I think I erred in using "ALL NEW" on never-read rather than / without listing the number of comments.
If you replace the "ALL NEW" for fully unread threads with just the total number of comments (and still keeping it the orange background), I would consider that a good compromise.
I know you think otherwise, but I think total comments is a really important piece of data when weighing conversations. Even if I've been in the conversation, it's still data I want to see.
It let's you know what's hot, what everyone's digging into, and gives a great overhead look at the best stuff on the site. I don't think this has anything to do with OMG CHANGE SUX, I think it's legitimately useful and something I think the forums needs to remain its ease of use. I think the others that want to see total comments would agree with me for the same reasons - not a knee jerk reaction, but something we actually love and use.
Most of these are pretty cool. The massive comment number indicator things on the right look really really gross.
For me I think the orange block is a little distracting. I imagine in a week or two I'll adjust fine and won't notice it any longer. But right now the blue blends very nicely into the rest of the page for me. The orange is so in your face that it draws my eyes over to how many new posts there are and away from the thread title even. Maybe the blue for new posts and a grey of some sort for no new would seem less obtrusive?
Like I said though I probably wont notice it at all in 2 weeks anyhow.
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midga"There's so much hot dog in Rome" ~digi(> ^.(> O_o)>Icrontian
I usually run down the list of new comments and click on what's new that I'm interested in, but when my eyes are on the left reading the titles it's hard to tell which have new stuff because it's on the right.
This. The previous style was useful because I could get all the information in one glance. Now I'm having to flick my eyes back and forth and that just doesn't really work well. It requires not losing track of which line I'm on, and that's just not going to happen. They're also huge while conveying very little information, and they don't blend with anything else on the page at all. It's really incongruent and jarring. I also think the colour selection is pretty horrid, but that's purely a taste thing. Really, if you're dead set on using the blocks, then it would be better if you at least put them on the left side of the thread to allow for easier parsing.
I know you think otherwise, but I think total comments is a really important piece of data when weighing conversations. Even if I've been in the conversation, it's still data I want to see.
It let's you know what's hot, what everyone's digging into, and gives a great overhead look at the best stuff on the site. I don't think this has anything to do with OMG CHANGE SUX, I think it's legitimately useful and something I think the forums needs to remain its ease of use. I think the others that want to see total comments would agree with me for the same reasons - not a knee jerk reaction, but something we actually love and use.
Also that. And really, just because I've been in a conversation doesn't mean I remember /anything/ about that conversation besides general subject. It would also be nice to see when a conversation was started, and not just when the last post was.
Finally, @primesuspect Site design isn't our responsibility, but feedback definitely is. That said, if you're looking for ideas instead of/in addition to feedback, as can be seen we're happy to comply. That can be a bit of a Pandora's box, though.
Regarding the orange and blue colors, I'll go out on a limb and state that I actually like them. It looks bold and also highlights new discussions for me to check out or revisit. But I can see why others don't care for it.
Blue and orange are complementary colors (opposites on the color wheel), so they work together while also contrasting each other heavily (with the exception of the colorblind, such as red-green colorblind). Placing them next to each other makes both colors appear brighter than shown alone. Some people find this jarring, as seen above. And now you know™.
I've rolled back the right-aligned comment counter.
I changed the 'new' indicator to be orange to match the theme, and fixed the dark theme to use a different background color on unread discussions (per Jimmy's comment).
Whatever you did, @lincoln, that last update is sexy. Also, how about making the search function more visible? Maybe put it under "start a discussion" or something?
I've rolled back the right-aligned comment counter.
I changed the 'new' indicator to be orange to match the theme, and fixed the dark theme to use a different background color on unread discussions (per Jimmy's comment).
I really really like what you just did man, especially on the Dark Theme. SexyIC
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Straight_ManGeeky, in my own wayNaples, FLIcrontian
I have a suggestion prime - have a search bar near the top please. I'm sure someone will enlighten me, but I find it really frustrating having to scroll to the bottom of the page to search. I use that feature all the time.
Oh, and Linc, have you checked with the Icrontic legal eagles to make sure Apple won't sue the pants off us with the rounded icons? lol
Forgive me, I'm a bit behind on this...am I supposed to be seeing giant numbers on the right side of the threadlist? I mean, it looks great all the same, I'm just confus.
This is my current view:
The only recommendation (and one I've wanted for a while) is that the search bar become more prominent as others have requested above. I understand why it is where it is, now, though.
On the topic, is there any way to help direct the thread search better by having a *hidden* (because I know it kinda got messy when they were shown) tag listing a thread creator can use? Just trying to help you brainstorm a fix or something...
Vanilla, by default, uses MySQL's fulltext search. Fulltext search blows so hard, it's actually better to just use Google. That's what our search box does currently. Hence, it can't find non-public content.
Vanilla does have a far better search option: Sphinx Search. Sphinx is a program that you 1) install as an app on your server and 2) install a module to use it natively in PHP. Then you 3) configure it and 4) turn on a couple special secret Vanilla plugins, and suddenly search becomes awesome (because I'm allowed to use the non-public Vanilla plugins that integrate with Sphinx and enable Advanced Search).
1, 3 & 4 are all fine and well, it's 2 that has me stuck. Or, more accurately, scared.
Back in 2010, some tech at our hosting provider decided to complete my (admittedly numerous & laborious) customizations in a terribly non-standard, difficult-to-upgrade way. Apparently no one else at the company can figure out how to safely change our PHP installation without Breaking Shit in the most catastrophic ways possible, no matter how many warnings or explanations I give them.
If you remember, we had some really bad downtime issues about 2 years back that was the result of the last time I asked them to change something. There was a lot of yelling and cursing involved for many, many days before I got us stable again.
It's so bad, in fact, that they issued a mea culpa and gave me a free month of hosting for a new server to get it set up for us to migrate to a Fresh Installation of Everything. I got most of it set up last summer, but migrating all our websites to a new server is probably just as awful and time-consuming as it sounds. Probably worse. Much worse.
tl;dr: By this dizzying array of failures by our host, I am terrified of asking for a new PHP module because they will undoubtedly crash our server in the process and my only way out is to move us to a completely new server which is now expensive (having consumed the free month) and time-consuming. That said, I've spun the second server back up to resume work on it, but heaven knows how far I'll get before I give up again.
Not a dismissal, I'll be the first to admit that it's been hard to find competent tech staff in the area the past couple years... but I worked in migrations for quite a while before I moved up, all you guys have to do is ask if you want help migrating things... and maybe buy me dinner.
Comments
It let's you know what's hot, what everyone's digging into, and gives a great overhead look at the best stuff on the site. I don't think this has anything to do with OMG CHANGE SUX, I think it's legitimately useful and something I think the forums needs to remain its ease of use. I think the others that want to see total comments would agree with me for the same reasons - not a knee jerk reaction, but something we actually love and use.
Like I said though I probably wont notice it at all in 2 weeks anyhow.
Also that. And really, just because I've been in a conversation doesn't mean I remember /anything/ about that conversation besides general subject. It would also be nice to see when a conversation was started, and not just when the last post was.
Finally, @primesuspect Site design isn't our responsibility, but feedback definitely is. That said, if you're looking for ideas instead of/in addition to feedback, as can be seen we're happy to comply. That can be a bit of a Pandora's box, though.
I went back to jared's old theme for now, since Jimmah's had alignment issues.
Blue and orange are complementary colors (opposites on the color wheel), so they work together while also contrasting each other heavily (with the exception of the colorblind, such as red-green colorblind). Placing them next to each other makes both colors appear brighter than shown alone. Some people find this jarring, as seen above. And now you know™.
I changed the 'new' indicator to be orange to match the theme, and fixed the dark theme to use a different background color on unread discussions (per Jimmy's comment).
Oh, and Linc, have you checked with the Icrontic legal eagles to make sure Apple won't sue the pants off us with the rounded icons? lol
This is my current view:
The only recommendation (and one I've wanted for a while) is that the search bar become more prominent as others have requested above. I understand why it is where it is, now, though.
On the topic, is there any way to help direct the thread search better by having a *hidden* (because I know it kinda got messy when they were shown) tag listing a thread creator can use? Just trying to help you brainstorm a fix or something...
Vanilla, by default, uses MySQL's fulltext search. Fulltext search blows so hard, it's actually better to just use Google. That's what our search box does currently. Hence, it can't find non-public content.
Vanilla does have a far better search option: Sphinx Search. Sphinx is a program that you 1) install as an app on your server and 2) install a module to use it natively in PHP. Then you 3) configure it and 4) turn on a couple special secret Vanilla plugins, and suddenly search becomes awesome (because I'm allowed to use the non-public Vanilla plugins that integrate with Sphinx and enable Advanced Search).
1, 3 & 4 are all fine and well, it's 2 that has me stuck. Or, more accurately, scared.
Back in 2010, some tech at our hosting provider decided to complete my (admittedly numerous & laborious) customizations in a terribly non-standard, difficult-to-upgrade way. Apparently no one else at the company can figure out how to safely change our PHP installation without Breaking Shit in the most catastrophic ways possible, no matter how many warnings or explanations I give them.
If you remember, we had some really bad downtime issues about 2 years back that was the result of the last time I asked them to change something. There was a lot of yelling and cursing involved for many, many days before I got us stable again.
It's so bad, in fact, that they issued a mea culpa and gave me a free month of hosting for a new server to get it set up for us to migrate to a Fresh Installation of Everything. I got most of it set up last summer, but migrating all our websites to a new server is probably just as awful and time-consuming as it sounds. Probably worse. Much worse.
tl;dr: By this dizzying array of failures by our host, I am terrified of asking for a new PHP module because they will undoubtedly crash our server in the process and my only way out is to move us to a completely new server which is now expensive (having consumed the free month) and time-consuming. That said, I've spun the second server back up to resume work on it, but heaven knows how far I'll get before I give up again.
(JK looks good bro)
//edit OR DELETING. I'm gonna sic Ivan on you if you keep that up.