Legacy vBSlider v3.0 Beta 2 Feedback Thread

[bszopi]

Ozzy47, GoodApples, glagrow, Webbstre, CoZmicShReddeR, San, IcEWoLF, Trekkan, steris56

Ok guys, I just wanted to start this thread to see how testing is going on v3, get some feedback from you guys, and also give you an update on what I am currently working on for Beta 3. First off, I want to thank Fillip H. for getting the instances up and running, as I think that is an awesome addition to this, and will make it much more versatile for everyone.

Alright, now that I'm not traveling back and forth to my old house trying to get it ready to sell, I have finally had some time to work on some additional features and bug fixes for the product. Items that are currently complete are:

• Custom VBSLIDER BBCode: This acts just like the IMG BBCode, but will allow you to decide which image gets shown in the slider. I need to look into making this work for attachments as well...
• Random Left/Right ONLY for content area: This is just another option for where the content displays, but takes out the TOP option in the randomize.
• Soft-deleted Blogs still display: Fixed
• Retrieve External Images: Slider will now download any external image and save it to a directory. This will assist in making sure there are no issues with the slider if the external site goes down, image removed, etc.
  • Looking to possibly resize the images as well, if they are really big
  • Looking into having a cron job run every 24hrs to delete all files in the directory so that we aren't storing a huge amount of files.

Ok, that's what is currently working. Here are a few items I'm going to work on getting into the product as well before the Open Beta starts.

• Option to select Newest, Oldest, Most Read or Most Popular content types (currently just Newest)
• CMS Category selection, which will allow you to enter a single Category from the CMS and pull Articles from that Category. This will be in addition to Sections. Therefore if you have a News category, and you have News items in various sections, it will only display articles in the News Category but from all the sections.

There are a couple other bugs I need to weed out, and a couple more feature requests from vb.org, but not sure if they will make it in right away or not. So anyway, that is where I currently stand, so I'd love to hear feedback from all of the closed-beta testers. Thanks!

 

[Ozzy47]

To be honest, I have not yet installed it for testing, been to busy with vBDonate, I will try to take a look during the week.

 

[Trekkan]

I've got it installed, but haven't gotten it working yet (No display of slider at all), not sure what I'm doing wrong. But I need to spend some more time on it.

 

[Steris56]

i just got it installed on test site last night and havent dipped into yet but it certainly is awesome i love all the cool features at first glance any way will dive into it this week

one thing i would like to see is an option to allow only threads started by specified usergroups to go in the slider .....

 

[CoZmicShReddeR]

No issues I can detect... Running it with random transitions... Drawing lots of forum data from rss feeds to posts no issues have come up yet...

One suggestion: I would like to see a days old limitation added as well and keep the Latest Articles Quantity maybe have them work together... But be able to disable the days old limitation or be able to be set to zero...

 

[bszopi]

one thing i would like to see is an option to allow only threads started by specified usergroups to go in the slider .....

This was one of the features I have on the list that I think was from vb.org. I plan on adding it, just not sure if it'll make it into 3.0. Just depends on how long Cosmic lets me keep it in Beta stage. I will look into how difficult it would be at the very least.

Brad via Tapatalk

 

[bszopi]

One suggestion: I would like to see a days old limitation added as well and keep the Latest Articles Quantity maybe have them work together... But be able to disable the days old limitation or be able to be set to zero...

Can you explain this a little more? I'm not completely following what you are wanting. It appears perhaps another option for either quantity of items and/or what items are shown (newest, most popular, etc). Or I could be completely off...

Brad via Tapatalk

 

[IcEWoLF]

I will have some time Tuesday and will install it on my test site and possibly have a review on it by Tuesday night/Wednesday evening.


P.S: Can you make a separate beta section?

 

[CoZmicShReddeR]

Can you explain this a little more? I'm not completely following what you are wanting. It appears perhaps another option for either quantity of items and/or what items are shown (newest, most popular, etc). Or I could be completely off...

Brad via Tapatalk

I was referring to if I set it to show 5 of the latest posts and there are only 5 and out of the 5 one of the posts are a week old! I want it to drop off from showing posts that are of a certain age... Same with some Blogs and Articles..

 

[bszopi]

P.S: Can you make a separate beta section?

I asked Fillip H. about having a separate Beta section and he said just have any discussions in the pro support thread.

Brad via Tapatalk

 

[bszopi]

I was referring to if I set it to show 5 of the latest posts and there are only 5 and out of the 5 one of the posts are a week old! I want it to drop off from showing posts that are of a certain age... Same with some Blogs and Articles..

Ok, that makes sense. Would you want/need a different cutoff for each content type, or would a single value work for all of them?

Brad via Tapatalk

 

[CoZmicShReddeR]

Ok, that makes sense. Would you want/need a different cutoff for each content type, or would a single value work for all of them?

Brad via Tapatalk

I think yes for everyone that would be the best way to grab data and control it!

For example: As it is I want it so it's set to auto add data from the Blogs but I do not want it showing a three week old blog everyday until a new blog shows up... But yes some content from other areas you want it to show everyday until something new pops up!

Like a project release forums for games or mods you want it to show the current release until there is a new update!

I think pre dated drop off points and dated drop off points are good too!

Another thing to do is: Like lets say Wednesday 08-23-2012 I want it to show everything from last week but after Wednesday 08-24-2012 I want everything new again!

It might get way to confusing for the average user to have to many choices...

 

[GoodApples]

I have not dipped my toe in the water yet. I am going to download in a few minutes.

Feedback:
What's with the little green circle...that needs to go.
I uninstalled vbslider recently...to distracting for users.

I will be looking at something user activated and/or only refresh on page load...to distracting for users if its in motion when they need to be posting in the forum.

Think Postbit tabs

Also I would like the Text and Picture slide together as one image.

I would like to have the slider share space within a CMS widget where I may have text on one side and slider on the other.
or I guess if the slider had a sidebar text field attached to it.

So, I treat this as a new product on install. Correct?

 

[Trekkan]

I'm pretty sure in the settings you can change the green circle to a status bar or even off.

 

[bszopi]

I think yes for everyone that would be the best way to grab data and control it!

For example: As it is I want it so it's set to auto add data from the Blogs but I do not want it showing a three week old blog everyday until a new blog shows up... But yes some content from other areas you want it to show everyday until something new pops up!

Like a project release forums for games or mods you want it to show the current release until there is a new update!

I think pre dated drop off points and dated drop off points are good too!

Another thing to do is: Like lets say Wednesday 08-23-2012 I want it to show everything from last week but after Wednesday 08-24-2012 I want everything new again!

It might get way to confusing for the average user to have to many choices...

Interesting ideas, and as you state, it may get kind of confusing. I will say that I doubt it will get into this initial release of v3, but once it's released, I'll have you post again for a feature request and we'll see what we can come up with.

 

[bszopi]

I have not dipped my toe in the water yet. I am going to download in a few minutes.

Feedback:
What's with the little green circle...that needs to go.

As Trekkan stated, this is able to be disabled via the options. It will also be configurable (color wise) via Stylevars for the final release (currently hard coded). This applies to a few items, but all will be converted over to Stylevars.

I uninstalled vbslider recently...to distracting for users.

I will be looking at something user activated and/or only refresh on page load...to distracting for users if its in motion when they need to be posting in the forum.

Think Postbit tabs

You can turn off the transition and make it so that the user has to manually advance the slides. This is possible via the options.

Also I would like the Text and Picture slide together as one image.

Not sure if this is possible, but I will look into the script and see if I can't make it an option.

I would like to have the slider share space within a CMS widget where I may have text on one side and slider on the other.
or I guess if the slider had a sidebar text field attached to it.

Although I haven't actually tried it, with the ability to do instances, I bet you could do an html widget and place the code for the instance inside there and achieve what you are saying. By messing with the Stylevars, and/or templates, you can make it borderless as well and make it look completely integrated. This of course is just an assumption.

So, I treat this as a new product on install. Correct?

Yes.

 

[Trekkan]

I'd suggest not making the color a stylevar and also possibly putting the type of display for the timer in the instances.

I say this, because as you can have instances now, there might be people with different styles in different areas that would say want a red bar in one, a green in another. Won't affect me much, but something to consider. =)

 

[GoodApples]

I can seem to get my new default image to display.

What is the default settings for the slider image?
is this it? dbtech/vbslider/images/DBTech_vBSlider.png
or does it need the full URL?

[URL]http://www[/URL].....

Edit: I missed a capital letter and it seems to take a while before the slider picks up any change.

 

[GoodApples]

I am finding that the slider keeps collapsing when changes are made.

 

[GoodApples]

I have been attempting to change the

dbtech_vbslider_cms_message_color

and

dbtech_slider_cms_message_background

The style variables don't seem to be working.

Firebug
slider background error line 1