@User Tagging [COMPLETED]

@User tagging allows twitter-like tagging to be used in posts to allow users to bring attention to others.

It's pretty simple and has been shown to increase activity because tagging them prompts one to notice they've been mentioned and/or someone is looking for a response or input where otherwise they might not have noticed it.

This is not something that should take ages to complete, though I was wondering if anyone had feedback on it before I started.



Update: This project is no longer on hold for the Alert System and a beta version is being incorporated with it upon release.

This post has been edited by John: Feb 9 2015, 11:40 PM

No feedback but I have to say, a tagging feature would permanently draw me over from myBB/Icyboards, as well as make me shed tears of joy.

Anyway to just go old school and use the _ for any spaces in the name?

Possibly.

@User_Name where their name is User Name might be more convenient than the other options.

klin: Thanks for the feedback. Good to hear, it appears you signed up just to vouch for this as well. I know this is important to people.

Sounds like a great idea, and one that would bring a lot more value to the system without being too much of a hassle to implement.

I'm looking forward to seeing it completed!

Edit: Here's a solution to the username-with-spaces problem:

Let there be two ways to @mention people.

The first would be like Twitter - put an @ before their name. But as you said, this wouldn't work for usernames with spaces. So in those cases, let people [mention] instead:

- @Jcink -> @Jcink
- [Jcink] -> @Jcink
- @Black Angel -> @Black Angel
- [Black Angel] -> @Black Angel

Make it parse [mentions] as @mentions just for the sake of clarity.

Or alternatively you could take the traditional forum route and use a BBCode:

[user="Jcink"]Jcink[/user] -> Jcink

This post has been edited by icymx: Aug 3 2013, 09:05 PM

This is an awesome idea, however, I have a quick question, I understand the issue with spaces in usernames, but could they be set up to work with abbreviations?

For example, many of my users, especially those who have known me for a long time refer to me as BA for short, instead of Black Angel..

Would I be able to manually set up abbreviations for certain users to work the same as say @VirusZero would?

So that @VZ would work the same way as @VirusZero..

This post has been edited by Black Angel: Aug 3 2013, 09:34 PM

I think this would be awesome for sites where the 'space' isn't an issue, but for our site unless there's ability to have the space we probably wouldn't use it.

Though it'd be awesome for us because then people would know if there is a post they have to read in the staff area that they missed.

QUOTE (Black Angel @ Aug 3 2013, 10:28 PM)

This is an awesome idea, however, I have a quick question, I understand the issue with spaces in usernames, but could they be set up to work with abbreviations? For example, many of my users, especially those who have known me for a long time refer to me as BA for short, instead of Black Angel.. Would I be able to manually set up abbreviations for certain users to work the same as say @VirusZero would? So that @VZ would work the same way as @VirusZero..

Unfortunately, no. It has to read from the member name list, so "VZ" would be unavailable, unless we had a way for users to specify an abbreviation to go with their account, and then that gets a lot more complicated.

@icymx: Those solutions might work. We could just do @username and @[username] to deal with spaces, I don't think that would be too hard for me to do it like that.

BBC is an okay idea... but no. It's less than ideal as when I'm typing a message I don't feel like I should have to write out a whole BBC tag to highlight someone.

QUOTE (wwjdstamper @ Aug 3 2013, 10:37 PM)

I think this would be awesome for sites where the 'space' isn't an issue, but for our site unless there's ability to have the space we probably wouldn't use it.

There would be a way to tag users with spaces in their name as I won't just complete this feature without doing that. It just won't be as natural as say, typing @wwjdstamper: stuff here. It would have to be one of the above suggested methods.

QUOTE (Jcink @ Aug 3 2013, 06:46 PM)

klin: Thanks for the feedback. Good to hear, it appears you signed up just to vouch for this as well. I know this is important to people.

Whoops, I did indeed sign up just for this! And I'm also super impressed by all the features you plan to implement. I absolutely thrills me to see a host actually working to improve his or her software.

Also, RPG-Directory uses a similar @tagging feature that allows spaces in the tag. (Or at least I'm 99% sure it does.) Granted, they're hosted through Xenforo, but maybe skimming through the plugin's code would spark some ideas for you. I tried to find out the exact name of the plugin, but I didn't see any direct mention of it on RPG-D. Of course, this is just an idea! I have no idea what goes into creating a feature like this. (Though after three more years of school as a computer science major, I definitely hope I understand!)

Also, to throw out an opinion that really has no substantial weight here, using underscores as spaces in the tag just seems really ugly to me, and it requires an additional keystroke to brackets ("[" "]") or a semicolon (";") to cap the tag: shift-key instead of just a key.

Edit: The plugin is TagMe. Did a little CTRL-U snooping and found the answer.

This post has been edited by klin: Aug 3 2013, 11:09 PM

Good point about the extra keystroke. It's a lot easier to just enter [] or a ; and have to get the name like that. So in that sense, it's not convenient at all.

Downloading mods for other software is something I do sometimes to just get some ideas. This particular thread was sparked by the mod for MyBB as that's where I first saw it to begin with. That one actually uses the @[name here] method I believe. The XF mod you are looking for is bg Tag Me mod, and I have that as well. Source is a mess though and I don't like it.

Note: Having @ in front of the usernames when tagged looks a lot like Twitter ripping. I still think they should merely come up as the name when tagged like Facebook does and be distinguished by the link styling each board has. You would still use @ or brackets to initiate the feature, but not have it present in the post.

Which you already know....so yeah.

Twitter didn't exactly invent the concept of @ing people... although they did pioneer the use of it more than anyone.

I don't particularly care if the @ is there or not after the post is made, I could easily have it strip it out and not be there. It probably would look nicer if the @ is gone since it's not necessary while reading the post. Just extra junk. But yes you already told me about that ;p

The @ is ugly. >_<

I win!

*snortles at you two* awesome though, I'm not concerned about it being an extra keystroke or two, I think it's a brilliant idea!