I think I’m going to try and build this, but if anyone else likes the idea and wants to give it a go (since my skills are intermediate at best), please feel free.

The idea is to have a kind of ‘dashboard’ in a collapsed-by-default, toggle-able .message div, with all a user’s ‘stuff’ easily accessible in one click. I’m thinking to have it for the site I’m building, which is forums-forward, in the header area of the forums directory (or maybe a slide-in panel, but I’m not entirely keen on those), but it could as a plugin be made to be global and display stuff contextually depending on what’s being viewed, of course.

In the block would be links to (at least some of) the last X (where X is 5 or something)

1) Forum threads I created
2) Forum threads I commented in
3) Forum threads I favorited (would need to add favoriting to forum threads)
4) Activity stream items I posted
5) Activity stream items I favorited
6) Activity stream items I replied to
7) Personal message threads
8 ) @mentions of my username
9) a search field that searches only my own commment/activity/etc
10) maybe even recent comments to my hosted blog and stuff
11) …?

I think something like this would go a long way to helping users keep track of their own activity from visit to visit, and decrease the number of clicks to get to various areas of the app now to try and find things, to consolidate and pull stuff all together like a fine rug. That hopefully nobody would pee on.

[@ht69 Participant 14 years, 7 months ago]

I love the idea. Such kind of “Dashboard” would definitely enhanced the network stickiness of all users and can make it easier for them to “follow” their latest activities or in case of “inactivity” to inspire them to contribute “something”, e.g. “join the conversation”.

To my opinion such a dashboard should be flexibel for each user. Starting with a set of standard content/data aggregation (simple: “Forum threads I created”, “Forum threads …”) maybe 5 X. For User with more and/or other interests in X, they can flexibel create their dashboard to a maximum, of maybe 10 X.

For example, my interests are in the field of X`s which belong in the space of Group-Activity. What is happening in the Groups which i am following? Track the Group.

Because of my plans for a new web project. I would donate or spend some amount for developing such a plugin.

(By the way I am looking/hiring for buddypress web/plugin dev’s (freelance) – pm me)

[@sadr Participant 14 years, 7 months ago]

Awesome, loving it. Will donate $20 to a stable version. Flexibility would be great, but it’s not major imo. I’d say just get it done, and consider the more lofty goals for a 2.0.

[@jeffsayre Participant 14 years, 7 months ago]

@stwc-

I definitely see the desirability of a “User’s Dashboard” as you describe. Although there are ways for a user to accomplish some of what you’re suggesting in the current, default setup, it is not intuitive nor necessarily that easy. Any service that can help users better organize, manage, and track their growing data stream would be a hit.

[@djpaul Keymaster 14 years, 7 months ago]

There used to be a dashboard on this site, a few design revisions ago (read: a year?). Wonder if anyone’s still got a screenshot for inspiration.

[@xevo Participant 14 years, 7 months ago]

It’s pretty easy to do with just a normal wordpress page and a custom template for that page.