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?

[Eric16]

Well, I may try and learn GreaseMonkey this week. I'd like to make the actions column capable of disappearing until you actually needed it.

Also, maybe replicate the bread crumbs an the "Up to Discussions ..." to the bottom of the page.

I have no idea how easy/hard that is though. One reason I like Stylish is that it was a piece of cake by comparison to what a GM script looks like!

[S_D_A_]

I would take it easy on using scripts. It only takes one badly written one to impair the perfomrance of the forums, and you just might forget you're  using a script if/when that heppens. <shrug> YMMV

[Eric16]

GreaseMonkey script to allow Show/Hide of ACTIONS sidebar is up!

Instructions

1. Download & install GreaseMonkey if you haven't done so already.
   
2. Get the script from userscripts.org. (Click the Install button once you're there.)
3. That's it, you should now see a little bit of text over the Actions Sidebar that says "Show|Hide ACTIONS". Click as desired.

Caveats

• It only works with FF3.
• You have to install GreaseMonkey to use it.
• You can enable/disable it using the little monkey icon in the bottom right corner of the window.
• It does remember your current state, but on some pages it can take a while to activate (it runs only after the page is fully loaded, alas.)

Hope this helps others,

Eric. (aka heavyboots)

[Eric16]

Oh yeah, I also wrote another little Stylish hack to hide the "Answer Bar"...

[xbytor2]

Thanks for these, Eric. It's helping to make life without NNTP a bit more bearable.

-X

[Phos_four_dots]

BLOODY EFFIN' BEE-YOO-TEE-FOOL work on the GreaseMonkey script, Eric.

(BTW, folks...you'll have to restart Firefox after you install that script for it to work.)

Off to grab the answer bar hack.

Thanks 10 skidillion, mate!

[Eric16]

And yet another one to take the first topic head from 20pt to 12pt...

Actually, it's probably easiest to just post a link to my user page.

All the Stylish hacks can be found here:

http://userstyles.org/users/21328

I'm posting one fix per script so people can pick and choose what they want and what they don't. Let me know if it gets too annoying and I can make a combined one.

[Phos_four_dots]

OOPS! An apology and a correction:  I stated above that Firefox users will have to restart their browsers to have Eric's GreaseMonkey scripts fully take effect.  I was wrong. The scripts Eric has written work right away. I was basing my statement on limited experience I'd had with a couple other scripts awhile back that DID require a quit & relaunch to work.  And sorry, I don't have a clue why there would be a difference in behaviors.

[Bob_Peters]

I'm all for usability tweaks.  The problem with them is they tend to be VERY browser-centric.

It's the Jive Geniuses that need to fix what I still consider a space-wasting monstrosity.

[Eric16]

Updated Show|Hide ACTIONS sidebar to v1.01 with some prettification tweaks.

- Dynamically change text to say Show ACTIONS or Hide ACTIONS depending on current state.

- Stole paginations style from Jive next/prev so I can have left & right arrows (ie, <-Show or Hide->).

Have a nice weekend, folks!

[Eric16]

FYI everyone,

New Stylish style to expand the "Where" selection list area in the "More Options" of Search.

http://userstyles.org/styles/17180

This one is courtesy of Mark A Boyd. I'm just hosting it for him.

Thanks, Mark!

[Ramón_G_Castañeda]

Thank you both, Eric and Mark.  

[Mark_A__Boyd]

Thanks Eric & you're welcome, Ramón

I thought about creating an account and uploading my versions, but decided it would be easier for all if they're all in one place. And gool ole heavyboots already has a good collection going

[Zeno_Bokor]

thanks a bunch, i really hated that dinky box

[greenjumpyone]

I've not tried the tweaks, and I think it's great that you guys are working on them, BUT ...

why do we users have to go through so much just to *use* this forum?

[xbytor2]

why do we users have to go through so much just to *use* this forum?

If Adobe had kept an NNTP interface, I wouldn't need any tweaks because I wouldn't be using the web UI. Since they have chosen this web UI (Jive) and not enabled its NNTP gateway (for whatever reason) I am stuck with this interface and will try to do my best to make it as efficient as possible. The tweaks that people have been posting here are very much appreciated and have improved things markedly.

As a side note, RSS drops a lot of stuff. Email notifications appear to work better, but I'm still only watching a third of forums that I was before.

-X

[Eric16]

Well, I totally agree that the situation is not optimum!

But when they went through the beta and relaunch with almost the exact same design elements (plus some feedback during the beta indicating the designers were against full-width browsing), my spidey sense started tingling and I realized it could be a looooong time before the Official Fix got released by Adobe.

Since it is nigh on impossible to read code crushed into the tiny fixed width + I had some time + I wanted to learn GreaseMonkey + I had just been doing CSS for a couple weeks so it was fresh in my head, I carpe'd some diem and wrote what I did. And others have joined in too, so now we've got quite the little collection going.

But you're right, this behavior is more in line with constructing a camp site out of bits of wreckage while you wait for rescue than the smooth sailing we were all hoping for.

[Ramón_G_Castañeda]

Thank you once again, Eric.

This looks so much better now:

and

[Mark_A__Boyd]

Eric @ MCA posted another Stylish for me. This one expands the Private Message text editor to 300px height instead of the tiny 116px.

http://userstyles.org/styles/17577

I know many of you prefer a smaller editor here in the forums, but I found the PM version too small. (I don't really want to mess with the regular editor since they're supposedly working on getting the "sticky" feature to stick.)

[Edit]

Just a friendly reminder to to turn off all of these tweaks before giving feedback on the appearance or performance of the forum.

[John_Joslin]

Mark A. Boyd wrote:

Just a friendly reminder to to turn off all of these tweaks before giving feedback on the appearance or performance of the forum.

Tweaks? What tweaks?

[D__McCahill]

Not sure about tweaks, but this post is about usability.

What moron decided that the little X to close an attachement should go in the upper left corner, when every other Windows application puts it into upper right? Is that a Mac thing?

[Bob_Peters]

D. McCahill wrote:

Is that a Mac thing?

No.

[Kath-H]

D. McCahill wrote:

Not sure about tweaks, but this post is about usability.

What moron decided that the little X to close an attachement should go in the upper left corner, when every other Windows application puts it into upper right? Is that a Mac thing?

We're in a Windows application? That would explain a lot. Positioning the close button top left is one of the few things this forum gets right I'd be very unhappy to see it on the wrong side.

[John_Joslin]

Can't exactly miss it can you?