I've already had two people in the company ask me what that orange pile of poop was next to the posts. []/w3timages/icons/smile.gif[/] It's a rising sun! I told them. I'm no artist, but can we have some other candidates for new icons? It does kinda take an explanation to know what it really is.....
I have to say that I really miss the new as it was before. Maybe my memory is wrong but we used to have a "new" text or graphic by the side of new threads.... clear and simple IMO, impossible to misunderstand.... I am a graphic designer and I love icons and symbols but I don't want to spend that extra second trying to figure out something....
How about the word "new" with some rays of light coming off of it (I'm not an artist so I'll leave it to someone else to do). No ambiguity but a bit more sexy than the little square "new" box.
Bill Dimm, MagPortal.com - [:red]free feeds for your site.
I think that with the mixed reaction, there should be an option on this one... maybe a couple options? A little more code for Scream, though. []/w3timages/icons/blush.gif[/]
Maybe...
1) The way it was 2) The way it is 3) Another way with alternate cell colors or bold new messages (I'll be working on this one when time permits)
i do a lot of custom art and would love to creat a few new ICONS if somebody would be kind enough to give me the specs on the dimension (in pixels) color limits (i'm assuming under 16 or even 8 to make it easier) and file format (i'm assuming superoptimized gif)
ALSO, if people would be interested, i could create some tiny faces and icons from real photgraphs, they would be *slightly* larger, but probably still well under a few hundred bytes, this would be neat! you could have a whole series of picture icons. whoever replies to this first cana complete sneak preview of this when i create them this month, AND can have all of them before everybody else!
It wouldn't be terribly efficient to have this optional. It can be done, but wouldn't be pretty[]/w3timages/icons/crazy.gif[/]. I'm sure if enough of us put our heads together we can come up with some scheme that makes sense to everyone. I agree there does need to be a difference in the markings for new threads or just new replies.
I'll make the change when everyone can think of a good solution and agree on it. (Is that possible?[]/w3timages/icons/wink.gif[/])
It would seem to me that if the users can pick the style sheet they want to use, they should also be able to pick an icons stylesheet. Some of the forum "pros" may like the non text icons for posting, back, next etc. However the board default should be an icon set with the text in it so that a newbie can figure out what they mean. In addition an option should be to only use straight ascii text instead of the icons.
On one of my forums, I cannot use wwwthreads because the icons increase my "hits" so much my provider shuts me down.
1. I have lot of user feedback on my board saying they miss the ability to tell which posts are new when reading the board in threaded mode. I'm pretty sure it used to display which ones were NEW.
2. the rising sun icon isn't as obviously as the good old little NEW icon.
3. being able to tell how many posts in a thread is new would be good.
You can easily switch back by taking the postlist file from 5.1.3 and uploading it... that's what I would do if I didn't want it. I would ask Scream if there were any other changes, if you don't have a way of checking yourself.
Also, did you see the method I worked on? Check this post...
Bumping this back up. I'm out of the loop here, but what happened to the SUN icon and the left column? Did it die out in just one revision or am I missing something here? I kinda thought the "orange poop" added a bit of color and was eye catching... ....maybe even useful.....what happened?
" Life is hard, but it's harder when you're stupid ! "
Instead of the whole sun thing (which I would personally like to be set on a user-by-user basis through display prefs), a good overall new message marking system would be to change something on the date (i.e. make it bold or change its color). The way I would handle it is to make a CSS class for new dates, then you could set their appearance in the CSS file. Example:
.newdate { font-weight: bold; color: #FF0000 }
This way, people who don't want the new date marking could empty out the class and just have the orange icons. I personally have trouble telling whether or not this is a new message: []/w3timages/icons/blush.gif[/]
can somebody give me the largest possible dimensions in pixels for an icon, i'm going to work on a fewnew ones and put them up for people to check out.... -d
That's running 5.1.3perl but I'm pretty sure we'll bump it up to 5.1.5 before moving it from test to live. I just haven't had the time.
Oh, about the hack... all new messages are marked with an alternative cell bgcolor, and also in bold... you can also change font size, type, and color if you want... it is all a css class. I think right now we have it set to be white (the bgcolor) and the rest of the cells are light grey.
To see it in action, first register and mark a forum read. Then logout and post a few messages while you are logged out in that forum that you marked read. Then, log back in and go to the forum with the new messages. Check it out. Works in flat, threaded, expanded, and collapsed...
Once I finish a few changes to the forum... and probably make them to 5.1.5, not 5.1.3, I will probably post the hack. Don't really have the time right now...
I'm using 5.1.3 also, so I'd like this hack as is.
I especially like the ability to select my own password at registration time. Is this a feature I missed or another custom hack?
I like the cell color change. That makes it very easy to keep track of what's read. I didn't check it to see this....does it remember this info between sessions and pick up where I left off when I return? The arrowhead in the folder on left....is that part of the same hack? We are allowing smilies and all that, so this arrow wouldn't work for us.
That bkgd color change and bold font change is excellent. Simple, easy to understand and it's almost a subliminal difference....not loud or intrusive....but it's effective. Clean and simple.
If you would send me any hacks you're able to share for the 5.1.2 version, and any instruction or installation info you can, I'd really appreciate it. I don't have the experience or a programmer to work these things for me, so anything I can get help with would be great.
[:blue]I especially like the ability to select my own password at registration time.
That's in w3tvars.pm ....
[:blue]does it remember this info between sessions and pick up where I left off when I return?
No, since once you view the forum, in your next session everything will be marked as read with any method.
[:blue]The arrowhead in the folder on left....is that part of the same hack?
No, that is just set to use folders instead of icons.
[:blue]We are allowing smilies and all that, so this arrow wouldn't work for us.
If you are using the icons, they will work as they do now... yellow when read, orange when unread.
[:blue]That bkgd color change and bold font change is excellent. Simple, easy to understand and it's almost a subliminal difference....not loud or intrusive....but it's effective. Clean and simple.
Thank you, finally! I thought maybe I was the only one who thought this... IMO this solves it all! []/w3timages/icons/wink.gif[/]
I am still wrapped up in a project and haven't had the time to do much with W3T... my forums arte still running 5.0.9. One of our programmers did this hack, but I should be able to see exactly what needs to be changed without asking him, since I need to get some other modifications done too! []/w3timages/icons/wink.gif[/] I'll let you know...
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....maybe even useful.....what happened?
