As Thyrr brought it up, I figured I'd create a little topic and we can all kick around ideas for how the UI might be expanded or changed in some form of meaningful manner.
One thing I'm thinking of is changing the Home, My Images, et al might be side-barred on the left of the page a la Mudconnector, which would probably free up some room on the mainpage specifically where the amount of info is likely to begin crunching.
Moving "My Images" sounds like a good idea -- don't think you need to change them that often. "Home" should stay where it is though.
I don't exactly like the comments posted at the top, since you may not have read the preceding ones, and also you generally have to scroll past the "new comment" box before you can actually read the comments. Also, sooner or later it's going to need to handle multiple pages of comments. I'd also personally prefer a serif font for the comments, sans-serif for the titles, for readability.
Posted By: Thyrr on
06/05/06 at 07:33 PM
But of course, that's just my preference -- I'd like to hear what other people suggest.
Posted By: Vopisk on
06/05/06 at 07:50 PM
Well, my idea was to stack the things such as My Images, Topics, Groups, et al underneath the home button in a left-side bar like we have over at TMC home, cause that layout is classic and easy to navigate, especially if we can have it scroll down the page with us for easy navigation, but that may be asking a bit too much.
Also I have to agree about the comments, it's rather disconcerting to have to scroll to the bottom to read the first and move your way back up to find the latest and then even further up to finally add a comment. However, some may like it that way in the long run when comments begin to drag on and you only want to catch up with the latest quickest, but either way, I would probably suggest moving the comment box to the bottom I think.
Posted By: Samson on
06/05/06 at 08:46 PM
I tend to agree with the idea of having the comments in various places listed from oldest to newest as you scroll down. It confused me the first few times I looked at them until I realized it was backward to how I'm used to it on every other forum :)
Posted By: Skol on
06/06/06 at 02:58 AM
One thing, on the javascript calendar dohicky... Make it only put a link if there's content?
So days without any content simply don't link.
I'll concur with the latest to oldest comment reading as well.
Calendar
Posted By: Thyrr on
06/06/06 at 03:06 AM
Oh yeah, regarding the calendar: 1) I like to open things in new tabs in Firefox, but the js links don't allow it. 2) If I jump back to 2005, this year's events are still highlighted by date. 3) There ought to be a new color for days with events that *I'm* signed up for. 4) Not too important, but group events might be nice, along with a way of filtering out other groups. I probably don't care much for "UberDBZ MUD roleplay night" if I'm not part of that MUD, for example.
Basically, the reason I think the UI needs some work is that while it's fine now, as soon as you've got 100 people on the site a bunch of things are going to start getting hard to navigate. If this really takes off, there's going to be so much information around that we'll need a good way to filter stuff we don't care about.
Posted By: Tyche on
06/06/06 at 03:37 AM
The reverse order do make sense for journals as I tend to expect the latest entry at the top of page. I think having separate user preferences for both groups and journals is the way to go.
Posted By: Tyche on
06/06/06 at 03:45 AM
Oh take a look at http://www.electricsoup.net/ a Mush forum. They got a pleasant look. They use their calender for searching their forums. You might make that calender on the right multiuse by including some radio buttons under it, the default being events, maybe an option to browse all groups discussions on a given day, or all journal entrys on a given day.
Posted By: Vopisk on
06/06/06 at 06:11 AM
I'm thinking as far as saving frontpage, general page space, the "My Avatar" area can be shrunk down quite a bit, seeing what my current avatar is, as well as my info regarding join date and last logic is really probably not something I need to know about often. Perhaps this can be shrunken a bit and put into the "My Actions" area? (The avatar that is in regards to the shrinking, everything else there seems decently small but the box encasing it all does take up some valuable real estate.
UI stuff ...
Posted By: Icculus on
06/06/06 at 01:15 PM
1. General UI changes - I am not sure I like squeezing the content between 2 sidebars as opposed to having just the right-side sidebar. I'll pick one of the sections and add a mockup left-side sidebar to see what things look like and you guys can comment on that. Unfortunately I don't believe the calendar can be made less wide without making the dates unreadable, so the right sidebar has a minimum width that cannot be reduced. I am uncertain how moving a linked section from the top to a new sidebar would free up more space, my feeling is all major sections should be linked from the top navbar, it doesn't make sense for me to have some of them and others in a sidebar.
2. The Calendar - Not sure how much more I can do with it, it is for the most part a rather ugly bit of code to work with that I found for public use online, I don't believe it was created to be easily modifiable and it took alot of bandaids to make it do what it does now. However, I do like the idea of being able to use the calendar to see additional content, but as of yet have not explored what that would take to make happen.
3. My Avatar/My Actions - will consider merging these sections and making the layout more concise.
4. I'll either reverse the order of comments by their date or add a way for members to specify that setting, probably just change the order first and later on add a way to specify that. I do not plan to change the order for entries or topic starter posts. Down the road I don't see a problem with this as a user-definable element, but definitely not before a launch.
I'll holler when I have a mockup left-side sidebar somewhere for you to look at and comment on.
( Launch is most likely going to be pushed back )
Iccy
Posted By: Vopisk on
06/06/06 at 09:45 PM
06/06/06 07:30 AM Errm... [ From member: Drizzt1216 ]
Test for the comments bumping "Browse Topics" to the top...
Left sidebar to look at`
Posted By: Icculus on
06/07/06 at 10:20 AM
Ok, I am using the Browse subsection in the Bookmarks section to illustrate what I think is the main problem with adding a left sidebar. I chose the bookmarks section because the content is minimal for right now, imagine the layout with something like the topics or journals which already push the vertical bounds ( and will require pagination, which I plan to add ).
But the point I am trying to make is, the middle content will, in general, always push the vertical bounds beyond the left sidebar. To me it just doesn't look right and its a waste of space where the main content could use a wider area, which will apply to all sections.
Anyone, pleasse navigate to the Bookmarks and if you are not already in the Browse subsection hit that to see the example. If anyone has any positive thoughts about that layout let me know, or ideas that would make it look more reasonable, but I just don't like what I see.
-Iccy
unless...
Posted By: Icculus on
06/07/06 at 10:25 AM
I was looking at it again and started thinking, what if the left sidebar had similar content to what is now on the frontpage, maybe a box for the most recent member additions, most recent topics posted, entries, bookmarks, etc.
That would provide easy navigation from all of the pages to the newest content and it would most likely solve the short sidebar issue.
Thoughts on that?
-Iccy
2 cents
Posted By: Fizban on
06/07/06 at 10:38 AM
Hmm, I'm not sure, it may be too much on the other pages with more content but at least on the Boomarks page it doesn't seem that the left sidebar squished anything too dramatically, but of course if there was a left sidebar for everything, especially the forums, this may make topics with many posts quite lengthy in a vertical aspect.
Left Sidebars
Posted By: Vopisk on
06/07/06 at 11:22 PM
I think if you got something akin to topic title and maybe commentor, it wouldn't be too bad, just like the frontpage is. Of course, you wouldn't want to display every comment to every post (including multiple comments to the same post) as seperate items, but maybe a TOP FIVE or something wouldn't be too bad. Would probably need to have a small font to minimize horizontal space usage.
Have a looksy
Posted By: Icculus on
06/08/06 at 11:27 AM
Added preliminary Topics and Journals sidebars to the bookmarks index page to see what that might look like. Not a whole lot of room to squeeze stuff in there ...
-Iccy
Also to look at in the bookmarks index page
Posted By: Icculus on
06/08/06 at 11:41 AM
Take a look at the My Avatar section, it combines the My Actions links, as someone suggested here. Thoughts on that as opposed to the current scheme of having My Actions be a seperate sidebox?
-Iccy
Display Problems ...
Posted By: K2mia on
06/08/06 at 10:44 PM
Ran out of time while converting things to the 3 column layout, so you'll likely see lots of awkward looking areas, will try to fix as soon as I am able.
All in all I think I can grow used to it this way.
Iccy
Ok.
Posted By: Icculus on
06/08/06 at 11:50 PM
Have left-side sidebar in in most of the sections now, thinking about leaving it off the topics and entries sections to provide more space...
Post your thoughts. Iccy
Posted By: Vopisk on
06/09/06 at 09:40 PM
I think that the frontpage should go back to the no-sidebar style, cause that's where you really want to pop out the topics and recent journal entries and whatnot.
Also, as I suggested it, I do like the combo avatar box, grouping related things together is always and makes the overall navigation easier, especially having the create new topic and such options right there at the top of the page.
