I'm using frames to create side and top menus, specifically for navigation and advertising. I know it's not the best way to go about it, but without being able to nest catagories under each other, it was the only solution I could come up with considering I have hundreds of boards, with more to add. If you'd like, take a look at it and tell me what you think (http://www.yourvacationdreams.com). I don't think it creates too much of a crowded look, but I haven't received a lot of feedback yet as it's still very new. The "lean look" might be an option that could be of benefit to my type of interface.
I took a look at your site. It is certainly an ambitions project!
As a rule, I don't like frames, since they cut down on compatibility. And yes, I understand that you really don't have many choices available to you.
Have you considered perhaps opening a table in the header file and closing it in the footer? I know a number of people here use that method to get menus and additional information in and around their forums. With the type of nesting you are doing, however, I'm not sure that that would work for you. Still, it might be worth a shot (others have dealt with the problem by running multiple instances of wwwthreads). Unfortunately I am not the best person to ask about this. I'm sure others will be happy to help, however.
Your site looks good. The only additional suggestion I might have would be to integrate the look of your home page with that of the rest of the site. Something I probably don't need to say because you are probably already working on that.
I'm not really sure how to do the menus in the header, but the real problem there is the header scrolls off the screen, thus hiding any navigation aids. I looked at Pers' web site, he says he's using tables, but I couldn't see how that would improve my situation at this time. I'm certainly open to suggestions.
As far as the home page, I haven't really touched that since I've been working on the forums. I definately have in the plans to spruce that up much.
Thanks for your input, it is appreciated. []/w3timages/icons/smile.gif[/]
My hunch is that a lot of users simply accept all the defaults and never even go into their Profile to see the alternatives. Also at present, you can't see Userpics in 'top' view.
I do like your idea of a lean look but not by putting the 'message header' at the bottom. By its very nature it should be at the top. But we could put the Userpic in there and the message pane would be wider so we'd have more room for the extra buttons. There would be no wasted space at all and nothing omitted to achieve it. It would also make it easier for people to frame their forum with their own stuff down the side.
Seen in this light, 'side' view has nothing to recommend it at all.
So, if at all possible it would be best if we can keep the icons in the post body area, since there is plenty of room for more icons to be added. We just need to find a way to separate it a bit like Brewskie was talking about.
Try putting the links right-hand justified but still in the message area.
I do like your idea of a lean look but not by putting the 'message header' at the bottom. By its very nature it should be at the top.
I agree. I do think, however, that this 'message header' should remain as narrow as possible, merely a demarcator between posts. Adding too much information to this header, IMO, would detract from the aesthetic appeal of a thread, and serve to break up the visual flow of discussion.
My preference would be to keep the header as narrow as it is now, containing the post title and perhaps a couple other identifying items, and to have the user information, and Post Icons, moved to the bottom of the body of the message itself.
As an example, your personal gif certainly does not detract from your posts. In fact, it actually grabs my attention when I am reading threads in flat mode. I think you would agree, however that moving your gif, as small as it is, into the header row and putting it below the title say, would result in a significantly thicker header which would begin to compete with other aspects of the page for the reader's visual attention.
In flat mode, for example, I would keep the header information just the way it is, and merely add the user info and Post Icons to the bottom of the body. It definitely would make for a more attractive layout.
In reply to:
It would also make it easier for people to frame their forum with their own stuff down the side.
Agreed. It certainly would give us many more options when it comes to site design.
Spent several hours trying to find a new way of displaying posts... was really hard. Quite different from what you are talking, but come and see if this seems cool or not []/w3timages/icons/wink.gif[/]: A new suggested design for showing posts.
There's no arguing with the coolness factor []/w3timages/icons/wink.gif[/] You have made the post meta data dance !!
Of all your examples, I like the last one best. I think, however, that I prefer the "posted by," post date and time, IP, and user info at the bottom of the post. When it appears immediately below the post header/title, it tends to lead to some temporary visual confusion on my part, not knowing whether the post header is the beginning or the end of a post.
Since you have already invested several hours learning how to move data around the display. How about giving a shot to what I am suggesting so we can see what it might look like?
Thanks for posting your work. I can see that you really did spend a lot of time on it, and my comments in no way diminish the "coolness" of it []/w3timages/icons/smile.gif[/]
I'm not sure who to actually reply to on this, so I'm just gonna pick Brewskie[]/w3timages/icons/wink.gif[/]. Since it may take a little while to come up with a solution that is pleasing to everyone on where to place the icons I'm gonna just leave them as is for now. I've played with various locations for a couple of days and until people actually download it, set it up on their site and play around with it I don't want to spend too much more time on this area because it'll delay the release. So, I'm gonna concentrate on getting the features finished and get this thing out and then we can work on placement and such.
Hopefully that sounds ok to everyone, but of course if nobody thinks this is a good idea then I'll spend more time with reorganizing, but you'll have to wait longer for the next release[]/w3timages/icons/wink.gif[/].
Beautiful! I'd like to keep the picture column so the shape is constant otherwise it could look bitty. Also don't forget Attachments. See the attachment for my suggestion:
Yes... attachments... OK, I have a new page full of designs... some improvements... The final designs (bottom of page) are probably the best looking ones.
I gave them all names for easy reference (B1- B8).
I, personally, think the added color looks better (what was it? B8?). It sets the subject off from the rest of the post and adds a little more color to the whole scheme of things. This setup also sets w3t apart from the competition too......I don't think I've seen a layout such as these.
I also think it would be cool if you added the domain lookup hack that's in the hacks board.
I just went to your Changelog for the Perl version and noticed that you added the notify moderators of new posts hack (Thanks!!!) but it left me wondering if you were aware of a bug in the new Dev site.
I know you warned that all the bugs weren't taken care of but I thought I would bring this one to your attention in case you didn't see it.
There's a 1024x768 screen shot of it in the attachment......Look under Favorite Forums.
Actually, this isn't the hack that was added. What I added was the feature to notify a moderator of a post. This works with the little circle icon that MTO made. Not sure if I'll get the hack you are refering to into this version. This will probably be when I work on the admin/mod stuff some more.
As for the error, do you have any favorite forums added?
I also have that same error, since the first day you gave us the link to the devel, as soon as I clicked on adding the General Feedback Board to the favorites... when it was clicked from showflat (thinking it was for adding the thread..).
Content-type: text/html System Error: DBD::mysql::st execute failed: You have an error in your SQL syntax near 'B_Approved = 'yes' AND B_Board = 'feedback' ' at line 6 at /home/httpd/cgi-bin/devel/controlpanel.pl line 540.
Thought you might be interested in what I mean by the "lean look." I took the liberty of using your template to create one of my own (hope you don't mind). And yes, it is difficult, even working of the base you created.
I posted it to the test board. Take a look at the lean look and let me know what you think (please be gentle []/w3timages/icons/wink.gif[/])
The notify moderator thingy is for the users to notify the moderators of a certain post. Say you are browsing around on a forum and you see something that really, really shouldn't be there. Nothing you can do about it as a user, so you use the notify moderator option to inform the moderators for that board of the offending post.
For me the big benefit of all MTO's designs is the Everything that isn't the actual message goes in the one neat place. When you get to the bottom of the author's text, you know it's ended and there is no confusion about what belongs with it and what belongs to the next post..
I like B8 as well. But I'm just the programmer[]/w3timages/icons/wink.gif[/]. If everyone can agree on a certain design then I've got no problems making the change. The different color for the subject can be set by the .subjecttable class that already exists in the stylesheet for those that don't like the extra color.
I think this type of change would accomplish a couple of things, it would work well for those with narrow screen resolutions that don't like the side format and it keeps the options grouped nicely.
I'm pretty much done with the main control panel options so I can work on making this change for the next release but before a change this significant I'd really like to get more feedback from as many users as possible.
I use a different size pic for the user then what comes with w3t (because it's way too hard for most people to resize a standard 3.5x5 pic to the size expected by w3t)
Will this design accomidate a different size user-pic?
I hate to be a wet blanket, especially with all of the work that MTO has put into this, but here is my $0.02 (perhaps worth far less than that).
First, I think this sudden effort to move everything along the "top" instead of the "side" is misguided. Reasons: 1) Narrow screen users have far bigger problems than W3T I use a relatively narrow browser window--narrow enough that I am often irritated by having to scroll horizontally to read text on many popular sites that use fixed-width tables for formatting []/w3timages/icons/frown.gif[/]. I've never felt that there was any need for more room horizontally in W3T's side view. People who feel W3T is too cramped horizontally probably have no hope of tolerating half of the pages on the web. It's time to give up and buy new hardware (sorry to be harsh). 2) Most sites have dead space in the left margin Many sites have some sort of navigation bar on the left which eats a column of space similar in size to the "side heading" in W3T. If people find the "side heading" leaves too little space to the right they are (again) probably dissatisfied with most of the pages on the web. 3) It is more comfortable to read text that isn't too wide. People have done studies that show humans can read text best if it isn't too wide or too narrow. To me, these "top" headings leave the body text looking too wide, and hence less readable than the "side" headings. 4) Top headings create a large gap between messages. To me, the headings seem to disrupt the flow when you are reading. They take far too much vertical space (especially with user pics).
Regarding MTO's B8 which people seem to like, the fact that there is no horizontal line or color variation between the "Posted by" section and the body makes it hard for my eye to find the beginning of the body text. I think MTO's samples show some improvement over the current "top" headings, but I like the current "side" better than all of them (maybe I am whacked).
Now, to try and be more constructive... If people really want to avoid the space waste along the left side width "side" headings, here is my suggestion. Instead of creating a heading that has large vertical size (mostly needed to accomodate the user pic), how about a smaller heading and move the user pic inside the body. Use the usual <img> alignment settings to push it to the upper right corner and let the text flow around it (instead of getting dead or hard to use space to the left). Put the post icons along the lower right of the body and the signature to the lower left (i.e. limit the width of the signature and put the sig and icons into different columns of the same table). Most signatures are pretty small anyway, so icons should be able to fit to the right.
Bill Dimm, MagPortal.com - [:red]free feeds for your site.
I think this type of change would accomplish a couple of things, it would work well for those with narrow screen resolutions that don't like the side format and it keeps the options grouped nicely.
I have only one concern with this idea. it's got nothing to do with what I like or don't like (In fact I like it, but I believe that's a personal opinion. I'll never be able to anticipate everybody's taste and I believe there is much more than that in interface design). Most of the times my eyes go from message to message very fast and my fear is that this will interfer with the reading...sometimes I dont even look who's posting actually...
I don't know if this is because I am used to to reading it this way, or because there is some real potential issues here. I think you will always have some use for extra space so, as long as you are not trading too much for it, it's a good thing.
Your arguments are relevant. The points 3 and 4 of BillD's post too. So the only solution I see is to keep the two post formats as it is now and maybe to group the options as MTO did it (personally, I haven't any problem to keep the options in the post, just as it is now)
Been out all day, just got back and I see there is much feedback! []/w3timages/icons/laugh.gif[/] OK... so lets see...
BillD, I think you are right and wrong on one thing. Yes, it is harder to read text when it is very wide. But I find that when people have big monitors, or simply big resolutions (like mine at 1024x768) they never, or hardly ever maximize their windows. They size them to a readable size. My dad for example, has a monitor that is twice as big as mine, but when he opens up Netscape, the program only uses half the screen. People size their windows as they like it. I have my IE maximized, but always with the Favorites left panel eating good part of it, making the page smaller, around 700pixels. That is... I have it sized to what I can easily read. I often look at newbies who sit almost for the first time on a computer, this is one of the first things they learn how to do, believe me. You yourself say you use a "relatively narrow browser window". My point is, everyone sizes their window to what they find readable. This type of design simply allows you to really chose your own size.
One thing to have in mind, is that this design (unless I missed something) does not make you have to scroll horizontally. I even resized it to 400 pixels and it looks good. My site is designed at 600px, the left side just eats a lot of space. In any case, with this design you will have less cases of scrolling horizontally (as when someone pasts a script, long text, big picture, etc) because you have more room.
Anyway, your most convincing comment is your point number 4: "Top headings create a gap between messages...disrupt the flow when you are reading". This has got me thinking, you obviously dont want to disrupt the reading... and I guess maybe for this what we need is more feedback. Though I am wondering if though there is more space between posts once you have seen a few posts it will continue disrupting, or if this disruption only happens when it is new to you. I think I could as well after a day of use, "mentally ignore" the haders, it might just be the thing of getting used to. Though I would like some more feedback on this.
>Regarding MTO's B8 which people seem to like, the fact that there is no horizontal line or color variation between the "Posted by" section and the body makes it hard for my eye to find the beginning of the body text Yes, agreed. But that is the same design as B7, that effect might only happen one in every 200 posts when there is an attachment since it takes one more line getting near the body. Does this effect happen as well in B7?
As for you suggestion of a picture in the body with aligment, I tried that, it actually looked quite good. But then I thought that in practice we wouldnt like it. It is not really part of the post, sometimes people like to put a picture and.. no, doesnt seem right. Or like when you do a drawing with text, it can get cut once the pic is over. As I say, it looked great, but not really practical.
So, I guess there is room for more feedback. []/w3timages/icons/wink.gif[/]
Scream, I have not read this thread as closely as I should have and have to go AFK immediately, so I cannot comment fully right this minute, but tonight I will. I am glad you're not making the change yet. I have some grave concerns that the direction these ideas are going.
I'll post more in a couple hours once I get back in.
You yourself say you use a "relatively narrow browser window". My point is, everyone sizes their window to what they find readable. This type of design simply allows you to really chose your own size.
My screen is 1024x768 but I typically have my browser about 600 pixels wide to make space for piles of other windows. I don't have any real complaints about what you've said here (assuming that you're saying that people pick a size that they generally like--if you're saying that they resize for each different site they visit, I certainly don't do that), but I return to my point number (2). If many sites that I visit have dead space on the left (or tower ads on the right) and I've sized my browser to take that into account, visiting a site without dead space on the left leaves things feeling too wide. This isn't really a huge deal--my point was really that I think most people using anything bigger than a Palm Pilot will find the current "side" headings very comfortable in spite of the wasted space (I do at 600 pixels), so it's not worth getting rid of the dead space if it means making other usability sacrifices.
In reply to:
But that is the same design as B7, that effect might only happen one in every 200 posts when there is an attachment since it takes one more line getting near the body. Does this effect happen as well in B7?
My complaint only applies to B8, not B7. I only picked on B8 because it seemed to be getting popular []/w3timages/icons/wink.gif[/]. As far as B8 goes, if there were a 1-pixel high line under the "attachment" part it would probably be enough to remove my complaint.
In reply to:
It is not really part of the post, sometimes people like to put a picture and.. no, doesnt seem right. Or like when you do a drawing with text, it can get cut once the pic is over.
When you read some (paper) newspapers (e.g. Philadelphia Business Journal) they have a little picture of the author planted somewhere in the article with the text wrapping around it, so there is some precendent in the non-virtual world. Since the user pic would always be in the same location, and since the user cannot supply alignment options for [image] to give it a location like the user pic, I don't think there's that much chance of confusion. I actually did think of the possibility of the pic getting in the way if you were pasting in computer code (for example). If the user pic is set on a post-by-post basis (I don't know anything about how the user pic was put into W3T--haven't looked at the code in a while) this is easy to get around by just allowing the user to specify that they don't want their pic shown on this particular post. If the user pic is a global quantity that is only set in one location for each user then I don't have a solution for that one.
Bill Dimm, MagPortal.com - [:red]free feeds for your site.
Okay, I am not going to make very many people happy with me after this post, but I have to speak my feelings on this entire avalanche of “We need a new look and feel!!” bit. I applaud you all on trying to improve the forums. I think you all have some wonderful ideas. However, I personally do not like any of the samples shown. I often am in very strong favor of the options that each of you has posted over time here in this very forum. But I must disagree about the new looks I’m seeing displayed in this forum.
I won’t beat around the bush... I like where Scream was already going to the new “Post Options”. Lower left hand corner of the body of the message is just fine. That for the short term is fine. If the width of your display is a concern, use the “Top” view. Don’t take away what our user base has come to know and enjoy. We’ve been using WWWThreads for over a year and a half and in a three-day period of time come a rush of requests to change the flat display. Frankly, I am totally against it.
I am sure that you folks each have your own user base to concern yourselves with and while the current flat layout may not be perfect, it’s what our visitors are comfortable with and I know our visitors and their mentality. Forcing such a dramatic change would KILL us for weeks if not months before we recovered. I simply would not upgrade the script any longer if one of those designs were used. A couple of people complained because Scream hinted (only hinted!) that the “top” view might be removed since it was used by so few. I decided to check for myself to see exactly how many of our users use the “side” header vs the “top” header and these stats speak for themselves. There is no further explanation needed, it is a cold hard fact, over 96% of our user base prefer the “side” view.
+---------------+----------+ | U_Post_Format | count(*) | +---------------+----------+ | side | 53186 | | top | 230 | +---------------+----------+ 2 rows in set (11.48 sec)
We’re not talking about a few hundred or thousand users but instead over 53,000 users. So please excuse my firm stance on this particular issue. What is being proposed here would have a dramatic impact on our entire user base. If I may, I’d prefer to offer another option. One that could please all of us... well, maybe not Scream. []/w3timages/icons/wink.gif[/]
Change the WWWThreads so that we’re no longer forced to a specific layout. Move to a template based system that allows for us to place the various features anywhere we like. For example, for each section of the page, create a variable name that we can use in our template design. The folks at Gossamer Threads have the right idea. If you look at their scripts, they use a template system that is very flexible.
For example, they use variables you may place in your HTML templates, which gives you an exceptional amount of freedom in designing your pages. Here are some examples of keywords/variables you could use for WWWThreads (enough to cover my example for the flat view):
In this image below is the standard flat view from the current “live” forums that Scream has running. I’ve removed the data display to show you what a “template” using these variables could look like. Notice that once you have such variables to work with, you change the layout and design of your page to anything you want, and every single one of us would have our ideal layout. []/w3timages/icons/smile.gif[/]
This is the direction I think we should be moving, to provide more flexibility, not take away options that many people have come to know and truly enjoy.
I really think this sort of system would open the door for a lot more diversity from one wwwthreads site to the next and pave the way for some really interesting websites that could then further merge features across the board. In any event, if I have upset you, I apologize up front, but I already know the reaction we’d receive if we switched to any of the layouts displayed in this thread.
In spite of getting involved in all this design disscussion and enjoying every minute of it, I have to admit that what you say makes the most sense we've heard so far. I've even recanted on my original aversion to the templates idea. A friend of mine explained it to me in a way that finally penetrated my thick skull to the extent that I now feel very enthusiastic about its possibilities. So... let's leave well enough alone and seriously reconsider templates as a means of allowing us all to make our own brew in the future.
I think the one thing I'd still like to add to the discussion is to say yes, we should keep both formats but that 'top' should have the Userpic added for parity. I'd also like to remind people that the 'top' option comes into its own in a framed situation where other things can be added to left and/or right. In that situation being too wide for comfortable reading doesn't apply.
I think most of people will agree on the theme idea. The problem is about the most appropriate implemention. Example: The Gossamer solution is very nice because it's simple to use, but very hard to code. A complete rewrite of the w3t code will probably be needed.
An intermediate and temporary solution that doesn't imply a lot of work to Scream and let's him have time to find an appropriate solution is to consider the showflat (and showthreaded) scripts as scripts with embedded themes. This imply a theme folder with - one version of showflat/showthreaded with left side view - on version of showflat/showthreaded with top side view
On the basis of this idea we can imagine several themes. It's a matter of small hacks of the print/echo statements. Another advantage of this solution, it doesn't hurt too much the hacks people have implemented.
Yes, templates would be very welcome, they are a long time requested feature as they would allow you to have the board design exactly as your site´s. Months ago someone gave us a hint it might be easier to do it in PHP (I think it was just before the PHP port) as Scream wasnt sure how to do it... It seems like it would be really hard work to get templates in, so unless Scream says otherwise its better not to dream with it []/w3timages/icons/laugh.gif[/].
As for the statistics there are different ways to interpret them. You can either say users preffer side view over the current head one (I do too), or that users just take what you give them (most never even try to modify anything, maybe one of every 90).
In regards to having the pic in the body and right-up justified (I may have misread or forgot what you were talking about, sorry if that's so... []/w3timages/icons/laugh.gif[/]), take a look at this and see if it's even remotely close to what you were talking about:
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