MacRumors New Forums Design and Testing

[grahamperrin]

… There is no yellow card or any indication to other members that a warning was issued. …

Thanks. It's useful to examine things in isolation! At http://xenforums.macrumors.com/conversations/ there's neither a yellow card, nor any indication to me that a warning was issued. At that level, no indication of moderation; it is, simply, a reminder from someone, about something, with no preview when I point without clicking, and if I don't recognise the person I might mistreat it as negligible.

In this case I chose to put a yellow star against the listing after reading the conversation but … if we take this to the extreme … in a busy conversation area, such a message might be overlooked or mistreated as spam.

… Please let me know here once you have received the warning, so I can remove it from your moderation record.

Received with thanks, probably no rush to remove the stain from my record.

There's an indirect link to https://forums.macrumors.com/misc/contact/ – will that form remain, and work as expected, following the migration?

(Side note, not a priority: that form 'feels' both outdated, and somewhat disconnected.)

The standard text –

This is a reminder from the MacRumors moderator team to avoid making posts that consist only of a single word, a slang abbreviation, an emoticon, a trite or overused phrase or meme, or are in other ways frivolous. Your post may have been removed for this reason. Please make posts that contribute to a thread rather than clutter it. Examples of frivolous posts: +1. Word. LOL Feels snappier. Cool story, bro. A post that only contains only an image.​

– would look better with bullets (or line breaks) for the examples, e.g.:

This is a reminder from the MacRumors moderator team to avoid making posts that consist only of a single word, a slang abbreviation, an emoticon, a trite or overused phrase or meme, or are in other ways frivolous. Your post may have been removed for this reason. Please make posts that contribute to a thread rather than clutter it. Examples of frivolous posts:

• +1.
• Word.
• LOL
• 
• Feels snappier.
• Cool story, bro.
• A post that only contains only an image.

 

[Weaselboy]

There's an indirect link to https://forums.macrumors.com/misc/contact/ – will that form remain, and work as expected, following the migration?

Thanks for the help testing Graham. I have passed along your suggestions.

Yes, that contact form will still be used and the link will go to the correct page after the migration.

I removed the warning from your account.

 

[grahamperrin]

A few exceptions, presumably a normal side effect of works in progress

http://xenforums.macrumors.com "An exception occurred …" and prior to that, a few other oddities whilst I made a series of posts (in an area that's known to be volatile).

I assume that the exceptions were negligible, given the preparations for migration.

No need to reply to this post, unless the details of the exceptions are required.

 

[^^BIGMac]

Is there a target date for the migration?

Sooner the better. You can delay this thing forever and little will be accomplished.

In my experience XenForo is pretty darn good out of the box!

 

[redheeler]

Is there a target date for the migration?

Tomorrow.

 

[grahamperrin]

… I especially like the new way of handling signatures (smaller and allowing for more characters/formatting). …

From the volatile test area:

note: we probably should limit signatures.

Disallow paragraph breaks? That would reasonable (traditional).

A more graceful approach might show no more than x number of pixels height, with a fadeaway – to hint that more may be seen by clicking.

(The fadeaway hint is pleasingly effective where it applies to quoted content.)

 

[Weaselboy]

Disallow paragraph breaks? That would reasonable (traditional).

Actually, having blank lines in a sig. is already against the rules.

 

[grahamperrin]

WYSIWYG drafts and previews fail to show colour for linked texts

Neither interface shows the blue that appears after a post is made.

I suspect that the shade of blue has changed over the past day or so, so maybe this apparent omission is work in progress.

Signatures

… the rules.

Ah … I could pretend that I took advantage of the missing link (there's no longer an obvious link to the rules).

In truth, I assumed that with the migration to XenForo there would be improvements (maybe more flexibility) with signatures. I didn't realise that my longer signature would appear where previously it never appeared; I never intended a signature to appear everywhere …

Postscript

From XenForo Community, in chronological order:

Add-on - Hide signature for a specific post | XenForo Community

Under Remove Signature | XenForo Community, with added emphasis:

"I would like this if it removed all but one on every page. Sigs are a good thing but not on every post."​

XF 1.3 - Is there a way to show/hide signature per post | XenForo Community

"I have a lot of forum users asking me if they can sometimes hide their signature when posting. I have done that a lot with vBulletin as well in the old forums, so I do kinda miss it. …"​

In response, from a XenForo developer (staff member):

"… no built in option to do that."​

Add-on - Show/Hide Signature prior to posting | XenForo Community

"I need an add-on developed that would allow a user to check a box to hide their signature for a post. We used this a lot on vBulletin and my members are asking to have it again.

"Anyone want to give it a go for some cash?"​

I began a conversation with five participants, including @arn

 

[redheeler]

From the volatile test area:



Disallow paragraph breaks? That would reasonable (traditional).

A more graceful approach might show no more than x number of pixels height, with a fadeaway – to hint that more may be seen by clicking.

(The fadeaway hint is pleasingly effective where it applies to quoted content.)

I was actually referring to BB code as "formatting". VB limits sigs to 400 characters including BB code, which has been almost as annoying for my heavily-formatted (but still not overly distracting) signature as 200 characters without.

-----

On a related note, has anyone noticed that font BB code containing multiple fonts separated by commas does not work on Xenforo?

[plain][FONT="Helvetica-Light, Helvetica, Arial"]Text[/FONT][/plain]

Should output: [FONT="Helvetica-Light, Helvetica, Arial"]Text[/FONT], but it does not on Xenforo.

 

[grahamperrin]

Print

Low priority: the style for print could be improved. The six-page volatile edition of this topic yields a twenty-one page PDF, with unnecessarily large avatars and so on (a wide left hand column).

Schedule

… You can delay this thing forever and little will be accomplished. …

I'm not averse to the possibility of a reasonable delay.

That's not to suggest that tomorrow (five hours away in the UK) will be too soon. But I should say that much has been quietly accomplished in the past few hours.

 

[grahamperrin]

Observations on inconsistencies between 'Insert' menu options

Minor observations, with one exception:

• Code will overwrite selected text

– users might treat that as dataloss (loss from a draft) as unexpected/inappropriate.


Insert » Quote

• works for selected text
• presents markup, with a properly positioned blinking cursor, if nothing was selected.

Insert » Spoiler

• works as expected, reasonably intuitive.

Insert » Strikethrough

• works for selected text
• fails to insert, if nothing was selected.

Insert » Code

• does nothing with selected text
• works as expected – presents a dialogue – if nothing was selected.

 

[grahamperrin]

Seeking non-ASCII characters

Seeking cafe finds Cafe at http://xenforums.macrumors.com/threads/test-title-subject-line-of-topic.1886795/#post-21361343

Seeking café does not find cafe in that post.

Seeking café finds café at http://xenforums.macrumors.com/thre...sign-and-testing.1883492/page-6#post-21361344

Seeking cafe does not find café in that post.

 

[grahamperrin]

Consistency of style

… The quote boxes are wider and without italics.

arn

Thanks.

Low priority … somewhere, in recent hours, I stumbled across another interface where topics were listed with italics used for all opening lines. If I stumble across it again, I'll add a postscript to this post.

Postscript: minor inconsistency

http://xenforums.macrumors.com/members/arn.1/

• the list of postings uses upright text
• for pretty much the same texts, the list of recent activities uses italics.

 

[grahamperrin]

Presentation of unformatted text in signatures

http://xenforums.macrumors.com/thre...sign-and-testing.1883492/page-6#post-21361347 in signatures, the colour used for unformatted text is indistinguishable from the colour used for linked text.

Potential confusion in the signature edition routine

1. http://xenforums.macrumors.com/account/signature
2. edit the signature
3. save the signature
4. observe appearance then disappearance of the save confirmation banner
5. Command-W

Expected:

6. closure.

Actual result:

6. a warning of unsaved changes

 

[grahamperrin]

Minor bug in the UI to polls

At http://xenforums.macrumors.com/threads/food-mood.1886796/poll/edit I see the Add Additional Response button, and it changes colour when clicked, but no field is added.

I recall (from the time of creation of the poll) that a limit was reached, but in the UI to edition there's no hint of the limit. In this case the button should either not appear, or be greyed out.

Grammar: aim for something better than 'add additional …'.

Instead, maybe 'Add option' or 'Additional option'.

 

[grahamperrin]

Page numbering may be wrong after replying at the foot of anything other than the last page

The attached screenshot should be self-explanatory. (A page can not present more than twenty-five posts.)

Not a migration issue.

 

[grahamperrin]

Misalignment of the Useful Searches submenu of the advanced search overlay

Minor. Screenshot attached. Not a migration issue.

Safari 7.x in Mavericks, OS X 10.9.5. AdBlock enabled, if that's relevant.

 

[grahamperrin]

Sharing the wrong content

Near the foot of http://xenforums.macrumors.com/threads/food-mood.1886796/ three of three share buttons produce a dialogue that prepares to share the wrong topic. I assume that eventual (re)indexing of finally migrated content will resolve problems such as this.

 

[AZhappyjack]

Hopefully the new forum will address that gawd-awful poll screen. Why not just show the poll results with a simple bar chart instead of that #*@($ representation of what ever that is. The poll results page is beyond worthless, as it now is designed.

 

[redheeler]

Hopefully the new forum will address that gawd-awful poll screen. Why not just show the poll results with a simple bar chart instead of that #*@($ representation of what ever that is. The poll results page is beyond worthless, as it now is designed.

Yes, it will fix the issue with the poll bars, but for now there is a temporary fix here.

 

[grahamperrin]

… for now there is a temporary fix here.

That user style sheet change is (if I'm not mistaken):

1. for now for presentation of polls in the traditional vBulletin environment
2. not for now for presentation of polls in the new design test environment.

Polls (style issue in the XenForo test environment)

… that gawd-awful poll screen. … The poll results page is beyond worthless, as it now is designed.

We already have the acknowledgement from MacRumors God @arn that in the XenForo-based test environment, polls don't look great –

"… it's not a such a critical feature that it will hold things up. But we'll look into it. "​

Generally

In the hours and days ahead, let's remain mindful of those four grades of severity, and their given priorities.


Minor style issue: alignment of the green online status indicator

Screenshot attached, from Safari 7.x in Mavericks, OS X 10.9.5. The green indicator (online status, I guess) is not yet well-aligned with the username of the member.

Note to self, also see how the indicator appears alongside both:

• the name of a member who uses mixed case with a visually significant initial cap e.g. @BruceWayne54 http://xenforums.macrumors.com/members/brucewayne54.951731/
• the name of a member who uses mixed case with a lowercase beginning to the first few letters.

 

[grahamperrin]

Notable members

Earlier I clicked a 'Notable Members' button and then found myself at http://xenforums.macrumors.com/members/

That button appears whilst at that page, but I can't recall where I first saw the button. For example, it's not at http://xenforums.macrumors.com

So … where else might I have seen that button?

 

[redheeler]

Earlier I clicked a 'Notable Members' button and then found myself at http://xenforums.macrumors.com/members/

That button appears whilst at that page, but I can't recall where I first saw the button. For example, it's not at http://xenforums.macrumors.com

So … where else might I have seen that button?

It appears on the "Members" section of the site, such as a profile page.

----------

That user style sheet change is (if I'm not mistaken):

1. for now for presentation of polls in the traditional vBulletin environment
2. not for now for presentation of polls in the new design test environment.

Correct.

 

[grahamperrin]

Nonbreaking spaces, breakable spaces

@arn and/or anyone who's as pernickety as me about presentation of text:

… non-breaking spaces, I'm not sure that's possible. Feel like it could be abused to create formatting issues. What would the use case be?

To complement the previously given written answers (in the closed topic), there's the first attachment to this post – a visual example. Top right, the break between these two words – final

opportunity – is something that I would never normally allow in something as potentially important as a signature.


Minor style bug: forum home, detachment of a menu of sub-forums

Please see the second attachment to this post.


Ha

@redheeler http://xenforums.macrumors.com/members/redheeler.926659/#profile-post-4252 ha bloody ha

 

[redheeler]

Ha

@redheeler http://xenforums.macrumors.com/members/redheeler.926659/#profile-post-4252 ha bloody ha

Might as well enjoy animated GIF avatars, while we still have them