Any way to flatten (simplify) forum hierarchy?

[nwflyboy]

I think the SMF forum structure makes sense for sites that want to have multiple forums - discussions sorted into separate areas.  But for my community, I'd like to keep all the discussions in a single, flat forum.  Any way to do this?

For example, currently, this is the hierarchy one sees here, in this "Suggestions & Feedback" subforum or the "Tiny Portal" forum, under the overall "Forum":



What I'd prefer, is a flater, simpler hierarchy, like so:



Is there any way to do this?  If not, I'd like to urge that it be considered for a future release.

For technical users (like those who administer the websites), it's not a problem to have a deep, complex hierarchy.  But for many non-technical end users, having to dig down many levels to get to the messages may be more complexity than they can deal with (I know some of my users' heads will explode when presented with this kind of structure).

Thanks, and I hope this makes sense.

[G6Cad]

If you go in to your adminpanel/themes/themesettings/ there you have an option to change the looks of how the linktree show. "Enable inline links"

[nwflyboy]

G6 - thanks for the quick response.

That does change the way things look - but it doesn't change the underlying structure.  Choosing the option you suggested (enable inline links) makes the presentation of the information flatter (it's all on one line) but the nested structure is still there (and while the in-line view does save space, I think it actually makes the forum hierarchy even more difficult for users to understand).

What I'd really like, is to change what appears to be a fundamental part of the SMF structure....it appears that it's just assumed that you want you posts within one container, which is inside another container, which is inside another container...etc. What I really want is to have just one container.

I can probably live with it the way it is.  But with the complex structure that's in place, the other thing that I really need is a way to start off all users in the appropriate view - which I haven't figured out yet. I'll post that in a separate thread shortly.

Thanks again.

[bloc]

You can modify the theme_linktree function to only display "top" item and "bottom" item..if thats what you essentially want?