Forum
Please post ideas for implementation and design for the forum upgrades.
Things we know
- New categorization scheme that will allow posts and discussions to be marked (e.g. trackers, questions, answers, more info, bugs, etc.)
- Sorting and "sticky" threads
- Defined API that allow forums to be used anywhere
- Display mechanism that would allow different display templates for different forum types...
- Anonymous Forum Capability: Users can post information anonymous in a particular forum
...lets add our top plans here, and add details in further pages...
(Remind me to talk about this at the developer meeting, I have a rather radical idea cooking that would affect this - Martin D).
Details
Categorization: Let's itemize a list of features with details/ideas for implementation. Perhaps a 'label/filter' system would work well (ie Gmail)?
Sorting and Sticky threads:
- Should be allowed to have a forced display order set by instructor
- sticky threads remain at the top regardless of other sorting
- sort by user, date, thread name, post count
- I think the new table class can handle the majority of this for us. But we may need to keep the sticky threads in a seperate section somehow
API: should allow a forum to "belong" to a module instance rather than a course. This would allow a forum to exist within a module, and not be displayed on a course main page. Any other "hooks" that may be necessary to generalize the forum module.
Display Templates: Review the new table API and see if that can handle the templating issues for us. Provide a way to specify a display format and have the forum module return a table object
Double Window: old wish to have a resource - or another object for discussion - on the left and a forum on the right.
The ability to see the rest of the thread, not just the previous post perhaps in an iframe (like phpbb) starting with the previous post but scrollable back uptowards the top of the thread.
