I've been loitering for a while but thought I'd show my face and say hi. I'm going to be involved in the new changes and design for the site so I will be listening to what you like, don't like, ideas and everything for where you would like Car4Play to go and how you'd like it to look. If you have any favourite sites or equally sites you hate, give me links and let me know about them.
The lovely staff at khoosys tempted me away from designing in the Big Smoke by the lure of much chocolate. If you're interested, there is more about me and my design background here: uk.linkedin.com/in/esdesignisms
Last edited by: missyMe on Wed 5 Oct 11 at 10:39
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Greetings! Looks like Stephen is drafting in the big guns.
Forgive my asking, Em (if I may be so bold), but do you have an interest in motoring as well as design?
I don't mean that to sound unwelcoming, BTW. Broad church and all that.
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She has no interest in motoring; she just loves the Focus and freedom of the motor car and all that!
Says she understands "torque" though...
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>> She has no interest in motoring; she just loves the Focus
Don't know whether that's me or the car, but either way, she's obviously got good taste :)
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Stephen is quite right. I'm no motoring nut but I'm a bit of a techie geek and I'm worried about the path I could be on with this new design.
When I designed a new health magazine, I ended up running a couple of marathons and can bore with the best of them about the dangers of aspartame and the benefits of different kinds of interval training and whether it is necessary to get orthotics if you over pronate. Don't ask...
I could end up with a head full of motoring randomness like I think the Skoda Octavia has the same chasis as a VW and the engine of an Audi. Or maybe end up spending weekends going banger racing - who knows what could happen
Last edited by: missyMe on Wed 5 Oct 11 at 11:49
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All I will say is no flash and don't change things too much :).
Most of us here are old people with beards and 486 DX2 66s :).
We also buy cars for £50 keep them five years and then start a thread moaning when the car fails the MOT.
Good luck with the design, and I was partially winding you up :)
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You don't need to worry on the flash front.
Funnily I built my own second computer which was a 386SX with 100MB ROM and 2MB RAM. Also I have a long history of knowing bulletin boards. I used to use CiX back in 1984. I am lacking on the beard though :)
Any nice UX touches will be all jQuery but we will be keeping them down to where they significantly enhance the UX and work to help the function of the UI. At the end of the day it's all about you guys the users so load times and being able to use it easily are the most important things and that it works well across all devices at all resolutions.
Seriously though any enhancements or things you'd like to see featured or how it works or parts you find hard to use then let us know so we can take it all into account.
Last edited by: missyMe on Wed 5 Oct 11 at 13:12
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>>I am lacking on the beard though :)<<
It'll come, with time.
:-D
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>>We also buy cars for £50 keep them five years and then start a thread moaning when the car fails the MOT.
Some buy new cars, then moan about when they burn the clutch out!
Welcome young girl (at least you're younger than I and I suspect most here).
What's this new forum?
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She is older than me but not by much :). But as motoring forums go, I think it is safe to say the average age on this site is rather high.
Bathtub it wasn't aimed at you directly :) Although you probably are the only person with a £50 car :) I was just stereotyping across the entire site. It was just a bit of silly banter and nothing to do with you personally.
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>> She is older than me but not by much :). But as motoring forums go,
>> I think it is safe to say the average age on this site is rather
>> high.
slightly older than me to!
Looks like me and Rats may still be the young whipper snappers here :-)
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>> I could end up with a head full of motoring randomness ...
Just don't start wearing a hat and endorsing left foot braking.
Welcome to the madhouse Emma.
Dave.
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Why bother tinkering with it?
The words are important, not the way they are dressed up.
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"The words are important, not the way they are dressed up."
You must be joking!
Imagine one of your stories mangled by poor layout, or appearing on a page along with irrelevant images.
Presentation is vital.
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...Imagine one of your stories mangled by poor layout, or appearing on a page along with irrelevant images...
We call the irrelevant images advertisements.
Any messing with the 'presentation' of this forum will make the text less readable.
A simple white box with space for black words is all you need.
Anything else is a distraction.
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>> Anything else is a distraction.
>>
As well as slowing down the loading of the pages.
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I agree that all distraction needs to be taken out and amazingly the forum currently has visual distraction which could be lessened to make it even more readable. A simple white box? How about just the words with no box at all - use of space can be used alone with better typography to differentiate headings etc rather than lines and boxes to differentiate. This gives the text more space to breathe and the eye more space which makes the text even more readable.
For the forum I totally promise there will be absolutely no decorative superfluous pretty stuff which serves no purpose. It will ALL be about the content which on a forum is the words.
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...I totally promise there will be absolutely no decorative superfluous pretty stuff which serves no purpose. It will ALL be about the content which on a forum is the words...
Like it.
Like it a lot.
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>> Why bother tinkering with it?
>> The words are important, not the way they are dressed up.
I am about to switch this site to Comic Sans 18pt bold italic yellow. You get to keep the important words and the Comic Sans lovers out there can get excited in the process. ;-)
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...I am about to switch this site to Comic Sans 18pt bold italic yellow...
Ho-ho - I hope.
You have a professional designer on the case, but many amateurs fall into the trap of too many typefaces and font sizes.
The ads are a different matter, we have to have those to pay (some of) the rent.
But elsewhere, less really is more.
Edit: The swear filter doesn't like 'f-o-n-t sizes'. I'm not explaining why again
Last edited by: VxFan on Mon 10 Oct 11 at 00:12
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Could we quotes 'dragged' down rather than up? When reply to someones message it puts the posts out of order. Even logging in to view them it still doesn't look right. I think it makes the threads look messy.
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Sooty, posts are in a threaded format. If you reply to someone, it attaches your post onto theirs, but doesn't necessarily put it at the bottom of the thread.
If you temp change how you view the forum to threaded view instead of flat view, you should see what I mean (picture paints a 1000 words and all that)
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Thanks Vx, but could the new style forum put them in order so their post was dragged down?
Yeah I've tried that but I still think it looks a bit messy.
Sorry if I'm being picking, it's just that this is the only forum I've used that does it that way. It's not a massive issue, I just think it looks better and more user friendly if it was the other way. Just one other thing why do quotes have lots of arrows on and get 'broken up' so the text is narrower, could that be gotten rid of, on the upgrade?
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>> Sorry if I'm being picking, it's just that this is the only forum I've used that does it that way.
Usenet also does it the same way, IIRC.
>> I just think it looks better and more user friendly if it was the other way.
Probably a poor example, but say you're in a pub having a conversation with someone. Over the other side of the room there is also a conversation going on between a couple of other people. Their conversation is separate to yours, although it might be on the same or similar subject. Put all the people together and the conversations all then get muddled. In a thread on here conversations can branch off into their own little sub topics between people.
>> Just one other thing why do quotes have lots of arrows on and get 'broken up' so the text is narrower
To allow for word wrapping, and it also depends on the size of the screen I think.
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Fair enough I don't think I've used that, most forums I've seen I think are v bulletin.
Not really, even accounting for that, I still think it's better the other way around. You end up going up and down the page to see new posts with the way we've got it. I might be wrong but not many other forums have it that way?
fair enough, is there not 'automatic reset' that gets rid if you're on a full size screen? I'm sure one other forum I use has one.
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>> most forums I've seen I think are v bulletin.
This one is a bespoke forum.
>> You end up going up and down the page to see new posts with the way we've got it.
If you click on the red word "new" to the right of the thread title, it will take you to the first unread post in the thread. You then only have to scroll down to read the rest of the unread posts, which is what you would normally do anyway. Yes, granted there will be some already read posts when scrolling down, but it should be easy enough to spot whether the post is new or not by the darker shading.
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Shall I take the above as, it's staying the way it is? ;-))
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No it won't stay the same. The ordering will though.
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The ordering will though.
Oh well :( if you don't ask you don't get ;)
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>>If you click on the red word "new" to the right of the thread title, it will take you to the first unread post in the thread<<
Neat, I didn't know that.
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I've noticed that the ' new ' marker doesn't seem to stay as long as it used to.
For instance, I came on this morning and had a prowl round. I didn't come on again until about 9pm, there were about 3 threads with ' new ' markers on but quite a few that were new since my morning visit which were untagged.
It's not a major problem, I just open a thread if it's timed after my earlier visit........if it's one that interests me.
I don't think, either here or on HJ, that I've ever opened a Top Gear or FI thread !
Ted
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If you delete your cookies (either manually or have your browser do it automatically when you shut the browser down) then that in turn will lose the 'new' flags when you next return to C4P.
Also running something like ccleaner can delete the C4P cookie unless you have put it in the safe list in the settings of ccleaner.
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>> If you delete your cookies (either manually or have your browser do it automatically when
>> you shut the browser down) then that in turn will lose the 'new' flags when
>> you next return to C4P.
I'm certain it's more often than that, and I don't believe it's a recent change. Can you double-check with the techies?
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What web browser are you using?
For reference, I'm using both IE6 & IE8 and I don't lose the new flags.
If however you only pop in and read one or two posts, and you leave some new ones until you come back later in the day, those ones you've left will get marked as read and the only new posts that get flagged are the ones from the time you logged out and left the site. This is something that's always happened, both on here and HJ.
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>> If however you only pop in and read one or two posts, and you leave
>> some new ones until you come back later in the day, those ones you've left
>> will get marked as read and the only new posts that get flagged are the
>> ones from the time you logged out and left the site. This is something that's
>> always happened, both on here and HJ.
Yep, that's what I'm thinking of. But I don't think it should work like that - closing the browser (Firefox or Chrome in my case) appears to qualify as 'logging out', although perhaps there's a time element as well (is it the same condition which means you have to re-enter your password when posting?).
Given that there's an option to 'mark all read', I don't like the new flags being removed automatically, which as Ted says often results in me missing posts. Let's face it, this could be disastrous.
Last edited by: Focus on Fri 7 Oct 11 at 10:48
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A similar situation to me, that's why I think the ordering of posts should go to the time they are posted. If the forum is to aim for a more people I think making an unobtrusive change to make it similar to the vast majority of forums might help to keep people here after first looking in.
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>> I think the ordering of posts should go
>> to the time they are posted.
Mmm... pros:
- (very) simple concept, won't confuse newcomers
- easy to find new posts, hence...
- doesn't really matter if 'new' flags are lost
cons:
- more mixed up conversations (as VxFan said)
I was initially against such a change, but I'm coming round to sooty's way of thinking; I'm not sure the advantages of the current system outweigh the disadvantages.
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Well that's one onboard ;-)
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Wouldn't a 'show all posts since last visit' list help?
Click on the ones you want to read and be taken to the thread.
Pat
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>> Wouldn't a 'show all posts since last visit' list help?
>>
>> Click on the ones you want to read and be taken to the thread.
But with the current system those posts might be spread throughout the thread; how would you cope with that?
EDIT: isn't that pretty much like the current 'new' flag system?
Last edited by: Focus on Fri 7 Oct 11 at 12:08
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>> Wouldn't a 'show all posts since last visit' list help?
something like v-bulletin has for instance?
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>> >> Wouldn't a 'show all posts since last visit' list help?
>>
>> something like v-bulletin has for instance?
Ok - so IIRC links to new posts are shown in a list; you click on one, read it, then come back to the list, click on the next (or use shift-click to open post in a different window) etc. With you now.
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>> Yep, that's what I'm thinking of. But I don't think it should work like that
Unfortunately it always has, both here and at HJ (well it would do as it's the same forum layout)
From a mods point of view, it can be a PITA. I have to try and make sure that I have enough time put aside to read all new posts before logging out so that any new posts don't go unnoticed.
Hopefully something worth considering when things are updated.
Vx
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All this is somewhat of a mystery to me......I have no idea what ' cookies ' are !
The major drawback with not having the ' new ' tag is that you can only open the thread by bringing up the first ever post...the OP's post.
To find new posts you then have to scroll down, looking at the date on them all as a new post will not always be at the end of the thread.
Apologies if someone's said this in ' computerspeak ' but I really am a computer numptie.
Ted
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>> To find new posts you then have to scroll down, looking at the date
Depending on what browser you're using, you can do a find command. eg with Internet Explorer pressing ctrl+f will bring up the find command (or do it the long winded way via the tool bar menu - edit > find on this page) and then put in the date you want to look for and click next or previous. That way it will only point to the day you're looking for.
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I've been loitering for a while but thought I'd show my face and say hi. I'm going to be involved in the new changes and design for the site so I will be listening to what you like,
snip
Last edited by: R.P. on Mon 30 Apr 12 at 10:47
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So he's going to be involved in the changes for the site. Just like that.
But he's had the snip.
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He is actually a she, and is also actually a spammer - hence the link being removed.
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Ford Focus - Watch out there's a designer about... - FocalPoint
