First off, the forced migration from the working Forum app to the flawed Groups app has been a disaster for Wix sites that include an online forum. And to make matters worse, Wix Support has just ignored tickets from site owners struggling to make the transition. We had a fully functioning forum with the old app, and after weeks of struggle to adapt our site we still face a number of roadblocks.
Top of the pile is that the public browsing & even site members who want to post into a group flat out can’t unless they’ve already joined it. And they’d better know that, because there is no explanation given.
On page load, the all-important “Create a Post” panel (shown here) is hidden/collapsed except to existing Group members. (in the Editor it’s always present, so it’s easy to forget that most users won’t even see it.)
Instead there is a small Join button with no explanatory text, which opens a non-customizable black and white confirmation box.
We want non-Group site members to be able to post to the Group too, and you should only need to join the group if you want to follow all its posts or adjust settings.
Either leave the Create New Post panel open to all and if a non-group member clicks to start a post give them a prompt that they must join first, or have an option in settings for a message that informs people that they must join the site, and also the group, before posting. This needs to be a setting because any elements overlaid on the app section gets messed up when its panels and buttons expand or collapse depending on the length of the Group name, and whether it’s a member, non-member viewing.
We’ve had a number of our members say they wanted to post but couldn’t find any way to create a new post in our Forum groups. When we explained that they had to Join the group, having already joined our site to access the forum, they thought we were having a laugh.
It’s great that the Groups app gives Group members access to a Settings panel for group notifications, but there is no way to adjust the panel design and/or adjust the clickable options. For instance, we have disabled the automation to send emails to group members when admin changes the group or photo name, but it still appears as an option in this list of notifications.
Design has been limited because a panel text on the app pages is fixed to one of the site’s theme colors (white), so unless we use a dark color for the background the panel’s text & icons will not be visible. This one missing color option dictates our entire page’s color scheme.
Another problem is that any attempt the Groups app or its pages, creates errors. Here are a few I keep seeing.
Groups page:
Error: The transition has been superseded by a different transition
My Groups member page:
Error: App page with sectionId “my-groups” was not found. (spoiler: error occurs even if there is a section on the page with the ID my-groups).