Some comments about the forums UI for openacs.org:
I've found on my sites that don't need threaded views of postings - i.e. where its just a flat list (such as openacs.org) that it simplifys things greatly to remove the reply link from each posting and only leaving that on the bottom (i.e. respond to the original post). It also removes UI "clutter" a bit (and reduces the number of queries needed to create a forum thread view - since they only need to look for one parent_id - i.e. the original post). I would recommend putting the forward button next to who posted the message
Having the who posted what text be smaller is also really nice visually (font-size: small; color: #CCC;) or something like that)
Likewise It helps if there is some visual seperation of posts. A simple #EEE hr line is enough. Having smaller who posted what might be enough visual seperation. I am partial to a UL or OL lists i developed for one site i.e. which uses Lists and CSS to do all this display stuff (no need to tables) http://www.ministryquest.com/community/forums/message-view?message_id=24159
Also, if the title is just "RE: posting title" there is not need to post the title of the new post. Again, unnecessary visual clutter - its easy to remove this when looping through the posts
These aren't urgent of course... Here are my recommendations that comply more with html and css standards to a previous post on this thread:
<div style="border-bottom: 1px solid #EEE; padding: 10px; margin-bottom: 20px;">
<h3 style="font-size: normal; font-weight: bold; margin ">Re: openacs.org upgrade: things do be done</h3>
<p>Ok, since noone can decide on the style for the forums pages, I added some CSS code, that is driven by the package parameters of forums. This fixes the wide table problem. It also allows colors if the site owner chooses. I also added the posting date to the display. I fixed the home page by removing a pl/sql call in the where clause in an ETP procedure query. Now the query takes 14ms instead of over 3000ms.</p>
<p style="font-size: small; color: #999999"><cite>Posted by <a href="">Dave Bauer</a> on December 06, 2004 03:39 PM</cite> [ <a href="">forward</a> ]</p>
</div>
