Mr Ekted Posted December 29, 2003 Report Posted December 29, 2003 I've been whining about skins/etc here for quite a while, so I decided to post some real comments. My experience in software development is rather extensive. One of the things I dealt with a lot is interfaces. I am very -- some would say overly -- sensitive to poorly layed out, poorly functional (from a UI point of view), and non-intuitive interfaces. Let's take a look at the default skin at ssforum on the main page with regards to interfaces. These comments are not directed at the people who run ssforums since they didn't design this stuff. Wasted space. The ssforum !@#$%^&*le bar, "site home", help, search, members, calendar, view new posts, my !@#$%^&*istant, the lines "SSForum.Net - SubSpace Forums Network latest news: Forum Skins" and "Welcome back; your last visit was on Dec 29 2003, 04:13 PM", moderating team, today's active topics, today's top 10 posters, overall top 10 posters, the entire board statistics table, delete cookies set by this board, script execution time, 10 queries used, and gzip enabled are wasted space. I either never use them or only use them once a month. They belong either at the bottom of the page (a few of them), on some other misc page, or just plain removed. Proper placement. Similar to wasted space. Things I use all the time should be accessible. I use "mark all posts as read" every time I come to ssforum. It should be on top. Of course, I wouldn't need this feature at all if the forums worked properly (see forum design/layout). Forum Design/Layout. Nested forums is just stupid...period. If I see a forum marked as having a new post, I don't want to go into it only to have a sub-forum be the only thing that has changed. In fact I don't want to see a sub-forum at all. If I did, I would add it to my top-level list. There are 36 forums visible on the main page. I view 6 of them (when I am active here). Yet I am burdened with 36 plus sub-forums. Hopefully the hack swift mentioned will take care of this. It is beyond me how this forum was ever made without that basic functionality--not the mods here, but the makers of IPB. Intuitive. It should be obvious what the colors and graphics mean when viewing a skin. To the left of each forum there are icons. Some have color, some are grayed/faded, some have arrows or other symbols. I have no idea what all the variations mean. Clicking on the icon itself seems to make the icon change. I have no idea what this does. Inside the forums are yet a new set of indecipherable icons (red/blue/orange envelopes with flaps and dots and arrows and locks) and another column with such things as pins (with the bold word Pinned right next to it...can we say redundant). Oh wait...there's a little table at the bottom showing what all the icons are for! Do not waste more space to make up for non-intuitive interface.
Trained Posted December 30, 2003 Report Posted December 30, 2003 But ekted, what if some people need the stuff and use the "Members" "My !@#$%^&*istant" n such? I mean, I dont but some people might.
SVS Posted December 30, 2003 Report Posted December 30, 2003 Need to have the option to remove and add the forums you wish to view when you goto the main page.
Mr Ekted Posted December 30, 2003 Author Report Posted December 30, 2003 But ekted, what if some people need the stuff and use the "Members" "My !@#$%^&*istant" n such? I mean, I dont but some people might.Maybe the next step in forum systems is drag-n-drop skins. Everyone can completely customize what they see.
Trained Posted December 30, 2003 Report Posted December 30, 2003 Someone should make a mod for that. Like the PHP Website that you get with fantastico, when you buy a domain at certain places, you can move certain blocks and delete them, ect.
attackmonkeys Posted January 5, 2004 Report Posted January 5, 2004 i can view and write posts...its fiiiiiiiiine
Dav Posted January 5, 2004 Report Posted January 5, 2004 well with the subforumws, dome of them are useless li,ke the lounge being withing genral discussion, it sould be in that block with genral, political and zone discussion. i do think zone or squad subforms are a good idea because that lets zone members and squad menbers have discussions in a smaller group with people thay play alongside in SS
Jimster Posted January 9, 2004 Report Posted January 9, 2004 wtf...... invision make this system, go on their forums and moan, it has nothing to do with ssforum, make a skin then you will see what patience it takes to get it just rite.
»1587200 Posted January 9, 2004 Report Posted January 9, 2004 Actually Invision doesn't bother making skins for it either, they let everyone else do that. All they make is the default skin. You can go to http://www.ibplanet.com and request the mod for it. It has probably already been requested, or it's in the works. But it never hurts.
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