The "Handbooks" drop-down is too long to fit on some screens.
Simple solution:
Use a few more 2nd-level menus there, like a "Building..." for the 2nd and 3rd entries, ... the EV Batteries, accessories, motors, etc. on "EV Components...", ... and the Electric Bicycles, Motorcycles, and Scooters on an "Electric Vehicles..." (or some such)?
Also, you could add "Active Topics..." and "Recent Blog..." to the top of the "Recent Posts" drop-down and get rid of the space-consuming right-hand menus entirely.
In any case, Good Work, Gary
What'chu'talkin'bout? It fits just fine on my 24" LCD ... ;-) Okay, okay, okay..
One trick however is if you use the scroll wheel on the mouse (you do have a scroll wheel mouse don't you?) it scrolls the menu.
In any case the handbooks menu can be restructured.
As for the other stuff on the right.. those aren't menus and the distinction is technical but that means they cannot be added to the dropdown menu. It's mulling in my mind how to change those so they're dynamically visible or otherwise more compressed into the header & footer sections. e.g. the Text Size widget could easily move into the footer area and still be as useful. The search box could be moved into the top section as could the RSS icon. But that leaves a couple other things to think about.
- David Herron, The Long Tail Pipe, davidherron.com, 7gen.com, What is Reiki
Can they all go on a page (or on a few pages) that one accesses with an icon link and/or a link on a dropdown menu?
Cheers, Gary
XM-5000Li, wired for cell voltage measuring and logging.
Good work so far.
Only 3 more right-side "menus" to get rid of, and we will be able to have wider text lines to read, and the first-post(s)'s pictures will not get covered.
The very helpful red "new" that used to appear on the posts that I had not read ... has been lost.
Can it be "found"? Thanks.
Cheers, Gary
XM-5000Li, wired for cell voltage measuring and logging.
I found the wayward red, I'm sure you've noticed that.
Now, for getting rid of the last of the righthand blocks ...
Idea #1: Status page Imagine that without my picture at the top and without the righthand blocks. I could create other instances of those to match the other choices under Recent Posts.
Idea #2: The front page can be replaced with other views such as short summaries of each of the Recent Posts pages.
Interested in thoughts..
- David Herron, http://longtailpipe.com/
VERY GOOOOD!
Yes, yes, #1 is superior, I think.
The Recent Posts on the sample Status page is a much improved replacement for Active Forums list of 7: It has more items, dates, the forum names, and the poster ID, all that I wanted.
Now, you can just put a link to the Status page at the top (or top of Forums dropdown), do a similar page for Recent Blog Posts, and then eliminate the right-hand stuff completely.
COOL
And, thanks for the red (re)new.
Cheers, Gary
XM-5000Li, wired for cell voltage measuring and logging.
An added link under the "new" or "updated" under the topic Title could take one directly to the post, instead of to the topic 1st page?
However, at least for now, it is sufficiently fine as is.
NOTE: I typically view topics with "newest" first, where the newest is shown as #1 instead of #156 (or some such).
Is that intentional?
Does it cause a problem with a copy and paste of the post's link?
I will try to check.
The link seems to have the database ID number, OK.
Oh, I guess the "Status" page or just the Recent Posts part should go on the Recent Posts dropdown.
The status part ... where?
Cheers, Gary
XM-5000Li, wired for cell voltage measuring and logging.
Then, the ID, Online status, Joined, and points could be moved to a single horizontal line under the post, allowing the post to use the entire width of the screen?
What is the "Points" number?
The joined date could just be seen in the profile that one sees when one clicks the ID? But, OK to see here.
Cheers, Gary
XM-5000Li, wired for cell voltage measuring and logging.
Something I'm concerned about is you're the only one giving feedback, and are the others going to be okay with what you're asking for?
The format as it is right now puts poster profile info at the left of the posting -- which is a format followed by dozens of "Forum" style websites. Previously the poster profile info was in a strip along the top of the posting as you are suggesting. Blog posts on this site still follow that format. I'm not sure which is preferable and it's not even clear that one is better than the other. Just that most forum style websites put that stuff on the side, hence people who expect poster profiles to be on the side ought to feel more comfortable.
One common thing on other forum style websites is they put snippets that kinda rank people based on how many posts they've made, how long they've been a member, or what role they carry. It supposedly helps you interpret what they say to know that they've made a zillion posts, or that this is their first post. On the other hand they could be an Einstein making their first post and get dismissed because they're a newby. It's silly to replicate the entire user profile in every post or comment they make (not enough room) but it's useful to replicate some of the user profile in every comment...
The points is supposed to be a calculation based on number of posts or other factors. For some reason it's not increasing beyond zero. It may be there's another module to install which will cause points to increase. We'd had the 'userpoints' module installed during 2007 and eventually removed it because it was too buggy and gave incorrect data. Maybe it's still too buggy?
"use the entire width of the screen" isn't always desirable. If it's a big screen like this 24" LCD in front of me (1900x1600) text that spans the entire width of that screen is unreadable. On the other hand the most common screen size is 1024x768 nowadays (used to be 800x600) and text spanning the entire width of that size screen would be fine.
- David Herron, The Long Tail Pipe, davidherron.com, 7gen.com, What is Reiki
I mean whole window, not whole screen. On my little 800 x 600 mini-laptop, it is often full screen as well.
ID and stuff on the left is more a matter of taste, but it does make a lot of (valuable) space unusable. Some pictures get chopped off on the right as it is. I suppose a user profile "style" parameter would be ideal, but your system might not allow that.
Much more serious are the right-side lists that actually cover up stuff (pictures, etc.) in the first post(s). Your sample "status" page with the Recent All-Posts list (or even better, a recent All-Forum Posts list and a recent All-Blog Posts list) completely replace the right-lists, and do a MUCH better job of it. Maybe a setting for how many entries to show on each page would be good, if easy to do?
On multi-page lists, it would be great to have the page-navigation at the top as well as the bottom.
In any case, Good Work, ...
and I am just trying to help.
Cheers, Gary
XM-5000Li, wired for cell voltage measuring and logging.
When not logged in (column of ads on the left), with the left-side lists, and the ID column using up so much of the display space,
the text
of posts
is limited
to about
1/4 of the
"window/screen",
and is
essentially
unusable,
showing
only
a few
words on
each line.
Cheers, Gary
XM-5000Li, wired for cell voltage measuring and logging.
Are you going to add "Active Forum" and "Blog Posts" to the "Recent Posts" dropdown list, and eliminate the ANNOYING right-side lists? They cover up the first post(s) and just "steal" screen space (the right-side column) from all the other posts' text.
I think that would be a big improvement.
Remember to break the lists into pages of N (maybe 25 or 50) items max.
Thanks, Gary
Cheers, Gary
XM-5000Li, wired for cell voltage measuring and logging.