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There are a goodly number of things wrong with message icons and I want to get some feedback on them and what to do with them.
1. Single set of icons, not multiple sets
They're actually changeable per physical theme at this point in time. I don't know any theme that ever actually shipped *its own* as such; all the ones I ever saw just shipped whatever the default icons were in SMF at the time. I'd like to propose we make it a single set of icons.
2. Get rid of this 'enable customised icons' nonsense.
There is really no need for this nonsense. There is, yes, the argument to be made about performance, but caching would fix that anyway. We'd get a simpler and better to use UI out of it.
3. Drop the enforcement of it being .gif
There's really no reason why it must be .gif, other than having a standard format to work with. But that's solvable through another thing.
Then we can get a bit more exotic if we wanted.
4. Stop storing it as a textual item.
If we're already storing them in the database anyway, we will already have numeric ids for them. I see no reason why we can't make proper use of them and just store a numeric id in the messages table and be done with it (yes that would SAVE space!)
This isn't without its issues, because it would mean that all the silent-forced changes that occur (for iPod/iPhone/tablets/Android etc. not to mention moved notices, deleted posts at present and posts with attachments) would also have to be in that table. This raises other issues (what happens if the user deletes them? what happens with migrating existing SMF stuff including this site?)
I'm not exactly dead set on this one, but it is certainly an option to explore and not without its caveats. Though it could also mean the user doesn't want those things set, e.g. if they delete the tablet one, don't use that replacement later.
5. Topic filtering
Assuming we make it a numeric id, we could store that numeric id in the topics table (first post's)... it would allow us to stick an index on it and then filter topics on it. Of course, any plugin that adds its own would be rather awkward but it's not insurmountable.
/discuss
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uhm, just remove em..? :P
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1. you're right - I cannot find a single theme that ships with its own set.
2. Nonsense! Oh, we want to use that :( We have a forum where we want two extra message icons that would not make sense elsewhere. We would also disable icons for an individual forum but it would be too untidy.
3, 4. Uh-huh (nods head pretending to understand).
5. This sounds really if it could go with our use of per-forum icons. But otherwise I don't think we'd use it.
My requests would be:
6. Ability to easily disable icons per forum.
7. Place the icons' images in a row under the subject input. That way people would use them more often.
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2. Nonsense! Oh, we want to use that
4. Uh-huh (nods head pretending to understand).
6. Ability to easily disable icons per forum.
7. Place the icons' images in a row under the subject input. That way people would use them more often.
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2. :cool:
3 & 4. Thanks as always for your explanations. Is there anything you want explained? Medical? Financial? How a 4 stroke engine works?
6. Yes it's the UI that makes it too messy to set up.
7. Looking at the first page of the boards on our forum, there are only 4 (2 by me) threads with a non-Standard icon. Even wedge.org seems to be 90% Standard icons. So it's just a suggestion for how to prompt topic starters to pick one.
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Is there anything you want explained? Medical? Financial? How a 4 stroke engine works?
7. Looking at the first page of the boards on our forum, there are only 4 (2 by me) threads with a non-Standard icon. Even wedge.org seems to be 90% Standard icons. So it's just a suggestion for how to prompt topic starters to pick one.
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1 - Agreed
2 - hmmm never even noticed that option :P
3 - makes sense
4 - only understood from your last explanation :P so I'm sure you'll do whats best in the end. As far as what to do if user deletes them.... what are the options, I'd say display nothing but I'm sure theres more to it than that.
5 - well my next statement would apply for me on this one but I guess it would be useful to some to be able to filter based on icon (assuming the icons are actually being used in a sensible manner)
Personally I've wanted to get rid of them completely before, I tend not to care if they are there or not. Cant think of a single time where the icon mattered to me.
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2. That's the problem with it. Most people don't even know the option exists and only discover it when they want to change something. Make it more clear, more people will use it.
4. We'll figure it out, heh. I don't really expect we'll change it, it was more a speculative thing than anything else.
5. I think it depends on the forum. The vBulletin forum I used to moderate, it was a big thing for each thread to have an icon, though there were about 40 icons to choose from and the filtering was more important there.
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"Well, I live with a lady who..." Oh gosh I thought you were going to ask about women :^^;: :^^;: :^^;:
Yes there are a few paperclips however 5. would surely work better if there were more variance.
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"Well, I live with a lady who..." Oh gosh I thought you were going to ask about women
Yes there are a few paperclips however 5. would surely work better if there were more variance.
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Do message icons actually need a description? They have one right now, but I'm not convinced they *need* one. It would certainly save some DB effort in trying to store/manage/display multiple languages' worth. (Since there's a problem right now, a forum with non-default icons can't have a separate description for each language.)
Thoughts?
Posted: March 12th, 2013, 12:58 AM
Don't forget, actually, if you edit the icon in-situ, you don't get the descriptions.
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Hmm, I wonder, should I push them out to CSS like the smileys?
Posted: March 12th, 2013, 04:59 PM
The downside to that is for SSI use, the CSS file generally won't get loaded :/
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There's not much about our old forum that I miss, but here's how they display post icons (sorry, this is the least-worst example I can find).
Do the smilies' tool-tips have various languages? E.g :angel: this one's is "Hypocrite" and if so could the post icons have tips in the same way.
Cannot comment on the CSS / SSI :huh:
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There's not much about our old forum that I miss, but here's how they display post icons (sorry, this is the least-worst example I can find).
Do the smilies' tool-tips have various languages?
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So, here's what I've been working on. As you can see, the 'manage message icons' screen is largely untouched, but the bottom bit is the new bit.
This is stuff that isn't really configurable, but that I do want to show to users so they can be aware of it. I'm thinking about giving clip and the mobile icons an on/off option on it.
I don't know why I don't like it. I just don't like it.
Posted: March 13th, 2013, 03:09 AM
Also, anyone got any objection to putting in a Nintendo 3/DS icon as a mobile device?
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Perhaps apart from 3ds you can also add ps and xbox icons as well? Can these be edited?
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Well, I was more joking about the 3DS, I don't know anyone who seriously uses their browser, except maybe the homebrew crowd. Same deal about the PS3 and XBox, they don't seem like the type.
That bottom set can't be edited - because there's specific code to drive them. I guess we could make it so if people wanted, but it seems like a lot of work for something most people won't even notice. I guess that's why I'm wary of the UI, because it's not something that really needs to be that configurable.
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I'm not really be certain what I'm saying here, but Bloc had his own little icons, that were very modern and neat, that he was using with some of his themes, and I have also seen some Wordpress theme, that I think ( you you can believe I do ), they call icons from a sheet of icons, in there process! at least it looks that way. One thing to keep in mind that, anything removed must be removed also from you CSS or SS what you guys are using, so not get errors in the admin error logs / browser engines and such... The icons the little tiny ones I've been seeing are very neat a professional looking, and is I can just have some time I'll look them up, and show an example. the icons I'm thinking about are mainly the SMF stock default icons.
As far as the Smiley, they are nice but, too many , makes for a real messy forum, I don't even like to use them myself, but at time I do ( limited )
there is a commercial out that says more is better, but not in my book! too busy makes for too messy and obstruction from the content.
regards,
Maxx
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Why are people talking about smileys? This is NOT ABOUT SMILEYS. They just happen to share the same stupid admin area.
but Bloc had his own little icons,
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OK, so I want to do a little test.
I genuinely don't know whether the 'displaying it as a dropdown' vs 'as a list of radio buttons' is more effective or better or whatever. But I also want to test it on a live audience without committing it to core without some idea of whether it's worth doing. Thus... a very nasty hacky plugin that pushes the icons into a fieldset under the postbox.
That way we can use it here and field-test it to see how well it goes down and if it works out, we can polish it up and implement it in core (easy enough to do, just update the running order of templates in Post.php, jiggle the templates in Post.template.php, the two I've provided are reasonably close to what would be needed, just need to give them the right names and fix the formatting to not be thrown together inside 2 minutes)
Note that I deliberately chose to exclude the descriptions. I don't know whether to include them as tooltips or simply not bother yet.
(In case anyone's interested, implementation time: 14 minutes.)
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Drop down takes less space.
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Your screen looks better: people will see the message icons and think "Oh! I can pick an icon here!", whereas as it is people notice the dropdown less.
"Drop down takes less space." the space between the icons could be reduced so that they all fit onto the one line, and then paper clip wouldn't be there.
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It's still a lot of space that can be saved with dropdown. Considering I'd completely remove these icons, at least I'd try to have them taking as less space as possible.
And it's not just a matter of space, too many things in an interface distract the user.
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Your screen looks better: people will see the message icons and think "Oh! I can pick an icon here!", whereas as it is people notice the dropdown less.
"Drop down takes less space." the space between the icons could be reduced so that they all fit onto the one line, and then paper clip wouldn't be there.
The icon dropdown is visible. You just choose not to see it. Which is natural. Topic icons aren't there for your amusement as much as smileys are. It's a feature that's also used in other situations, that *usually* you don't even have to deal with.
As such, I don't find it a problem that it doesn't jump to your eyes, and that you have to actually look at the screen to change your icon. Heck, I've never liked these forums where people arbitrarily choose a random icon on their topics. Message index looked ugly enough in SMF... :lol:
Posted: March 30th, 2013, 01:04 PM
There's not much about our old forum that I miss, but here's how they display post icons (sorry, this is the least-worst example I can find).
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I'm not disputing that the dropdown saves space. But because it's so compact, it hardly ever gets used.
As such, I don't find it a problem that it doesn't jump to your eyes, and that you have to actually look at the screen to change your icon. Heck, I've never liked these forums where people arbitrarily choose a random icon on their topics. Message index looked ugly enough in SMF... :lol:
But I propose a third option: just dump the feature entirely. If it's not being used much, let's save ourselves the hassle and not use it at all.
No point worrying about a feature that 'no-one uses' and is 'ugly enough'
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+100 for dumping message icons completely. :)
They really seem an heritage from the past.
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I'm not disputing that the dropdown saves space. But because it's so compact, it hardly ever gets used.
Well, part of the problem is that most forums don't do a good job of it. If you have a set of consistently sized/shaped icons, it's much more meaningful, especially if you have the ability to filter topics on those icons (like vB did)
Also, perhaps limit the ability to set message icons to topics, i.e. first post only...But I propose a third option: just dump the feature entirely. If it's not being used much, let's save ourselves the hassle and not use it at all.
We could integrate other elements into message icons: (text) tags, pre-established topic prefixes...No point worrying about a feature that 'no-one uses' and is 'ugly enough'
Maybe push it as a plugin, instead...?
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A regular SMF user will immediately notice how different it is (because it has the icon in it), so they're likely to click it and see that they can immediately view all icons... It's really, really better than the SMF implementation.
The thumb up/thumb down icons are probably among the widest used, but they're so different in style -- we should probably be using our Like icons for these..?
Also, perhaps limit the ability to set message icons to topics, i.e. first post only...
The thing then becomes, if users can only set it on new topic, we can largely dispense with the theatrics of having it elsewhere. Which sort of calls the mobile icons into question.We could integrate other elements into message icons: (text) tags, pre-established topic prefixes...
I'd be tempted to agree that allowing for customization of message icons is a bit much, but OTOH some forums are gonna say they need it.
Maybe push it as a plugin, instead...?
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Since I never used or paid much attention to the message icons I'd vote dump them but introduce prefixes as icons sorta like in SD.
Maybe ship with a few common icons already available. If message icons are enabled and the poster did not select an icon the mobile icon is used by default, if that makes any sense.
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Actually, I've been thinking about the whole prefix thing a lot lately, wondering if I should build it and be done with it.
If message icons are enabled and the poster did not select an icon the mobile[1] icon is used by default, if that makes any sense.
I'm not sure we need the attachment icon though.
If I can support a 3DS icon, I'm sure we can put a Windows icon in, hahahahahah
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I'm not sure we need the attachment icon though.
I simply love prefixes., go ahead dammit, build it :whistle: :niark:
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TBH I like Message icons I almost wish there was a setting to make them a required field with no predefined default. icons make it fast to skin and decide what to read right then. I do like like the dropdown better than the other. Maybe give the dropdown a color that would stand out a little so people notice it more? Just thinking out loud.
Edited to add: I am okay with taking message icons from reply's however it would be nice to keep the mobile/device icons for replies.
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Seems material for a poll:
1) Leave message icons as they are now
2) Drop em entirely, it's an heritage from the past, useless and distracting
3) Plugin 4 life
4) Leave only the device icons
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Except it's not that simple. As I keep mentioned, and this does annoy me that I keep mentioning it without anyone commenting on it but it is kind of important: what about filtering topics by way of icons? I know at least two forums I did this on where it was useful, because the moderators actively got people to set icons for things that were meaningful.
What about ditching per post icons that are a choice and merely having the device icons, but still able to pick up topic icons?
What about having multiple icons per post or per topic?
(See, having a poll is great. Having a poll where all the options indicate a given bias is not.)
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Sorting sounds nice to forgot to edit to add that to my last post
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I know at least two forums I did this on where it was useful, because the moderators actively got people to set icons for things that were meaningful.