Rerurn to Romy the Cat's Site

Site Support Forum
Topic: The upcoming site changes.

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Posted by Romy the Cat on 01-27-2007

I admit that the navigation within my site is kind of screwee but I wrote the site, know all its shortcuts and I personally do not have problems to find whatever I need. I relay do not know how you USE my site and therefore I do not know what is YOUR browsing patters. I do not mind to change it to make it friendlier for others. I’m keep receiving emails from visitors with contradictory requirements…

So, if you wish drop in this thread a few notes with what you find in my site’s navigation uncomfortable for you and what you would like to see changed. You might not necessarily be a register visitor as this “Support Forum” allows anonymous posting.

Rgs,
Romy the caT

Posted by Ronnie on 01-31-2007
Hi Romy,
I've noticed the following about my behaviour and the site design:

When I drop in here, my eyes turn directly to "Recent Replies in All Audio Forums".
There I expect to find everything that's been written lately, and forget that the first post of a thread doesn't show up there. With "Hierarchical View" the first post is not directly visible either.
Instead what happens is I scratch my head and click "Back" and go through all the "Recent Replies..." again, to see if I missed the previous post in the list.. and I cannot find it there.
What would work better, given that behaviour, is an "All Recent Activity..." section rather than "Recent Replies".

Also, I'd like it if the switch between "Hierarchical View" and "Flat View" was saved in a cookie (or otherwise globally).
"Flat View" tends to work better when I'm looking through old threads, and want quick overview of the content. "Hierarchical View" works well for recent replies, where the content of the thread is still fresh in my memory.

The site search field (great function!) works only when you specifically click the buttons.
I usually click [enter] after writing search terms.

I really like the "Random Threads" section. It's like tuner section of the GoodSoundClub system.

Posted by Romy the Cat on 01-31-2007

Ronnie,

Yes, I agree that some things might be done better, in fact have some ideas and I will render them when I have time. I will make the read replies in the “Hierarchical View” have different colors form the non-read yet replies. This should take case about the “scratching head”.  Generally the “Last 24-hours” tab is a good snapshot of the site activity. I though to bind the content of this tab to the last visit but then decided to make it juts 24 hours view back. Yes, I’m planning to put the Hierarchical vs. Flat vie into a configurable setting for a visitor. It will be configured at the “Preference” tab. What I do not know at this point what make a default setting 9Hierarchical vs. Flat) for a first time visitor or for a person who did not set this setting up yet.

Yes, I like the “Random Threads" section very much as well. Sometimes I pick a post from there and while I’m reading it I am wondering: what the hell I meant to say…. :-)

Rgs,
Romy

Posted by Ronnie on 01-31-2007
Well..
The only problem in my life is that I'm missing the thread-starts, because they don't turn up among "Recent replies".
If "Recent replies" was "Recent posts" instead... What a wonderful world!
I don't see the benefit of not displaying the first posts in that column.
(I can imagine the programmer thinking "but the first posts are stored in a different DB table, and it would not be as elegant.. and I'd have to do boring and unfulfilling work to change it!")

Hierarchical vs. Flat in the preferences tab is quite OK.
(But you know what the client would say: "Good! But the ability to switch instantly while browsing a thread would be even neater, don't you think?")

Please feel free to disregard the bitching client in me. The site is quite beautifully structured!

/Ronnie

Posted by Romy the Cat on 01-31-2007

 Ronnie wrote:
The only problem in my life is that I'm missing the thread-starts, because they don't turn up among "Recent replies". If "Recent replies" was "Recent posts" instead... What a wonderful world! I don't see the benefit of not displaying the first posts in that column
.It is no problem and it is very simple to do. I never had any opinions about it as…. mostly the first posts that I am interested are the one that I posted myself… :-) So, I always knew of knew what was in there. I you feel that it would resolve the “only problem in your life” :-) then why do not make it possible?

 Ronnie wrote:
Hierarchical vs. Flat in the preferences tab is quite OK.(But you know what the client would say: "Good! But the ability to switch instantly while browsing a thread would be even neater, don't you think?")

Actually I was not planning to remove instant switch-ability between Hierarchical and Flat views. The configurable Hierarchical vs. Flat view seating will allow to each visitor to set his own INITIAL BEHAVIOR of any post's hyperlink.

The caT

Posted by Ronnie on 01-31-2007

Oh joy! :-)

In my greed I'll attempt to get the "Flat / Hierarchy" exactly how I'd like it:

One click on "Flat" or "Hierarchy" creates a cookie on the users computer, which stores the setting (for a loooong period ahead). The chosen mode will stick, and not change until the user clicks again.
No need to set it under "preferences" at all.


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