The current area pages are not a regression, but a wiki-wide implementation of this often-used VW3 feature, which was previously difficult to implement by an end-user and left many threads asking how to do it even though there was this manual page:
https://www.vaultwiki.org/manual/Vau...the-Forum-View
The VW4 version of the replaced-forum-view is definitely an upgrade because it provides content-creation buttons and a preview of the list as well.
- The "Create New Page" button on an area main page is the same button that appears in the full list. If the page already exists and you try to create it again, you would just get an error message that the page already exists. So this would not lead to duplicate content any more than it ever did in VW3. Either way, you need a button to create new content, as not everyone knows you can type a fake URL or click a red link (and that method is only available in certain configurations).
- The area main page does not show 5 random pages. It shows the first X pages that appear in the area listing. It is in the same order. You can change X in the settings so that it equals your pagination setting for the area listing, and then it effectively becomes page 1 of the list. These pages are usually in last-update order, I'm not sure why yours aren't sorting that way.
As for the fact that there are actually more pages not being clear by the short preview, is the "View All Pages" ambiguous or perhaps should say something like "View
More Pages"? Or should there be some phrasing like "Showing 5 pages of 5531"? No matter what, I feel like it would be a small tweak to make the distinction clear.
- I can see that some sites might not have need for discussions of an area itself, but it really depends on how your wiki is setup and how you use areas. Many sites use it as a themed container that itself has or needs information, and in this case it is useful to have one to discuss said information...
There should probably be separate settings for comments on an area page vs. comments within the area. Currently it is handled by the same option, so that would be a feature to request.
Like I said, you can turn the area main page into the effective page 1 listing by setting "Number of Previewed Area Contents" = "Area Contents Per Page". This is a special case -- it adds the page nav buttons and such. And if you do this then you have basically achieved what you are looking for in this request. Just type a 2 sentence description of what kinds of articles are in this area to get rid of the area default text you don't like.
July 7, 2014 6:35 PM
Distinguished Member
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