Interesting Xenforo Features, Tips and Tricks

Bookmarks

Ever see a post you loved and then three months later you try to find it and you can't remember where it was on the site? Was it in the Axe-Fx III Discussion forum? The Axe-Fx III Preset Exchange forum? Recordings? Argh! You try and search but you're coming up short. You can't remember who posted it or enough specific key word content to call it back up againt. Double argh!

Enter: bookmarks.

They're exactly what they sound like except they're isolated to the forum, not your browser. One of the really nice things about them is you can leave yourself a note and tag them. The other really nice thing is if the underlying links to the content change (say, if someone edits the title of their post) your bookmarks don't rot -- the system keeps them updated.

You can bookmark just about anything on the site by clicking the bookmark icon for that thing:

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The pop-up lets you add a note and labels so you can group and sort your like bookmarks:

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You have quick access to your most recent bookmarks under your user icon:

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And you can view all your bookmarks by clicking the Show all... link at the bottom of that window. From the all bookmark view you can filter labels.

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Handy.
 
New Posts

This isn't exactly new to Xenforo 2 and I've written about this before in this thread but I thought I'd put here.

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The New Posts link lets you see all the content that's been posted across all the forums on the site since you last visited. If you're a frequent visitor this can be a nice way to catch up with everything, quickly. If you're an infrequent visitor you might find the amount of content displayed overwhelming and prefer going forum by forum to catch up.

If you bookmark this link in your browser you'll get the "new posts" feature as selectable bookmark: https://forum.fractalaudio.com/whats-new/posts/

An interesting, new feature in Xenforo 2 around new posts is you can filter what "new posts" shows you and save those filters as the default for what you see when you click "new posts". You can scope "new posts" down to just threads you've participated in, created, etc. This can greatly increase the usability of the new posts feature if you're an infrequent visitor and just want to use new posts to catch up on stuff you've participated in. I find this approach better than trying to use the alerts view to catch up threads where you've participated.

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New Posts

This isn't exactly new to Xenforo 2 and I've written about this before in this thread but I thought I'd put here.

View attachment 55584

The New Posts link lets you see all the content that's been posted across all the forums on the site since you last visited. If you're a frequent visitor this can be a nice way to catch up with everything, quickly. If you're an infrequent visitor you might find the amount of content displayed overwhelming and prefer going forum by forum to catch up.

If you bookmark this link in your browser you'll get the "new posts" feature as selectable bookmark: https://forum.fractalaudio.com/whats-new/posts/

An interesting, new feature in Xenforo 2 around new posts is you can filter what "new posts" shows you and save those filters as the default for what you see when you click "new posts". You can scope "new posts" down to just threads you've participated in, created, etc. This can greatly increase the usability of the new posts feature if you're an infrequent visitor and just want to use new posts to catch up on stuff you've participated in. I find this approach better than trying to use the alerts view to catch up threads where you've participated.

View attachment 55587
I noticed that filter option this morning... Pretty cool!

In the previous version we had I pretty much lived thru the "recent posts" action, and the "new posts" link in this version seems to be the analog.
 
Nice!! I am going to bookmark the bookmark post! These new features are really handy when you know about them, thanks Ian!
 
I find that decreasing the font size of the browser makes forum lists (like New Posts) and thread content appear easier on the eyes and offer more info at a glance.
On a Mac, use Command-Minus.
 
Maybe this has been there all along and I'm just now noticing it, but at the bottom of the page I'm seeing a message that says "Fractal Audio Systems Forum would like your permission to enable push notifications". In the context of this forum, what are push notifications? Are there pros and cons to granting permission for them? Thanks!
 
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Maybe this has been there all along and I'm just now noticing it, but at the bottom of the page I'm seeing a message that says "Fractal Audio Systems Forum would like your permission to enable push notifications". In the context of this forum, what are push notifications? Are there pros and cons to granting permission for them? Thanks!
I would imagine that, if you have the page open in your browser, and you get a notification that would otherwise only appear in the bell menu at the top of the page, it will also give you a desktop notification at the same time. At least that’s generally the way these things work.
 
Push Notifications

Note: I'm on the fence about this feature. I don't personally find them useful but some people like to get real quick feedback whenever someone mentions them or a post gets made in a thread they follow (people have complained when email alerts have lagged forum actions in the past). This is going to be the most aggressive way to stay in touch with what happens here. I'll leave it as a site option for now but if you're really bothered by this feature DM me. I may turn it off.

This one is a really new feature that uses a modern browser API to deliver push notifications to your brower. Push notifications occur every time you'd get an alert from the site and, optionally, every time someone sends you a direct message.

Android users take care: this will send push notifications to your phone. Apple users, you won't get push notifications on your phone because Apple doesn't allow browser-based push notifications and the system doesn't work with Apple's push notification API.

If you'd get an alert in the header of the site here, like this:

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Then after you enable push notifications you'll also get an alert on your desktop. On macOS they come as system notifications like this:

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And you can use the System Preferences Notifications settings pane to configure when and how they're delivered to your desktop.

The site software seems to be a little aggressive about asking you to enable push notifications. You'll see this at the bottom of your browser if you don't have them enabled:

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If you press the X button to dismiss this dialog you'll see this:

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If you click "Never ask again" you won't get nagged again by the software about this.

If you opt into push notifications your brower will also ask you to confirm you actually want to recieve them. In Firefox I get this when I try to enable push notifications:

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You can tell your browser to never, ever allow push notifications from the site if you want to double down on making sure the site can't push notifications to you. In Firefox press the v arrow next to Not Now and you'll see a permanent rejection option:

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You can enable or disable push notifications any time in your Preferences view.

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And let me put a pitch in for Firefox while I'm here, which has an excellent control pane for controlling access to push notifications. You can control it on a per-site basis or even turn it off permanently for every site with one option check.

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I find that decreasing the font size of the browser makes forum lists (like New Posts) and thread content appear easier on the eyes and offer more info at a glance.
On a Mac, use Command-Minus.
I personally run the site at 90% in Firefox and Chrome on macOS.
 
@h.c.e, @iaresee; thanks for the information on push notifications. Much appreciated.

On font size; in Chrome I have the forum set at 105%, and I've been thinking of bumping it up a tad more. But then my optometrist says that I need reading glasses. And I think she's probably right.
 
Push Notifications

Note: I'm on the fence about this feature. I don't personally find them useful but some people like to get real quick feedback whenever someone mentions them or a post gets made in a thread they follow (people have complained when email alerts have lagged forum actions in the past).

I don't like push notifications either, but they may be the way to go, as email alerts aren't working at all at the moment. :(
 
as email alerts aren't working at all at the moment. :(
Can you provide more context? I see no email bounces and can only know that emails are getting through to me. Which they are. If you start a DM with me and have the system set to send emails this should be easy enough to test.
 
Can you provide more context? I see no email bounces and can only know that emails are getting through to me. Which they are. If you start a DM with me and have the system set to send emails this should be easy enough to test.
I get emails just fine, FYI... ;)
 
Email Notifications

Pre-dating push notifications, the system has the ability to send you emails when events are triggered. You can get emails on DMs (direct messages, conversations, private messages...whatever you want to call them). You can get emails when someone quotes one of your posts or mentions you. And you can get emails when someone responds to content you're watching (note: you get a single email for watched content and no more email until you've visited that content and reset your last-time-visited flag on it).

These settings are all controlled in your preferences pane here: https://forum.fractalaudio.com/account/preferences

If you really like emails you'd do something like this:

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