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

I've only really read the two initial posts from Kim (*lazy*), but I can put in my two cents here because I'm a group owner!

I LOVE what was said about the layout, with the information about 'our world' and etcetera. That would be soooo helpful. I hate having to clutter pages with too much text so that people have to scroll down forever. And I would love having an area about the species, and all that good stuff. I think that would be great!

I'm not very high-mantenaince(gawd I hate that word I need to learn how to spell it), so I don't really have too many requests. I do have a question, though. Is group-owning limited to epic members only? (Asking because this could become a problem when April rolls around and my membership expires. ._.)

I don't think so, but I could be wrong.

Bonebag is correct, you don't need an epic member to create a group

(mobile) dunno whats been suggested yet so: individual user statuses (think away, but let group owner set to, say, busy or open). Profiles for users within regards to the group

Now that I can type more clearly:

When I say profiles for users within regards to the group, I mean profiles specifically to the group rather than main user profile. For example, we've got the Game Designers group. With this, someone could edit their Group profile to say:

Programmer (capabilities/languages)
Writer (preferred genre)
Artist (links to examples)

As well as a blurb over availability. Also, they could put up statuses within the group, kinda like the thread I have in Game. It's not just applicable there, though. If there was a link to view Member Profiles, you could see that UserA's availability is once a week, B is every day, and C is just marked busy, so you can know why RPs are jamming or avoid it happening altogether.

Also, either I'm totally retarded or it's harder to navigate towards my groups than it should be.

@Minerva - Some method of displaying different member info to group members is definitely a planned feature. I am going to start with characters, since they tend to require the most "tweaking" to fit in with a given group's setting. It may be that then extending this capability to OOC members is a natural progression.

I will mull over "statuses" in some form, but at this moment I make no promises. Things like this tend to be forgotten and become inaccurate over time, and if you had to set it on a group-by-group basis anyone with more than one group is likely to end up wildly inaccurate and/or frustrated. I see the situations where it would be useful and how you'd like to use it, I just think there may be a better way to meet that goal.

As for navigating toward your groups, what method are you using to get there? It's true that they haven't been fully integrated in the sites navigation yet -- I don't plan to do that kind of full integration until groups are safely out of alpha and given a serious stability test in their beta stage.

(mobile) i tend to look for announcements in my home and click to a thread then backtrack, or lately use my art thread link.

You might try using your dashboard as a more reliable method of getting to groups you're a member of?

(mobile) maybe a top bar w status updates then? "your status is set to busy" "there are 4 new community posts" etc?

I'm working hard on groups. Here's what I released last night:

• Fixed some display errors when adding activity widgets to groups (But there are still some left I need to take care of, never the less)
• Groups may now bar applications based on age.
• If you start a group with no age restrictions but later add one, you will be notified of how many users are under the new minimum age and given the option to have them all automatically removed from the roster.
• Group applications can now be approved or denied en masse
• When an application is accepted or rejected, the applicant will be notified of the decision via private message
• portraits on membersip applications are now clickable
• Completed applications that have been accepted or denied can now be reviewed
• When someone applies to join the group, the founder is notified via private message

I've also been working steadily on multiple diagrams and mockups for new group setting and management pages of various kinds, to try and make sure the next version is better organized and more intuitive to use (but still just as flexible). I know diagrams don't help you right this second, but I just thought you should know there's a lot of real movement on this and the changes should be spilling out very soon.

I'm also working on getting my massive stack of notes and to-do lists into the public development log... Expect that to get really, really full over the next few days.

Disclaimer (its five am and I havent had coffee.. So bare with me..)

We are finding a problem with the page layout in Groups that relates particularly to our personal needs.

We are in the process of transferring information from our no longer used proboard to our group on the RPR. What we need is the ability to have several boards with several sub boards underneath them if that makes sense.

Say for example I want to make a board in our group to house the story so far relating to.. I dont know.. getting a new puppy. So people can see on the board the title of the story "New puppy" and then click on it, and under that there are sub headings.. like.. chapters? Chapter 1: Bringing the Puppy Home, Chapter 2, Puppy toilet training.. etc. Players can then click on the chapter and have more subboards, as the chapter is broken up into seperate sections.. ie: Chapter 2: Puppy Toilet Training. Act 1: Out before bedtime, Act 2: etc etc.. We would need to have the option to choose where the chapters (sub boards) go and in what order.

Did that make any sense? We are just finding that in an attempt at transferring alot of information that we need to keep organised, the current layout isnt working for us. Also, as Im lazy and uber busy, I delegate alot of jobs to members of my team, so this is based on feedback I have received from them. I havent had much of chance to play around with it yet, and Im sure you already have this kind of stuff in consideration with your breakdown you mentioned before relating to History, our world.. etc. Just wanted to point out, that as well as having the information seperated we also need to be able to organise it in order if necessary.

Thanks Kim! *dives into the biggest cup of Joe she can find*

I'm a bit confused about what you're asking for, Ebony.

Nested pages? Nested forums? Pages with information that expands when you click on it?

Okay.. Ill try to be more clear.. I could mean nested stuff.. Im not familiar with that term though, so Im not sure.

Okay.. so I need to transfer information relating to one of my stories.. We have multiple stories at my old site.. and we would create different Realms for them. Basically the same as the current group section where you can have the information pages and then link them to the forums etc. However instead of making a new group for every story, we would like to house every story in our group.

So for example.. I'll use my group currently: Morthika

Morthika has a pirate plot I want to bring over here.. so in my Morthika group.. I need to have a section for the Pirates. People can click on Pirates and have the same layout we have for seperate groups where they can access the past information about the current plot, as well as current threads, OOC forum, etc etc. However this isnt a seperate group for RPR.. its one of many realms in ONE group on RPR if that makes sense? I will also have other "realms" ( for want of a better word) for my other stories and players can access these and all the information pertaining to the plots in the same way.. just by clicking on the title of the realm, they open it up to reveal a list of different threads (which the group admin needs to be able to ensure is in order by having a drop down option like "Place this subboard above or below subboard A".

It's basically a very similar format as what is available on a proboard if you have experience dealing with those?

So basically you want this setup, with the FIRST area:

[Group title}

[Welcome] [Pirate Info] [Members] [Normal Forums]



Then you click on [Pirate Info] and the page goes to a subarea within the same group, like so:

[Group title]

[Main] [Pirates] [Pirate Forums]



Clicking on [Main] will take you back to the first area.

Did I get that right, Ebony?

Ok, let me interject as I speak Australian and have been chatting with Ebony. I think Sanne had the right idea.

I think what Ebony means, is;

The forums are set up thusly.

GROUP A

FORUMS –

PIRATES IC – Individual threads/posts
CHEESE IMPORIUM IC – Individual threads/posts
OCC CHEESE IMPORIUM – Individual threads/posts
HISTORY OF CHEESE – Individual threads/posts
SPACE CHEESE – Individual threads/posts

Where as it would he handy, if we had the ability or order threads into relevant sections, such as

GROUP A

FORUMS –

OOC –
OOC CHEESE IMPORIUM – Individual threads/posts
HISTORY OF CHEESE – Individual threads/posts

IC –
CHEESE IMPORIUM – Individual threads/posts
SPACE CHEESE – Individual threads/posts

PIRATES –

PIRATES IC – Individual threads/posts

Does that make any more sense, just one extra level, so there would be 3 ‘boards’ and then 5 ‘sub-boards’ to house the individual threads. It would just give us the ability to customize and order things further than we already can. We could also ‘Hide some boards say for Moderators or Staff. Or Boards that are still under construction.

Proboards does something similar. It’s a little bit hard to articulate when you’re not familiar with the technical forum terms.

Also do we have a Gallery Widget for groups? I haven’t had a play around for a couple of months now, so I might have missed it, but that would be awesome, for maps and tavern pics and whatnot, and super easy.

Yeah, i've mentioned sub boards before. If you want an idea of what they're talking about, kim, my dusty old forums has them. Http://s8.invisionfree.com/szurane a lot of the sections have it. Try ooc, or other information. It'd make sorting much easier.

Subforums or subboards, or a variation thereof, is definitely something I can see being useful. Much like separating OOC and Roleplaying boards on the main RPR forums, this can help give a better overview. Divide worlds, cities, sides (Pirates versus Ninjas anyone? ) into a much more comprehensible format.

If I understood Ebony's idea correctly, it's more than just subforums though. Do correct me if I'm wrong, but I understood she wants an entire subGROUP. A group within a group, with its very own pages, its own widgets and its own forums, linked to from the main group. See it as two different groups being crammed into one.

That is actually a suggestion I'm not fond of, because I don't see many groups would use them. It's a very specific setup that can be accomplished by utilizing the options within groups in a creative way, in my humble opinion! (And if we are not creative, then why are we here? )

Subforums/boards are a great and common feature for groups that require more than just five boards, though!

groups could also be useful. I cant properly demonstrate short of someone making an invision forum. Let me put it like this: subgroup a is general access and sees general rp boards of genericrpgroup. Group b is upgraded access that can see a private forum meant for gms. Group c is even more exclusive etc. Keep friendly secrets to keep mystery or growing projects hidden until revealed.

Widgets, pages and forums that only display to people with certain privileges are in production.

Ordering (currently available), grouping forums and titling forum clusters will totally happen. Sub-boards will probably not happen in this go-around of revamping groups, but I'll keep it in mind. I think just putting them in groups will be a good start toward the effect you guys are going for.

Being worked on!

Also being worked on!