Tackling discussions deficiencies

Robert_Davies_(unlondonadmin_-_(deleted))

Hi folks.Given that 8.1 should bring some improvement in Livelink browsing I intend to hold off on that work, so my new priority is discussions.Again I would appreciate any hints OTC can give as to what changes 8.1 might bring along the lines of the following:1. Mark threads unread2. Edit messages3. Close threads (no more replies allowed) & Re-Open4. Archive threads (create a text file of an entire thread)I really don't want to do any more work on these than is necessary.Best regards/matt

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Arlene_Elder_(GlaxoWellAdmin_(Delete)_1421884)

We want all of those features, so lets hope 8.1 helps us out.If not, maybe I can help on some customizations

Robert_Davies_(unlondonadmin_-_(deleted))

What I have in mind here is that the topic owner or the discussion owner should be able to mark a thread as closed. At that point no further replies could be added.Some background:Looking at viewdiscussion.html, the "Post Reply" link is:func=ll&objType=134&objAction=create&parentId=1894665subtype 134 is TypeReply. So the Action-Create of the object type will need to be overridden to check whether replies are allowed for the current topic.subtype 130 is TypeTopic and it is here that the information about whether the topic is closed could be stored. The contents of a discussion posting are stored in the extended data Assoc. It should be possible to add a flag field into this to indicate that the topic is closed.So what I have in mind is to use the parentId field to track back to the first parent with a subtype of 130 which will be the original topic. Check for a flag marking the topic closed and if the flag is present (a) don't show the post reply button and (b) return an error if creation of another object of subtype 134 is requested in that topic.Additionally a button will be displayed for the topic/discussion owner to change the open/closed status of the thread.I would welcome any thoughts as to whether this strategy is a good one or not?Best regards/matt.

Robert_Davies_(unlondonadmin_-_(deleted))

In actual fact it would be quite handy to be able to archive both threads and whole discussions.What we would like is for any user to be able to specify either a discussion, or a thread and have livelink create a text representation. There should then be an option to either (a) add it to a livelink volume or (b) download it.I'm not overly bothered by formatting yet, but clearly it would be useful if some of the structure could be preserved.My first thoughts about how to achieve this run along the lines of adding an action to the discussion reply & topic subtypes of 'Archive'.This action would recurse through the tree of messages starting with the current message and add the subject & contents to an Assoc that duplicated the structure of that part of the discussion.A simple first version might just return the results formatted as an HTML table that the user could save and then add back into Livelink if they wished. A better solution involves adding a kind of "Memo" object to livelink that can store small chunks of data.Having solved the problem of archiving a topic it would seem that archiving a discussion should be just a case of archiving each topic and collating the results.Any thoughts?Best regards/matt.

Scott_Chate_(schate_-_(deleted))

These are all things TransCanada PipeLines had previously customized into Discussions, and we encouraged Open Text to incorporate them . I would still like to see them.The other one we found very useful that I would like was the ability to reposition a discussion item ( with all its underlings following ).This was great for making a topic out of a thread that got too big for its britches, or now that you can have multiple discussions, we could even spawn a new discussion from a thread.But project mgrs. found it useful for repositioning topics that got off onto a tangent that was better suited to a different spot in the discussion hierarchy.Now, with the standard Livelink 'Create In' screen for moving items, we have a model and a template for how to do it with Discussions. Just select an item, choose and action of move and select the Discussion item under which it is to be repositioned.