Newbie confused about Alerts and moderation

[e9coupe]

Still trying to figure out the details about Showcase and I'm getting something that I can't figure out. I get alerts when a user adds to the Showcase, I "Approve" the post and then Update Moderation queue. After I do that the alert stays and the post disappears. I know its something simple but I've run out of ideas. If you look at the category list on the right of the page it shows more entries that are visible. Are they private maybe? If so, why would they show up on the list?

e9coupe.com/forum --> Garage

Dan

 

[Bob]

Can you please break this out into TWO things. I don't know what your confusion about ALERTS is as most of what you are asking about has nothing to do with alert functionality.

Alerts for showcase are no different than alerts for anything in XenForo. When you are alerted, they show up in the Core XenForo "Alerts". The Alerts in the dropdown only stay in there for a very short period of time after you've viewed the Alerts Dropdown. The stay visible longer on the physical alerts page. Viewing the content does not make an alert disappear.

I "Approve" the post and then Update Moderation queue

I don't understand this at all. How can you update something and then update it again in the moderation queue? If you approve an item OUTSIDE of the queue, then it gets REMOVED from the queue. Sounds like you have a BROWSER Tab open to the Moderation queue, then you manually approve an item via inline moderation or on the item page itself, then go to the tab and do the same thing? Thats the only way I can think of that you could do BOTH at the same time.

When a Showcase Item is in the Mod Queue and the Showcase Item has an associated discussion thread, BOTH of those will be in the Moderation Queue. You ONLY have to approve the Showcase Item. Approving the SC Item will at the same time, handle the associated discussion thread.

As for the Category List. There is some CACHING going on to reduce DB queries, so you can't rely on low level data like that being real time. Also, there are dozens of other things that could come into play depending on your Configuration settings. You could (for example) have settings to NOT include Items in sub categories from displaying which would only display the parent content, but the Parent Content Count on the Cat Nav includes all children. Another would be setting the option to display content with images only and you have content without images. Another would be including the SLIDER and the setting to not include content in the listing that is already being displayed in the Slider. So as you can see, its not always going to be a perfect MATCH (its not designed to be). Its really only noticeable when first starting out. Once you have dozens of items in your categories, you won't even notice.

 

[e9coupe]

Okay, sorry, I'm still getting used to the terms. Its not an alert, its the red flag icon above "Garage" that tells me something new is there. When I click on "Garage" it takes me to a moderation page with the new entry on it and a button at the bottom of the page that says "Update Moderation Queue", or something similar. Next time it happens I'll screen capture everything I do, I won't be able to explain it now...

BTW, after I do all of that the red icon doesn't go away so I'm obviously doing something wrong.

 

[Bob]

Its not an alert, its the red flag icon above "Garage"

That is called a "New Items Indicator". Its a Core XenForo function for navigation Tabs. That tells you that you have X amount of UNREAD Showcase Items.

When I click on "Garage" it takes me to a moderation page with the new entry on it and a button at the bottom of the page that says "Update Moderation Queue", or something similar.

That must be something custom, because clicking on the Garage Tab should take you to Showcase Index page. I also don't have anything built in that says anything about Updating the Moderation Queue, so yes, please screen shot that for me and if possible don't do anything, so that I can log into your site and see it in action to find out what is doing that. I've never heard of that in my entire time developing for xenforo, so I don't know what to say lol

The New Items Indicator will only go away when you VIEW the Item (or items). Going to Showcase Home (Garage Home) does not mark the new items as "read". You actually have to VIEW them.

 

[Bob]

btw, you can DISABLE that functionality globally (first image) OR individuals can disable it via their account settings (2nd image).

 

[e9coupe]

You pointed out one of my setting problems... I had "Image required" selected and there were several that didn't have images uploaded, just in the body of the post. That corrected the discrepancy with the numbers. I'll keep with it and probably figure out the majority of it over time. Thanks Bob!

 

[Bob]

Just keep asking questions when you have them btw, a TIP on the no images. If you set a CATEGORY IMAGE, the Category Image will display for items in that category that do not have cover images. Looks much better than that "No Image" placeholder.