Automated RP Thread Tracker

[SG]

I'm looking to either have someone make or get some help in making a plugin which can automatically update an RP thread tracker. 

Some ideas include:

• Allowing the admin installing the plugin to select which boards are RP boards, and automatically adding all threads a member has participated in to a list when a tracker is made by that member,
  -OR-
• Perhaps to give the user more control, have threads manually added to the tracker, perhaps with a BBCode that utilizes the thread ID, like [thread]1234[/thread] to insert the thread with ID 1234, etc?
  
  
• Either way, one or a few simple BBCode options for a member to post the tracker that reflects their account.
  
  
• Basically similar to Bookmarked and Participated threads, but (A) visible to everyone in a designated post the user makes, and (B) preferably with icons denoting whether the thread is last posted in by that user, or last posted in by a different user, or closed/done.
  
  
• Ability to add style to the tracker, perhaps in a similar fashion to the Proboards Tabbed Content plugin, would be cool, but not necessary? A style option in the Admin CP for a default style preferred but also not strictly necessary. Then again as long as it's in a div with its own class it should be easy enough to style regardless, whether through the board's CSS or the Style Plugin's newclass tags.

I know it would take (at least one?) Super Key. That's no issue. I'm just very lazy/forgetful with updating trackers and know lots of others are too, so I think this would be a very useful plugin for most RP boards.

A brief mockup of what I'm thinking, with a "fully automatic" version on top and a "users would still have to manually add/remove threads but could use preferred templates and generally have more control" version on bottom:



becomes something like...



Where the [tracker="User Name"] controls what name appears at the top of the tracker and possibly what name it's checking for as the most recent poster. (If privacy is a concern it could also maybe be set to need to match the user who's posting the tracker?) The first thread is posted in most recently by the user in question, so it's marked green. The second isn't, so it's marked red. The last thread is just marked locked regardless.

If there'd be any way to denote a "poster who goes before me" variable for threads between more than two people, so that it will only turn red when it's actually the right user's turn, that would be awesome, but if we have to live without that feature it's hardly a dealbreaker.

Any help at all would be appreciated! I'm willing to do my best to help work on any coding if someone could help point me in the right direction. I'm... seeeemi confident with javascript, and very willing to put in time to figure stuff out or do any more tedious code writing with some direction of how to do it. If anyone wants to surprise me and write the whole thing themselves though, by all means feel free!

;w; Thank you so much in advance for any help or consideration!

[Kami]

This might be possible (I am not a plug-in creator) but there is also a very good chance it's not — plugins are written in javascript, which can only pull information that exists on the page, or modify information provided within the software that is on the page (even if it's not visible). As far as I know, though, thread information for a specific user isn't visible within threads unless that thread is within the participated dialogue, and the participated dialogue is limited by a certain number of days and a maximum number of threads.

I will note that there's also a plug-in that displays recent threads in the sidebar including in posts, but recent threads (for the whole forum) are treated differently than a specific user's individual threads.

All this to say it might be possible, but levelset expectations and be prepared for the possibility of it not being so (:

[SG]

I suppose that my thought was actually that the plugin might not work right away once installed, per se, but that as users replied to threads across the board, the information would be continuously updated/overwritten to fill out the list... Does that make sense?

Like, say Alice and Bob have a thread called "Going Fishing" that was started in April. Installing the plugin wouldn't immediately show it because it wouldn't (I don't think?) have a way to access that data. But once Alice replies again, the plugin would get the data of "Going Fishing was replied to by Alice", and Alice's thread tracker would reflect that. Once Bob replied again, the plugin would overwrite that with "now Going Fishing was last replied to be Bob", and both Bob's and Alice's trackers would reflect it.

That might be unnecessary and overcomplicating it?? I do know Yootil has the yootil.element.get.user_posts(); function, so maybe that could be checked to make this easier? But I'm not savvy enough on how stuff is used to say for sure. If it does what it sounds like then maybe Proboards would allow access to recent data right away, but if that only works for the current user or only from certain pages or something then maybe not. Here's hoping someone who knows plugin data well will see this and be able to offer some insight though!

[Kami]

It could be possible, of course. I am not as familiar with plugins as I'd like to be. I just wanted to levelset expectations, if that makes sense. I'm not sure using Yootil would be the best path forward, I'm not totally sure that developer will be coming back for v6 / additional v5 support as he's currently focusing on other non-web development.

Hopefully someone can give more insight! Good luck!

[Retread]

Hi SG

I've only written three plugins (with TONS of help from Chris , Lynx , and others). My JS/JQ skills are meager and I have no experience using keys. But I feel relatively certain a key of some sort would be necessary for your needs.

May 13, 2021 14:20:05 GMT -8 SG said:

I suppose that my thought was actually that the plugin might not work right away once installed, per se, but that as users replied to threads across the board, the information would be continuously updated/overwritten to fill out the list... Does that make sense?

Like, say Alice and Bob have a thread called "Going Fishing" that was started in April. Installing the plugin wouldn't immediately show it because it wouldn't (I don't think?) have a way to access that data. But once Alice replies again, the plugin would get the data of "Going Fishing was replied to by Alice", and Alice's thread tracker would reflect that. Once Bob replied again, the plugin would overwrite that with "now Going Fishing was last replied to be Bob", and both Bob's and Alice's trackers would reflect it.

I reckon the key data would need to be populated over time but I wonder if additional user actions could be exploited to populate the data more quickly? Perhaps just having someone view the last page of a thread might be enough if the plugin was 'listening' for it and pulled the info for the thread author and the author of the last post? Or perhaps just viewing a board's thread list might provide an opportunity for the plugin to gather several pieces of data? Just guessing on my part here.

May 13, 2021 14:20:05 GMT -8 SG said:

That might be unnecessary and overcomplicating it?? I do know Yootil has the yootil.element.get.user_posts(); function, so maybe that could be checked to make this easier? But I'm not savvy enough on how stuff is used to say for sure. If it does what it sounds like then maybe Proboards would allow access to recent data right away, but if that only works for the current user or only from certain pages or something then maybe not. Here's hoping someone who knows plugin data well will see this and be able to offer some insight though!

Yootil is way over my head but perhaps Peter will see this and can advise how Yootil might be useful so you don't need to re-invent the wheel on some parts of your plugin.

[Todge]

May 14, 2021 7:22:31 GMT -8 Retread said:

I reckon the key data would need to be populated over time but I wonder if additional user actions could be exploited to populate the data more quickly? Perhaps just having someone view the last page of a thread might be enough if the plugin was 'listening' for it and pulled the info for the thread author and the author of the last post? Or perhaps just viewing a board's thread list might provide an opportunity for the plugin to gather several pieces of data? Just guessing on my part here.

Retread is quite right in that a key will be needed (a super key), and it would need to be populated over time, just viewing a page is not enough I'm afraid. Keys can only be written to after a user action, or a click, so while viewing a page can collect needed data, that data cannot legally be written to a key without some way of getting the user to click on something, if the page happens to be the posting page, you can use the submit button, otherwise you'd need a pop-up/alert, or some other way, to encourage the viewer to click their mouse button.