Star-marked discussions

Thomas Heath

I'm trying to implement a simple feature that I think would be useful to many. However, I'm not sure whether it needs a stylesheet, theme or extension. What I want is a star-marked feature similar to that in GMail, to be used on a per-discussion basis. I do not want a vote-type-rating-system, I want admins & moderators to direct attention to certain discussions so as to avoid parallel chats and unnecessary duplicate discussions. A simple solution would be some theming + styling with a few hacks "If discussionname is ... then use style _star-css" A pro solution would be an extension with an Ajax-ified star, editable by those roles with permission to do so. What do you guys think? I reckon I could manage to hack the theme and css files, but I've never really written an extension!

jimw

In my add-on DiscussionExcerpt, I use the discussion title. In a new version I am working on, I have added the user icon to the front of the discussion title. Is that where you would want the stars? You can look at my forum to see how it is working now.

Edit: Thinking about it some more, you would want the user interface to be where the sink discussion and other discussion options are. Then you would need a user input number for how many stars. Probably would need a new table to store the information.

garvin

I'd like to see something like this come into fruition. Maybe permissions-based where a priviledged member could star a discussion from the discussion list and that star is only visible to those who have the permission to see. I don't know what would be easier/better, if you would click a star icon like in gmail from the discussion list, or if it was within the discussion options (such as underneath close, hide, sink).

But, I'm constantly wishing I either had a star function or a mark unread function for discussions.