The ability to simply click links in status comments

[fimdash 1,197]

I was thinking that a nice addition to the site would be the ability to be able to click links in status comments. When someone posts a YouTube or a picture link in a comment, you have to highlight it with your cursor and then right-click -> Go to *link*. It would be much easier to simply be able to click the link, just like how you can on status updates.

[Champion RD92 8,658]

That would be convenient, but if it was possible, they probably would have already implemented that feature by now. *shrug*

[long gone 8,929]

It would be nice indeed, but remember that one does not simply click on links in statuses I don't think IP.board works that way. Unless it can be modified to work that way.

[NavelColt 22,884]

Improvements to status updates have been brought up time and time again, but sadly, no, statuses are completely uneditable, for the most part. Feld0's explained it best about the commonly brought up request for the ability to unsubscribe from statuses, here.

 

The problem here is a software limitation. Status updates are part of IP.Board, the forum software that powers MLP Forums. So, our ability to modify them is directly dependent on how easy IPS have made it for us to override and extend their code.

 

Now, I personally read through the code that powers status updates, and... I hate to break it to everyone, but modularity is virtually absent from it. It would be quite the undertaking to add the ability to "unsubscribe" from status updates in no small part because IPS's status updates don't have a concept of "subscriptions"/following in the first place. The notification option for it has a rather bare-metal implementation where, if it's ticked, you are sent a notification whenever a status you've replied to gets another reply. The concept of "following" a notification simply does not exist, and would need to be built first.

 

The way IPS have written the status update feature, they're virtually hardwired. The only realistic way to modify statuses in any meaningful way that won't result in forking IP.Board is to disable IPS's implementation, write our own, and migrate the data.

 

 

We hear you, loud and clear. All this technobabble doesn't change the indisputable fact that status update notifications can and do suck in their current state.

 

Reprogramming status updates our own way is, in fact, something I intend to take a close look at with the Poniverse network. Status updates can and should become a network-wide feature available on every site, and running them through Poniverse.net will make it possible to overhaul every aspect of them, including the oft-requested ability to "unfollow" a particular status.