The member list for private messages is nice and useful, until you start having alot of members. Then the list becomes so large and cumbersome to scroll through, and also slows down the page loading time due to larger and larger queries.

Is there any way to have an alternate private message system where it doesn't have to query the database for a huge member list? Rather, have the user input the username of the recipient in a field. If there is no user by that name, it'll tell them when they click send (ie “Unable to send message: no such username for recipient”), of course don't erase the contents of the message they just typed.

Clicking Send PM of user in the forums will fill in their username in the recipient field also.

The buddy list can still be there as is.

What do you yall think? Do-able? If someone can cook this up, I will glady make a paypal donation to him or her.

3.2 will include a whole host of changes and improvements for the pm system…