PropertyChat v2 suggestions

I'm not sure if there is a way to embed a Discord chatroom into the website - but there are web, desktop and mobile versions of the Discord client, and we can show transcripts of chat sessions (for organised chat "meetups") on the site for later reference.

I'll make sure that it's easy to get started and for people to join in - I think you'll find it works quite well once it is set up and fully integrated into the site.

 

If you can convince me it will add value to the site, I may reconsider - but as previously mentioned, I find them confusing in their meaning on Facebook and think it's better to be explicit about your response (in writing) rather than vague with a potentially misleading reaction emoji.

Perhaps if you could use any of the emojis available as a reaction "like you can in Slack discussions", but then that potentially gets cumbersome to display.

 

Tables are always problematic because it becomes very very complicated to support them across all devices - especially mobile devices.

Interestingly, the new (3rd party) text editor in XF 2.0 does actually support tables, but the developers of XF decided to disable the table functionality.

The best way I find to do tables is to create them in a spreadsheet, take a screenshot (cropped to the data!) and then upload that to the post. Not ideal, but guaranteed to look good on any device (but you can't copy/paste data from it).

Screen shots are actually really easy to import - just copy and paste!

I use Snagit to take screenshots of arbitrary parts of any page, I can then mark them up with arrows / boxes / text / etc ... then once I've cropped it to the desired size in Snagit Editor, I simple select all, hit copy and then go to my thread, position the cursor and hit paste ... it automagically inserts the pasted screenshot and creates an attachment for it - no need to even click the "Upload a File" button. The whole process can be done in just a couple of seconds - works really well.

While there aren't any markup tools in the forum software or gallery - the new version of the media gallery does support cropping / rotating images you upload ... but more importantly it also supports adding comments to part of the image.

 

That would kind of require members to stop posting everything into a single thread.

Personally, I find it really frustrating when people insist on using a single thread for something rather than multiple threads - it's harder to find useful information and it's bad for SEO.

 

Try the "Minimalist Theme" (click on the theme name bottom left corner of the page).



... and then if you upgrade to Premium membership you can hide adverts and other things as well.

I'll look at building a more comprehensive "work mode" for PropertyChat v2

 

Ironically, we used to limit that on Somersoft for technical reasons (overly long threads caused performance problems), but this current software has no such limitations and so threads can be as long so you let them get.

Whether they should be is another matter entirely - FWIW, I agree that overly long threads become impossible to manage.

In many ways, such threads become much more like chat sessions - if you're not keeping up with it, you're left behind and there's not much point trying to keep up. It's also really difficult for new people to join in (unless they're prepared to simply dive in and don't annoy people by asking questions which were asked/answered 10+ pages ago).

I don't think that arbitrarily limiting the length of threads is a great approach (ie I don't think a technical solution is ideal here) - but I do think it does become a moderation issue - how long are we prepared to allow threads to become.

There are arguments for and against allowing users to go crazy with long threads - in some cases, it's just a bit of fun - but in others (eg LIC thread) I do feel that the value in the thread becomes lost due to the complexity of navigating it. It then becomes a content management issue - how do we make that content more useful to people.

When I get enough paying members to be able to afford to employ a dedicated content manager, we can try and solve/manage some of these issues more effectively!

 

... and that would be exactly what InvestChat was built for

More than happy to create per-LIC forums on InvestChat if that helps people - but it won't happen here on PropertyChat.

 

You mean like this - Service Provider Directory ?

(I do have plans to make this more functional / streamlined for PropertyChat v2)

I'm not sure there's as much value in extending it to arbitrary (ie non-Property related) businesses.