How to direct message someone on this forum?

mrXmr

I don't see any "Direct Message" buttons when I hover over profiles, or when I visit profile pictures of users in this forum. How do I DM someone? Do I require a certain amount of "merit" on my account before I can do so?

CyberGene

AFAIK messaging is not allowed.

mrXmr

CyberGene Is it not allowed "in this forum," or is it not supported in flarum software, generally?

luceos

mrXmr we have Byobu installed for moderative purposes only.

https://extiverse.com/extension/fof/byobu

mrXmr

luceos Okay. But can someone answer the question: is direct messaging supported on flarum software or not?

luceos

mrXmr Byobu acts as a direct messaging feature. It reuses the discussion logic, but allows sending/creating messages to specific users or user groups.

dragsugur

The biggest drawback of Flarum, which I've been stating since day one, is that BYOBU doesn't live up to people's expectations. Additionally, it lacks a built-in private messaging system, which is a major limitation.
second biggest thing is that flarum is hard to theme for most people.

Darkle

dragsugur I agree that Byobu should add some CSS classes to make it easy to customise the experience, but objectively I agree with what luceos says, Byobu fulfils everything a DM system should offer, and thanks to the fact that it reuses the discussion system it can benefit from a lot of integrations (fof/upload for example).

The only thing I would say that makes me feel a bit odd when sending a direct message with Byobu, compared to other platforms and their DM systems, is the need to add a title, have you noticed this as well or do you mean other things regarding expectations?

mrXmr

luceos So, this forum intentionally limits the byobu usage to the admins? Otherwise I can have byobu installed on my flarum instance and let the users of my forum DM each other using byobu?

dragsugur

Darkle your example is a good one, title is unneccesary.

but the way i see byobu is its not actually a dm or private messaging system. its fundamentally acts as "private discussions", and its actually act just like that in this forum. thats why you need a title because these "pm"s are listed on the discussion list. im cool with what it offers but i dont believe its what most users would want or expect.

there is an extension for flarum called "whispers" which functions as what i would expect as a dm system. but its not supported right now and has full of bugs.

and im not okay with basic private messaging not included on the core flarum.

clarkwinkelmann

mrXmr yes, exactly. The original intent for Byobu is to allow anyone to message anyone. There are a number of permissions in Byobu to control who can message other users and who can add entire groups to their discussions.

We just made the choice to restrict it to admins on this forum because we only use private messages for moderation purposes.

mrXmr

clarkwinkelmann Alright. Thanks for the clarification.