Wedge

Public area => The Pub => Features => Topic started by: Nao on March 27th, 2014, 07:50 PM

Title: [Poll] Board status icons: what's the point?
Post by: Nao on March 27th, 2014, 07:50 PM
Regarding "New Post is indicated where none exists(https://github.com/Wedge/wedge/issues/4)", I'm interested in knowing if people actually use the board index icons (or "New" label) to determine where they have unread posts.

Personally, whatever the forum, on the homepage I'll only use either the recent topics, unread posts, unread replies and recent posts links. Or, if I have to deal with a board index, I'll look for the last post's date on the right of each forum.

As such, then, I could imagine using board icon transparency to determine whether a board is 'hot'. Even if you've already read it... It could simply take the latest post's date, and if it's older than a day, decrease icon opacity by 10%, if it's older than a week, decrease by 20%, if it's older than a month, decrease by 30%, if it's older than a year, decrease by 50%. To me, that would be more interesting. Maybe it'd encourage admins to 'revive' some boards that have less user investment, I don't know.

Yes, the issue mentioned seems to be a Wedge bug, probably related to a commit I made a few years ago where I was cleaning up some 'boardseen' links, and $_SESSION work on board read states. I just don't know if this 'feature' is something that other forums do because 'it's the natural thing to do', or because it's 'what others do, so let's do it too.'
Title: Re: Board icons: what's the point?
Post by: Drunken Clam on March 27th, 2014, 07:57 PM
Quote from Nao on March 27th, 2014, 07:50 PM
Personally, whatever the forum, on the homepage I'll only use either the recent topics, unread posts, unread replies and recent posts links. Or, if I have to deal with a board index, I'll look for the last post's date on the right of each forum.
That's exactly what I do. :cool:
Quote from Nao on March 27th, 2014, 07:50 PM
As such, then, I could imagine using board icon transparency to determine whether a board is 'hot'. Even if you've already read it... It could simply take the latest post's date, and if it's older than a day, decrease icon opacity by 10%, if it's older than a week, decrease by 20%, if it's older than a month, decrease by 30%, if it's older than a year, decrease by 50%. To me, that would be more interesting. Maybe it'd encourage admins to 'revive' some boards that have less user investment, I don't know.
Sounds good to me!

Title: Re: Board icons: what's the point?
Post by: Nao on March 27th, 2014, 11:05 PM
Everyone, please note that there's a poll above... Just in case ;)
Title: Re: Board icons: what's the point?
Post by: Bunstonious on March 27th, 2014, 11:21 PM
Quote from Drunken Clam on March 27th, 2014, 07:57 PM
Quote from Nao on March 27th, 2014, 07:50 PM
Personally, whatever the forum, on the homepage I'll only use either the recent topics, unread posts, unread replies and recent posts links. Or, if I have to deal with a board index, I'll look for the last post's date on the right of each forum.
That's exactly what I do. :cool:
+1
Title: Re: Board icons: what's the point?
Post by: Maxx on March 27th, 2014, 11:28 PM
TBH... the icons on the menu look a bit old fashion to me. the one for media could just give the count to right side, all other icons should remain. on the boards except like you say the new or just a number or a green dot.



I voted. in the poll!

regards,
Maxx
Title: Re: Board icons: what's the point?
Post by: Nao on March 28th, 2014, 12:08 AM
Quote from Maxx on March 27th, 2014, 11:28 PM
TBH... the icons on the menu look a bit old fashion to me.
But this has nothing to do with the topic..? ;)

Menu icons are mostly taken from a single icon set, to keep a semblance of harmony, but it's hard to get it right. In fact, my concern would be mostly with the notification numbers next to Admin and Media, which I find too 'visible, even though it was exactly the point.
Quote from Maxx on March 27th, 2014, 11:28 PM
the one for media could just give the count to right side, all other icons should remain. on the boards except like you say the new or just a number or a green dot.
Again, nothing to do with the topic...... :^^;:

This is what I'm talking about ;)
Title: Re: Board icons: what's the point?
Post by: Maxx on March 28th, 2014, 12:17 AM
I know and sorry , but just thought I'd bring it up, while it was on my mind :(
But those are not really needed as mentioned above...transparency would be better!

regards,
Maxx
Title: Re: Board icons: what's the point?
Post by: Bunstonious on March 28th, 2014, 03:10 AM
Quote from Nao on March 28th, 2014, 12:08 AM
This is what I'm talking about ;)
Did you use MSPaint? Lovely arrows ;)

Yeah the only reason I use those things, well is to clear them when I am bored.
Title: Re: Board icons: what's the point?
Post by: Nao on March 28th, 2014, 07:30 AM
Nope, PSP 7. My tool of choice for the last 10 years.

Maxx, transparency? Don't get it.

Fishing for more votes!
Title: Re: Board icons: what's the point?
Post by: Bunstonious on March 28th, 2014, 07:46 AM
*cough* GIMP *cough*
Title: Re: Board icons: what's the point?
Post by: Nao on March 28th, 2014, 09:29 AM
Don't bother, I just don't like other tools for bitmap editing... Not even recent versions of PSP. This one's something like 10 years old, maybe more, but I just like it better.

I could have used a vector arrow for my screenshot, PSP7 has these, I've used them before, but it would have taken a couple of minutes to get it right, and my goal was to just point at the icons. What's the problem with my funny arrows..?

Anyway. Poll is tied for now... I'm a bit concerned, because I don't know where the bug started, so saying 'fix' is easier said than done. Pandos, if you want me to fix... Can you help? :P
Title: Re: Board icons: what's the point?
Post by: Nao on March 28th, 2014, 09:49 AM
I'm currently doing a fair compare of SMF 2.0 vs Wedge's codebase, looking for topicseen in the first and [';]seen in the second...
Interestingly, no code seems to have been changed, apart from renaming topicseen to seen.

I also did a thorough compare within Display.php, MessageIndex.php and Subs-Post.php, and couldn't find any single difference, really.

So, my guess is that I didn't create a bug... It's just a flawed system. If you want a proper 'unread' status on boards, you'll *have* to do better than store stuff into a (volatile) session variable.

If anyone is willing to help fix this, then feel free to offer your services. Otherwise, I'll eventually remove boardseen and seen variables altogether.
Title: Re: [Poll] Board status icons: what's the point?
Post by: Pandos on March 28th, 2014, 09:56 AM
Sorry, dropped my vote for the wrong choice :)
I'm for the second solution. But if you want to have it fixed, I can look into this.

As far as I can see, it could be a problem with caching and/or sessions. But I must look a bit deeper.
Title: Re: [Poll] Board status icons: what's the point?
Post by: Nao on March 28th, 2014, 10:18 AM
I don't *want* to have it fixed... I tried to, but I don't see the point in spending two days on fixing something that's hard to fix (session variables, YAY!), and that I don't even see the point of. Even back in the SMF days, when I was a die-hard fanatic of the software and didn't consider forking it for a second (well, that wasn't possible anyway), I thought these 'topicseen' links were UGLY and had no point. I never used the feature. I mean, I see these icons, some of which are differently styled, etc, but it's just... There. "Okay. Fine. What else? Let's look at Unread Topics now..."
So, basically, I really think that some competitor added that feature at some point in the early 2000's, let's say it was vBulletin or something else, and the SMF guys got requests from a few people about adding the same thing to SMF. For the life of me, I can't see why you'd want to visit a board BECAUSE it has unread posts. You'd want to view the Unread Topics page. DONE.

(Y'know, you can remove a vote after you cast it, as long as the poll allows it... This one does ;))
Title: Re: [Poll] Board status icons: what's the point?
Post by: Pandos on March 28th, 2014, 10:27 AM
Yeah, just changed my choice :)
And yes. It's very ugly to handle with this kind of things and I believe that the majority of users will use the recent topics feature.
Title: Re: Board icons: what's the point?
Post by: Bunstonious on March 28th, 2014, 11:05 AM
Quote from Nao on March 28th, 2014, 09:29 AM
Don't bother, I just don't like other tools for bitmap editing... Not even recent versions of PSP. This one's something like 10 years old, maybe more, but I just like it better.
Awww, no witty banter? Doesn't matter to me what you use, whatever makes you feel happier.
Quote from Nao on March 28th, 2014, 09:29 AM
I could have used a vector arrow for my screenshot, PSP7 has these, I've used them before, but it would have taken a couple of minutes to get it right, and my goal was to just point at the icons.
Meh, they are fine.
Quote from Nao on March 28th, 2014, 09:29 AM
What's the problem with my funny arrows..?
They're "funny"! lol

Seriously though, doesn't bother me, was just a curiosity.

I use GIMP and Inkscape because they are free, but it's your choice.
Title: Re: [Poll] Board status icons: what's the point?
Post by: Pandos on March 28th, 2014, 11:12 AM
+1 for Gimp :)
Title: Re: [Poll] Board status icons: what's the point?
Post by: Nao on March 28th, 2014, 11:14 AM
Apparently, getting rid of topicseen and boardseen would also allow me to get rid of the log_boards table... Hmm.

It's interesting how all of these log_* tables are unclear in what they're supposed for help us with. (log_boards, log_topics and log_mark_read, most notably.)
Title: Re: [Poll] Board status icons: what's the point?
Post by: Nao on March 28th, 2014, 11:15 PM
Just wanted to point out...
Code is close to finished locally; I've taken the liberty to upload the files here, so you can see the board index in action.

So, basically:

.boardstate_day mixes .inline-block

.boardstate_week extends .boardstate_day
   opacity: .9

.boardstate_month extends .boardstate_day
   opacity: .75

.boardstate_year extends .boardstate_day
   opacity: .6

.boardstate_old extends .boardstate_day
   opacity: .4

.boardstate_redirect extends .boardstate_day
   opacity: .2

So, anything posted within the last day has an opacity of 1, anything posted between 1 month and 1 year ago has an opacity of .75, and anything posted before you were born has an opacity of .4.
From what I can see, it's a fair representation. It's not perfect though, and I'm willing to change this if anyone has something better to suggest. I can also remove one class or more, if it's too 'specific' or not enough.

Also, removing this whole system will save you one SQL query per topic read (one per board; if reading multiple topics within the same board, that's still just one query.)

Removing log_boards felt good, too..! I'll need to update the upgrader to remove it automatically, will be cool.

A classic SMF question that I'll adapt to Wedge, though...: should the main boards (those with an icon) display their age according to their own content, or based on their content + any of their children's contents..? Right now, I'm doing it based on their own content, although it costs me an extra timeformat() per board processed.

Bed time.

PS: I *do* have GIMP 2.8 installed on my PC, I just never launch it because it takes 20 seconds to initialize. PSP7 takes less than a second... And yes, I have a SSD drive and a Core i7 processor...
Title: Re: [Poll] Board status icons: what's the point?
Post by: godboko71 on March 29th, 2014, 05:43 AM
I like the second option best :-)
Title: Re: [Poll] Board status icons: what's the point?
Post by: Nao on March 29th, 2014, 08:42 AM
What second option? The one in the poll, or my last question?
Title: Re: [Poll] Board status icons: what's the point?
Post by: Nao on March 29th, 2014, 08:46 PM
Okay, I've been working on this since yesterday, reviewing the whole stuff for commit, and then it occurred to me...

What would you prefer, now that the "unread posts in this board" thing is removed?

Would you prefer the board status icon to tell you:
1- "This board's latest post is 1 day/1 week/1 month/1 year/+ old" (current solution)
2- "This board's latest post was made after your last visit" (it'll stay turned on until you log out or just leave the forum for 15+ minutes)
3- "This board's latest post was made after your last post" (it'll stay turned on until you post anywhere again)
4- Give a user option to choose between these..?? (Overkill, probably!)

(1) has the advantage of being already written, ah ah. It also encourages you to post in old forums. The main drawback is that the various visual "levels" can be confusing. Which can, of course, be "fixed" by reducing to a couple of levels (new posts today, no new posts today.)

(2) has the advantage of using last_login data, which is free. Or id_msg_last_visit, also free, dunno which would be best for now. Although, if I don't use this, it means I can remove the id_msg_last_visit column from the members table, because I can't think of a good reason to keep it. (It was used in SMF to determine unread posts "for this session", but Pete removed that, although he never removed that item from the table.)

(3) would require recording your message ID to the members table everytime you post something. That's an extra query per post action, although maybe it's already done, but I don't know where.

Please discuss!
Title: Re: [Poll] Board status icons: what's the point?
Post by: Maxx on March 29th, 2014, 09:07 PM
If I could code I'd place the date like a blog does, if this can be done ( on day/month ) with out a big hazel. We have too many " new" red  icons, that I can't stand for board post and like everyone has mentioned, the real handy tools is the unread and recent links!

Not to mention  you can see who posted last on the board index. Or just place a text "!" in there. and for child boards maybe a small green dot like would work?

What would it take, to put a text counter on the recent or unread link side... sorry Bro but I get carried away!
But if you simply remove it, I will not complain. But what to do with the DB ( that cell )?

Hope I'm too far off base!

regards,
Maxx
Title: Re: [Poll] Board status icons: what's the point?
Post by: Johnny54 on March 29th, 2014, 10:19 PM
With the removal of the "unread posts in this board" you destroyed the useabillity of the software.
Using the "unread posts" is extra work and you jump in a unlogical manner through the topics and posts.
Wedge just lost a big part of his value. At least for me.
Title: Re: [Poll] Board status icons: what's the point?
Post by: Maxx on March 29th, 2014, 10:59 PM
We talking about the left side icon on each board Category, (only) Not the unread post or replies! and with possibilities of something other than that icon or elimination of it!

regards,
Maxx
Title: Re: [Poll] Board status icons: what's the point?
Post by: Nao on March 30th, 2014, 12:27 AM
Quote from Maxx on March 29th, 2014, 09:07 PM
Not to mention  you can see who posted last on the board index.
Yes, and as such, you already have a "last updated" date... :^^;:
Quote from Maxx on March 29th, 2014, 09:07 PM
Or just place a text "!" in there. and for child boards maybe a small green dot like would work?
I'm not there yet.
Title: Re: [Poll] Board status icons: what's the point?
Post by: Nao on March 30th, 2014, 10:59 AM
Quote from Johnny54 on March 29th, 2014, 10:19 PM
With the removal of the "unread posts in this board" you destroyed the useabillity of the software.
Hmm... If i had, I'm sure poll voters would have said so.
You chose to vote for the option I didn't vote for and that was in the minority. As such, you should have made a strong case for your choice. You didn't.
Quote from Johnny54 on March 29th, 2014, 10:19 PM
Using the "unread posts" is extra work and you jump in a unlogical manner through the topics and posts.
You're free to use the Unread Posts links next to the board names. The only difference between now and before is that the board ICON will no longer give you a BUGGY unread status for you. It will tell you whether there have been new posts recently. If you're following a few boards only, then it'll be just the same to you. Or just use the general unread posts link and make sure to add specific boards to your ignore list. Dunno what the problem is.
Quote from Johnny54 on March 29th, 2014, 10:19 PM
Wedge just lost a big part of his value. At least for me.
Judging from your lack of participation after Pete left, I'd say you've been thinking that since that day.

Again, Wedge is my vision of great forum software. I'm making decisions to improve usability. You may not agree with them, but if you don't then if you feel concerned, you should participate in discussions instead of contesting my decisions after I made a democratic poll about them.
You could even ask for a Plugin to restore this. Or even a per user setting. Just because I removed that crappy SMF code doesn't mean I can't put a better replacement in.

But no... You have to be aggressive about it. That's not the way to get what you want. Nuff said.

@everyone else, I'm listening to suggestions on the few alternatives I made yesterday. ;)
Title: Re: [Poll] Board status icons: what's the point?
Post by: Bunstonious on March 30th, 2014, 12:02 PM
Quite personally I use the number next to the threads to see if there are unread posts.
Title: Re: [Poll] Board status icons: what's the point?
Post by: Nao on March 30th, 2014, 12:22 PM
Well, that's the idea... ;)
Title: Re: [Poll] Board status icons: what's the point?
Post by: Bunstonious on March 30th, 2014, 03:13 PM
Some people need you to spell it out to them ;)
Title: Re: [Poll] Board status icons: what's the point?
Post by: Johnny54 on March 30th, 2014, 04:36 PM
Maybe my message sounded more harsh than I meant it to do.
It wasn't meant to attack you, only telling I feel lost looking at a list of boards and no sign where there are new posts. I tried to imagine what the effect would be before submitting to the poll. Now after the implementation it it really hit me and I don't like it.
I didn't  get into a discussion because I am not familiar enough with all the terminology and technology involved with the software.
I even had to read your message multiple times to be sure I did understand  before voting.
Quote from Nao on March 30th, 2014, 10:59 AM
Judging from your lack of participation after Pete left, I'd say you've been thinking that since that day.
That's an unfounded conclusion. As I already told you I am not familiar with terminology and programming stuff and lately many discussions are technical and I can hardly participate in those.
Title: Re: [Poll] Board status icons: what's the point?
Post by: Nao on March 30th, 2014, 05:04 PM
Well. Apologies if I was mistaken. But still, I'd rather talk about ways to replace that crappy SMF feature.
So you have this one post to comment on.
http://wedge.org/pub/feats/8550/poll-board-status-icons-what-s-the-point/msg295244/#msg295244
Title: Re: [Poll] Board status icons: what's the point?
Post by: Maxx on March 30th, 2014, 05:13 PM
Well with the unread post and replies, not mention this :
(Last post by Nao in [Poll] Re: Board status ... Today at 10:04 AM)
to right side cell... I see the icon as way over kill, ugly and typical.

Can that Div cell be removed, without screwing up the db, just in the BoardIndex.template?

regards,
Maxx
Title: Re: [Poll] Board status icons: what's the point?
Post by: Nao on March 30th, 2014, 11:32 PM
Well, there are many ways to remove it, of course. Not harm done either way.

I'm surprised no one's trying to discuss the various alternatives I gave...?
Title: Re: [Poll] Board status icons: what's the point?
Post by: Maxx on March 30th, 2014, 11:38 PM
Let me go back and read again... sorry Bro been real  sick today and keeping busy also!

regards,
Maxx
Title: Re: [Poll] Board status icons: what's the point?
Post by: Maxx on March 30th, 2014, 11:52 PM
Don't know if I'm answering correctly to your thoughts, but I say if it's already up, like I mention above in post, one the right hand side it gives the date.time group and author of the last poster.. so that is covered, on the unread post and replies links that's covered, and if you click on the profile of the user you can read when they last posted, so if the question remains to remove or not the Icon, I say get rid of it! or put the last user avatar in there ..oops! where the new post icon is now on the board index template! , just thinking aloud so, excuse me plz >!

Rest maybe over my head!

regards,
Maxx
Title: Re: [Poll] Board status icons: what's the point?
Post by: godboko71 on March 31st, 2014, 02:16 AM
Quote from Nao on March 29th, 2014, 08:42 AM
What second option? The one in the poll, or my last question?
Poll. As for the followup question I like the second option best, though the first option is useable too.Go with your gut!
Title: Re: [Poll] Board status icons: what's the point?
Post by: Nao on April 1st, 2014, 08:07 PM
First option implemented. Fixed, then, I guess..?

Still open to implementing alternatives, but... It's a bit late :P
Title: Re: [Poll] Board status icons: what's the point?
Post by: Johnny54 on April 1st, 2014, 11:01 PM
This is no attack, nor a plea  to change your mind.
Just want to tell how I feel about it now.

Without the icons I felt lost.
Now it looks more familiar but I get really confused.
I am a member on several forums. All different software, but with all I am used that the icons indicate unread messages inside.
Two of the most visited sites use SMF and because Wedge resembles the looks of SMF I get confused by the icons.
I can't imaging I am the only one who experience this.
Maybe It would be easier if Wedge looked different. At least very different icons.
Title: Re: [Poll] Board status icons: what's the point?
Post by: Pandos on April 2nd, 2014, 01:37 PM
Hmm.. is it only me?
Got the "New" icon in two boards (Features & Plugins) on index. By clicking on the "New" icon, there are no unread messages.
Back to index it shows as "New" again.
OK, just get into that board and click "mark all as read". But it's still the same :)
Title: Re: [Poll] Board status icons: what's the point?
Post by: Johnny54 on April 2nd, 2014, 03:40 PM
Not just you. I noticed this too.
Title: Re: [Poll] Board status icons: what's the point?
Post by: Nao on April 2nd, 2014, 11:19 PM
The 'New' icon next to sub-boards was just the same as board status icons: an indicator that a message was posted today in that board. I didn't intend for it to be confusing, I only forgot to change the way it's shown.
I tried doing it differently (adding a custom icon instead of the 'New' text), but it didn't work, so...

Went for a different solution.

A bit crazy but...

1- Board icon opacity still represents the board's activity, i.e. date of the most recent post.
2- Redirect board icon now has a glyph to indicate it's a redirect board. (Can't be seen here, but..)
3- Sub-boards NO LONGER show an activity indicator, and instead they show you the exact number of unread posts in that board. (Main boards also do that, next to the board name.)

Yes, you read it right... The very thing I removed from Wedge this week because it was buggy. I somehow "fixed" it, and made it more interesting, by actually giving you the number of unread posts for a board.

The only problem is that it tends to give too much information now. Ah ah. The problem is not EVEN the performance of that query. It just is satisfying to me. It takes something like a millisecond to run -- faster than most other queries used to get the board list!

What do you think..? Feel free to comment on points 1 and 3 (given that 2 isn't visible for now.)
Posted: April 2nd, 2014, 11:06 PM
Quote from Nao on April 2nd, 2014, 11:06 PM
It takes something like a millisecond to run -- faster than most other queries used to get the board list!
Correction-- the unread topic query takes a millisecond to run, while the unread boards query takes a tenth of a second to run. That's much higher. Maybe the query can be optimized (it's currently using a filesort, and I'm afraid I'm still not comfortable enough with finding ways to improve on that), possibly by adding some safeguards or maybe new columns.

Still, it's a cool addition, and even if it doesn't make it to Wedge, it might make it to a user setting of sorts, something that could be disabled by default, so that only those who WANT it can view the number of unread board posts.
Title: Re: [Poll] Board status icons: what's the point?
Post by: Johnny54 on April 3rd, 2014, 01:11 AM
At first glance it looks good.
I will hold back my definite answer till after seeing it work with more unread post.
That will probably be tomorrow evening.
Title: Re: [Poll] Board status icons: what's the point?
Post by: Nao on April 3rd, 2014, 09:38 AM
Quote from Johnny54 on April 3rd, 2014, 01:11 AM
At first glance it looks good.
Well I personally have tons of unread posts in every single board (some boards with 600+ unread posts), and I can tell you it doesn't look great. I even had to go for the 'void' version of the notice (gray color), because it was so plain in my face otherwise. It still looks bad. I should probably rewrite this to use a regular font to show the number of unread posts. But it will then definitely be out of touch with the rest of the website.
Quote from Johnny54 on April 3rd, 2014, 01:11 AM
I will hold back my definite answer till after seeing it work with more unread post.
New users, too, will probably have tons of unread posts...
Unless I do something to mark all posts before their registration as read... Hmm. I have the registration date in the members table, so I guess I could even add a test for that without having to modify the log_topics/log_mark_read tables or anything.

Okay, so... Anyone else..?
Title: Re: [Poll] Board status icons: what's the point?
Post by: Farjo on April 3rd, 2014, 12:44 PM
That's excellent. Personally I'd like it in the orange so it sticks out more but like Johnny I need to wait until there are more unread posts.

Good thinking about the new members.
Title: Re: [Poll] Board status icons: what's the point?
Post by: Maxx on April 3rd, 2014, 05:48 PM
I like the numbers with out the gray or read color...!

To me there are too many distractions and forums have a real cluster Fxyx effect in there looks ( too busy looking ) Right now I see only "(numbers)" and that is a much cleaner look for me. Not  big fan of icons.. at least when not needed :)!

regards,
Maxx
Title: Re: [Poll] Board status icons: what's the point?
Post by: Nao on April 3rd, 2014, 08:34 PM
Same here. But OTOH, something too soft might be seen as dull.

Worst of all, people tend to judge a forum software not by its features, but by its out-of-the-box look. Someone at admin-zone or something said that Wedge was good software if you liked your forum "creamy". He probably never even bothered to switch to another skin... Just a dropdown away! Anyway... Things like this..? People will notice.
Title: Re: [Poll] Board status icons: what's the point?
Post by: Maxx on April 3rd, 2014, 09:39 PM
Yes...

But your probably right. seems all things must please cluster. 

I'm working on a color scheme called "Hunter", and it's not creaming,
you know where to see it Nao! Big mess but still finding my way lol!

What do the say about WordPress, it's just a header and the Blah Blah Blah! take out the pictures, then look.

regards,
Maxx

Title: Re: [Poll] Board status icons: what's the point?
Post by: Nao on April 3rd, 2014, 11:24 PM
Well, WordPress is popular, not because of its skins but because it was GPL when most of the competition was either bad, or commercial. (At the time, people didn't really know that GPL could be just as problematic as commercial licenses.)

Anyway, no need to wait for "more messages to be posted", especially as these days wedge.org tends to be a bit empty... So I'm doing three screenshots for you guys, with my unread posts. Yes, there are A LOT[1]. Most of these are from posting sprees by Arantor. I tended to just shy away when he did that...

1/ Current version. Very simple, nice. Only problem: doesn't match unread topic indicator styling.

2/ Alternative version that matches unread topic indicator styling. As you can see, it's... kinda overwhelming.

3/ Alternative version where I've tried a new styling for note classes. Basically, no more inverted colors. This is still 'noticeable' per se, yet doesn't overwhelm as in (2). And it's only barely more complex than (1).

What's your favorite, guys..?
 1. I decided to allow for regular members and guests to view the private board list. It's not really a "secret" anyway, and it gives a better example of a busy forum.
Title: Re: [Poll] Board status icons: what's the point?
Post by: Maxx on April 3rd, 2014, 11:32 PM
I like 1 and 3, with 3 as my favorite, simple clean and yet detailed..

2 looks too busy for me.  sorry!

regards,
Maxx
Title: Re: [Poll] Board status icons: what's the point?
Post by: Bunstonious on April 3rd, 2014, 11:33 PM
Should make it Pink :P

Disclaimer
This post was a joke.
Title: Re: [Poll] Board status icons: what's the point?
Post by: Nao on April 3rd, 2014, 11:48 PM
Quote from Maxx on April 3rd, 2014, 11:32 PM
I like 1 and 3, with 3 as my favorite, simple clean and yet detailed..

2 looks too busy for me.  sorry!
Same here. Only problem with 3 is that a "New" icon next to the latest unread post INSIDE a topic will be barely noticeable.
Then again... Apart from power users like me, I'm not sure anyone even bothers to notice that the first unread post has such an icon. (Just look at the title in this very post. It should have the icon if you're reading it for the first time. Moving that to a B&W icon is underwhelming, this time.)
Title: Re: [Poll] Board status icons: what's the point?
Post by: Maxx on April 4th, 2014, 12:06 AM
Nao... please don't get me wrong I like the color.... It's just too much of it, and allot over kill in the unread department, if you know what I mean... if you place only the number of post or unread, that will be cool to me. I know this not the place But... I feel too many forums just look the same to me and I get bit bored ... and the WEDGE and another system or fork we both know, are different and look more social than just another forum. Now I don know if some here are trying to see you fail at this but I want very much for it to be, and to be OUT of the Box, of the ordinary, if get my thoughts.

Now Like mentioned earlier Word press is nothing but a Header image, until it get the user's content in their, and that what I'm saying, I have done at least 30 theme from WP and does nothing for the system until content is added. I'm seeing through my testing that there many skin possibilities, However if they are too complex, after the content is added pictures ads and what not it will be a mess.. or Cluster of distraction.
Now if the Above poster want pink, he's free to make it pink... too many want things that have no value in a community, as the content has and the great framework the system is built on.

regards,
Maxx
Title: Re: [Poll] Board status icons: what's the point?
Post by: Bunstonious on April 4th, 2014, 01:15 AM
Sorry, not sure if it was obvious, the pink remark was a joke.
Title: Re: [Poll] Board status icons: what's the point?
Post by: Maxx on April 4th, 2014, 01:55 AM
Not trying to be rude, but, 2 replies and you still don't post what you prefer 1, 2 or 3 it very easy..
not a joke!

regards,
Maxx
Title: Re: [Poll] Board status icons: what's the point?
Post by: Johnny54 on April 4th, 2014, 02:21 AM
Option 1 is ok.
Option 2 looks very familiar with the orange.
Option 3 is a very nice mix. It's doesn't pop out to much, but enough to be noticeable

My favorites are  2 and 3 with a slight preference for 3.
Title: Re: [Poll] Board status icons: what's the point?
Post by: Bunstonious on April 4th, 2014, 02:52 AM
Quote from Maxx on April 4th, 2014, 01:55 AM
Not trying to be rude, but, 2 replies and you still don't post what you prefer 1, 2 or 3 it very easy..
not a joke!

regards,
Maxx
It's also very easy to not be rude, but you still managed it.

@Nao : I prefer 1, but perhaps you can have an option in AdminCP to have either 3.
Title: Re: [Poll] Board status icons: what's the point?
Post by: Pandos on April 4th, 2014, 09:39 AM
Very difficult question :)
For this is for the actual look of Wedge that can be changed in CSS, I'd prefer the third option. :)
Title: Re: [Poll] Board status icons: what's the point?
Post by: Farjo on April 4th, 2014, 10:56 AM
3 looks good, it's noticeable without shouting :) Would have to see it in action to judge how it looks within a topic though.


"I decided to allow for regular members and guests to view the private board list. It's not really a "secret" anyway, and it gives a better example of a busy forum."
Do you mean just in those pictures or generally?
Title: Re: [Poll] Board status icons: what's the point?
Post by: godboko71 on April 4th, 2014, 07:48 PM
I like the orange, I prefer the third option. The first option is kind of underwhelming.
Title: Re: [Poll] Board status icons: what's the point?
Post by: Nao on April 4th, 2014, 11:53 PM
'kay, I'll try #3 as an alternative for the current stuff.

Yes Farjo, just the pictures.

Regarding the feature, I've hit a wall, and I don't know what to do.
- Spending 0.15s to 0.3s per page doing that query is out of the question for me.
- I tried to optimize it. I failed.
- Then I decided I'd give a try to retrieving only the EXISTENCE of an unread message for every board, instead of the number of unread messages. That would be faster, wouldn't it..? Wrong. At best, I get the same performance. At worst, I "optimize" the query even more and I end up with a 0.4s query... Uh, uh.
- Unless someone can help with optimizing (@Pandos?), I have to give up on this one.
- So, I also tried to cache the results... Of course, it's super fast this way. However, I'd have to clear the cache every time either log_topics or log_mark_read tables are modified... *And* every time a new message is posted, of course. I suspect that Wedge would thus spend way more time invalidating the cache, than actually reading from it.
- Finally, the last alternative is to add a user setting, disabled by default (to help with performance). This is a bit of a cop-out, and doesn't have the same 'wow' factor.
- Oh yes, yet another alternative would be that I restore log_boards... Ah, ah! Just kidding. Not only is it too late, but I removed the table for a reason.
- Also the possibility of just removing the feature, at the cost of upsetting Johnny54. I've spent a couple of days on this, and I don't know what's worse to me... Spending another couple of days on it (with the risk that it fails to work), or just accepting that Wedge won't please everyone.

Please feel free to comment on any of the points I mentioned in this post. I'm at a complete loss, and honestly if I don't get feedback on this, I'm prepared to remove the feature without second thoughts.
Title: Re: [Poll] Board status icons: what's the point?
Post by: Pandos on April 4th, 2014, 11:58 PM
@Nao:
I'll take a look into it.
But not before Monday. Hope this is OK for you.
Title: Re: [Poll] Board status icons: what's the point?
Post by: Johnny54 on April 5th, 2014, 10:58 AM
No matter what you decide, I thank you for trying to implement something you already had discarded just to satisfy a few members.
If it can't be done in a normal way without to many consequences than it simply can't be done.
It's like you said. It's impossible to make something that pleases everybody.

Please allow one last stupid question on this.
There's already a list with all unread topics, complete with boardnames etc.
What makes it so hard to have a indication per board that the board has unread topics.
I'm not hindered with any knowledge of programming and would think that it's just a matter of looking in that list en put a mark somewhere.
Is that to time consuming, or is it more complicated than I think.
Title: Re: [Poll] Board status icons: what's the point?
Post by: Maxx on April 5th, 2014, 09:34 PM
I know this not Wedge and It's only how I like things to appear, this is on my main site SMF. Just look see!

Not saying wedge should be like this, just saying I don't care for holding hands so to speak, I can't see where anyone would need anymore info than is there! :)
Screen below:

regards,
Maxx
Title: Re: [Poll] Board status icons: what's the point?
Post by: Nao on April 6th, 2014, 12:22 AM
Update is online here...

Can you spell "boring"?!

I don't know what you'll think. I'm not happy with it, personally. I do like the effect on the main menu, though. Also maybe on the notification popups. The rest... Not so much. Not enough visible on topic pages, not enough on unread counters either.

Please share opinions.
Or, even better, screenshots of how you think it could be improved!

Note: I've reached the 100-day milestone on github's "longest streak", and as I promised myself I wouldn't go beyond that (I only kept committing everyday because I didn't want to end my longest streak on an unlucky number, but above 100 means I'd have to do that every six months, err, don't bother), I probably won't commit anything tomorrow. Or, if I do, I'll try to rewrite history so that it shows as from the day before... :P
Posted: April 6th, 2014, 12:08 AM
Quote from Pandos on April 4th, 2014, 11:58 PM
@Nao:
I'll take a look into it.
But not before Monday. Hope this is OK for you.
Well, I gave up yesterday, so you're my only hope at this point. :lol:

Honestly, I'd be happy with just a quick query that finds at least one unread post in every board, and stops after that. But I don't think it'll work in making the query faster.

Right now, here's what the query does:
- Gather all id_msg
- Gather all read positions (log_topics...)
- For each msg, determine if its topic is in the read topics list. If yes, if current msg is > msg of the read topics list, then consider we have unread posts in that topic. Mark as unread.
- If not, then try to find the same in log_mark_read.
- If not, then it means we never marked the topic as read, so it's unread. Mark as unread.
- Then, we just group by board.

One of the things that could be done to improve everything, is to store the last id_msg that was sent at the time of our registration. This would serve as a 'threshold', i.e. any posts sent BEFORE my registration should be marked as read.

I don't remember what log_mark_read does. I think it marks a board as read, meaning it makes our work much easier.
However, wasn't that what log_boards was supposed to do..? Hmm... I don't really remember. I'm tired. Bed time!
Posted: April 6th, 2014, 12:19 AM
Quote from Johnny54 on April 5th, 2014, 10:58 AM
Please allow one last stupid question on this.
There's already a list with all unread topics, complete with boardnames etc.
What makes it so hard to have a indication per board that the board has unread topics.
Well, that's what it's doing right now... If it has a number, then it's unread.
It's more precise than the old system. But it's also much slower.

And whether I store read status or number of unread posts, it's the same: it's very slow. I tried to cache that data, it makes it very fast of course, but it requires a load of work that I'm unwilling to put in for now. (Emptying the whole cache everytime a new post is sent somewhere or any of many other actions is performed, seems like unnecessary crap.)
Title: Re: [Poll] Board status icons: what's the point?
Post by: Maxx on April 6th, 2014, 12:56 AM
Yes now that I see it... looks boring. would another color be out of the question, orange, ( I don't how to describe sloppy for me) maybe a medium green : #8A9C92, or medium, Blue ? and less radius. but I would not spend allot of time on this. If need to keep it orange then. let it be!

regards,
Maxx
Title: Re: [Poll] Board status icons: what's the point?
Post by: Maxx on April 6th, 2014, 01:09 AM
Medium green or olive like!
Not so boring and not so bold!

last one bright green grad!
Title: Re: [Poll] Board status icons: what's the point?
Post by: Nao on April 6th, 2014, 12:24 PM
Theres already a green variation (.notenice)... Its used on likes where you clicked on like yourself.
Title: Re: [Poll] Board status icons: what's the point?
Post by: CerealGuy on April 6th, 2014, 12:58 PM
Theres too much lookin the same. Messages & Notifications & Likes in Thoughts have the same style. I prefered the old way of the look. But the feature at itself is nice, even if i think its only interesting for latest topics or topics where i have "contact" to. For example if i replied on it or liked something of it. Otherwise its too much information.
Title: Re: [Poll] Board status icons: what's the point?
Post by: Nao on April 6th, 2014, 01:21 PM
Quote from CerealGuy on April 6th, 2014, 12:58 PM
Theres too much lookin the same. Messages & Notifications & Likes in Thoughts have the same style.
It's always been the case...!
They were all orange. The only thing I changed is the notification buttons. They used to be either orange or gray, now they're either orange or white.
Quote from CerealGuy on April 6th, 2014, 12:58 PM
I prefered the old way of the look. But the feature at itself is nice, even if i think its only interesting for latest topics or topics where i have "contact" to. For example if i replied on it or liked something of it. Otherwise its too much information.
Hmm... Dunno. Why not just use "Unread Replies", then...? Regular users never participate in MANY topics, and as such, they won't be overwhelmed by the information in that area...
Title: Re: [Poll] Board status icons: what's the point?
Post by: Nao on April 6th, 2014, 01:28 PM
Quote from Pandos on April 4th, 2014, 11:58 PM
@Nao:
I'll take a look into it.
But not before Monday. Hope this is OK for you.
Okay, regarding optimization, I was able to slash the 0.2s query time down to about 0.02s at most... That's a factor of ten.
How did I do it..? Ahem.
I added an index on {db_prefix}messages.poster_time, and then simply added "m.id_msg > UNIX_TIMESTAMP() - 30 * 24 * 3600" before the big id_msg tests.
As a result, only the unread posts sent in the last month are shown, of course. But it's much better than taking the entire database into account.

Also, I turned the LEFT JOINs into sub-selects. I don't think it's helping with performance, though. It's only making it easier to understand. In fact, EXPLAIN gives me the exact same output (Using where; using filesort) if I don't use the timestamp index.

For reference, here's the new query.

Code: [Select]
SELECT COUNT(DISTINCT m.id_msg) AS co, m.id_board
FROM {db_prefix}messages AS m
WHERE m.poster_time > UNIX_TIMESTAMP() - 30 * 24 * 3600
   AND (
      m.id_msg >
      IFNULL(
         (SELECT lt.id_msg FROM {db_prefix}log_topics AS lt WHERE (lt.id_topic = m.id_topic AND lt.id_member = 1)),
         IFNULL(
            (SELECT lmr.id_msg FROM {db_prefix}log_mark_read AS lmr WHERE (lmr.id_board = m.id_board AND lmr.id_member = 1)),
            0
         )
      )
   )
GROUP BY m.id_board

What do you think..?
As a reminder, the unread topic counter is pretty much the same query, it only replaces 'id_board' with 'id_topic', and EXPLAIN doesn't give me a "Using filesort". Well, of course it's probably because it's reduced to a very limited number of messages to begin with... ;)
Title: Re: [Poll] Board status icons: what's the point?
Post by: madfitz on April 6th, 2014, 11:34 PM
FWIW, I was happy with orange or grey. I don't know what might be visually "better" but... yeah, the new look is boring ;)
Title: Re: [Poll] Board status icons: what's the point?
Post by: Pandos on April 7th, 2014, 12:01 PM
@Nao
is the new query live?
Can't see it in my repo.
I like the idea of using subselects. :)
Perhaps we can simply return poster_time with a limit by 30? So we get rid of the restriction for the last month?

If not we can perhaps replace GROUP BY to prevent filesorts.

Will look into this today.
Title: Re: [Poll] Board status icons: what's the point?
Post by: Pandos on April 7th, 2014, 05:37 PM
I'm currently at 0,00042s with the new query :eheh:
But I want more :)
Title: Re: [Poll] Board status icons: what's the point?
Post by: Nao on April 7th, 2014, 06:51 PM
With my new query? Well yeah of course it's faster. Often faster than the unread topics query, as I expected...

I just wanted to find a way to GI through all topics with it.
Also, I think subselects slow it down.
With a couple of left joins, we're sure it'll run these once per query. With a sub, I don't know if it'll cache the results. These tables are probably not big enough I think to justify getting rid of the left joins.
Try coming back to a left join, and benchmark. ;)

File sort is only used on the full query. And if we get hundreds of results, it's most certainly faster to do the sort by sqp rather than php...

Also I'm thinking. Instead of taking the last month worth of posts... Maybe just the new posts since last session..? Like unread topics by default in SMF (this was removed from Wedge but peter forgot to remove the corresponding database field.)
Title: Re: [Poll] Board status icons: what's the point?
Post by: Pandos on April 7th, 2014, 07:08 PM
I already have the (your) new query running without using filesorts :)
Subselects are really better than joins.

So in my upcoming commit there will be some changes to the database. Adding a view indexes to harmonize this query and to get rid of filesorts (yeah, if data is indexed, MySQL is smart enough to use them. Even subselect ones).
Code: [Select]
$where = $is_boards ? 'id_board' : 'id_topic';
$request = wesql::query('
  SELECT COUNT(DISTINCT m.id_msg) AS co, m.id_board
  FROM {db_prefix}messages AS m
  WHERE m.poster_time >= (UNIX_TIMESTAMP(NOW()) - 30 * 24 * 3600)
      AND (
        m.id_msg >
        IFNULL(
        (SELECT lt.id_msg FROM {db_prefix}log_topics AS lt WHERE (lt.id_topic = m.id_topic AND lt.id_member = 1)),
        IFNULL(
        (SELECT lmr.id_msg FROM {db_prefix}log_mark_read AS lmr WHERE (lmr.id_board = m.id_board AND lmr.id_member = 1)),
                0
            )
          )
        )
        ORDER BY ' . $where . ' DESC',
array(
'id_member' => MID,
'has_unread' => $has_unread
)
);

Title: Re: [Poll] Board status icons: what's the point?
Post by: Pandos on April 7th, 2014, 07:21 PM
Another way is to write it all in a Cookie. But the disatvantage is that if someone is logged with another Computer, all topics are unread again  :yahoo:
Title: Re: [Poll] Board status icons: what's the point?
Post by: Nao on April 7th, 2014, 09:34 PM
Yeah it's a nono.

Tried both subselect and left join queries. Without any restrictions, the former seems to be twice slower. Are you sure it's really better..? More readable yeah but better I don't know.

Also why did you remove the group by? PhP parsing isn't the best...
Title: Re: [Poll] Board status icons: what's the point?
Post by: Pandos on April 7th, 2014, 10:02 PM
Not only more readable.
Sub-select was more efficient for this query in my tests.
More efficient means also it takes less CPU to perform. And (at this time) we use it for a limited dataset.
So it should be OK. If you misbehave, feel free to leave it by left join.
Forgot to mention: to get this query using the index, you must post something to start the magic :)

ORDER BY / GROUP BY:
I've changed it because we don't aggregating that much data ( sum(), max(), avg() ).

So here's the point:
If we're using this query with "ORDER BY", we get the full benefit from index.
If we're using GROUP BY, the query will start a partial filesort.

You can give it a shot and look how it's performing here on Wedge. The changes can easily be reverted:)
Title: Re: [Poll] Board status icons: what's the point?
Post by: Nao on April 10th, 2014, 12:20 AM
Quote from Pandos on April 7th, 2014, 10:02 PM
Not only more readable.
Sub-select was more efficient for this query in my tests.
Last test I did on wedge.org had an average query time of 0.15s for LEFT JOIN, and 0.4s for the sub-select. :-/
Quote from Pandos on April 7th, 2014, 10:02 PM
Forgot to mention: to get this query using the index, you must post something to start the magic :)
But Wedge (and SMF) ALWAYS have at least one post at install time..?
Quote from Pandos on April 7th, 2014, 10:02 PM
ORDER BY / GROUP BY:
I've changed it because we don't aggregating that much data ( sum(), max(), avg() ).
I don't get how your updated query (the one your pushed to GH) would work. It doesn't do the same thing as my 'naos' query...
Quote from Pandos on April 7th, 2014, 10:02 PM
So here's the point:
If we're using this query with "ORDER BY", we get the full benefit from index.
If we're using GROUP BY, the query will start a partial filesort.
Unless it does a preliminary sort on id_msg > a_certain_date... In which case, I'm not seeing 'using filesort' in the explain column. I told you, MySQL optimization is still quite an unknown for me. (I probably should read the book Pete sent me after he left Wedge, but... Ahem... It's in such a poor condition, I've never tried to use it. Its place should be in the trashcan, honestly.)
Quote from Pandos on April 7th, 2014, 10:02 PM
You can give it a shot and look how it's performing here on Wedge. The changes can easily be reverted:)
Yup...
Title: Re: [Poll] Board status icons: what's the point?
Post by: Pandos on April 10th, 2014, 09:06 AM
OK, just a simple comparison.
First the new query with indexes:

Code: [Select]
SELECT COUNT(DISTINCT m.id_msg) AS co, m.id_board
FROM wedge_messages AS m
WHERE m.poster_time >= (UNIX_TIMESTAMP(NOW()) - 30 * 24 * 3600)
AND (
m.id_msg >
IFNULL(
(SELECT lt.id_msg FROM wedge_log_topics AS lt WHERE (lt.id_topic = m.id_topic AND lt.id_member = 1)),
IFNULL(
(SELECT lmr.id_msg FROM wedge_log_mark_read AS lmr WHERE (lmr.id_board = m.id_board AND lmr.id_member = 1)),
0
)
)
)
ORDER BY id_board DESC
Quote
in .../gz/app/Subs.php Zeile 1390, betrÃĪgt 0.00048804 Sekunden bei 0.05243492 der Abfrage.
Now see how it's used:

Code: [Select]
id   select_type                           table      type   possible_keys   key   key_len   ref   rows   Extra
1   PRIMARY                                 m        index      m                   17              2     Using where; Using index

OK, let's take a look at he actual query:

Code: [Select]
SELECT COUNT(DISTINCT m.id_msg) AS co, m.id_board
FROM wedge_messages AS m[color=black]
   LEFT JOIN wedge_log_topics AS lt ON (lt.id_topic = m.id_topic AND lt.id_member = 1)
   LEFT JOIN wedge_log_mark_read AS lmr ON (lmr.id_board = m.id_board AND lmr.id_member = 1)
WHERE m.id_board IN (1, 2)
   AND (m.id_msg > IFNULL(lt.id_msg, IFNULL(lmr.id_msg, 0)))
GROUP BY m.id_board
   ORDER BY null
Quote
in .../gz/app/Subs.php line 1383, which took 0.00051093 seconds at 0.05717301 into request.
Now how it's used:
Code: [Select]
id select_type table type    possible_keys key key_len ref rows Extra
1 SIMPLE         m        ALL PRIMARY,id_board                   3     Using where; Using filesort

I think we should give it a try.
Quote
But Wedge (and SMF) ALWAYS have at least one post at install time..?
Yes, but to get the index begin to work you'll have to post one NEW message :)

If you want to stick with left joins, we could try to adding new indexes to DB.
Because the difference isn't that much. Isn't it?
Title: Re: [Poll] Board status icons: what's the point?
Post by: Auk on April 10th, 2014, 10:19 PM
Lol, I do not use this feature at all. Other than to see the pretty icons, if they are any unique.

Users (myself included) on really big forums might not even care to read the many forum categories on the board index page. On a busy forum, it might be a bit too much to read/catch up. So without actually reading through all the topics, this feature effectively becomes useless, especially with the time since last message is posted as Nao pointed out.

Other than forum "lock", "redirect" icons, It's just for decorations. I will not miss this feature. So let's just have: Normal/Nao's idea, locked and redirect (and anything else other than new/old.)

Other uses of that feature, for a "themed" forum, transparent icons can be replaced with something cool (For example, planets with a tiny bar beneath, the bar goes up as planet gets bigger) if you're into Black Nova Traders game. :)
Title: Re: [Poll] Board status icons: what's the point?
Post by: Nao on April 16th, 2014, 04:51 PM
I've tweaked this to search on unread posts since last visit, instead of a month ago. This allows me to avoid adding an extra index to the message table, which is already overcrowded as it is, ah ah...

Anyway, I realize that it's all looking like we're back to square one (only two icon states: read posts or unread posts), but at least now I'll be able to show a clear number of unread posts, unlike previously!
Title: Re: [Poll] Board status icons: what's the point?
Post by: Nao on April 16th, 2014, 11:02 PM
Everything good..?
Title: Re: [Poll] Board status icons: what's the point?
Post by: Johnny54 on April 17th, 2014, 12:03 AM
All is looking good and as for as I can see working just fine.
Thanks.
Title: Re: [Poll] Board status icons: what's the point?
Post by: Nao on April 17th, 2014, 04:46 PM
Yup, all good for me... And everyone else I guess. No comments = no complaints. ;)
Title: Re: [Poll] Board status icons: what's the point?
Post by: Nao on June 15th, 2014, 01:05 AM
Does this topic need any more attention from me..? Esp. the whole MySQL thing...