Some requests for Q2A 1.8

Question

I have been trying to make my Q2A site (it still runs 1.7.0 due to core hacks) better and hence trying to make all the plugins better. Most of the core functionality is very reliable in Q2A and with notification feature and caching coming it becomes even better. Just to add to them, some requests:

• Adding Tag Search option in Core. I have made a plugin for this here but most of the display functions are taken from Q2A core as it uses that in the Ask Page to give tag suggestion. So, I guess it makes more sense for this to be part of core.
• I guess at least 20% of Q2A site uses MathJax. This can be added to a Q2A site as a plugin but with one issue- on answer/comment add, we have to call

   MathJax.Hub.Queue(['Typeset', MathJax.Hub, e]);

  
  on the newly created <div> element e. Unfortunately this needs a core hack as of now in qa-question.js file

• Notification feature is very much awaited. Would it be possible for developers to add new notifications to it? Because some plugins like blog-tool, question-merge etc. requires notifications. So, it would be great if there is a way to add new notifications in the core.
• Replacing fb-login plugin with open-login plugin. AFAIK both are not mutually compatible and open-login looks a better one and has more options.
• Long-term pending - FILTER METHOD- I suggest to let the users select a set of tags - and questions having those tags won't show on site for him. Not only this, admins can also restrict some set of tags per user. Advantage of this is
  • This allows certain set of questions to be more privileged. So, only those users which satisfies some criteria can view those. (This would also the require to be checked before loading a question page).
  • In my case I'm running an exam based on Q2A and would like to hide the questions until a user has completed the exam.
  • Also, my site is having questions from different examinations all having same subjects but different exams have different syllabus. So, it makes sense to filter the questions as per the syllabus of the exam per user.

  Currently this requires a core hack :( Or it would be nice if we can override functions from DB/selects.php

Comments

Nice suggestions...

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Add to  the list, a SEO section which has its own nuts and bolts, this is really a must have!
It would also be a good Idea to have user permission section overhauled, its really primitive, if only it could let the definition of new usergroups and assigning them to registered users,etc it would tremendously help .
Also a statistics plugin or section would be greatlly appreciated, see the incoming links, searched tags, daily, monthly visitors, their country, this would really help as well.

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Hi Coderx, there is a SEO plugin for Q2A which works good though it is better to be in core or as core plugin as it is one of the basic requirement nowadays.
Also, what exactly would you mean by more usergroups? How is it useful to group registered users?
For visitor statistics I guess Google Analytics does a good job.  Do, you like to show the stats to visitors?

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Different user groups can allow for different sets of capabilities, for example, like stackoverflow, when a specific score is achieved, you are awarded with more permissions that was not possible before. this can be achieved for example with such a thing in place.
Apart from that, You could grant some users some permissions exclusively, this is not possible now, there are predefined user groups with limited flexibility.

Yes, it is, but is more convenient to have on the admin panel. each time you login you have everything at your hand!.

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yes. One example I have encountered is "Down vote a question" - but we can set a required point option in admin interface.

I have not used stackoverflow much - just know that they require some points before we can vote up and all. But I think this can be done in Q2A even now - just can you be more specific like what all are required?

Site stats on admin panel - thats also a plugin work. I'll try as I have some work with APIs.

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Basically users can go up in the hierarchy and get permissions to edit (others)questions, flag them, edit (others)answers, create new tags(new users can not create tags, in order to have everything in check, there are some tags and then when they get more score, as an indication to their experience level they can create new tags), etc, and they are all automated. this really helps with the community management chores imho.

And by the way, Instead of using the users username, in questions and answers and pretty much everywhere, I guess this should be their names rather than their usernames, this  makes it possible that users can change their names(nicknames) without the need to change their usernames, this is the also the case, when users use Open-Login to register, when they do, there is no way to change the username which is displayed everywhere!

And like wordpress, it would be a great idea to have an automated backup that would back up the database, or site files, to googleDrive or dropbox or etc.

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Thanks. The automated stuff makes sense and in fact I also needed this. It really saves the time of site management and makes everything transparent. I was thinking of a plugin for this, just need some more information about the point system. One possibility I had thought of is automatically upgrading a user to editor and then moderator when he/she receives certain no. of points. If required we can add some more hierarchy in between.

Yes, User Name makes more sense.

Automated backup - this is also a plugin which should be there.

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you're welcome, I also noticed, images are not resized, it would be a nice addon that would resize an image to a predefined size
and or provide a test mode that would let admins test different features of the site, while no one can see or interfere .

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yes, image resize is also requested many times by users. Test mode is useful but this requires a copy of the database. Guess this needs to be enabled via core.

Answer 1

Found a solution for last one- using overrides and thus avoiding core hack. Q2A is wonderful for development :)

This is a basic plugin which allows admin to filter out certain tags globally from the site.

https://github.com/arjunsuresh/qa-filtertags