Mahz's Dev Journal

[BBeast]

Fair points, @Shienvien. I'll give you the theme.

About the buttons, I put some more thought into it. What changing the tab read counts to display UNREAD posts, similar to how the PM counts were changed from total to unread. Then the numbers could take one to the newest post, while the IC/OOC/CHAR title can take one to the OP.

Goes to OP --> [IC (#unread count)] <-- Goes to first unread post

@Captain Jordan

The trouble with that would be communicating that to all users. You know the trouble we had with the 'go to last post' buttons which nobody could figure out. A system like that would probably confuse people.

[Captain Jordan]

<Snipped quote by Captain Jordan>

The trouble with that would be communicating that to all users. You know the trouble we had with the 'go to last post' buttons which nobody could figure out. A system like that would probably confuse people.

@BBeast

People would figure it out. For the rest of them, tooltips. Do we really need bad design (no offense, @Mahz!) in order to hold people's hands?

[Mahz]

30% of Guild users (and growing) access the site on a smartphone and 15% of users use a tablet, so my go-to UI paradigms have been forced to change.

I've always been a fan of tooltips, but there is no mobile equivalent of a desktop-user dragging their mouse cursor down a bunch of list-items thus sending the hover event to each one. While I can overload tooltips so that they display/dismiss on hover and click/tap, it's not something I can depend on anymore since you can't have a tooltip on a link or button that changes state.

I need to set aside some time to study UI paradigms for small/touch devices.

[Captain Jordan]

30% of Guild users (and growing) access the site on a smartphone and 15% of users use a tablet, so my go-to UI paradigms have been forced to change.

I've always been a fan of tooltips, but there is no mobile equivalent of a desktop-user dragging their mouse cursor down a bunch of list-items thus sending the hover event to each one. While I can overload tooltips so that they display/dismiss on hover and click/tap, it's not something I can depend on anymore since you can't have a tooltip on a link or button that changes state.

I need to set aside some time to study UI paradigms for small/touch devices.

@Mahz

Desktop:

[IC (5 New)]

Mobile:
[ IC
(5 new)]

Make the 5 New a different color. Bold it. Make it gold like the normal Last Post button is now. Make it blink, flash neon lights around it, hire girls in low-cut shirts to gesture seductively towards it.

Honestly, I don't know the best way to make new features immediately obvious to people who won't try things.

[Mahz]

Latest push:

- Super basic and buggy unread-post system.
- Example bug: Often goes to last post instead of first post.
- User-status button in the post userbit should now correctly work on hover/click/tap.

Still hackin on it, but wanted to look for performance regressions before I burn more time on it.

[Fillet]

Is there a way to disable the bright green NEW signposts? I know the threads have new posts; I don't care about them, the ones I do I am subscribed to them. New posts always bump the threads up fresh anyway, and the times shown are indicative enough of the last post. IMO all the "New" tag does is it clutters up space and yells at me to look at them. Some people might like them so fair game. I'm asking if I can have an option in user preference to disable them, pretty please.

[Shienvien]

Oh dear, *everything* is unread now. I agree that the "new" signs are a bit distracting as they are now - I'd suggest removing the borders around them to make them slightly more subtle (especially since borders tend to artefact a lot when you're zoomed out beyond a certain level, predominantly on some mobile devices - they flickeringly disappear and appear in parts as you scroll the site, and often only appear partially otherwise).

Also, a very odd glitch regarding Co-GMs: Suddenly, a RP that didn't have Co-GMs has two of them. The kicker? These are completely random people that to my knowledge have no connection to the RP, and the GM hasn't even been online since yesterday (the Co-GMs appeared after that).
Edit: Random Co-GMs have disappeared again. GM hasn't still been online.
Edit2: A new random Co-GM has appeared.
Edit3: New random Co-GM is gone. Original two random Co-GMs are back.
Edit4: Gone again. A fourth random Co-GM has appeared. Is someone with sufficient power deliberately messing with the RP?
Edit5: All gone for the moment.
Edit6: More random Co-GMs. Screenshotting for the sake of record-keeping.
Edit7: One more dropped in and disappeared.
Edit8: Some more disappearances and appearances. Giving up on reporting here. Going to take a few more screenshots, just in case.

Edit9: Just noticed that there is something odd going on with this thread, too - it goes between 1x1 and being "full" and having a whole bunch of different tags, to Casual, to Free...

Are tags broken?

I think the new post/unread tracking should only be done for subbed topics. People don't care about if there is a new post in every thread on the site, only the ones they are participating, or otherwise interested, in.

[Captain Jordan]

I think the new post/unread tracking should only be done for subbed topics. People don't care about if there is a new post in every thread on the site, only the ones they are participating, or otherwise interested, in.

@TheMaster99

Ehh, sorta. I don't sub to every thread I post in, for good reason. Yes, posts move fast in RPs, but there are topics in Off Topic and RP discussion that don't drop off the first page so quickly. The NEW indicator is going to be useful there if you're just popping in to read and haven't found a reason to reply or sub yet.

Plus, this is also expected behavior for a forum. Obviously, the best behavior is going to be for subscriptions, but not everyone is going to have the same workflow.

@Captain Jordan Maybe only track unread posts for topics you've viewed then? (imo) It shouldn't apply to every topic on the guild, it is just really distracting imo to have [NEW] covering every topic on the forum.

[Captain Jordan]

@Captain Jordan Maybe only track unread posts for topics you've viewed then? (imo) It shouldn't apply to every topic on the guild, it is just really distracting imo to have [NEW] covering every topic on the forum.

@TheMaster99

That seems like an interesting idea. Between FRESH and NEW (but only after you've viewed it at least once), we should have enough ways to indicate topics that have new content, without overwhelming people.

[LegendBegins]

@TheMaster99@Captain Jordan

It'll also reduce strain on the server by not requiring thousands upon thousands of locations to track.

[Fillet]

I click on RPs that sound interesting but after a scan through dismiss it and that can be a lot of poking my head in for a looksee, esp in 1x1. Maybe New can stick in non-RPG subforums like what CaptainJordan said where it moves much slower.

[Rilla]

Perhaps a Mark all as read option?

[NuttsnBolts]

@Shienvien(random co-Gm) I can vouch for this one. Noticed it once last night but wasn't sure cause I saw it only once.

@Shienvien

I noticed two random coGMs listed in the 'Edit Topic' panel for the roleplay I made today, but they didn't actually show up on the topic itself, and weren't removable. When I set an actual coGM, they disappeared. :shrug (:shrug needs to be a thing immediately, btw )

[LegendBegins]

Random idea. What if users get a certain time period to edit their post after they make it in order to fix small errors without the "post edited" symbol appearing on it?

[NuttsnBolts]

Random idea. What if users get a certain time period to edit their post after they make it in order to fix small errors without the "post edited" symbol appearing on it?

@LegendBegins

You do, but it's only about a minute or two. I believe it's more for a moderation thing when someone edits out suspicious behavior and tells a mod that they didn't do anything wrong. Giving a time without edits would make their job a little bit more awkward.

Understand your reasoning, just speaking from experience when I had problem users on a forum I helped run.

[LegendBegins]

<Snipped quote by LegendBegins>

You do, but it's only about a minute or two. I believe it's more for a moderation thing when someone edits out suspicious behavior and tells a mod that they didn't do anything wrong. Giving a time without edits would make their job a little bit more awkward.

Understand your reasoning, just speaking from experience when I had problem users on a forum I helped run.

@NuttsnBolts

That's more than enough, but I wasn't aware this buffer period existed on this site.

Edit: Test.

Apparently it does. Interesting. Consider the idea void, then.

[Dinh AaronMk]

Mahz, did you or someone upload a virus to the site because the Mac* here at school is flipping the Hell out whenever I visit this site.

To make everyone comfortable: there's nothing going on I needed to pay attention to at this time.

*Yes I know this seems almost contradictory because "lolMacsDon'tgetViruses", which is surprising me.