Jump box and its stupid Go button

Nao

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Jump box and its stupid Go button
« on July 16th, 2011, 05:22 PM »
Pete isn't the only one who gets to remove features from SMF :P
I'm currently reworking the board jump box code.

Here are two things that I've been starting to rewrite, and then figured I'd ask for opinions before committing them.

1/ I'm rewriting URLs (through Pretty URLs) before showing the board list. This allows users to jump directly to said board using its official URL, rather than see a "?board=1.0" in the URL.

Pros: well, concealing board= URLs is always nice.
Cons: the XML file you request through Ajax is a bit bigger, obviously. (Only if Pretty URLs are enabled. Otherwise it's the same.)

An alternative way of doing it, would be to have Wedge redirect to the proper board as soon as it gets an URL with '?board=' in it. Actually I thought it already did that, but apparently not... Probably due to my internal rewrite where it no longer relies on htaccess. Of course it requires an extra roundtrip to the server...

Opinions plz?

2/ I want to get rid of that stupid 'OK' button. The only (only!) point of this button is to allow you to jump directly to the current board's homepage. Thing is -- topic pages already have a link to said board, in the linktree. There's a copy at the bottom, right above the jump box... Once you click the select box, simply selecting another board will load it directly. The Go button can... go. A simple rewrite would be to have the jump box say: "Jump to: [Select board]". Then you click the "Select board" and it opens up a list of boards. The default selected board will be changed to the current one. Problem fixed, and better usability without that button IMHO.

Again: opinions plzkthx?

Thanks :)

spoogs

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Re: Jump box and its stupid Go button
« Reply #1, on July 16th, 2011, 05:39 PM »
1. Never used or cared about 'Pretty URLs' related things so can't comment on that

2. Agreed the Go button can/should go

Stick a fork in it SMF

Arantor

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Re: Jump box and its stupid Go button
« Reply #2, on July 16th, 2011, 06:22 PM »
1. Go for it. It does have the use whereby you can find the board id for debugging purposes but that's a minor case.

2. Accessibility pretty much dictates not using it like that. Firstly, non JS users will be without it, and speech readers nearly always work on moving down an item at a time, and often trigger onchange per change.
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Nao

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Arantor

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Nao

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Re: Jump box and its stupid Go button
« Reply #5, on July 16th, 2011, 08:59 PM »
Yep... It's just an empty strip. (And yes, I'm considering removing the strip altogether. It works just as well as a small right-aligned text...)

You wouldn't believe the amount of crap this function has. I don't know who made it, but they were very, very careful in making it very customizable, with the ability to change indentation prefixes, etc... Eh? Who cares about that anyway? You would have to edit the template to change these... Might as well edit script.js and just change it there!
They also implemented the stuff in the search template, at the end of a search page. I never even noticed that...! Since it's utterly useless at that point, I just removed it from there. It's only in topic and board pages now.

Arantor

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Re: Jump box and its stupid Go button
« Reply #6, on July 16th, 2011, 09:04 PM »
Quote
Yep... It's just an empty strip. (And yes, I'm considering removing the strip altogether. It works just as well as a small right-aligned text...)
Yeah, please do remove it. It's ugly at the best of times.
Quote
I don't know who made it, but they were very, very careful in making it very customizable, with the ability to change indentation prefixes, etc... Eh? Who cares about that anyway?
As far as I know, no-one ever actually *used* that. I guess it might have been in the case of making the board list.

Out of interest, the core function that generates the board list (in Subs-Editor.php, IIRC), is that ever used anywhere else?

Nao

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Re: Jump box and its stupid Go button
« Reply #7, on July 16th, 2011, 09:17 PM »
Quote from Arantor on July 16th, 2011, 09:04 PM
Quote
Yep... It's just an empty strip. (And yes, I'm considering removing the strip altogether. It works just as well as a small right-aligned text...)
Yeah, please do remove it. It's ugly at the best of times.
Will do.
Quote
Out of interest, the core function that generates the board list (in Subs-Editor.php, IIRC), is that ever used anywhere else?
Yeah, in half a dozen places (move topic, etc.)

Nearly finished with my rewrite...
As of now, I managed to save nearly 300 bytes off the *gzipped* version. Even more in the non-gzipped. Reminds me of my fun days when converting everything to jQuery... :) (Well, I'm using jQuery here as well, but .html() could just as well be replaced with innerHTML...)
Re: Jump box and its stupid Go button
« Reply #8, on July 16th, 2011, 10:06 PM »
BTW-- didn't remove the frame around the jump box in the end (display template). This is because I'm doing my tests on a relatively new local install, have only one topic, and as such don't get the prev/next links... Which is the 'only' point of said box.
Until I find a better design for this...

live627

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Nao

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Re: Jump box and its stupid Go button
« Reply #10, on July 16th, 2011, 11:34 PM »
My imagination I'm afraid!

Must be crazy, having spent a work sabotaging my personal health on a project I've always known will bring me only problems..... :^^;:

[Unknown]

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Re: Jump box and its stupid Go button
« Reply #11, on July 18th, 2011, 03:08 AM »
Heh, I remember when I removed the go button.  A bunch of people complained.  Turned out a lot of people, including Ben_S, used it when they finished reading a topic to go back to the list.  A strange use, I thought, but that's why it was left in.

-[Unknown]

Nao

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Re: Jump box and its stupid Go button
« Reply #12, on July 18th, 2011, 10:14 AM »
Rather than leave the button in, you could have told them to use the linktree ;) It's just two lines above said button. If people don't use it, then why bother reproduce the linktree at the bottom :)
Another way in Wedge is, of course, to just click the board list and choose the greened-out (?) board in the list. Only works if you don't have a lot of boards, though... (Otherwise it'll take hours just to find it.)
Actually, I think the quick access (ex-jump to) box will eventually only feature boards by the same creator as the current board. (In a 'normal' forum context, all boards are created by the same person, but in a blog platform context, you could end up with thousands of boards... Might as well reduce that list to current owner + general boards with no owner.)

[Unknown]

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Re: Jump box and its stupid Go button
« Reply #13, on July 24th, 2011, 07:28 AM »
Quote from Nao/Gilles on July 18th, 2011, 10:14 AM
you could have told them to use the linktree ;)
Oh believe me, that's definitely the first thing I said.  From hazy hazy memory, I think they preferred the style where there was no linktree at the bottom (used to be the default, the "linktree" style rather than the "breadcrumbs" style.)  I'm not sure, that may no longer exist.

-[Unknown]

Nao

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Re: Jump box and its stupid Go button
« Reply #14, on July 24th, 2011, 09:42 AM »
Quote from [Unknown]link=msg=264514 date=1311485319][quote author=Nao/Gilles on July 18th, 2011, 10:14 AM
you could have told them to use the linktree ;)
Oh believe me, that's definitely the first thing I said.  From hazy hazy memory, I think they preferred the style where there was no linktree at the bottom (used to be the default, the "linktree" style rather than the "breadcrumbs" style.)  I'm not sure, that may no longer exist.

-[Unknown][/quote]In Wedge, the linktree is duplicated at the bottom in board & topic pages. And you can't delete it ;)
Wedge is a larger jump than SMF1->2 in terms of conceptual layout I guess, because of the sidebar and all, so I guess they'll have to 'get used to it'.
Heck, I *DID* manage to get used to Windows 7, after two years of rejecting it completely. Had to 'force' myself into using/customizing it for a month before I really started liking it... But now I'm (finally) starting to find some aspects of it that I find to be well thought out.