Forum Layout

[RealBlackStuff]

I assume this forum is for comments and criticisms.

The first thing I noticed is the rather sloppy layout of the board. Individual forums are more or less discernible, but once inside a forum it gets messy.

The second thing I noticed is a missing 'Reply' button at the bottom of a thread. (This may be due to my personal settings not being optimal).

Going around the forum is not intuitive at all. When I am e.g. in my Profile, there is no 'Go to the Forums' button.

If this forum is NOT mentioned for this, perhaps a separate forum should be opened for stuff like this, which forum should be deleted before the website goes public!

[rkawakami]

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RealBlackStuff wrote:
I assume this forum is for comments and criticisms.

That's my understanding too!

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RealBlackStuff wrote:
The first thing I noticed is the rather sloppy layout of the board. Individual forums are more or less discernible, but once inside a forum it gets messy.

This might take some getting used to. Coming from phpBB at TPF it's quite a different beast here.

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RealBlackStuff wrote:
The second thing I noticed is a missing 'Reply' button at the bottom of a thread.

There is actually a reply button for EACH post. If you are operating under the "Linear Format" in your profile perferences (the default) then it will look like phpBB. However, since this board software supports threaded views, hitting the reply button to a certain post will associate your post to that one.

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RealBlackStuff wrote:
Going around the forum is not intuitive at all. When I am e.g. in my Profile, there is no 'Go to the Forums' button.

The "lenovo community" text at the bottom of the black banner area at the top of the screen is actually a link back to the forum index.

[Esteban_Lenovo]

RealBlackStuff,

I welcome your input (as well as other's) into how to improve the layout. I'd much appreciate all feedback on the general usability, navigation and look and feel.

I think it is far from perfect right now, there's a lot of room for improvement and all insights are über-welcome. I don't foresee any changes happening soon; we'll launch the board pretty much as is, but over time some design and usability iterations will happen, thus this thread is of great interest to me.

No filters here, please, be as ruthless as you feel you need to be (keeping it Civil, of course!!) to make remarks on things that need improvement.

Thanks,

[andyP Community SuperMod]

Esteban_Lenovo

That sounds like an invitation not to be turned down

For starters, the forum seems to be programmed on a fixed dpi width, probably about 1000? I've logged in using my T43 and an X61s, with the T43 SXGA+ I have dead realestate on either side of the forum, with the X61s XGA this more or less dissapears. This dead realestate would be alot greater on alot of wide-screens. I don't want to start a display / resolution discussion, (well known at FTC), but is it / would it be possible to set the forum width to 100% instead of fixed?

Andy

[Esteban_Lenovo]

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andyP wrote:

Esteban_Lenovo

That sounds like an invitation not to be turned down

For starters, the forum seems to be programmed on a fixed dpi width, probably about 1000? I've logged in using my T43 and an X61s, with the T43 SXGA+ I have dead realestate on either side of the forum, with the X61s XGA this more or less dissapears. This dead realestate would be alot greater on alot of wide-screens. I don't want to start a display / resolution discussion, (well known at FTC), but is it / would it be possible to set the forum width to 100% instead of fixed?

Andy

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It is a change we can contemplate for the future. I'm not too fond of variable widths myself [insert usability lecture here], but I do agree there is some "wasted real estate" on higher resolutions (1400 x 1250 in my T60p, for instance).

I personally find some ammount of whitespace make reading easier, but all comments are taken into account for whenever we'll make a new design itteration.

Regards,

[JHEM]

Hola Esteban,

A few quick thoughts WRT Lithium that I'll add to as time allows.

How does the Lithium software remember what messages have been read in a thread, if it indeed does. I can see when new messages are noted in a thread, but clicking on its header doesn't take one to the newest post but rather the first post in the thread.

Is there any method whereby we can quote text contained in another message other than manually cutting and pasting?

James

[rkawakami]

James,

I can answer the last one... Each post has its own Reply button. Clicking that button will lead you to a message composition window. Depending upon the default editor (HTML or graphical [WYSIWYG]; setting is in your Profile/Preferences tab), you will see a "Quote Post" button (HTML editor) or a white balloon icon (graphical editor, between the strikethrough and smiley icons).

Since Lithium appears to be setup for threaded views as well as a linear display (like phpBB; and also controllable from your Preferences tab), that's the reason for each post to have its own reply button.

And now, looking at the Preferences tab, there's an "Automatically Jump to the First Unread Message in a Thread" option. That probably will do what you want.

[Esteban_Lenovo]

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JHEM wrote:
Hola Esteban,

A few quick thoughts WRT Lithium that I'll add to as time allows.

How does the Lithium software remember what messages have been read in a thread, if it indeed does. I can see when new messages are noted in a thread, but clicking on its header doesn't take one to the newest post but rather the first post in the thread.
James

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Hola James!

If you click on the new message number under the "new" column on the thread view it takes you directly to the first new message. As for how lithium remembers what is new, I can't tell since I don't have access to the backend. That being said I'd expect it to store those values under the users DB table. (It is how all forum CMS do it)

Another sidenote: you can mark all messages as read (or unread) under the options dropdowns.

Regards,

[Mark_Lenovo Administrator]

James,

There is also a set moderator flag setting at the bottom of the second page of the profile.  This will set a flag for you as a mod to see what threads have already been looked at by another Mod.  It will be a little red "RM" icon that will appear.

[JHEM]

Thanks Ray and Esteban.

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Mark_Lenovo wrote:

James,

There is also a set moderator flag setting at the bottom of the second page of the profile.  This will set a flag for you as a mod to see what threads have already been looked at by another Mod.  It will be a little red "RM" icon that will appear.

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I've seen that several times and was having difficulty discerning its function and meaning, thanks for the explanation.

Obviously I've grasped the quoting problem as well!

James