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1 2 3 ... 6 Previous Next 86 Replies Last post: Oct 10, 2007 11:03 AM by jmattson

Missing features from Forums? posted: Sep 24, 2007 3:09 PM

JohnTroyer

949 posts since
Aug 30, 2005

OK, let's play a game. Pretend the site is actually working and pages load quickly, and pretend whatever confusing parts we've added to the UI are gone or at least not confusing anymore. Work with me here.

What usability-impacting features that we had in Forums are now gone?

Threaded view
Set # of posts per page permanently
View communities with unread posts at a glance. You used to be able to do this from the front page. Now there are some substitutes to see unread threads, but not which communities have unread thread.
1. Browse Discussions
2. Discussions tab on every Community
Unread posts are shown in above locations as bold, but that's harder to find and harder to see than the red balls in Forums
prev/next thread is hidden sometimes because of a css bug
See all posts from user (now can just see all new threads from user, not their replies)
User's location is not displayed on post
Back to Discussions link at bottom of thread as well as top
code/pre tags working as before

Anything else? How would you rank order them in importance to you? Remember, these are things that affect usability that we used to be able to do but now can't.

Message was edited by: JohnTroyer to add items from replies.

Tags: features, wishlist, usability

Re: Missing features from Forums?

1. Sep 24, 2007 2:52 PM

in response to: JohnTroyer

continuum

12,689 posts since
Dec 18, 2003

I miss the old looking glass icon to find posts I replied to again.
I also miss the "back-to-topic-list" icon at the bottom of each post.

Re: Missing features from Forums?

2. Sep 24, 2007 2:53 PM

in response to: JohnTroyer

Ken.Cline

5,146 posts since
Jul 7, 2004

7. User's location is not displayed on post

Order of importance:

1, 5, 3, 2, 4, 7, 6

Re: Missing features from Forums?

3. Sep 24, 2007 3:15 PM

in response to: JohnTroyer

etung

11,098 posts since
Oct 15, 2006

In my opinion:

All posts from a user (important for seeing what problems they've had before)
User filter in the search options
CSS bugs (My gripe is where the width goes way off screen so you can't read the messages or reply/edit, not sure if this is the same one you're talking about)
Permanently set # of posts/page, mostly when viewing threads - it used to be all on one page, but now I have to step through each set, and maybe go back if I need to refer to multiple things at once.
Threaded view
More obvious unread thread flags
Code tags! For new posts, this isn't a huge problem (you can use a 1x1 table), but old posts look bad.

Re: Missing features from Forums?

4. Sep 24, 2007 3:00 PM

in response to: JohnTroyer

oreeh

9,872 posts since
Nov 30, 2005

Anything else?

An indication of new posts in the "All Content" view would be nice
(since this is the default view in a forum)

How would you rank order them in importance to you?

My ranking:

1. Threaded view
2. Fixing the different UI bugs (prev/next buttons,...)
3. View communities with unread posts at a glance.
4. See all posts from user (I use this often for some users -
especially VMware Developers)
5. anything else
...
n-1. A HOWTO on formatting email responses

Re: Missing features from Forums?

5. Sep 24, 2007 3:08 PM

in response to: JohnTroyer

oreeh

9,872 posts since
Nov 30, 2005

While we are at usability:

Clicking a user name in the old forum lead to the last message of the user,
now it takes you to the user profile instead.

This feature was really useful - especially with long threads and threaded view.

Re: Missing features from Forums?

6. Sep 24, 2007 3:10 PM

in response to: oreeh

etung

11,098 posts since
Oct 15, 2006

oreeh wrote:
n-1. A HOWTO on formatting email responses

It's just the wiki formatting, switch back and forth between the rich/plain text editors and you'll figure it out

If nobody beats me to it, I'll write up a doc.

Re: Missing features from Forums?

7. Sep 24, 2007 3:20 PM

in response to: etung

oreeh

9,872 posts since
Nov 30, 2005

I guess I have to give the rich text editor a second try...

Re: Missing features from Forums?

8. Sep 24, 2007 3:20 PM

in response to: JohnTroyer

JohnTroyer

949 posts since
Aug 30, 2005

@continuum: is your "looking glass" item the same as my #6?

@etung: tell me if I'm misreading

your #1 (all posts) is my #6
gotcha. You can't filter by user on search. Added as #10
hey, no bugs, this is the lost feature thread. The wide thread/missing reply button is a high-prioirty fix
(number of posts) = my #2
threaded view. my #1
unread indicators - my #4
code tags - added as #9

@oreeh: In the Discussions tab, the "5 minutes ago" is clickable and gets you to the last post. In the All Content tab, that text is not clickable. I'm not a super-big fan of the tabs myself.

Re: Missing features from Forums?

9. Sep 24, 2007 3:31 PM

in response to: JohnTroyer

continuum

12,689 posts since
Dec 18, 2003

@continuum: is your "looking glass" item the same as my #6?

No - in the older version this was a watch feature. If you had "watch my posts" feature enabled this icon was displayed left side to the post-header

Re: Missing features from Forums?

10. Sep 25, 2007 6:08 AM

in response to: JohnTroyer

etung

11,098 posts since
Oct 15, 2006

JohnTroyer wrote:
@etung: tell me if I'm misreading

You interpreted it all correctly.

hey, no bugs, this is the lost feature thread.

I'd argue that being able to reply was a feature that used to work reliably and now doesn't

In that case, is there a bugs thread?

oreeh: ~~Forum Text Formatting~~

Edit: Deleted document since help actually exists, see e.g. oreeh's post later in this thread. --etung 2007.09.25 09:07

Re: Missing features from Forums?

11. Sep 24, 2007 4:07 PM

in response to: JohnTroyer

tlyczko

503 posts since
Oct 20, 2005

I don't know if this would be considered usability or not, but could the same large 'Reply' button be used in ALL posts, not just the first/top post in the thread??

OR a large plain-TEXT 'Reply' instead of a button, one less thing to load??

Slightly off-topic: I find that the rich text editor doesn't always properly do newlines or blank lines between paragraphs. Perhaps this could be improved before year end??

I vote for #2 particularly, and for making the items in #3 easier to find (if possible).

It would be very nice to have the breadcrumb trail repeated at the bottom, then one does not have to scroll all the way back up to see one's trail, this is another way of expressing 'Back to Discussions,' but relatively more specific.

Could the 'Post Message' and 'Cancel' buttons be larger?? Again, easier to find and click, perhaps they could be about the same size or larger than the big 'Reply' button in the first/top post in the thread??

Thank you again for working on all this!!

Thank you, Tom

Re: Missing features from Forums?

12. Sep 24, 2007 5:47 PM

in response to: JohnTroyer

asatoran

2,928 posts since
Jun 23, 2006

Besides Threaded View and unread posts issue, I can't seem to find any "mark all messages as read" button. Yeah, I should be reading every post and I'm sure the more knowledgeable here always read every post so would never use that button, but sometimes if I've been away from the forums for a couple of days, after I go through the threads I need to, I hit "mark all messages as read" to clear all the older posts.

Re: Missing features from Forums?

13. Sep 24, 2007 5:50 PM

in response to: asatoran

JohnTroyer

949 posts since
Aug 30, 2005

Each community has a Discussion tab. Click on that, which exposes a
"Mark All As Read" link.

We're going to look into how to simplify those tabs.

Re: Missing features from Forums?

14. Sep 24, 2007 6:21 PM

in response to: JohnTroyer

asatoran

2,928 posts since
Jun 23, 2006

Ah, I see said the blind man. Still trying to feel my way around.

Alot of times the page wouldn't load fully and I keep forgetting to move to the discussion tab.(I'm using IE7.)

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