My vision for a perfect xenForo (UI improvements)

[sinucello]

Hi,
today I had a look at the user-interface of xenforo and thought about what could be improved. As far as I understand, the profile page "/members/xxx.id/" shows information about a user to other users. In addition, it features the "profile posts" which are some kind of guestbook where you can leave public messages for the user and get in contact with him/her.

Then we also have the user-account where you can

1. change system settings like password, email etc.
2. control which of your personal information is shown to whom in your profile, postbit etc.
3. customize the look and feel of the forum

But it also serves a different purpose: you can access customized views of the forum, helping you to find relevant information. This is represented by:

1. Your Alerts
2. Your News Feed
3. Likes You`ve received
4. Watched Threads
5. Watched Forums
6. Your alerts

I think many users don`t use those customized views because the forum list is more prominent and easier to access. I also think that users tend to think that you can only change settings in your account and the only way to receive information is the forum list view.

That`s a pitty because the forum list is not very user friendly and features a lot of irrelevant information.

Another problem with the account is that the left-hand navigation disappears on some pages. I`ve made a seperate suggestion for that:
http://xenforo.com/community/thread...n-on-every-page-accessible-via-account.76975/

This is why I`d like to suggest to change the user interface for registered users:

1. Leave only the settings in the account view
2. Add ignore options for forums/threads to this reduced account view (@Waindigo is currently creating an ignore centre)
   
3. Group the other links/views in a different view which becomes the default start page for registered users. This new default view shows only the content that is not ignored by the user. In a addition, the other views mentioned above become available as filters next to the content. Just like in a facetted search you can now reduce the content to what you really want to see
4. Add other views hidden in other places to this new default view:
   - your content (hidden in account popup)
   - all theads started by you (hidden in the profile page->Postings bottom)
   - my profile posts (as profile posts are not only information relevant to other users viewing your profile but also content relevant for you)
5. Remove the now unnecessary links from the account popup and leave only the following links in it:
   - Edit your account settings
   - Show your public profile page
   - Show full forum list (this would be the old/current forum list which is so prominent now)
   - Log out

I wrote something like this on the vB forum years ago but it never happened. xenForo is already a lot better than vB but I think it will be even better with those changes.

all the best and keep up the good work,
Sacha

 

[sinucello]

Another problem with the account is that the left-hand navigation disappears on some pages.

there`s an add-on for conversations now:
https://xenforo.com/community/resources/add-account-wrapper-to-conversations.1617/

 

[sinucello]

Add ignore options for forums/threads to this reduced account view

ignore options are now available via this add-on:
https://xenforo.com/community/resources/ignore-more-by-waindigo.3375/

Unfortunately you can`t exclude forums from the search / enhanced search yet.

 

[Daniel Hood]

ignore options are now available via this add-on:
https://xenforo.com/community/resources/ignore-more-by-waindigo.3375/

Unfortunately you can`t exclude forums from the search / enhanced search yet.

I have an add on for that

https://xenforo.com/community/resources/xenmods-search-filter-exclude-forums.3476/