Dominion
Active member
I originally posted what I thought was a bug report on this topic ...
http://xenforo.com/community/threads/duplicate-age-not-displayed.15761/
... and Lawrence kindly pointed me at an existing thread on the same subject:
http://xenforo.com/community/thread...oes-show-year-of-birth-work-as-intended.1663/
I thought I'd follow up on my concerns in that thread, until I realized that as a "Resolved Bug Report" thread it probably wouldn't attract any notice. So I hope you'll pardon me for reviving this topic as a suggestion, as it is an issue that I think ought to be reviewed.
The Problem
The basic problem is this: when the "day/month" checkbox is turned OFF, the "year" checkbox does nothing. You've got a situation where users are checking and unchecking this box and seeing nothing happen as a result. So while it may well be working as intended, the "year" checkbox does not seem to be doing what it claims it does.
This is something that should be avoided. If the value of checkbox A renders checkbox B invalid, checkbox B gets greyed out; that's a standard convention of UI design. Presenting users with a meaningless option is merely inviting confusion.
I've gone to the trouble to describe my concern because I'm a sucker for a slick UI. I just bought XenForo because it is clearly the slickest forum software around. These checkboxes, however, are not living up to that standard. As a result, I (as an admin) will have to deal with the problem. I'll probably have to write an explanation of these checkboxes in my forum. And I'll probably have to point new users at the explanation now and then, since they won't bother to read the stickies.
So I'm hoping that you'll review these checkboxes and fix them, thereby sparing me the extra work and my users the extra confusion.
The Best Solution?
For the record, while I do agree with Waddy's statement (in the second thread linked above) that greying out the "year" checkbox when "day/month" is OFF is the proper way to handle what these checkboxes are currently trying to do, it's not the solution I'd prefer.
I would rather users be allowed to hide their birthday but show their age. As Waddy said, some people may perfer that. I'm that way: I don't mind people knowing how old I am, but I don't want them bugging me every time my birthday rolls around. That's why I (like Waddy) thought I'd found a bug; I was trying to get the forums to show my age, and wondering why they didn't.
So I think it would be best if you'd cause the age to appear on the profile page and popup when "month/day" is OFF and "year" is ON. Ideally, you should relabel the checkboxes as follows:
This solution isn't absolutely necessary. If for some reason you don't want to let me show just my age, I suppose I can work with that. But the matter of a checkbox that does nothing under certain conditions (well, one condition) is something that really needs to be dealt with.
Thank you for your patience.
http://xenforo.com/community/threads/duplicate-age-not-displayed.15761/
... and Lawrence kindly pointed me at an existing thread on the same subject:
http://xenforo.com/community/thread...oes-show-year-of-birth-work-as-intended.1663/
I thought I'd follow up on my concerns in that thread, until I realized that as a "Resolved Bug Report" thread it probably wouldn't attract any notice. So I hope you'll pardon me for reviving this topic as a suggestion, as it is an issue that I think ought to be reviewed.
The Problem
The basic problem is this: when the "day/month" checkbox is turned OFF, the "year" checkbox does nothing. You've got a situation where users are checking and unchecking this box and seeing nothing happen as a result. So while it may well be working as intended, the "year" checkbox does not seem to be doing what it claims it does.
This is something that should be avoided. If the value of checkbox A renders checkbox B invalid, checkbox B gets greyed out; that's a standard convention of UI design. Presenting users with a meaningless option is merely inviting confusion.
I've gone to the trouble to describe my concern because I'm a sucker for a slick UI. I just bought XenForo because it is clearly the slickest forum software around. These checkboxes, however, are not living up to that standard. As a result, I (as an admin) will have to deal with the problem. I'll probably have to write an explanation of these checkboxes in my forum. And I'll probably have to point new users at the explanation now and then, since they won't bother to read the stickies.
So I'm hoping that you'll review these checkboxes and fix them, thereby sparing me the extra work and my users the extra confusion.
The Best Solution?
For the record, while I do agree with Waddy's statement (in the second thread linked above) that greying out the "year" checkbox when "day/month" is OFF is the proper way to handle what these checkboxes are currently trying to do, it's not the solution I'd prefer.
I would rather users be allowed to hide their birthday but show their age. As Waddy said, some people may perfer that. I'm that way: I don't mind people knowing how old I am, but I don't want them bugging me every time my birthday rolls around. That's why I (like Waddy) thought I'd found a bug; I was trying to get the forums to show my age, and wondering why they didn't.
So I think it would be best if you'd cause the age to appear on the profile page and popup when "month/day" is OFF and "year" is ON. Ideally, you should relabel the checkboxes as follows:
- Show day and month of birth
- Show age
This solution isn't absolutely necessary. If for some reason you don't want to let me show just my age, I suppose I can work with that. But the matter of a checkbox that does nothing under certain conditions (well, one condition) is something that really needs to be dealt with.
Thank you for your patience.
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