Forum Link to Frontpage Newsposts

[Shademp]

Don't worry, I'm not kicking the dead horse of wanting WordPress and vBulletin to communicate via an automatic process. I had something slightly different in mind.


On the frontpage we have a small banner (can I call it a "banner"?), with a link that reads "Don't miss the latest Lifestream audio book, On the Way to a Smile: Case of Nanaki".


Is it conceivable on a practical level to introduce a link banner like that to the forum for the purpose of linking to the most recent Newspost? If common members have a Lv1 authority, then members of a Lv2 authority and up should be able to edit the link in this banner.

- Visualization (excuse the poor Paint works)


Again, this is not about making WordPress and vBulletin communicate. The banner would require manual editing and so it's up to the author or any other member of the proper authority to update the link.

The downside is that this creates an extra step for the newspost author (who already has to navigate through the huge number of tasks involved in making a WordPress newspost) and if the banner link stays outdated for a long time it will look embarrassing. One consideration is to remove the "Latest Newspost" text from the suggested banner.

The upside is that forum dwellers are more likely to notice the arrival of a newspost and thusly jump to the frontpage. Currently I only visit the frontpage out of solidarity because a newspost might be missed or when I wish to look for pages to update.

The step of updating a single link in the forum is also way easier than having to create a full news thread on the forum corresponding to the frontpage item. The latter does add the reward of the author being "thanked" for their work, but when one doesn't feel like going that extra mile, though still wishing for their update to be easier noticed, then the banner could work.



Apologies if this discussion has already been held. When the topic of frontpage-forum communication has been discussed much of the lingo has gone over my head. I do not have the technical know-how to implement the suggested banner.

 

[Ⓐaron]

I think the only way to do this without having to hack the board is to have a template that gets edited each time a new post gets made on the front page. Unfortunately, only admins can do template edits. However, someone has probably written a hack for this. I'll look into it later if someone reminds me.

 

[Shademp]

*reminder in the form of a bump*

 

[The Twilight Mexican]

There's a front page?

 

[Ⓐaron]

I can't find anything offhand that seems to satisfy the request, though I haven't finished looking through the search results yet. I'm not sure what a good set of search terms would be for this, though. Any ideas?

Edit: I just thought of one other possible solution: give site authors the ability to make global announcements, and then just have new front page updates announced via the announcement system. That sounds easier, tbh. Should I just do that, or do you want me to look for something more customisable?

 

[Tetsujin]

There's a front page?

 

[Shademp]

Edit: I just thought of one other possible solution; give site authors the ability to make global announcements, and then just have new front page updates announced via the announcement system. That sounds easier, tbh. Should I just do that, or do you want me to look for something more customisable?

The global announcements solution sounds good. I don't remember though exactly where the announcement appears on the forum and that visual detail may affect my opinion.

 

[Ⓐaron]

Global announcements show up at the tops of forums and new post listings. Forum-specific announcements just show up at the top of their respective forums, iirc.

 

[Shademp]

Global announcements show up at the tops of forums and new post listings.

Sounds good enough for me. *thumbs up*

 

[Lex]

Excellent plan, but how are you going to link the announcement to the Happening Now bar?

 

[Shademp]

Excellent plan, but how are you going to link the announcement to the Happening Now bar?

Linking the forum Global Announcement and the frontpage Happening Now bar was never my intent. They are two different entities with different purposes.

Including a bar in the forum similar to the Happening Now bar of the frontpage would be an incentive for forum dwellers to visit the frontpage. This way they don't have to leave the forum to already know that a new newspost now exists on the frontpage, ergo more people will click on the newspost link and read it.

 

[Lex]

Ah of course, I'd misread the post. Good plan

 

[Ⓐaron]

Anyway, site staff now have the ability to make global announcements. Check the staff forum if you're on either site or forum staff for the thread I made.

 

[Flintlock]

Don't worry, I'm not kicking the dead horse of wanting WordPress and vBulletin to communicate via an automatic process.

Sorry I'm late to this discussion, but why is that a dead horse?

I found a plugin that does everything we want, and I've suggested we implement it on at least two occasions. Everyone seemed to agree it was a good idea, and then... nothing happened.

Plus ça change, TLS.

 

[Ⓐaron]

I don't remember any of those discussions. Maybe I didn't read them. Is the test board still set up? Seems like a good place to test it out.

 

[Flintlock]

This was the most recent discussion about it. I think what happened was that we got distracted by debating whether or not to upgrade to vB5 (I don't recall that discussion ever having an outcome either, but I think most of us ended up being against it).

 

[Ⓐaron]

I don't know why I don't remember that, then, because I definitely read that thread. $24 is a fair sum, but it's pretty cheap compared to modern message board software, I guess.

 

[Cthulhu]

I don't remember any of those discussions. Maybe I didn't read them. Is the test board still set up? Seems like a good place to test it out.

You can download a VM from the staff section for great fiddling justice, .

 

[Ⓐaron]

I was never able to get that to download in its entirety

 

[Cthulhu]

Download manager? I could probably turn it into a .torrent file too.

 

[Ⓐaron]

Download manager didn't work. A torrent is probably the best solution.