Export/Import smilies between themes

[Celeste]

I've seen a few questions as how to keep from having to re-enter personalized smilies for every theme.  It is very time consuming if you have a lot of customized emoticons and a lot of themes.

I found a way that works.  I got the smilies the way I wanted them and saved it as a theme.  Now, whenever I make a new theme, I start out by copying that basic "theme". It puts the smilies in first.  THEN I start changing other elements to build the new theme. 

That said, it would be nice to have a more intuitive "import/export smilies" method.  Specifically, I'd like to see an "export/import smilies" function so that theme building would be easier.

[Ryan Roos]

We wouldn't have an entire import/export feature for just Smiles alone.

There are many issues with this mostly just stemming from the debate that would arise with how this would function. When you import does it replace all existing smiles or does it append them? People would argue both ways.

That being said we think it would make far more sense to implement an import/export for the entire image page (or entire sections of the theme). Perhaps you could toggle which areas you want to export and can import the same way. Then you could do just the smiles if you wish. Or maybe it would not be so much an import export as much as an import from existing themes on your forum. Just duplicating images that already exist elsewhere.

As for dealing with large numbers of smiles you can already mass upload smiles. As long as you have them all in the same place on your local machine you can upload 40, 50, 60 smiles all at once, it's really up to you. Replacing the existing smiles obviously takes slightly more dedication. Additionally you figured out that if you are always going to make new themes with your default smiley set (instead of ours) it makes sense to create your own theme template. You'll find this isn't just useful for smiles but also for working with plugins and other things. You are using the import and export as it was intended. People should be making base themes that they use for creating more advanced ones. We plan to offer multiple starting themes in the near future, not just the one we have now.

So to wrap up. No import/export feature right now. At some point in the future it would be nice to expand our import/export functionality to allow importing/exporting of certain sections of a theme; including sections of the image page, like smiles. Thank you.

[Celeste]

Jan 11, 2013 11:55:53 GMT -8 Ryan Roos said:

...That being said we think it would make far more sense to implement an import/export for the entire image page (or entire sections of the theme). Perhaps you could toggle which areas you want to export and can import the same way. Then you could do just the smiles if you wish. Or maybe it would not be so much an import export as much as an import from existing themes on your forum. Just duplicating images that already exist elsewhere.

Either scenario works for me too, Ryan. It is far more flexible than importing ONLY smilies. I think admins would appreciate it.

Jan 11, 2013 11:55:53 GMT -8 Ryan Roos said:

As for dealing with large numbers of smiles you can already mass upload smiles. As long as you have them all in the same place on your local machine you can upload 40, 50, 60 smiles all at once, it's really up to you. Replacing the existing smiles obviously takes slightly more dedication.

It was replacing default smilies that takes the extra time. Although I use Todge's plugin to add even MORE emoticons, adding additional smilies via the admin panel is quick, as you say.

Jan 11, 2013 11:55:53 GMT -8 Ryan Roos said:

Additionally you figured out that if you are always going to make new themes with your default smiley set (instead of ours) it makes sense to create your own theme template. You'll find this isn't just useful for smiles but also for working with plugins and other things. You are using the import and export as it was intended. People should be making base themes that they use for creating more advanced ones. We plan to offer multiple starting themes in the near future, not just the one we have now.

I do use "copy theme" to copy basic CSS and forum templates. It doesn't copy plugin settings, so it is of limited use there, but it still saves a lot of time.   I think people are missing the idea that "copy theme" can be used as a theme-building shortcut for basic elements.  Not sure how to get the word out, except by repetition. 

I'm looking forward to the additional starting themes. I'd noticed we just had one layout option right now.

Jan 11, 2013 11:55:53 GMT -8 Ryan Roos said:

So to wrap up. No import/export feature right now. At some point in the future it would be nice to expand our import/export functionality to allow importing/exporting of certain sections of a theme; including sections of the image page, like smiles. Thank you.

Thank YOU, Ryan. Good to hear it is on the radar for the future. In the meantime, we can work around it.

Thanks for answering!  I appreciate the information.

[Ryan Roos]

Jan 11, 2013 12:22:12 GMT -8 Celeste said:

I do use "copy theme" to copy basic CSS and forum templates. It doesn't copy plugin settings, so it is of limited use there, but it still saves a lot of time.   I think people are missing the idea that "copy theme" can be used as a theme-building shortcut for basic elements.  Not sure how to get the word out, except by repetition. 

It's not really about getting the word out, it's a logic problem that only some people will solve. We don't need to spend time advertising it. Though the help guide will likely have many articles that do just that.

It's the same as people who don't use copy and paste in a spreadsheet program. They manually retype everything in each column. The tool is there. People who want to save time will figure out the faster or more efficient way to do things. And other people won't. The spreadsheet program didn't need to broadcast that the button could be used in a certain way. Curious people will discover it and then learn to utilize it.

We placed the tool (many in fact). It's up to users to figure out clever ways of doing things. My brain really works on visual layers like that, so I immediately think about storing all sorts of themes at varying degrees of completion on my computer. Then I can launch new themes from any of them based on the variants. Perhaps someone will make a library of base themes for people, certainly that's why we allow exporting. Any imported theme is really just a base theme waiting for customization by it's current user.

People who aren't so inclined will rely on our default layouts (coming soon) and importing themes from others. And that's perfectly fine. Some people won't use themes at all. It's completely up to the people themselves.




In regards to what you mentioned about plugins. I did not mean to imply that the plugins would export, merely that you might have themes that work better with a certain plugin. Like if you designed a certain type of theme to work particularly well with a sidebar plugin. You might want to start with a base theme already prepped for a side bar. That's all.

[Celeste]

Jan 11, 2013 12:22:12 GMT -8 Celeste said:

I think people are missing the idea that "copy theme" can be used as a theme-building shortcut for basic elements.  Not sure how to get the word out, except by repetition. 

Jan 11, 2013 16:02:55 GMT -8 Ryan Roos said:

It's not really about getting the word out, it's a logic problem that only some people will solve. We don't need to spend time advertising it. Though the help guide will likely have many articles that do just that.

I wasn't being very clear in my quote above.

Since I've seen it asked at least four times if there was a shortcut for replacing smilies, people may need a reminder that "copy theme" can do the task for them -- by other regular Support members. That's "the word" I was talking about, not some huge ProBoards publicity scheme to feature one particular tool.  I agree with you.  It is demanding far too much of ProBoards staff to give examples of all the uses any particular tool may have! Advertising it individually isn't really necessary either. It is part of the "copy theme" feature. We've had a tendency to see it as a way to pass complete themes along to others, but it is more versatile than that. Everyone will catch on, though, the more we share ideas. 

Give us time.