Level 10
Are we gonna see posts from old forum?
Aug 11, 2014
103
Level 59
Welcome to the New Forum!
Up until this month, Laracasts has used a third-party forum, called Esotalk. While it's very powerful, the problem is that it was completely separate from the core Laracasts codebase and userbase. As a result, there were two separate login portals. Yikes!
I'd been putting it off for a while, but, last week, I decided to sit down and build a replacement forum, which will now live at laracasts.com/discuss.
There's still much to do. This is only the first phase of the new forum, but expect to see lots of additions over the coming weeks, including an activity feed with notifications, better integration into your Laracasts profile, and more.
A Few Key Notes
- You may now use Markdown with GitHub-flavored code blocks (```php) in your replies.
- If you want Laracasts to send you an email each time someone replies to a particular conversation, you'll find a checkbox at the top of each thread.
- Forum participation is not limited to Laracasts members. Anyone may create a basic account on the site.
- Migrating the old forum to the new one has turned out to be a fairly complicated procedure. My instinct for now is to keep that one live, but simply archive it and lock down future signups.
$message = 'Okay, start talking.';
$user->command($message);
Level 59
Migrating the old forum to the new one has turned out to be a fairly complicated procedure. My instinct for now is to keep that one live, but simply archive it and lock down future signups
5 likes
Level 2
I like the new system. esotalk was good but this is great and looks very simple :)
2 likes
Level 20
I also like the new system. It looks very clean. Only issue that I have for now is switching back from the full screen comment mode. I like the idea, I maybe just don't know how to use it :)
Level 6
Looks like the right track to go. Now the tweaking begins :)
Level 59
How are you guys finding this? I haven't announced the link yet. :)
Level 3
It shows on the main Laracasts page.. under Recently Updated Discussions
Level 59
Oh, haha. That's right.
1 like
Level 5
Yep, that's how I found it too.
Level 30
Very nice integration. Good job as allways
Level 5
This is absolutely great! Very much needed, in my opinion. The disconnect between EsoTalk and Laracasts wasn't very "Jeffrey Way". :) Excellent job!
Level 59
@JoshWilley - No, it very much wasn't. It has bugged me for a while now.
Level 16
Love it! Have you considered condensing your process into a series? :) Have been putting off making a simple forum of my own as well.
Level 59
@mikebronner - Yeah - I think I will do a series on building a forum. Especially when discussing relationships, a forum provides some really good examples (conversation, reply, user, channel, etc.).
27 likes
Level 11
I think that this new forum is a good improvement on the 'old' one, I have a couple of personal suggestions that you may or may not follow regarding the visual design :).
Right now everything feels kind of "big" (in lack of a better word). Lowering the fontsize 1-2px might be worth trying?
Maybe a bit of added margin between the avatar and the border of the reply-box would make it look a bit less cluttered.
EDIT
I just noticed that the margin is mostly needed if the user has not yet replied to a thread (then the avatar image rests directly on top of the border).
Level 55
Where is my like button?! ;) Awesome work, nice, clean and simple.
3 likes
Level 59
haha - I can return that. I'll mark that one down.
1 like
Level 5
+1 for the like button.
Also, what about an "accepted answer" type deal for the Q&A channel?
1 like
Level 59
@JoshWilley - Yep, that's one of the first additions that will come - likely later this week. I like that feature, too.
Level 10
An idea I would like: Instead of the Disqus conversations at the end of each screencast, how about creating a thread for each screencast and linking to it under the screencast? It seems that there is two different modes of conversation, and it would be nice if everything was kept in the forums, especially with the Markdown formatting available. Just my 2¢.
3 likes
Level 47
{{ $forum->post('Looks Great Jeffrey. Going for a unified approach is really key this days.') }}
Level 59
@BenG - Yeah, I might end up doing that. I'm using Disqus right now, just because seemingly every site uses it these days. It's full-featured and well-tested. But, yeah, I'll definitely think about that.
Level 47
@JeffreyWay, I just noticed that the pluralization of the replies string does not catch when one has only 1 reply. It should show 1 Reply instead of 1 Replies.
Level 59
@muffycompo - You're right. I thought I handled that already. Will fix right now.
Update: and...fixed!
4 likes
Level 7
Looks good :-)
Level 47
+1 on the update/fix @JeffreyWay
Level 6
Awesome job... Clean, and definitely feels more in keeping with Laracasts :)
Level 13
Very well done @JeffreyWay - or better JeffreyWell? ;) Just one single suggestion: What about changing the order of posts from DESC to ASC so that we see the newest on the first page?
2 likes
Level 8
Awesome !!
+1 @bart for the comments order
1 like
Level 3
Great decision! Super simple, Markdown support and nice PHP code highlighting—well done.
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