*Update* -This feature has now been completed

Esitmate for CrowdSourcing consideration. If you would like to be a Project Sponsor please reply to this thread and let us know your requirements for this feature.

• Name: UserProfile StoryFeed Comments
• Description:  Ability to have multiple mini-comments on Stories in the feed like the new Facebook
• Proposed Deliverables: Templatable mini-comments for each story.
• References: New Facebook UI
• Consider: FB does not notify you on comments it seems

Estimate based on above functionality: 12 hours

Cost: $50 * 12 hours  = $600

Individual Project Sponsor Amount: 12 people at $50 or 6 people at $100 each or 2 people at $300 each

	Crowd	Amount
Sponsored	2	$600
Still Needed	0	$0

 

If you would like to sponsor this project please reply to this thead and discuss your requirements. Does the above solution meet your needs? Do you have any unique use-cases that need to be considered?

Steve J. wrote I'm in on this one - I'm willing to pay for half. You're right, it does not email you when someone comments on your status, but it does allow the commentors to get emails when someone comments on their comments, and when you answer their comment you are then notified.  (i'm sure you know that ;) ) My only other requirement is to make the notifications easy to manage for users.  It's getting a bit convoluted with all of the different emails that can be generated from the modules, and how to subscribe to the different types.

Thanks for that. A Notification Management module would be a big job as I am sure you can imagine - it would need an API to allow it to talk to 3rd part modules and everytime a module was going to send an email it would have to query the notification tables. I have to be honest I do not have time to write a new module to do this althought I can definitely see the benefit. It could possibly plug into the UserProfile module but it's a complete new module with UI, functionality and DB in terms of development. We could send a notification like we do for new Wall messages when you get new comments but the UI would probably look similar to the Wall/Forum module (subscribe to new posts).

I don't want to dilute this thread too much but I actually started writing a Preferences module over 2.5 years ago to do exactly that - you could add "preferences" that would then be checked when modules do certain actions - so developers could define their own preferences and then query them on certain actions (it was not just Notifications). I didn't get very far (I used Roles to get around the issue) but it sounds similar to the kind of module you are after - please start a new thread and we can discuss it but as you know I have development backed up for the next year at least ;)

Rodney Joyce wrote Ok, so let’s look at exact deliverables (1 “quick” feature can add 6 hours of work so we need to be clear on what I am delivering): I assume you want this will work like FB currently does (they change their UI/functionality way too often – must have a team of code monkeys on it!). So the Storyfeed module will have a new token called Comment (WHO can comment, anyone who has Edit rights on the wall – ie. The same people who can post?). This will be a localizable link. I will try and make it not require a new window to post (ie. No postback) – but I can’t guarantee this until I have investigated the options. I am still not sure about including the AJAX toolkit in the Smart-Thinker modules so will have to rely on the EnabledPartialRendering stuff. A Textbox will appear for the comment (how many characters? 1000 on FB – that seems very big!) Comment view will be templatable (with header and footer). I am not sure about being able to compress X amount of comments with the “2 more comments and the fancy UI” – I will have to see if this is possible within the timeframe. Possibly some CSS hacks might help but these are the types of changes that suck time and can take a whole day of development which would increase the cost. Comments are deleatable by the author and admin, but not editable. All users in the comment list will be emailed by default – I need to think of the best way of handling this – maybe a UserSetting like “Private Profile” so you can group all your preferences in your Edit Account area.

Hey Rod,

The two other things would be a setting on how many items to show in the story feed, and a "More Posts" link at the bottom to page through older feed items.

Thanks,
Steve

Steve, thank you for pushing this so much forward with your large contribution.

Rod, I'm in for $50 on this one. Hope other small sheeps will gather making it a heard.

Rodney Joyce wrote Ok, so let’s look at exact deliverables (1 “quick” feature can add 6 hours of work so we need to be clear on what I am delivering): I assume you want this will work like FB currently does (they change their UI/functionality way too often – must have a team of code monkeys on it!). So the Storyfeed module will have a new token called Comment (WHO can comment, anyone who has Edit rights on the wall – ie. The same people who can post?). This will be a localizable link. I will try and make it not require a new window to post (ie. No postback) – but I can’t guarantee this until I have investigated the options. I am still not sure about including the AJAX toolkit in the Smart-Thinker modules so will have to rely on the EnabledPartialRendering stuff. A Textbox will appear for the comment (how many characters? 1000 on FB – that seems very big!) Comment view will be templatable (with header and footer). I am not sure about being able to compress X amount of comments with the “2 more comments and the fancy UI” – I will have to see if this is possible within the timeframe. Possibly some CSS hacks might help but these are the types of changes that suck time and can take a whole day of development which would increase the cost. Comments are deleatable by the author and admin, but not editable. All users in the comment list will be emailed by default – I need to think of the best way of handling this – maybe a UserSetting like “Private Profile” so you can group all your preferences in your Edit Account area.

1. Doesn't use FB so I wouldn't know what it looks like. However I like the way Youtube does it (fits into the Rating enhancement once its ready)
2. Isn't it about getting users to interact more, adding content? If so my guess would be any registered user should be able to comment.
3. At least 1000 chars. Personally I hate when i'm limited in a comment. 
4. Not sure I understand this one.
5. Sounds good.
6. Good idea emailing. This point to something we have talked about before: A "user settings" page where a user can tick a checkbox for what type of emails he wants (Comments, Wall Post, Friends Request, New groupmember etc.)

Ok, instead of the More Posts I will have to follow the standard paging UI so they can page through storyfeed items.

I'll leave the fancy UI compression till last (CSS/Jscript can take hours).

This version will just have a simple profile property (T/F) checkbox - the whole notifications area needs to be designed and thought out.

I am hopefully going to start this on the 23rd (the latest Groups and UserProfile modules have been released (but not yet announced). I will be taking Christmas Day and Boxing Day off.

Hi Steve,

I think you should be able to comment on everything that you can see (in the Storyfeed). The "owner" of the storyfeed is the one who triggered the publishing of it, but I don't think there is any need to restrict it (we can implement this in a later version if necc - it will be easier to do it this way.

Hi all,

I will sponsor $100 for this project.

Because : its my birthday, its my birthday :-)

I wish everybody on Smart-Thinker a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!!!!

Rodney : Please send me the necessary account information. Taking care off foreign account transfers.

Thanks.

Steve J. wrote Can't you just use the ActionTypeID to allow you to control what can be commented on.  That, or make it so the comment token goes into each individual feed item so it can be left out. I think it deserves more than just an after thought for a future version.

Yes, it is a matter of a new setting and a filter, the problem is that this adds another hour or 2 to the project. I'll leave it for last (with the CSS compression UI) and if I am under the 12 hours then I will get it in, if not it will have to wait for the next version. I think this is the fairest (I am worried that I have under-estimated this enhancement).

In my use case, I will have comments enabled on all types on PokerDIY - I show the Storyfeed for the group on the group page, so the comments would be captured there.

Hi Steve,

For the record - Jesper is unable to sponsor this project. I have replied to your email - we are close but need to clarify a few issues.

jesper wrote For the record - I'm not out, just broke until next pay day... Come Jan 1st I should be ok again. (bloody financial crisis)

Thanks Jesper - we have reached the sponsorship amount now (Steve has generously added a bit more to ensure filtering on what can be commented on works). You can put your amount towards another project if you wish and get the best of both worlds ;)

FYI: I'll be starting this enhancement in earnest tomorrow (27th of December) and it will be top priority.

Okay, thanks for the info.  Could you please ad some simple "on click" events to clear the user message textbox of the default text.

Steve

Will do, good luck!
Steve

This enhancement is now fully sponsored and is closed. Work will begin today. Many thanks to the sponsors for making this possible.

Steve -"Would it be possible to have the "filtered" feeds use a different string to post to the event to provide a different view?  I suppose by either having a selector for view A or view B?"

I don't understand what you mean here - by "filtered feeds" do you mean the feeds that a user can comment on? (remember that it is going to show all feeds, SF filtering is a different enhancement). The actual link action text is determined by the calling/publishing module - the UP StoryFeed module has no control of what it is or where it goes.

Hi Steve. For some odd reason it some times helps to either subscribe to everything or remove all subscriptions altogether (click the Settings icon, then expand Subscriptions). It's an year old bug and the core forum project knows about, still haven't fixed it tho... Worst case scenario is you temporarily has to create and use a new account (think i have 3 or 4 accounts here now). After x time the bug goes away again and you can use our normal account again.

Steve J. wrote I'm confused.  I sent you payment to cover this enhancement and the other details about what to comment on and compression as well as the filtering enhancement.  You seemed to understand that in the email as well.  If you are assuming that all of the money I sent you was "only" for this commenting w/ the other details in this thread, then our lines are crossed - that is not at all how I understood it.

Yes, it seems as they we did misunderstand each other. Basically, in my email below (24 Dec 2008 10:45:40) I was trying to say that the ability to decide on WHAT can be commented on is going to add time to the enhancement and is different from the Type filter to show the different types (http://www.smart-thinker.com/Support/Forums/tabid/111/forumid/11/postid/6187/scope/posts/Default.aspx). I had not realized that you actually wanted both with this payment (although after reading the below email I can see how this misunderstanding could have occurred).

I try to be as transparent as possible, so here is my take on the current situation:  I thought the extra money was to cover the ability to decide what  can be commented on and to ensure compression made it in to this release.

So, we have 2 enhancements:

1) Commenting ($600)
2) TypeFilter ($300)

Which is $900 in total. When I estimated for these I did not include Storyfeed paging (an additional 2 hours of work), UI compression (like FB) (as I always say, it’s these UI pieces that can take a couple of hours to get right – I far prefer compiled server-side code. I would therefore add on 2 hours for this) or the ability to select WHAT can be commented on (new module setting UI and code/db changes – 2 hours). There 3 items effectively add on 6 hours (this is obviously an estimate, it could take quicker or longer) but I have to budget for them. 6 hours at my rate of $50 is an additional $300, hence if I were to implemented both features 1 and 2 with all bells and whistles it would be $1200 in total.

To date I have received $1050

I completely appreciate that you would not want to go ahead with the enhancement if some of the above features were not implemented.

So I propose one of the following:

1. Refund all cash and see it as a learning experiment
2. Refund some of the money to get back to $600 and implement the original Feature 1) (no bells and whistles, basic commenting)
3. Wait for a further $150 in sponsorship and implement Features 1 and 2 with all the above requirements.

Please bear in mind that every additional request adds time to the enhancement and must be budgeted for. Jesper, perhaps you can help here after all (almost the New Year here in Aus!). Sorry for the confusion on the above.

Ralph Brenner wrote Rodney, I'll sponsor this project with features 1 and 2 and "all the bells and whistles" up to the $1200 estimate. Let me know if the original sponsorship dropped back and what difference I should make up.

Hi Ralph,

Great - we are only missing $150 on this project (Point 3 above - all options), if you could send that to sale at smart-thinker.com it would be much appreciated. Please also be sure to review the requirements above and feel free to comment.

Ifinity are still around - I have let Bruce know about his site.

Hey Rod,

My .02 is that I like the way Facebook does that as well.

Thanks,
Steve

Ok, I have done it like this now and it looks really good with the AJAX call. I'll try and get a beta version up on PokerDIY as soon as it is stable (although there's not much to see yet!)