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TreeK: Tree-Shell for Kunena Forum

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Below this introduction is a slideshow that uses screenshots, short videos, and slide notes to provide a complete guide to working with the TreeK topic posts tree.

The developer recommends watching the slideshow and reading the explanatory notes.
However, you can start using TreeK at any time because:

  • all TreeK buttons and symbols in the tree window are natural, mostly self-explanatory, and supplied with explanatory tooltips;
  • all actions in the window are independent of one another;
  • any action can easily be undone by selecting the previous setting value;
  • nothing can be damaged, because all real events in the topic take place in Kunena.

So you can start working with the topic posts tree without concern. Still, once again, getting familiar with the slideshow will help you avoid missing useful TreeK details and features.

All TreeK options can be tried in the specially created small topic Example of tree on this site’s forum.

In addition, a special forum category Sandbox for testing TreeK is provided for testing TreeK. Registered users of this site can create their own topics there and practice with them.
Of course, other registered users can participate in these topics, just as they would on real Kunena forums, and in this way also get familiar with TreeK.

A brief overview of TreeK is available here.

Trip to TreeK

Opening the topic posts tree - two ways
1. Click the number of replies in the topic on the Recent Topics tab.
2. Click the 🌳 symbol in any post of the topic.
Either action opens a modal window showing the structure of links between the topic posts, called the topic posts tree. The window has a header - a fixed row containing the topic title and several buttons. The tree area scrolls if the whole tree does not fit inside the modal window
A simple tree
Each post is represented by a row that shows at least the post subject. If one post is a reply to another post, there is a link between them, usually called "child post - parent post".
The row of each child post is shifted to the right relative to the row of the parent post, creating the tree effect.
The tree always has one row shown in bold. It corresponds to the latest post added to the topic. This is not necessarily the lowest row in the tree (as in our example).
One of the rows may also be highlighted with a different background (on this slide it is the first row). Such a row is "active" - the meaning of this name will become clear later, but for simplicity you can think of the active row as the one that currently has the user's attention
Settings and grids
The tree view can be controlled using the Settings window, which appears on the right side of the tree window when you click the βš™ button.
On this slide, the Grid setting is enabled to show the tree structure more clearly
Dragging the Settings window
If the Settings window covers part of the tree, click its header and, while holding the mouse button, drag the window to the desired place
Tooltips and post text
There is no need to rush back to the topic just to see the content of the posts. In every row, next to the post subject, there is a πŸ’¬ symbol. If you move the cursor over this symbol, the beginning of the post text will be shown.
In general, most buttons and symbols in TreeK have tooltips. To learn or remember what option a symbol provides, simply move the cursor over that symbol
Start of post line
The Start of post line setting lets you choose what the post row in the tree starts with:
Subject + Author β€” the post subject is shown first, then the author.
Author + Subject β€” the author is shown first, then the post subject.
Subject β€” only the post subject is shown
Date and time
f you enable the "Show the post creation date and time" checkbox, date and time display options become available. You can choose a short or full year format and enable or disable the time display
Post index
The Post index setting adds global Kunena post IDs to the tree rows or removes them
Beginning of the post. "Text" excerpt
The Show post excerpt setting makes it possible to study the topic fully through the tree and go to Kunena only when you need to perform forum actions themselves: add or edit a post, and so on.
This setting has two options. Post excerpt - text displays a text fragment from the beginning of the post under the first post row, with a specified number of characters. If this number is large enough, the full post text will be shown
Beginning of the post. "Screenshot" excerpt
The Post excerpt - screenshot option of the Show post excerpt setting shows a fragment from the beginning of the post under the first post row as a screenshot with a specified height in pixels. If this number is large enough, the whole post will be shown.
The appearance of the lower post row (with an image) demonstrates the essential difference between the two excerpt options. In the screenshot excerpt, images, text formatting, colors, and other elements of the real Kunena post view are preserved.
Note that with the Post excerpt setting, the site gets a full-fledged forum with indented structure! In addition to the tree structure we have been talking about all along
Reaction time when settings change
How quickly does the tree view change when the settings are changed? Quickly. What does quickly mean? Instantly. The slide provides video evidence
View mode
The main topic viewing mode is "Tree". Posts are displayed with their links taken into account. Replies are shown as child elements of the parent post. This mode helps you see the structure of the discussion.
In addition to the main mode, there is another one - "List (timeline)". Post rows are displayed sequentially, by creation time, matching the order of posts in Kunena. This mode is useful for studying certain aspects of a topic
Comfort symbols. Navigation
Additional symbols can be enabled in tree rows (they are called "comfort symbols") to help you navigate the tree more quickly.
Comfort symbols work through highlighting - changing the background of posts of interest.
When the "Show comfort symbols" checkbox is enabled, two additional independent checkboxes are shown.
The "Navigation arrows" checkbox adds or removes symbols in post rows for conditional navigation along the tree links.
The ⇑ symbol makes the parent post active.
If a post is a parent, symbols for activating its children are shown in the row. The ⇓ symbol makes the row of the (only) child active. If the post of interest has several children, the corresponding child posts are activated by the symbols ⇓1, ⇓2, and so on. This is especially convenient when some children are far away from the parent row
Comfort symbols. Highlighting
Highlighting symbols are used to highlight related posts.
The πŸ§‘ symbol highlights (with a gray background) all posts by the author of the selected post.
If a post is a parent, the Ξ› symbol is shown in the row. Clicking it highlights the row of that parent and all its child posts with a gray background
Saving and restoring settings
Tree settings are active during the user session.
However, for registered users, TreeK allows individual tree display settings to be saved and later restored in another session and even for other topics. This is done using the Save settings β†ͺ and Restore settings ↩ buttons in the header of the Settings window.
The Restore settings ↩ button is visible only if the user has saved tree settings at least once
Export tree
TreeK can copy the topic tree to the clipboard. This is useful when you need to transfer the discussion structure into a message, document, note, and so on.
Three export formats are available. They are offered when you click the ➑️ symbol in the tree window header:
BBCode β€” suitable for insertion into objects that understand BBCode, in particular into Kunena posts (in the Source window).
HTML β€” suitable for insertion into an HTML editor or document, in particular into Joomla articles (in the JCE - Code window).
Subjects in BBCode and HTML code contain links to the posts of the exported tree.
Text β€” a plain text option that can be inserted into any text field, including a Kunena post, a Joomla article, or a text file.
The current tree view is exported, but only the elements present according to the settings are included - subject, author, time, index. For example, subject and author, or only subject. Comfort symbols and other service symbols, excerpts, and so on are not exported.
Tree rows in the exported text are shifted to imitate a tree
Going from TreeK to Kunena
You can close the TreeK modal window and thereby return to the Kunena topic in the usual way - by clicking the cross in the upper-right corner of the window.
However, a more functional method is recommended: click the subject of any post in the tree, for example a post that requires a reply or editing. This not only closes the modal window, but also takes you to the corresponding post in Kunena
Topic monitoring. Notification about a post added to the topic
Many users can work with the same topic at the same time, especially shortly after the topic is created. Working with a topic means simply reading its posts, replying to existing posts or editing them, studying the tree, and so on.
A reader of a topic in Kunena learns that another user has added a post to the topic after refreshing the last page of the topic or through actions leading to that, by monitoring the number of replies in the topic, and so on.
Here is how TreeK handles this. If a user is working with the tree and a post is added to the topic, a noticeable ("red") information message appears over the tree window no later than within a minute. It contains information in the format "Author - Subject - Time - Index". The message is shown for 15 seconds and then closes automatically, unless the visitor closes it earlier with the cross.
At the same time as the red message appears, the topic tree is updated. The tree window shows the same tree fragment and the same settings as before the message appeared, but the updated tree contains the row of the new post, highlighted in bold like any latest added post. Thus, the user immediately sees in which part of the tree the event occurred. If the tree is very large and the new post is not in the current fragment, the user can use the window scrollbar or the "View mode - List (timeline)" option, which will show the new post at the bottom of the post list
Topic monitoring. Interaction between TreeK and Kunena
Let us use this case to demonstrate the interaction between TreeK and Kunena. Imagine that an administrator opens the tree of a topic they created at the moment another user adds a post, or immediately after that, and let us watch the video of what happens next.
Using the πŸ’¬ tooltip, admin sees that user trickster has interfered with the topic off-topic and (although Australia is a wonderful country) decides to immediately delete the post that has nothing to do with the topic. By clicking the subject of the new post, admin goes to Kunena, but unlike the situation with going to any post that existed when the initial tree was built, admin does not land directly on the new post, because the Kunena page has not yet been refreshed. Now the administrator refreshes the Kunena view and goes to the last page. Then the administrator deletes the unnecessary post. After that, admin returns to the tree
The "β‡’" arrow in the post subject. TreeKView UI
TreeK is not only integrated with Kunena, but also has its own, slightly modified, user interface that makes working in Kunena a little faster. For convenience, this part of TreeK has its own name: TreeKView.
The slide shows two examples of such changes in the reply form (the form is split here into two fragments so that it fits on the slide).
In the upper fragment, the reply post subject is suggested automatically - details are inside the image.
In the lower fragment, the Attachments block is collapsed to reduce scrolling time.
TreeKView is described in detail here