forums
Recently we had a project meeting and went through some feedback from the users of one of our courses. One thing that came up which kind of surprised me at first was that many users didn't get the difference between the "subscribe to forums" functionality and the "subscribe to thread" functionality. They wondered why they had to subscribe to the thread when they were allready subscribed to the forum.
Well, they don't of course, but when thinking of it you can understand the question. If you are subscribed to a forum allready, the system shouldn't give you the possibility to subscribe to the threads within it.
The good way to solve this would be to only allow subscription to threads if the user isn't subscribed to the forum they belong in, but the easy way is to just remove the possibility to subscribe to threads alltogether. This is what I will try and see if I get any reactions.
To do this, find the include/html/forum.inc.php, scroll down to lines 156 - 162 and comment out the following code:
<?php
if ($_SESSION['enroll'] && !$row['locked']) {
if (isset($last_accessed[$row['post_id']]) && $last_accessed[$row['post_id']]['subscribe']){
echo ' <br /><small><a href="forum/subscribe.php?us=1'.SEP.'pid='.$row['post_id'].SEP.'fid='.$fid.SEP.'t=1">('._AT('unsubscribe1').')</a></small>';
} else {
echo ' <br /><small><a href="forum/subscribe.php?pid='.$row['post_id'].SEP.'fid='.$fid.SEP.'t=1">('._AT('subscribe1').')</a></small>';
}
}
;
?>Many people would probably object to removing functionality, but I try to live by the KISS principle instead!
Add subscription icons to the forum subscribe / unsubscribe link
July 14, 2008 - 12:30 — Vegard A. JohansenSome time ago we added a small modification to the forum listings in ATutor, which adds a small visual cue to whether you are subscribed to a forum or not.
It's best explained by example. This is the way forums look by default:
While you see the "Subscribe" / "Unsubscribe" text, it's not very easy to see which you are subscribed to and which not at a glance.
Our modification changes this listing to:
..so there's a small envelope showing if you are not subscribed, and a stop sign if you are. It's a detail, but has proved to be quite useful - have a look at our demo server! (note: you have to be registered and enrolled to see it).
Today I made this as a patch so yo can add it yourself. The patch changes the forum/list.php and adds the two small icons to the same folder.
