Sneak Preview: InfoPanels

Fillip H.

Staff member
Owner
Developer
Customer
As you may have noticed, we've just implemented a sneak preview of our upcoming product: InfoPanels!
This product aims to bring the most important forum and member statistics directly to your members, in a clean and efficient manner.

It's not entirely finished yet, but it should be usable enough so that we can collect some initial feedback on it before finalising it :)

PS: This will be the first DBTech product that you do not have to have the Lite and Pro versions installed side-by-side, which we know has been a source of confusion for some of you. We hope to take our entire product catalogue in this direction in the future, though we have other things on the agenda to sort out first (not to mention, bug that you guys kindly helped us discover!)

We look forward to hearing your feedback / questions :D
 
its looking good Fillip H. nice job. only thing i could suggest is to move the bits like avatar and the bits next to avatar to the left a bit more, in otherwords where you have the links and things at the bottom, try making the text above those links center so that the link texts are in the middle of them see below:

sampleinfopanel.gif
 
maybe its because i'm using a higher screen resolution i'm using like 46' TV moniter. so my res is crazy high. maybe its just that.

also with the TOP 5 statistic is it possible to set the thing to auto reload constantly (i know this would be server intensive but if i was to use a site i'd like to be able to have it auto update at a more regular interval say 5-10seconds)
 
Yeah, the auto-reload is fully configurable and can even be turned off altogether.
 
This looks promising. I don't have the time to dig into it right now, but I like the idea.

Offhand, my only concern is implementation. For instance, it takes up a LOT of room at the top of your forums (I assume this will work with the CMS as well?).

I'd like to be able to format this and drop it into smaller areas. Maybe I only want to display 5 of the stats in a CMS block, can I do that? Maybe I want the other 5 in another block, etc.

This would allow for dropping custom stats where they make sense. You can still have a full panel with everything in it, but then help augment other areas of the site with specific stats that make sense.

Anyway, it's only a half thought idea right now. =)
 
Ok, one more quick thing, don't even know if it's possible to include it in this, but...

I saw you were visiting my site Fillip H., so maybe you already know what I mean.

But I'm using a mod from vb.org for the "DHV Dashboard". What I really like about this is the AJAX of displaying the latest threads within different tabs. So I have these broken down into the primary groups of my forum.

I'd like to see this same functionality added (if possible). To take that a step further, it'd be even better if these tabs were user configurable. So my members could set them up the way they want, not the way I want. Although I'd like to be able to retain the ability as an admin to force specific tabs/forums to always show.

If this is too far off base for what you're doing, no problem. But the two mods somewhat cross over in functionality now so I thought I'd mention it. =)
 
that sounds a great idea so users can arrange their own dashboard to show what they want to see whether it be latest threads, newest members that kinda thing?
 
But I'm using a mod from vb.org for the "DHV Dashboard". What I really like about this is the AJAX of displaying the latest threads within different tabs. So I have these broken down into the primary groups of my forum.
Yeah I was actually looking to see if you used the VSa stats, but yours does look a lot better.

I'll see about that level of customisability being added :)

EDIT: That being said, it's not going to be impossible to create custom blocks for InfoPanels either, though they would still be admin limited.
 
Even if they are admin limited, that's ok. =) I just want the same functionality I have right now in my dashboard on the right side with the different tabs showing the most recent posts for the forums I've defined per tab. Having that definable per member would just be better, but not necessary. =)
 
BTW, do these features end up adding to the cost of the mod? Because if they do, I'll stop, wait until you release, then mention them all! ;) Just kidding, no worries! hehe
 
Haha, no I doubt that xP
Besides, I think the current plan is to postpone it to v1.1 - it's kind of a radical change.
 
For now, it's designed to be positioned where it is atm. For a future version I'll look into allowing the Top X Stats portion of it to be relocated - the Welcome Panel bit needs to stay where it is though.
It's only supported on FORUMHOME in the first version - may also change in the future depending on feedback.

The remaining obstacles that stand between this and a release is the fact that the Top X Stats doesn't work properly for guests, and an additional feature to be added.
If we have time, we'll also look at integrating it with vBOptimise so that we can get rid of some of the queries on the main page for those with that mod installed.
 
that sounds a great idea so users can arrange their own dashboard to show what they want to see whether it be latest threads, newest members that kinda thing?

Love the idea of user could arrange their own dashboard!

I like to have a Display Full/Display Minimal of the dashboard: Full will display all, minimal will display only a couple of stats ...
 
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