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Subject: 
Re: True Geekness
Newsgroups: 
lugnet.off-topic.geek, lugnet.admin.general
Date: 
Wed, 23 Jun 1999 19:12:51 GMT
Viewed: 
144 times
  
In lugnet.off-topic.geek, Ed Jones writes:
1. The message displays seem to be only about 500 pixels wide.

It's not really fixed at 500 pixels or anything, it's just whatever width
the particular message you're viewing happens to be.  Most of the time, it's
an 80-column ASCII text message, displayed in Times Roman (or whatever the
default proportional-width font is), which happens to work out to 400-600
pixels.  The old display used the default monospace font (typically Courier)
and went way too wide on small displays.


In that
blank space, it would be great to have the message thread flowgraph that
now appears a the bottom of the message so you could see where the message
was in the rank of things while you were reading it.

That would rock, but there's no way to tell the width that the message will
end up on the user's screen, especially with the other stuff added.  People
hate scrolling horizonally much more than they hate scrolling vertically.
(At least this is what people who filled out the survey a while back said,
and it also stands to reason.)


Or, have direct links to other topics
(like the past 24 hours list on the traffic page) in the right 3/8ths of
the screen.  Nothing like direct access!

There isn't a right 3/8ths of the screen to put stuff on, for many people.  :)

But the underlying HTML/etc has been made a bit in mind with the possibility
of including things in frames (optionally).  Just a possibility.


2. From the first page of a topic, you have added "Next Page: 5 more, 10
more".  But in actuality its "view the NEXT 5/10".  I would expect that
when I viewed 5 or 10 more I would still see the original 4.

Hmm, so the word "more" there didn't connect?  OK, well how about this...
Instead of

   Next Page:  5 more | 10 more | 20 more

would it be clearer as this--?

   More:  Next 5 | Next 10 | Next 20


But that
brings me to my next point.

3. The way the site is now designed, it looks like user customability may
be on the way.  Have you given any thought to giving users the ability to
customize the site for their usage?  For example, being able to set a
default view for each topic's first page:  number of messages listed,
format (all, brief, compact).

Something like that might be reasonably possible with cookies in the near
term.


Or the ability to rank a threads importance.  For instance: I want
to see all the messages in certain thread first.  Or, I don't want to see
the messages in another thread at all.

That's getting to be a rather advanced feature in terms of configuration
UI and server processing.


4. On the "homepage", The font size for the "Links and Resources" is the
same size as the compact "messages" displayed in the right "column".  I
overlooked them twice trying to find the CLSoTW link.  Seems like they
should have a much more prominent font!

How about Impact 72 pt.?


5. Add the "Search Set Database" field everywhere.  Yes everywhere.
Beiung one the few who has not memorized the LEGO Sets by number, it
would be great, especially in the Auction, Buy/Sell/Trade, Reviews and
most other topics.

There could maybe be a link to a search page on every page, but there really
can't be a search box on every page.  Have you followed the other discussion
on search boxes?  It's a funny (strange) situation.

--Todd



Message has 2 Replies:
  Re: True Geekness
 
Todd Lehman wrote in message ... (...) Nah. Then we'd have to scroll :) Mike (25 years ago, 23-Jun-99, to lugnet.off-topic.geek, lugnet.admin.general)
  Re: True Geekness
 
(...) Slight clarification here (I'm sure I'm one of the people who said they didn't like to scroll horizontally): I don't like horizontal scrolling, when it was a design choice of the site developer(s). If the data is visually structured, and it (...) (25 years ago, 23-Jun-99, to lugnet.off-topic.geek, lugnet.admin.general)

Message is in Reply To:
  Re: True Geekness
 
(...) Yeah, that's just what my other half says. :') Sorry, I bust his chops for it all the time. Almost everyday when I boot up the computer, its a new experience! He has this wonderful habit of reconfiguring things and then leaving me to figure (...) (25 years ago, 23-Jun-99, to lugnet.off-topic.geek, lugnet.admin.general)

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