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Geek Culture / Apollo 2004 Feedback (Warning modem'ers 110KB screen shot inside)

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Richard Davey
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Posted: 25th Mar 2004 17:45
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Hi all,

I've hit a design "sticking point" with the new version of Apollo. The problem is simply how to display a variety of situations in an easy to understand way. First take a look at the screen shot below:



It's a PNG file but most browsers shouldn't care.

Anyway this is the WIP thread list view and the problem is how to display the following:

1) Threads you have NEVER read (ever)
2) Threads you have READ, but there are NEW posts since the last time you read it
3) Threads you have POSTED IN

For debugging threads you have POSTED in have a white background behind the folder. Threads that you have NEVER read have the thread subject in bold and threads with new posts in has a "NEW" icon where the new paging-system appears.

But is this obvious? Would it be better to have slightly grey-ed icons for threads you've read and perhaps a red dot or something in the icon corner for all threads you've posted into?

The data exists, it's just difficult to display it all

Any suggestions?

Cheers,

Rich

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Andy Igoe
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Posted: 25th Mar 2004 17:50 Edited at: 25th Mar 2004 17:52
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Text-Colours yuck!

I would personally have chosen to use different folder icons for the relevent status of the thread.

Plain Green folder: All read, not posted.
Green folder with pencil graphic: All read, have posted.
Yellow plain folder: Some un-read, not posted.
Red folder with pencil graphic: Some un-read, have posted.
Plain Red folder: Never read

More critically for me though would be where the existing "My Threads" selection is I would like to have an "Involved in Threads" section too. I find it hard to keep tabs on the various threads i'm involved in across different forums of the Apollo site.


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Richard Davey
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Posted: 25th Mar 2004 18:03
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Text Colours? I don't use text colours, even for debugging. It's just a plain or bold font, nothing else.

Hmmm nothing but different colour folders might work, but that's a lot of choices. It'd look like an episode of rainbow

You don't need "involved in threads", it's the same thing as "my posts", i.e. it's already there and more importantly you can filter by that status anyway.

Cheers,

Rich

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Rob K
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Posted: 25th Mar 2004 18:03 Edited at: 25th Mar 2004 18:07
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Most obvious niggle with the screenshot: Line up the little face icons next to the Author's name.

I like the text colours - just goes to show that you can't win them all.

I suggest that what might be more intuitive for the user to signify threads that they have posted in would be, as Andy said, to have a folder with a pencil graphic on it.

So:

1) Never read threads - Bold, standard grey background
2) Threads read but with new posts in - Bold, blue background
3) Threads which you have posted in - Pencil graphic on folder

Obviously if both (2) and (3) are true display Bold,Blue Background, Pencil Graphic on folder (possibly a very slightly different shade of blue)

Could you make this user configureable at all or would that be too difficult? I don't know how much of the site is style-sheet driven but if colours & fonts work using them then you could allow the user to select custom stylesheets to use on the site?

As a feature request, when we edit messages, can you show the previous few posts below the editing box. RGT's forum has this feature and I find it very useful.

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Richard Davey
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Posted: 25th Mar 2004 18:10
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The face icon will be changing slightly anyway - the face links you to that users profile whereas clicking the name itself filters the current thread view showing only threads started by that person.

Back onto topic though:

The pencil idea seems to be a good one, even though it might be hard to represent in only 16x16 pixels when you've other things to show - but I'll have a go certainly.

I'm not too keen on delaying it any longer to allow user-customisation of the style sheets, but it's not impossible to implement at some stage.

BTW - The "yellow" thread in the screen shot is one the user has personally high-lighted - so whatever works for the new/read/unread also has to apply to marked threads too (and you have a choice of 3 different marker colours, just to complicate things a bit more)

Cheers,

Rich

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Mussi
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Posted: 25th Mar 2004 18:27
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How about something like a to-do list ? for never read threads an empty box, for read threads a checked box, for new posts a checked box with a green color or something.



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David T
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Posted: 25th Mar 2004 18:35
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I'd keep it similar to this current version.

Normal: Non-bold, grey background.
If there are new posts, then change the font to bold.
If it's a new topic, change the cell colour to blue.

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BatVink
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Posted: 26th Mar 2004 00:18
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I see the current folder icon as a separate function to the personalised information. So I would suggest 2 icons; one that works just like it does now, and a second one that indicates the status of the thread with regard to the individual user. 2 functions, 2 icons.

I also think icons are better than colours, although the icon can contain relevant colours, such as:
Green = My Thread
Amber = I have contributed to this thread
Red = I am not part of this thread

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HZence
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Posted: 26th Mar 2004 04:45
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Yeah, the colors are just gross, IMHO...


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andrew11
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Posted: 26th Mar 2004 04:51 Edited at: 26th Mar 2004 04:59
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I think the white behing the folder icon should be a gray similar to the rest. And the yellow is a little bright. I think the folder icons should be different depending on if you read it or not.

Normal Folder = Read Topic, but new post
Greyed Folder = Read Topic, no new posts
Folder with exclamation point = New Topic

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Richard Davey
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Posted: 26th Mar 2004 06:07
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Quote: "Yeah, the colors are just gross, IMHO..."


Explain. Bearing in mind the actual text in my original thread (which you obviously haven't read properly).

Quote: "I think the white behing the folder icon should be a gray similar to the rest. And the yellow is a little bright"


As it says in my first post, the white is a debug colour to show me the threads I've posted in while I decide what method I use to represent this. The yellow is meant to be bright - you've high-lighted the thread to make it stand-out, that's the whole point of it.

Anyway I've decided what I'm going to do already and I'll be showing a little pencil image ontop of the new icons if you've written in the thread. Threads with new posts in will have a link to "NEW" next to the subject which takes you to the first un-read post in the thread (regardless of page number). Background table cell colours will indicate threads read or not, just like it does at the moment.

Rich

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M Gaming
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Posted: 26th Mar 2004 06:19
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I like it... but the colors can be confusing.
It would help if there was a description of what the colors represent.

M Gaming - Soon to release several games
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Dave J
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Posted: 26th Mar 2004 08:02
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Wow, those threads were around ages ago.


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M Gaming
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Posted: 26th Mar 2004 08:09
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This thread is only a day old.

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Dave J
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Posted: 26th Mar 2004 08:38
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The ones in the screenshot were posted in November.


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las6
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Posted: 26th Mar 2004 09:29
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agreed, the shade of blue isn't the best choice out there, especially when coupled with that sort of yucky yellow.

as for folder colors, Many other forums can pull it off easily.


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DivW
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Posted: 26th Mar 2004 11:43
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That looks good. Can't wait to see the finished version.

-Dave

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Damokles
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Posted: 26th Mar 2004 17:57
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For most of us are used to the actual system, I think
- grey : I did read this thread
- light blue : I did never read that thread
- darker blue : I did read that thread, but people have psoted in it since then.

I agree with the pencil-icon idea, for the threads where I posted in.

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Richard Davey
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Posted: 26th Mar 2004 18:25
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Quote: "I like it... but the colors can be confusing.
It would help if there was a description of what the colors represent."


You mean the folder icon colours? Yes, there will be a key at the bottom of the page. Or you can just hover over them.

Quote: "The ones in the screenshot were posted in November."


Yes, that's when I dumped out Apollo for local development. At hundreds of MB in size there's no need to do it regularly as I have quarter of a million posts to test with anyway.

Quote: "agreed, the shade of blue isn't the best choice out there, especially when coupled with that sort of yucky yellow."


That would be the exact same shade as we (and, err.. icrosoft.com where I got the colour from) use at the moment! You do actually understand what the yellow represents, right?

Quote: "as for folder colors, Many other forums can pull it off easily."


We use folder colours already, that wasn't my original question. It was how to represent three different states of data. Your comment was not helpful, at least give an example (or URL) of a colour system that works well. Stop trolling, try helping?

Cheers,

Rich

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David T
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Posted: 26th Mar 2004 18:34
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I've never been one to use al those icons on a forum - they're all too complex for me. What I like is a system like this forum at the moemnt, where new posts are one colour, old another.


You could replace the folder icons with a glowing folder of star, to represent an unread topic?

If you are going to highight both states (new as well as unread), try to only represent one with the text and leave the other to the icon - otherwise you spend time working out whether something new / unread etc. and IMO it's a bit of extra clutter.

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Lord Ozzum
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Posted: 29th Mar 2004 01:10 Edited at: 29th Mar 2004 01:10
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this will get confusing, plus there could be a button that you press and it takes you to the first post you haven't read.

You're just jealous cuz the voices don't talk to you!!!
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las6
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Posted: 30th Mar 2004 11:50
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Quote: "That would be the exact same shade as we (and, err.. icrosoft.com where I got the colour from) use at the moment! You do actually understand what the yellow represents, right?"


Just because you and microsoft use it doesn't mean that it's good.

as for highlighting, I think the point is to draw attention, not to make people look the other way. Besides, the 3d effect is bit off in that pic. Did you add the yellow in some 2d app?

as for folder icons, I think YabbSE has always done a pretty good job. I think it could pay off if you checked all these other forum systems out there and see how they do it.

I've got to go to dentist right now.. but I'll be back.


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Rob K
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Posted: 30th Mar 2004 13:04
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@las6

What colours would you prefer? - Personally I like the blue colour and TBH I dislike RGT's murky green (which others love).

There is nothing *wrong* or *right* about colours - as long as they go together (which they do), its all about personal preference.

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BatVink
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Posted: 30th Mar 2004 18:26
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Quote: "There is nothing *wrong* or *right* about colours "


Unless you are colourblind, or make traffic lights and road signs for a living.

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Jeku
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Posted: 30th Mar 2004 20:15
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I think the screenshot looks great! The colours look great--- I can see that the UI is 100x better than the current one.

Final note: Please make sure it works with Firefox

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las6
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Posted: 31st Mar 2004 08:27 Edited at: 31st Mar 2004 08:29
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Quote: "What colours would you prefer? - Personally I like the blue colour and TBH I dislike RGT's murky green (which others love). "


User configurable colors... or at least something easier on the eyes. I do like the new buttons, though.
As for RGT (or llrgt), where'd you get the murky green? There are about 4-5 'themes' which none of them use Green. Simple Grey is the default theme. Which works suprisingly good. It's not dazzling, but very nice in the long run.


Quote: "There is nothing *wrong* or *right* about colours - as long as they go together (which they do), its all about personal preference."


Actually there is, but I'm not going there.
Thing is, that blue (used for the text) and that yellow Never go together. Black or Grey text would go with yellow. or orange.

as for the design side, that looks a bit complex but I dont' think it's the problem. If I'd want to be picky, I'd say that use the same highlight color in all highlight places. Like now you have yellow for the highlighted topic and red for the highlighted page.
Or does the page number boxes show if some of the pages contain highlighted posts? agh.

how do the filters work, btw? Can I filter out Raven's posts?
Could be useful feature... I mean the filters in general.


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Juso
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Posted: 31st Mar 2004 19:43
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Colors are OK but there should be also the date of first post of subject.
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Rob K
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Posted: 1st Apr 2004 23:08
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Quote: "Thing is, that blue (used for the text) and that yellow Never go together."


In which case just select a different colour to highlight threads with. Yellow is only one of three options.

Quote: "Simple Grey is the default theme. "


But its green! (I looked at the HTML colour values just to be sure, #C0CBCB for example - which appears green)

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las6
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Posted: 2nd Apr 2004 09:56
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perhaps a monitor calibration would be in place?
#C0CBCB = RGB(192,203,203) doesn't quite feel like green. It's more of a blue one if anything. (because red and blue are Dominant colors)
Truth be told, it's not either. it's in between. cos it's grey.

just hoping that the other highlight colors are a bit better.

and there's always the "brownie" theme.

as for other features, is that search really up & working for you? It would be very usefull feature to have.


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andrew11
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I always thought it was green too

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DrakeX
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Posted: 7th Apr 2004 06:06
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it's green. though i prefer the AM||RGT color scheme. mmm, beige and red

i don't see why some people are all mad about the colors. they looks, well, pretty much the same as they do now.

i do like the new page number buttons by the topic names. big plus. hopefully the graphics will be improved for those

how about for topics that you've posted in, just put a dot on the icon? CGTalk.com does this. it stands out quite nicely and you don't have to worry about making any adorable micrographics.

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Martyn Pittuck
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Posted: 7th Apr 2004 10:53
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I think the colours are fine, great even.

Only thing thay NEEDS changing are the heads, have a small arrow or a box or something which keeps with the simplicity of it all...

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las6
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Posted: 7th Apr 2004 11:50
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if llrgt shows up green for you, perhaps it's time to touch that color temperature setting on your monitor. it's way too red.


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Scraggle
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Posted: 8th Apr 2004 11:04 Edited at: 8th Apr 2004 11:09
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The colours look good to me but what is the checkbox for on the left of each thread?

I see you have a 'My Posts' tab. Will that show all threads posted in regardless of who started the thread? If so - I like!

One minor change that I think may be an improvement is the name of each author of posts and threads to be in standard text if offline and bold if they are logged in. What do you think?



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Dave J
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Posted: 8th Apr 2004 11:34
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Quote: "what is the checkbox for on the left of each thread?"


Probably a mod thing for what topics to lock/delete/move/whatever.


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