TinyPortal

Hi, I am doing a little poll on how users of TP really use it.

So if you are using TinyPortal: put your votes to what you think is the best features of it. If all of them: great :) but generally you might have a more narrow selection - which is what I am interested in.

Thanks for reading and do take the time to show your opinion. :)

Also posted at simplemachines.org site: https://www.simplemachines.org/community/index.php?topic=561058.0

I would value a menu manager that would allow for adding option in the top menu for articles and category pages.
It does not yet exist though. The one that is now available does not work for me..

Quote from: @rjen on July 03, 2018, 09:02:59 PM
I would value a menu manager that would allow for adding option in the top menu for articles and category pages.
It does not yet exist though. The one that is now available does not work for me..

Always said that's a must have feature for a portal.  ;)

Agreed that a menu manager that takes care of all menu items - forum and portal origin alike - are needed in a portal. I did add something in some of my themes..but this sort of thing needs to be added in a mod to really be effective.

Quote from: bloc on July 03, 2018, 10:50:55 PM
Agreed that a menu manager that takes care of all menu items - forum and portal origin alike - are needed in a portal. I did add something in some of my themes..but this sort of thing needs to be added in a mod to really be effective.

Hey bloc, how's you, good I hope.

tino did start work on adding these features to the TP menu manager and it worked very well in my opinion. This would have got a vote if it ever made it to TP.

Quote from: lurkalot on July 03, 2018, 11:07:26 PM
tino did start work on adding these features to the TP menu manager and it worked very well in my opinion. This would have got a vote if it ever made it to TP.

I disagree, I think the implementation was clunky and not user friendly. Hence why it was never implemented fully.

Quote from: tino on July 04, 2018, 07:18:52 PM

Quote from: lurkalot on July 03, 2018, 11:07:26 PM
tino did start work on adding these features to the TP menu manager and it worked very well in my opinion. This would have got a vote if it ever made it to TP.

I disagree, I think the implementation was clunky and not user friendly. Hence why it was never implemented fully.

I'm not denying it was a bit clunky and not very intuitive, what I meant was, what you did seemed to work well.  ;) Wondered if there was a way to, when you click the add menu button, it could perhaps add a separate menu just for adding tabs, instead of combining them with one of the other menus. 

It seems the interest have died out now, 7 votes and and 9 at smf site - probably some overlapping members - which seems to indicate a die-hard fan base of TP out there. :)

But as results go they kind of strengthens my suspicion: that the features in TP most people use are the articles, frontpage and how to show blocks(and probably incidentally also the blocks themselves). Theres interest in the download manager too.

Things that dont' seem to create that much spark, are all the "other" stuff, visual styles, menu manager(in a block) and surprisingly, the frontpage mix of articles and forum posts. That blog-like feel I for one thougth was important, isn't so important after all. :)

Food for thought - and a reminder that while devs might think one thing, users think another. To keep in mind if ever TP was to be "re-booted". (which I have been thinking about on one or more occasions tbh)

Big thanks to all that voted! :)

(this post will also be posted at smf site)

Quote from: bloc on July 07, 2018, 12:23:28 PM
It seems the interest have died out now, 7 votes and and 9 at smf site - probably some overlapping members - which seems to indicate a die-hard fan base of TP out there. :)

You'd think that but then since I started working on TinyPortal there has been 140 downloads of the latest released version with 188 of the one prior to that and 97 of the one previous to that one. So somebody somewhere is using it. I think people just download and use it now and less people visit this site unless there is a issue, or something they can't do.

I'll be honest what I like is the frontpage, articles and that's about it. Blocks is a nice touch and has many uses but I don't really have anything else in it of use. Well other than a Gallery would be good.

Quote from: tino on July 07, 2018, 12:28:20 PM

Quote from: bloc on July 07, 2018, 12:23:28 PM
It seems the interest have died out now, 7 votes and and 9 at smf site - probably some overlapping members - which seems to indicate a die-hard fan base of TP out there. :)

You'd think that but then since I started working on TinyPortal there has been 140 downloads of the latest released version with 188 of the one prior to that and 97 of the one previous to that one. So somebody somewhere is using it. I think people just download and use it now and less people visit this site unless there is a issue, or something they can't do.

tino, don't forget the downloads from here too.  ;) 

From the SMF mod site
1.4r = 97
1.4.1  = 188
1.5.0 = 140

From here in the downloads
1.4R = 95
1.4.1  = 140
1.5.0 = 105

Total = 765 downloads.

So yes, it's being used a fair bit, or at least tried out.  But I agree they don't seem to say much until assistance is required.

For me the number one best feature has always been the TP Article system because it gives you the ability to add as many extra pages as you like and the type of content can be so diverse.
Next would be the blocks and panels and here again the attraction is the wide ranging type of content.

After that comes the Frontpage option(s) and then everything else on the list... I voted for all, of course.  ^-^

As for folks showing up and voting, I've always held the opinion that aside from our forum staff we've never had really high numbers of active members when compared to the numbers of downloads of TinyPortal. As tino said, people don't tend to show up until they have an issue that they are unable to resolve on their own.
I think that maybe they are just busy with their own forums/site and don't visit here unless they need us to fix something.