Pre-sale Qs re: item thumbs, dupes/merging, & more

[Arkham]

I've been racking my brain for the last week trying to find a suitable out-of-the-box solution for a friend who wants to update his book reviews site.

I've narrowed down the search to vBa Dynamics, GARS, and ReviewPost, but I have to clarify whether or not several key features are possible or hackable.

I'm leaning towards Dynamics, but I need to know a few things first:

• Is there/will there be any duplication prevention or management facilities? From what I've seen there hasn't been any progress (according to past threads) in regards to handling or preventing duplicates.
  
  Similarly, I haven't been able to find any info on merging items/entries. With its tight integration with vB, I would have imagined it to be possible to merge duplicates, having the earliest entry remain the top/main entry, with the newer duplicate merged as a 'comment', and all comments merged chronologically. Any ideas if this is going to be possible in the future?
  
  
• Is it possible without hacking to have the ("a" or just the first) thumbnail appear as the "product" image, eg book cover, and have that show up in the category/item listings?
  
  
• On both a CMPS and Dynamics page, can you have multiple modules displaying one or more item, with their thumb preview (see above), along the lines of "Featured/Spotlight", "Most recent addition(s)", "Random 1 or More", "Latest", "Highest rated", etc? The product/item image is absolutely necessary.
  
  I've seen some solutions here that address a couple of those, but I'm still not clear as to whether or not it's possible to have more than one module on both CMPS (and thus any vBulletin Forum page) and Dynamics pages. I believe I read somewhere that there was a restriction in the number of instances a module or copied module would work on the same page.
  
  
• Can a book ("article/review/whatever") belong to multiple categories? E.g. a book could be in "children's" and "fantasy"
  

There are a few other questions, those are my key concerns. I'm really impressed with Dynamics' flexibility and integration possibilities, esp. since I'll be convincing my friend to use CMPS as well. My experience with the vB and vBa communities is certainly pushing me in this direction, but I'm trying to recommend the simplest solution for a non-programmer. I'll be able to help surmount minor coding issues, but the less we have to hack a product the better.

Thanks!

[Brian]

Originally Posted by Arkham

Is there/will there be any duplication prevention or management facilities? From what I've seen there hasn't been any progress (according to past threads) in regards to handling or preventing duplicates.

What threads exactly are you referring to? There's been code to prevent duplicate entries/posts since the early beta versions.

Similarly, I haven't been able to find any info on merging items/entries. With its tight integration with vB, I would have imagined it to be possible to merge duplicates, having the earliest entry remain the top/main entry, with the newer duplicate merged as a 'comment', and all comments merged chronologically. Any ideas if this is going to be possible in the future?

You cannot merge 2 entries, but you can move the posts from one entry to another using the inline moderation tools. So that should be about the same thing except the entry itself would need to be deleted once the posts are moved.

Is it possible without hacking to have the ("a" or just the first) thumbnail appear as the "product" image, eg book cover, and have that show up in the category/item listings?

Yes, there is a setting that will allow you to show an attachment, as well as options when adding attachments that will allow you to choose which one to display with the entry when browsing categories.

On both a CMPS and Dynamics page, can you have multiple modules displaying one or more item, with their thumb preview (see above), along the lines of "Featured/Spotlight", "Most recent addition(s)", "Random 1 or More", "Latest", "Highest rated", etc? The product/item image is absolutely necessary.

Dynamics comes with What's New, Featured Entries, and Random Entries modules by default, and all should be capable of displaying the selected attachment. There is also a new/random entries module that will work with the CMPS available here

I've seen some solutions here that address a couple of those, but I'm still not clear as to whether or not it's possible to have more than one module on both CMPS (and thus any vBulletin Forum page) and Dynamics pages. I believe I read somewhere that there was a restriction in the number of instances a module or copied module would work on the same page.

There were some issues with the CMPS module when used with multiple vBa Dynamics issues, but that should be resolved.

Can a book ("article/review/whatever") belong to multiple categories? E.g. a book could be in "children's" and "fantasy"

No. That is on the to-do list, but I can't say when it will make it's way into the code as an official feature.

[Arkham]

Originally Posted by Brian

What threads exactly are you referring to? There's been code to prevent duplicate entries/posts since the early beta versions.

I've read probably a thousand threads in the past 5 days on the various gars, reviewpost, vbA, vB/vb.org sites. I can't remember. But I do remember reading that there wasn't a current facility to merge items like you can with merging threads. But:

Originally Posted by Brian

You cannot merge 2 entries, but you can move the posts from one entry to another using the inline moderation tools. So that should be about the same thing except the entry itself would need to be deleted once the posts are moved.

...this one should take care of it. Does this mean you can also move the initial article/post/review etc of the duplicate into another review/entry as a comment? I'm not too concerned with dupe management, but the mod tools should be enough in the meantime.

Originally Posted by Brian

Yes, there is a setting that will allow you to show an attachment, as well as options when adding attachments that will allow you to choose which one to display with the entry when browsing categories.

Great! Because when they go into a Category, say, "Fiction" the user should see the list of articles/reviews available with the book cover and short summary before clicking forward. I'm glad to see it's not as hard to accomplish as I had though. Thx!

Originally Posted by Brian

Dynamics comes with What's New, Featured Entries, and Random Entries modules by default, and all should be capable of displaying the selected attachment. There is also a new/random entries module that will work with the CMPS available here

Sounds good. I'm sure that any specific needs beyond what the default config offers can be modded accordingly.

Originally Posted by Brian

There were some issues with the CMPS module when used with multiple vBa Dynamics issues, but that should be resolved.

I meant that I thought I had read running more than one instance of the same module on a vB Dynamics page (eg 2 modules, both showing latest 5 entries, but from different cats). Then again, I guess one could create a new module based on a modified copy of the original module...

Originally Posted by Brian

No. That is on the to-do list, but I can't say when it will make it's way into the code as an official feature.

That's great to hear. It's not pressing, as I *think* I might be able to modify the tags and custom-field (dropdowns, selections) to accomodate this with a custom search.

One other question: Is it possible to restrict users from adding tags, but force them to select one or more pre-defined tags? I'm thinking that might be a neat way to implement clickable 'categories'.

Thanks, Brian. I really appreciate your prompt and detailed response. You've been very helpful.

[Brian]

Originally Posted by Arkham

Does this mean you can also move the initial article/post/review etc of the duplicate into another review/entry as a comment? I'm not too concerned with dupe management, but the mod tools should be enough in the meantime.

When moving all of the posts from entry A to entry B, entry A would remain "as is", minus it's replies. So no, there is not really an option to automatically merge the content of entry A with entry B, only it's replies. Though not the most convienent method, entry A's content could still be "merged" by editing the entry to copy the content. If the user doing this has the 'Can Modify Post Date' permission setting enabled, they can then post a new reply to entry B with the content of entry A and adjust the date/time so it matches the original entry and will be placed in the right order. The only problem with this is that the user making this new post would be shown as the author of that post instead of the original member. The userid and username could still be changed by editing it in the database though if you're familiar with phpMyAdmin or a similar tool. We will likely add the ability to submit a reply as another member in a future version since that's already an option for entries.

I meant that I thought I had read running more than one instance of the same module on a vB Dynamics page (eg 2 modules, both showing latest 5 entries, but from different cats). Then again, I guess one could create a new module based on a modified copy of the original module...

Ahhhh... The only issue I'm aware of that was similar to that was the one with running multiple What's New/Random Dynamics modules on the CMPS pulling info from different vBa Dynamics instances, which has been corrected.
You can copy your vBa Dynamics modules the same way you can copy CMPS modules though, so running multiple copies of the same module on a vBa Dyanmics page should not be an issue.

One other question: Is it possible to restrict users from adding tags, but force them to select one or more pre-defined tags? I'm thinking that might be a neat way to implement clickable 'categories'.

You can disable tags via the settings. Sounds like you could then add a new "Select Menu" custom field that would force the user to select a pre-defined option. That select menu can be used to limit search results either from the main search page or the Quick Search module. Those custom fields are not "clickable" at the moment, though I believe there's a thread or two posted here already discussing how to make them clickable.

Thanks, Brian. I really appreciate your prompt and detailed response. You've been very helpful.

No problem. If there's anything else I can help you with just let me know.

[Arkham]

Originally Posted by Brian

When moving all of the posts from entry A to entry B, entry A would remain "as is", minus it's replies. So no, there is not really an option to automatically merge the content of entry A with entry B, only it's replies. Though not the most convienent method, entry A's content could still be "merged" by editing the entry to copy the content. If the user doing this has the 'Can Modify Post Date' permission setting enabled, they can then post a new reply to entry B with the content of entry A and adjust the date/time so it matches the original entry and will be placed in the right order. The only problem with this is that the user making this new post would be shown as the author of that post instead of the original member. The userid and username could still be changed by editing it in the database though if you're familiar with phpMyAdmin or a similar tool. We will likely add the ability to submit a reply as another member in a future version since that's already an option for entries.

Since it would only be the administrators fiddling with any dupe management, that all sounds good to me. Administrators (or anyone with sufficient permission) could always edit an entry, regardless of date, status, or author, correct?

Originally Posted by Brian

Ahhhh... The only issue I'm aware of that was similar to that was the one with running multiple What's New/Random Dynamics modules on the CMPS pulling info from different vBa Dynamics instances, which has been corrected.

ah! No, there will only be one instance I believe, possibly with only 2 categories. So I doubt there will be any problems. Thx!!

Originally Posted by Brian

You can copy your vBa Dynamics modules the same way you can copy CMPS modules though, so running multiple copies of the same module on a vBa Dyanmics page should not be an issue.

Well that solves that.

Originally Posted by Brian

You can disable tags via the settings. Sounds like you could then add a new "Select Menu" custom field that would force the user to select a pre-defined option. That select menu can be used to limit search results either from the main search page or the Quick Search module. Those custom fields are not "clickable" at the moment, though I believe there's a thread or two posted here already discussing how to make them clickable.

If there's any way to make them clickable (I do remember seeing mod or two regarding that), then that might be the best option. If not, we'll have to recode or play with some interesting configuration solutions.

Originally Posted by Brian

No problem. If there's anything else I can help you with just let me know.

You've answered everything to date with the best answers I could hope for. Guess that sums it up! Thanks, much appreciated.

[Brian]

Originally Posted by Arkham

Since it would only be the administrators fiddling with any dupe management, that all sounds good to me. Administrators (or anyone with sufficient permission) could always edit an entry, regardless of date, status, or author, correct?

Yup, that is correct.