Usability tweaks

[xbytor2]

Is there a thread anywhere that contains usability tweaks for the new forum UI?

I've seen this Stylish flex-width tweak http://forums.adobe.com/thread/414809#1870916

and Ramón has mentioned liberal use of AdBlock Plus to remove clutter and whitespace.

Is there anything else that would help?

[Kath-H]

So you're fine with it on the left and you think Don's a big silly billy for making a fuss, is that what you're saying?

@Bob & Don - Yes.

[Zeno_Bokor]

who cares where it is? just click in the image and it closes it. My problem with that popup is that it takes longer to load than just opening the image in a new tab and on large images you don't get a 100% view but it still loads the whole image

[Kath-H]

Zeno Bokor wrote:

who cares where it is? just click in the image and it closes it. My problem with that popup is that it takes longer to load than just opening the image in a new tab and on large images you don't get a 100% view but it still loads the whole image

Agreed.

[Guest]

Kath-H wrote:

Zeno Bokor wrote:

who cares where it is? just click in the image and it closes it. My problem with that popup is that it takes longer to load than just opening the image in a new tab and on large images you don't get a 100% view but it still loads the whole image

Agreed.

Yahtzee!!!

i mean BINGO!

[Zeno_Bokor]

check out this page: http://www.jivesoftware.com/jivespace/thread/41767

Can't wait for them to implement this

[D__McCahill]

Zeno Bokor wrote:

who cares where it is?

I care. I started in computers when every application was different, and you had to manually think about how to save, print, edit, copy, etc., with every program. Lotus was different than WordPerfect, and so on, and so on. Sure, it only takes me a half second to move my mouse from the top right, where it instinctively goes to the top left, once I realize I am in a brain-dead piece of software. But multiply that half second by the number of times in a day it happens, and by the number of users, and the time lost becomes sufficient.

Apple invented (or popularized, they didn't invent much) the concept of consistent user interfaces, and were making big inroads into Microsoft, causing Gates to move to the Windows platform, which also had a consistent user interface. Which makes me glad, because I don't want to go back to the myriad of different ways to do common tasks.

[Kath-H]

Some of us are Mac users. Deal with it.

[Ramón G Castañeda]

Kath-H wrote:

Some of us are Mac users. Deal with it.

Yup, about 50-60% of the users and buyers of the applications in the Creative Suites, as a matter of fact.

[Zeno_Bokor]

care to give a link to prove that?

[Ramón G Castañeda]

Zeno Bokor wrote:

care to give a link to prove that?

Recent statement by John Nack on his blog*, and Microsoft's own numbers.

*[Hang on: no one talked about the Mac representing 1/10th of Adobe's business. Last time I checked, Creative Suite sales were roughly 50/50 Mac/Win. … --J.]      —March 4, 2009.

*  http://blogs.adobe.com/jnack/2009/02/optional_plugin.html

[Ramón G Castañeda]

Zeno Bokor wrote:

care to give a link to prove that?

Care to be a little less confrontational and more civil in your attitude, Mr. Bush?

Geeze…  you're probably the one forum user that I would most frequently punch in the nose if you were within arm's reach.    Maybe it's just the translation of Bokor = Bush in Hungarian.

[Eric16]

Ramón G Castañeda wrote:

Kath-H wrote:

Some of us are Mac users. Deal with it.

Yup, about 50-60% of the users and buyers of the applications in the Creative Suites, as a matter of fact.

Totally OT to this thread, but if this is true then why the heck did they move all the stupid panel close buttons to the right-hand side in CS3?!? Now *that* is something that annoys me (and which would seem imminently fixable).

I predict no attempt will ever be made to fix Don's issue because it's too much of a pain for the web designer to try and figure out what OS you are on and spawn a different close box position based on that.

[Ramón G Castañeda]

Eric @ MCA wrote:

then why the heck did they move all the stupid panel close buttons to the right-hand side in CS3?!? Now *that* is something that annoys me (and which would seem imminently fixable).

We complained until we were blue in the face during the public and not-so-public beta testing periods, but were met with arrogant replies from the Photoshop Senior Photoshop Program Manager to the effect that

"this has nothing to do with Mac or Windows, it's about the Photoshop interface.  It's Photoshop, period."

[Eric16]

I didn't make it into the ID/PS/AI testing until something like 5 days before CS4 testing closed up and went golden master so I don't think I ever managed to get around to bug reporting that one...

[Kath-H]

it's too much of a pain for the web designer to try and figure out what OS you are on and spawn a different close box position based on that.

Which is why it never occurred to me to complain that some of the Close buttons are on the right (after inserting an image via the camera icon, for instance). When sharing a space with people using a different OS you just have to get used to stuff like that, it's no big deal.

[D__McCahill]

Kath-H wrote:

Some of us are Mac users. Deal with it.

So it is a Mac thing. That explains it.

I didn't realize that Jive had its roots in Mac.

[Eric16]

D. McCahill wrote:

Kath-H wrote:

Some of us are Mac users. Deal with it.

So it is a Mac thing. That explains it.

I didn't realize that Jive had its roots in Mac.

No, it's a web thing. Look around the web, you will find a million examples of ajax image viewers--some with the close box on the left and some on the right both and some on the bottom and some on the top.

If you hate Mac, fine. If you hate Jive, fine. However, please do not attempt to cast aspersions of Jive-ness on the Mac platform, thank you very much!

[Guest]

Eric @ MCA wrote:

please do not attempt to cast aspersions of Jive-ness on the Mac platform, thank you very much!

Exactly. If Jive made Macs I'm pretty darn sure I wouldn't be using one.

[Mark_A__Boyd]

If I had to characterize it, I would say (generally speaking) that it is a JavaScript thing. I know of no other programming communities that like to avoid standard GUI practices as much as Flash and JavaScript folks. Again that is a VERY generalized statement and certainly does not apply to all Flash & JavaScript coders.

[Mark_A__Boyd]

I thought I had seen something posted somewhere for hiding the side bar (Actions, More Like This, Popular <whatever>, etc...) but I can't find it today. Or maybe is was a JavaScript-only solution. Anyway, for those of you using the Stylish add-on for FireFox, here is some CSS to do it.

/******************************************/
/***  Adobe Jive Forums - Hide Sidebar  ***/
/******************************************/
/* Author: Mark A. Boyd                   */
/* Placed in the public domain 2009-05-20 */
@namespace url(http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml);
@-moz-document domain("forums.adobe.com") {
/*** Discussion pages ***/
  #jive-body-maincol {
    margin: 0 !important;
  }
  #jive-body-sidebarcol-container {
    width: 0 !important;
    display: none !important;
  }
/*** Overview pages (index of subjects/topics) ***/
  .jive-body-layout-s {
    width:0 !important;
    display: none !important;
  }
  #jive-body-layout-ls .jive-body-layout-l .jive-widget-container-large {
    margin-right: 0 !important;
  }
}

As always, be sure to turn off all "Usability tweaks" before providing feedback about the forum appearance/performance.

And don't forget to check Eric @ MCA's "heavyboots" collection for more.

[Bob_Peters]

Kvetch alert!

Well, kudos to everyone coming up with ingenious usability tweaks!  Unfortunately, user-generated tweaks should NOT be needed!

This whole mess is beyond ridiculous without even passing through the intermediate stage of 'sublime'

[Ramón G Castañeda]

UPDATE:

I've used AdBlock Plus to totally block the stats.adobe.com/* thing with no ill effects I can perceive, but with a noticeable, significant increase in speed.

I'll try blocking some of the wwwimages.adobe.com stuff.

[Ramón G Castañeda]

This is an AdBlockPlus Export text file of all the filters I have currently active:

(Adblock Plus 0.7 or higher required) [Adblock]
! Checksum: d7C3vU4RtdEBFrfysnij9Q
|http://forums.adobe.com/dwr/call/plaincall/MoreLikeThis.getMoreLikeThisResults.dwr
|http://stats.adobe.com/*
|http://wwwimages.adobe.com/www.adobe.com/adobeforums/resources/scripts/zapatec/styles/

forums.adobe.com#DIV(class=jive-sidebar-body jive-sidebar-body-popular)
forums.adobe.com#IMG(class=jive-avatar)
forums.adobe.com#IMG(class=jive-author-avatar)
forums.adobe.com#IMG(src=/resources/images/status/statusicon-47.gif)
forums.adobe.com#UL(id=jive-more-like-this-1-294014)
forums.adobe.com#UL(class=jive-sidebar-topmembers)
forums.adobe.com#UL(id=jive-more-like-this-1-414276)
forums.adobe.com#DIV(class=jive-sidebar-usercontent)
forums.adobe.com#DIV(id=jive-widgetframe-header_27635)
forums.adobe.com#P(class=jive-sidebar-viewall)
forums.adobe.com#DIV(id=jive-widgetframe_27635)
forums.adobe.com#DIV(id=jive-widgetframe-header_26161)
forums.adobe.com#A(href=/people?view=status&cid=3263)
forums.adobe.com#H4(title=Become an participant by contributing content)
forums.adobe.com#DIV(id=jive-widgetframe-header_26221)
forums.adobe.com#A(href=/people?view=status&cid=3341)
forums.adobe.com#A(href=/people?view=status&cid=3384)
forums.adobe.com##*#jive-answer-bar > DIV
forums.adobe.com#DIV(id=globalfooter)
forums.adobe.com##*.jive-widget-empty.jive-widget-empty-people > DIV
forums.adobe.com#DIV(id=jive-widgetframe-header_27267)
forums.adobe.com#DIV(class=jive-widget-body-empty)
forums.adobe.com#DIV(id=jive-widgetframe_27267)(class=jive-widget jive-widget-topmemberswidget)
forums.adobe.com#DIV(id=jive-widgetframe_26221)(class=jive-widget jive-widget-topmemberswidget)
forums.adobe.com##*.jive-sidebar-body > H4
forums.adobe.com#A(href=/people?view=status&cid=3367)
forums.adobe.com#DIV(id=jive-widgetframe-header_25937)
forums.adobe.com#DIV(id=jive-widgetframe_25937)(class=jive-widget jive-widget-topmemberswidget)
forums.adobe.com#DIV(id=jive-widgetframe-header_26149)(class=jive-widget-header)
forums.adobe.com#DIV(id=jive-widgetframe_26149)(class=jive-widget jive-widget-topmemberswidget)
forums.adobe.com#A(href=/people?view=status&cid=3267)
forums.adobe.com##*[title="Become an participant by contributing content"] + *.jive-sidebar-topmembers + P
forums.adobe.com##*.jive-username-link-wrapper + EM
forums.adobe.com#DIV(id=jive-widgetframe-header_27718)(class=jive-widget-header)
forums.adobe.com#DIV(id=jive-widgetframe-header_26591)(class=jive-widget-header)
forums.adobe.com#DIV(id=jive-widgetframe-header_26227)(class=jive-widget-header)
forums.adobe.com#IMG(src=/resources/images/status/comm_expert_69x15.gif)
forums.adobe.com##*#jive-widgetframe-header_31763.jive-widget-header > H4
forums.adobe.com#DIV(id=jive-widgetframe_31763)(class=jive-widget jive-widget-topmemberswidget)
forums.adobe.com#DIV(id=jive-widgetframe_26227)(class=jive-widget jive-widget-topmemberswidget)
forums.adobe.com#DIV(id=jive-widgetframe-header_31650)(class=jive-widget-header)
forums.adobe.com#DIV(id=jive-widgetframe-header_26391)(class=jive-widget-header)
forums.adobe.com#DIV(id=jive-widgetframe-header_28023)(class=jive-widget-header)
forums.adobe.com#DIV(id=jive-widgetframe_28023)(class=jive-widget jive-widget-topmemberswidget)
forums.adobe.com#DIV(id=jive-widgetframe-header_33489)(class=jive-widget-header)
forums.adobe.com#DIV(id=jive-widgetframe_28101)(class=jive-widget jive-widget-topmemberswidget)
forums.adobe.com#DIV(id=jive-widgetframe-header_34723)(class=jive-widget-header)
forums.adobe.com#IMG(title=Participant)(alt=Participant)(src=/resources/images/status/statusicon-48.gif)
forums.adobe.com#SPAN(class=jive-link-answer-correct)
forums.adobe.com#SPAN(class=jive-link-question)
forums.adobe.com#SPAN(class=jive-link-thread)
forums.adobe.com#DIV(id=jive-widgetframe-header_38218)

[Michael D Sullivan]

Thanks so much for the AdBlock Plus export file, Ramón

[Ramón G Castañeda]

You're welcome, Michael.

Sharing whatever tweaks we can is the key now.