Combine New Media and New Comments

[Alpha1]

It would make much more sense to just have one page that shows all new media content. People are not going to click 8 tabs on a default install and dozens of tabs on an install with addons. Especially not on mobile devices where users never see the tabs because they are outside the screen. Therefore I suggest an approach for XFMG that reduces its 2 tabs to one.
To simplify content discovery please combine 'New media' and 'New media Comments' into one page. This would require an indicator of 'new comments' similar to the indicator on new posts in a thread so that we can clearly see what media has new comments and what media is new.

If this is implemented then addons can use the same method to reduce multiple tabs per addon to one.

 

[Chris D]

That's how it worked in XFMG 1.x already and feedback told us that people wanted it separated.

You even liked this Suggestion which basically contradicts this one:
https://xenforo.com/community/threads/new-comments-search-evidence-of-how-important-this-is.127009/

Also comments can be posted on both media items and albums so it isn't really feasible to show them via new media.

 

[Alpha1]

That's how it worked in XFMG 1.x already

I am not asking for the same implementation as in XF1 because that indeed resulted in problems. Which is why several suggestions were posted.
In XF1 you cannot see which media have new comments, because it does not have read marking and no clear 'new comments' indicator.

You even liked this Suggestion which basically contradicts this one:

In the second post there I posted this:

What you are asking for is this:
https://xenforo.com/community/threads/extend-the-discussion-function-to-a-comment-handler.89395/
This is basically the same suggestion.

To which the OP replied:

Yes ... what you've described in that thread is exactly what I used to have ... and I would love to have that functionality on XenForo!

The suggestion I linked to and which @Sim said he actually wanted can be summarized as:

allow addons to use forum posts for comments

I would much, much rather have that suggestion implemented, so that we can have one tab for all posts & addon comments.

But as it seems to me that such a rigorous feature is unlikely to be implemented on a second point release, I have posted the current suggestion. At least that will reduce one tab. And maybe if Media Reviews are added then it will save 2 tabs. And then similarly, it will save 2 tabs for many addons. It would save me 10 tabs if this suggestion is implemented and addon developers follow your standards. Going from 18 to 8 tabs would be a very welcome improvement.

Its the recognition of the problem and addressing that which I think is important. The problem in XF1 was that unread comments were not visible enough and they still are not on XF2. Its good that its possible to see all new comments and do a search for these.
85% of our users are on mobile. New posts on mobile hides tabs. We have gone from this:


To this:

Its really nice that you implemented the much cleaner scrollable tabs. It does imply however that we really need to reduce tabs. No one is going to do the scroll of death and click on the last tab. I had to click 7 times to scroll to the last tab here. On my site I will have 18 tabs. So that is roughly 15 clicks to get to the last tab on mobile. I dont think thats good usability.

The new 'media comments' tab is out of view for mobile users. And also pushes other tabs more out of view. So the new approach will not increase visibility of new comments much and it reduces visibility of other content types. IMHO its a missed opportunity that this significant problem is not addressed in XF2.

Please consider what you think is the optimal solution to address this problem of better content discovery for mobile users.

 

[51463]

i like it separate, because new media means "new media that was recently uploaded" it doesn't mean new comments,

if you combine it, then you would have to rename the tab to, "new media & new comments"

and in the old media gallery, it was hard to distinguish which was new media and which was a new comment, the only way you could was with a small "comment" bubble
https://xenforo.com/community/threads/new-media-tab.101608/#post-959321



i do understand your point of there being too many tabs, especially on mobile. i agree with this, what they should of done is
compress them into sections

What's New Forum
--- new posts
---new profile posts

What's New Media Gallery
---new media
---new comments
---new reviews

What's New Resource Manager
--- new resources
--- new resources
--- new updates

this way you only have 3 tabs to begin with and if someone clicks on Media Gallery, then 3 more sub-tabs will show up, "new media"

because in truth, there's really no need for all tabs to be shown,
some people never look at the media gallery section or resources section


so every section would have a "What's new"




and so on....





here in xenforo, i dont care about the media section, so i never visit it, i only go to new posts new resources
in other forums, i only visit because i like their media gallery,
and in almost all forums, i never visit their resource section
and feeds? i never visit feeds,

so why show all 8 tabs,



but for your original suggestion, if implemented,
please xenforo, give us an option to be able to keep it the way it is, i like separate tabs

sources:
https://xenforo.com/community/threads/new-media-tab.101608/
https://xenforo.com/community/threads/new-media-tab-should-display-only-new-media.101610/

 

[Sim]

Its really nice that you implemented the much cleaner scrollable tabs. It does imply however that we really need to reduce tabs. No one is going to do the scroll of death and click on the last tab. I had to click 7 times to scroll to the last tab here. On my site I will have 18 tabs. So that is roughly 15 clicks to get to the last tab on mobile. I dont think thats good usability.

Don't forget that desktops won't typically have such a narrow screen - and even so, the menu is actually drag-able with a mouse (and with your finger on a touch enabled device!), so it's not quite as bad as needing to click 7+ times.

But the point is still valid - with additional content types comes a new tab and it can very quickly become unwieldy - especially when there are multiple types of new content added from a single addon.

I also don't like the fact that you can't see at a glance what options you have for searching for new things - which would help with discoverability.

Unfortunately, I don't know what the answer is (separate stackable tabs is just as bad IMO), I think a complete rethink of how this all works may be required.

When I get a test site live, I will do a demo for my members to explain how the scrollable/dragable menu works and get them to play with it and give feedback on it. It may be fine for them.

 

[Chris D]

The what's new pages do have an alternative view which uses the side navigation rather than tabs. (A bit like what you see on the notable members page).

Downside to it is, although it's probably a more reasonable navigation interface, especially when you have lots, it's hidden entirely on narrow devices and stuck behind a "Navigation" hamburger menu trigger. So that really doesn't help the narrow screen issue.

 

[Sim]

The what's new pages do have an alternative view which uses the side navigation rather than tabs. (A bit like what you see on the notable members page).

Downside to it is, although it's probably a more reasonable navigation interface, especially when you have lots, it's hidden entirely on narrow devices and stuck behind a "Navigation" hamburger menu trigger. So that really doesn't help the narrow screen issue.

Actually, a combination of the two might be better ... it might make sense for those people with lots of content types to use the side navigation when screen real estate allows, but then on narrower screens swap to showing the draggable menu (are we still calling that the tab menu??) ?

I don't see any harm in showing the draggable/tab menu on narrow devices since we also get the hamburger menu as well if you want to see all of the possible options.

So give people the option to choose which menu type appears on wider screen devices and a separate option to choose whether the tab menu appears on narrow screen devices when the side navigation gets hidden, so we can mix and match ???