, sub heading and visuals if available. When designing the page for the groups, it would be cool if we could have more visuals in our backgrounds.. for example, a bookcase or library scene would be a good background for my filing cabinet idea. With your handy widgets, I think it would be perhaps possible to create what I see in my head..

Say.. I want a filing cabinet that has eight shelves. I am able to pick a widget that gives me my eight seperate areas I can decorate or fill with text as required. The eight seperate spaces can be incorporated together to now make a filing cabinet (large rectangle) which I can now superimpose my visual of a grey filing cabinet under the text...

Is any of this making sense? I should probably cease attempting to explain until I get some sleepies.

I'm... really confused about what you're describing, but I think what you're asking for is

Yes spot on with the more flexible backgrounds.

Um.. the filing cabinet idea.. I think youre thinking what Im theeeenking.. But I also think I need some sleep. *grins* I will have a think of how to best describe it and Ill try again tomorrow. Might even have to draw it out and send you that if I cant articulate it that well...

I've been holding off on adding more complicated templates for groups thus far, as they are very much in flux and things are likely to be moved around enough to break any gorgeous templates people came up with. I wanted the flexibility to rebuild until they worked their best without worrying about preserving someone's artistic masterpiece of a template. When we've got the system more solid and established, you can bet I'll be turning over a lot more visual control to group founders.


I will await a less tired report to see if we are on the same page!

Also.. cool features like postit notes for messages .. changable icons I guess. Say the player logs in and instead of a number hidden near their inbox somewhere on the screen, a postit note pops up randomly, letting them know they have a message. These postit notes could also be text boxes that we can change to feature relevant information regarding current plots or what not.. just a thought. Im an artist, so I see all of this with coffee stains and the feel of an office... but thats MY vision. It would be good if players could select their own themes for their personal pages.. and how they receive their messages. People might prefer a more technical looking setting, others something all together different..

Im pretty much we were born on the same page Kim.. LOL.. where have you BEEN all my life? Night babe. xo

I would be EXTREMELY wary of letting people do something this intrusive to each other's browsing experience. I know I personally would hate to have anything pop up at me in any form.

You can use a text widget in the side bar to talk about your most recent plot updates?

You mean for the site as a whole, not just profiles? Although making a sci-fi version of the site had crossed my mind, we actually just went through a serious redesign of the site wherein I had to simplify a lot of the layout because it has reached a size that is extremely difficult for a single person to maintain. Adding a second layout that I would have to test every new UI addition or change in would double my work load and double the time it took to get new features out. As fun as alternate versions would be, that's not an acceptable trade in my eyes.

I think we're getting way off the topic of groups here though.

Sleep tight!