Forum suggestion: Early Intel Macs forum — addition of model-specific topic prefixes

[B S Magnet]

File this one under forum suggestion for the Early Intel Macs forum:

Now that more new users are becoming aware of the Early Intel Macs (EIM) forum (namely, as topics on pre-2013 Macs, posted originally on product model forums, are migrated to the EIM forum), there’s now an abundance of topic titles which don’t indicate what kind of Mac a topic’s question pertains. Part of this is the nature of moving older-model topics/questions away from a product-oriented forum over to a platform/product-era forum, and part of it is a limited awareness for writing a descriptive topic (not uncommon, especially for first-time posters looking for support/help from the community).

Folks have managed, over on the PowerPC Macs forum, to not need to develop model-specific topic prefixes beyond “Resolved” (for threads whose questions were answered/resolved). This may speak more to the fewer models in production when Apple made the switch to Intel, and/or perhaps questions tend to be centred on processor-based (i.e., G3, G4, G5) questions rather than model-based questions.

Question: For the EIM forum, might the moderators consider evaluating, in y’all’s own time, the benefits of adding (optional-use) topic prefixes for model-specific questions? In short, these would amount to topic prefix “tags” for the following models (possibly with two or three hues to distinguish between portables, desktops, and pro/enterprise):

• iMac (or, as iM4,1–14,4)
• Mac mini (or, as Mm1,1–6,2)
• MacBook (or, as MB1,1–7,1)
• MacBook Pro (or, as MBP1,1–10,2)
• MacBook Air (or, as MBA1,1–6,2)
• Mac Pro (or, as MacPro1,1–5,1)
• Xserve (or, as Xs1,1–3,1)

Possible additional, colour-keyed Prefix label, for OpenCore Legacy Patcher-related questions might include:

• OpenCore Legacy Patcher (as OCLP) (wherein text within the gold label is black, for easy legibility).

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The uncoloured “Resolved” tag would, of course, still have its usual utility, as it comes in handy from time to time.

Thanks for reading and for evaluating this forum suggestion, whether up or down.

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[2023.09.11 edit: changed the red-hued selections to orange, owing to the rejoinder reply I made earlier this day.]

[2023.09.18 edit: adding the possibility of a gold-hued Prefix title label — perhaps black text within a gold label — for OpenCore Legacy Patcher (OCLP) questions.

 

[Weaselboy]

Good idea... I have asked for the prefixes to be added.

 

[Doctor Q]

The prefixes have been added. Thanks for the suggestion.

 

[B S Magnet]

The prefixes have been added. Thanks for the suggestion.

Thank you for doing this!

I don’t think the “[model] all models” options are really needed (and risks clutter), but this is definitely a step in the right direction. 👍

 

[TheShortTimer]

I don’t think the “[model] all models” options are really needed (and risks clutter), but this is definitely a step in the right direction. 👍

I concur with the assessment that the options for "[model] all models" are overkill. The prefixes are a very welcome development nonetheless.

 

[B S Magnet]

The prefixes have been added. Thanks for the suggestion.

I just noticed the suggestion for the slection update was made, to de-clutter the options.

Thank you once more for doing this!

 

[B S Magnet]

File this one under forum suggestion for the Early Intel Macs forum:

Now that more new users are becoming aware of the Early Intel Macs (EIM) forum (namely, as topics on pre-2013 Macs, posted originally on product model forums, are migrated to the EIM forum), there’s now an abundance of topic titles which don’t indicate what kind of Mac a topic’s question pertains. Part of this is the nature of moving older-model topics/questions away from a product-oriented forum over to a platform/product-era forum, and part of it is a limited awareness for writing a descriptive topic (not uncommon, especially for first-time posters looking for support/help from the community).

Folks have managed, over on the PowerPC Macs forum, to not need to develop model-specific topic prefixes beyond “Resolved” (for threads whose questions were answered/resolved). This may speak more to the fewer models in production when Apple made the switch to Intel, and/or perhaps questions tend to be centred on processor-based (i.e., G3, G4, G5) questions rather than model-based questions.

Question: For the EIM forum, might the moderators consider evaluating, in y’all’s own time, the benefits of adding (optional-use) topic prefixes for model-specific questions? In short, these would amount to topic prefix “tags” for the following models (possibly with two or three hues to distinguish between portables, desktops, and pro/enterprise):

• iMac (or, as iMac4,1–14,4)
• Mac mini (or, as Macmini1,1–6,2)
• MacBook (or, as Macbook1,1–7,1)
• MacBook Pro (or, as MacBookPro1,1–10,2)
• MacBook Air (or, as MacBookAir1,1–6,2)
• Mac Pro (or, as MacPro1,1–5,1)
• Xserve (or, as Xserve1,1–3,1)

The “Resolved” tag would, of course, still have its usual utility, as it comes in handy from time to time.

Thanks for reading and for evaluating this forum suggestion, whether up or down.

As a follow-up on this discussion for the mods:

Would y’all be amenable to amending the (still new) Early Intel Macs Prefix tags to hues based on class of Mac (similar to how Prefix tags are colour-keyed on a couple of other forums, such as Marketplace)?

In the above original post, I used a hue (green) to designate desktop models; a second hue (blue) to designate laptops; and a third hue (red) to designate enterprise/professional systems.

These don’t have to be the hues assigned for a labelling colour scheme, but using hues and/or hues most friendly to colour-blind users (i.e., using orange and not red, since red, especially in dark mode, can be hard to see for folks with deuteranopia, or “green colour-blindness”) ought to help everyone looking at the EIM forum topics page to distinguish questions/discussions which relate to a product series at quick glance.

This portion of the original request is optional and completely at the discretion of the mods, but in making the above request originally, this was something I had in mind at the time as part of the request.

Cheers!

postscript: The “Resolved” tag, as-is, is fine.

 

[Weaselboy]

third hue (red) to designate enterprise/professional systems.

Which systems would this be, since Mac Pro's are not in the Early Intel Mac section? Did you mean Xserve?

 

[B S Magnet]

Which systems would this be, since Mac Pro's are not in the Early Intel Mac section? Did you mean Xserve?

On the original post made back in July, Mac Pros were part of the designations I was organizing as an “enterprise/workstation” class.

The Mac Pro 1,1–5,1 models were omitted/removed by the moderators just after the Prefix tags were created, as a function of this announcement made back in early 2021 with the EIM forum was struck.

So this red or orange Prefix tag would leave just the Xserves to have a hue all their own, as EIM-era Mac Pros are (at least officially) excluded from the EIM Prefix tags.

Hope this isn’t too confusing.

 

[B S Magnet]

Which systems would this be, since Mac Pro's are not in the Early Intel Mac section? Did you mean Xserve?

I’ve gone forward with the original post in this discussion thread and proposed an additional, colour-keyed Prefix label for questions relating specifically to OpenCore Legacy Patcher, as “OCLP” (and, by extension, the dosdude1 patches for older macOS builds though Catalina).

Suggesting this additional Prefix label might be beyond the remit of fulfilling the original, pending request, but it could, at least for the next few years, be useful to see at a glance — particularly, should some kind of Prefix tag colour scheme be adopted somewhat along the lines of the above three, proposed colour-keyed groupings of “desktops”, “laptops”, and “workstations”.

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EDIT: Distantly related is my recent realization how a user can click the Prefix label found on a forum page to filter only those discussion threads which use that Prefix label. This is not only really nifty, but it would also add utility to the inclusion of colour for the Prefix labels.

For example, I clicked the “MBP” Prefix label to only show those topics:

 

[Weaselboy]

In the above original post, I used a hue (green) to designate desktop models; a second hue (blue) to designate laptops; and a third hue (red) to designate enterprise/professional systems.

This has been implemented.