Last week we upgraded the codebase of our DiscussionPlugin.The update came with a number of features that we think will be very welcome and on top of those we added our own. Topics flags, better management of subscribers and announcements.

Flags

When I search for something online, finding a discussion topic that is marked as "solved" to me is an immediate win, I will go read that topic as soon as I can. With this update of our discussions we have added the ability to mark topics as solved. Only the author of the topicand the moderators can set this flag.
Moderators can also take advantage of two other flags, locked and sticky. As expected, the former blocks users from writing new replies and the latter sticks the topic to the top of the discussion.

All flags are reflected in the topic title immediately, so that as users browse a discussion can see them.

Manage subscribers

If you are a moderator you will see at the bottom of each board that theforms have changed. Managing existing subscribers is now a select box. Deselect the users you want to remove and click "Save".

Adding users is now super-easy, start typing the username you want to add and the server will suggest name completions, pick the one you want and click "Add". Always remember to press "Save" to confirm. This is a two steps process, but allows you to add some users and remove others inone go, if you want to do so. This should also prevent adding users accidentally.

A little under-the-hood update that we did was also to use usernames instead of direct emails. It turned out some people change their emails and of course it wasn’t very useful to send them notifications to address that don’t exist anymore. Well now that should be sorted. If youstill have problems, unsubscribe and subscribe again.

Announcements

Also, did you notice that all projects have an "Announcements" board? The main difference between this board and all others is that when you write a new topic here it will appear in your project’s summary page. Also, by default only members can write in this board, if you want to change this, visit the admin tab and then "Announcements"; there you canchange rights and also rename the board, for example you might want to have an Italian name such as "Annunci".